What's stopping them find common ground? Corbyn "said his party had negotiated "in good faith and very seriously, and put forward a lot of very detailed arguments", which he thought was "the responsible thing to do". He added: "The issue [is] that the government has not fundamentally shifted its view and the divisions in the Conservative Party mean the government is negotiating with no authority and no ability that I can see to actually deliver anything.""
"Speaking after meeting Tory activists in Bristol, Mrs May said: "There have been areas where we have been able to find common ground, but other issues have proved to be more difficult. In particular, we haven't been able to overcome the fact that there isn't a common position in Labour about whether they want to deliver Brexit or hold a second referendum to reverse it."
In other words, there's obvious common ground: equivocation & disunity in both wings of the establishment. A common quicksand – no basis upon which to proceed.
Or to return to a frequent theme, this is a direct consequence of globalisation lacking common principles and democratic accountability.
Our physical reality is a world with 7 billion people that is one species rapidly converging as a single geo-social polity. Trade, travel, communication and a myriad of legal, commercial and technical mechanisms compel us into connection, yet the nation states have been unable to deliver an effective political mechanism to match.
We've lived in an era in which there have been more and more powerful multilateral organizations and binding agreements across the known world than since the Christian church. Most of them formed in the last 70 years.
May and Corbyn simply don't believe in the best and most complex of these: the E.U.
Good point. You are quite correct, I carelessly glossed over that.
May and Corbyn simply don't believe in the best and most complex of these: the E.U.
Yet neither of these people are fools, nor all the aprox 50% of Britons who voted for Brexit. The question has to be why do they not believe in it? My answer is that we have yet to fully embrace the idea of globalisation as an moral idea. We believe in our families, our communities (whatever form they may take) and the nations we're citizens of yet somehow the next logical step, a belief in the organic unity of the human race, eludes us.
Stiglitz' 'Globalisation And Its Discontents' covers most of this ground.
I think we're about as unified as a human race as we are going to get, and we've done pretty well at it. Importantly we prefer the nation-state a the most powerful and enduring of the collective.
And honestly we expect too much from any one cross-national agreement, the CPTPP being a fairly strong recent one with buckets of extra moral suasion thrown in at the end to keep us happy.
I certainly expect the nation state to endure. Human history can be roughly modeled as successive extensions of our ability to unite. We started with modest family clan and tribal units, then built layers onto them, the village, the city state and currently the nation. It's crucial to recognise that each new layer incorporated and enhanced the ones that came before.
For instance, when the family/tribal unit is the largest political unit you have to work with, everything must be solved at that level. The appearance of the nation state far from being a constraint, liberated the family unit.
At this moment in history all the big problems we face are global in nature. Only when we have the political mechanisms at that scale to address them, will the nation states be liberated to reach their full and unsuspected potential.
And thanks for the Stiglitz link. Yes worth a read by the looks.
“The main message of Globalization and its Discontents was that the problem was not globalization, but how the process was being managed. Unfortunately, the management didn’t change. Fifteen years later, the new discontents have brought that message home to the advanced economies.”
The global agreements that will bind nations to reverse the great global problems won't exist. We've pushed human cooperation as far as it's going to get. There's plenty of juice left in the existing organizations if they were supported. You can probably name good examples.
But there are plenty of other mechanisms that are more powerful than national and multinational agreements. The most powerful of them are markets, and many of those are already regulated in the broader interest very well.
Other mechanisms exists in only two of the most powerful countries we have: China and the United States. China's Belt and Road initiative for example. Plenty of faults, but no lack of international ambition or will.
Further mechanisms for global consensus exist in social media. Trump has led the way on how strong this mechanism is.
Even Ardern+Macron's Christchurch Call shows that agreement can simply start from fresh events. It's not a breakthrough, but it's a dent.
I don't think there's any need to wait until a global government arrives.
Britain went through much the same turbulent era, such as the War of the Roses, as it transitioned from city state level of social unity to the nation state. Achieving a broader level of social cohesion never an easy process, and encounters much resistance. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; not all new forms are necessarily a good thing. It's wise that we should test the new before we commit irreversibly.
Yet there is a deep paradox in human social organisation. We value our freedom and independence, yet in isolation we perish. It's a terrible contradiction, but in order to gain true liberty we must first surrender part of our freedom. For example, in order to make the best use of a road we must collectively abide by the constraints of a road code. If we each retained the right to randomly choose whichever side of the road to drive on each morning, collectively the result would render them catastrophically useless.
Collectively we all share a planet and the nation states have reached the point where each must surrender a part of their sovereignty in order to evolve to their next step. Until then we're stuck in escalating cycles of mismanaged globalisation, confrontation and conflict.
I do agree with your last sentiment; waiting for a fully functioning federated global government is not necessary; there are many incremental steps along the way that can be achieved. The EU was as you say one of the better attempts.
It is Germany's sense of postwar cross-national amity that sought a structure of cooperation that would stop all future wars, and that evolved from the EC to the EU we have today.
The E.U. is still expanding, so that impulse is still alive. But barely.
So the historical circumstance is pretty different to what you point to.
I'm still waiting for the Pacific Islands to figure that their tiny non-sustaining little fiefdoms are better amalgamated into a pan-national confederation. They've got plenty to fight for after all.
In the meantime New Zealand needs to keep dear, dear hold of that special relationship with Australia. That's as close as we're going to get to Federation with something of any heft.
So the historical circumstance is pretty different to what you point to.
In the normal course of events you are right, the impulse toward higher levels of cooperation is fitful and unsatisfying.
But every now and then, such as in the aftermath of WW1 and WW2, we have a moment of clarity, when in horror and shame at what we have done, we take a decisive step.
We have a choice, doing this the hard way, or the very horrifyingly traumatic way. But it will happen, because the alternatives to my mind are not acceptable.
Seems to me it's the difference between ideal & reality. United Europe is an excellent idea. The consequent eurocracy has alienated too many people. Just as the United Nations was an excellent idea, discredited by dysfunction.
What's necessary in high-level political organisations is appropriate design, followed by smooth operation. Design flaws and malfunctions must be eliminated as they appear. Instead, the human tendency to instutionalise such problems kicks in. The tacit assumption `fixing it is too hard' prevails. We need to empower fixers. Democracy selects non-fixers.
We've lived in an era in which there have been more and more powerful multilateral organizations and binding agreements across the known world than since the Christian church. Most of them formed in the last 70 years.
Very powerful and ubiquitous these new religions eg Harari (sapiens)
“The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum. In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we'll really get paradise in return? We've seen it on television.”
I've been waiting to see how long it would take for kiwi entrepeneurs to rise to the challenge of waste recycling since the early eighties. It's finally happened!
"When China stopped taking plastic in 2018, it had a knock-on effect. Our soft plastics had been going to Australia but with a global market flooded with plastic, we can no longer rely on overseas processors and are forced to manage our own waste. Soft plastic has no commercial value and is difficult to repurpose."
"That's where Jerome Wenzlick steps in. He's a farmer and fencer who came up with an idea while putting up fencing at a rubbish dump. "We were putting wooden posts into the ground and the posts were snapping and we thought why don't we make some posts out of the plastic that's in the ground," he told Newshub. He's set up a company called Future Post and since the start of the year, he's recycled 300 tonnes – that's 75 truck loads."
"The soft plastic is sorted and granulated, then mixed with milk bottles, before going through a New Zealand-designed and built extruder to melt and reform it into fence posts. The equivalent of 550 plastic bags goes into making each post."
Fancy a district council being that enterprising! "It's up to the Manawatū District Council to persuade the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment after the provincial development unit handed it $81,000 to put together a business plan."
I hope the economics is viable. Fits in with regional development too eh? Not many jobs but they all help. I wouldn't trust the MBIE to necessarily get it right though.
If they fail to approve it, the MDC ought to pay a leading economic consultancy to appraise the plan too, to identify whatever the design flaw is, or it exists merely in the minds of bureaucrats, formulate a contrary analysis in support of it which the MDC could then submit directly to the minister for regional development – or the minister for the environment, perhaps. Because a viable scheme could be copied in other regions…
Yes, that's a realistic view of local body politics. And why the MDC initiative is so unusual. To be optimistic, one could also anticipate a copycat effect, which is likely if the scheme works. That would provide a progressive trend.
While agreeing that the way Tame Iti was treated was appaĺling and most certainly had a racist element to it, the major flaw in your argument is that he couldn't be charged with murder, having not killed anyone! Besides, the murder charge for the Chch perpetrator is, as I understand it, only an initial charge and there is more to come. I think you are comparing apples with oranges
…the major flaw in your argument is that he [Tama Iti] couldn't be charged with murder, having not killed anyone! JanM
Hi Jan,
I didn't argue, that Tama Iti should have been charged with murder. That would have obviously been completely ridiculous, (almost as completely ridiculous as charging him with terrorism).
I contended that if Tama Iti could be charged with terrorism, (despite not terrorising anyone), then the Christchurch white supremacist must be charged with terrorism, after oganising and planning an attack that killed 51 innocent New Zealand men women and children.
I further contend; that to not to charge this white supremacist with committing a terrorist act would represent a racist double standard.
….the murder charge for the Chch perpetrator is, as I understand it, only an initial charge and there is more to come. JanM
Jan you are absolutely right, the police can bring extra charges under the Suppression Of Terrorism. But will they?
Can a white person be a terrorist in New Zealand, or not?
The whole world is watching.
I am hopeful that this white supremacist mass murderer, will face extra charges laid under the Suppression Of Terrorism Act.
I suspect (though don't know) that if hes charged with murder its probably because charging him with terrorism might be problematic in getting the conviction whereas 51 counts of murder will certainly be easier to prove
to be honest you need to take that up with the current government not me.
to me he is a white supremacist and a terrorist and a mass murderer and an all around shitheel.
Any other question you may have you need to address with those that make the rules and that ain't me.
As for the privilege that white people have i have on more then on occasion addressed the fact that us white people have it, want it and are currently crying big tears about the fact that we are loosing it. And again, my position is that white people should never have had that privilege in the first place and in the case of many countries only got to be the top dog by systematically killing and eradicating the first nations by point of gun, with the help of chicken pox invested blankets, starvation, stolen generations and so forth.
As for those that cry over lost 'equality' in this country of any other 'white' country, i would like to point out that people of color, and women/children of all colors never were considered 'equal', never had 'equal rights' and certainly did not have the 'equal protection' accorded to white men in the courts of law and public opinion.
You haz questions. The esteemed and learned Professor Geddis haz answers.
Go to https://www.pundit.co.nz/ and scroll down to March 16, 2019. (the URL for the article contains the fuckwit's name so it gets caught in the moderation trap here)
tl;dr Charging the fuckwit with terrorism involves trying to prove stuff like state of mind that's much more difficult to prove than the bare facts of his murderous actions. In any case, getting a conviction for terrorism on top of the murders won't have any material effect on what his sentence is likely to be. So yes, that shows the terrorism law is not fit for purpose and needs to be changed.
it wont have any material effect on sentencing but it will set precedent (and unfortunately provide platform) ….if this isnt a terrorist act then what is?…is that a question worth asking including removal of some future defendant using a lack of charge in this instance as a potential defence?
"During Mike Pence’s first year as governor of Indiana, his state put a young woman in prison for having a miscarriage, alleging that she’d taken an abortion-causing drug. Purvi Patel didn’t have a trace of such a drug in her system, but Pence’s state sentenced her to 20 years in prison anyway. Just a few years earlier, Indiana had also held Bei Bei Shuai for 435 days in the brutal maximum security Marion County prison, facing 45 years to life for trying to kill herself and, in the process, causing the death of her 33-week fetus.
Utah charged 28-year-old Melissa Ann Rowland with murder because she refused a C-section, preferring vaginal birth for her twins, and one of them died. Sixteen-year-old Rennie Gibbs was charged by the state of Mississippi with “depraved heart murder” when her baby was born dead because his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck: her crime was that she had cocaine in her bloodstream, according to prosecutors. Angela Carder was ordered to have a C-section to deliver her baby before she died of cancer; both she and the baby died from the procedure."
yeah, lets all just mock the idea of some religious zealots having a party in NZ and getting a say in Parliament because the Party of No mates is run by wet toast covered in margarine.
Cause we absolutely should not look to what happens in other countries and wonder if we want the same shit happening here.
Sabine (5) this is shocking! Yet they are out there, those "Christian" zealot conservative white males, wanting complete control over vulnerable women and girls. Demonstrating total ignorance of the highest order!
I'd be interested to know if the same cruel rules and actions would apply to the wives, daughters and granddaughters of the sadistic, vile Mike Pences of the world, whose rabid and dangerous mindsets belong back in the dark ages and before that even.
NZers have to be very alert as to who/what creeps into our political system, particularly when it comes to electing representatives.
the whole point is not to give married women grief (at least for now), but to harrass unmarried women who may only have sex for fun or so and force them back under the tutelage of Daddy until given over to Hubby at the church. Ownership over women and children is the whole point. The fetus is just the tool to achieve that.
in saying that, if you look at south america you will see that many women already are in prison for having miscarriages/or self induced abortions as the doctors don't want to incriminate themselves or simply report them to police and ……..locking up some poor women is just easier then proving solutions that would allow women access to science based healthcare, prenatal care, and / or simply the right to live a live save of sexual predators.
Modern, innovative learning environment in re-born Christchurch.
Police have been called in after a pig in the school's petting zoo had a stick stuck up its bum.
At the very least the children should have been taught how to slaughter and prepare the pig before putting it on the spit.
Seriously, is this school an anomaly, or is this the reality for education today?
An in depth article which gathers opinions from both sides.
Many staff who had their own children enrolled had since removed them, they said.
"I know those leaders were really intent on believing in the school philosophy but at the end of the day, after under two years, they just couldn't sacrifice their beloved kids.
"They [Haeata management] developed a philosophy without knowing the kids. They left out the most important thing."
Kai Fong said that every staff member had the opportunity to give feedback and meet face to face with the board if they chose.
Relief teacher Nadine Garrett liked Haeata's environment but said it wasn't right for everyone.
"I felt really sorry for the traditional teachers, they felt like they were just floating."
Personally, I'd find the noise in a classroom of 300 self -directed learners unbearable and while its laudable for the school to use incidences of bullying as a learning opportunity it appears it is not doing much to reduce the level of violence.
It's going to take a while and a lot of training to bring mainstream teachers to a point where they can operate successfully in an environment like this. Its basic kaupapa would appear to be similar to the ec Te Whariki curriculum and is common sense to us (I am ece trained ) but very scary, I would think, to a lot of the 'chalk and talk' brigade. By the way, I would never leave animals unprotected in any environment around children, no matter what their backgrounds. The inability to show kindness and compassion is most emphaticaĺly not confined to any one class or ethnicity.
Kai Fong said there was no evidence to suggest the rate of violence was higher at Haeata than other schools and he believed there was an "inherent bias" against the east side of Christchurch. "I think the preconception of more violence here is unjustified."
However, he said a proportion of Haeata's pupils struggled to "engage consistently in learning" and some "do not have the requisite social and emotional skills to be fully functional in learning".
A former teacher recalled incidents in 2017 when a glass object was thrown near an itinerant teacher and smashed. She was also told to "f… off, you b….," while being swung at with a traffic patrol pole by a 5-year-old. Children threw scooters, rode bikes inside, and there was constant swearing and verbal abuse.
As a result, the teacher took two terms off with post-traumatic stress, and had private counselling for 12 weeks.
The following year, the school sought police help to change the culture. The "highly successful initiative" focused on "pro-social behaviours" with girls at Haeata.
It seems counterintuitive to have a bunch of kids with known behavioural and learning difficulties in such an open plan environment. Too much noise and distraction and it would be damn near impossible to concentrate. I wonder if (in these days of mainstreaming kids with learning/behavioural issues) they have a squadron of teacher aides,or if they have 'special' rooms where those kids that are struggling can go for quiet time.
It would be interesting to know the make up of the kids being pulled from Haeata.
Experience in how politicians and government interact with the rich, relative to how they interact with the poor, points directly to such a school never being allowed to be experimented in Remuera or Fendalton.
Wake up.
No apology, but yes plenty of bitterness. All very real. Is why society is cleaving down the middle. Fuck the rich and their politicians.
This quote confirms a comment I made the other day about the difficulties that teachers have these days.
But a former teacher said teaching was impossible because they would spend their time wrangling naughty students. "I can't believe what a bad teacher I became," they said.
If this is an experimental school it has too big a roll. Nearly a thousand children can't be thrown together with the emphasis on them finding their own preferences.
I was waiting in the library at school while one of my children was in a class decades ago and the kids were supposed to be using the library facilities and looking at the range of books. One boy got out a motor magazine and turned the pages making vroom,vroom noises. I was helping another who couldn't concentrate his mind because he wanted to watch his friend. Encouraging him to work out a plan for a short piece on what he remembered from a trip to California was very difficult. Distraction is no good for the 10 second attention span generation.
Is the National Party tearing itself apart? Here's a letter posted on kiwiblog today.
Chuck Bird
It will be interesting to see which National MPs respond.
To all National MP’s
As a National supporter for the past 47 years, I wish to voice my disgust at your actions in supporting the Government in the passing of the recent bill to make criminals of law abiding gun owners. I attended a recent meeting in Te Awamutu where MP’s Bishop and Kuriger were speaking about this very topic. I have never been in a group of people so hostile to anybody, let alone MPs. I would venture to say that about 300-350 people were there. Most would have been National party supporters. For how long, I can only guess. If they are like me, not for much longer, unless you change the way you are heading.
Your actions were despicable in casting aside the rights of law abiding citizens. All in the name of socialist ideology. I thought that was the purvue of the left. How wrong I am.
This will be posted on my blog site http://www.ysb.co.nz . It is a blog dedicated to upholding free speech and WAS a National Party support blog. Your actions mentioned above have seriously bought this support into question.
well that is a bit of a stretch would you not think?
Consider that the only one type of weapon was outlawed and a few tools around ( i am not a gun enthusiast so am not too versed in that lingo) and that he still can own chickenshit loads of other weapons for his hunting and collecting needs.
So no, legal gun owner have not been criminalised, but a legal gun owner has mowed down 50 people and maybe he should think about that too.
But he is lucky, soon he can vote for a bunch of "Not National – but almost" Parties and all is good again.
Earlier today, I read the then 25 comments and they were so stereotypical of RWNJs that I thought that blog was an extremely well done parody of KB. Fact is stranger than fiction and reality is scarier than nightmares.
The means of exchange need to be regulated as otherwise when it becomes an end to itself, value systems and directions are lead by donkeys towards cliffs.
It would seem likely that the majority of collusion that takes place with the use of financial bubbles in unproductive predatory capitalism would involve relatively concentrated/substantial actors rather than such endeavours being the co-operation of multitudes, so a small financial transaction tax system could be a good way to provide tag and trace info to that, which can then be graduated up down the chain when critical thresholds start to be traced before such acts are able to be followed through to completion.
Rose delivers his mostly banal ruminations in a croaky basso profundo, his words larded with an extraordinarily high "um" and "y' know" count. Donovan's role is to meekly underscore Rose's philosophical gems occasionally with a supportive "Mmmm, mmmm."
EMIL DONOVAN: It's time for Midweek Media Watch, our weekly catch-up with the Mediawatch teeeeam, one of the Mediawatch team, to talk about all things media. Today it's Jeremy Rose's turn in the chair. Hullo, Jeremy.
JEREMY ROSE: Gid-daaaaay Emil, how ARE ya?
EMIL DONOVAN: Very well thank you. Ahhhh, what've you got for us this week?
JEREMY ROSE: Well I THOUGHT I'd start with the "power of the signature" you were just talking, y'know, about….
Rose spends an inordinate time talking about a woman's Facebook petition to change the Milo recipe. Donovan thinks this is a very serious topic: "It taps into the cultural zeitgeist, doesn't it," he observes.
Next topic: a Russian blogger called "Stalin Gulag" who operates on a site called Telegram. "It shows the importance of social media for holding the powerful to account," says Rose.
Rose says something about the need to break up Facebook, and then moves on to the distasteful topic of white supremacist sites like 8chan. He praises recent work on this by Max Towle and Patrick Gower. Rose plays a clip of Gower in fighting mood: "I'm ready for ANOTHER go with Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern." That cuts no ice with Jeremy Rose, however. He reckons that interviewing people like Molyneux and Southern is unwise—"these people are nonentities"—and akin to a prizefight.
So far, so humdrum. Then the interview with Jeremy Rose, who's billed as a media "expert", becomes foolish, bizarre, almost inexplicable. It turns out that Rose, who just a couple of minutes earlier talked grandly about "the importance of social media for holding the powerful to account", does not think that the mainstream media, i.e. the BBC, should hold the powerful or the influential to account at all. In fact, he says, there's no "point" in holding the words of a brutal racist against him in an interview. "I just don't think it HELPS", he croaks to an obviously unconvinced Donovan. Here, for those who can stomach pretentiousness and bewilderment dressed up as media commentary, is four minutes of Jeremy Rose's dire and dismal vaporing….
(For those listening on the audio link, the horror starts at the 19:33 mark)
JEREMY ROSE: …..so I really wanna know WHY you'd bother getting them on. And that kinda brings us to ANOTHER one that's had a bit of a sporting overtone. I think you were quite keen to talk about, which is the Ben Shapiro—
EMIL DONOVAN: Yes.
JEREMY ROSE: —interview. A well known, American, ultra-conservative, right wing commentator with a LOT of Twitter followers, I think, y'know, well over a million—
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: And he was interviewed on the BBC byyyyy, um—-
EMIL DONOVAN: Andrew Neil, the notorious hard-nosed interviewer Andrew Neil. Yeah this was a FASCINATING interview, wasn't it.
JEREMY ROSE: It, it really was. Shall we—let's, let's have a listen to a BIT of it.
ANDREW NEIL: Some of the ideas that are popular in YOUR side of politics, ahh, would seem to take us back to the DARK AGES. These GEORGIA new ABORTION laws, ahhh, which YOU are much in FAVOUR of, ahhhh, that a woman who MISCARRIES could get THIRTY YEARS, A Georgian woman who travels to another STATE for an abortion procedure could get TEN years! These are EXTREME hard policies.
BEN SHAPIRO: Well, okay, a couple of things. One, I'm not sure, I mean frankly I don't know whether you're a s— , ARE you an objective journalist or are you an opinion journalist?
ANDREW NEIL: I'm a journalist that asks QUESTIONS.
JEREMY ROSE: Y-y-yeah, ha, so y' know, uh, it's gone VIRAL on the internet. Everyone, including ahhhh, Shapiro, say that it, that it was a DISASTROUS performance by him. He's tweeted, though, "Neil one, Shapiro zero." Again, that sporting kind of metaphor.
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: Wanting a rematch. I don't think there was much in it, I don't think you LEARNT much, and I ACTUALLY think he had a KIND of point, whe-e-e-ere, that there was, y'know, when he was accused of being from the Dark Ages—
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: —which is obviously a metaphor. But it wasn't actually that HELPFUL, and it ended UP just being …. [long caesura]…. for want of a better word, a shit fight.
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm, mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: A-and I'm NOT sure that that REALLY serves ANYBODY.
EMIL DONOVAN: Yeah, I know it was fascinating stuff wasn't it. It's um, yeeeahh, the idea that—I mean, it's a TEMPTING metaphor. Sporting metaphors ARE tempting when it comes to, to interviews like tha-a-a-at, because the, a confrontational interview can sometimes be NECESSARY, right? Y' know? And, and sometimes there IS a winner and a loser out of an interview. And sometimes people are satisfied by seeing that. But it's not necessarily a HELPFUL metaphor.
JEREMY ROSE: No-o-o-o. And I, and I, and that whole idea of kinda punching OUT and a winner. And that was how it was portrayed, because he kept THROWING these ABSOLUTELY obnoxious quotes which he had ma-a-a-ade—
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: —in the past at him, and asking him to DEFEND them. ….[long caesura]…. I don't know what the POINT is. If I hadn't seen the interview, I wouldn't know that this guy had made these racist, revolting comments about Arabs, about—- And I don't think that it HELPS, knowing that.
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm, mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: Ahhhm, and he did have a BOOK out, I've got NO idea what he says in the book. There was nothing in it in the interview.
EMIL DONOVAN: Well I think this was the thing about it, that the book was about the rise of, um, extremist discourse, and, and, and ANGER within sort of SOCIETY and I think that Andrew Neil was pointing out the hypocrisy of the idea that Ben Shapiro would write a book about anger and society when he had contributed to it himself through his previous kinds of statements. But it's a very interesting kind of issue, isn't it—
JEREMY ROSE: Yeah.
EMIL DONOVAN: —and one that I imagine we won't see go away, because they always seem to be held up as SPECTACLES, these interviews, y'know….
JEREMY ROSE: I think that's exactly right. It, it, it's interviewers' performance. I think when we're dealing with things that matter as much as white supremacy, THAT's not the time to do that. To me-e-e-e-e, THAT's actually exactly what white supremacist type people would ENJOY.
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm, mmmm. It's sort of, yeah, the fuzzy line where information blurs into entertainment. Yeahhhh. Well, uh, Jeremy, thanks so much for that. Really appreciate it.
1. Andrew Neil is an excellent interviewer. He has variously made mincemeat of Jeremy Corbyn, Diana Abbot, Natalie Bennett and many others. Andrew has no problem tackling those on the right of politics, it is just that generally the left provide easier targets.
2. Andrew underestimated Ben Shapiro's intellect, and his attack dog line about Georgia's abortion law was ill-informed and justified Ben's response. At the same time, Ben was clearly ill-informed about Andrew's interview style, and came across as petulant. That's a shame, because Ben is intellectually the superior of virtually anyone Andrew will have interviewed, and the exchange could have been far more productive if both men had been better prepared.
3. For anyone to suggest Ben Shapiro was treated 'unfairly' by Andrew Neil is nonsense. Ben has been interviewed countless times, he has spoken to openly hostile audiences and has faced de-platforming by the lefty snowflakes on US campus's. In short, he is tougher than the person you quote gives him credit for.
4. Take time to listen to what Ben Shapiro says. You might not agree with him, but unlike some of the crazies on both the left and right of politics, Ben is a sound thinker, who speaks a rational, conservative voice into the issues of the day.
Watch the disastrous (for Shapiro) interview with Andrew Neil again. Neil reels off example after example of Nazi-quality filth, all of them direct quotes from Shapiro.
You are excoriating Morrissey of all in broadcasting and media generally.
Your statement is demonstrably incorrect. A quick review of my oeuvre shows I am more than happy to praise ethical, talented and conscientious journalists—both locally and internationally. On this forum and on many others I have praised: Julian Assange, Max Blumenthal, Mihi Forbes, Juan González,Amy Goodman, Glenn Greenwald, Nicky Hager, Amira Hass, Paul Jay, Caitlin Johnstone, Gideon Levy, Selwyn Manning, Abby Martin, Aaron Maté, Matt Nippert, Paula Penfold, John Pilger, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, Jon Stephenson….
That's just a few off the top of my head, in alphabetical order. I've praised every one of them at least once, some of them many times.
I hope someone pays you for all that. I don't think TS does, so whom?
What difference does it make? Mike Hosking gets paid to produce his rubbish; all the easy money in the world doesn't give him an ounce of credibility.
Temperatures Soar as Nearly All Old Arctic Sea Ice Has Vanished HEADLINEMAY 16, 2019
In climate news, temperatures near the entrance to the Arctic Ocean in northwest Russia reached a record-shattering 84 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend, in an area where high temperatures are normally 30 degrees cooler this time of year. This comes as the National Snow and Ice Data Center recorded a record-low sea ice extent for the Arctic Ocean in April, noting that almost all of the sea ice more than four years old is gone. Over the weekend, meteorologists measured carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere at over 415 parts per million — the highest level in human history, and a concentration that’s not been seen on Earth in over 3 million years.
A campaigner from Big Brother Watch – who were protesting the use of cameras on the day – was also filmed telling an officer: ‘I would have done the same.’
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/15/bike-handle-stuck-woman-two-years-husband-shoved-vagina-9556829/ My summary – This shows how women get treated when they are not respected in a society and become helpless pawns. Husband intoxicated by alcohol – such a common drug abuse. Woman 30 has six children, can't have any more. Might be good for her in the long run – depends on husband. If she hasn't had boys he might put her aside.
Millions of birds are being sucked out of trees and killed each year to feed our olive oil habit. Iconic birds such as robins, warblers and wagtails have seen their numbers decimated because of intensive farming practices. Experts have warned the international community that it needs to act before legally-protected species disappear for good. During the winter months, birds from central and northern Europe, flock to the Mediterranean basin. At the same time, the olive oil harvest happens in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal…
Farmers use large and intensive harvesting machines at night to strip the trees of their fruit. However, the birds are sleeping in the trees and are getting sucked into the machines on a ‘catastrophic scale.’…But, 96,000 birds are known to die in Portugal every winter as a result of this technique.
RSPCA director of conservation, Martin Harper, said: ‘Numbers of farmland birds in Europe have plummeted by 55% over the last three decades and this is another shocking example of how modern agricultural practices are impacting our bird populations, including some UK species passing through the region.’
And koalas. This cant' be.
The Australian Koala Foundation has confirmed that, with only 80,000 members of the species left in the wild there isn’t enough to support a new generation.
They’ve declared the marsupial ‘functionally extinct’ which means the population has dropped so low it no longer has any effect on its surrounding environment. Koalas have too few breeding adults left to support the species and any kind of genetic disease or pathogen would put the final nail in the coffin.
Koalas are dying out due to effects caused by climate change. Rising temperatures are causing heatwaves that kill thousands of koalas through dehydration. The species has also suffered hugely from deforestation. According to the Australian Koala Foundation, there are no koalas left at all in 41 out of 128 Federal environments where they have known habitats.
I suggest NZ sets up a fund to support the Koala Foundation and give the Australians a message that they need to both support their own vulnerable animals and the Kiwi people who live there and who they have arbitrarily arrested on spurious grounds and hold in camps against international law precedents. Maybe there will be some politicians who have integrity to do something for the Koalas and the Kiwis.
When you think these pricks had hit peak vileness.
Oklahoma state legislator Rep. Justin Humphrey is sponsoring a draconian bill, HB 1441, that would require a woman to get written permission from her sexual partner if she wants to have an abortion.
Attempting to justify the despicable legislation Rep. Humphrey told The Intercept that women have no right to bodily autonomy once they are pregnant because they are merely “hosts”:
I understand that they feel like that is their body. I feel like it is a separate — what I call them is, is you’re a ‘host.’ And you know when you enter into a relationship you’re going to be that host and so, you know, if you pre-know that then take all precautions and don’t get pregnant.
The Missouri House has voted to approve some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, and because it's Missouri, the process somehow managed to include a Republican lawmaker defending the bill by talking about, sigh, "consensual rape."
[…]
It was on the issue of exceptions for rape victims that Hovis, a retired Cape Girardeau police lieutenant first elected to office in 2017, took his stand. He pointed out that "most of the rapes" that he saw in law enforcement didn't involve "gentlemen jumping out of bushes."
"Most of them were date rapes or consensual rapes," he continued, "which were all terrible, but I'd sit in court when juries would struggle with those situations, where it was a 'he-said-she-said,' which was unfortunate if it really happened."
Having suggested that rape is often no big deal — because hey, if it didn't happen at gunpoint, it's a real struggle for a jury to know what to do — Hovis finally seemed to find his point, which appeared to be that that rape victims would still have plenty of time, after the rape, to decide whether to get an abortion
If you're looking for someone without a humorous bone in her body, and lacking even a rudimentary sense of the ridiculous, you can't go past this thoroughly Anglo, non-German, fool (unfunny fool)….
no, you just looked for a reason to again post one of your pointless video clips.
it has nothing do to with what i posted, and it is so far removed from anything that really it is just your typical posting a shit video so that you can post a shit video.
and when it comes to you and your shit videos i am just bored and bored, and bored, and bored, and bored.
no, you just looked for a reason to again post one of your pointless video clips.
"Pointless"? You didn't get the point? Frankly, I'm not surprised.
it has nothing do to with what i posted,
In fact, it has everything to do with what you posted. In a fit of self-deprecation, you repeated the stupid falsehood that Germans "don't have a sense of humour." I helpfully steered you to an example of someone—a non-German— completely lacking any sense of humour, or absurdity, or even increasingly—it's been clear for more than two years now—any grasp of reality.
and it is so far removed from anything that really it is just your typical posting a shit video so that you can post a shit video.
???? You really can't understand that clip? Really?
and when it comes to you and your shit videos i am just bored and bored, and bored, and bored, and bored.
There are German writers I admire tremendously: Mann, Sebald, Roth. Your embarrassing and awkwardly phrased rants are not quite in their company, I'm sorry to say. Perhaps you should read a bit more, think a bit more, see if you can pick up a few stylistic tips from some of your compatriots who can actually write.
It's extremely serious. See, Andre is afflicted by these Russian bots, controlled by those Russian masterminds who control Trump, and …. hell, you know the rest. It's what Rachel Maddow says.
Thoughts and prayers, Andre. That evil Putin, darn him.
Hi Sabine It might have been one of my videos that you didn't like. Sorry. But I put them in as changes when the tone is too dark or it seems we need some light relief. They are just a break in between bouts of seriousness, or indeed slapstick occasionally.
You're a real gentleman, Mr Shark. But rest assured: unser guter freund Sabine has been confused and bewildered for a good two and a half years now. Sie kann dich nicht dafür verantwortlich machen.
Yep. I used to love one NDR programme in the mid-90s, can't remember what is was called now – everything absolutely deadpan, no clues you were supposed to find it funny, fuck it was good. Morrissey just lacks the self-awareness to recognise bigotry when he's indulging in it.
Sorry Milt, you've got the wrong end of the shoe here. It's our friend Sabine that's running down Germans, not me. I stuck up for them, having appreciated their music, literature, art, cinema, food, beer and, yes, their sense of humour for as long as I can remember.
The Trump administration has taken its war on abortion worldwide, cutting off all funding to any overseas organisation or clinic that will not agree to a complete ban on even discussing it.
The Mexico City policy, dubbed the “global gag” by its critics, denies US federal funds to any organisation involved in providing abortion services overseas or counselling women about them. It was instituted by the then US president Ronald Reagan and has been revoked by every Democrat and reinstated by every Republican president since.
“For the past three days, Ollie Langridge has sat on the lawn of Parliament, sitting on a bolster pillow wrapped in plastic, and holding a sign calling on the Government to declare a climate change emergency.
Langridge is a self-employed father of six, living in Thorndon with no political affiliation or ties to climate change advocacy groups – just a man worried about the future he's leaving for his children.
"I just see myself as a normal guy that doesn't know what to do and this is the best thing I could think of.”
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result of his non-disclosure could even see ...
The relentless drone coming out of the Prime Minister and his deputy for a million days now has been that the last government was just hosing money all over the show and now at last the grownups are in charge and shutting that drunken sailor stuff down. There is a word ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to riot-torn New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. Today’s flight will carry around 50 passengers with the most ...
Precious declaration saysYours is yours and mine you leave alone nowPrecious declaration saysI believe all hope is dead no longerTick tick tick Boom!Unexploded ordnance. A veritable minefield. A National caucus with a large number of unknowns, candidates who perhaps received little in the way of vetting as the party jumped ...
Rex Ahdar writes – The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, likes to trace his political lineage back to the pioneers of parliamentary Maoridom. I will refer to these as the ‘big four’ or better still, the Four Knights. Just as ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper ...
That is the only way to describe an MP "forgetting" to declare $178,000 in donations. The amount of money involved - more than five times the candidate spending cap, and two and a half times the median income - is boggling. How do you just "forget" that amount of money? ...
In this week’s “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and spoke about the upcoming US elections and what the possibility of another Trump presidency means for the US role in world affairs. We also spoke about the problems Joe … Continue reading → ...
Hi,Two years ago I briefly featured in Justin Pemberton’s Web of Chaos documentary, which touched on things like QAnon during the pandemic.I mostly prattled on about how intertwined conspiracy narratives are with Evangelical Christian thinking, something Webworm’s explored in the past.(The doc is available on TVNZ+, if you’re not in ...
The Government is leaving the entire construction sector and the community housing sector in limbo. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government released the long-awaited Bill English-led review of Kāinga Ora yesterday, but delayed key decisions on its build plan and how to help community housing providers (CHPs) build ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons Farmers who can’t sleep, worrying they’ll lose everything amid increasing drought. Youth struggling with depression over a future that feels hopeless. Indigenous people grief-stricken over devastated ecosystems. For all these people and more, climate change is taking a clear toll ...
New Zealand’s relationship with China is becoming harder to define, and with that comes a worry that a deteriorating political relationship could spill over into the economic relationship. It is about more than whether New Zealand will join Pillar Two of Aukus, though the Chinese Ambassador, more or less, suggested ...
Been hoping we would see something like this from Sir Geoffrey Palmer. This is excellent.The present Bill goes further than the National Development Act 1979 in stripping away procedures designed to ensure that environmental issues are properly considered. The 1979 approach was not acceptable then and this present approach is ...
He’s Got The Moxie: Only Willie Jackson possesses the credentials to meld together a new Labour message that is, at one and the same moment, staunchly working-class, union-friendly, and which speaks to the hundreds-of-thousands of urban Māori untethered to the neo-tribal capitalist elites of the Iwi Leaders Forum.IT’S ONE OF THE ...
Tree-huggers may well accuse the Government of giving them the fingers, after Energy Minister Simeon Brown announced new measures to protect powerlines from trees, rather than measures to protect trees from powerlines. It can be no coincidence, surely, that this has been announced at the same as Fisheries Minister Shane Jones ...
Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper who could take over the Labour ...
Barrister Gary Judd KC’s complaint to the Regulatory Review Committee has sparked a fierce debate about the place of tikanga Māori – or Māori customs, values and spiritual beliefs – in the law.Judd opposes the New Zealand Council of Legal Education’s plans to make teaching tikanga compulsory in the legal curriculum.AUT ...
Alwyn Poole writes – In New Zealand we have approximately 460 high schools. The gaps between the schools that produce the best results for students and those at the other end of the spectrum are enormous.In terms of the data for their leavers, the top 30 schools have ...
Bryce Edwards writes – New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be ...
Brian Eastonwrites – The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am ...
The split opening up in Israel’s “War Cabinet” is not just between PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his long-term rival Benny Gantz. It is actually a three-way split, set in motion by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. It was Gallant’s open criticism of Netanyahu that finally flushed Gantz out into the open. ...
On Thursday 17 May, the Mayoral Proposal for Auckland’s Long Term Plan 2024-2034 was passed by Auckland Council, 20 to 1. It is set to be formally adopted by the Governing Body at its June 27th meeting. The entire process took 8 hours, with the vast majority of that time ...
Pakanga o muaTukua, ka ngaroPuritia taku ringaNgaro ana te ara ki pae rauThere's a battle aheadMany battles are lostBut you'll never see the end of the roadWhile you're travelling with meLate yesterday morning I headed to Wynyard Quarter to see Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick give their pre-budget State of ...
Maybe the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister expected the worst, so they mounted a stout defence of the Budget tax cuts to their party faithful at a party conference over the weekend. In turn, they were greeted with applause, which, though it may have been less than wildly enthusiastic, ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 12, 2024 thru Sat, May 18, 2024. Story of the week “The legislation I signed today [will] keep windmills off our beaches, gas in our tanks, and ...
TL;DR: Here’s six links that stood out to me in the last day in Aotearoa’s political economy to 6:06am on Sunday, May 19:Aotearoa-NZ is the seventh worst in the OECD’s homelessness rankings, just behind the United States and just ahead of Australia. BlackRock thinks rate hikes actually worsen inflation because ...
Halfway up a historic tower in York, we are neither up nor down. At the top you will have views of a city steeped in antiquity, made and remade by Romans, Normans, Vikings, Tescos. Below, you will find a retired minister happy to tell you all about this most astonishing ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Does breathing contribute to CO2 ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later. Not what most people ...
No one knows what it's likeTo be the bad manTo be the sad manBehind blue eyesNo one knows what it's likeTo be hatedTo be fatedTo telling only liesHave you ever wondered what life must be like for Mike Hosking? Seeing things in black and white through blue tinted specs? In ...
Hello! Here comes the Saturday edition of More Than A Feilding, catching you up on the past two week’s editions.Share More Than A FeildingBike bling, London Read more ...
Hi,I think we all made it through another week — congratulations. I’ve been digesting the new Arab Strap record, which is astonishing. In other news, I’m going to be doing a Webworm popup in Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday July 13. I’ll bring a bunch of merch, and some other ...
The Fast-Track Approvals Bill enables cabinet ministers to circumvent key environmental planning and protection processes for infrastructure projects. Its difficulties have been well canvassed. This column suggests a different way of thinking about the proposal. I am going to explore the Bill from the perspective of its proponents with their ...
New Zealand First Cabinet Minister Shane Jones has become the best advertisement against the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill. In selling the radical new resource consenting processes, in which ministers can green light any mine, dam, or other major development, Jones seems to be shooting the proposal in the foot. ...
Buzz from the Beehive Associate Education Minister David Seymour is urging the PostPrimary Teachers Association to put learning ahead of ideology. He wants the union leaders to call off their teachers meetings around the country where they hope to muster the strength to undo the government’s plans to establish several ...
What are police for? "Fighting crime" is the obvious answer. If there's a burglary, they should show up and investigate. Ditto if there's a murder or sexual assault. Speeding or drunk or dangerous driving is a crime, so obviously they should respond to that. And obviously, they should respond to ...
Michael Reddell writes – I got curious yesterday about how the Australia/New Zealand real exchange rate had changed over the last decade, and so dug out the data on the changes in the two countries’ CPIs. Over the 10 years from March 2014 to March 2024, New Zealand’s ...
Graham Adams writes that 20 years after the land march, judges are quietly awarding a swathe of coastal rights to iwi. Early this month, an hour-long documentary was released by TVNZ to mark the 20th anniversary of the land-rights march to oppose Helen Clark’s Foreshore and Seabed Act. The account ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: Suspended Green MP Darleen Tana has passed an unpleasant milestone: she has now been absent for as many parliamentary sitting days as she has been present for this year. Tana is on full pay while she is suspended, and will benefit from a ...
Peter Dunne writes – It is no coincidence that two Labour should-have-been MPs are making the most noise about public sector cuts. As assistant general secretary of the Public Service Association, Fleur Fitzsimons has been at the forefront of revealing where the next round of state sector job ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a ...
This is one of the (extra) weekly columns on music or movies. Plenty of solid analyses of Possession exist online and most of them – inevitably – contain spoilers. This column is more in the way of a first-timer’s aid to getting your initial bearings. You don’t need to have ...
I am painting in oil, a portrait of a manWho has taken all the heart aches,And all the pain he can stand.I am using all the colors of blue,I have here on my stand.I am painting in oil, a portrait of a man.This has been an interesting week for me. ...
Helen Clark joins the Hoon as a special guest talking whether Aotearoa should join Aukus II, and her views on the fast track legislation and how Luxon and the new Government are performing. File Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for subscribers features co-hosts ...
With an election due in less than nine months, Britain’s embattled PM, Rishi Sunak, gave a useful speech earlier this week. He made a substantial case for his government, perhaps as compelling as is possible in the current environment. Quite an achievement. His overall theme was security, first pulling ...
Open access notablesPublicly expressed climate scepticism is greatest in regions with high CO2 emissions, Pearson et al., Climatic Change:We analysed a recently released corpus of climate-related tweets to examine the macro-level factors associated with public declarations of climate change scepticism. Analyses of over 2 million geo-located tweets in the U.S. showed that climate ...
You can be all negative about these charter schools if you want, but I’m here to accentuate the positive. You can get all worked up, if you want to, by the contradiction of Luxon saying We’re going to make sure that every school in the country is teaching exactly the same ...
Losing The Room: One can only speculate about what has persuaded the Coalition Government that it will pay no electoral price for unreasonably pushing ahead with policies that are so clearly against the national interest. They seem quite oblivious to the risk that by doing so they will convince an increasing ...
Name suppression decisions can be tough sometimes. No matter your views on free speech, you have to be hard-hearted not to be torn by the tug of the competing arguments. I think you can feel the Supreme Court wrestling with that in M v The King. The case for ...
The Merchants of Menace: The Coalition Government has convinced itself that the “Brahmins’” emollient functions have become much too irksome and expensive. Those who see themselves as the best hope of rebuilding New Zealand’s ailing capitalist system, appear to have convinced themselves that a little bit of blunt trauma is what their mollycoddled ...
When National first proposed its Muldoonist "fast-track" law, they were warned that it would inevitably lead to corruption. And that is exactly what has happened, with Resources Minister Shane Jones taking secret meetings with potential applicants:On Tuesday, in a Newsroom story, questions were raised about a dinner Jones ...
Buzz from the Beehive One day – hopefully – we will push that Russian rascal, Vladimir Putin, beyond breaking point. Perhaps it will happen today, when he learns that Foreign Minister Winston Peters is again tightening the thumbscrews. Peters announced further sanctions, this time on 28 individuals and 14 entities ...
How Labour’s and National’s failure to move beyond neoliberalism has brought New Zealand to the brink of economic and cultural chaos.TO START LOSING, so soon after you won, requires a special kind of political incompetence. At the heart of this Coalition Government’s failure to retain, and build upon, the public ...
“Members of Parliament don’t work for us, they represent us, an entirely different thing. As with so much that has turned out badly, the re-organising of MPs’ responsibilities began with the Fourth Labour Government. That’s when they began to be treated like employees – public servants – whose diaries had ...
It’s becoming a classic case study for why lobbying deals with politicians need greater scrutiny. Former National Minister Steven Joyce runs a lobbying company with a major client – the University of Waikato. The University desperately wants $300m+ of taxpayer funding to establish a third medical school in New Zealand, ...
Time To Choose: Like it or not, the Kiwis are either going into AUKUS’s “Pillar 2” – or they are going to China.HAD ZHENG HE’S FLEET sailed east, not west, in the early Fifteenth Century, how different our world would be. There is little reason to suppose that the sea-going junks ...
Henry Ergas writes – When in Randall Jarrell’s Pictures from an Institution, a college president is accused of being a hypocrite, the novel’s narrator retorts that the description is grossly unfair. After all, the man is still far from the stage of moral development at which the charge ...
David Farrar writes – Radio NZ reports: The Education Review Office says too many new teachers feel poorly prepared for their jobs. In a report published on Monday, the review office said 60 percent of the principals it interviewed said their new teachers were not ready. ...
New Zealand’s economic performance and the PM’s vision Michael Reddell writes – When I wrote yesterday morning’s post, highlighting how poorly both New Zealand and its Anglo peer countries have been doing in respect of productivity in recent times (ie, in the case of New ...
Hi all,Firstly - thank you! You guys are awesome. The response I’ve received to last night’s mail has been quite overwhelming. It’s a ghastly day outside, but there are no clouds in here.In case you didn’t read my email and are wondering what on earth I’m talking about you can ...
If there was still any doubt as to who is actually running this government – and it isn’t the buffoon from Botany – then this week’s announcement of a huge spend up on charter schools has settled the matter. While jobs and public services continue to be cut in the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gaye Taylor As widespread drought raises expectations for a repeat of last year’s ferocious wildfire season, response teams across Canada are grappling with the rapidly changing face of fire in a warming climate. No longer quenched by winter, nor quelled by the ...
Half of Christchurch City Holdings Ltd’s directors and its chair resigned en masse last night in protest at Christchurch City Council’s demand to front-load dividends File Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The chair of Christchurch City Council’s investment company and four of its independent directors resigned in protest last ...
The University of Waikato has reworded an advertisement that begins the tender process for its new $300 million-plus medical school even though the Government still needs to approve it. However, even the reworded ad contains an architect’s visualisations of what the school might look like. ACT leader David Seymour told ...
As a follow-up to the Rings of Power trailer discussion, I thought I needed to add something. There has been some online mockery about the use of the same actor for both the Halbrand and Annatar incarnations of Sauron. The reasoning is that Halbrand with a shave and a new ...
This isn’t quite as dramatic as the title might suggest. I’m not going anywhere, but there is something I wanted to talk to you about.Let’s start with a typical day.Most days I send out a newsletter in the morning. If I’ve written a lot the previous evening it might be ...
Buzz from the Beehive The promise of tax relief loomed large in his considerations when the PM delivered a pre-Budget speech to the Auckland Business Chamber. The job back in Wellington is getting government spending back under control, he said, bandying figures which show that in per capita terms, the ...
Yesterday de facto Prime Minister David Seymour announced that his glove puppet government would be re-introducing charter schools, throwing $150 million at his pet quacks, donors and cronies and introducing an entire new government agency to oversee them (the existing Education Review Office, which actually knows how to review schools, ...
Seeing that, in order to discredit the figures and achieve moral superiority while attempting to deflect attention away from the military assault on Rafa, Israel supporters in NZ have seized on reports that casualty numbers in Gaza may be inflated … Continue reading → ...
Te Pāti Māori have launched a petition to stop the repeal of Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act. This announcement comes prior to the first reading of the Section 7AA repeal bill in Parliament today. “Section 7AA forces the Government to adhere to Te Tiriti o Waitangi with respect ...
The Government has yet again failed to do the one thing that needs to happen to ensure houses can be built – commit to ongoing funding, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Treasury officials have outlined many ways in which the Fast Track Approvals Bill is deeply flawed, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking says. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick used this year's State of the Planet to call on the Government to prioritise people and planet as the delivery of the Budget approaches. A full transcript of their speeches can be found below. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have used their State of the Planet speeches to challenge the Government to prioritise people and planet over profit as the delivery of the Budget approaches. ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Hon Willie Jackson has been invited by the Oxford Union to debate the motion “This House Believes British Museums are not Very British’ on May 23rd. ...
Green Party MP Hūhana Lyndon says her Public Works (Prohibition of Compulsory Acquisition of Māori Land) Amendment Bill is an opportunity to right some past wrongs around the alienation of Māori land. ...
A senior, highly respected King’s Counsel with decades of experience in our law courts, Gary Judd KC, has filed a complaint about compulsory tikanga Māori studies for law students - highlighting the utter depths of absurdity this woke cultural madness has taken our society. The tikanga regulations will compel law ...
The Government needs to be clear with the people of the Nelson Marlborough region about the changes it is considering for the Nelson Hospital rebuild, Labour health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
Ministers must front up about which projects it will push through under its Fast Track Approvals legislation, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
I present a legislative statement on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill Mr. Speaker, I move that the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the Bill. Thank you, Mr. ...
The Bill to repeal Section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has had its first reading in Parliament today. The Bill reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the care and safety of children in care, says Minister for Children Karen Chhour. “When I became the Minister for Children, I made ...
Kia ora koutou, good morning, and zao shang hao. Thank you Fran for the opportunity to speak at the 2024 China Business Summit – it’s great to be here today. I’d also like to acknowledge: Simon Bridges - CEO of the Auckland Chamber of Commerce. His Excellency Ambassador - Wang ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. “New Zealanders in New Caledonia have faced a challenging few days - and bringing them ...
The Coalition Government will introduce legislation this year that will enable roadside drug testing as part of our commitment to improve road safety and restore law and order, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Alcohol and drugs are the number one contributing factor in fatal road crashes in New Zealand. In ...
The Government has announced a series of immediate actions in response to the independent review of Kāinga Ora – Homes and Communities, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “Kāinga Ora is a large and important Crown entity, with assets of $45 billion and over $2.5 billion of expenditure each year. It ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour is pleased that Pseudoephedrine can now be purchased by the general public to protect them from winter illness, after the coalition government worked swiftly to change the law and oversaw a fast approval process by Medsafe. “Pharmacies are now putting the medicines back on their ...
Tēnā koutou katoa. Da jia hao. Good morning everyone. Prime Minister Luxon, your excellency, a great friend of New Zealand and my friend Ambassador Wang, Mayor of what he tells me is the best city in New Zealand, Wayne Brown, the highly respected Fran O’Sullivan, Champion of the Auckland business ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced that the Government will make it easier for lines firms to take action to remove vegetation from obstructing local powerlines. The change will ensure greater security of electricity supply in local communities, particularly during severe weather events. “Trees or parts of trees falling on ...
Wairarapa Moana ki Pouakani were the top winners at this year’s Ahuwhenua Trophy awards recognising the best in Māori dairy farming. Māori Development Minister Tama Potaka announced the winners and congratulated runners-up, Whakatōhea Māori Trust Board, at an awards celebration also attended by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Finance Minister ...
"On the 27th of March, I sought assurances from the Chief Executive, Department of Internal Affairs, that the Department’s correct processes and policies had been followed in regards to a passport application which received media attention,” says Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden. “I raised my concerns after being ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins has announced the appointment of three new District Court Judges, to replace Judges who have recently retired. Peter James Davey of Auckland has been appointed a District Court Judge with a jury jurisdiction to be based at Whangarei. Mr Davey initially started work as a law clerk/solicitor with ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour is calling on the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) to put ideology to the side and focus on students’ learning, in reaction to the union holding paid teacher meetings across New Zealand about charter schools. “The PPTA is disrupting schools up and down the ...
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly today announced the appointment of Craig Stobo as the new chair of the Financial Markets Authority (FMA). Mr Stobo takes over from Mark Todd, whose term expired at the end of April. Mr Stobo’s appointment is for a five-year term. “The FMA plays ...
Surf Life Saving New Zealand and Coastguard New Zealand will continue to be able to keep people safe in, on, and around the water following a funding boost of $63.644 million over four years, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Associate Transport Minister Matt Doocey say. “Heading to the beach for ...
New Zealand and Tuvalu have reaffirmed their close relationship, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand is committed to working with Tuvalu on a shared vision of resilience, prosperity and security, in close concert with Australia,” says Mr Peters, who last visited Tuvalu in 2019. “It is my pleasure ...
New Zealand is gravely concerned about the situation in New Caledonia, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The escalating situation and violent protests in Nouméa are of serious concern across the Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “The immediate priority must be for all sides to take steps to de-escalate the ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met today with Samoa’s O le Ao o le Malo, Afioga Tuimalealiifano Vaaletoa Sualauvi II, who is making a State Visit to New Zealand. “His Highness and I reflected on our two countries’ extensive community links, with Samoan–New Zealanders contributing to all areas of our national ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has announced that he has approved Waiheke Island ferry operator Island Direct to be eligible for SuperGold Card funding, paving the way for a commercial agreement to bring the operator into the scheme. “Island Direct started operating in November 2023, offering an additional option for people ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters today announced further sanctions on 28 individuals and 14 entities providing military and strategic support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “Russia is directly supported by its military-industrial complex in its illegal aggression against Ukraine, attacking its sovereignty and territorial integrity. New Zealand condemns all entities and ...
A year on from the tragedy at Loafers Lodge, the Government is working hard to improve building fire safety, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “I want to share my sincere condolences with the families and friends of the victims on the anniversary of the tragic fire at Loafers ...
Ka nui te mihi kia koutou. Kia ora and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for having me here in the lead up to my Government’s first Budget. Before I get started can I acknowledge: Simon Bridges – Auckland Business Chamber CEO. Steve Jurkovich – Kiwibank CEO. Kids born ...
New Zealand and Vanuatu will enhance collaboration on issues of mutual interest, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “It is important to return to Port Vila this week with a broad, high-level political delegation which demonstrates our deep commitment to New Zealand’s relationship with Vanuatu,” Mr Peters says. “This ...
Minister for Land Information, Chris Penk will travel to Peru this week to represent New Zealand at a meeting of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific region on behalf of Trade Minister Todd McClay. The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Ministers Responsible for Trade meeting will be held on 17-18 May ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford will head to the United Kingdom this week to participate in the 22nd Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) and the 2024 Education World Forum (EWF). “I am looking forward to sharing this Government’s education priorities, such as introducing a knowledge-rich curriculum, implementing an evidence-based ...
Minister of Education Erica Stanford has today thanked outgoing New Zealand Qualifications Authority Chair, Hon Tracey Martin. “Tracey Martin tendered her resignation late last month in order to take up a new role,” Ms Stanford says. Ms Martin will relinquish the role of Chair on 10 May and current Deputy ...
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and President Emmanuel Macron of France today announced a new non-governmental organisation, the Christchurch Call Foundation, to coordinate the Christchurch Call’s work to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online. This change gives effect to the outcomes of the November 2023 Call Leaders’ Summit, ...
Distinguished public servant and former diplomat Sir Maarten Wevers will lead the independent review into the disability support services administered by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. The review was announced by Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston a fortnight ago to examine what could be done to strengthen the ...
Today’s announcement by Police Commissioner Andrew Coster of a National Gang Unit and district Gang Disruption Units will help deliver on the coalition Government’s pledge to restore law and order and crack down on criminal gangs, Police Minister Mark Mitchell says. “The National Gang Unit and Gang Disruption Units will ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today expressed regret at North Korea’s aggressive rhetoric towards New Zealand and its international partners. “New Zealand proudly stands with the international community in upholding the rules-based order through its monitoring and surveillance deployments, which it has been regularly doing alongside partners since 2018,” Mr ...
Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies MNZM is the new Chief of Defence Force, Defence Minister Judith Collins announced today. The Chief of Defence Force commands the Navy, Army and Air Force and is the principal military advisor to the Defence Minister and other Ministers with relevant portfolio responsibilities in the defence ...
Legislation to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act has been introduced to Parliament. The Bill’s introduction reaffirms the Coalition Government’s commitment to the safety of children in care, says Minister for Children, Karen Chhour. “While section 7AA was introduced with good intentions, it creates a conflict for Oranga ...
Defence Minister Judith Collins will this week travel to the UK and Italy to meet with her defence counterparts, and to attend Battles of Cassino commemorations. “I am humbled to be able to represent the New Zealand Government in Italy at the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of what was ...
The upcoming Budget will include funding for up to 50 charter schools to help lift declining educational performance, Associate Education Minister David Seymour announced today. $153 million in new funding will be provided over four years to establish and operate up to 15 new charter schools and convert 35 state ...
“The results of the public consultation on the terms of reference for the Royal Commission into COVID-19 Lessons has now been received, with results indicating over 13,000 submissions were made from members of the public,” Internal Affairs Minister Brooke van Velden says. “We heard feedback about the extended lockdowns in ...
Foreign Minister, Defence Minister, other Members of Parliament Acting Chief of Defence Force, Secretary of Defence Distinguished Guests Defence and Diplomatic Colleagues Ladies and Gentlemen, Good afternoon, tēna koutou, apinun tru It’s a pleasure to be back in Port Moresby today, and to speak here at the Kumul Leadership ...
Health, infrastructure, renewable energy, and stability are among the themes of the current visit to Papua New Guinea by a New Zealand political delegation, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Papua New Guinea carries serious weight in the Pacific, and New Zealand deeply values our relationship with it,” Mr Peters ...
The coalition Government is launching Roads of Regional Significance to sit alongside Roads of National Significance as part of its plan to deliver priority roading projects across the country, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The Roads of National Significance (RoNS) built by the previous National Government are some of New Zealand’s ...
A high-level New Zealand political delegation in Honiara today congratulated the new Government of Solomon Islands, led by Jeremiah Manele, on taking office. “We are privileged to meet the new Prime Minister and members of his Cabinet during his government’s first ten days in office,” Deputy Prime Minister and ...
COMMENTARY:By Gordon Campbell The split opening up in Israel’s “War Cabinet” is not just between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his long-term rival Benny Gantz. It is actually a three-way split, set in motion by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. It was Gallant’s open criticism of Netanyahu that finally flushed ...
Reacting to today’s Budget Speech from Labour’s Finance spokesperson, Barbara Edmonds, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “It is encouraging to see that one of Labour’s stated priorities is to focus on creating ‘a level ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kylie Turner, System Lead, Sustainable Economies, Climateworks Centre atk work/Shutterstock In the budget last week, the government was keen to talk about its efforts to turn Australia into a renewable superpower under the umbrella of the Future Made in Australia policies. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Opposition Leader Peter Dutton might have done us a favour. As part of his budget reply speech on Thursday night he promised to stop foreigners buying existing Australian homes. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amy Maguire, Associate Professor in Human Rights and International Law, University of Newcastle The request by Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), for arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders is a significant step in the effort to ...
RNZ Pacific A New Zealand author, journalist and media educator who has covered the Asia-Pacific region since the 1970s says liberation “must come” for Kanaky/New Caledonia. Professor David Robie sailed on board Greenpeace’s flagship Rainbow Warrior until it was bombed by French secret agents in New Zealand in July 1985 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Renwick, Professor of Agricultural Economics, Lincoln University, New Zealand Fonterra caught the business world by surprise last week with plans to sell off its consumer brands and businesses – including supermarket mainstays such as Anchor, Fresh’n Fruity and Mainland. The move ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Small, Senior lecturer, Above the Bar School of Educational Studies and Leadership, University of Canterbury With an air force plane on its way to rescue New Zealanders stranded by the violent uprising in New Caledonia, many familiar with the island’s history ...
A New Zealand government plane is heading to New Caledonia to assist with bringing New Zealanders home. Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters today confirmed it was the first in a series of proposed flights. Peters said the flight would carry around 50 passengers with the most pressing needs from Nouméa ...
Regional councils must focus on building meaningful and enduring relationships with iwi and hapū to support better freshwater management, says the Auditor-General in a new report. ...
Chris Glaudel, Deputy Chief Executive of Community Housing Aotearoa, sees the announcement as a step towards addressing New Zealand’s high and rising levels of homelessness by improving our approach and system to delivering affordable homes. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ali Mamouri, Research fellow, Middle East studies, Deakin University The death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash this week occurred during one of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s most challenging periods. Raisi, a prominent figure in the political elite, ...
The end of universal flu shot funding for under-12s is a step backwards for New Zealand child health, say experts from the University of Auckland and the University of Otago. New Zealand’s decision to no longer offer free influenza vaccines for all children under 12 will likely wipe out recent ...
The PSA is taking action to force the Ministry of Education to comply with its legal obligations to do everything it can to find other roles for staff it is laying off because of the Government’s spending cuts. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrea Waling, Senior Lecturer & Research Fellow, Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University Netflix There has been much excitement in the lead up to the first four episodes of Bridgerton’s season three, featuring leading couple Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan) and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa De Bortoli, Senior Research Fellow, Australian Council for Educational Research Taylor Flowe/Unsplash, CC BY Australian teenagers have more disruptive maths classrooms and experience bullying at greater levels than the OECD average, a new report shows. But in better news, Australian ...
Poet, editor and former bookseller Jane Arthur’s debut children’s novel Brown Bird is the story of a shy, self-conscious 11-year-old – partly based on her childhood self – venturing out of her quiet comfort zone. Children’s books are close to my heart because mostly I believe that adults are rings ...
Peter Jackson is bringing Lord of the Rings back to Wellington, producing two new Gollum films in Wellington. Madeleine Chapman (Gollum) argues with Madeleine Chapman (Smeagol) about it. First of all, I can’t believe we’re even having this conversation. Of course it’s great news!I don’t know, it gives me ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a part-time media librarian and superannuitant explains how he spends and saves. Want to be part of The Cost of Being? Fill out the questionnaire here.Gender: Male Age: 65 Ethnicity: EuropeanRole: Media librarian ...
The Government’s Environmental Select Committee is refusing to engage meaningfully when it matters the most over new fast tracking environmental legislation, says Ngāti Ruanui. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Samantha Marsh, Senior Research Fellow in Public Health, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Christoph Soeder/dpa New Zealand’s decision to no longer offer free influenza vaccines for all children under 12 will likely wipe out recent gains in uptake. And it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexis Anja Kallio, Deputy Director (Research), Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University Many young people in contact with the justice system come from backgrounds of extreme poverty, parental abuse or neglect, parental incarceration and disrupted education. These complex traumas often manifest as addictions ...
The agency was found to be underperforming and ‘not financially viable’, explains Stewart Sowman-Lund in this extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. A damning report A government-ordered ...
Asia Pacific Report For more than 76 years, Palestinians have resisted occupation, dispossession and ethnic cleansing, culminating in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Yet in the midst of this catastrophic seven months of “hell on earth”, it is a paradox that there exists an extraordinary oasis of peace and nature. ...
You’ll never set foot in one. But its emissions still effect you. Shanti Mathias reports on a campaign to make private jet owners pay for their emissions in some way. The private jet passengers saunter down the red carpet, wearing sunglasses and heels; paparazzi cameras flash. The sky is blue, ...
Quality teachers back on the front line can only be a good thing. One of the difficult things we teach in senior English classes at secondary school is the development of an idea. This involves deepening your argument, without instead “going sideways” and merely adding examples while repeating the same ...
Opinion: As an indication of the eye-watering sums involved for the mega-prison plans announced two weeks ago by Corrections Minister Mark Mitchell, consider that $932 million has already been spent on a separate facility due to open at Waikeria next year – that’s about $1.5 million for each of the ...
Opinion: People with certain types of health conditions are more likely than others to have their symptoms dismissed, minimised or disbelieved. These conditions are diagnosed based on the patient self-report of symptoms, where there is no definitive diagnostic test that can prove the existence of disease or demonstrate structural or ...
The intensity of it, ironically, can feel like bullying. Social media activism is reaching something of a peak with the war in Gaza, using the hashtag Blockout2024. It started at this year’s MetGala when influencer and model Haley Kalil was caught on video muttering ‘let them eat cake’ – suddenly ...
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New Caledonia’s Tontouta International Airport remains closed, and Air New Zealand’s next scheduled flight is on Saturday — although it is not ruling out adding extra services. Air NZ’s Captain David Morgan said on Monday evening flights would only resume when they were assured of the security of the airport ...
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If there is going to be a new Conservative / Christian Party ..
Then they will need renounce those parts of the Bible that condemn Gays to hell ..
Like the Israel Folau outrage expressed..
But it wont happen will it. So neither the christians nor the outraged have credibility.
Over to Bridges and Ngaro…
Hi Vto
I do not recall Christ sending Gays to Hell.
Nor do I recall Christ playing Rugby Union.
However, HIV is still a big problem in our Society. Have you heard of that ?
Why bring up HIV? Curious, did Jesus mention HIV?
It must be big in rugby or something. I'm sure the preachers are on it.
Split the National Party vote.
Blue/Greens, New Conservatives, Ngaro Christian Party, Act Party.
That's a great plan. National might poll in the 20's on a good day.
Funny how the religious right are so selective in their reading of the Bible.
"Gays are unnatural and doomed to hell!"
The whole rich man going to heaven thing…..silence
LOL.
Along with usery.
"Talks between Labour and the government aimed at breaking the Brexit impasse have ended without an agreement." https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-48304867
What's stopping them find common ground? Corbyn "said his party had negotiated "in good faith and very seriously, and put forward a lot of very detailed arguments", which he thought was "the responsible thing to do". He added: "The issue [is] that the government has not fundamentally shifted its view and the divisions in the Conservative Party mean the government is negotiating with no authority and no ability that I can see to actually deliver anything.""
"Speaking after meeting Tory activists in Bristol, Mrs May said: "There have been areas where we have been able to find common ground, but other issues have proved to be more difficult. In particular, we haven't been able to overcome the fact that there isn't a common position in Labour about whether they want to deliver Brexit or hold a second referendum to reverse it."
In other words, there's obvious common ground: equivocation & disunity in both wings of the establishment. A common quicksand – no basis upon which to proceed.
Or to return to a frequent theme, this is a direct consequence of globalisation lacking common principles and democratic accountability.
Our physical reality is a world with 7 billion people that is one species rapidly converging as a single geo-social polity. Trade, travel, communication and a myriad of legal, commercial and technical mechanisms compel us into connection, yet the nation states have been unable to deliver an effective political mechanism to match.
Until we do expect more quicksand everywhere.
We've lived in an era in which there have been more and more powerful multilateral organizations and binding agreements across the known world than since the Christian church. Most of them formed in the last 70 years.
May and Corbyn simply don't believe in the best and most complex of these: the E.U.
Good point. You are quite correct, I carelessly glossed over that.
May and Corbyn simply don't believe in the best and most complex of these: the E.U.
Yet neither of these people are fools, nor all the aprox 50% of Britons who voted for Brexit. The question has to be why do they not believe in it? My answer is that we have yet to fully embrace the idea of globalisation as an moral idea. We believe in our families, our communities (whatever form they may take) and the nations we're citizens of yet somehow the next logical step, a belief in the organic unity of the human race, eludes us.
Stiglitz' 'Globalisation And Its Discontents' covers most of this ground.
I think we're about as unified as a human race as we are going to get, and we've done pretty well at it. Importantly we prefer the nation-state a the most powerful and enduring of the collective.
And honestly we expect too much from any one cross-national agreement, the CPTPP being a fairly strong recent one with buckets of extra moral suasion thrown in at the end to keep us happy.
I certainly expect the nation state to endure. Human history can be roughly modeled as successive extensions of our ability to unite. We started with modest family clan and tribal units, then built layers onto them, the village, the city state and currently the nation. It's crucial to recognise that each new layer incorporated and enhanced the ones that came before.
For instance, when the family/tribal unit is the largest political unit you have to work with, everything must be solved at that level. The appearance of the nation state far from being a constraint, liberated the family unit.
At this moment in history all the big problems we face are global in nature. Only when we have the political mechanisms at that scale to address them, will the nation states be liberated to reach their full and unsuspected potential.
And thanks for the Stiglitz link. Yes worth a read by the looks.
“The main message of Globalization and its Discontents was that the problem was not globalization, but how the process was being managed. Unfortunately, the management didn’t change. Fifteen years later, the new discontents have brought that message home to the advanced economies.”
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/globalization-new-discontents-by-joseph-e–stiglitz-2016-08
The global agreements that will bind nations to reverse the great global problems won't exist. We've pushed human cooperation as far as it's going to get. There's plenty of juice left in the existing organizations if they were supported. You can probably name good examples.
But there are plenty of other mechanisms that are more powerful than national and multinational agreements. The most powerful of them are markets, and many of those are already regulated in the broader interest very well.
Other mechanisms exists in only two of the most powerful countries we have: China and the United States. China's Belt and Road initiative for example. Plenty of faults, but no lack of international ambition or will.
Further mechanisms for global consensus exist in social media. Trump has led the way on how strong this mechanism is.
Even Ardern+Macron's Christchurch Call shows that agreement can simply start from fresh events. It's not a breakthrough, but it's a dent.
I don't think there's any need to wait until a global government arrives.
We've pushed human cooperation as far as it's going to get.
Yet this same statement could have been made by any of the tiny warlord duchy states prior to the emergence of say the unified German state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historic_states_of_Germany
Britain went through much the same turbulent era, such as the War of the Roses, as it transitioned from city state level of social unity to the nation state. Achieving a broader level of social cohesion never an easy process, and encounters much resistance. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; not all new forms are necessarily a good thing. It's wise that we should test the new before we commit irreversibly.
Yet there is a deep paradox in human social organisation. We value our freedom and independence, yet in isolation we perish. It's a terrible contradiction, but in order to gain true liberty we must first surrender part of our freedom. For example, in order to make the best use of a road we must collectively abide by the constraints of a road code. If we each retained the right to randomly choose whichever side of the road to drive on each morning, collectively the result would render them catastrophically useless.
Collectively we all share a planet and the nation states have reached the point where each must surrender a part of their sovereignty in order to evolve to their next step. Until then we're stuck in escalating cycles of mismanaged globalisation, confrontation and conflict.
I do agree with your last sentiment; waiting for a fully functioning federated global government is not necessary; there are many incremental steps along the way that can be achieved. The EU was as you say one of the better attempts.
Germany is a Federation within a Community.
It is Germany's sense of postwar cross-national amity that sought a structure of cooperation that would stop all future wars, and that evolved from the EC to the EU we have today.
The E.U. is still expanding, so that impulse is still alive. But barely.
So the historical circumstance is pretty different to what you point to.
I'm still waiting for the Pacific Islands to figure that their tiny non-sustaining little fiefdoms are better amalgamated into a pan-national confederation. They've got plenty to fight for after all.
In the meantime New Zealand needs to keep dear, dear hold of that special relationship with Australia. That's as close as we're going to get to Federation with something of any heft.
So the historical circumstance is pretty different to what you point to.
In the normal course of events you are right, the impulse toward higher levels of cooperation is fitful and unsatisfying.
But every now and then, such as in the aftermath of WW1 and WW2, we have a moment of clarity, when in horror and shame at what we have done, we take a decisive step.
We have a choice, doing this the hard way, or the very horrifyingly traumatic way. But it will happen, because the alternatives to my mind are not acceptable.
Seems to me it's the difference between ideal & reality. United Europe is an excellent idea. The consequent eurocracy has alienated too many people. Just as the United Nations was an excellent idea, discredited by dysfunction.
What's necessary in high-level political organisations is appropriate design, followed by smooth operation. Design flaws and malfunctions must be eliminated as they appear. Instead, the human tendency to instutionalise such problems kicks in. The tacit assumption `fixing it is too hard' prevails. We need to empower fixers. Democracy selects non-fixers.
We've lived in an era in which there have been more and more powerful multilateral organizations and binding agreements across the known world than since the Christian church. Most of them formed in the last 70 years.
Very powerful and ubiquitous these new religions eg Harari (sapiens)
“The capitalist and consumerist ethics are two sides of the same coin, a merger of two commandments. The supreme commandment of the rich is ‘Invest!’ The supreme commandment of the rest of us is ‘Buy!’ The capitalist–consumerist ethic is revolutionary in another respect. Most previous ethical systems presented people with a pretty tough deal. They were promised paradise, but only if they cultivated compassion and tolerance, overcame craving and anger, and restrained their selfish interests. This was too tough for most. The history of ethics is a sad tale of wonderful ideals that nobody can live up to. Most Christians did not imitate Christ, most Buddhists failed to follow Buddha, and most Confucians would have caused Confucius a temper tantrum. In contrast, most people today successfully live up to the capitalist–consumerist ideal. The new ethic promises paradise on condition that the rich remain greedy and spend their time making more money and that the masses give free reign to their cravings and passions and buy more and more. This is the first religion in history whose followers actually do what they are asked to do. How though do we know that we'll really get paradise in return? We've seen it on television.”
I've been waiting to see how long it would take for kiwi entrepeneurs to rise to the challenge of waste recycling since the early eighties. It's finally happened!
"New Zealand's soft packaging recycling scheme is about to start up again on Monday, after being suspended last year when global recycling options dried up." https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/05/soft-packaging-recycling-scheme-relaunches-in-new-zealand.html
"When China stopped taking plastic in 2018, it had a knock-on effect. Our soft plastics had been going to Australia but with a global market flooded with plastic, we can no longer rely on overseas processors and are forced to manage our own waste. Soft plastic has no commercial value and is difficult to repurpose."
"That's where Jerome Wenzlick steps in. He's a farmer and fencer who came up with an idea while putting up fencing at a rubbish dump. "We were putting wooden posts into the ground and the posts were snapping and we thought why don't we make some posts out of the plastic that's in the ground," he told Newshub. He's set up a company called Future Post and since the start of the year, he's recycled 300 tonnes – that's 75 truck loads."
"The soft plastic is sorted and granulated, then mixed with milk bottles, before going through a New Zealand-designed and built extruder to melt and reform it into fence posts. The equivalent of 550 plastic bags goes into making each post."
Thanks Dennis, a bit of good news that includes atypical ingenuity.
Is is going too far to call it plastic sequestering?
If this gets off the ground maybe they could talk to each other:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/111784322/feilding-could-home-new-zealands-first-plastic-reprocessing-centre#comments
Fancy a district council being that enterprising! "It's up to the Manawatū District Council to persuade the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment after the provincial development unit handed it $81,000 to put together a business plan."
I hope the economics is viable. Fits in with regional development too eh? Not many jobs but they all help. I wouldn't trust the MBIE to necessarily get it right though.
If they fail to approve it, the MDC ought to pay a leading economic consultancy to appraise the plan too, to identify whatever the design flaw is, or it exists merely in the minds of bureaucrats, formulate a contrary analysis in support of it which the MDC could then submit directly to the minister for regional development – or the minister for the environment, perhaps. Because a viable scheme could be copied in other regions…
This, or any other proposal, when a district council is involved, can only succeed when it doesn't clash with councillor's own vested interests.
So to have councils being the ones to tackle climate change, doesn't fill me with hope especially the provincial councils.
Yes, that's a realistic view of local body politics. And why the MDC initiative is so unusual. To be optimistic, one could also anticipate a copycat effect, which is likely if the scheme works. That would provide a progressive trend.
Is the Christchurch killer a terrorist, or a white person?
Both I would have said.
he is both,
a white supremist terrorist.
there, that was not hard.
The White supremacist shooter is only being charged with 'murder'.
Tam Iti, who is not white, was charged with terrorism.
Despite not killing, or even threatening to kill, anyone.
A double standard?
Guilty of terrorism until proven white?
I will repeat the question, and enlarge on it.
Is the Christchurch killer a terrorist, or a white person?
Are white people, not terrorists by definition?
How can anyone explain this discrepancy?
While agreeing that the way Tame Iti was treated was appaĺling and most certainly had a racist element to it, the major flaw in your argument is that he couldn't be charged with murder, having not killed anyone! Besides, the murder charge for the Chch perpetrator is, as I understand it, only an initial charge and there is more to come. I think you are comparing apples with oranges
…the major flaw in your argument is that he [Tama Iti] couldn't be charged with murder, having not killed anyone! JanM
Hi Jan,
I didn't argue, that Tama Iti should have been charged with murder. That would have obviously been completely ridiculous, (almost as completely ridiculous as charging him with terrorism).
I contended that if Tama Iti could be charged with terrorism, (despite not terrorising anyone), then the Christchurch white supremacist must be charged with terrorism, after oganising and planning an attack that killed 51 innocent New Zealand men women and children.
I further contend; that to not to charge this white supremacist with committing a terrorist act would represent a racist double standard.
….the murder charge for the Chch perpetrator is, as I understand it, only an initial charge and there is more to come. JanM
Jan you are absolutely right, the police can bring extra charges under the Suppression Of Terrorism. But will they?
Can a white person be a terrorist in New Zealand, or not?
The whole world is watching.
I am hopeful that this white supremacist mass murderer, will face extra charges laid under the Suppression Of Terrorism Act.
I hope that I am not proved wrong.
I suspect (though don't know) that if hes charged with murder its probably because charging him with terrorism might be problematic in getting the conviction whereas 51 counts of murder will certainly be easier to prove
I understand that is correct. Much easier to get a conviction for multiple murders.
to be honest you need to take that up with the current government not me.
to me he is a white supremacist and a terrorist and a mass murderer and an all around shitheel.
Any other question you may have you need to address with those that make the rules and that ain't me.
As for the privilege that white people have i have on more then on occasion addressed the fact that us white people have it, want it and are currently crying big tears about the fact that we are loosing it. And again, my position is that white people should never have had that privilege in the first place and in the case of many countries only got to be the top dog by systematically killing and eradicating the first nations by point of gun, with the help of chicken pox invested blankets, starvation, stolen generations and so forth.
As for those that cry over lost 'equality' in this country of any other 'white' country, i would like to point out that people of color, and women/children of all colors never were considered 'equal', never had 'equal rights' and certainly did not have the 'equal protection' accorded to white men in the courts of law and public opinion.
I hope this answers all your question for now.
You haz questions. The esteemed and learned Professor Geddis haz answers.
Go to https://www.pundit.co.nz/ and scroll down to March 16, 2019. (the URL for the article contains the fuckwit's name so it gets caught in the moderation trap here)
tl;dr Charging the fuckwit with terrorism involves trying to prove stuff like state of mind that's much more difficult to prove than the bare facts of his murderous actions. In any case, getting a conviction for terrorism on top of the murders won't have any material effect on what his sentence is likely to be. So yes, that shows the terrorism law is not fit for purpose and needs to be changed.
it wont have any material effect on sentencing but it will set precedent (and unfortunately provide platform) ….if this isnt a terrorist act then what is?…is that a question worth asking including removal of some future defendant using a lack of charge in this instance as a potential defence?
currently in the US
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/5/17/1858446/-Republican-Party-Is-on-the-Road-to-Mass-Lockups-for-Women-Who-Have-Miscarriages-by-Thom-Hartmann?utm_campaign=recent
"During Mike Pence’s first year as governor of Indiana, his state put a young woman in prison for having a miscarriage, alleging that she’d taken an abortion-causing drug. Purvi Patel didn’t have a trace of such a drug in her system, but Pence’s state sentenced her to 20 years in prison anyway. Just a few years earlier, Indiana had also held Bei Bei Shuai for 435 days in the brutal maximum security Marion County prison, facing 45 years to life for trying to kill herself and, in the process, causing the death of her 33-week fetus.
Utah charged 28-year-old Melissa Ann Rowland with murder because she refused a C-section, preferring vaginal birth for her twins, and one of them died. Sixteen-year-old Rennie Gibbs was charged by the state of Mississippi with “depraved heart murder” when her baby was born dead because his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck: her crime was that she had cocaine in her bloodstream, according to prosecutors. Angela Carder was ordered to have a C-section to deliver her baby before she died of cancer; both she and the baby died from the procedure."
yeah, lets all just mock the idea of some religious zealots having a party in NZ and getting a say in Parliament because the Party of No mates is run by wet toast covered in margarine.
Cause we absolutely should not look to what happens in other countries and wonder if we want the same shit happening here.
Geez, that is horrific Sabine..
Sabine (5) this is shocking! Yet they are out there, those "Christian" zealot conservative white males, wanting complete control over vulnerable women and girls. Demonstrating total ignorance of the highest order!
I'd be interested to know if the same cruel rules and actions would apply to the wives, daughters and granddaughters of the sadistic, vile Mike Pences of the world, whose rabid and dangerous mindsets belong back in the dark ages and before that even.
NZers have to be very alert as to who/what creeps into our political system, particularly when it comes to electing representatives.
the whole point is not to give married women grief (at least for now), but to harrass unmarried women who may only have sex for fun or so and force them back under the tutelage of Daddy until given over to Hubby at the church. Ownership over women and children is the whole point. The fetus is just the tool to achieve that.
in saying that, if you look at south america you will see that many women already are in prison for having miscarriages/or self induced abortions as the doctors don't want to incriminate themselves or simply report them to police and ……..locking up some poor women is just easier then proving solutions that would allow women access to science based healthcare, prenatal care, and / or simply the right to live a live save of sexual predators.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24532694
https://www.thenation.com/article/ecuador-abortion-miscarriage-prosecution/
Tracey Watkins swansong????
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/112809543/palaces-protests-prime-ministers-and-a-donald-trump-hat–memories-ive-got-a-few
I faced it all and I stood tall; I did it my way.
She certainly managed to demonstrate an inteĺlectual bypass. Facile and disingenuous
Indeed
"Clark moved in artistic circles but probably didn't have an arty bone in her body" (pfft!)
and of Key "Behind the humour and optimism was a sharp financial brain" I presume she means in a Nick Leeson kind of way
I'm hoping she's not going to be put on the RNZ goto list of rent-a-voices – it's been under a big enough threat as it is.
Humbling to realise that decades of experience in a job does not necessarily make you any wiser. We deserve better.
We do deserve better, but we rarely get it. Most journalists, in this country anyway, are certainly members of the B team 😣
Modern, innovative learning environment in re-born Christchurch.
Police have been called in after a pig in the school's petting zoo had a stick stuck up its bum.
At the very least the children should have been taught how to slaughter and prepare the pig before putting it on the spit.
Seriously, is this school an anomaly, or is this the reality for education today?
An in depth article which gathers opinions from both sides.
Many staff who had their own children enrolled had since removed them, they said.
"I know those leaders were really intent on believing in the school philosophy but at the end of the day, after under two years, they just couldn't sacrifice their beloved kids.
"They [Haeata management] developed a philosophy without knowing the kids. They left out the most important thing."
Kai Fong said that every staff member had the opportunity to give feedback and meet face to face with the board if they chose.
Relief teacher Nadine Garrett liked Haeata's environment but said it wasn't right for everyone.
"I felt really sorry for the traditional teachers, they felt like they were just floating."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/education/112671944/pet-pig-assaulted-by-christchurch-school-students
Personally, I'd find the noise in a classroom of 300 self -directed learners unbearable and while its laudable for the school to use incidences of bullying as a learning opportunity it appears it is not doing much to reduce the level of violence.
Shameful experiment tried out on the poorest people in town
Unbelievable
Why didn't the education department try it out in Remuera? Or Fendalton? Or Max Key's school?
Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
We all know the answer. Fuck the rich.
'We all know the answer. Fuck the rich.'
Do tell – how is this 'the rich's' fault ?
While you're at it who are there 'rich' ?
Perhaps in this instance the MoE was trying to do the right thing and the school in question just lacked the appropriate leadership and governance.
It's going to take a while and a lot of training to bring mainstream teachers to a point where they can operate successfully in an environment like this. Its basic kaupapa would appear to be similar to the ec Te Whariki curriculum and is common sense to us (I am ece trained ) but very scary, I would think, to a lot of the 'chalk and talk' brigade. By the way, I would never leave animals unprotected in any environment around children, no matter what their backgrounds. The inability to show kindness and compassion is most emphaticaĺly not confined to any one class or ethnicity.
Headmaster…
Kai Fong said there was no evidence to suggest the rate of violence was higher at Haeata than other schools and he believed there was an "inherent bias" against the east side of Christchurch. "I think the preconception of more violence here is unjustified."
However, he said a proportion of Haeata's pupils struggled to "engage consistently in learning" and some "do not have the requisite social and emotional skills to be fully functional in learning".
A former teacher recalled incidents in 2017 when a glass object was thrown near an itinerant teacher and smashed. She was also told to "f… off, you b….," while being swung at with a traffic patrol pole by a 5-year-old. Children threw scooters, rode bikes inside, and there was constant swearing and verbal abuse.
As a result, the teacher took two terms off with post-traumatic stress, and had private counselling for 12 weeks.
The following year, the school sought police help to change the culture. The "highly successful initiative" focused on "pro-social behaviours" with girls at Haeata.
It seems counterintuitive to have a bunch of kids with known behavioural and learning difficulties in such an open plan environment. Too much noise and distraction and it would be damn near impossible to concentrate. I wonder if (in these days of mainstreaming kids with learning/behavioural issues) they have a squadron of teacher aides,or if they have 'special' rooms where those kids that are struggling can go for quiet time.
It would be interesting to know the make up of the kids being pulled from Haeata.
Kids with parents who give a toss I guess.
”We all know the answer. Fuck the rich.”
thats the the kind of comment often made by people who are far from rich and normally because of their own actions.
Stop being so bitter.
Experience in how politicians and government interact with the rich, relative to how they interact with the poor, points directly to such a school never being allowed to be experimented in Remuera or Fendalton.
Wake up.
No apology, but yes plenty of bitterness. All very real. Is why society is cleaving down the middle. Fuck the rich and their politicians.
An inane response that one can only pontificate a real looser that is looking for sone one to blame re their lot
Why is the word "loser" so hard to spell?
I note that loose spelling too.
This quote confirms a comment I made the other day about the difficulties that teachers have these days.
But a former teacher said teaching was impossible because they would spend their time wrangling naughty students. "I can't believe what a bad teacher I became," they said.
If this is an experimental school it has too big a roll. Nearly a thousand children can't be thrown together with the emphasis on them finding their own preferences.
I was waiting in the library at school while one of my children was in a class decades ago and the kids were supposed to be using the library facilities and looking at the range of books. One boy got out a motor magazine and turned the pages making vroom,vroom noises. I was helping another who couldn't concentrate his mind because he wanted to watch his friend. Encouraging him to work out a plan for a short piece on what he remembered from a trip to California was very difficult. Distraction is no good for the 10 second attention span generation.
Is the National Party tearing itself apart? Here's a letter posted on kiwiblog today.
Chuck Bird
It will be interesting to see which National MPs respond.
To all National MP’s
As a National supporter for the past 47 years, I wish to voice my disgust at your actions in supporting the Government in the passing of the recent bill to make criminals of law abiding gun owners. I attended a recent meeting in Te Awamutu where MP’s Bishop and Kuriger were speaking about this very topic. I have never been in a group of people so hostile to anybody, let alone MPs. I would venture to say that about 300-350 people were there. Most would have been National party supporters. For how long, I can only guess. If they are like me, not for much longer, unless you change the way you are heading.
Your actions were despicable in casting aside the rights of law abiding citizens. All in the name of socialist ideology. I thought that was the purvue of the left. How wrong I am.
This will be posted on my blog site http://www.ysb.co.nz . It is a blog dedicated to upholding free speech and WAS a National Party support blog. Your actions mentioned above have seriously bought this support into question.
Your replies will be appreciated
Regards
Chris Roberts
MAY 18, 2019 9:10AM
well that is a bit of a stretch would you not think?
Consider that the only one type of weapon was outlawed and a few tools around ( i am not a gun enthusiast so am not too versed in that lingo) and that he still can own chickenshit loads of other weapons for his hunting and collecting needs.
So no, legal gun owner have not been criminalised, but a legal gun owner has mowed down 50 people and maybe he should think about that too.
But he is lucky, soon he can vote for a bunch of "Not National – but almost" Parties and all is good again.
Diddums to Chris. He can't be Rambo this weekend.
The 37 odd comments criticising Simon and the National Party are very telling.
https://ysb.co.nz/email-to-all-national-mps/#comments
Earlier today, I read the then 25 comments and they were so stereotypical of RWNJs that I thought that blog was an extremely well done parody of KB. Fact is stranger than fiction and reality is scarier than nightmares.
Australia goes to the polls.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/17/australian-election-day-guide-what-you-need-to-know
Watch the Oz election live here:
Hope the "Bob Bounce" carries Shorten home but GO THE GREENS.
Thanks!. I've been suffering Skoi News Stray ya.
They just had some fukwit on called Poida Duddin, Minstafa Homo Fears
The means of exchange need to be regulated as otherwise when it becomes an end to itself, value systems and directions are lead by donkeys towards cliffs.
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-fines-major-banks-1-billion-over-currency-cartels/a-48759642
It already is.
The systemic failing is that the regulators are the financial institutions.
They exist in a mutual symbiotic relationship to ensure the flows.
$1bn dollar fine is simply… good business for all involved.
It would seem likely that the majority of collusion that takes place with the use of financial bubbles in unproductive predatory capitalism would involve relatively concentrated/substantial actors rather than such endeavours being the co-operation of multitudes, so a small financial transaction tax system could be a good way to provide tag and trace info to that, which can then be graduated up down the chain when critical thresholds start to be traced before such acts are able to be followed through to completion.
FTT you think there is hope to get that?
Or are you just continuing the legendary oral history tradition so you can recite it to your great-grandchildren about the inglorious past.
"I don't know what the POINT is. … I don't think that it HELPS."
Incredibly, Jeremy Rose contends that Ben Shapiro was treated unfairly by Andrew Neil
Lately, RNZ National, Wednesday 15 May 2019, 10:30 pm
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/lately/audio/2018695310/midweek-mediawatch
Midweek MediaWatch
Jeremy Rose is this weeks Midweek Mediawatcher.
Rose delivers his mostly banal ruminations in a croaky basso profundo, his words larded with an extraordinarily high "um" and "y' know" count. Donovan's role is to meekly underscore Rose's philosophical gems occasionally with a supportive "Mmmm, mmmm."
EMIL DONOVAN: It's time for Midweek Media Watch, our weekly catch-up with the Mediawatch teeeeam, one of the Mediawatch team, to talk about all things media. Today it's Jeremy Rose's turn in the chair. Hullo, Jeremy.
JEREMY ROSE: Gid-daaaaay Emil, how ARE ya?
EMIL DONOVAN: Very well thank you. Ahhhh, what've you got for us this week?
JEREMY ROSE: Well I THOUGHT I'd start with the "power of the signature" you were just talking, y'know, about….
Rose spends an inordinate time talking about a woman's Facebook petition to change the Milo recipe. Donovan thinks this is a very serious topic: "It taps into the cultural zeitgeist, doesn't it," he observes.
Next topic: a Russian blogger called "Stalin Gulag" who operates on a site called Telegram. "It shows the importance of social media for holding the powerful to account," says Rose.
Rose says something about the need to break up Facebook, and then moves on to the distasteful topic of white supremacist sites like 8chan. He praises recent work on this by Max Towle and Patrick Gower. Rose plays a clip of Gower in fighting mood: "I'm ready for ANOTHER go with Stefan Molyneux and Lauren Southern." That cuts no ice with Jeremy Rose, however. He reckons that interviewing people like Molyneux and Southern is unwise—"these people are nonentities"—and akin to a prizefight.
So far, so humdrum. Then the interview with Jeremy Rose, who's billed as a media "expert", becomes foolish, bizarre, almost inexplicable. It turns out that Rose, who just a couple of minutes earlier talked grandly about "the importance of social media for holding the powerful to account", does not think that the mainstream media, i.e. the BBC, should hold the powerful or the influential to account at all. In fact, he says, there's no "point" in holding the words of a brutal racist against him in an interview. "I just don't think it HELPS", he croaks to an obviously unconvinced Donovan. Here, for those who can stomach pretentiousness and bewilderment dressed up as media commentary, is four minutes of Jeremy Rose's dire and dismal vaporing….
(For those listening on the audio link, the horror starts at the 19:33 mark)
JEREMY ROSE: …..so I really wanna know WHY you'd bother getting them on. And that kinda brings us to ANOTHER one that's had a bit of a sporting overtone. I think you were quite keen to talk about, which is the Ben Shapiro—
EMIL DONOVAN: Yes.
JEREMY ROSE: —interview. A well known, American, ultra-conservative, right wing commentator with a LOT of Twitter followers, I think, y'know, well over a million—
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: And he was interviewed on the BBC byyyyy, um—-
EMIL DONOVAN: Andrew Neil, the notorious hard-nosed interviewer Andrew Neil. Yeah this was a FASCINATING interview, wasn't it.
JEREMY ROSE: It, it really was. Shall we—let's, let's have a listen to a BIT of it.
JEREMY ROSE: Y-y-yeah, ha, so y' know, uh, it's gone VIRAL on the internet. Everyone, including ahhhh, Shapiro, say that it, that it was a DISASTROUS performance by him. He's tweeted, though, "Neil one, Shapiro zero." Again, that sporting kind of metaphor.
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: Wanting a rematch. I don't think there was much in it, I don't think you LEARNT much, and I ACTUALLY think he had a KIND of point, whe-e-e-ere, that there was, y'know, when he was accused of being from the Dark Ages—
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: —which is obviously a metaphor. But it wasn't actually that HELPFUL, and it ended UP just being …. [long caesura]…. for want of a better word, a shit fight.
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm, mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: A-and I'm NOT sure that that REALLY serves ANYBODY.
EMIL DONOVAN: Yeah, I know it was fascinating stuff wasn't it. It's um, yeeeahh, the idea that—I mean, it's a TEMPTING metaphor. Sporting metaphors ARE tempting when it comes to, to interviews like tha-a-a-at, because the, a confrontational interview can sometimes be NECESSARY, right? Y' know? And, and sometimes there IS a winner and a loser out of an interview. And sometimes people are satisfied by seeing that. But it's not necessarily a HELPFUL metaphor.
JEREMY ROSE: No-o-o-o. And I, and I, and that whole idea of kinda punching OUT and a winner. And that was how it was portrayed, because he kept THROWING these ABSOLUTELY obnoxious quotes which he had ma-a-a-ade—
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: —in the past at him, and asking him to DEFEND them. ….[long caesura]…. I don't know what the POINT is. If I hadn't seen the interview, I wouldn't know that this guy had made these racist, revolting comments about Arabs, about—- And I don't think that it HELPS, knowing that.
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm, mmmm.
JEREMY ROSE: Ahhhm, and he did have a BOOK out, I've got NO idea what he says in the book. There was nothing in it in the interview.
EMIL DONOVAN: Well I think this was the thing about it, that the book was about the rise of, um, extremist discourse, and, and, and ANGER within sort of SOCIETY and I think that Andrew Neil was pointing out the hypocrisy of the idea that Ben Shapiro would write a book about anger and society when he had contributed to it himself through his previous kinds of statements. But it's a very interesting kind of issue, isn't it—
JEREMY ROSE: Yeah.
EMIL DONOVAN: —and one that I imagine we won't see go away, because they always seem to be held up as SPECTACLES, these interviews, y'know….
JEREMY ROSE: I think that's exactly right. It, it, it's interviewers' performance. I think when we're dealing with things that matter as much as white supremacy, THAT's not the time to do that. To me-e-e-e-e, THAT's actually exactly what white supremacist type people would ENJOY.
EMIL DONOVAN: Mmmm, mmmm. It's sort of, yeah, the fuzzy line where information blurs into entertainment. Yeahhhh. Well, uh, Jeremy, thanks so much for that. Really appreciate it.
JEREMY ROSE: Oh thanks very much.
EMIL DONOVAN: Mediawatch's Jeremy Rose.
More Mediawatch mediocrity….
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2019/01/liars-of-our-time-no-27-lyse-doucet-i.html
Morrissey
1. Andrew Neil is an excellent interviewer. He has variously made mincemeat of Jeremy Corbyn, Diana Abbot, Natalie Bennett and many others. Andrew has no problem tackling those on the right of politics, it is just that generally the left provide easier targets.
2. Andrew underestimated Ben Shapiro's intellect, and his attack dog line about Georgia's abortion law was ill-informed and justified Ben's response. At the same time, Ben was clearly ill-informed about Andrew's interview style, and came across as petulant. That's a shame, because Ben is intellectually the superior of virtually anyone Andrew will have interviewed, and the exchange could have been far more productive if both men had been better prepared.
3. For anyone to suggest Ben Shapiro was treated 'unfairly' by Andrew Neil is nonsense. Ben has been interviewed countless times, he has spoken to openly hostile audiences and has faced de-platforming by the lefty snowflakes on US campus's. In short, he is tougher than the person you quote gives him credit for.
4. Take time to listen to what Ben Shapiro says. You might not agree with him, but unlike some of the crazies on both the left and right of politics, Ben is a sound thinker, who speaks a rational, conservative voice into the issues of the day.
He "made mincemeat" of Corbyn, did he? That seems unlikely.
I and I'm sure many others got a laugh from your comical assertion about Shapiro's great intellect.
Corbyn is a lightweight. No, I'll go further, he's a fool.
And it's a shame you have judged Shapiro without listening to him. You're the one missing out on that score.
I've listened to Shapiro, sadly. Unlike you, I've listened to him with a critical ear.
Your comment about Corbyn is as ridiculous as your insistence that Shapiro, that canting, brutal racist, is "a sound thinker."
Provide a single example of Ben Shapiro being 'racist'.
Watch the disastrous (for Shapiro) interview with Andrew Neil again. Neil reels off example after example of Nazi-quality filth, all of them direct quotes from Shapiro.
Disastrous? You are joking right?
And just over 16 minutes of video and you still haven't given a single example of Ben Shapiro being racist. Quote just one, Morrisey.
rofl, Oh my – just one.
"Arabs like to bomb shit, and live in garbage" – yeah that is racist.
Quote your source, and the context.
Are you really that stupid Shadrach?
It's from the video, which proves you either an idiot or bloody lazy…
Clearly nearly everything you've stated is wrong shadders. Lies or stupidity?
Wow you’ve just excelled yourself at hit and run.
You are excoriating Morrissey of all in broadcasting and media generally.
I hope someone pays you for all that. I don't think TS does, so whom?
You are excoriating Morrissey of all in broadcasting and media generally.
Your statement is demonstrably incorrect. A quick review of my oeuvre shows I am more than happy to praise ethical, talented and conscientious journalists—both locally and internationally. On this forum and on many others I have praised: Julian Assange, Max Blumenthal, Mihi Forbes, Juan González, Amy Goodman, Glenn Greenwald, Nicky Hager, Amira Hass, Paul Jay, Caitlin Johnstone, Gideon Levy, Selwyn Manning, Abby Martin, Aaron Maté, Matt Nippert, Paula Penfold, John Pilger, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, Jon Stephenson….
That's just a few off the top of my head, in alphabetical order. I've praised every one of them at least once, some of them many times.
I hope someone pays you for all that. I don't think TS does, so whom?
What difference does it make? Mike Hosking gets paid to produce his rubbish; all the easy money in the world doesn't give him an ounce of credibility.
Godbye world.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/16/headlines/arctic_ocean_temperatures_soar_as_nearly_all_old_arctic_sea_ice_has_vanished Arctic Ocean
Temperatures Soar as Nearly All Old Arctic Sea Ice Has Vanished HEADLINEMAY 16, 2019
In climate news, temperatures near the entrance to the Arctic Ocean in northwest Russia reached a record-shattering 84 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend, in an area where high temperatures are normally 30 degrees cooler this time of year. This comes as the National Snow and Ice Data Center recorded a record-low sea ice extent for the Arctic Ocean in April, noting that almost all of the sea ice more than four years old is gone. Over the weekend, meteorologists measured carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere at over 415 parts per million — the highest level in human history, and a concentration that’s not been seen on Earth in over 3 million years.
Some horribly fascinating things.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/moment-man-fined-90-hiding-face-police-facial-recognition-cameras-9571463/ The man pulled his jumper up above his chin as he walked past Met Police officers trialling Live Facial Recognition software in east London. BBC cameras filmed as officers swooped on the man, told him to ‘wind his neck in’ then handed him the hefty penalty charge.
A campaigner from Big Brother Watch – who were protesting the use of cameras on the day – was also filmed telling an officer: ‘I would have done the same.’
This not so bad. I am thinking that's a good design for a simple bus shelter. https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/17/bus-shelter-built-road-no-buses-9582629/
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/15/bike-handle-stuck-woman-two-years-husband-shoved-vagina-9556829/ My summary – This shows how women get treated when they are not respected in a society and become helpless pawns. Husband intoxicated by alcohol – such a common drug abuse. Woman 30 has six children, can't have any more. Might be good for her in the long run – depends on husband. If she hasn't had boys he might put her aside.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/17/middle-class-murder-millions-birds-vacuumed-death-olive-picking-9584002/
Millions of birds are being sucked out of trees and killed each year to feed our olive oil habit. Iconic birds such as robins, warblers and wagtails have seen their numbers decimated because of intensive farming practices. Experts have warned the international community that it needs to act before legally-protected species disappear for good. During the winter months, birds from central and northern Europe, flock to the Mediterranean basin. At the same time, the olive oil harvest happens in Spain, France, Italy and Portugal…
Farmers use large and intensive harvesting machines at night to strip the trees of their fruit. However, the birds are sleeping in the trees and are getting sucked into the machines on a ‘catastrophic scale.’…But, 96,000 birds are known to die in Portugal every winter as a result of this technique.
RSPCA director of conservation, Martin Harper, said: ‘Numbers of farmland birds in Europe have plummeted by 55% over the last three decades and this is another shocking example of how modern agricultural practices are impacting our bird populations, including some UK species passing through the region.’
And koalas. This cant' be.
The Australian Koala Foundation has confirmed that, with only 80,000 members of the species left in the wild there isn’t enough to support a new generation.
They’ve declared the marsupial ‘functionally extinct’ which means the population has dropped so low it no longer has any effect on its surrounding environment. Koalas have too few breeding adults left to support the species and any kind of genetic disease or pathogen would put the final nail in the coffin.
Koalas are dying out due to effects caused by climate change. Rising temperatures are causing heatwaves that kill thousands of koalas through dehydration. The species has also suffered hugely from deforestation. According to the Australian Koala Foundation, there are no koalas left at all in 41 out of 128 Federal environments where they have known habitats.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/16/koalas-now-functionally-extinct-9565982/?ico=pushly-notifcation-small&utm_source=pushly
I suggest NZ sets up a fund to support the Koala Foundation and give the Australians a message that they need to both support their own vulnerable animals and the Kiwi people who live there and who they have arbitrarily arrested on spurious grounds and hold in camps against international law precedents. Maybe there will be some politicians who have integrity to do something for the Koalas and the Kiwis.
From the UK political scene.
Latest on Brexit and May-not. 17 May 2019
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/17/prime-minister-theresa-may-tears-forced-say-will-quit-9580917/
Summary – May must go before June 30. Boris has put his name forward. Jeremy says that talks are not getting anywhere.
https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/17/neo-nazi-plotted-murder-mp-rosie-cooper-jailed-life-9583420/ 17May 2019 Summary – Young white youth – his ideas poisoned by evil ideas was planning to knife a woman MP. (Remember one woman MP was shot a few years ago.)
When you think these pricks had hit peak vileness.
Oklahoma state legislator Rep. Justin Humphrey is sponsoring a draconian bill, HB 1441, that would require a woman to get written permission from her sexual partner if she wants to have an abortion.
Attempting to justify the despicable legislation Rep. Humphrey told The Intercept that women have no right to bodily autonomy once they are pregnant because they are merely “hosts”:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2017/02/oklahoma-lawmaker-men-must-approve-abortion-women-hosts/
As Colbert put it, "it's either an overreach by the Alabama gop or some pretty intense viral marketing for the new season of Handmaid's tale.
But wait, there's more.
The Missouri House has voted to approve some of the strictest abortion laws in the country, and because it's Missouri, the process somehow managed to include a Republican lawmaker defending the bill by talking about, sigh, "consensual rape."
[…]
It was on the issue of exceptions for rape victims that Hovis, a retired Cape Girardeau police lieutenant first elected to office in 2017, took his stand. He pointed out that "most of the rapes" that he saw in law enforcement didn't involve "gentlemen jumping out of bushes."
"Most of them were date rapes or consensual rapes," he continued, "which were all terrible, but I'd sit in court when juries would struggle with those situations, where it was a 'he-said-she-said,' which was unfortunate if it really happened."
Having suggested that rape is often no big deal — because hey, if it didn't happen at gunpoint, it's a real struggle for a jury to know what to do — Hovis finally seemed to find his point, which appeared to be that that rape victims would still have plenty of time, after the rape, to decide whether to get an abortion
https://m.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2019/05/17/missouri-lawmaker-cites-consensual-rapes-as-house-passes-abortion-bill
also this
https://rewire.news/article/2019/05/17/science-fiction-behind-ohio-reps-ban-insurance-ectopic-pregnancy/
it goes hand in hand with 'co-parenting rights for rapists ' . Cause …..something, reason, god, bullshit, and such.
well at least he understands that the dears actually believe they have a right to their bodies.
also hosts get pregnant and men have nothing to do with it until the host is pregnant and then the host needs permission from the man.
They used to call that shit slavery.
Rep. Humphrey told The Intercept that women have no right to bodily autonomy once they are pregnant because they are merely “hosts”:
That phrase "once they are pregnant" is redundant in context, said context being Rep. Humphrey's fucked-up opinions.
i know i know germans don't have a sense of humor, and they always only shout and the language is hard and what not….but
https://twitter.com/dw_sports/status/1128306663226843137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dw.com%2Fcda%2Fen%2Fgermanys-women-we-dont-have-balls-but-we-know-how-to-use-them%2Fa-48776813
quote: we don't need balls, we have ponytails (actually Horsetails but then english:) ) .
is funny.
Some subtleties are always lost in translation. Good ad!
Who said Germans don't have a sense of humour?
If you're looking for someone without a humorous bone in her body, and lacking even a rudimentary sense of the ridiculous, you can't go past this thoroughly Anglo, non-German, fool (unfunny fool)….
you are one boring shit stirrer aren't you?
Sorry, I should have made it clear that some Germans do lack a sense of humour. You're a case in point.
no, you just looked for a reason to again post one of your pointless video clips.
it has nothing do to with what i posted, and it is so far removed from anything that really it is just your typical posting a shit video so that you can post a shit video.
and when it comes to you and your shit videos i am just bored and bored, and bored, and bored, and bored.
no, you just looked for a reason to again post one of your pointless video clips.
"Pointless"? You didn't get the point? Frankly, I'm not surprised.
it has nothing do to with what i posted,
In fact, it has everything to do with what you posted. In a fit of self-deprecation, you repeated the stupid falsehood that Germans "don't have a sense of humour." I helpfully steered you to an example of someone—a non-German— completely lacking any sense of humour, or absurdity, or even increasingly—it's been clear for more than two years now—any grasp of reality.
and it is so far removed from anything that really it is just your typical posting a shit video so that you can post a shit video.
???? You really can't understand that clip? Really?
and when it comes to you and your shit videos i am just bored and bored, and bored, and bored, and bored.
There are German writers I admire tremendously: Mann, Sebald, Roth. Your embarrassing and awkwardly phrased rants are not quite in their company, I'm sorry to say. Perhaps you should read a bit more, think a bit more, see if you can pick up a few stylistic tips from some of your compatriots who can actually write.
Fuck me, you asserted something I agree with! Jimmy Dore is indeed completely lacking in humour or even any grasp of reality.
I feel a bout of introprobation coming on.
You're a funny guy, Andre. Sharp as ….. oh, Sabine?
That sounds pretty serious, Andre.
It'll pass quickly. I hope.
It is gut-wrenching when it goes on for too long. Some sufferers are never the same again after a severe and long bout.
Laughter really helps alleviate the symptoms. The mozzie is doing sterling work supplying that.
And there's no warning when the impacted matter flares up to cause a fresh attack.
It's extremely serious. See, Andre is afflicted by these Russian bots, controlled by those Russian masterminds who control Trump, and …. hell, you know the rest. It's what Rachel Maddow says.
Thoughts and prayers, Andre. That evil Putin, darn him.
When somebody talks of Russian masterminds I always think of chess. Maybe one of my hypnotherapy sessions went wrong.
Hi Sabine It might have been one of my videos that you didn't like. Sorry. But I put them in as changes when the tone is too dark or it seems we need some light relief. They are just a break in between bouts of seriousness, or indeed slapstick occasionally.
I have no idea what you talk about.
Seriously. I actually don't watch tv, listen to the radio generally because it is full of shit and nothing much else.
I usually scroll by Morrisey as i don't see why i should read stuff that i don't listen or watch.
and when Morrisey posts a video i don't expect humor nor slapstick as generally he/she is about outrage and i can't be bothered.
So really i have no idea what you talk about. Sorry.
Well I did wonder about the video reference which seemed very strongly negative.
and when it comes to you and your shit videos i am just bored and bored, and bored, and bored, and bored.
And i thought it might be some of mine you were thinking of. But not. So I'll forget about it. Sorry to have confused you.
Sorry to have confused you.
You're a real gentleman, Mr Shark. But rest assured: unser guter freund Sabine has been confused and bewildered for a good two and a half years now. Sie kann dich nicht dafür verantwortlich machen.
Germans have a great sense of humour! Usually very dry and dark, but very funny.
Yep. I used to love one NDR programme in the mid-90s, can't remember what is was called now – everything absolutely deadpan, no clues you were supposed to find it funny, fuck it was good. Morrissey just lacks the self-awareness to recognise bigotry when he's indulging in it.
Sorry Milt, you've got the wrong end of the shoe here. It's our friend Sabine that's running down Germans, not me. I stuck up for them, having appreciated their music, literature, art, cinema, food, beer and, yes, their sense of humour for as long as I can remember.
Shit I shared a flat with one German in Toronto and he was the most "wooden "person with absolutely no detectable chararter at all.
was he from hamburg?
that would explain a lot.
Harrumph. Hamburg was full of highly entertaining loose units when I lived there. Maybe it's become more spiessig in the last 20 years?
nope, but they are special. Usually very formal, quite uptight until they know you. I guess its the cold and the rain.
Compare Bavarians and Hamburg'ers and its like English and Italians. Bavarians being the Italians. 🙂
but yeah, the northern humor is something to behold. I lived there for a while and it was a good time.
Does that include Israel?
The Trump administration has taken its war on abortion worldwide, cutting off all funding to any overseas organisation or clinic that will not agree to a complete ban on even discussing it.
The Mexico City policy, dubbed the “global gag” by its critics, denies US federal funds to any organisation involved in providing abortion services overseas or counselling women about them. It was instituted by the then US president Ronald Reagan and has been revoked by every Democrat and reinstated by every Republican president since.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/17/trump-takes-war-on-abortion-worldwide-as-policy-cuts-off-funds
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/112826745/parliaments-lone-protester-will-be-on-its-lawn-until-a-climate-emergency-is-declared
Cool guy. Follow him on https://www.instagram.com/thathumbleman/
“For the past three days, Ollie Langridge has sat on the lawn of Parliament, sitting on a bolster pillow wrapped in plastic, and holding a sign calling on the Government to declare a climate change emergency.
Langridge is a self-employed father of six, living in Thorndon with no political affiliation or ties to climate change advocacy groups – just a man worried about the future he's leaving for his children.
"I just see myself as a normal guy that doesn't know what to do and this is the best thing I could think of.”
DUM BRITONS
Exhibit 4: Kirsty Wark
Is there a stupider person in Britain than Kirsty Wark?
https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2019/05/eurovision-2019-madonnas-total.html
DUM BRITONS is compiled by Hector Stoop, for Daisycutter Sports Inc.
Collect ALL the Dum Britons….
1 Michael Gove; 2 Chris Leslie; 3 Sir Mark Thatcher.
https://morrisseybreen.blogspot.com/2018/11/dum-britons-exhibit-3-sir-mark-thatcher.html
Not all Germans lack a sense of humour, and not all Fox News hosts lack a heart and brain. Case in point: Geraldo Rivera
Poor old Dan Bongino is as bewildered and nasty as any of our own NewstalkZzzzzB hosts, however.
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2019/05/16/bongerinos-how-americans-talk-about-palestine/
Same old? same old from the Mozz, Zzzzzzz
Sleepy ol suburb with not much to do.. zzzz
heh
https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/1129443052815360000
'Murica threatens to shoot down commercial airliners in the Arabian Gulf.
https://twitter.com/AJENews/status/1129657916116672513
So the US is officially a rogue state.
Arresting the last 4 peace activists in the Venezuelan Embassy in DC.
they have been a roque state for a long time now.