I have long considered myself a “lefty,’ a “liberal” and a “progressive.” But I have despaired over the last 18 months at the behaviour of what I have often considered “my side.” The sinking of “fellow liberals” into a quagmire of political partisanship, political conspiracy theories, confirmation bias and hateful hostility to anyone daring to present an alternative viewpoint distresses me.
It seems that the “very good” in your comment basically means, “confirming my viewpoint”, Bill. Isn’t that pretty much the definition of “confirmation bias” (the focus of a lot of the article’s discussion?
I thought the one commenter on the site asked a lot of pertinent questions, pointing out inconsistencies in the argument being put forward.
It’s also telling that a person writing a post entitled “Fire and Fury” has this to say about the book: “ I even have my own copy but am unsure now whether to waste time reading it. Wile the mainstream media is promoting it, more rational comments suggest the book is a disaster.” How does this guy measure what is “more rational” if he hasn’t read it?
I’m currently reading “Fire and Fury”. It’s one person’s thinking, based on extensive observations and interviews. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. It certainly isn’t the last word in Trump scholarship (in fact, it’s not a work of scholarship), but that’s hardly surprising this early in the regime. I would say that yes, there is a bias at work (the guy doesn’t like or respect Trump), but I’d also say that it’s not exactly hidden, and when he’s not sure about something he gives various possible explanations or scenarios.
I’m only halfway through the book and so far he’s not suggesting any direct collusion with the Russians – the focus is much more on the dysfunctional relationships within the administration. And whether or not you like Trump, it’s hard to argue that an admin that one year in has left so many critical positions unfilled, has fired so many close-in people and has invented positions for family members is functioning smoothly.
One last comment (a bit of a segue) – I note the author of Open Parachute is an anti-flouride campaigner. Not known for their pro-science, evidence-based approach…
[You note wrong. Very wrong. It’s not at all flash to throw a patently false accusation out there in order to undermine or discredit someone]- Bill
I think that Open Parachute person and others should make a point of stating whether they are talking about international matters or in this country. There is a lot of waffle about Trump, which is reasonable as he himself is full of waffle.
But there is a need for analysis about what is happening in NZ, and the rest of the world impinges on it. But criticising all lefties’ discussion, when the person seems to mean that which is happening about Trump, and North Korea, and Russia is a different matter to what happens on the ground here and is likely to happen in the near and medium future.
So will people please state their point of interest when they are dissing lefties?
I can’t change anything about Trump and watch with foreboding. But I may be able to influence things in NZ, and surely that is the main focus of many people here.
I think most feel in their bones and synapses all the blows to the left. Those who want to be progressives have to spend time looking at planning and testing which ways they think we should try and progress. That is of direct interest I believe to most of us here.
The rest is of interest and concern, but watching and trying to avoid stupid and toxic decisions overseas has to be balanced with the need to do so here. So please lefties with real concern about NZ social needs and climate change and business don’t take your minds away from each other, keep in touch. Please don’t think that you’ll stop taking part here in the discussion if you get annoyed, just drop in each day with something of interest, comment on one thing from someone you know is a mind worker, and then we will keep the intelligent conversation going. It will prevent TS from being affected by pollution from RW maliciousness or careless crap.
Keep putting into the clean stream of thought please, for the mental health of the people devoted to leftie ideas that are bent towards a successful, busy, fair society with the twin goals of kindness and practicality.
Open Parachute’s missive seemed more a complaint about tabloid populism in US politics and media but when has it ever been different? So someone wrote a book criticising Trump – big whoops – he invites it.
Are you or have you ever been a dental professional? Obviously not. Research by all the scientists in the field have proven without a shadow of doubt that fluoride is beneficial for teeth and reduces decay by 70% at the least.
That means its a “science, evidence- based approach”. RB did not use the word “policy” so stop throwing red herrings into conversations because you think it makes you look clever.
“Research by all the scientists in the field have proven without a shadow of doubt that fluoride is beneficial for teeth and reduces decay by 70% at the least.”
I recall that information from Dental lectures I attended admittedly a good many years ago now, But the information hasn’t changed. Go look the subject up Rosemary. There must be oodles of information available from the professionals in the field.
Who is saying Fluoride is a panacea for all ills? No-one here or elsewhere. But it does assist in the prevention of tooth decay especially among children.
Tests have proven as much. Children of the 60s, 70s and 80s who lived in areas where there was fluoridated water had a far lower incidence of tooth decay than those consuming non-fluoridated water.
Anne….much as I would love to get into this issue…I simply do not have the time right now.
Having to deal with the results of an OIA request for information from the Ministry of Health about a completely different issue under their purview.
I was sent a file of over 30 megabytes of scanned documents…much too large for me to share with other affected parties unless it is broken down into manageable portions. Which I can’t do because the file cannot be altered unless the Ministry does it.
Which they have…but still requires me to send four separate emails to 13 or so people with appropriate commentary.
AND, and, despite the monster 30 megabyte break -the -gmail file…I still haven’t got the information I requested.
Sighs. Rolls eyes.
Hopes Anne and others understand why when the Mystery of Health makes dogmatic statements regarding any issue my automatic reaction is to doubt their every word.
Yes, You have told us in the past about some of your experiences with the ministry and I have much sympathy for you Rosemary. I, too,
have been on the receiving end of a government ministry (not the same one as yours) whose attitude left a great deal to be desired.
So I understand your reluctance, but in the case of the fluoridation issue… most of the original research was carried out under the auspices of the WHO which, of course, is an apolitical international body whose findings can be relied upon as accurate.
The link is to a search of the moh site which yields study reviews, cost effectiveness analyses, and comparisons of decayed/missing/filled teeth in NZ schoolchildren based on their flouridated water status.
Fluoride or no fluoride…I don’t really give a toss either way…just get the bloody message through that weaning baby onto sugary drinks is really, really irresponsible.
And there are almost certainly kids in fluoridated areas who have awful teeth, and kids in non-fluoridated areas who drink fizz all the time and have not a filling between them.
Fact is, from a population perspective fluoridation is one of the best and easiest ways to improve kids’ teeth. Pointing to the results of one individual doesn’t count against that statement, even under experimental conditions.
My body is more than my teeth. If I replace rotten parts of my teeth with a mercury containing filler that is durable and seals against any further infection my teeth will be stronger.
But as is the case with mercury, fluoride is also a known poison to other parts of my body.
It has been decided that the poison effect outweighs the dental benefits for mercury and it is still an open question on the cost/benefit with regard to fluouride. Many antifluoride people are quite able to acknowledge the dental benefits of fluoride but believe that the poison effect is great enough to negate these benefits.
Everything in excess is poisonous or dangerous. Everything. Even water. Based on your hypothesis we’d all be dead in a week or so. Best to stop reading pseudo-scientific claptrap. It’s bad for you.
Exactly. Toxicologists have an expression, “The dose makes the poison”.
Everything has toxic effects at some dose, and everything has no toxic effects at another. To think of something as inherently “toxic” or “non-toxic” doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Fluoridation is a fantastic public health measure IMHO.
Youre exactly right. Everything has a level of toxicity and it is the level that is the key along with the exposure time. Also people who take the dcientific approach in which I include myself dont usually feel the need to resort to abuse. As you say. The science should speak for itself
I find that 70% figure hard to believe. Where did you get that from? My cousins were brought up in and still live in a non fluoride country and all 3 of them have zero fillings even well into middle age. I think diet has much more to do with it.
“Flouride, pro or anti is neither ‘science’ nor ‘evidence based’ policy…”
Is that your considered opinion? That (pro) fluoridation is neither ‘science’ nor ‘evidence-based’ policy?
As long as the city that hosts NZ’s Faculty of Dentistry (29th-best dental school in the world) continues to fluoridate its public water supply, I’ll be happy for the council that provides services for the city I live in to do so too.
Fluoride is a trace element with important roles in dental health. Dental caries are the most prevalent preventable disease in New Zealand; water fluoridation has been proven to be an effective public health strategy in the prevention of dental caries. We will be assessing the fluoride intakes of 120 children from schools in fluoridated and non-fluoridated regions of the South Island of New Zealand, using 24-hour urine samples, 24-hour duplicate diets, and tooth brushing analysis, and investigating the impact this has on fluoride intake and dental health.
Fluoride is added to the water to reduce tooth decay. The decision to add fluoride to the water is based on recommendations from the Ministry of Health. The council adds fluoride to water at a target dose rate of 0.75 mg/l in order to achieve dosing at the lower end of the Ministry of Health’s recommended range of 0.70 to 1.0 mg/l.
Fluoridation occurs only at Mt Grand and Southern water treatment plants, which service Metropolitan Dunedin, excluding Mosgiel.
Alternatively, it’s all a dental conspiracy, and fluoridation of tap water pollutes our precious bodily fluids, and actually weakens teeth ultimately channeling $$$ into the pockets of the evil dentists!
There is very little contemporary evidence, meeting the review’s inclusion criteria, that has evaluated the effectiveness of water fluoridation for the prevention of caries.
The available data come predominantly from studies conducted prior to 1975, and indicate that water fluoridation is effective at reducing caries levels in both deciduous and permanent dentition in children. Our confidence in the size of the effect estimates is limited by the observational nature of the study designs, the high risk of bias within the studies and, importantly, the applicability of the evidence to current lifestyles. The decision to implement a water fluoridation programme relies upon an understanding of the population’s oral health behaviour (e.g. use of fluoride toothpaste), the availability and uptake of other caries prevention strategies, their diet and consumption of tap water and the movement/migration of the population. There is insufficient evidence to determine whether water fluoridation results in a change in disparities in caries levels across SES. We did not identify any evidence, meeting the review’s inclusion criteria, to determine the effectiveness of water fluoridation for preventing caries in adults.
There is insufficient information to determine the effect on caries levels of stopping water fluoridation programmes.
There is a significant association between dental fluorosis (of aesthetic concern or all levels of dental fluorosis) and fluoride level. The evidence is limited due to high risk of bias within the studies and substantial between-study variation.
You missed out the bit where they excluded any study that couldn’t provide a “before and after” picture, and also the bit where they said that
The introduction of water fluoridation resulted in children having 35% fewer decayed, missing and filled baby teeth and 26% fewer decayed, missing and filled permanent teeth. We also found that fluoridation led to a 15% increase in children with no decay in their baby teeth and a 14% increase in children with no decay in their permanent teeth. These results are based predominantly on old studies and may not be applicable today.
Meh. Even if we periodically de-flouridated the entire country and then refluoridated 12 years later, you’d still be unconvinced. And be pissed at nationwide experimentation.
Every single year comparisons in school kids based on fluoridation levels show a increase from fluoridated to nonfluoridated catchments.
At some stage calling the quacky waggly thing a duck is a pretty dafe assumption.
Don’t make assumptions, or crystal ball on my behalf, McFlock….
Your comment leaves the impression that FL in or FL out is the start and end of the metric for reporting….
Surely you’re not that simplistic…
If you weren’t, you might have provided links to the data captured, to which you refer…and provided some analysis on the limitations of the data…Cochrane did…
Besides empirical evidence being an alien concept for you, you confuse “studied a topic to my satisfaction” with “can be bothered writing a text book in order to improve the ‘impression’ of some internet stoner on an acid trip”.
I note the author of Open Parachute is an anti-flouride campaigner.
Is he perchance also a CC denier? Does he believe the moon landing was a fake?
Is he one of those who is convinced the Twin Towers tragedy was an inside job eg. the CIA?
If they’re one pf the above they are usually all of them. I think I will continue to bypass Open Parachute.
And we can remember this particular learning. If ever we want to upset a thread, just put something about fluoride, or perhaps 1080, vaccinations, feminists, rape culture, cats being forbidden….into it, and the cogs and wheels will start turning and all the afficianados will come out and enter the fray. And take it all away. Household hint No. 1.
Well, since RB has got things all arse over tit (ie – Open Parachute belongs to a blogger in favour of fluoridation), I guess you’ll row back on the groundless stuff about moon landings and what not?
Or is it open season on any one who doesn’t toe a particular anti-Trump line?
And if not “moon landing, 9/11” or whatever, then does the mere fact someone doesn’t witlessly jump aboard the anti-Trump bandwagon mean they’re as well being seen as a “moon landing, 9/11” etc flake…and worthy only of opprobrium and dismissal?
I guess the answer to that query is largely “yes”.
He’s far from the only person on the left to observe “The sinking of “fellow liberals” into a quagmire of political partisanship, political conspiracy theories, confirmation bias and hateful hostility to anyone daring to present an alternative viewpoint distresses me.”
A fair few of the comments in this sub-thread serve to illustrate that “hateful hostility” he mentions. And all off the back of a mistake or a lie on the part of Red Blooded that would have taken ‘one click and two seconds’ to get to the bottom of.
From Open Parachute
Fluoridation articles
Some of the anti-fluoridation propaganda can get pretty extreme. Even the less extreme material is often misleading.
I have collected below links to my articles where I debunk these myths and expose the misinformation.
Well, sorry about that… I admit that I didn’t check out the two sections of the blog devoted to fluoride (one labeled “Fluoride” and one “The Fluoride Debate”). Please note that an error isn’t the same as a lie, though, Bill. Usually when people refer to something like “the Fluoride debate” or “the climate change debate” they’re trying to suggest that there is a debate, not trying to refute it.
Perhaps you could see my comment (without having read the appropriate sections of the blog) as being akin to the blogger’s confident commentary on Fire and Fury, without having read the book.
Bill, it’s sometimes hard to respond to you, because it pretty much guarantees ad hominem attack and abuse. Thanks to Drowsy M. Kram, for pointing out that I did actually apologise. (Have you ever done that, I wonder?)
Perhaps you’ve noticed that I often (although not always) disagree with you. This is sometimes because of a difference in values and sometimes because I believe you’re drawing false conclusions based on limited (or misinterpreted) evidence. Even when I think you’re making a mistake, I don’t call you a liar, though, and the reason is that to be a liar, you have to be purposefully promoting something that you know to be untrue. I didn’t do that in my comment above. I’ve admitted a mistake, I’ve explained what caused it and I’ve apologised for it.
[I wrote in relation to your false accusation, and because I’m not a mind reader, that it was a mistake or a lie. You don’t get to play victim in this and also accuse me of making definitive statements I never made. Take a week off. Next Wed.] – Bill
I understand RB – I also find it difficult to communicate with Bill. Although I also often disagree with his POV, I do find his posts thought provoking but usually refrain from participating in discussion on his posts to avoid the ad hominems etc. So thanks for saying to him what I have not had the courage to say!
I also hope that you have read the last two paras of my comment at 1.2.3.3.2 below. As indicated, my suggestion to check out someone”s background was not aimed at you as much as the other people who commented more specifically on fluoridation issues in the thread below your original 1.2 comment. I note that that ‘conversation’ is still continuing. Perhaps they should read some of Ken Perrott’s research articles …
There’s a general comment in Daily Review about moderation (a reminder of how it works).
But for a more specific comment here, I looked at r-b’s comments once Bill had started moderating and what I see is someone arguing about the moderation and taking up a moderator’s time. That’s me coming in and looking from the outside, with no real investment in the conversation.
For me that stuff is hugely problematic and it’s the experience of a number of authors that if you don’t put a strong boundary up then you just have to keep dealing with increasing amounts of shit over time. That’s why some of us moderate the way we do.
If you don’t like how Bill debates, then don’t get involved in those discussions. If you don’t like how he moderates, then figure out where the boundaries are in terms of respect on his terms and take your chances if you want to argue about it (hint, calling a moderator baas is likely to up the ante).
“If you don’t like how Bill debates, then don’t get involved in those discussions. If you don’t like how he moderates, then figure out where the boundaries are in terms of respect on his terms and take your chances if you want to argue about it ”
Or write to the site admin stating your reasons why you think a moderator has lost the illusion of impartiality.
[that is an option too, and that will sometimes lead to a discussion in the back end about a particular moderation, which can be useful. But to be really honest, what I’m seeing here from commenters is not ok. It’s largely disrespectful and some of it looks personal.
btw, moderation isn’t about impartiality. It’s about a number of things including protecting the site, protecting the community and protecting the authors. Needless to say if one thinks that attacking an author is going to lessen the protection around authors, one is really really missing how moderation here works. I suggest people read the note in Daily Review – weka]
It’s definitely an option I recommend people take, but worth noting, reply to lprent directly, and not the generic standard address.
The address is on the contact page, and it does state to use for complaints and operational matters.
Bill it seems to me that you are not infrequently redolent of the very types you complain of in your endorsement of Ken’s Open Parachute piece. You enjoy exceptionalism do you Bill ? Tirades OK for you……slam the same in others. Things are reaching the pitch they did when CV was at his worst. Losing interest……as are others.
I endorse the right of people and their opinions not to be just summarily dismissed by association with the peddling of demonstratively and patently false accusations…not just because it’s a shite thing to do, but because it can make this site vulnerable to legal action.
RB making a mistake and acknowledging it exposes the site to legal action? Just trying to make sense of your justifications: would you please clarify that?
I’m concerned Bill. We don’t want to lose regular good thoughtful feisty commenters. I detect a tendency for all moderators to tighten up too much now the election is over. I believe that you could sit back and let the regulars snap a bit and only step in when there was good reason.
There seems to be micro management entering into the style of the blog. But the long-time commenters are part of the pillars of the blog, and stuck it out and learned a fair bit about how the discussion should go. It should be a discussion between equals, not hand slapping for this and that like schoolkids. A stand-down for a while would be rare for the regulars. but they could suggest it for some of the newbies who just want to disrupt and haven’t a clue to bless themselves with. I’d like to see more relaxation and less didactic approach, and it would be easier on the mods.
We like respect and enjoy TS. Perhaps we need to get a bit sloppy and sentimental like Chris Knox. People who want to be in a good place in coming years need to stick together with others the same. ‘Cause it’s you that I love
And it’s true that I love
And it’s love not given lightly
But I knew this was love
And it’s you that I love
And it’s more than what it might be
I’ll just keep repeating this. It’s not a discussion amongst equals when commenters have a go at authors. Authors take precedence.
I really hope marty and rb come back, both are big assets to this site. But I’m way more concerned about losing authors. No-one seems too concerned about the lack of posts or authors currently. When I see the commentariat putting energy into how to support authors or the site or making the place that new authors might want to come to, I’ll probably see the comments about moderation as being more pertinent.
Just to add to this post by Bill, when I did a quick scroll through of the replies to Bill’s original post at 1 on the Open Parachute posts (without reading these), something was gnawing in my memory – and this increased when the subject of fluoride came up and the resultant discussion as to whether the Open Parachute author was anti-fluoride (and anti-CC etc).
A quick check of the About Me on the Open Parachute site and its sections on fluoridation, and from there the Researchgate link, confirmed the reason for my disquiet.
Ken Parrott, author at open Parachute is not just another blogger – he probably has far higher professional qualifications, experience etc etc in the field of fluoridation than anyone here on TS.
The links also include this very recent (Dec 2017) Scoop article on an article just published in the British Dental Journal by New Zealand researcher Dr Ken Perrott highlighting flaws in a 2015 research paper, widely cited by fluoride opponents, that had reported a connection between fluoridation and ADHD. On a quick glance, it appears to be a good example of a pro-science, evidence-based approach to peer review
Not criticizing anyone who commented, but just suggesting that it sometimes does pay to take a minute or so to check out professional backgrounds etc, before making claims that someone is this, that or the other. It helps to avoid egg on face syndrome – I know from previous personal experience of this!
(EDIT – I see that Bill has now added a further reply to RB … Mine is aimed a bit wider than RB as i had no problem most of RB’s post at 1.2.
Here we go again @Anne (it seems) – re something a bit funny has happened this early new year.
I’m not sure if its just that contributors are wearing the undies someone bought them for Christmas – two sizes too small, or whether there is something other than fluoride in the water.
Roll on 2018, and we’ll see if it’s all as sustainable as we would like, or whether we’ll shoot ourselves in the tootsies
Gold. A commenter on the “Fire and Fury” thread writes:
I’m waiting for all information before jumping to conclusions.
The blogger responds:
That is more or less my position – and why I call the media promoted story of Russian Collusion as fact a “myth.”
Er, yes – declaring something “a myth” is what normal people always do when they’re “waiting for all information before jumping to conclusions.” That one’s almost funnier than his comments about everyone else suffering from confirmation bias.
Reporting Russian Collusion as “fact” is, in terms of there being no presentation of concrete evidence on which to base the conclusion that it actually happened, kinda creating a myth.
But hey, here’s Greenwald from last year, because he’s far more erudite and in depth than me.
But no matter. It’s a claim about nefarious Russian control. So it’s instantly vested with credibility and authority, published by leading news outlets, and then blindly accepted as fact in most elite circles. From now on, it will simply be Fact – based on the New York Times article – that the Kremlin aggressively and effectively weaponized Twitter to manipulate public opinion and sow divisions during the election, even though the evidence for this new story is the secret, unverifiable assertions of a group filled with the most craven neocons and national security state liars.
That’s how the Russia narrative is constantly “reported,” and it’s the reason so many of the biggest stories have embarrassingly collapsed. It’s because the Russia story of 2017 – not unlike the Iraq discourse of 2002 – is now driven by religious-like faith rather than rational faculties.
No questioning of official claims is allowed. The evidentiary threshold which an assertion must overcome before being accepted is so low as to be non-existent.
I’m struggling to think of a high-profile official investigation into something or someone that didn’t also involve public speculation out the wazoo, so it’s hardly surprising that this one also has its partisan followers.
OJ Simpson springs to mind, as does the attempted Clinton impeachment.
Is “Russiagate” another deception like Iraqi WMDs? ‘
Yes
The media is corralling people’s thinking by spreading this lie.
Just as they did over WMD, Vietnam, McCarthyism. If we are lied to enough times, then most believe.
Fortunately there are independent journalists like Patrick Cockburn, and Eva Bartlett who have told us the truth about what has been happening in Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Russia, the US and Iran.
Thank you Bill for sharing these important stories that go against the neoliberal lies.
Israel has been buying usa politics for decades ….. wielding so much power and influence,…. that the usa Govt did a white wash and covered up when Israel killed or injured around 200 u.s navy sailors.
At the time of the attack and attempted sinking “The Jewish council could influence 169 of the 270 elctoral votes needed to win the white house”
“The Israelis used code-names to protect their white house agents” …
Does anyone seriously believe the Russians have anywhere near the involvement or influence on U.S politics than Israel ???
I wish I could share your apparent relief or enthusiasm francesca.
Unfortunately, we’re in a kind of cultural morass that sits somewhere between that which surrounded Iraqi WMD and McCarthyism. My impression is the latter was more enthusiastically taken up by the public at large than the former.
I could be wrong on that front, but assuming I’m not, I’d suggest the level of acceptance of Trump/Russia blah tends more towards the McCarthy side of any WMD/McCarthy scale than it does towards any WMD side.
Media and elites had to sell the idea of WMD to a skeptical public, whereas this stuff…fck, it’s just getting gobbled up.
“I have long considered myself a “lefty,’ a “liberal” and a “progressive.” But I have despaired over the last 18 months at the behaviour of what I have often considered “my side.” The sinking of “fellow liberals” into a quagmire of political partisanship, political conspiracy theories, confirmation bias and hateful hostility to anyone daring to present an alternative viewpoint distresses me.
Hear, hear Ken.”
The problem with those kinds of very generalised statements is we have no idea who he is talking about. And that just creates confusion.
(and there is no single anti-Trump movement, hard to get past a headline like that).
Well, I took it to refer to anyone expressing “hostility to anyone daring to present an alternative viewpoint…”
And that being in relation to the rather specific anti-trump bandwagon running on allegations of collusion with Russia; rubbishy innuendo (that is not to be called out), and baseless gossip (also not to be called out).
On Russia, supposed collusion is to be treated as an accepted truth. The evidence will be forthcoming (apparently). Asking for concrete evidence now (after 18 months) is kinda “not cricket” and worthy of (in Ken’s words) “hostility”.
I don’t think Ken was implying there is a single anti_Trump movement, but was referring to ‘the’ anti-Trump movement – bones that both his pieces give flesh to.
Most of the political people on the left I speak with in the real world get that. Notwithstanding, it’s true to say we don’t tend to engage in political discussions with those who stray too far from our own views in real world situations.
Glen Greenwald an others have pointed all this out and termed it as a new McCarthyism. I don’t think they are wrong in having that view.
On Russia, supposed collusion is to be treated as an accepted truth.
Is it? There’s evidence that it happened, but evidence has to be weighted and considered before you can claim it’s proof of anything.
The closest thing we have to first hand knowledge of the motivation behind the investigation is Glenn Simpson’s testimony to Congress, in which he states that he and Steele became concerned that Trump is the victim of blackmail. Other fascinating nuggets include Trump claiming he does business deals in Russia when no such deals exist (which I take to mean that no property changes hands, no companies are registered and so-on – at least on paper), and that the FBI has a source in Trump’s organisation* (whether it predates his run for office remains unclear).
Assuming Simpson isn’t just lying about his motivation, that sheds an entirely different light on latter events.
When Trump says “there was no collusion”, perhaps that’s because he’s being extorted and blackmailed instead. Or perhaps But But But Hillary framed him or something.
Or perhaps it’s all just weak-sauce bs, as you seem convinced of.
*which means, btw, that their evidence probably won’t see the light of day until any trial occurs, for obvious reasons.
PS: Simpson says Steele severed links with the FBI because he came to the conclusion that they were interfering in the election. Make of that what you will.
So far yes, It’s all weak-sauce bs as far as I’m concerned.
That’s qualitatively different from being convinced it will all wind up being nothing more than weak-sauce bs. That’s merely a suspicion, and one that grows the longer no concrete evidence is produced.
There will be others, but Greenwald seems to be particularly surgical and thorough in his approach to supposedly factual claims being made by mainstream liberal outlets, and has very good pieces mapping out the who’s who of those behind pushing (many now debunked) “collusion and interference” stories through those outlets.
it’s completely possible (and probable, really) that the CIA possesses hard evidence that could establish Russian attribution — it’s their job to have such evidence, and often to keep it secret.
If such evidence exists it would no doubt provide part of the case against Trump or his henchmen, and wouldn’t be revealed until then, just like anything provided by the FBI’s purported mole.
Its continued absence until then should be expected. I certainly wouldn’t firm up my position on that basis.
Why would concrete evidence being provided to underpin claims of the Russian government hacking DNC emails “no doubt provide part of the case against Trump…” ?
Also, there’s no mention of the FBI or an FBI mole in the piece you linked to.
Did you link to the wrong piece? Or are you just taking random Russia/Trump stuff and throwing it all in the same pot hoping to conjure up a Trump stew?
Wild projection/speculation about stew aside, I discussed Glenn Simpson’s testimony (in which he mentioned the mole) at 1.6.1.1.
Why would concrete evidence being provided to underpin claims of the Russian government hacked DNC emails “no doubt provide part of the case against Trump…” ?
For the reasons Biddle outlines in the article I linked: because it would validate the provenance of the phishing attack on the DNC, and thus provide strong evidence that anyone possessing that information (and offering it to Trump) was also working for the Russian government.
It would add context and flavour to any eventual charges or case for impeachment, for sure.
So unless it can be shown that the DNC emails were offered to Trump, then…
Well, if the CIA has Putin briefing Guccifer they probably have that conversation too. However, Trump’s people believed that’s what they were being offered, according to Papadopoulos.
As for CNN’s apparent eagerness to believe, I think you’ll find juries are harder to convince than journalists, so that’s another red herring.
All these false dichotomies are pretty tiring anyway. Cheers.
I bring this up because I just watched an interview with Guardian journalist Luke Harding, who recently released a bestseller called Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win. The host of The Real News, Aaron Maté, repeatedly pressed him on concrete examples of proven collusion, and the result was embarrassing—Harding had a whole heap of nothing.
Harding wasn’t prepared for what amounted to a skeptical interviewer. I have no doubt that if Paste’s writers were present, …….and Harding’s stumbling incompetence doesn’t necessarily mean there was no collusion. That said, a simple fact remains: The man who wrote the book on Trump-Russia collusion can’t point to a single concrete instance of said collusion.
That’s pretty damning, right?
You can watch the video below, or read the transcript.
The most revealing quote of all. I’m a storyteller.
Not a journalist, then.
LUKE HARDING: Yeah. Right. Don’t kind of quite appreciate the nature of Vladimir Putin’s state. I mean I lived there for four years. I was there for between 2007 and 2011. I was eventually kind of kicked out for writing stories about kleptocracy, about Putin’s fortune, about human rights, about journalists. I’m not sure if you know, but some of my friends in Moscow who are journalists have been murdered. This is not a nice or benign regime. It’s-
AARON MATÉ: [crosstalk 00:10:04] I’m certainly not arguing that Vladimir Putin is a nice person or that he has great policies, but to me though, that doesn’t automatically mean that he waged a massive influence campaign that got Donald Trump elected. Part of the reason why I’m skeptical of that is that, again, there still is actual … There’s zero evidence so far. There’s a lot of supposition and innuendo.
LUKE HARDING: Well I’m a journalist. I’m a storyteller. I’m not head of the CIA or the NSA…
This article in the Guardian is worth checking out. It’s about PFIs (the British equivalent to PPPs), with a particular focus on the implications for the public sector when it’s left picking up the bill for (oh, so efficient!) private sector companies if they fail/declare bankruptcy when delivering public sector services or infrastructure.
So is the concern that a public company gets to run on private business lines and go for profit and big salaries, but if it strikes a bump and loses money, or is damaged and goes bust, then the taxpayer enters the picture and picks up the tab and pays out all the other business players involved?
I have to say that I don’t know enough about the NZ situation to say that things are exactly the same here, but in Britain at least, it seems that the economic benefits of PFIs were sold on the theory that they were a lower cost to the public purse than straight government funding, but that was only (marginally) true if the idea of “risk transfer” was factored in: “When you examine the claims made for the efficiency of the private sector, you soon discover that they boil down to the transfer of risk. Value for money hangs on the idea that companies shoulder risks the state would otherwise carry. But in cases like this (building hospitals), even when the company takes the first hit, the risk ultimately returns to the government. In these situations, the very notion of risk transfer is questionable.”
“The costing of risk is notoriously subjective. Because it involves the passage of a fiendishly complex contract through an unknowable future, you can make a case for almost any value. A study published in the British Medical Journal revealed that, before the risk was costed, every hospital scheme it investigated would have been built much more cheaply with public funds. But once the notional financial risks had been added, building them through PFI came out cheaper in every case, although sometimes by less than 0.1%.
Not only was this exercise (as some prominent civil servants warned) bogus, but the entire concept is negated by the fact that if collapse occurs, the risk ripples through the private sector and into the public.”
Thinking about risk in ventures and assessing it over time and possible cost and so on. Is that what is called actuarial? Anyway I just mention something that got into my head when reading about the great oil spill from a tanker near Alaska. I think it was the Exxon. The risk of the transport of oil had been assessed and it was felt likely that there might be an accident once in 25 years. To protect and mitigate against that there were requirements made of government keeping an overview, and shipping kept in the area for the especial purpose of handling large spills and damage to this large oil tanker.
25 years and perhaps an even shorter time, seems to be too long for people in general, and even government or business, to maintain a watching brief with the awareness and readiness as required by the assessment papers. When the disastrous accident happened, the government overview had been scaled back and to an extent the watchdog role had been captured by the company and industry, and the safety vessels with remedial equipment had been sent off to distant posts, and were
days, weeks away when needed urgently to deal with a very bad spill.
So government can not contract out effectively as it is the entity where the buck stops, and no other entity is going to take responsibility for the services or safety in the same way as the government does, as supposedly serving and answering to its citizens.
Carrillion is a very salient and timely lesson…PPPs (by any name) exist to enable the use of accounting deception (which no one believes) …even without the collapses and public bailouts they are a foolishly expensive method of funding capital expenditure/public service due to the shareholder returns, inflated salaries, self serving bonus culture and race to the bottom in terms of quality (both in construction and service) to win……another appalling example of short- termism.
I hadn’t gone to the link at the beginning of the thread and in case if others haven’t, the below paras are the start of an important column relating to the collapse of some ambitious entity called Carrillion.
Again the “inefficient” state mops up the disasters caused by “efficient” private companies. Just as the army had to step in when G4S failed to provide security for the London 2012 Olympics, and the Treasury had to rescue the banks, the collapse of Carillion means that the fire service must stand by to deliver school meals.
Two hospitals, both urgently needed, that Carillion was supposed to be constructing, the Midland Metropolitan and the Royal Liverpool, are left in half-built limbo, awaiting state intervention. Another 450 contracts between Carillion and the state must be untangled, resolved and perhaps rescued by the government.
We have the penetration of our business opportunities by these international and overseas-modelled companies. Profitable business is their game, and the game is moulded around contracts that are set rock-hard by legalities, if not in any physical legal form, probably all on-line.
The music suitable to the acting out of the whole enterprise, I think would be Chess. The satirising that I know and enjoy best, would be from the Telegraph’s Alex by Peattie and Taylor.
They are on a robot theme at present, and the robots are coming off second best to the simple cunning of stock traders. May as well laugh while business goes on going forward. I like January 15. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/alex/?cc=10151369
Our medias bias will not give much coverage to another rip off and the failures of Privitization ….. or as its modern bastard children are called …. PPP’s, PFI’s, charter schools etc
Its core national party ideology .
With a PPP failure the money is burned and contracted services do not get delivered … Meaning tax payers will pay twice
Even worse in the latest failure from england…. their contracted company also destroyed half a billion pounds of workers pension money …
Here’s a Swedish PPP scam example, which our media has probably never reported on …. As it also involves our Ex PMs line of work ….
“Swedish authorities in 2010 gave a single bidder the contract in a so called public-private partnership (PPP) – not only to build the hospital but also account for the financing and maintenance for decades to come.”
“” (Mission: Investigation) can now reveal that large sums in the prestigious project is routed to the tax haven of Luxembourg.”
Yes, One News reported this last night, interviewing the head of the NZ Veterinary Association who said that even if owners were unaware of it, most of these dogs suffer and that their breathing problems are like trying to breathe through a pillow. I note the SPCA are also in favour.
My neighbour, died recently of emphysema. Very sad. There was the difficulty in breathing and talking made it worse and it was hard to listen to the effort. It seems unfair to the dogs to put them through that state of limiting breathing.
A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.
[…]
But the biggest difference lies in new wording about what constitutes “extreme circumstances.”
In the Trump administration’s draft, those “circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.” It said that could include “attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.”
The draft does not explicitly say that a crippling cyberattack against the United States would be among the extreme circumstances. But experts called a cyberattack one of the most efficient ways to paralyze systems like the power grid, cellphone networks and the backbone of the internet without using nuclear weapons.
It appears that the totalitarian dystopia of countless sci-fi movies is almost upon us. (Or am I just late to the party??) This tender…
NZ Police are seeking proposals from suitably experienced, qualified and resourced companies to provide the ABIS 2 (Automated Biometric Identification Solution) Facial Image Identification and Management, Scar, Mark and Tattoo, and Clothing database Technology Solution(s).
The Police seem to try to remain separate from Parliament, though supporting stable government.
Are they under any control at all then? Or just sort of contracted by the gummint and get paid a budget amount, and set targets to reduce, contain crime etc. but the details of how becomes ‘an operational matter’. How much are the police serving the country, or developing into a self-motivated force, with its own individual practices only loosely related to current morals and ethics?
I have high hopes for Cabinet Minister, Tracey Martin. If she can match her deeds with her verbal down to earth, commonsense approach, she will be a very good minister in the Lab. led government.
Yep. If National were honest about what they really thought they would have called it the:
“Ministry for the Children of Hopeless People Who Can’t Survive in the Glorious Economic System Instituted by Dear Leader, Economic Genius, Overlord of the South, Rugged Individualist and Teemingly Fertile Lord English”.
But they settled for ‘Vulnerable’ – nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Time and time again we see that private companies are more efficient
than the State – but only in relation to transferring profits to
shareholders and key managers, not to actually producing the goods and
services that they are contracted to provide.
Let this be a lesson to governments – the previous National
governments saw failures that cost taxpayers; will the LGNZF
government be fooled the same way?
The reality is that financing costs are cheaper for the government
than for anyone else – that is an immediate benefit for not having
partnerships with private companies that finance at higher rates. Then
there is control, and whether quality and risk are actually managed
well – for if anything goes wrong, the taxpayer ends up footing a
higher bill.
_________________
There is another perspective than mitigating financial risk – it is the time frame of the different parties. That of business is only a few years, and getting shorter. Under National, some roading projects were contracted to special purpose companies set up by interested parties to undertake the work entirely on borrowed money – those tendering had little capital of their own invested in the project. When the first Labour government decided to build social housing, they used government employees for design, engineering, planning, plans; they used largely contractors to do detailed work, but they used government employees to supervise the work and ensure that standards were understood and maintained. They built to last – and many state houses from that era are now regarded as well built, if now dated in style, and are still being used ovr 60 years later.
As an example of how we have fallen from those standards, consider the Defence Department. They moved out of their Stout Street headquarters, purpose built for them many years ago, to a new building in Aitken Street. In recent years the old building, which was structurally very sound, had become too small and in need of refurbishment. It was sold to a private developer who did that work and now leases it to another governmetn department. Meanwhile, the Aitken Street building is I am told being pulled down as it is now an earthquake risk. Similarly Statistics New Zealand moved to a new building which partially collapsed, fortunately not killing anyone, but leaving many archives lost as the building remains unsafe – in both cases while earlier buildings built with long term use in mind rather than “lowest cost is all that matters,” remain standing and able to be used.
Taking a longer view can be difficult – sometimes a slower project can only deliver full benefits in the next parliamentary term or even later, but running a system that respects employees with proper training programmes and high business ethics can bear fruit in a lot of other ways as those people move into other jobs in the private sector. Fair dealing used to mean something in business, and still does in some parts of the country. I believe the current government can afford to plan for a second term; provided they pander to short termism enough to be elected, but deliver enough permanent solutions in that second term to have a very good chance of a third term.
Addled dotard claims he has the best brain because he found his way through a dementia screen.
He blamed his three immediate predecessors, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, for failing to resolve the crisis and, a day after his doctor gave him a perfect score on a cognitive test, suggested he had the mental acuity to solve it.
“I guess they all realized they were going to have to leave it to a president that scored the highest on tests,” he said.
He can’t see how his son and son in law having contact with Russians during an election campaign who offer to dish dirt on his opponent isn’t collusion and meddling, but at least we know he can tell a lion, from a rhino, from a camel.
With regard to privacy, in the case of receiving a state funded benefit, I think most people would agree that if the conditions for receiving the benefit are met, even if one of those conditions require revealing who the father is, then equality under the law has been met. Though I don’t believe it is a law that benefits must be paid to citizens – they are just policies of the government at the time.
If privacy is the main concern, then the government has no need to know how much money I earn to tax me.
You appear to have no understanding of NZ’s obligations and responsibilities resulting from NZ’s ratification of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ratification of other related International Conventions and Covenants etc since 1948 relating to things like the rights of the child, the rights of persons with disabilities, elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, status of refugees to name but a few of these – all of which are enshrined in various pieces of NZ legislation.
IMO this statement in your comment is astounding in its ignorance – “Though I don’t believe it is a law that benefits must be paid to citizens – they are just policies of the government at the time.”
If you really believe that then you obviously have no understanding of other pieces of NZ legislation such as the various iterations of the Social Security Act etc that have been enacted in NZ over the last 80 years since 1938 with the introduction of the first Labour Government’s social welfare programme – and which set out both rights and obligations of both the government and the recipients of welfare payments.
It seems property investors are fleeing the rental market with Labour’s policies being one of the driving factors.
With a sufficient number of new homes from Kiwibuild being years away, coupled with an insufficient number of new state homes proposed thus far, Labour are likely to face an increase in the number of homelessness and tenants facing soaring rents (along with their related ills) over its first term. Risking widespread voter disillusionment.
How will Labour overcome this? Will they buy private rentals and turn them into state rentals? Will they buy and turn private rentals into Kiwibuild homes?
Will they be forced to house more in motels? Giving the opposition their stick to hit them with.
How will Labour overcome this? Will they buy private rentals and turn them into state rentals? Will they buy and turn private rentals into Kiwibuild homes?
Hold it. Every one look at BM becoming a stable genius. How amazing it is the house prices will go up. Your a real fucking genius you know that BM… Amazing…
You know at some point when investors make shitty investments they should actually lose out on it when it goes tits up. I mean. My god, the government can’t keep bailing out unsophisticated investors all the time.
Nah. It’s like BM is reading from a script or something… Like he’s given these messages to say with out even understanding the words that are coming of his keyboard and when ever he goes off script he just comes across as a Nigerian con artist. He’s worthless.
In Wellington, it will, if it became known the government was buying existing rentals and they were desperate for them, then it becomes a seller’s market and you can start asking above the going rate.
Not like the government has to go to the bank and get a mortgage.
Anyway, the big issue is that people have taken their rentals off the market, so unless the government can convince these people to either sell their rentals to the government or put them back on the market it will make no difference.
The problem still is there’s not enough rentals, complete fuck up by Labour.
I mean that’s the definition of a property bubble. If the government purchase above market rates then who will pay the next trench up of house prices… See the false ideology? People want security not a Ponzi scheme.
Regardless of it being Wellington or not, they would merely be shoring up the downfall in demand, thus largely maintaining current market prices, not increasing them.
Due to the poor condition of a number of rentals (especially in Wellington) and the fact the Government’s budget will be limited, one would expect offers will be realistic, despite any perceived desperation.
We’ve already had BMs hysteria over drug testing state houses, and not even been unfit for habitation. Now BMs so thick in the head he dosnt even understand that he’s pushing a Ponzi scam. He’s a totally con.
If you think all rentals and tenants are the same then you’re insane… Because when BM assumes that all tenants and rentals are the same it’s actually mathematically impossible for BM to derive a supply curve…
I mean… Fuck me… This is why I don’t educate flaky virtue signallers.
If carefully managed a glut of homes for sale that eases pricing in the ‘1st home’ category could be a good thing. I think it would be interesting to see what price range of properties investors are selling up. Gut feel tells me it won’t be the expensive end of the rental market, those tenants are better placed to absorb increases. The renters that are finally able to afford a starter home of their own will be making their previous rental home available to others with their move.
At this stage, easing pricing to widen accessibility to more first home buyers would more than likely require prices to fall. And a falling housing market would exacerbate the new Government’s problems. Which is one reason why Labour campaigned on slowing the rate of increase, not dropping the current value of homes.
Investors selling up basic boxes in West and South Auckland could see an over supply in one sector of the market, prices easing in that under 500k sector. I guess there would be a spill-over to the 1.5 million dollar McMansions but that sector could remain quite buoyant. Investors won’t be pumping stock into that sector, not increasing the supply.
The problem is with the realestate industry needing sales volume, so pretty much convincing retirees to sell the family home for a million and scale down. The problem is those scaled down beach homes or what ever… Is closing in on the million dollar average. And this is usually the one nest egg for retirement so it’s like once the money gone. Then what?
If there’s continued down turn in construction then there will be a recession kiwi style so consideration must be given to keeping the kiwi home, not selling.
“1st home ownership take-up is the highest it’s been for 5 years “
With record high immigration, thus new immigrants looking for their first NZ home, it’s not that surprising.
“Those first home buyers are vacating rental homes”
While some of them will be, evidently it’s done little to ease the current rental shortage problem with demand exceeding supply. Which suggests it’s more a case of new immigrants buying their first homes squeezing locals out, hence forcing more to rent.
While it will be largely centered around the lower end of the market and in areas with a high number rentals, it won’t be solely limited to that end or area of the market. So yes, their will be spillover. Along with a heighten risk it could all quickly unravel.
Buyers are far less inclined to buy in a declining market, preferring to hold off (thus adding to the downward spiral) expecting to save thousands as they anticipate prices to further decline.
The world dodged a bullet when the warmonger lost…oh
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday committed the United States to an indefinite military presence in Syria, citing a range of policy goals that extend far beyond the defeat of the Islamic State as conditions for American troops to go home.
New Zealand is the most wasteful country in the developed world but investment in organic waste facilities could reduce that by almost a third.
Research published on Waste Management World has found New Zealand produces 3.68kg of waste per capita per day, the worst in the developed world and the 10th worst of countries worldwide surveyed.
The greed of farmers, the weakness of neoliberal politicians and the devastating impact of irrigation
Its consequences.
Millan Ruka on Facebook
Millan Ruka I paddled this beautiful living river around 2009. Now its life force has been sucked from it and nobody cares (except Matt Coffey). The RMA has clauses to stop this greed but our leaders do not have the will or the guts to implement restrictions. Come on Labour Coalition instruct the Local Government to put immediate restrictions on irrigation
Before you condemn Fox News as the most outrageous media outlet in
the world, have a look at the English version of French state television.
France 24 News, 11 p.m., FACE TV (Sky Channel 83), Tuesday 16 Jan. 2018
We are depressingly accustomed to television “news” being often little more than a conduit of state propaganda, whether it’s on the BBC, ABC (the Australian one), RT, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, PBS, CBS, ABC (the American one), NBC, MSNBC, Fox News, and our own TVNZ and NewsHub. As craven as all of the above are, however, the other night I saw something that equalled, perhaps even surpassed, all of the above for sheer brass-plated, malicious, bloody-minded dishonesty: I watched the first ten minutes of the English version of France 24.
The alarm bells were ringing on this from the first live cross on the very first item, about the call for the PLO to cut its ties with Israel. That cross was to “our correspondent in the region, Irris Makler.” Now, long-time listeners will remember that we encountered this shamelessly one-sided Israeli-Australian back in July 2011 when RNZ National wheeled her on to talk about a convoy of peace activists trying to break the illegal blockade of Gaza. She joked to Kathryn Ryan that the Gaza peace convoy was “dead in the water”, sneered that there were “celebrities like Alice Walker” on board, and ignored the presence of the 86-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein. [1] A week later, she was still defaming peace protestors, this time for Deutsche-Welle. [2])
It turns out that Irris Makler has not changed her modus operandi in the slightest: “You know Palestinians will pay a price internationally,” she intoned darkly. Then she claimed, in contradiction to all evidence, that the Oslo agreements had led to “great changes” in the Occupied Territories.
Unbelievably, there was worse to come. The newsreader, one Alexander Aucott, introduced the next item, about Ahed Tamimi, the 16 year old Palestinian girl arrested and charged for slapping an armed IDF soldier. He read out, with a straight face, that she had been:
caught on film pushing, kicking, and hitting the soldiers, who did not respond. The video provoked outrage in Israel, but she has been hailed as a hero by Palestinians.”
Alexander Aucott should have mentioned that just before Ahed Tamimi slapped one of the soldiers who’d invaded her yard, she had learned that her 15-year-old cousin Mohammed had been shot in the head at close range by an Israeli soldier. But for some reason Aucott—or more likely, his scriptwriter—chose to ignore all that and instead portray her as an aggressor and the soldier as a victim. It’s not many years since French state media and scurrilous tabloids approvingly covered the Sarkozy government’s loading of gypsies on to trains and expelling them from France. Clearly, honesty and integrity still count for little or nothing in the French state media.
The impression of shabbiness and lack of professionalism was only magnified by the appearance of Alexander Aucott, who looks like a young, scruffy clone of Neil Kinnock, and glowers at the camera reproachfully as he mouths his loaded lines. The wretchedness of all this was only magnified by its following immediately after a brilliant Democracy Now! special on Martin Luther King.
Well all Stuff and rhe Herald provide is propaganda and fake news.
Hence the apathy and ignorance of some many New Zealanders.
So many people vote against their own interests, supporting ghastly neoliberal policies that ruin society and the environment.
The media corral people into opinions by repeating the lies.
France 24 is fake news. At least it was on Tuesday night. And I’m sure it regularly and dependably delivers such nasty propaganda; I don’t think Mr Aucott’s gruesome performance was an aberration.
Trump is a direct result of the Clinton’s. Why do I say this well first Trump and the Clinton’were associates and Bill would have told trump about the Mana that A President of America has and this would have made Trump obsessed with the goal of becoming President in my view. Bill was that obsessed with getting that Mana back through Hillary that he minupulated the Democratic party to get Hillary as there front runner candidate and not Bernice Sanders and wallar we have Trump as President the way trump is behaving is because of what Bill told Trump. I say if it looks like one talks like one than he is a Racist Bigot who panders to his polling that is what is keeping him in power and he will use anything through anyone under the bus say anything to keep this Mana that he is intoxicated with. This is a very dangerous man with the world future in his hands and you know what comes first in trumps world Trump. Is this the person whom is supposed to look after all Americans wellbeing Ana to kai
Sorry about the heat morning rumble you should have got the bug spray out and sprayed the sandflys lol. They won’t shut you down that would make OUR Mana even greater I wonder what happened to that South Waikato airial of yours last year???????. I figure out that when I get a random phone call unanswered my phone is been hacked they can’t stop me using it for posting on the standard but they can listen and use the camera and also change my alarm and turn alarm off. Every time the sandflys try and spin shit about me they end up with shit in there face. This will allways happen because I have done nothing.
Its cool being famous from Pokai Tikapa Waiomatatini Tairawhiti I go into the Putaruru supermarket and there is a lot of chatting and excitement going down I start shopping and when I got to the checkout everyone’s vanished. The sandflys have followed me into the shop and told/bullied everyone and told them to not let me know that I’m well known. I have been going into this supermarkets for 12 years off and on The same thing happens at Rotorua pack and save they are so _____ its not funny Ka kite ano
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Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
AN OPEN LETTER FOR SIGN ON BY ORGANISATIONS AND MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD, ALLIED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY. This letter was released at the UN Political Forum on 9 July, where the Sustainable Development Goal on inequality was reviewed. The purpose of the letter is to call out the ...
We asked a young gay science student and critic of trans ideology and the trans activists’ assault on women’s and gay rights to outline his views on Redline. Thanks to him for his article. by Cian Ó Catháin Gender identity ideology (Gender ID) is ripping through western society at full ...
The Environment Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill, and Stuff is reporting on the submissions. Today, they're covering yesterday they heard from "NZ" Steel:NZ Steel has told MPs it may be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if changes aren't made to ...
Students are striking against climate change on September 27. And this time, they're asking everyone to join them:Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure ...
Peter McKenzie has a piece on Newsroom this morning about how local body politics is awash with property developer cash. 70% of all the donations in the 2016 Wellington mayoral election came from property developers. And its pretty obvious what they want in exchange:That’s particularly important in local government, according ...
Source: Unknown, twitter user Recently, I wrote a (relatively) short paper titled as above, to explore what self-determination could like in a practical sense. Maybe I’m a bit of an international trade truther or something, but I absolutely believe trade is at the heart of achieving peace and self-determination. Since ...
In the 1960s, after I had graduated with a first-class Oxford postgraduate law degree, I joined the British Foreign Office as the top entrant of my year. There, I worked for a couple of years on European affairs and was eventually posted to the Embassy in Brussels. After this exposure ...
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...
I heard a 45 minute interview with Monica Lewinsky talking to TED’s Chris Anderson on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend, and have listened to it another two times out walking. I recommend it. Highly. Man, I am so impressed with how this woman has integrated her life experiences and ...
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, London, Penguin, 2019, 352pp; reviewed by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind is a timely book, whose ...
When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
Last week, the ongoing democracy protests in Hong Kong saw a pro-Hong Kong student assaulted at the University of Auckland. The Chinese consulate in Auckland followed this up with a press release "express[ing] its appreciation to the students for their spontaneous patriotism" - effectively condoning the assault and inciting further ...
Only those who close their eyes and minds to the evidence can still be in any doubt that we are facing a climate change crisis. The evidence is conclusive that the world is not only getting inexorably hotter, but also that the rising temperatures are creating a number of other ...
Rural communities are wailing about forestry conversions "taking land out of production" and putting it into locking up carbon. Its driven purely by economics: there's more money and lower costs in carbon than in sheep or beef, and if carbon prices rise, there'll be more net money than dairy even. ...
This week, the government introduced its (underwhelming) Abortion Legislation Bill. And despite having negotiated the text of the bill through the coalition process, Winston Peters is now suggesting that he will demand a referendum on it:NZ First leader Winston Peters has hinted that his party may only support the Government's ...
Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...
Last night the police dramatically incresed their numbers at Ihumātao, shoving over protestors and threatening them with arrest. Despite police talk about the need to maintain "public order" and prevent a "breach of the peace", there appeared to be absolutely no justification for this: the protest camp is, was, and ...
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...
Today's abortion reform announcement is just the latest in a long line of disappointing decisions or outright failures from the Labour government. The 90-day law. KiwiBuild. A capital gains tax. Climate change. Every time they make one of those decisions, we hope for better next time. No repeal of the ...
The Greens used their party conference over the weekend to push for a rent-to-own scheme, where people would be able to work towards home ownership by renting from the government. Its a sensible policy, and one which could make a real difference to home ownership rates. But its also basicly ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the report of the Small Business Council will help maintain the momentum for innovation and improvements in the sector. Mr Nash has thanked the members of the Small Business Council (SBC) who this week handed over their report, Empowering small businesses to aspire, succeed ...
Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance and its nationwide sister group the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming Auckland Mayor Phil Goff for his comments today that John Tamihere would need the Government’s support to ...
A ‘one size fits all’, inflexible and punitive regulatory regime for water quality just gets backs - and costs - up and most importantly will not work, Federated Farmers says. ...
Mediation yesterday between secondary principals and the government has resulted in a deal that the principals' negotiating team is recommending to its members. ...
Clubs New Zealand welcomes the decision of Justice Minister Andrew Little to put forward a bill amending the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act to allow all licensed premises to remain open for Rugby World Cup matches. ...
The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation has ordered a review looking at labelling of added sugars in food and drinks. An option under investigation is ‘a pictorial approach applied to sugary beverages / sugar-sweetened beverages’ ...
Labour market data released by Statistics New Zealand today indicates that a gender pay gap persists in New Zealand, despite improvement in some areas. ...
In the midst of the 6th Great Extinction Event the coalition, STOP Trashing Our Planet is urging voters to take full responsibility for the legacy we are leaving our children. ...
LGNZ will carefully consider the proposed National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) to assess if it meets the Government’s aim of enabling urban development or simply adds more red tape to the planning process. ...
Statistics out today from the Government show that the gender wage imbalance, or gap, in the average wage is 11.9%, a strong 2 percentage point improvement from 13.9% last year. The gender pay imbalance in the median wage is 9.3%. ...
Newstalk ZB Drive host and Herald on Sunday columnist Heather du Plessis-Allan is taking on the challenge of keeping 2019 Auckland Mayoral contenders Phil Goff and John Tamihere in line and on point in tonight’s live NZ Herald Newstalk ZB debate. ...
After twenty years Napier residents have endured heavy sleep and health disruptive noise and air pollution from freight trucks gridlock operations to and from the Napier port and other regions. ...
The EMA says much is riding on the board and chief executive of the new National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) announced by Infrastructure Minister Hon Shane Jones today, with a difficult task ahead to deliver on its purpose. ...
The Public Service Association welcomes the introduction of workplace standards by the State Services Commission that make it clear public services should expect positive and safe workplaces. ...
The Financial Services Federation (FSF) - the voice of responsible lenders and leasing companies - and FinCap - working with consumers facing financial hardship - are signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) this Thursday 22 August in Auckland. It will ...
Wellington, 20 August 2019 — Lawyers for Vulnerable New Zealanders (LVNZ) has lent its support to the amendments proposed by MP Chris Penk to better protect vulnerable people from being coerced to end their lives under the End of Life Choice Bill, currently ...
The Government’s decision to establish and independent Parliamentary Budget Office, outside of Treasury, is a taxpayer victory and will improve democracy, says the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union . Taxpayers' Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “It's ...
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that the cost-benefit analysis prepared by Ministry of Transport and used to advise Ministers on the Government’s Clean Car Standard and ‘Feebate’ policies has serious flaws which undermine justifications for the ...
The Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) welcomes new proposals for prison reform put forward by the Minister of Corrections and non-government organisations recently. ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has called on the nation to address all forms of racism and not to shy away from an honest conversation about where it’s taking hold. The call comes after the Nelson Club decided to keep a member after his comments became ...
Wellington (20 August 2019): The New Zealand Initiative enthusiastically welcomes the Coalition Government’s announcement of an Independent Parliamentary Budget Office. Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Associate Finance Minister James Shaw ...
Drs Say No agree with Chris Penk’s amendment to protect vulnerable patients from coercion, although the organisation still maintains that no safe euthanasia legislation can ever be drafted and continues to urge MPs to defeat the End of Life Choice Bill. ...
The Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier says the Northland Regional Corrections Facility is persisting with policies that are preventing it from achieving its full potential. ...
The second national hui in the Māori-led Inquiry into Oranga Tamariki concluded yesterday ahead of schedule after a capacity audience formally ratified the terms of reference that determines the scope and purpose of the independent investigation ...
Forest & Bird says WWF-NZ's plan for protecting Māui dolphins is based on testing unproven methods on a species that is almost extinct, and is urging the Government to reject the proposal. ...
Primary and intermediate school principals have voted to accept a new settlement from the Ministry of Education, which includes entrenched pay parity with secondary principals. ...
Police acknowledge the findings of the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) report into the 2014 search of a property belonging to Nicky Hager. ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that the Police's unlawful search of Nicky Hager's property in October 2014 resulted from an unwitting neglect of duty and did not amount to misconduct by any individual officer. Police policy at the ...
Tuesday, August 20: Greenpeace has labeled an overnight announcement by fishing company Sanford as a danger to Māui and Hector’s dolphins, and is calling on the Government to reject the ‘Sanford Plan’ immediately. ...
World Animal Protection describes an overnight announcement (19 August, embargoed until 6am 20 August), by fishing company Sanford as a cynical move to undermine growing support for full habitat protection for Māui and Hector’s dolphins. They called ...
When the combined tax on fuel hits over 50 percent in some parts of the country, it is hypocritical for the Government to blame corporates, says the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union . ...
A leading expert in suicide prevention has urged MPs not to confuse suicide with assisted dying as they consider the second reading of the End of Life Choice Bill. ...
Over the weekend Māoridom arrived in the Waikato for the annual Koroneihana Celebrations. Yesterday almost 300 attended a Hui in Hamilton to continue the Oranga Tamariki Review led by an independent Māori panel to coincide with the Koroneihana. The Hui confirmed ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) says the newly issued ‘price list’ for compensation of banned firearms reveals that haste in preparing the ban has led to an underestimation of the number of affected firearms and their value. ...
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis has admitted parts of the prison system are “extremely racist” and says that’s why the Government is asking Māori to work with it to make changes. ...
Ongoing drug-test sanctions contradicts Government’s rhetoric on drugs Reports that two-thirds of beneficiaries who fail drug tests are still having their benefit sanctioned contradicts the Government’s so-called health approach to drugs. Auckland ...
An Auckland Homelessness Collective is optimistic extra government support for sustaining tenancies signals a commitment to a multi-pronged approach to tackling homelessness. ...
Wanaka-based trust ONE New Zealand will be hosting six days of talks, workshops and hands-on activities with local and national experts to educate, inspire and enable grassroots action towards a sustainable future. ...
In last week’s episode of Politics in Full Sentences, David, Brooke and Ruwan discussed why Jacinda Ardern has been lecturing our friends overseas, why Andrew Little called ACT's three strikes law “fascism”, whether he will give prisoners the right to ...
“Community safety must be the paramount consideration when releasing an offender, and the only way for that to be achieved is for the offender to acknowledge their crimes.” ...
“District Health Boards are failing to foster a culture of distributed clinical leadership, despite its demonstrated benefits to the sector,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS). ...
Ratepayers around Auckland were spitting out their morning coffees listening to Phil Goff’s incredible claims on breakfast radio today that this election is about ‘honesty’ and that Aucklanders can trust him on his promises. Auckland Ratepayers’ ...
By Michael Andrew Journalists across Papua New Guinea have spoken out in support of EMTV news director Neville Choi after his “unacceptable” termination from a role he had held for six years. A public statement released on Monday listed the reasons for his termination, one of which was his ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Camellia Webb-Gannon, Lecturer, University of Wollongong Last weekend, the Indonesian police took 43 West Papuan students into custody for allegedly disrespecting the Indonesian flag during an independence day celebration (an allegation the students deny). Police stormed the students’ dorm and used teargas ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natalie Klein, Professor, UNSW Prime Minister Scott Morrison has confirmed that Australia will lend military support to protect shipping in the Middle East. The commitment has been long expected, with Australia sending a frigate, an aircraft and some headquarters staff as part ...
By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific Protests are spreading in Indonesia-ruled West Papua in response to harassment of Papuans during explosive incidents in Javanese cities last week. Indonesia’s president has urged calm after some of the protests turned violent, but he’s been criticised for not directly addressing a festering ...
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the karaoke game that introduced an entire generation to the horrors of ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark. Jordan Hamel ranks all 30 songs from SingStar v1, from worst to best.Before my generation was old enough to get smashed on reasonably priced Merlot and wander ...
After a decade of making music, Sons of Zion are still refusing to settle into a genre. They sit down to talk about the joys of pop music and te reo Māori, and why a “reggae” band can do both.In 2009 Sons of Zion released their debut album, a self-titled ...
The government is directing councils to loosen up their planning rules, allowing cities to grow both up and out, in a bid to solve the housing crisis. ...
New Zealand’s largest construction company and controversial owner of the disputed Ihumātao land near Auckland airport has made a $164m profit, a big turnaround from its losses last year. Business editor Maria Slade analyses what it all means.What has Fletcher Building announced?The construction and building products company with operations on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Australia will commit a frigate, an aircraft and some headquarters staff to an American-led freedom of navigation operation in the Middle East. Scott Morrison, announcing the long-expected commitment at a Canberra news conference on Wednesday, ...
The local sharemarket has taken an unexpected beating this morning driven by investor disappointment about the performance of the top stock - A2 Milk. ...
Sometimes, less is more. Even when it comes to Quentin Tarantino (Warning: Contains mild spoilers).Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is an impressive film. It’s got great acting, stunning visuals, and a twist ending, all laced with the sort of attention to detail you’d expect from the nuttiest of film ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Beeson, Professor of International Politics, University of Western Australia Populism and environmentalism are words seldom seen in the same sentence. One is associated predominantly with nationalists and charismatic leaders of “real people”, the other with broadly-based collective action to address the ...
Who makes up the royal ‘we’? Lana Lopesi reviews a massive show at ST PAUL St Gallery in Auckland that investigates questions of community, culture and conflict.How to Live Together at ST PAUL St Gallery could hardly have been better timed, opening just days before the protection of Ihumātao in ...
The first week of Celebrity Treasure Island had it all – mud, vomit and coconut brassieres. Alex Casey ranks the celebrity contestants vying to win $100,000 for their chosen charity. It’s 2019 and mostly everything is bad, so I am choosing to focus on the positives of Celebrity Treasure Island NZ. ...
The government is directing councils to loosen up their planning rules, allowing cities to grow both up and out, in a bid to solve the housing crisis. ...
Australia's big banks may have to make do with less money from their New Zealand operations, as Australia's banking regulator moves to improve their financial strength. ...
The anti-1080 lobby has made a martyr out of kea, but that ignores another salient fact: kea survival in large part depends on pest control. Dave Hansford explores on the challenge to balance pest control with conservation.In April this year, Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP) announced that two kea had died ...
Fletcher Building has posted a solid full year profit but continues to be dogged by a weak Australian housing market and underperformance in some of its businesses there. ...
Work obsessed drone Alex Braae assesses whether shutting himself up in a dark room will allow some semblance of normality on a day off.It is a sad fact of life that many of us spend alarmingly large chunks of it working. The relationship is like quicksand: as we spend more ...
Inspired by the ethos of food-rescue organisation Kaibosh, chef Kelda Hains looked to the past to champion unloved ingredients and showcase clever waste-minimising techniques at her All Taste, No Waste dinner during Visa Wellington On a Plate. Ever glanced at those supermarket bags of pre-cut broccoli florets and wondered what happens ...
Dr Bryce EdwardsCould the most interesting aspect of the current local government elections turn out to be generational change? At the moment, there is a surge of media and activist focus on younger candidates standing for office. It suddenly seems to be “cool” again to want to be a ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Petrol prices Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Don’t be surprised if petrol study ends in a deal, ...
Jacinda Ardern’s election campaign was high on hope but this Government should remember that those who encourage what cannot be achieved are quickly found out. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Professor Tim Bentley, Director of Research, professor of Work and Organisation, Massey University According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the workplace can be a positive force for improving mental health. But many workers are exposed to work environments that are damaging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne Alan Jones’s political power is to a large extent based on a self-fulfilling prophecy: politicians believe he can shift votes, so they pay homage to him, which adds ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosemary Stanton, Visiting Fellow, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Research Checks interrogate newly published studies and how they’re reported in the media. The analysis is undertaken by one or more academics not involved with the study, and reviewed by another, to make ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Associate Professor Ralph Brougham Chapman, Director, Environmental Studies, Victoria University of Wellington CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Salvatore Babones, Associate Professor, University of Sydney Australia’s leading universities are now looking to India in search of new sources of international students. This comes amid worries they may have reached a “China max” – no more room for growth in Chinese ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Couch, Senior Lecturer – Youth Work and International Development, Australian Catholic University One of the biggest challenges young people of refugee background face in their new country is finding safe, affordable and appropriate housing. Yet this is central to social inclusion ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Sheil, Visiting Senior Fellow in History, UNSW The results of the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics biennial survey of income and wealth met have met with an uneven response, perhaps in part due to a slipshod press release. Released with the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christina Lee, Senior Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies, Curtin University This story contains spoilers for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. While promoting Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at the Cannes Film Festival, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was asked why Margot ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: National cries foul over parliamentary costing unit idea, Ngawha Prison heavily criticised in report, and fuel market study confirms prices are high.The government have announced a recommendation to create an official, independent parliamentary costing unit, reports the NZ Herald.The aim is to ...
Phil Goff and John Tamihere are into round 10 of 23 debates planned before the mayoral election in October, and they're punching hard, not resting on the ropes or pulling eachother into dull political clinches. ...
Open Mike 18/01/2018 
That's the only way to describe the government's plans for a Parliamentary Budget Office to allow opposition parties to get an independent costing of their policies. When the idea was first floated back in 2016 as an office within Treasury, I thought that wasn't independent enough and argued that it ...12 hours ago
Television advertising has a huge impact on our lives. Even if we don’t recognise that, we know it has to be true, since otherwise why would advertisers spend so much on it? Its significance, however, is greater than simply the influence it has on what we purchase and consume. It ...18 hours ago
by Jan Rivers More than 30 years ago a Commission of Inquiry was held in New Zealand to investigate, amongst other things, whether women with cervical cancer were aware that they had been part of a research project and whether they were properly informed of the treatment options ...1 day ago
Everyone Wants To Be Fuhrer: When fascist groups are discussed, the image conjured-up in the minds of most New Zealanders is one of pathetic misfits. This negative impression is reinforced by the latter’s idiotic embrace of the swastika. Even in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the baleful legacy ...2 days ago
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...3 days ago
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...4 days ago
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...5 days ago
6 days ago
Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...6 days ago
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...1 week ago
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...1 week ago
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...1 week ago
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...1 week ago
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...1 week ago
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ... 1 week ago
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...1 week ago
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...1 week ago
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...2 weeks ago
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...2 weeks ago
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...2 weeks ago
Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...2 weeks ago
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...2 weeks ago
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...2 weeks ago
Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance and its nationwide sister group the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming Auckland Mayor Phil Goff for his comments today that John Tamihere would need the Government’s support to ...9 hours ago
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Two very good posts over at Open Parachute.
The first begins –
Hear, hear Ken.
Fire and Fury.
Russiagate
…Clinton’s story…
I suppose that’s one way to pretend that Papadopoulos and Flynn’s testimony doesn’t exist.
It exists… so far it has not contained any facts relevant to the assertion of collusion
😆
Is that why they lied about meeting Russians claiming they had dirt on But But But Hillary?
Is it? …… . What do you know!
Xanthe – “so far” – an advisedly ‘safe’ while backhanded way of expressing your own confirmation bias.
You dont understand “confirmation bias”
It seems that the “very good” in your comment basically means, “confirming my viewpoint”, Bill. Isn’t that pretty much the definition of “confirmation bias” (the focus of a lot of the article’s discussion?
I thought the one commenter on the site asked a lot of pertinent questions, pointing out inconsistencies in the argument being put forward.
It’s also telling that a person writing a post entitled “Fire and Fury” has this to say about the book: “ I even have my own copy but am unsure now whether to waste time reading it. Wile the mainstream media is promoting it, more rational comments suggest the book is a disaster.” How does this guy measure what is “more rational” if he hasn’t read it?
I’m currently reading “Fire and Fury”. It’s one person’s thinking, based on extensive observations and interviews. It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. It certainly isn’t the last word in Trump scholarship (in fact, it’s not a work of scholarship), but that’s hardly surprising this early in the regime. I would say that yes, there is a bias at work (the guy doesn’t like or respect Trump), but I’d also say that it’s not exactly hidden, and when he’s not sure about something he gives various possible explanations or scenarios.
I’m only halfway through the book and so far he’s not suggesting any direct collusion with the Russians – the focus is much more on the dysfunctional relationships within the administration. And whether or not you like Trump, it’s hard to argue that an admin that one year in has left so many critical positions unfilled, has fired so many close-in people and has invented positions for family members is functioning smoothly.
One last comment (a bit of a segue) – I note the author of Open Parachute is an anti-flouride campaigner. Not known for their pro-science, evidence-based approach…
[You note wrong. Very wrong. It’s not at all flash to throw a patently false accusation out there in order to undermine or discredit someone]- Bill
I think that Open Parachute person and others should make a point of stating whether they are talking about international matters or in this country. There is a lot of waffle about Trump, which is reasonable as he himself is full of waffle.
But there is a need for analysis about what is happening in NZ, and the rest of the world impinges on it. But criticising all lefties’ discussion, when the person seems to mean that which is happening about Trump, and North Korea, and Russia is a different matter to what happens on the ground here and is likely to happen in the near and medium future.
So will people please state their point of interest when they are dissing lefties?
I can’t change anything about Trump and watch with foreboding. But I may be able to influence things in NZ, and surely that is the main focus of many people here.
I think most feel in their bones and synapses all the blows to the left. Those who want to be progressives have to spend time looking at planning and testing which ways they think we should try and progress. That is of direct interest I believe to most of us here.
The rest is of interest and concern, but watching and trying to avoid stupid and toxic decisions overseas has to be balanced with the need to do so here. So please lefties with real concern about NZ social needs and climate change and business don’t take your minds away from each other, keep in touch. Please don’t think that you’ll stop taking part here in the discussion if you get annoyed, just drop in each day with something of interest, comment on one thing from someone you know is a mind worker, and then we will keep the intelligent conversation going. It will prevent TS from being affected by pollution from RW maliciousness or careless crap.
Keep putting into the clean stream of thought please, for the mental health of the people devoted to leftie ideas that are bent towards a successful, busy, fair society with the twin goals of kindness and practicality.
Well said, grey.
Open Parachute’s missive seemed more a complaint about tabloid populism in US politics and media but when has it ever been different? So someone wrote a book criticising Trump – big whoops – he invites it.
I was ignoring you earlier because you were being a leftie fundamentalist.
+100 well said Grey.
Death to careless crap.
Life to clean streams of thought.
The point that should be made is that there is a split between the right and Left of Labour and they must be brought back to heel.
I note the author of Open Parachute is an anti-flouride campaigner. Not known for their pro-science, evidence-based approach…
Flouride, pro or anti is neither ‘science’ nor ‘evidence based’ policy…
That you made ‘one last comment’ serves to show you’ve not read or understand the ‘flouride’ debate…
So you did a fart in the lift…then walked away…
Are you or have you ever been a dental professional? Obviously not. Research by all the scientists in the field have proven without a shadow of doubt that fluoride is beneficial for teeth and reduces decay by 70% at the least.
That means its a “science, evidence- based approach”. RB did not use the word “policy” so stop throwing red herrings into conversations because you think it makes you look clever.
“Research by all the scientists in the field have proven without a shadow of doubt that fluoride is beneficial for teeth and reduces decay by 70% at the least.”
Citation, please?
I recall that information from Dental lectures I attended admittedly a good many years ago now, But the information hasn’t changed. Go look the subject up Rosemary. There must be oodles of information available from the professionals in the field.
There is ‘oodles’ of information…some of which appears to contradict your “…all the scientist in the field have proven….” narrative.
Yet, today, when a community swamps a free dental service there is no mention of fluoride as a preventative to tooth decay.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?
c_id=1&objectid=11976798
Fluoride is not, and never will be, a panacea for dental health.
Who is saying Fluoride is a panacea for all ills? No-one here or elsewhere. But it does assist in the prevention of tooth decay especially among children.
Tests have proven as much. Children of the 60s, 70s and 80s who lived in areas where there was fluoridated water had a far lower incidence of tooth decay than those consuming non-fluoridated water.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/panacea
Edit: it took me 10 secs to come up with updated information:
http://www.ehinz.ac.nz/indicators/drinking-water-quality/oral-health-of-children/
Anne….much as I would love to get into this issue…I simply do not have the time right now.
Having to deal with the results of an OIA request for information from the Ministry of Health about a completely different issue under their purview.
I was sent a file of over 30 megabytes of scanned documents…much too large for me to share with other affected parties unless it is broken down into manageable portions. Which I can’t do because the file cannot be altered unless the Ministry does it.
Which they have…but still requires me to send four separate emails to 13 or so people with appropriate commentary.
AND, and, despite the monster 30 megabyte break -the -gmail file…I still haven’t got the information I requested.
Sighs. Rolls eyes.
Hopes Anne and others understand why when the Mystery of Health makes dogmatic statements regarding any issue my automatic reaction is to doubt their every word.
“…when the Mystery of Health makes dogmatic statements regarding any issue my automatic reaction is to doubt their every word.”
Don’t mistake incompetence for duplicity.
Yes, You have told us in the past about some of your experiences with the ministry and I have much sympathy for you Rosemary. I, too,
have been on the receiving end of a government ministry (not the same one as yours) whose attitude left a great deal to be desired.
So I understand your reluctance, but in the case of the fluoridation issue… most of the original research was carried out under the auspices of the WHO which, of course, is an apolitical international body whose findings can be relied upon as accurate.
knock yourself out.
The link is to a search of the moh site which yields study reviews, cost effectiveness analyses, and comparisons of decayed/missing/filled teeth in NZ schoolchildren based on their flouridated water status.
700ppm-1000ppm is optimal for tooth health.
Oh my goodness! My kids have been brought up on untreated tank water….and barely a filling between them.
OTOH….even well into their twenties, they still act really, really guilty if they’re caught with a can of fizzy.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/78269090/rotten-to-the-core–our-childrens-dental-decay-problem
Terrible parent am I…
Fluoride or no fluoride…I don’t really give a toss either way…just get the bloody message through that weaning baby onto sugary drinks is really, really irresponsible.
And there are almost certainly kids in fluoridated areas who have awful teeth, and kids in non-fluoridated areas who drink fizz all the time and have not a filling between them.
Fact is, from a population perspective fluoridation is one of the best and easiest ways to improve kids’ teeth. Pointing to the results of one individual doesn’t count against that statement, even under experimental conditions.
Anne, leaving aside the obvious and many misinformed comments in your response….
You’ve made no mention of K2 or its place in the the body’s function with tooth development and maintenance…
The ‘fluoride dental industry’ is….not what you think…that is clear from the statements you’ve made…
Oh piss off. You come across to me as a fraud suffering from some sort of Dunning Kruger disorder.
Anne…
You responded to my comment which I had posted to someone else, and when you don’t like my reply to your interruption. …you tell me to “piss off”…
That’s itrational….
You seem to believe WHO are independent and apolitical…which of course they are not…
No surprise that you think I’m a fraud…
I don’t think you’re a fraud. Dunning-Kruger is the inability to recognise your own incompetence, whereas fraud involves an element of malice.
My body is more than my teeth. If I replace rotten parts of my teeth with a mercury containing filler that is durable and seals against any further infection my teeth will be stronger.
But as is the case with mercury, fluoride is also a known poison to other parts of my body.
It has been decided that the poison effect outweighs the dental benefits for mercury and it is still an open question on the cost/benefit with regard to fluouride. Many antifluoride people are quite able to acknowledge the dental benefits of fluoride but believe that the poison effect is great enough to negate these benefits.
Everything in excess is poisonous or dangerous. Everything. Even water. Based on your hypothesis we’d all be dead in a week or so. Best to stop reading pseudo-scientific claptrap. It’s bad for you.
Exactly. Toxicologists have an expression, “The dose makes the poison”.
Everything has toxic effects at some dose, and everything has no toxic effects at another. To think of something as inherently “toxic” or “non-toxic” doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Fluoridation is a fantastic public health measure IMHO.
Youre exactly right. Everything has a level of toxicity and it is the level that is the key along with the exposure time. Also people who take the dcientific approach in which I include myself dont usually feel the need to resort to abuse. As you say. The science should speak for itself
I find that 70% figure hard to believe. Where did you get that from? My cousins were brought up in and still live in a non fluoride country and all 3 of them have zero fillings even well into middle age. I think diet has much more to do with it.
Your ‘position’ seems devoid of nuance.
“Flouride, pro or anti is neither ‘science’ nor ‘evidence based’ policy…”
Is that your considered opinion? That (pro) fluoridation is neither ‘science’ nor ‘evidence-based’ policy?
As long as the city that hosts NZ’s Faculty of Dentistry (29th-best dental school in the world) continues to fluoridate its public water supply, I’ll be happy for the council that provides services for the city I live in to do so too.
Alternatively, it’s all a dental conspiracy, and fluoridation of tap water pollutes our precious bodily fluids, and actually weakens teeth ultimately channeling $$$ into the pockets of the evil dentists!
A former lecturer of mine used to say by way of an easily understood scenario:
A person would have to drink a full bath of fluoridated water in one sitting before they succumbed to any detrimental effects.
They’d also succumb to hyponatremia after the first seven-or-eight litres.
Dosage rears its fact-based head again.
You’ve misinterpreted my comment, completely…
And then you’ve posted irrelevant details…
I have misinterpreted some comments on this site, and am trying to learn. Which of your fluoride-related comments @1.2.2 did I misinterpret?
http://www.cochrane.org/CD010856/ORAL_water-fluoridation-prevent-tooth-decay
NOTE: Large extract cut/paste
Authors’ conclusions:
There is very little contemporary evidence, meeting the review’s inclusion criteria, that has evaluated the effectiveness of water fluoridation for the prevention of caries.
The available data come predominantly from studies conducted prior to 1975, and indicate that water fluoridation is effective at reducing caries levels in both deciduous and permanent dentition in children. Our confidence in the size of the effect estimates is limited by the observational nature of the study designs, the high risk of bias within the studies and, importantly, the applicability of the evidence to current lifestyles. The decision to implement a water fluoridation programme relies upon an understanding of the population’s oral health behaviour (e.g. use of fluoride toothpaste), the availability and uptake of other caries prevention strategies, their diet and consumption of tap water and the movement/migration of the population. There is insufficient evidence to determine whether water fluoridation results in a change in disparities in caries levels across SES. We did not identify any evidence, meeting the review’s inclusion criteria, to determine the effectiveness of water fluoridation for preventing caries in adults.
There is insufficient information to determine the effect on caries levels of stopping water fluoridation programmes.
There is a significant association between dental fluorosis (of aesthetic concern or all levels of dental fluorosis) and fluoride level. The evidence is limited due to high risk of bias within the studies and substantial between-study variation.
You missed out the bit where they excluded any study that couldn’t provide a “before and after” picture, and also the bit where they said that
It’s all in the link , McFlock
Nothing was missed…you managed to find it
The outdated information speaks for itself…it’s all unreliable…
🙄
“We don’t know everything, therefore we know nothing”.
Meh. Even if we periodically de-flouridated the entire country and then refluoridated 12 years later, you’d still be unconvinced. And be pissed at nationwide experimentation.
Every single year comparisons in school kids based on fluoridation levels show a increase from fluoridated to nonfluoridated catchments.
At some stage calling the quacky waggly thing a duck is a pretty dafe assumption.
Don’t make assumptions, or crystal ball on my behalf, McFlock….
Your comment leaves the impression that FL in or FL out is the start and end of the metric for reporting….
Surely you’re not that simplistic…
If you weren’t, you might have provided links to the data captured, to which you refer…and provided some analysis on the limitations of the data…Cochrane did…
But you didn’t…
Besides empirical evidence being an alien concept for you, you confuse “studied a topic to my satisfaction” with “can be bothered writing a text book in order to improve the ‘impression’ of some internet stoner on an acid trip”.
I note the author of Open Parachute is an anti-flouride campaigner.
Is he perchance also a CC denier? Does he believe the moon landing was a fake?
Is he one of those who is convinced the Twin Towers tragedy was an inside job eg. the CIA?
If they’re one pf the above they are usually all of them. I think I will continue to bypass Open Parachute.
It should be noted that the spelling is fluoride. Flour is finely ground something usually grains.
Well-spotted, Greywarshark. A silly typo.
And we can remember this particular learning. If ever we want to upset a thread, just put something about fluoride, or perhaps 1080, vaccinations, feminists, rape culture, cats being forbidden….into it, and the cogs and wheels will start turning and all the afficianados will come out and enter the fray. And take it all away. Household hint No. 1.
If they’re one pf the above they are usually all of them.
Not a very considered position, Anne…’life’ is more nuanced than that statement of generalized ‘missive’…
It leads to opinions being formed from ignorance, which is ultimately, hypocritical thinking…
Well, since RB has got things all arse over tit (ie – Open Parachute belongs to a blogger in favour of fluoridation), I guess you’ll row back on the groundless stuff about moon landings and what not?
Or is it open season on any one who doesn’t toe a particular anti-Trump line?
And if not “moon landing, 9/11” or whatever, then does the mere fact someone doesn’t witlessly jump aboard the anti-Trump bandwagon mean they’re as well being seen as a “moon landing, 9/11” etc flake…and worthy only of opprobrium and dismissal?
I guess the answer to that query is largely “yes”.
He’s far from the only person on the left to observe “The sinking of “fellow liberals” into a quagmire of political partisanship, political conspiracy theories, confirmation bias and hateful hostility to anyone daring to present an alternative viewpoint distresses me.”
A fair few of the comments in this sub-thread serve to illustrate that “hateful hostility” he mentions. And all off the back of a mistake or a lie on the part of Red Blooded that would have taken ‘one click and two seconds’ to get to the bottom of.
From Open Parachute
Well, sorry about that… I admit that I didn’t check out the two sections of the blog devoted to fluoride (one labeled “Fluoride” and one “The Fluoride Debate”). Please note that an error isn’t the same as a lie, though, Bill. Usually when people refer to something like “the Fluoride debate” or “the climate change debate” they’re trying to suggest that there is a debate, not trying to refute it.
Perhaps you could see my comment (without having read the appropriate sections of the blog) as being akin to the blogger’s confident commentary on Fire and Fury, without having read the book.
You made a fucking accusation based on nothing, nada and zilch. And you made the accusation with the sole purpose of undermining someone.
Your attempt at some innocent moi “an error isn’t the same as a lie” bullshit is just plain sickening.
A straight up apology would have been appropriate.
“fucking” “bullshit” “sickening”, all in response to a comment that begins “Well, sorry about that…”
Thankfully, red-blooded apologised for her error; imagine the invective if she hadn’t.
Bill, it’s sometimes hard to respond to you, because it pretty much guarantees ad hominem attack and abuse. Thanks to Drowsy M. Kram, for pointing out that I did actually apologise. (Have you ever done that, I wonder?)
Perhaps you’ve noticed that I often (although not always) disagree with you. This is sometimes because of a difference in values and sometimes because I believe you’re drawing false conclusions based on limited (or misinterpreted) evidence. Even when I think you’re making a mistake, I don’t call you a liar, though, and the reason is that to be a liar, you have to be purposefully promoting something that you know to be untrue. I didn’t do that in my comment above. I’ve admitted a mistake, I’ve explained what caused it and I’ve apologised for it.
[I wrote in relation to your false accusation, and because I’m not a mind reader, that it was a mistake or a lie. You don’t get to play victim in this and also accuse me of making definitive statements I never made. Take a week off. Next Wed.] – Bill
I understand RB – I also find it difficult to communicate with Bill. Although I also often disagree with his POV, I do find his posts thought provoking but usually refrain from participating in discussion on his posts to avoid the ad hominems etc. So thanks for saying to him what I have not had the courage to say!
I also hope that you have read the last two paras of my comment at 1.2.3.3.2 below. As indicated, my suggestion to check out someone”s background was not aimed at you as much as the other people who commented more specifically on fluoridation issues in the thread below your original 1.2 comment. I note that that ‘conversation’ is still continuing. Perhaps they should read some of Ken Perrott’s research articles …
I didn’t do that in my comment above. I’ve admitted a mistake, I’ve explained what caused it and I’ve apologised for it.
That doesn’t count for much with some people. I hope we’ll see you back again later, although it would be understandable if we didn’t.
+1
It’s not like you to employ weasel words though, PM. Feet, meet eggshells 🙁
Yeah, but I got bored the last time I was banned – mud-wrestling gimps at Kiwiblog palls quickly.
There’s a general comment in Daily Review about moderation (a reminder of how it works).
But for a more specific comment here, I looked at r-b’s comments once Bill had started moderating and what I see is someone arguing about the moderation and taking up a moderator’s time. That’s me coming in and looking from the outside, with no real investment in the conversation.
For me that stuff is hugely problematic and it’s the experience of a number of authors that if you don’t put a strong boundary up then you just have to keep dealing with increasing amounts of shit over time. That’s why some of us moderate the way we do.
If you don’t like how Bill debates, then don’t get involved in those discussions. If you don’t like how he moderates, then figure out where the boundaries are in terms of respect on his terms and take your chances if you want to argue about it (hint, calling a moderator baas is likely to up the ante).
“If you don’t like how Bill debates, then don’t get involved in those discussions. If you don’t like how he moderates, then figure out where the boundaries are in terms of respect on his terms and take your chances if you want to argue about it ”
Or write to the site admin stating your reasons why you think a moderator has lost the illusion of impartiality.
[that is an option too, and that will sometimes lead to a discussion in the back end about a particular moderation, which can be useful. But to be really honest, what I’m seeing here from commenters is not ok. It’s largely disrespectful and some of it looks personal.
btw, moderation isn’t about impartiality. It’s about a number of things including protecting the site, protecting the community and protecting the authors. Needless to say if one thinks that attacking an author is going to lessen the protection around authors, one is really really missing how moderation here works. I suggest people read the note in Daily Review – weka]
It’s definitely an option I recommend people take, but worth noting, reply to lprent directly, and not the generic standard address.
The address is on the contact page, and it does state to use for complaints and operational matters.
+1
Bill it seems to me that you are not infrequently redolent of the very types you complain of in your endorsement of Ken’s Open Parachute piece. You enjoy exceptionalism do you Bill ? Tirades OK for you……slam the same in others. Things are reaching the pitch they did when CV was at his worst. Losing interest……as are others.
I endorse the right of people and their opinions not to be just summarily dismissed by association with the peddling of demonstratively and patently false accusations…not just because it’s a shite thing to do, but because it can make this site vulnerable to legal action.
Hows about you?
RB making a mistake and acknowledging it exposes the site to legal action? Just trying to make sense of your justifications: would you please clarify that?
No. That’s not what I wrote. Can you not read?
edit – in response to your edit. My comment was explaining something.
Yes baas. Edit: yes baas.
[Too many levels of offence there OAB. 8 days (you managed to skip a step 😉 ] – Bill
+ 1 Mate I’m gone. Wishing all those I enjoyed reading lots of good vibes – mauriora
I hope you’ll be back Marty. You’ve educated me more than once.
Appreciate your take on things, Marty.
Hope you’ll be back.
I’m concerned Bill. We don’t want to lose regular good thoughtful feisty commenters. I detect a tendency for all moderators to tighten up too much now the election is over. I believe that you could sit back and let the regulars snap a bit and only step in when there was good reason.
There seems to be micro management entering into the style of the blog. But the long-time commenters are part of the pillars of the blog, and stuck it out and learned a fair bit about how the discussion should go. It should be a discussion between equals, not hand slapping for this and that like schoolkids. A stand-down for a while would be rare for the regulars. but they could suggest it for some of the newbies who just want to disrupt and haven’t a clue to bless themselves with. I’d like to see more relaxation and less didactic approach, and it would be easier on the mods.
We like respect and enjoy TS. Perhaps we need to get a bit sloppy and sentimental like Chris Knox. People who want to be in a good place in coming years need to stick together with others the same.
‘Cause it’s you that I love
And it’s true that I love
And it’s love not given lightly
But I knew this was love
And it’s you that I love
And it’s more than what it might be
I’ll just keep repeating this. It’s not a discussion amongst equals when commenters have a go at authors. Authors take precedence.
I really hope marty and rb come back, both are big assets to this site. But I’m way more concerned about losing authors. No-one seems too concerned about the lack of posts or authors currently. When I see the commentariat putting energy into how to support authors or the site or making the place that new authors might want to come to, I’ll probably see the comments about moderation as being more pertinent.
Just to add to this post by Bill, when I did a quick scroll through of the replies to Bill’s original post at 1 on the Open Parachute posts (without reading these), something was gnawing in my memory – and this increased when the subject of fluoride came up and the resultant discussion as to whether the Open Parachute author was anti-fluoride (and anti-CC etc).
A quick check of the About Me on the Open Parachute site and its sections on fluoridation, and from there the Researchgate link, confirmed the reason for my disquiet.
Ken Parrott, author at open Parachute is not just another blogger – he probably has far higher professional qualifications, experience etc etc in the field of fluoridation than anyone here on TS.
https://openparachute.wordpress.com/about-me/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ken_Perrott?ev=hdr_xprf
A google search on his name/country NZ also provides a wealth of links re his background in the fluoride field, including a guest post a couple of years ago on TDB.
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=Ken+Perrott+NZ&rlz=1C1LDJZ_enNZ499&source=lnt&tbs=ctr:countryNZ&cr=countryNZ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjloKSRi-DYAhVKa7wKHU1ACRAQpwUIIQ&biw=1024&bih=724
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/02/11/guest-post-ken-perrott-making-sense-of-the-fluoride-debate/
The links also include this very recent (Dec 2017) Scoop article on an article just published in the British Dental Journal by New Zealand researcher Dr Ken Perrott highlighting flaws in a 2015 research paper, widely cited by fluoride opponents, that had reported a connection between fluoridation and ADHD. On a quick glance, it appears to be a good example of a pro-science, evidence-based approach to peer review
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/GE1712/S00027/fluoridation-is-not-linked-to-adhd.htm
Not criticizing anyone who commented, but just suggesting that it sometimes does pay to take a minute or so to check out professional backgrounds etc, before making claims that someone is this, that or the other. It helps to avoid egg on face syndrome – I know from previous personal experience of this!
(EDIT – I see that Bill has now added a further reply to RB … Mine is aimed a bit wider than RB as i had no problem most of RB’s post at 1.2.
Here we go again @Anne (it seems) – re something a bit funny has happened this early new year.
I’m not sure if its just that contributors are wearing the undies someone bought them for Christmas – two sizes too small, or whether there is something other than fluoride in the water.
Roll on 2018, and we’ll see if it’s all as sustainable as we would like, or whether we’ll shoot ourselves in the tootsies
They’ll settle down. 😉
Gold. A commenter on the “Fire and Fury” thread writes:
I’m waiting for all information before jumping to conclusions.
The blogger responds:
That is more or less my position – and why I call the media promoted story of Russian Collusion as fact a “myth.”
Er, yes – declaring something “a myth” is what normal people always do when they’re “waiting for all information before jumping to conclusions.” That one’s almost funnier than his comments about everyone else suffering from confirmation bias.
Reporting Russian Collusion as “fact” is, in terms of there being no presentation of concrete evidence on which to base the conclusion that it actually happened, kinda creating a myth.
But hey, here’s Greenwald from last year, because he’s far more erudite and in depth than me.
Yet Another Major Russia Story Falls Apart. Is Skepticism Permissible Yet?
I’m struggling to think of a high-profile official investigation into something or someone that didn’t also involve public speculation out the wazoo, so it’s hardly surprising that this one also has its partisan followers.
OJ Simpson springs to mind, as does the attempted Clinton impeachment.
No questioning of official claims is allowed.
Writes the man busily questioning official claims. Now there’s a myth being created.
You for the excellent links.
Is “Russiagate” another deception like Iraqi WMDs? ‘
Yes
The media is corralling people’s thinking by spreading this lie.
Just as they did over WMD, Vietnam, McCarthyism. If we are lied to enough times, then most believe.
Fortunately there are independent journalists like Patrick Cockburn, and Eva Bartlett who have told us the truth about what has been happening in Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Russia, the US and Iran.
Thank you Bill for sharing these important stories that go against the neoliberal lies.
Israel has been buying usa politics for decades ….. wielding so much power and influence,…. that the usa Govt did a white wash and covered up when Israel killed or injured around 200 u.s navy sailors.
At the time of the attack and attempted sinking “The Jewish council could influence 169 of the 270 elctoral votes needed to win the white house”
“The Israelis used code-names to protect their white house agents” …
Does anyone seriously believe the Russians have anywhere near the involvement or influence on U.S politics than Israel ???
At last!
I wish I could share your apparent relief or enthusiasm francesca.
Unfortunately, we’re in a kind of cultural morass that sits somewhere between that which surrounded Iraqi WMD and McCarthyism. My impression is the latter was more enthusiastically taken up by the public at large than the former.
I could be wrong on that front, but assuming I’m not, I’d suggest the level of acceptance of Trump/Russia blah tends more towards the McCarthy side of any WMD/McCarthy scale than it does towards any WMD side.
Media and elites had to sell the idea of WMD to a skeptical public, whereas this stuff…fck, it’s just getting gobbled up.
“I have long considered myself a “lefty,’ a “liberal” and a “progressive.” But I have despaired over the last 18 months at the behaviour of what I have often considered “my side.” The sinking of “fellow liberals” into a quagmire of political partisanship, political conspiracy theories, confirmation bias and hateful hostility to anyone daring to present an alternative viewpoint distresses me.
Hear, hear Ken.”
The problem with those kinds of very generalised statements is we have no idea who he is talking about. And that just creates confusion.
(and there is no single anti-Trump movement, hard to get past a headline like that).
Well, I took it to refer to anyone expressing “hostility to anyone daring to present an alternative viewpoint…”
And that being in relation to the rather specific anti-trump bandwagon running on allegations of collusion with Russia; rubbishy innuendo (that is not to be called out), and baseless gossip (also not to be called out).
On Russia, supposed collusion is to be treated as an accepted truth. The evidence will be forthcoming (apparently). Asking for concrete evidence now (after 18 months) is kinda “not cricket” and worthy of (in Ken’s words) “hostility”.
I don’t think Ken was implying there is a single anti_Trump movement, but was referring to ‘the’ anti-Trump movement – bones that both his pieces give flesh to.
Most of the political people on the left I speak with in the real world get that. Notwithstanding, it’s true to say we don’t tend to engage in political discussions with those who stray too far from our own views in real world situations.
Glen Greenwald an others have pointed all this out and termed it as a new McCarthyism. I don’t think they are wrong in having that view.
On Russia, supposed collusion is to be treated as an accepted truth.
Is it? There’s evidence that it happened, but evidence has to be weighted and considered before you can claim it’s proof of anything.
The closest thing we have to first hand knowledge of the motivation behind the investigation is Glenn Simpson’s testimony to Congress, in which he states that he and Steele became concerned that Trump is the victim of blackmail. Other fascinating nuggets include Trump claiming he does business deals in Russia when no such deals exist (which I take to mean that no property changes hands, no companies are registered and so-on – at least on paper), and that the FBI has a source in Trump’s organisation* (whether it predates his run for office remains unclear).
Assuming Simpson isn’t just lying about his motivation, that sheds an entirely different light on latter events.
When Trump says “there was no collusion”, perhaps that’s because he’s being extorted and blackmailed instead. Or perhaps But But But Hillary framed him or something.
Or perhaps it’s all just weak-sauce bs, as you seem convinced of.
The length of the investigation is a red herring.
*which means, btw, that their evidence probably won’t see the light of day until any trial occurs, for obvious reasons.
PS: Simpson says Steele severed links with the FBI because he came to the conclusion that they were interfering in the election. Make of that what you will.
So far yes, It’s all weak-sauce bs as far as I’m concerned.
That’s qualitatively different from being convinced it will all wind up being nothing more than weak-sauce bs. That’s merely a suspicion, and one that grows the longer no concrete evidence is produced.
There will be others, but Greenwald seems to be particularly surgical and thorough in his approach to supposedly factual claims being made by mainstream liberal outlets, and has very good pieces mapping out the who’s who of those behind pushing (many now debunked) “collusion and interference” stories through those outlets.
Sam Biddle, The Intercept.
If such evidence exists it would no doubt provide part of the case against Trump or his henchmen, and wouldn’t be revealed until then, just like anything provided by the FBI’s purported mole.
Its continued absence until then should be expected. I certainly wouldn’t firm up my position on that basis.
Why would concrete evidence being provided to underpin claims of the Russian government hacking DNC emails “no doubt provide part of the case against Trump…” ?
Also, there’s no mention of the FBI or an FBI mole in the piece you linked to.
Did you link to the wrong piece? Or are you just taking random Russia/Trump stuff and throwing it all in the same pot hoping to conjure up a Trump stew?
Wild projection/speculation about stew aside, I discussed Glenn Simpson’s testimony (in which he mentioned the mole) at 1.6.1.1.
For the reasons Biddle outlines in the article I linked: because it would validate the provenance of the phishing attack on the DNC, and thus provide strong evidence that anyone possessing that information (and offering it to Trump) was also working for the Russian government.
It would add context and flavour to any eventual charges or case for impeachment, for sure.
It’s worth reading Simpson’s testimony first-hand, if you have the time.
So unless it can be shown that the DNC emails were offered to Trump, then…
Yeah, CNN and a host of others already tried to run on that (“Proof” they said). it didn’t really end well for them 😉
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/09/the-u-s-media-yesterday-suffered-its-most-humiliating-debacle-in-ages-now-refuses-all-transparency-over-what-happened/
So unless it can be shown that the DNC emails were offered to Trump, then…
Well, if the CIA has Putin briefing Guccifer they probably have that conversation too. However, Trump’s people believed that’s what they were being offered, according to Papadopoulos.
As for CNN’s apparent eagerness to believe, I think you’ll find juries are harder to convince than journalists, so that’s another red herring.
All these false dichotomies are pretty tiring anyway. Cheers.
CNN lied through their fcking back teeth.
Will you be ok?
Collusion.
There is none.
Author of Trump-Russia Collusion Book Can’t Name Single Instance of Collusion in 30-Minute Interview
Like one of those repeat comedies that has you laughing as hard the second time around as the first. 🙂
The most revealing quote of all.
I’m a storyteller.
Not a journalist, then.
Luke Harding is further evidence of how far the Guardian has slid in the past 15 years.
“Pretty damning”.
This book about daffodils doesn’t mention Friesian Cows once!
Was the existence of the daffodils dependent upon the presence of Friesian cows?
No?
No matter whether mention is made of cows or not then.
Yawn. An argument with Hornetinthemiddle has more substance.
I wonder if Wolff’s Faulkner reference has any substance.
This article in the Guardian is worth checking out. It’s about PFIs (the British equivalent to PPPs), with a particular focus on the implications for the public sector when it’s left picking up the bill for (oh, so efficient!) private sector companies if they fail/declare bankruptcy when delivering public sector services or infrastructure.
So is the concern that a public company gets to run on private business lines and go for profit and big salaries, but if it strikes a bump and loses money, or is damaged and goes bust, then the taxpayer enters the picture and picks up the tab and pays out all the other business players involved?
Basically, yes.
I have to say that I don’t know enough about the NZ situation to say that things are exactly the same here, but in Britain at least, it seems that the economic benefits of PFIs were sold on the theory that they were a lower cost to the public purse than straight government funding, but that was only (marginally) true if the idea of “risk transfer” was factored in: “When you examine the claims made for the efficiency of the private sector, you soon discover that they boil down to the transfer of risk. Value for money hangs on the idea that companies shoulder risks the state would otherwise carry. But in cases like this (building hospitals), even when the company takes the first hit, the risk ultimately returns to the government. In these situations, the very notion of risk transfer is questionable.”
“The costing of risk is notoriously subjective. Because it involves the passage of a fiendishly complex contract through an unknowable future, you can make a case for almost any value. A study published in the British Medical Journal revealed that, before the risk was costed, every hospital scheme it investigated would have been built much more cheaply with public funds. But once the notional financial risks had been added, building them through PFI came out cheaper in every case, although sometimes by less than 0.1%.
Not only was this exercise (as some prominent civil servants warned) bogus, but the entire concept is negated by the fact that if collapse occurs, the risk ripples through the private sector and into the public.”
Thinking about risk in ventures and assessing it over time and possible cost and so on. Is that what is called actuarial? Anyway I just mention something that got into my head when reading about the great oil spill from a tanker near Alaska. I think it was the Exxon. The risk of the transport of oil had been assessed and it was felt likely that there might be an accident once in 25 years. To protect and mitigate against that there were requirements made of government keeping an overview, and shipping kept in the area for the especial purpose of handling large spills and damage to this large oil tanker.
25 years and perhaps an even shorter time, seems to be too long for people in general, and even government or business, to maintain a watching brief with the awareness and readiness as required by the assessment papers. When the disastrous accident happened, the government overview had been scaled back and to an extent the watchdog role had been captured by the company and industry, and the safety vessels with remedial equipment had been sent off to distant posts, and were
days, weeks away when needed urgently to deal with a very bad spill.
So government can not contract out effectively as it is the entity where the buck stops, and no other entity is going to take responsibility for the services or safety in the same way as the government does, as supposedly serving and answering to its citizens.
Carrillion is a very salient and timely lesson…PPPs (by any name) exist to enable the use of accounting deception (which no one believes) …even without the collapses and public bailouts they are a foolishly expensive method of funding capital expenditure/public service due to the shareholder returns, inflated salaries, self serving bonus culture and race to the bottom in terms of quality (both in construction and service) to win……another appalling example of short- termism.
I hadn’t gone to the link at the beginning of the thread and in case if others haven’t, the below paras are the start of an important column relating to the collapse of some ambitious entity called Carrillion.
Again the “inefficient” state mops up the disasters caused by “efficient” private companies. Just as the army had to step in when G4S failed to provide security for the London 2012 Olympics, and the Treasury had to rescue the banks, the collapse of Carillion means that the fire service must stand by to deliver school meals.
Two hospitals, both urgently needed, that Carillion was supposed to be constructing, the Midland Metropolitan and the Royal Liverpool, are left in half-built limbo, awaiting state intervention. Another 450 contracts between Carillion and the state must be untangled, resolved and perhaps rescued by the government.
We have the penetration of our business opportunities by these international and overseas-modelled companies. Profitable business is their game, and the game is moulded around contracts that are set rock-hard by legalities, if not in any physical legal form, probably all on-line.
The music suitable to the acting out of the whole enterprise, I think would be Chess. The satirising that I know and enjoy best, would be from the Telegraph’s Alex by Peattie and Taylor.
They are on a robot theme at present, and the robots are coming off second best to the simple cunning of stock traders. May as well laugh while business goes on going forward. I like January 15.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/alex/?cc=10151369
Our medias bias will not give much coverage to another rip off and the failures of Privitization ….. or as its modern bastard children are called …. PPP’s, PFI’s, charter schools etc
Its core national party ideology .
With a PPP failure the money is burned and contracted services do not get delivered … Meaning tax payers will pay twice
Even worse in the latest failure from england…. their contracted company also destroyed half a billion pounds of workers pension money …
Here’s a Swedish PPP scam example, which our media has probably never reported on …. As it also involves our Ex PMs line of work ….
“Swedish authorities in 2010 gave a single bidder the contract in a so called public-private partnership (PPP) – not only to build the hospital but also account for the financing and maintenance for decades to come.”
“” (Mission: Investigation) can now reveal that large sums in the prestigious project is routed to the tax haven of Luxembourg.”
https://www.icij.org/investigations/luxembourg-leaks/controversial-swedish-hospital-partnership-has-luxembourg-links/
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/granskning/ug/new-karolinska-advanced-tax-scheme-in-luxembourg
Trade Me making change in dog breed advertising that seems very ethical – reported
by The Wireless.
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/pugs-prohibited-trade-me-bans-sale-of-brachycephalic-breeds
Yes, One News reported this last night, interviewing the head of the NZ Veterinary Association who said that even if owners were unaware of it, most of these dogs suffer and that their breathing problems are like trying to breathe through a pillow. I note the SPCA are also in favour.
My neighbour, died recently of emphysema. Very sad. There was the difficulty in breathing and talking made it worse and it was hard to listen to the effort. It seems unfair to the dogs to put them through that state of limiting breathing.
I see Treasury has admitted an error, again!! It is amazing when they get it right.
Straight out of Doctor Strangelove.
A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.
[…]
But the biggest difference lies in new wording about what constitutes “extreme circumstances.”
In the Trump administration’s draft, those “circumstances could include significant non-nuclear strategic attacks.” It said that could include “attacks on the U.S., allied, or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.”
The draft does not explicitly say that a crippling cyberattack against the United States would be among the extreme circumstances. But experts called a cyberattack one of the most efficient ways to paralyze systems like the power grid, cellphone networks and the backbone of the internet without using nuclear weapons.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/us/politics/pentagon-nuclear-review-cyberattack-trump.html
It appears that the totalitarian dystopia of countless sci-fi movies is almost upon us. (Or am I just late to the party??) This tender…
NZ Police are seeking proposals from suitably experienced, qualified and resourced companies to provide the ABIS 2 (Automated Biometric Identification Solution) Facial Image Identification and Management, Scar, Mark and Tattoo, and Clothing database Technology Solution(s).
https://www.gets.govt.nz/NZP/ExternalTenderDetails.htm?id=19367937
We already know who you are…
That’s OK PR – we know who you are too 🙂
Dammit, not again!
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/OPWZw48US2w/maxresdefault.jpg
The Police seem to try to remain separate from Parliament, though supporting stable government.
Are they under any control at all then? Or just sort of contracted by the gummint and get paid a budget amount, and set targets to reduce, contain crime etc. but the details of how becomes ‘an operational matter’. How much are the police serving the country, or developing into a self-motivated force, with its own individual practices only loosely related to current morals and ethics?
@ phantom snowflake (7)
Some say China is the future we’re closely tying ourselves too.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/100399747/in-china-facial-recognition-is-sharp-end-of-a-drive-for-total-surveillance
I have high hopes for Cabinet Minister, Tracey Martin. If she can match her deeds with her verbal down to earth, commonsense approach, she will be a very good minister in the Lab. led government.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/ministry-vulnerable-children-today-drops-its-name
Yep. If National were honest about what they really thought they would have called it the:
“Ministry for the Children of Hopeless People Who Can’t Survive in the Glorious Economic System Instituted by Dear Leader, Economic Genius, Overlord of the South, Rugged Individualist and Teemingly Fertile Lord English”.
But they settled for ‘Vulnerable’ – nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
That;s all changed AB. The old term was far too blatant.
I agree, Anne – I think she’ll be great – she has a huge task ahead of her though, and a lot of hurting people who want everything done yesterday
I’m also looking forward to Labour dropping the term “vulnerable workers”…
http://communitylaw.org.nz/community-law-manual/chapter-15-being-employed/vulnerable-workers-additional-protections-in-certain-industries-chapter-15/
From usenet (yes it still exists!)
__________________
Time to bring back the Ministry of Works
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/16/pfi-bosses-carillion-money-george-monbiot
Time and time again we see that private companies are more efficient
than the State – but only in relation to transferring profits to
shareholders and key managers, not to actually producing the goods and
services that they are contracted to provide.
Let this be a lesson to governments – the previous National
governments saw failures that cost taxpayers; will the LGNZF
government be fooled the same way?
The reality is that financing costs are cheaper for the government
than for anyone else – that is an immediate benefit for not having
partnerships with private companies that finance at higher rates. Then
there is control, and whether quality and risk are actually managed
well – for if anything goes wrong, the taxpayer ends up footing a
higher bill.
_________________
There is another perspective than mitigating financial risk – it is the time frame of the different parties. That of business is only a few years, and getting shorter. Under National, some roading projects were contracted to special purpose companies set up by interested parties to undertake the work entirely on borrowed money – those tendering had little capital of their own invested in the project. When the first Labour government decided to build social housing, they used government employees for design, engineering, planning, plans; they used largely contractors to do detailed work, but they used government employees to supervise the work and ensure that standards were understood and maintained. They built to last – and many state houses from that era are now regarded as well built, if now dated in style, and are still being used ovr 60 years later.
As an example of how we have fallen from those standards, consider the Defence Department. They moved out of their Stout Street headquarters, purpose built for them many years ago, to a new building in Aitken Street. In recent years the old building, which was structurally very sound, had become too small and in need of refurbishment. It was sold to a private developer who did that work and now leases it to another governmetn department. Meanwhile, the Aitken Street building is I am told being pulled down as it is now an earthquake risk. Similarly Statistics New Zealand moved to a new building which partially collapsed, fortunately not killing anyone, but leaving many archives lost as the building remains unsafe – in both cases while earlier buildings built with long term use in mind rather than “lowest cost is all that matters,” remain standing and able to be used.
Taking a longer view can be difficult – sometimes a slower project can only deliver full benefits in the next parliamentary term or even later, but running a system that respects employees with proper training programmes and high business ethics can bear fruit in a lot of other ways as those people move into other jobs in the private sector. Fair dealing used to mean something in business, and still does in some parts of the country. I believe the current government can afford to plan for a second term; provided they pander to short termism enough to be elected, but deliver enough permanent solutions in that second term to have a very good chance of a third term.
Do the work and run the counterfactual then.
The state builds everything as you want, and what happens next?
Addled dotard claims he has the best brain because he found his way through a dementia screen.
He blamed his three immediate predecessors, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, for failing to resolve the crisis and, a day after his doctor gave him a perfect score on a cognitive test, suggested he had the mental acuity to solve it.
“I guess they all realized they were going to have to leave it to a president that scored the highest on tests,” he said.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-exclusive/exclusive-trump-says-russia-helping-north-korea-skirt-sanctions-pyongyang-getting-close-on-missile-idUSKBN1F62KO
He can’t see how his son and son in law having contact with Russians during an election campaign who offer to dish dirt on his opponent isn’t collusion and meddling, but at least we know he can tell a lion, from a rhino, from a camel.
Great stuff, from the idiot president.
Got my hands on his cognitive assessment.
https://archive.li/G9OSa/b5b35d2d6e586e46ef4374c2b2984ebd599cd7e9.jpg
Funny
🙂
You have to be a genius to answer that.
And a score of 40 out of 30 is absolutely amazing!
It’s a well known fact that some geniuses are raving mad.
You know how Einstein’s primary school grades were terrible? Well mine were even worse!
[lifted from Calvin and Hobbs]
I was referring to the copy of the “examination” joe linked to Anne. It is a joke.
If you have a look at the link you will see what I mean.
My reply was a light hearted quip too at Trump’s expense. Didn’t want to upset Bill by being too explicit. 😉
That was great. Bill and his mate Dr. Ken will not be pleased though.
Surprising result, but whatevs. At least he’s fit enough to stand trial…
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11976860
Let the rorting commence!
A gift for you.
When you already have this:
Several exemptions can be granted such as if the mother is at risk of violence, or if there is insufficient evidence of who the father is.
Why change it?
For example, articles seven and twelve of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
With regard to privacy, in the case of receiving a state funded benefit, I think most people would agree that if the conditions for receiving the benefit are met, even if one of those conditions require revealing who the father is, then equality under the law has been met. Though I don’t believe it is a law that benefits must be paid to citizens – they are just policies of the government at the time.
If privacy is the main concern, then the government has no need to know how much money I earn to tax me.
I don’t give a shit what you and “most people” agree on. Human rights are universal, no matter how many justifications you can come up with.
+1 in respect of OAG’s response to you.
You appear to have no understanding of NZ’s obligations and responsibilities resulting from NZ’s ratification of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and ratification of other related International Conventions and Covenants etc since 1948 relating to things like the rights of the child, the rights of persons with disabilities, elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, status of refugees to name but a few of these – all of which are enshrined in various pieces of NZ legislation.
IMO this statement in your comment is astounding in its ignorance – “Though I don’t believe it is a law that benefits must be paid to citizens – they are just policies of the government at the time.”
If you really believe that then you obviously have no understanding of other pieces of NZ legislation such as the various iterations of the Social Security Act etc that have been enacted in NZ over the last 80 years since 1938 with the introduction of the first Labour Government’s social welfare programme – and which set out both rights and obligations of both the government and the recipients of welfare payments.
Trouble brewing for the new Government.
It seems property investors are fleeing the rental market with Labour’s policies being one of the driving factors.
With a sufficient number of new homes from Kiwibuild being years away, coupled with an insufficient number of new state homes proposed thus far, Labour are likely to face an increase in the number of homelessness and tenants facing soaring rents (along with their related ills) over its first term. Risking widespread voter disillusionment.
How will Labour overcome this? Will they buy private rentals and turn them into state rentals? Will they buy and turn private rentals into Kiwibuild homes?
Will they be forced to house more in motels? Giving the opposition their stick to hit them with.
“Trouble brewing for the new Government.”
You’re excited, I can tell!!
I don’t find a potential increase in the number of homelessness and tenants facing soaring rents exciting, Robert.
How will Labour overcome this? Will they buy private rentals and turn them into state rentals? Will they buy and turn private rentals into Kiwibuild homes?
That’s going to force up house prices.
Desperate government = ask for whatever you want.
Hold it. Every one look at BM becoming a stable genius. How amazing it is the house prices will go up. Your a real fucking genius you know that BM… Amazing…
It will offset falling investor and owner buyer demand. Thus, will make little if any net difference to demand, hence market price.
You know at some point when investors make shitty investments they should actually lose out on it when it goes tits up. I mean. My god, the government can’t keep bailing out unsophisticated investors all the time.
It’s not about bailing out investors (which maybe an unintended consequence) it’s about securing homes for people and families.
Nah. It’s like BM is reading from a script or something… Like he’s given these messages to say with out even understanding the words that are coming of his keyboard and when ever he goes off script he just comes across as a Nigerian con artist. He’s worthless.
In Wellington, it will, if it became known the government was buying existing rentals and they were desperate for them, then it becomes a seller’s market and you can start asking above the going rate.
Not like the government has to go to the bank and get a mortgage.
Anyway, the big issue is that people have taken their rentals off the market, so unless the government can convince these people to either sell their rentals to the government or put them back on the market it will make no difference.
The problem still is there’s not enough rentals, complete fuck up by Labour.
I mean that’s the definition of a property bubble. If the government purchase above market rates then who will pay the next trench up of house prices… See the false ideology? People want security not a Ponzi scheme.
Regardless of it being Wellington or not, they would merely be shoring up the downfall in demand, thus largely maintaining current market prices, not increasing them.
Due to the poor condition of a number of rentals (especially in Wellington) and the fact the Government’s budget will be limited, one would expect offers will be realistic, despite any perceived desperation.
We’ve already had BMs hysteria over drug testing state houses, and not even been unfit for habitation. Now BMs so thick in the head he dosnt even understand that he’s pushing a Ponzi scam. He’s a totally con.
he does understand supply and demand
If you think all rentals and tenants are the same then you’re insane… Because when BM assumes that all tenants and rentals are the same it’s actually mathematically impossible for BM to derive a supply curve…
I mean… Fuck me… This is why I don’t educate flaky virtue signallers.
If carefully managed a glut of homes for sale that eases pricing in the ‘1st home’ category could be a good thing. I think it would be interesting to see what price range of properties investors are selling up. Gut feel tells me it won’t be the expensive end of the rental market, those tenants are better placed to absorb increases. The renters that are finally able to afford a starter home of their own will be making their previous rental home available to others with their move.
At this stage, easing pricing to widen accessibility to more first home buyers would more than likely require prices to fall. And a falling housing market would exacerbate the new Government’s problems. Which is one reason why Labour campaigned on slowing the rate of increase, not dropping the current value of homes.
Investors selling up basic boxes in West and South Auckland could see an over supply in one sector of the market, prices easing in that under 500k sector. I guess there would be a spill-over to the 1.5 million dollar McMansions but that sector could remain quite buoyant. Investors won’t be pumping stock into that sector, not increasing the supply.
Great spin potential for Jacinda’s mob.
“Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that 2000 rental homes have had ‘For Sale’ signs hammered into their verges in the last 3 months?”
“Yes, 1st home ownership take-up is the highest it’s been for 5 years and rising. Those first home buyers are vacating rental homes.”
The problem is with the realestate industry needing sales volume, so pretty much convincing retirees to sell the family home for a million and scale down. The problem is those scaled down beach homes or what ever… Is closing in on the million dollar average. And this is usually the one nest egg for retirement so it’s like once the money gone. Then what?
If there’s continued down turn in construction then there will be a recession kiwi style so consideration must be given to keeping the kiwi home, not selling.
“1st home ownership take-up is the highest it’s been for 5 years “
With record high immigration, thus new immigrants looking for their first NZ home, it’s not that surprising.
“Those first home buyers are vacating rental homes”
While some of them will be, evidently it’s done little to ease the current rental shortage problem with demand exceeding supply. Which suggests it’s more a case of new immigrants buying their first homes squeezing locals out, hence forcing more to rent.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/property/100675144/rentals-in-hot-demand-and-shortage-wont-ease-anytime-soon-trade-me
@ David Mac (12.3.1.1)
While it will be largely centered around the lower end of the market and in areas with a high number rentals, it won’t be solely limited to that end or area of the market. So yes, their will be spillover. Along with a heighten risk it could all quickly unravel.
Buyers are far less inclined to buy in a declining market, preferring to hold off (thus adding to the downward spiral) expecting to save thousands as they anticipate prices to further decline.
The world dodged a bullet when the warmonger lost…oh
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday committed the United States to an indefinite military presence in Syria, citing a range of policy goals that extend far beyond the defeat of the Islamic State as conditions for American troops to go home.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/us-troops-will-stay-in-syria-to-counter-strategic-threat-from-iran/2018/01/17/eeed9d16-fb8f-11e7-9b5d-bbf0da31214d_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.04b2a86d0a7a
Not clean.
Not green.
Wasteful.
‘Idiotic systems’: NZ most wasteful country in developed world
The greed of farmers, the weakness of neoliberal politicians and the devastating impact of irrigation
Its consequences.
Millan Ruka on Facebook
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3
A history lesson…….
Before you condemn Fox News as the most outrageous media outlet in
the world, have a look at the English version of French state television.
France 24 News, 11 p.m., FACE TV (Sky Channel 83), Tuesday 16 Jan. 2018
We are depressingly accustomed to television “news” being often little more than a conduit of state propaganda, whether it’s on the BBC, ABC (the Australian one), RT, Deutsche Welle, Al Jazeera, PBS, CBS, ABC (the American one), NBC, MSNBC, Fox News, and our own TVNZ and NewsHub. As craven as all of the above are, however, the other night I saw something that equalled, perhaps even surpassed, all of the above for sheer brass-plated, malicious, bloody-minded dishonesty: I watched the first ten minutes of the English version of France 24.
The alarm bells were ringing on this from the first live cross on the very first item, about the call for the PLO to cut its ties with Israel. That cross was to “our correspondent in the region, Irris Makler.” Now, long-time listeners will remember that we encountered this shamelessly one-sided Israeli-Australian back in July 2011 when RNZ National wheeled her on to talk about a convoy of peace activists trying to break the illegal blockade of Gaza. She joked to Kathryn Ryan that the Gaza peace convoy was “dead in the water”, sneered that there were “celebrities like Alice Walker” on board, and ignored the presence of the 86-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein. [1] A week later, she was still defaming peace protestors, this time for Deutsche-Welle. [2])
It turns out that Irris Makler has not changed her modus operandi in the slightest: “You know Palestinians will pay a price internationally,” she intoned darkly. Then she claimed, in contradiction to all evidence, that the Oslo agreements had led to “great changes” in the Occupied Territories.
Unbelievably, there was worse to come. The newsreader, one Alexander Aucott, introduced the next item, about Ahed Tamimi, the 16 year old Palestinian girl arrested and charged for slapping an armed IDF soldier. He read out, with a straight face, that she had been:
Alexander Aucott should have mentioned that just before Ahed Tamimi slapped one of the soldiers who’d invaded her yard, she had learned that her 15-year-old cousin Mohammed had been shot in the head at close range by an Israeli soldier. But for some reason Aucott—or more likely, his scriptwriter—chose to ignore all that and instead portray her as an aggressor and the soldier as a victim. It’s not many years since French state media and scurrilous tabloids approvingly covered the Sarkozy government’s loading of gypsies on to trains and expelling them from France. Clearly, honesty and integrity still count for little or nothing in the French state media.
The impression of shabbiness and lack of professionalism was only magnified by the appearance of Alexander Aucott, who looks like a young, scruffy clone of Neil Kinnock, and glowers at the camera reproachfully as he mouths his loaded lines. The wretchedness of all this was only magnified by its following immediately after a brilliant Democracy Now! special on Martin Luther King.
[1] /open-mike-04072011/#comment-347912
[2] /open-mike-11072011/#comment-350723
Take a look into the ‘free speech’ laws in France…
They’re currently seeking to control ‘fake news’…
No doubt you’re already aware…
No, he’s lucky, there are no fake news laws in NZ.
Well all Stuff and rhe Herald provide is propaganda and fake news.
Hence the apathy and ignorance of some many New Zealanders.
So many people vote against their own interests, supporting ghastly neoliberal policies that ruin society and the environment.
The media corral people into opinions by repeating the lies.
France 24 is fake news. At least it was on Tuesday night. And I’m sure it regularly and dependably delivers such nasty propaganda; I don’t think Mr Aucott’s gruesome performance was an aberration.
Trump is a direct result of the Clinton’s. Why do I say this well first Trump and the Clinton’were associates and Bill would have told trump about the Mana that A President of America has and this would have made Trump obsessed with the goal of becoming President in my view. Bill was that obsessed with getting that Mana back through Hillary that he minupulated the Democratic party to get Hillary as there front runner candidate and not Bernice Sanders and wallar we have Trump as President the way trump is behaving is because of what Bill told Trump. I say if it looks like one talks like one than he is a Racist Bigot who panders to his polling that is what is keeping him in power and he will use anything through anyone under the bus say anything to keep this Mana that he is intoxicated with. This is a very dangerous man with the world future in his hands and you know what comes first in trumps world Trump. Is this the person whom is supposed to look after all Americans wellbeing Ana to kai
trump is the world’s biggest mana muncher.
Sorry about the heat morning rumble you should have got the bug spray out and sprayed the sandflys lol. They won’t shut you down that would make OUR Mana even greater I wonder what happened to that South Waikato airial of yours last year???????. I figure out that when I get a random phone call unanswered my phone is been hacked they can’t stop me using it for posting on the standard but they can listen and use the camera and also change my alarm and turn alarm off. Every time the sandflys try and spin shit about me they end up with shit in there face. This will allways happen because I have done nothing.
Its cool being famous from Pokai Tikapa Waiomatatini Tairawhiti I go into the Putaruru supermarket and there is a lot of chatting and excitement going down I start shopping and when I got to the checkout everyone’s vanished. The sandflys have followed me into the shop and told/bullied everyone and told them to not let me know that I’m well known. I have been going into this supermarkets for 12 years off and on The same thing happens at Rotorua pack and save they are so _____ its not funny Ka kite ano