Finally impeachment is looking like a realistic prospect. I reported the breaking news last night on Open Mike. Nobody commented, so I suspect all the clamour for it last year by the Democrats has everyone in a state of disbelief, assuming it’s fake news.
Not if Cohen is telling the truth that he has proof Trump lied to Congress. That’s serious. The BBC is now onto the case, but gave it to a reporter who flounders around for a while without getting to the point: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46915909
Then, after that preliminary failure, their analyst gets to it: “The report on Thursday night that there is documentary evidence Donald Trump directed his former attorney to lie to Congress just lit a big fuse.” “If the Buzzfeed story is substantiated – and it asserts this evidence is already in the hands of Mr Mueller – this would appear to present a strong case for presidential obstruction of justice.”
Mueller has spent a couple of years taking out the small fry. Seems now’s the time for him to prove that he’s capable of holding a president accountable.
“During a CNN interview, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer blurted out that the only person he knows about who didn’t collude with Russia was Trump himself.”
An unusual legal strategy, eh? The notion that the only apple in the barrel not rotten is the golden one sitting on top is unlikely to fly well in the court of public opinion. Giuliani also offered to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to the Washington Post at a discount price – although it’s possible that this was an attempt to change the subject.
Maybe not – he also made the same offer to NBC. [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/dems-vow-action-after-report-trump-directed-cohen-lie-about-n960156] Looks like he thinks he’ll get a better price via an auction…
“”I want him to have this devil-may-care attitude, someone who can maintain a sense of humor while the world is collapsing around him.” I adapted and used that portrait, and that was the beginning… Mingo’s defining portrait was used on the cover of Mad #30 in late 1956 as a supposed write-in candidate for the Presidency”
I remember when I first saw it being somewhat horror-struck, thinking “That boy looks just like me!”
Dems are talking about it again, after Cohen revelations
A BuzzFeed report says President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress, prompting the talk of impeachment among Democrats even before the special counsel finished his probe, writes @natashabertrand: https://t.co/3e2DwZgQ7t
Ropata, do you know who you’ve just quoted? Jeffrey Goldberg is a cheerleader of the Israeli destruction of Palesitinian life, and was a loud enthusiast for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
“Ad hominems?” I was alerting you to the fact you had unwittingly quoted one of the most bloodyminded and shameless propagandists in the United States or anywhere else for that matter.
There is a huge number of reputable, responsible and decent critics of Trump that you could have quoted, but you (unwisely) chose Jeffrey Goldberg.
The talk is that because his Daughter Ivanka and also his sons are implicated in a lot of illegal dealings that he might strike a deal to resign in order to protect her and his sons.
They say he is the only president to have made a profit from his presidential campaign. Except for some initial seed money, he mostly loaned not gave money to his campaign and then got it back with interest as the political donations rolled in. He also rented out properties and event venues he owned to his campaign at way over market rates. Something Ivanka was involved in according to evidence.
Trump’s father was a scam artist and all he knows how to do well is scams. All of his legitimate businesses have ended in bankruptcies and all his main wealth has come from scams and tax avoidance. I would not be surprised if you traced some of the secured creditors from his bankrupt business you would not find Trump himself at the end of the long-hidden trail of money.
There’s been so many “smoking guns” the smell of cordite has addled the Press’ brains
Maybe its time to get back to “the noose is tightening”
I mean Buzzfeed, come on , didnt they break the “piss tape”
“Mueller breaks silence to dispute parts of bombshell report on Michael Cohen
Special counsel says elements of BuzzFeed story, claiming Trump told his former lawyer to lie to Congress, are ‘not accurate’”
So Mueller has felt the necessity of denying the accuracy, but has been careful to do so in general terms only!! Facts are evidently in dispute, but authorities disagree about which ones the public ought to be informed of…
“You’re as likely to get a response out of the Special Prosecutor’s Office as you are to be attacked by a wombat.” That’s what the MSNBC presenter says at the end of a discussion of the dispute between Mueller & Buzzfeed with a former govt legal expert.
Something about it was so significantly wrong that Mueller had to break his own self-imposed policy of media silence.
If you want a fun evaluation of the Buzzfeed report, google this: “Nine Reasons to Be Skeptical of BuzzFeed’s Cohen Report”. I tried to include the link but the Standard computer didn’t publish it, so it must be on the forbidden sources list.
I had to laugh at this excellent headline from a Bloomberg Opinion piece…
“Trump’s Wall Won’t Protect Democrats Forever”.
So many ways to interpret that headline, and all true.
But as to the reality of The Wall..personally I dread the reality of Pelosi’s “technological wall” with little kids from Nicaragua being chased down by drones, and eventually, inevitably, being shot at or ‘marked’ in some horrific post apocalyptic manner…fascinating the way State Violence is hidden behind technological advances.
(Hopefully Democrats and the NZ Green Party can have a read before they lose more voters with campaigns based on identity politics. Having inclusive policies will always trump a narrowing of identity, because as this articles shows, when they talk about a gender aka women, it is a certain type of women they are aiming it at, because women’s views are as diverse as mens!).
Guest writer and CAC faculty member Cynthia Bourgeault continues exploring Jesus as
a wisdom teacher.
Jesus teaches the art of metanoia or “going into the larger mind.” Underlying all
his teaching is a clarion call to a radical shift in consciousness: away from the
alienation and polarization of the egoic operating system and into the unified field
of divine abundance that can be perceived only through the heart.
But how does one make this shift in consciousness? It’s one thing to admire it from
a distance, but quite another to create it within oneself. This is where spiritual
praxis comes into play. “Praxis” means the path, the actual practice you follow to
bring about the result that you’re yearning for. I think it’s fair to say that all
of the great spiritual paths lead toward the same center—the larger, nondual mind as
the seat of personal consciousness—but they get there by different routes.
While Jesus is typical of the wisdom tradition in his vision of what a whole and
unified human being looks like, the route he lays out for getting there is very
different from anything that had ever been seen on the planet up to that point. It
is still radical in our own time and definitely the “road less traveled” among the
various schools of human transformation. Many of the difficulties we run into trying
to make our Christianity work stem from the fact that we haven’t realized how
different Jesus’ approach really is. By trying to contain this new wine in old
wineskins, we inadvertently missed its own distinct flavor. In Jesus, everything
hangs together around a single center of gravity, and we need to know what this
center is before we can sense the subtle and cohesive power of his path.
What name might we give to this center? The apostle Paul suggests the word kenosis.
In Greek, the verb kenosein means “to let go,” or “to empty oneself,” and this is
the word Paul chooses to describe “the mind of Christ.”
Here is what Paul has to say (Philippians 2:6-8):
Though his state was that of God,
yet he did not deem equality with God
something he should cling to.
Rather, he emptied himself,
and assuming the state of a slave,
he was born in human likeness.
He, being known as one of us,
humbled himself, obedient unto death,
even death on the cross.
In this beautiful hymn, Paul recognizes that Jesus had only one “operational mode.”
Everything he did, he did by self-emptying. He emptied himself and descended into
human form. And he emptied himself still further, “even unto death on the cross.” In
every life circumstance, Jesus always responded with the same motion of
self-emptying—or to put it another way, descent: taking the lower place, not the
higher.
Unfortunately it is required thinking for entry into whatever sort of land that respectful kind honest and practical people manage to salvage and continue.
From your utterances Ad you seem to want a return to 1980 with better technology and more efficiency. Back to the old New Industrial Revolution with robots and AI GM and other acronyms that hide their meanings in a code for people in a hurry to not waste time thinking, explaining while they move to self-destruct.
Robert I wondered if we could have in the near future of Sundays a post that looks at the various things people can do within their houses and properties to keep them cooler, conserve water. How thick mulch should be on the garden, Is mustard important, can it be used as ground cover and soil nourisher and be clipped for good nutrients into salads etc till when, does it get bitter when it flowers etc.
Is there a closed valve water feature that runs down and is drawn up all the time to take the top off really hot days – is there something. Who would make a spring system that keeps a circular clothesline turning back and forth so clothes get dry on still days. And would it be good to have a roof over a clothesline giving cool shade and unheated ground to sit under. Could apartments have a net sun cover overhead which you would lay your washing on and it would shade you as it dries. How to reduce heat retention around you. How to grow vertical gardens from apartments.
Have a checklist for householders preparing for heat. What should people in caravans and mobile homes do, summer and winter.
I saw doco called In The Zone about USA Black chap called Terrance Wallace who decided to use the system school zones in NZ to get capable schoolkids from poor backgrounds into the school zones of top schools that would give them entry and encourage them to aim for their dreams. He has done this in Auckland. He is trying it back in his home city of Chicago. One of the mothers said that the lack of air conditioning in the poor schools is one of the difficulties that the children from the ‘hood face. So some way of keeping the heat down will be necessary for a continuation of civilised society through knowledge.
Should we be digging basements for all houses, where the temperature is more stable?
As long as they are in areas where sea rise won’t be a problem, Robert.
Coober Pedy does this underground building for whole homes to get insulation from the heat and cold of desert conditions. So we know this works.
Awesome. Thanks Robert.
If words like Jesus, God, Christian etc stick in the craw, try replacing with love, awareness, presence.
This ’emptying of the self’ is common in many traditions.
A Zen master poring water into a cup and as the water approaches the top of the cup, the student urges the master to stop. The master keeps pouring till the cup overflows. “Your mind is like this cup, full, come and see me when your mind is empty”.
The essence is stillness of mind, what can I see, smell, hear, feel right now.
Not the opinions of what I am seeing, smelling etc.
“The most likely action for Congress is inaction”.
Matt Fuller – Huffington Post, January 10, 2019
….Trump has moved from toying with the idea of a national emergency declaration to all but promising it. He said Thursday that, if negotiations don’t work out, “probably I will do it. I would almost say definitely.”
Three senior GOP aides said Thursday that they expect Trump to declare a national emergency as a way of getting out of the shutdown, though all said they hadn’t heard anything specific about timing….
….If there were enough backlash in Congress, Democrats and Republicans could team up to pass legislation blocking Trump’s use of the military construction fund for his wall. But initial reactions from Republicans have skewed more toward support, or at least not opposition, for Trump declaring a national emergency to subvert Congress….
….The point is, Republicans may not love Trump going around Congress, but they don’t seem willing to do anything real to block him at this time…..
Sabine vehemently disagrees with this analysis Here [pardon the profanity]
….The shitstain can declare a state of emergency any time he is on the shitter tweeting.
It would still go to Congress, sign of there, or not, then go to the senate where……the republican majority would have to vote on it. That could be very interesting. At some stage even these guys will ask themselves what their chances of survival and shelf life are in the United states of Trump. I would venture a guess……unless they kiss his arse with abandon and use tongue, they are dead in the water. So they might not actually want to go there and if only for reasons of self preservation.
He can do what he want, he can scream national emergency from the top of all the buildings and without congress and senate nothing would be done. Three equal parts of government….
Subsequent events seem to be trending towards the Huffington Post analysis, that “The most likely action for Congress is inaction” over Sabine’s profanity laced counter opinion.
In the words of Sabine; Mitch McConnel, the Republican Majority Leader of of the Senate, shows himself more than willing, “to kiss his, (Trump’s), arse”, and “use tongue”.
“If Senator McConnell is able to push through an anti-abortion bill to score political points, he surely should be able to schedule a vote on the House of Representatives’ bills to reopen the government.”
Julia Conley, staff writer – Common Dreams, January 17, 2019
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has refused to hold a vote in recent weeks on bills that would reopen the government, but on Thursday called a vote on a extreme anti-choice bill. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Freshman members of Congress and others who have been demanding to know the whereabouts of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in recent days got their answer on Thursday, as McConnell held a Senate vote not on whether to reopen the government, but on a bill that would restrict abortion rights for low-income women…..
….”Sen. McConnell has scheduled a vote today. No, it’s not to reopen the government and begin paying 800,000 federal workers who’ve gone without pay for 27 days. It’s to restrict reproductive health care coverage. Unbelievable.” —Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)The Hyde Amendment already disproportionately affects low-income women, many of whom rely on Medicaid for their healthcare costs. Women’s rights organizations slammed Senate Republicans including McConnell and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) for pushing the vote on a bill that would further harm marginalized women…..
….In addition to objecting to the content of S.109, reproductive rights opponents were appalled that after weeks of refusing to hold a vote on whether to re-open the government, now in the 27th day of the shutdown, McConnell made time for a vote on an extreme anti-choice bill.
“People are hurting and want solutions,”saidSen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) on Twittter. “They want the government to open and for this Trump Shutdown to end. Yet Republicans want to vote to effectively ban abortion coverage. This is appalling—and women and men across the country aren’t going to stand for it.”
“If Senator McConnell is able to push through an anti-abortion bill to score political points, he surely should be able to schedule a vote on the House of Representatives bills to reopen the government,” said Ragsdale. “I encourage Senator McConnell to focus his time and efforts on ensuring that federal workers are paid for their work rather than on denying people the health care they need.”
As McConnell proceeded with the cloture vote, which took place late Thursday afternoon, 800,000 federal workers were still without paychecks, with hundreds of thousands continuing to report to work and many resorting toGoFundMe fundraisersin order to make ends meet.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has been among those posting under the hashtag #WheresMitch this week as McConnell has refused to hold a vote on reopening the government. While the Democratic-led House has passed multiple bills to end the shutdown, McConnell has declined to do the same because the bills don’t include funding for the border wall President Donald Trump is demanding and he won’t “participate in something that doesn’t lead to an outcome.” ….
McConnell knows the Dems are refusing to compromise, so why would he do what you suggest? Both parties have to be willing to make a deal to end the shut-down. I gather the Dems are refusing to deal because their real target is not Trump: it’s democracy. They want to prove to voters that the electoral mandate is no longer valid. That’s why they keep refusing to meet with Trump to do a deal, apparently.
So the stalemate suits both parties. Nobody has the leverage to achieve a resolution. It can only come via agreement, which can only come via compromise. Instead, both want to win. It’s like neither has heard of win/win outcomes.
Dennis, you seem to be persisting in your wilfull ignorance or misinterpretation of how the US political system works.
The president does not get, cannot get, a mandate for doing something like building a wall. Big policy decisions like that are the sole prerogative of the legislative branch, ie Congress, ie the House and Senate together. The president can only choose to agree or disagree with legislation put forward by Congress, and if he disagrees by exercising his veto Congress may still override that veto.
Here’s the relevant bits of the Constitution:
Article 1 section 1:
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Article 1 section 9 clause 7:
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law
The relevant bit of the constitution dealing with the powers of the president is Article 2. Feel free to point out what bit of that gives the president the power to choose to build a wall.
To be sure, the president may choose to try to influence what legislation goes through Congess. But the only tool he has for that is his powers of persuasion.
Yes, but you aren’t factoring in my response last time you made that point. The effect of such political behaviour on voters is to reduce their belief in democracy. That’s why so many don’t vote. A century or two of corruption in both parties has had that alienating effect.
So, to restore faith in the system, we need positive role models. The electoral contract is the moral basis of the mandate. If those elected respect the will and choice of the voters, they will act in accord with that principle.
That’s all good theory, Dennis, but I am with Andre on the above points. The US is very different to NZ in terms of its Constitution and constitutional history and political system; and therefore the thinking and expectations etc of US voters.
It isn’t an either/or situation. Both/and logic applies. Denial of the electoral contract doesn’t work because most people implicitly believe in it. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t vote on the basis of campaign promises, and wouldn’t identify with a party on that basis. The principle lies at the heart of representative democracy. That’s why I had to lobby all the key players so hard after Winston failed to articulate it clearly, to ensure the waka-jumping bill got passed.
No, I didn’t mean to imply that, but it was a sustained campaign of document drafting and letter-writing. I had to counter the one-sided view from Jeanette Fitzsimons & Keith Locke that seemed in denial of the primary principle, to win over the Green MPs first, then the Minister of Justice & the PM. Got the desired result.
Sorry, I immediately thought of last year’s waka jumping bill – not the original one! Whole different ball game. I also thought I had added a LOL at the end to imply that I was having you on, so to speak.
My personal pet theory is American politics swings between getting pissed off at the current prez, and a preference for divided government so the only change that happens is by bipartisan consensus.
First up is the way midterms almost always go against the current prez. The only recent counter-examples are ’96 (likely due to a backlash against the partisan stuntsmanship leading up to Clinton’s impeachment), and ’02 with Shrub getting a boost from his wars.
Most recently, there wasn’t a whole lot for most people to be pissed off at Obama about and it looked like Clinton had it in the bag, so they delivered a Repug House and Senate. Leading up to 08, they were utterly disgusted with Shrub, which lead to a wholesale clean-out of Repugs. In 00, they were OK with Clinton’s record and the polls were back and forth, so both the House and Senate results were close too.
IMO you have probably hit the nail on the head! It really is a very different political system to ours, and those in the UK, Canada, Australia etc.
Each system has their pros and cons but IMO the US system cannot be directly compared to the others. More importantly, because of the different system and political history, the behavior of US politicians and voters (and the latter’s expectations) are also very different and cannot be predicted or judged on that of voters in these other countries/political systems.
I was drawn into the discussion by the points you made in your 5.1.1, in particular your second paragraph as I spent my teens in Washington DC and was therefore subject to the compulsory US Civics courses at high school – as well as living in the US political capital during interesting times (the 1960s). My comments here were in addition to some comments I made to Dennis earlier today at 18.1.1.1.1.2 on OM 18 Jan re my opinion that religion (including fundamentalist Christianity) plays a much greater role in community and political life in the US than in NZ; and also supporting your comments at 5.1.1.
I’ll try a link but my links within TS seem to do funny things at present and go to the full post rather than the comment itself, so if it does do that, I will delete the link itself.
Since you seem interested in my background: born in Oregon in ’63, when I was 2yr old the family moved to Japan for a year, then to Geneva for three years, California for four years, then to NZ. Grew up in Palmerston North, went to uni at Massey, then Auckland. Spent most of the 90s in the US, 5 years in Philadelphia, 1 year in Madison Wisconsin, 2 years in San Diego. Came back to NZ in 99 and been here ever since.
If you did your high school years in DC then you’ve had more formal US civics education than I have. But it was certainly noticeable that in the US there was a fair bit of awareness about the mechanics of government.
I didn’t particularly directly notice the religious influence. But then the areas I lived and worked in were generally pretty liberal (Bill’s taking a break so it’s low risk of an argument about that word). Being involved in engineering products, sometimes I’d work pretty closely with shop-floor people. It’s possible religion played a bigger part in their lives than I ever cottoned on to, but they just kept it to themselves.
While it’s obvious that a lot of legislation is driven by religious issues, I find it hard to understand exactly how much the vote is influenced by religious issues. There was worried talk about Kennedy taking orders from the Pope, but he still got elected. In the early days of Romney, that he was a Mormon was speculated to be a deal-breaker, but as that campaign progressed it kind of died away. The Great Orange Libertine makes feeble claims every now and then about his religious beliefs, but that sham is immediately obvious and his fervently religious followers don’t care. I can’t help wondering if the expectation that the president be a “person of faith” will be one of those things that is true until suddenly one day it isn’t.
You write about corruption in both parties as if they are equivalent. It’s a false equivalence, and people that repeat it are adding to the problem.
There’s only one party that routinely indulges in efforts to suppress the vote. There’s only one party that regularly seeks to allow increases in ways for organisations favourable to themselves to spend ever more money trying to influence the vote. While it’s possible to find gerrymandering in strongly Democrat jurisdictions (Maryland being the most prominent), it’s a corrupt tool tool that Republicans employ much more readily when they get the chance. The only states that have fully signed up to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact are strongly Democratic.
We’ve just had the best positive role for a long long time in American politics with Obama. So much for that being the panacea American politics needed.
edit: here’s a piece that nicely highlights the differences in viewpoint to respecting the will of the voters between the two parties.
Anyone who reads the history of American politics encounters episodes of corrruption in both parties right back into the 19th century. Only a partisan would deny history. I agree the Republicans have been to the fore on this in recent times.
the choice of the voters in the last midterm was to give the House to the Democrats. That means the Democrats hold the purse.
In the great spirit of Democracy and positive role models, i am all for the shitstain to start paying the 800.000 people and the uncounted contractors – estimated 1 million – who currently aren’t getting their wages, who don’t receive the funds for governmental projects and so forth, who risk loosing their houses, their bank ratings and risk ending up homeless etc etc etc and get on with business, and to respect the wish of the people who elected the Democrats to the House, the constitution and the principle of three equal branches of government.
the dems send the bill Paul Ryan passed before handing over the House, the bill that passed in the Senate, the bill that himself said he was gonna sign until Ann Coulter called him a weakling and a ‘push over’.
that bill has been send three times now to the Senate for signing. The bill that has bipartisan support from the house.
the bill that yertl the turtle refuses to pass because he knows that the weakling and push over in the whitehouse is not gonna sign. Btw, did you know that the Senate under yertl the turtle could over ride a persidential veto?
so no it is not the democrats fault, unless you believe that the opposition is to rubberstamp the president at all times, and then i would like for you to think for a moment and ask yourself if you would hold the same position if the roles were reversed.
It’s a very simple political calculation for Repugs in Congress, most of whom are in very safe Repug seats. Risk the anger of King Con by voting to reopen the government, and reap the wrath of hundreds of thousands of angry Drumpfkins at your next primary. Or just keep cowering in fear hoping to stay out of sight and just coast on through the next primary and election. Yertle McConnell is up for election in 2020, you can be damn sure that’s the only thing he’s thinking about.
@Jenny – How to get there? 5
19 January 2019 at 9:02 am
I could call the shitstain the velveeta shartcannon if you prefer. But i think shitstain is perfect, a shitstain in the annals of history.
I have read your post several times and i have yet to figure what you are saying other then you have an issue with my calling the shitstain a shitstain.
In essence i have laid out what he can do on his own, sit on the shitter, tweet and scream emergency emergency. And then it goes to congress – nope she says, the speaker of the house, and then of to the senate, and yertl the turtle can either do his job and say nope no emergency here, just self inflicted injury to apease Ann Coulter and Hannity, or he can say yes my lord, how high should i jump.
As of today there are still three equal branches of government. They might not be there tomorrow, but yesterday and today it still was / is.
I also said, and you left that out for some reason 🙂 – go figure, that really it is up to the republicans, both in congress, senate and in the voting public who will need to take a decision as to how far they want to go in their submission to the shitstain and if they really want to give up the republic they have to form the United States of Trump.
And believe me, as an astute reader of history and coming from a country with a lot of baggage, i can guarantee you that if they go for the United States of Trump that they will bow, they will kiss his arse and every other arse they are told to kiss and they will use tongue if they want to stay alive, continue to work, keep their privileges and so on.
What the shitstain is currently doing is a shake down, a hostage taking, of a country, a populace, its workers. And the republican held senate and the House – which was repbulcican held until two weeks ago are enabling him. And as someone else said, why would anyone trust the shitstain? The house and senate – under the republicans – about 4 weeks ago signed the bill, send it to the white house for signing and he did not sign it? why ? Ask Ann coulter, cause she squeezed his balls hard and as a result 800000 people directly and 1 million via contractors do not receive their wages and might loose their lifelyhood.
and for some it seems that is all good, cause ………………………..its entertaining? or something?
It’s hilarious watching various Republican senators and House members purportedly ‘holding the faith’ with sour complaints about Pelosi’s intended travel to Afghanistan during the shutdown……looking true to Donald J. Swamp by talking banal (forgettable) trivialities the mouthing of which won’t ultimately impede their scramble to the nearest political emergency exit when the shit hits the fan(boy).
McConnell, Ryan, Cruz, Graham et al are more culpable in their facilitation of Donald J. Swamp pissing on the Constitution than the crazy himself. Essentially Swamp’s a George III (mad) and thus forgiveable in measure……these people (who warned of his unfitness during the primaries) have acted entirely out of the cheapest personal political motives.
‘Because what Hitler and Stalin had done was show us as mass crowds – and that went badly out of control and led to horror.
I think that went very deep into the liberal psyche, that the mob is frightening. It’s dangerous. And that’s why, when we get to this point – where someone like Cheney and the anti-democratic forces around him have taken power away. To challenge that, you’re going to have to bring people together with a very powerful story. But that’s frightening – potentially dangerous. So the left retreat into that mantra which you find everywhere online, that we are all self-contained individuals who all have our own little story. And we’re all going to tell each other those personal stories on Instagram and Twitter, and it’s going to be a nice, stable balance. Well, it’s too late for that now. The have-nots are fed up with that system – and are turning to powerful nationalist stories coming from the far right.’
Walt Disney will never be forgiven for destroying the mystique of Pooh Bear. The crowning insult was to clothe Pooh in a red coat.
Every page of Pooh Bear holds philosophical ideas for me and my boys, which are readily transferable to modern times. Americans should stick to destroying their own heritage and leave the good stuff alone.
Looks like Labour requires to do far more in regards to the “wellbeing” of beneficiaries.
The latest statistics from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) show that more than $100 million was spent on hardship grants in the December quarter of last year.
More than 385,000 grants were issued – an increase of almost 95,000 on the same period the previous year.
Increasing demand for food assistance was one of the leading contributors to the growth in hardship grants, the Ministry said.
Spending on food grants alone was almost $20m, an increase of more than $5m compared to the last three months of 2017.
Susan St John from the Child Poverty Action Group said the situation was desperate for many families and the government needed to act quickly rather than waiting for the budget in May.
“What we would like the government to do is increase benefits by 20 percent immediately and to make sure that all low-income families get the entire Working for Families package,” Ms St John said.
The young woman who boasted from a Thai prison that she had evidence of Russian manipulation in US politics is manhandled in Moscow after being deported from Thailand.
В аэропорту скручивают опасного преступника – Настю Рыбку. Вина её велика: она была проституткой на яхте миллиардера Дерипаски и сняла видео, на которое попал вице-премьер правительства Приходько. Поэтому сейчас Рыбке крутят руки, а к Приходько и Дерипаске у полиции претензий нет pic.twitter.com/MbC7wTa3Fw
Received a pamphlet from Labour today outlining their plan.
Couldn’t help but notice they are still touting lies.
For example, they continue to claim they’ve stopped foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes. Yet, the policy has been released and as we all know, that claim is a lie. The largest foreign investors (Australians) are exempt and foreign investors can buy new Kiwi homes.
Hence, Labour’s insistence continuing on pushing this false line makes them look phony as hell.
How do they expect voters to trust them with this blatant lying carry on taking place?
Labour are still very much in favour of selling off NZ to offshore ‘investors’ and so they put in place ineffective ‘restrictions’ to make it look like they’re doing something about it but refuse to go to the full ban that the majority of people actually want. Yes, it’s an unscientific poll that’s going to be inaccurate as hell but I think it’s good enough in this case to show majority opinion.
To have a Govt. that is not actively full throttle ahead for a rorting economic system was and is an achievement at this stage in practicality, when it comes to the state of the NZ political system.
“Labour are still very much in favour of selling off NZ to offshore ‘investors’ and so they put in place ineffective ‘restrictions’ to make it look like they’re doing something about it but refuse to go to the full ban…”
That is how it looks. Labour policy falling short once again.
They continue to claim they’ve stopped foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes. Yet, the policy has been released and as we all know, that claim is a lie. The largest foreign investors (Australians) are exempt and foreign investors can buy new Kiwi homes.
You are the one who is lying or at best… spinning like a Hooton top.
Labour made it clear well before the election that Australian investors would be exempted (I guess they are not regarded as foreigners) in their ban to exclude foreigners from purchasing existing NZ houses. But if foreign purchasers were to build new houses then they would be welcomed in NZ.
I remember Phil Twford explaining this night after night on TV both before and after the General Election.
Is it NZ Government policy to regard Australian citizens as ‘not foreigners’, at least for the purposes of purchasing NZ houses?
Asking because it seems the Aussie Government currently regards NZ citizens as foreigners in regard to just about everything.
The key question (which Twyford probably explained time-after-time, but I forget) is what was the rationale for exempting Australian ‘investors’? Is it something to do with the AUS/NZ CER agreement?
“NZ citizens living in Australia can therefore purchase any type of real estate they desire. This includes investment properties, and old or new homes to live in. NZ citizens living in NZ and permanent residents of NZ, however, will be treated the same as any other foreign citizens in Australia.”
I don’t have any experience or knowledge in this area, but is CER a reciprocal agreement if Aussie citizens living in Australia are treated as NZ citizens for the purposes of buying (investment) properties in NZ, whereas “NZ citizens living in NZ and permanent residents of NZ, however, will be treated the same as any other foreign citizens in Australia.“?
I’m not sure either. Maybe it’s that Australian citizens living in Australia, and Singaporean citizens living in Singapore, seem to be getting preferential treatment (compared with non-residents that are citizens of other countries) when it comes to buying NZ properties.
Whereas it appears that New Zealand citizens living in NZ have to compete with the rest of the world when purchasing properties in Australia.
Of course I’m all for giving Australians preferential treatment – after all they’re ‘giving it‘ to us!
Neither of the articles you link to talk about New Zealanders buying residential property in Australia. CER is an agreement for ‘closer economic relations’, it is a trade deal not an immigration deal.
As solkta has said, the arrangements re Australians being able to buy property in NZ is part of the Closer Economic Relations (CER) Agreement between NZ and Australia which has been in place for many years (cannnot remember the date).
Yes, the Australians are not exactly acting in accord with the CER deal at present on how they are treating NZ citizens resident in Australia – and all of this is under discussion between the two governments.
With regard to Singapore, the terms of the NZ – Singapore Trade Agreement currently also provides for Singapore citizens to be able to buy property in NZ. Most other similar trade agreements do not specifically cover this, and I understand that discussions are underway with Singapore to remove or put some restrictions on this property provision.
Sorry, all of the top of my head, but am busy at the moment.
IIRC, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s website has some very good information on all of the above.
Thanks vv, and solkta. I’m not Aussie-phobic; was visiting family (some long-term resident, some now Aussie citizens) there last month.
Just thought that The Chairman @12 had a legitimate point, if Labour “continue to claim they’ve stopped foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes“, without mentioning that Aussies and Singaporeans are exempt (for valid reasons.)
Do believe (in a hopeful way) that the coalition government are doing what they can to address the shortage of affordable homes/rentals – must be a daunting task.
Seriously Anne? Defending their lying. You are doing more damage than good.
The best thing Labour and their defenders can do is own it and stop touting the lie. Having defenders attempt to defend it is insulting.
I would suggest the main reason Labour have to continually explain that Australian investors and new builds are exempt comes down to them continually touting the lie they’ve stopped foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes. Which creates the confusion, hence their need to explain.
“15 were murdered, 17 committed suicide, seven died from accidents, 14 were executed according to the law and 19 died from diseases”
Also interesting that they imply someone enters the billionaire category at 100 million Yuan, or about USD 15.5 million at the time (2011)
“There were approximately 60,000 people with 100 million yuan in the Chinese mainland at the end of 2010, according to the GroupM Knowledge – Hurun Wealth Report 2011.”
Canterbury Museum curator of natural history and the past-president of the Entomological Society of NZ Cor Vink said people had certainly noticed the ‘windshield effect’.
The windshield effect was the mess made by insects on a cars windscreen after a long drive, or now, the lack of mess.
“Fewer insects means you have less food for birds, some plants might not be as well controlled and there are fewer pollinators around,” Vink said.
“They’re really vital for the environment.
“If all the mammals on Earth disappeared, there wouldn’t be much effect, but if all insects disappeared …”
This obviously needs to be researched but there’s nothing coming from government. Probably won’t make a profit I suppose and it would further point to the fact that we have to change our ways.
A looming crisis. It’s awful to think about the scale of the problem.
This is horrifying. A collapse faster and further than anyone anticipated. We can expect many more tipping points of this kind in our lifetimes, in the absence of a decisive response to #climatebreakdown Report by @dpcarringtonhttps://t.co/SHixIACQPA
i was driving around countryside today and it is a hilly bare brown landscape. Not a tree in sight.
not a shrub in sight.
just brown hills devoid of anything other then brown grass.
Same for the suburbs.
New Zealand really needs to take this shit seriously. Taranaki and Southland councils ought to be sacked for environmental destruction – also ECan and Hawkes Bay while we’re at it – for total negligence of waterways and covering up problems raised by experts in the field like Dr Mike Joy
There is a wee thread that discussed this same thing 7 Jan
Nothing has changed in the garden except aphids are the only insect seen on any plants.
Even on holiday noticed the absence of flies or mosquitoes. Nice but also concerning 😳
Herodotus 6.1
7 January 2019 at 10:20 am
Slight detour
There has been no sign of Cicadas in our local area (yet)
Also notice the absence of Monarch Butterflies (Swan plants are ready to be inundated with caterpillars), as well as few wasps and flies.
Had a scot visitor about 20 years back she reckoned insects were rare in their cities then. A simple moth would freak her out.
These isolated islands and other places free from insecticide spraying that they tout as evidence insecticides are not causing insect population collapses are either lying or conveniently ignoring source-sink dynamics at play. The so called sanctuaries are geographical evolutionary bottlenecks in a matrix of spray zones.
Insects leave. They do not come back. New genes do not arrive.
Yes climate change is a big problem. But so is all the shit they’ve sprayed on and sold us to kill insects since before Rachel Carlson sounded the alarm in 1962 with her aptly named book ‘Silent Spring’.
It is heartening that in many places in NZ bird numbers are rising but without corresponding plant and insect sources to feed them there will be inevitable issues. Having been raised in the country I know: from the lack of windscreen splat, we’ve killed most of the insects we had in the 70’s, all throughout the north islands countryside.
Have our entomologists any plans? Any reports? Power to their prefab?
trying real hard. Was pleased to see bees a few weeks ago enjoying the clover and other flowers in my unkempt lawn. Bumblebees showed up. But no butterflies, no dragon flies, just the standard black fly and mozzies now.
and i live near a wilderniss/wetland/floodzone …. nothing. It is so very very strange.
We can only try and that means create places for them to live and breed. It’s not sensible to try to nominate favourites and tailor plantings for them; plant, plant, plant and make it a complex, wild mix! There’s not too much time left.
its interesting tho that my wild garden seems to be free of fluffy bums, aphids and the likes.
like anyone who grows veggies i check often to make sure i don’t miss a budding pest invasion, and so far toi toi toi.
i generally only keep a few places ‘tidy’ its where i grow my veggies, but even that is only ‘so’ tidy, meaning i still let weeds grow – even dock, and just keep them from overtaking.
It’s not that simple Robert. Go to a plant store buy a swan plant chances are it is covered in insecticide. People are buying plants to save butterflies and helping to kill them.
Those sprays have to go. Only planting is like saying you are going to clean rivers and doing nothing about Dairy.
Poison merchants and lazy husbandry. Both to blame for caring more for money than life.
Big oil and their sleazy chemical counterparts, fucking the planet – again, lying about it with fudged up science and information, again. I try every day to be diplomatic but I have nothing to say to these motherfuckers that isn’t invective and hate.
I’m puzzled by the passion for Monarch butterflies; they’re not native to NZ, nor are they robust enough to survive without the provision of an exotic plant for them to feed from. Perhaps it’s because they don’t fly in the far-south; the only ones we see (briefly) are those escaped through an open window in a child-care centre 🙂 Paper wasps aren’t getting ours, the weather is.
I notice @ 5.1 that even slaters are threatened.
If people buy plants to save insects, but all those plants are coated in insecticide…
Planting is the right move for people who can source safe plants.
Govt and councils must stop the sprays. Garden centres and nurseries are all too heavy handed with such products.
The insects are doomed if they do not stop spraying.
Some think this is a rural issue but they are wrong. It can even be worse in cities where home gardeners, unrestrained by the daunting budgets of a large farm, use substances freely and liberally.
Back in 65 we tested for insecticides in people from non sprayed zones and came up winners!
if it were only the cities I may not have so readily noticed it but I spent over half my time in rural locations over 3 different countries….for all our problems here, and they are many , i dont think we understand how much worse things are in the northern hemisphere
I’m not trolling any party. I’m genuinely here discussing recent political news.
And in that respect, as usual, the Greens are MIA . Hence, little to say about them at the moment other than why aren’t they running with these news items too?
Elder neglect and poverty should be high on their radar. Someone please wake them up.
Partly, yes. It’s a bit less stressful to have any sort of contact with WINZ at the moment so people are finally getting access to what they are entitled to BY LAW. Numbers of grants needed are up only on paper. in reality they were always there and just couldn’t be accessed. Last time I has to physically go near an office (1st time since regime change) the guard was still at the door, but there was no request for ID, no checklist to see if I had an appointment/reason for going, and he was actually very friendly. Even the interaction with the frontline worker was perfectly civil. Encouraging sign.
I don’t like the idea that staff can suddenly switch between being nasty and nice on order of government of the day, but so long as they’re playing by the rules.
@Chairman, given your very real concern for this situation I trust you are writing letters to the editor, posting your thoughts on every blog/news site possible and writing to all politicians with your concerns?
“Numbers of grants needed are up only on paper. in reality they were always there and just couldn’t be accessed…”
Do you have the number of total applications for both periods that back that assertion?
As you can see, I do my bit. And as you well know, democracy doesn’t all rest upon me. It generally takes numbers for political parties to take note. So ask yourself, are you doing your part? Question the ones that aren’t, not the ones that are.
The increased number of hardship grants seems to correlate quite strongly with the number of migrant arrivals over the past year.
(inconvenient narrative alert)
Are you suggesting that in the last year large numbers of migrants have come to NZ to seek hardship benefits? Nothing to do with locals struggling to make ends meet?
At least Jacinda admitted (in her facebook post) more needs to be done, albeit she hasn’t raced to do more.
But I see you have no conscience, you take advantage of the increase to mock National while look to form excuses for the increase when it becomes an inconvenient narrative.
No I am accusing all Governments of negligence in allowing immigration to spiral out of control in the middle of a housing crisis, making inequality even worse, and needlessly throwing thousands of Kiwis into hardship
I have a very critical view of Labour’s neoliberal tendencies… Grant Robertson parsimoniously claiming fiscal responsibility was a serious misstep. His top responsibility is to the people of Aotearoa not his crummy little spreadsheet and certainly not to a bunch of international financiers
From assisting out with a charity over Christmas, I hope that both the volume of those that were assisted will be down next year and those that will need any assistance (food, presents etc) that their needs will not be as severe.
IMO we need to give the current govt a years grace before seeing any improvements, if the needs are similar to Dec 18 (this year was the most severe I have seen) then the govt. does need to be questioned that after 2 years in power anecdotal observations show no sign of improvement.
After their input (Families Package etc) I think they were rather surprised how little impact it really had, forcing Jacinda to publicly acknowledge (on her facebook post when visiting the food bank in the run up to Christmas) more needs to be done.
Anecdotal observations show no sign of improvement now.
Moreover, so does the latest data release.
Hence, Susan St John from the Child Poverty Action Group is calling for action to be taken now.
The worse it is allowed to become the harder and more expensive it will be to fix.
This drips and drabs approach by Labour will end up costing us (socially and fiscally) far more in the long run. Hence, one really needs to question Labour’s claim of being fiscally responsible.
There was/is a lot of expectation from voters when Labour came to power and if they don’t feel things have improved by the next election, there will be a lot of disappointment. Especially so if people feel they are worse off than when Labour came to power.
Therefore, Labour’s inaction now could potentially damage the left’s standing in politics for a long time to come.
No disappointment hardship grants are up almost 95,000 on the same period (the December quarter) the previous year?
Depends.
What’s the reason why its up? Is it because things are worse or because WINZ has a better culture (due to the change in government) where they actually help people?
According to poverty action group and Salvation Army, demand (the need for help) is on the increase. Hence, the call for more to be done now.
The goal for more social housing is still set far to low. And we know core benefit rates are also set far to low. So is the minimum wage.
Moreover, if it’s up merely because WINZ has a better culture, one would have expected Labour to have announced that or at lease highlighted that when questioned on the matter. I’ve seen neither.
Labour’s drips and drabs approach is holding back the required progress. As a result, problems will worsen, hence will become more difficult and expensive to fix.
Even in death, this young woman is insulted by this Australian paper.
This looks like another awful case. Aiia Maasarwe was a young Palestinian Israeli woman who was attacked and killed in Melbourne. This Melbourne Age report deliberately refuses to acknowledge that she is a Palestinian, and labels her by the cynical Israeli government term of “Israeli Arab.”
“In Canberra last week I met some Australian members of parliament. It gave me hope, because until I heard them speak I had always thought that Israel’s right wing politicians were the worst. —-(LAUGHTER)— I’ve never heard any Israeli politician speak about the Palestinian people the way that those Australian politicians did. But they are Australia’s problem, not mine. (LAUGHTER) I spoke with the Australian foreign minister; she talked and she was very nice but we could not agree on anything. (LAUGHTER)”
The RNC, the NRA, Facebook, and the transition team. Why not the NYT?
With the recent revelation that the FBI has long suspected Donald Trump of being a Russian puppet, Dean Baquet owes Liz Spayd an overdue apology.
In May 2017, Baquet, as New York Times executive editor, oversaw the elimination of the paper’s public-editor position, effectively firing Spayd before her two-year term was up. As public editor, it was Spayd’s job to act as an internal Times watchdog, answer reader questions, and address concerns about news coverage.
Why was Spayd pushed out?
[…]
How dubious was the Times’ Russia coverage in 2016? Prior to the election, Times reporters knew about the blockbuster Steele dossier, which detailed international concerns about Trump’s Russia alliance. Over time, the dossier has proven to be remarkably accurate. During the 2016 campaign, the Times knew that the dossier’s author was a respected British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, and could find no holes or red flags in the dossier information that was checkable. Yet the newspaper sat on the sensational news of the dossier’s existence.
This is the same newspaper that had spent 18 months treating Hillary Clinton’s emails like Iran-Contra and Watergate put together.
Some interesting history for those that might not know about these events…
In 1830 Captain John Stewart of the brig Elizabeth made an arrangement with Ngāti Toa leader Te Rauparaha to ferry a taua (war party) of 100 warriors from his base on Kapiti Island to Banks Peninsula. Te Rauparaha wanted to surprise his Ngāi Tahu enemies and avenge the killing and eating of several Ngāti Toa chiefs at Kaiapoi in 1829. Te Pehi Kupe had suffered the ultimate insult when his bones were made into fish-hooks. Te Rauparaha was keen to reassert his mana over his southern rivals…
Kia ora R & R Waiata is good for the wairua each to there own on the money they want to get for there waiata.
Waiata is a good mediam for telling storys truth full storys .
I say that we will find a great maori musicin soon they are out there just need the correct team around them how know how the Papatuanuku works at the minute
Ka kite ano
brexit was a con job from the alt right on the common people who’s belif that its there right to make money anyway they can dream up weather it ruins the country selling state assets kill’s people arms sales or selling out there grandchildrens future global warming and the capitalist system is based on selling out the grandchildrens future targeting inflation this policy is selling the future out making dollars worth less for the grandchildren think about it.
The Tories now treat the nation as they have long treated the poor
brexit did not come from nowhere. The jerry-built utopianism, the indifference to and ignorance of how the British live and what they need to keep them safe, the know-nothing pride in ignorant generalisations and the cocksure love of sweeping solutions have their roots in the right that emerged a decade ago.
Before the Brexiters wrecked the country, they wrecked the lives of the poor. Universal credit was the Conservatives’ fantasy when they took power 2010. Iain Duncan Smith offered a dream so seductive that even his natural critics could not find it in their hearts to condemn him unequivocally. His grand project would remove disincentives to work. It would simplify the complicated and create a benefits system that was “a doorway to real aspiration and achievement”.
If Brexit incinerated the rules of prudence, the right’s treatment of the poor provided the kindling. Universal credit brought homelessness and pushed families to beg at food banks because Duncan Smith and his fellow half-educated idealists thought they could understand poverty like a mathematical theorem. They say now that their revolution failed because the Treasury stabbed their utopian plans in the back when it failed to provide sufficient resources – and you should get used to “stab in the back” theories because you will hear little else as the disillusionment with Brexit grows and the charlatans who led us on bluster like toddlers denying they wrecked the playpen. In truth, universal credit was doomed from the start. The right failed to see the poor as they were rather than as they wanted them to be. People are losing tenancies and going without food not only because universal credit is underfunded but because it imposes delays of five weeks or more before it pays anything at all to claimants. The delays are a matter of deliberate policy. In 2010, rightwingers wanted poverty to be the result of chaotic lives, alcoholism, drug addiction and, above all, for this is was what got the religious right’s rocks off, the breakdown of traditional families. They blamed individuals, not the system. A month’s wait for money would make the feckless pull themselves together and learn to live like members of the respectable middle class, who must wait a month for their first salary cheques when they take new job
Brexit is a globalised version of the same failure to see the world as it is rather than how the right insists it must be. The greatest delusion is one that Burke would have laughed to scorn: the belief that we can have a wrenching economic, diplomatic and constitutional change without breaking into a sweat. Don’t laugh. Millions still believe in a Brexit without tears and their leaders are still promising they can have it.
A second delusion flowed from the first: that the countries of the European Union would quail before the newly resurgent British as we awoke like lions from their slumber and scramble to meet our demands. This is what David Davis meant when he said British negotiators would be striking deals in Berlin rather than Brussels. As it is, the supposedly squabbling nations of the EU have held together, while the British political system has imploded. Ka kite ano link below P.S The whole world need to live with in its means a humble happy world for all
Kia ora R & R I sat te reo should be taught to all tamariki under a certain age. I also say that no tamariki should be allowed to leave school without a education /trade qualification invest in the future and it will pay big dividends for Aotearoa society the people that don’t agree have alternative reason a uneducated person is easily CONTROL con. I also say every one should be part of Kiwi saver. Saving for our future at the minute we’re are spending our future.
Yes Te reo is a taonga treasure for all Kiwis. Ka kite ano
Kia Kaha wahine don’t let the alt right red neck cheat and stop your goals for EQUALITY good on you for the marches around the world letting everyone know its time for CHANGE as MAN has made a MESS of the WORLD
Women in more than 30 countries around the world are expected to gather on Saturday as part of the global Women’s March, to protest against violence against women and the impact of policies of austerity.
In London thousands are expected to gather outside Portland Place in central London at 12.30pm and march to Trafalgar Square by 1.30pm, ending in a two-hour rally.
Saturday marks the third anniversary of the first Women’s March in 2017, when as many as 6 million people around the world gathered in protest at the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Last year thousands gathered in central London for the Time’s Up rally, in honour of the campaign against sexual harassment and honouring the #MeToo movement.
While the global theme of the 2019 Women’s Wave is ending violence against women and girls, the theme of the London march has been named “bread and roses”, in honour of the Polish-born American suffragette and workers’ rights campaigner Rose Schneiderman and reflects marchers’ “hunger to thrive and not just survive on bread”, said organisers. After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 where 146 mainly female garment-industry workers died, Schneiderman declared: “The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.”
The UK rally is likely to have an anti-Brexit flavour as organisers accuse the government of ignoring the fact that women would suffer the most severe consequences in a post-Brexit Britain. he phrase “bread and roses” captures a desperate need for women’s voices as the devastating impact of austerity in the noise around Britain’s messy departure from the EU is forgotten, said Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, the founder of the Women in Leadership publication and co-organiser of Women’s March London.
Women’s March to take to streets after controversy divides movement
Read more
“The 1912 bread and roses march revolutionised workers’ rights for women and once again on Saturday women are leading the way in the fight against austerity,” she said. “We see women bearing the brunt of the economic and social impact of austerity and we know that after Brexit women will bear the brunt of the fallout. Our lives are being held to ransom because of politics.
“We know that post-Brexit Britain will not be any better for women unless assurances are put in place to protect us. Yet none of the conversations happening at the moment are focusing on the impact of women and I find that absolutely ridiculous.”
Sarah Green, of the End Violence Against Women coalition, said the link between austerity and violence against women was marked, adding it was harder than ever for women to challenge injustice as a result of cuts to legal aid and the closing of courts Ka kite ano links below P.S I see trumps little puppets trolls have been suppresing this story quite hard to find a positive one on the wahine marchs trump is suppresing the media on climate change topic to
Renewable energy doe not put the huge strains or pollute local water supplies WHY are we still burning carbon to prouduce power when renewable energy has so many positive features . Its the oil barons cheating our grandchildrens future.
TIn addition, wind and solar energy require essentially no water to operate and thus do not pollute water resources or strain supplies by competing with agriculture, drinking water, or other important water needs. In contrast, fossil fuels can have a significant impact on water resources: both coal mining and natural gas drilling can pollute sources of drinking water, and all thermal power plants, including those powered by coal, gas, and oil, withdraw and consume water for cooling.
Biomass and geothermal power plants, like coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, may require water for cooling. Hydroelectric power plants can disrupt river ecosystems both upstream and downstream from the dam. However, NREL’s 80-percent-by-2050 renewable energy study, which included biomass and geothermal, found that total water consumption and withdrawal would decrease significantly in a future with high renewables [7].his page explores the many positive impacts of clean energy, including the benefits of wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and biomass. For more information on their negative impacts—including effective solutions to avoid, minimize, or mitigate—see our page on The Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy Technologies.
Less global warming
Human activity is overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other global warming emissions. These gases act like a blanket, trapping heat. The result is a web of significant and harmful impacts, from stronger, more frequent storms, to drought, sea level rise, and extinction.
In the United States, about 29 percent of global warming emissions come from our electricity sector. Most of those emissions come from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas [1, 2].
Human activity is overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other global warming emissions. These gases act like a blanket, trapping heat. The result is a web of significant and harmful impacts, from stronger, more frequent storms, to drought, sea level rise, and extinction.
In the United States, about 29 percent of global warming emissions come from our electricity sector. Most of those emissions come from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas [1, 2].
In contrast, most renewable energy sources produce little to no global warming emissions. Even when including “life cycle” emissions of clean energy (ie, the emissions from each stage of a technology’s life—manufacturing, installation, operation, decommissioning), the global warming emissions associated with renewable energy are minimal [3].
The comparison becomes clear when you look at the numbers. Burning natural gas for electricity releases between 0.6 and 2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour (CO2E/kWh); coal emits between 1.4 and 3.6 pounds of CO2E/kWh. Wind, on the other hand, is responsible for only 0.02 to 0.04 pounds of CO2E/kWh on a life-cycle basis; solar 0.07 to 0.2; geothermal 0.1 to 0.2; and hydroelectric between 0.1 and 0.5.
Renewable electricity generation from biomass can have a wide range of global warming emissions depending on the resource and whether or not it is sustainably sourced and harvested. Ka kite ano links below.
Kia ora Newshub condolences to the people who lost there love ones in that oil pipeline explosion in Mexico.
E scooter are becoming a bit of a problem it would be good to see the %data on the accidents
Patel car meet is cool yes not all car loving enthusiast people are not all fools who play silly buggers E cars is coming on strong that is the new age.
It ain’t half hot MUM is a classic TV show given me many sore faces condolences to Windsor Davies whano.
Ka kite ano
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National MP - Michael WoodhouseUnbelievable! Michelle Boag also sent National’s Michael Woodhouse confidential emails about COVD-19 patients, and he continued to publicly attack the Government over these very same breaches of privacy.This is the biggest political self-own since the Act Party’s David Garrett admitted in Parliament that he used a ...
Transcript: National Party policy announcement on roads – 8 July, 2020 Muller: Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for coming. Reporter 1: Is Hamish Walker a racist? Muller: Hang on… you haven’t even said good afternoon to me yet. Reporter 1: Good afternoon Mr Muller. Is Hamish Walker a racist? ...
Back in April, I wrote about trials in Iran of a fixed-dose combination of two existing anti-viral drugs used to treat hepatitis C – sofosbuvir and daclatasvir – that could point to an effective treatment for Covid-19 symptoms.At the time, data from those trials was not available outside the hospitals ...
Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Anja Mizdrak, Dr Jennifer Summers, Prof Michael BakerThe pandemic-related lockdown is possibly the most dramatic public health intervention in NZ history. It helped achieve the elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 virus in NZ. But it was also associated with 548 fewer total ...
Reprehensible: There is much that could be said about Michael Woodhouse, but what would be the point? Any man who willingly involves himself in a situation as reprehensible as the one depicted in the above photograph has already vouchsafed all that decent people need to know about his character. That there have ...
As the debate over assisted dying rages in the run-up to the referendum at the election on September 19, a persistent problem continues to dog the discussions. That is to say, a prominent spokesperson for a particular group takes a strong public stand in opposition without acknowledging that they don’t ...
No Other Suspects? The mainstream news media was willing to print and broadcast harsh Opposition criticism of the Government, even though they knew that the source of the leaked information was a National Party MP. Even though, by pushing the story up towards the top of every news bulletin they were ...
Sacrificial Lamb: If the stories about Mr Taogaga and the unauthorised release of confidential medical data had been deliberately orchestrated by Labour’s political opponents, their deflection of the news media’s attention away from the Prime Minister’s address to the Labour Party Congress could hardly have been more successful.THE LABOUR PARTY ...
The East is Rent: The consequences of unleashing the young against the old; of elevating ideological rigor above reasoned debate; and of setting the present against the past; was a decade of unprecedented social stress and tension, interspersed with explosions of murderous mob violence and tragic material destruction. More than ...
The Green Party of Aotearoa-New Zealand could go from helping Jacinda Ardern run the country, to being turfed out of Parliament altogether in ten weeks. And that could see the end of Labour in government. Without them, Labour would likely have to do what no party has done since the ...
Remember the government's tyrannicalTerrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill? Remember how it was rammed through Parliament, with a four-day submission period and a select committee process that was a democratic fraud? At the time, the government gave the impression that there was an urgent need for this legislation, that a ...
Attack journalist - Tova O'BrienWe all know that much of the mainstream media in New Zealand is terribly biased. They are in effect another branch of the National Party, and can often be even more prejudiced than their right wing bosses.In fact many right wing politicians moonlight as journalists and ...
Former National Party President - Michelle BoagAfter the complete botch job Hamish Walker made of leaking the private details of COVID-19 patients to the mainstream media last week, the best-case scenario for Todd Muller and the National Party would be if the news cycle went quiet about their involvement.But unfortunately ...
One of the challenges of working on illegal wildlife markets, is you don’t really have scope to talk about your research into illegal wildlife markets. There is some stuff though that willbe coming out on Asiatic black bears in China, and before Covid19, I was delving more into rhinos. Which ...
Some are surprised at this sudden brain implosion on the part of both Michelle Boag, former National Party President, and the National Party in general, in exposing the private, confidential details of COVID patients. Others…? Let’s be blunt: not so much. Too many of that Party have long operated with ...
Michelle Boag - Former National Party PresidentWhen Todd Muller decided not to discipline Hamish Walker for his horribly racist press release last week, you had to wonder if his lack of proper leadership had something to do with a shared belief system? After all, the whiteness of the blue “team” ...
On Twitter today, lawyer Felix Geiringer asked a good question: why are MP's exempt from the Privacy Act? The Act imposes its obligations on "agencies", and s8 of the 2020 Act states that this term does not include... a member of Parliament in their official capacity The 1993 Act, ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzWhat was the climate and sea level like at times ...
So now we know, beyond all doubt. The National party has no interest in joining the “team of five million” in our fight against the pandemic but its priority is to take every opportunity it can to damage the government. The cynicism is breathtaking. It was prepared to leak the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters The massive dust storm that formed over the Sahara Desert in mid-June invaded the southeastern U.S. June 25-28, bringing dangerous levels of air pollution, low visibility, and colorful sunsets. The air pollution event over parts of Texas and the Gulf ...
In 1987, as a British Labour MP, I was elected to the Shadow Cabinet by my colleagues and was asked by the party leader to direct Labour’s campaign in the general election of that year. The election was to take place at the height of Mrs Thatcher’s dominance and we ...
National MP Nicola WillisHousing, which I would argue is a fundamental human right, has long been a problem in New Zealand. Not only do we have some of the most overpriced houses in the entire world, much of the housing stock is substandard and therefore affects not just people’s health ...
If the government has not lined up behind a "Yes" vote in this year's cannabis referendum the way some reformers would have liked, one entirely laudable thing it did do was commission some science around the public's choice.That science landed today, in the form of the report from an expert ...
Associate Professor Sara WaltonAt the heart of the discussion on opening up our borders is the dichotomy of health and the economy – both of which are actually intertwined, like many things with our economy, as this epidemic has shown.If we think about our country as a system, ...
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Josh Gabbatiss This year will see the largest ever drop globally in both investment and consumer spending on energy as the coronavirus pandemic hits every major sector, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). The crisis is accelerating the shutdown of older fossil-fuelled ...
A short opinion piece – Friday 26th June 2020 Whilst our Government has treated many financial victims of the current Covid-19 virus with appropriate generosity, the same cannot be said for those of the two earlier “epidemics” in NZ. The “Covid-84” virus (also called “Rogernomics”) spread systemic greed, with the ...
Everyone deserves a a decent life. We know this is possible with a fairer approach to income support and tax Read the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Poverty Action Plan here ...
After a long break, the government is back inserting secrecy clauses in legislation. This time its the Overseas Investment Amendment Bill (No 3), which in its clause allowing Ministers to exempt purchasers of farm land from the usual rules also allows them to exempt an exemption from the publication requirement: ...
Over the past two years the government has repeatedly delayed a scheme to put cameras on boats to monitor Mew Zealand's pervasively criminal fishing industry. But it turns out that the industry actually wants cameras: Three of the country's biggest seafood companies have broken ranks with the rest of the ...
Louise Delany (public health lawyer)Health and emergency laws have played a critical role in this country’s successful elimination of community transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic. This blog details key aspects of the legislation and comments on issues around testing, payments by incoming travellers for quarantine costs, and mask use. ...
I like Andrew Curry’s succinct and insightful futures blog The Next Wave. His most recent post is about social change. In particular, the decadal-long periods usually required for changes in values. He highlights a 2016 paper by Inglehart and Norris, who examined whether economic insecurity or a “cultural backlash” ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Stop making sense: why it's time to get emotional about climate changeThe science has been settled to the highest degree, so now ...
MONDAY JULY 6Washington (History, Sky 073, 7.30pm). The brilliant Doris Kearns Goodwin is the executive producer of this six-part series about America's first president. It combines interviews with live action and is narrated by Jeff Daniels. It's engaging, said Salon.TUESDAY JULY 7The ABC Murders (Prime, 8.30pm). Sarah Phelps has done incredible things with ...
I think we can all agree that the mainstream media in New Zealand has a very different set of rules for the right wing compared to the left. While Labour and Green Party politicians don’t seem to be able to fart without it becoming a sackable offence, National and Act ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, June 28 through Sat, July 4, 2020Editor's Choice'2040': A funny, entertaining, upbeat climate documentaryA timely Australian documentary takes a 'solutions' approach, with the filmmaker inspired by visions of ...
Racist National MP Hamish WalkerEven before Todd Muller's coup ousted Simon Bridges by a single vote, it was patently obvious that the National Party promotes and stands for white privilege. In fact they’ve always worked to ensure the discriminatory status quo in New Zealand doesn’t change.So it’s no surprise that ...
Dave HeatleyZero community transmission. Just a handful of active cases, all in quarantine. New Zealand is in an attractive situation, at least compared to much of the world. The situation could be robust and enduring – or it might be fragile, just one border incursion away from a “second ...
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people? When in doubt, centralise‘ has been a persistent theme in New Zealand public policy throughout our history. The current government is no exception. Here are some examples. - The regional polytechs have been ...
I wrote earlier in the week about the Scientology front organisations Drug Free World and Drug Free Ambassadors and their quite prominent role in anti-cannabis reform "coalition" assembled by Family First and a newloca branch of the American prohibitionist organisation SAM.It turns out Family First aren't the only ones helping ...
Nik GreenMuch of the public debate about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has focused on the extent to which government regulations have restricted personal and business activity.Oxford University Blavatnik School of Government Here in New Zealand, the question of when to change Alert Levels dominated the ...
James Higham, University of OtagoUnprecedented border closures and the domestic lockdown have paralysed New Zealand’s $40.9 billion a year tourism industry. In the process, the vulnerability of the sector to external shocks and the tenuous nature of tourism employment have been exposed. While New Zealand’s handling of the pandemic ...
Raising The Bar: Would that the Prime Minister and her colleagues would listen as intently to what the people – as opposed to the power elites – are saying as the Greens. Were they so disposed, the popular clamour for a transformational post-Covid reset would be loud in their ears. ...
Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nzDo you think the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown will slow or ...
A bit like a letter home. I have now been full-time at the University of Melbourne since 2019. Before that, I was 20 years at the University of Otago, Wellington. Indeed, I set up this very Public Health Expert Blog with Nick Wilson ten years ago. Now I am your ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections House Democrats have released a comprehensive report showing how – if they control the White House and both the Senate and the House of Representatives – they might move forward on climate change. Their “Climate Crisis Action Plan,” released June 30 by the ...
A ballot for three Member's Bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Electoral (Integrity Repeal) Amendment Bill (David Carter) Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill (Louisa wall) Unit Titles (Strengthening Body Corporate Governance and Other Matters) Amendment Bill (Judith ...
Not Ready: Todd Muller’s lack-lustre and self-contradictory performances offer conclusive proof that a political leader cannot be managed into competence. National’s new boss has Janet Wilson handling his media and Matthew Hooton writing his speeches. Both are highly professional political and public relations specialists, and Muller is lucky to have ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund is providing up to $19.5 million to boost innovative primary sector businesses and create training and job opportunities for Northland locals through the construction of an innovation and enterprise park at Ngawha, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones ...
The Green Party is today unveiling part one of its plan for a fossil-fuel free Aotearoa, including an immediate ban on new industrial coal boilers. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industry New Zealand First is supporting calls by hunters and the New Zealand Tahr Foundation (NZTF) to halt a large scale cull of Himalayan Tahr by the Department of Conservation in National Parks. The calls are supported by a 40,000 strong petition and the ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First leader Winston Peters today scoffed at suggestions that a team of six political operatives have been dispatched to New Zealand to assist his campaign. ‘As President Ronald Reagan once said, ‘there they go again.’ ‘The clickbait journos can’t ...
New Zealand First is pleased to announce Jenny Marcroft as the party’s election 2020 candidate for the Auckland Central electorate. Jenny spent years working in Auckland Central, having spent a vast proportion of her broadcasting career there. She says she, "knows the place and knows the people." Ms Marcroft says ...
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...
This week we moved into the second half of 2020 - and our Government delivered another week of big changes and major progress for New Zealanders. Read below for a wrap of the key things moments from the week - from extending paid parental leave, to making major investments in ...
The Green Party has opposed the COVID-19 Recovery Fast-track Consenting Bill which shortcuts normal consenting processes under the Resource Management Act (RMA), reduces public participation and narrows environmental considerations. ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister of Regional Economic Development A regional freight hub for the lower North Island will be built just northeast of Palmerston North, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has announced. The Government is investing $40 million through the Provincial Growth Fund to designate and buy land and design ...
Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson is calling for the introduction of a Guaranteed Minimum Income to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and prevent more families entering into further debt with the Ministry of Social Development. ...
There has been renewed focus on New Zealand First acting as a handbrake on the Government after our decision to not support Auckland light rail. We are a handbrake for bad ideas, that istrue, but our track record since 2017 has seen New Zealand First constructively also serve as an ...
Mark Patterson MP, New Zealand First List MP New Zealand First’s Fair Residency for Superannuation Bill passed its First Reading in Parliament today. The Bill makes a significant change to NZ Super by raising the minimum residency requirement from 10 to 20 years, after age 20. “Currently, a migrant of ...
Darroch Ball MP, Spokesperson for Law and Order A New Zealand First member’s bill in the name of Darroch Ball introducing a six-month minimum prison sentence for assaults on first responders has passed its second reading in Parliament. The new offence of "injuring a first responder or corrections officer with ...
Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Deputy Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand First welcomes the launch of the new Criminal Cases Review Commission, gifted with the name from Waikato-Tainui - Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, announced in Hamilton today by Justice Minister Andrew Little. “New Zealand First has long believed in and ...
The Green Party is celebrating over $800m in new funding for green projects, which will get people into jobs while solving New Zealand’s long-term challenges. ...
Mark Patterson MP, Spokesperson for Primary Industries New Zealand First is appalled that Meridian seems to have been unnecessarily spilling water from its dams to drive up its profits."While New Zealanders have been coming together in some of our darkest hours, we don’t expect power gentailers to waste water and ...
We wrapped up the first half of 2020 with a busy month, taking additional steps to support New Zealanders as we continue with our economic recovery. We rolled out targeted packages to support key industries like tourism and construction, helped create jobs in the environmental and agriculture sectors, and set ...
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Infrastructure Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones has welcomed the appointment of Maurice Davis and his deep infrastructure and construction experience to the board of the Infrastructure Commission. Mr Davis (Ngāti Maniapoto), is the seventh and final appointment to the board led by former Reserve Bank Governor ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Leader of New Zealand First New Zealand’s click bait journalism is taking a turn for the worse, with yet another example of sensationalist, wilful-misrepresentation of the facts. “New Zealand First has worked constructively with its Coalition partner on hundreds of pieces of legislation and policy, and ...
The Green Party is today unveiling its Poverty Action Plan, which includes a Guaranteed Minimum Income to ensure people have enough to live with dignity. ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Rotorua Museum redevelopment and Whakarewarewa and Tokorangi Forest projects will be accelerated thanks to a $2.09 million Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) boost, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher ...
This week, we rolled out the next steps of our recovery plan, with new infrastructure investment, extra support for tourism operators, and a new programme to get Kiwis into agriculture careers. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will continue to be a challenge, but we have a detailed plan to ...
Jenny Marcroft MP, Spokesperson for Health New Zealand First welcomes the passage of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission Bill through its final reading in Parliament today fulfilling a coalition agreement commitment. “This is an important step in saving the lives of New Zealanders and delivers a key coalition commitment ...
Whakatāne has been given a $2.5 million boost to speed up previously funded projects and create more than 450 jobs in the next decade. Of those, the equivalent of 160 full-time jobs could be delivered in the next six weeks. Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters is in town to make ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister Fletcher Tabuteau MP, Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $2.5 million to accelerate three infrastructure projects in Whakatāne, Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters and Under-Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. “This package is about ...
Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones is throwing his weight behind a bid by the Auckland Council to fast-track the more than doubling of the city's water allowance from the Waikato River. And he's coming out strongly against anyone who plans on getting in the way of this campaign. "It is my ...
The Green Party is thrilled to see changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that mean consents for large projects can be declined if they will have significant climate change implications that are inconsistent with the Zero Carbon Act and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Paris Agreement obligations. ...
Hon Ron Mark, Minister of Defence The Royal New Zealand Navy’s new ship, Aotearoa, set sail for New Zealand on 10 June from the Republic of Korea, and is due to arrive in Auckland tomorrow, announced Minister of Defence Ron Mark. “Aotearoa is the Royal New Zealand Navy’s new fleet ...
Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Racing Racing Minister Winston Peters has today welcomed the Racing Industry Bill passing its third reading, creating the legislative framework for revitalising the racing industry while limiting the need for future government intervention. “For too long our domestic racing industry has ...
The Green Party has today put forward an amendment to the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill to ensure all people in prisons can vote in general elections. ...
The Green Party welcomes the decision to not proceed with Public Public Investment (PPI) delivery of Auckland’s light rail project and to instead run the process through the public service. ...
Hon Ron Mark, New Zealand First List MP based in the Wairarapa New Zealand First List MP Hon Ron Mark welcomes the announcement of Provincial Growth Funding investment of $1.4 million to help secure the Wairarapa’s water supply. The funding boost will allow the Greater Wellington Regional Council (GWRC), and ...
New Zealand First list MP Mark Patterson has been selected to represent the party in the newly formed Taieri electorate at the upcoming election. Mr Patterson, his wife Jude and two daughters farm sheep and beef at Lawrence and Waitahuna. He previously stood in the Clutha-Southland electorate however boundary changes ...
Four celebrated Māori and Pasifika events will receive up to $100,000 each in funding from the new Creative and Cultural Events Incubator fund, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. The four events that were successful in the inaugural funding round are: Kia Mau Festival, Wellington Māoriland Film Festival, Otaki ...
The Minister for Pacific Peoples, Aupito William Sio is pleased to announce the inaugural launch of Kiribati Language Week as part of the 2020 Pacific language Weeks programme. “I am so pleased that this year we are able to provide resourcing support to the Kiribati community in Aotearoa which will ...
Wildlife institutions affected by a loss of visitor revenue during the COVID-19 lockdown are set to receive government support with nearly $15 million of funding available announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage. “Eco-sanctuaries, zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks, and wildlife rescue, hospital and rehabilitation facilities provide crucial support for the recovery ...
The Government is expanding and accelerating frontline mental health and wellbeing services at tertiary education institutes (TEI) to help students manage ongoing stresses related to COVID-19. “The lockdown has been hugely disruptive for students. Many of them have had to relocate and move to online learning, isolating them from their ...
The Minister of Police says a major operation against the Mongrel Mob in Waikato will make a big dent in drug harm and violent offending linked to organised crime networks. “Senior leadership of the Waikato Mongrel Mob has been taken out as a result of Operation Kingsville, which resulted in ...
The Government is extending the border exception criteria to enable some offshore victims and support people of the Christchurch mosque attacks to attend the sentencing of the accused beginning on 24 August2020, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. “We want to support our valued Muslim brothers and sisters who were directly ...
A project to support volunteer efforts to look after streams and rivers is getting a boost thanks to support from DOC’s Community Conservation Fund announced Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage today. “The government is backing efforts to look after waterways with $199,400 for the Mountains to Sea Conservation Trust from ...
Minister for Women Julie Anne Genter today announced that funding for the COVID-19 Community Fund for women and girls will be doubled, as the first successful funding applications for the initial $1million were revealed. “Women and girls across the country have suffered because of the effects of COVID-19, and I ...
The Government’s books were better than forecast with a higher GST take as the economy got moving again after lockdown, Finance Minister Grant Robertson says. The Crown Accounts for the 11 months to the end of May indicate the year end results for tax revenue will be stronger than forecast. ...
A plan to revitalise New Zealand’s strong wool sector and set it on a new, more sustainable and profitable path was unveiled today by Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor. The newly-released report - Vision and Action for New Zealand’s Wool Sector - was developed by the Wool Industry Project Action Group ...
Community efforts to create a Predator Free Whangārei will receive a $6 million boost, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones and Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage announced today. The new funding, through Government company Predator Free 2050 Ltd, will create around 12 jobs while enabling the complete removal of possums over ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters has announced that the New Zealand Government is reviewing the settings of its relationship with Hong Kong. “China’s decision to pass a new national security law for Hong Kong has fundamentally changed the environment for international engagement there,” Mr Peters said. “New Zealand remains deeply ...
Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones has announced details of a multimillion-dollar investment in Whangārei for infrastructure projects that will help it recover from the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 200 jobs are expected to be created through the $26 million investment from the Government’s rejuvenation package ...
Following a second incident in which a person escaped from a managed isolation facility, security is being enhanced, including more police presence onsite, Minister Megan Woods said. “The actions of some individuals who choose to break the very clear rules to stay within the facilities means that more resourcing is ...
Waste reduction and recycling programmes in Kaipara are set to get a boost with Associate Environment Minister Eugenie Sage today announcing a $361,447 grant from the Ministry for the Environment’s Waste Minimisation Fund (WMF) Sustainable Kaipara. “The new funding will allow Sustainable Kaipara to partner with local schools, kura, community ...
The Government will support the Southland economy in the wake of multinational mining company Rio Tinto’s decision to follow through with its long signalled closure of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. “This day has unfortunately been on the cards for some time now, but nevertheless the final decision is a ...
New tools being developed to help boost Aotearoa’s Predator Free 2050 effort were unveiled today by Minister of Conservation Eugenie Sage and Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development Fletcher Tabuteau. A new rat poison, a camera with predator recognition software to detect and report predators, a new predator lure and a ...
The Coalition Government has approved the purchase of a fleet of Bushmaster vehicles to replace the New Zealand Army’s armoured Pinzgauers, Defence Minister Ron Mark has announced today. The new fleet of 43 Australian-designed and built Bushmaster NZ5.5 will provide better protection for personnel and improved carrying capacity. “The age ...
The Government’s three prevention frameworks to reduce family violence in Aotearoa were launched this week by Associate Minister for Social Development Poto Williams. The frameworks were developed in partnership with communities around New Zealand, and build on the work the Government has already begun with its new family violence prevention ...
The Government is pleased to confirm funding for improvements to radiology and surgical services at Hawke's Bay DHB, Health Minister Chris Hipkins says. "The Minister of Finance the Hon Grant Robertson and former Health Minister Dr David Clark approved funding for Hawke's Bay DHB’s redevelopment of their radiology facilities ...
• New funding for four beds at Napier’s Springhill Residential Addiction Centre • A new managed withdrawal home and community service, and peer support before and after residential care at Tairāwhiti DHB • A co-ordinated network of withdrawal management services throughout the South Island • Peer support in Rotorua and ...
Introduction, seafarers and POAL Good morning everyone, I am delighted to be online with you all today. Before I begin, I have to acknowledge that COVID-19 has disrupted the maritime sector on an unprecedented scale. The work of seafarers and the maritime industry is keeping many economies around the world ...
A $13 million investment from Government will create jobs and improve the resilience of the rail connection between Christchurch and the West Coast, Infrastructure Minister Shane Jones and Regional Economic Development Under-Secretary Fletcher Tabuteau say. The funding comes from the tagged contingency set aside in Budget 2020 for infrastructure projects ...
The Government is investing $761 million to assist local government upgrade under-pressure water services across the country, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. The announcement was made at the site of the water bore that was found to be the source of the fatal ...
Recognised Seasonal Employers and migrant seasonal workers stranded in New Zealand will be able to continue working and supporting themselves with more flexible hours and roles, says Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway. The time-limited visa changes are: Stranded RSE workers will be able to work part-time (a minimum of 15 hours ...
The Government is making immediate short-term changes to visa settings to support temporary migrants already onshore in New Zealand and their employers, while also ensuring New Zealanders needing work are prioritised, Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. We are: Extending temporary work visas due to expire by the end of 2020 ...
Professor Peter Skelton CNZM has been appointed as Chief Freshwater Commissioner and Alternate Environment Court Judge Craig James Thompson as Deputy Chief Freshwater Commissioner for the newly established Freshwater Planning Process (FPP). Environment Minister David Parker today also announced the appointment of Chief Environment Court Judge Laurie Newhook as the ...
Auckland Queen’s Counsel Neil Campbell has been appointed a Judge of the High Court, Attorney‑General David Parker announced today. Justice Campbell graduated with a BCom and LLB (Hons) from the University of Auckland in 1992. He spent two years with Bell Gully Buddle Weir in Auckland before travelling to the United ...
The Associate Minister for Greater Christchurch Regeneration, Poto Williams, is seeking feedback on a proposal to better enable the development and operation of commercial film and video facilities in Christchurch. The Proposal, developed by Regenerate Christchurch in response to a request from Christchurch City Council, asks that powers under section ...
The Government has launched a bold plan to boost primary sector export earnings by $44 billion over the next decade, while protecting the environment and growing jobs. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today released Fit for a Better World – Accelerating our Economic Potential, a 10-year roadmap to unlock greater value ...
A new approach to prevent family harm that encourages greater collaboration across government and community groups is being celebrated at the opening of a new facility in Auckland. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern today opened the Multi-Disciplinary Family Harm Prevention Hub Te Taanga Manawa in Lambie Road in Manukau. The facility ...
The Government has released a major new report on the options for relocating the Port of Auckland’s freight operations while deferring any decision on the issue. “That decision needs to be informed by policy analysis that is still to be completed. As a result it will be up to a ...
The history of Rāpaki is being restored through the inclusion of te reo in thirteen official place names on Te Pātaka-o-Rākaihautū / Banks Peninsula and around Lyttelton Harbour/Whakaraupō, the Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage, announced today. “I am pleased to approve the proposals from Te Hapū o Ngāti ...
Bookings for seats on Air New Zealand flights into New Zealand will be managed in the short term to ensure the Government is able to safely place New Zealanders arriving home into a managed isolation or quarantine facility, says Housing Minister Megan Woods. “Last week Air Commodore Darryn Webb and I ...
Grant Robertson has today announced the first major release of funding from the $265 million Sport Recovery Package announced at Budget 2020. “Today we’re setting out how $80 million will be invested, with $54 million of that over the 2020/2021 financial year for organisations from community level through to elite ...
The Government is maintaining current levy rates for the next 2 years, as part of a set of changes to help ease the financial pressures of COVID-19 providing certainty for businesses and New Zealanders, ACC Minister Iain Lees-Galloway says. “New Zealanders and businesses are facing unprecedented financial pressures as a ...
Small businesses are getting greater certainty about access to finance with an extension to the interest-free cashflow loan scheme to the end of the year. The Small Business Cashflow Loan Scheme has already been extended once, to 24 July. Revenue and Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says it will be ...
A package of 23 projects across the country will clean up waterways and deliver over 2000 jobs Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Environment Minister David Parker announced today. The $162 million dollar package will see 22 water clean-up projects put forward by local councils receiving $62 million and the Kaipara ...
Tena koutou katoa Nga tangata whenua o tenei rohe o Pōneke, tena koutou Nau mai, haere mai ki te hui a tau mo te roopu reipa Ko tatou! Ko to tatou mana! Ko to tatou kaupapa kei te kokiri whakamua Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou katoa Welcome. I ...
The Provincial Growth Fund (PGF) is investing $1.5 million to ensure QE Health in Rotorua can proceed with its world class health service and save 75 existing jobs, Under Secretary for Regional Economic Development, Fletcher Tabuteau announced today. The PGF funding announced today is in addition to the $8 million ...
New Zealanders can’t get enough of The Chase, so why can’t we have our own version? And what would a homegrown version of the quiz show look like anyway? If The Chase were a pandemic, we’d all have herd immunity by now. The British TV quiz show has never been ...
In less than a week, Auckland Council will vote on an emergency budget that looks set to deliver severe cuts to facilities and services across the city. And still pleas for a commitment on shovel ready projects go unheeded by government, writes councillor Desley Simpson.As a country we can feel ...
The gunman of the Christchurch mosque attacks has chosen to represent himself at his sentencing next month. In March, Brenton Tarrant made a late guilty plea to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one under the Terrorism Suppression Act. He is due to be sentenced on 24 ...
A road freight industry representative says a new announcement that negotiations will be extended - again - is further confirmation that something is not right with the project An announcement that a new cash payout will extend negotiations and 'winter works' even further than first thought is being heralded as a sign ...
By Hamish Cardwell, RNZ News Grey Power is enraged by what it says is the “stupid and dangerous” behaviour of people fleeing managed isolation facilities, and says they need the book thrown at them. A person broke a window and absconded from an Auckland hotel on Friday, the fourth such ...
Crowd entertainment at sports games is a hard task, but please let’s stick to T-shirt cannons and on-field japes instead of watching strangers smooch, eh?Funny kiss cam footage is a key element of any viral fail video compilation. A “she’s my sister” sign pulled out of a pocket as the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rohan Clarke, Director, Monash Drone Discovery Platform, and Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Monash University This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jess Marsh, Research fellow at the Harry Butler Institute, Murdoch University This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Lintermans, Associate professor, University of Canberra This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s bushfire tragedy. Explore ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after last summer’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lisa Matisoo-Smith, Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Otago How did the Polynesian peoples come to live on the far-flung islands of the Pacific? The question has intrigued researchers for centuries. Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl brought the topic to public attention when ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Phillips, Associate Professor, Centre for Social Research and Methods, Director, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), Australian National University New research on disadvantage in Australia has found the gap between rich and poor is very wide in Sydney, while much of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Peters, Associate Professor of Wildlife Health and Pathology, Charles Sturt University This article is part of Flora, Fauna, Fire, a special project by The Conversation that launched this week. The project tracks the recovery of Australia’s native plants and animals after ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Wee Tiong Seah, Associate Professor in Mathematics Education, University of Melbourne On Sunday, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced government school students in prep to Year 10 in metropolitan Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire will learn from home for term three. The remote ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Phillippa Carnemolla, Senior Research Fellow, School of the Built Environment, University of Technology Sydney The stated purpose of the Morrison government’s HomeBuilder program is to stimulate the economy and create construction jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our research shows home improvements could ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Davidson, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, UNSW Suddenly, the idea of a “job guarantee” is back in vogue. Lawyer, academic, land rights activist and founder of the Cape York Institute Noel Pearson has come out of it favour of it, University of Newcastle ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ann Kayis-Kumar, Senior Lecturer and Tax Clinic Director, School of Taxation & Business Law, UNSW For some people tax time will result in no tax paid this year, and if past years are anything to go by, about 50 of them will ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip C. Almond, Emeritus Professor in the History of Religious Thought, The University of Queensland From the 11th century onwards, the Legend of Barlaam and Josaphat enjoyed a popularity in the medieval West attained perhaps by no other legend. It was available ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
Investors still betting massive money-printing, despite growing fears of second wave lock-downs in America, India and Brazil, and as Australian cases spike ...
Good morning and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Self-inflicted story puts National on the defensive, another escape attempt from managed isolation, and a series of party events ahead of election.There’s a convention in journalism called Betteridge’s law of headlines. Basically what it means is that headlines that end in ...
How authoritarian rule is applied to Hong Kong may make New Zealanders question whether closer interactions with China are necessarily desirable, writes Catherine Churchman Get ready for some in-your-face political repression, New Zealand. The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has just extended its draconian rules on free speech and freedom ...
Using technology remotely to care for patients can go way beyond Zoom calls or basic telehealth measures. Professor Simon Malpas explains how tech can start to even out inequity in healthcare. Imagine you live in Ahipara, Northland. You also have early stage heart failure. It’s a 90-minute drive to your ...
Stephen Hoadley on how Donald Trump has moved the US from its decades-old role of international leadership, and why it might not be easy for a President Biden to restore that mantle. US elections and the resulting presidencies can be geopolitical turning points, whether reflecting them or causing them. Successive ...
The ACT party held its campaign launch in Auckland on Sunday and unveiled new policies, with a new team it hopes will bring a return to the days when it was more than a one man band. Mark Jennings reports. If the number of people paying to attend a political ...
Nicky Pellegrino and Stacy Gregg continue their podcast interview series with popular New Zealand writers. This week: Amy McDaid, the author of Fake Baby. Auckland’s Amy McDaid is an exciting new talent on our literary scene. Her debut novel, Fake Baby, strikes an elegant balance between dark comedy and compassion. ...
Is it finally time for Pacific rugby to come in from the cold in a new Super Rugby competition? Jim Kayes says it's time to believe. In Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, the two lead characters wait on a country road, by a tree, for Godot’s arrival. He never ...
A broken foot threatened to derail sailor Alex Maloney's second Olympic campaign. But she's back on track, with a little help from her brother and his America's Cup team-mates. From now on, Alex Maloney will always seek a second opinion. Without it, the Rio Olympics sailing silver medallist saw her ...
With an election now less than 10 weeks away, the National Party is confronting the very real prospect of a crushing defeat, writes Pattrick Smellie for BusinessDesk.Only two things can now save Todd Muller and the National Party from the growing likelihood of a crushing defeat at the September 19 ...
It’s long past time we officially recognised the Māori new year on Māori land, writes Laura O’Connell Rapira.In May, Jacinda Ardern said more public holidays for Kiwis to experience Aotearoa New Zealand is among a number of things the government is “actively considering” to encourage domestic tourism.With many small businesses ...
The Kiwi nurse working in conflict zones, helping war-wounded, and improving hospital systems was forced to do a major pivot when Covid-19 hit Afghanistan. Gail Corbett tells Laura Walters about living her life in some of the world’s most dangerous places, and what keeps her going back. Gail Corbett was ...
This is a story about a Chinese shipwreck, the Māori guardians of the bones, and the documentary maker who' has upset two cultures with his efforts to tell the tale. Is a shipwreck with the bones of 499 Chinese miners a sacred gravesite or a part of history that should be ...
From RNZ Mediawatch New Zealand children use a lot less Kiwi media than they used to. New research shows its Netflix, YouTube and TikTok engaging their eyeballs big time these days. If our kids screen out our local media, what does the future hold for them? The news media seized ...
The Tahr Foundation has released a short video that shows just what Himalayan tahr mean to Kiwis and why so many people are fighting so hard to maintain them in New Zealand. The video is a powerful reminder of the extent that tahr are now woven into ...
Introduction Thank you very much. Elections in New Zealand – like everywhere - are a very special tradition, because they are driven by you. They’re an opportunity to change your future. If you think about it, the Government doesn’t do much. It ...
“This election and Covid-19 present New Zealanders with an opportunity to change their future and create a fair, modern employment insurance scheme,” says ACT’s Employment Spokesperson, and third-ranked candidate, Nicole McKee. “Covid-19 has ...
“A new approach to mental health and addiction will reduce bureaucracy, improve patient choice, and empower New Zealanders,” says ACT’s Deputy Leader and Health Spokesperson Brooke van Velden. “Each year, the government spends about $2 billion ...
"Working people have signaled their commitment to do more to address the most pressing issue of our time; climate change. The energy policies that the Green Party have launched today provide a meaningful contribution to addressing climate change," ...
Climate justice organisation 350 Aotearoa welcomes the Greens' plan to transform Aotearoa’s energy system and set Aotearoa on course towards a fossil-fuel free future in which workers are supported into new jobs, and communities have the power ...
The Old Guard, new to Netflix, is a resounding success because it doesn’t focus on what makes these heroes great, it focuses on what makes them human, writes Sam Brooks.The climax of Netflix’s new movie The Old Guard shouldn’t be anything new, but it feels exhilarating. The titular old guard, ...
A new Green Party announcement heralds a fast-exit out of fossil fuels through a massive state housing solar panel installation programme, a ban on new coal boilers, and the shifting of a target for renewable energy Solar panels and batteries would be installed in 30,000 State homes to create a "virtual power plant" if ...
As yet more male-led festival lineups are announced, Shaquille Wasasala, aka halfqueen, writes an open letter to the industry.To those whose career it is booking talent for music festivals, punters, and people who listen to music.As a DJ and artist who exists at many intersections that directly inform my lens ...
For all The Spinoff’s latest coverage of Covid-19 see here. Read Siouxsie Wiles’s work here. New Zealand is currently in alert level one – read about what that means here. For official government advice, see here.The Spinoff’s coverage of the Covid-19 outbreak is made possible thanks to donations from Spinoff Members. To support this ...
Dunedin writer Victor Billot pens topical verse every Sunday. This week: disgraced MP Hamish Walker.Showing promise The MP for Clutha-Southland did, it is true, post on Facebook that he had been door knocking in Mataura when he hadn’t. He lied. The MP for Clutha-Southland did, it is ...
It’s one of the most commonly used weedkillers in the world, but pressure to phase out use of the herbicide glyphosate could force us to come up with alternatives quickly. Listen to the full episode of Two Cents Worth below. Subscribe to Two Cents' Worth for free on Apple ...
The Covid-19 crisis has exposed gaps in the funding of early education that we should be bold in responding to, writes Sue Cherrington of Victoria University of Wellington Early childhood education has been in the media a great deal over recent weeks, initially with positive but increasingly with negative news reports. ...
It’s an economic theory that advocates tout as a solution to governments’ debt crises, but critics warn is a recipe for hyperinflation. Either way, modern monetary theory is getting a lot more attention in the era of Covid-19.Two big economic ideas have captured the popular imagination during the Covid-19 pandemic: ...
For one hour a week the supermarket lights are dimmed and the music stops. And it’s a kind of triumph, writes Michelle Langstone.I thought there’d been a power cut. The lights were out at the entrance, so you arrived into a kind of gloom. There was no music, and no ...
It’s no secret that New Zealand’s Covid-19 response was one of the world’s most effective. But to get an idea of how eagerly parts of our economy have rebounded post lockdown, take a look at our electricity demand data.Despite an impending wave of unemployment and looming fiscal challenges down the ...
In the second in the Spnioff’s Last on the list series, Dave King explains what inspired him to stand for the Act Party in Manurewa. At 20th spot on the list, if David Seymour’s party can win around 16% of the party vote, King is parliament bound.It wasn’t that long ...
Basketball is growing massively in popularity around the country, led by thousands of youngsters picking up the game every day. To The Line looks at what it’s like for New Zealand high school kids with hoop dreams.If there’s been a narrative rumbling away in the sports pages, it’s that of ...
Unbelievable. A first-rank world leader picks a needless fight with blameless allies, thus imperiling their unity. But that’s General de Gaulle for you.Impressive work, even by his standards. In 1967, Canada was to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge (their Gallipoli – except that they ...
From RNZ Saturday Morning Described by a Guardian reviewer as “superb hate-reading”, writer and columnist Anand Giridharadas‘s latest book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World investigates the hypocrisy of billionaire “do-gooders”. He questions how and why we have become reliant on the philanthropy of the super-rich ...
The Professional Hunting Guides Association is welcoming the High Court decision on DoC’s controversial tahr campaign. The High Court in Wellington was asked on Wednesday by the Tahr Foundation for a judicial review of DoC’s plan to kill thousands ...
With the 2020 general election nearly three months away, a new campaign is asking voters to vote in line with the future. Vote Climate 2020 aims to highlight the opportunity to build momentum behind climate change, ensuring climate justice is a key election ...
“ACT will target the gangs by hitting them where it hurts – their pockets,” according to ACT Leader David Seymour and Firearms Spokesperson Nicole McKee. “New Zealanders deserve to be safe and secure, but violent gangs are a scourge on our ...
Waffles don’t need to be sweet – these cheese and onion numbers make an excellent savoury breakfast with an egg, or an equally tasty dinner with leftover mince.It’s easy to default to sweet breakfasts without thinking. At least that’s the case in our household, as porridge or bircher muesli is ...
The government is revitalising the wool sector, splashing out on freshwater restoration projects, relieving student stress and showing kindness to Muslims by extending the border exception criteria. It is also increasing its support (in announcements from two separate Green Party Ministers) for women and for wildlife institutions. And it is ...
People have called it for it be pulled from the service, but the escapist fantasy of 365 Days is nothing new, writes Alie Benge.To every generation, a bullish alpha-male psychopath is born, and is for someone reason considered a romantic hero. We’ve been through a lot this year, and instead ...
As Aucklanders reluctantly adjust to the inconvenient practice of water conservation, a drought-savvy Northlander shares the tips and temperament needed to get through the dry times.Auckland’s water shortage was recently reported on The Project, and viewers were earnestly exhorted to fill their dishwashers completely before turning them on. My husband ...
Open Mike 19/01/2019 
Dr Kim Handley, University of Auckland Just how do cyanobacteria live in their natural habitat, and how do they coexist with other bacteria and microbial life forms? And what difference will knowledge on this bacteria have on maintaining New Zealand’s water quality? One of the consequences of declining water quality ...1 hour ago
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Climate Feedback Article Review... Coming Soon on SkS... Climate Feedback Claim Review... SkS Week in Review... Poster of the Week... Story of the Week... Global temperatures could exceed crucial 1.5 C target in the next five years In this aerial view ...1 hour ago
Three months on, and looking at the state of the world - 13 million cases, 560,000 dead, and both rising - it is clear that New Zealand's lockdown saved lives. But it didn't just save us from the pandemic and prevent future deaths - it also significantly reduced our background ...1 hour ago
National has a problem. And it’s time they said it out loud. It can’t be dismissed as a one-off anymore or excused because ‘everyone does it’. No, it cuts deeper than that. National has an ethics problem. Especially when it comes to privacy and using ordinary people as pawns in ...20 hours ago
The Council of Disobedient Women There is a regular segment in the Speak Up For Women podcasts called “Absolutely Blasted Mad Moment of the Week”. Each podcast the speaker and the host discuss a recent event that is the most insane thing they have seen in the gender critical space ...2 days ago
Todd Muller - Dishonest National Party leaderIt seems that dishonest Todd Muller is, like many right-wing politicians, entirely morally bankrupt. I mean just look at the National Party’s leaking omni-shambles over the last week or so. They’ve imploded in a spectacular display of backfiring dirty politics, the likes of which ...2 days ago
MONDAY JULY 13Bodyguard (TVNZ 1, 8.30pm). It's the final; if you haven't seen this already on Netflix, get ready, the ending is batshit.Unforgotten (Vibe, Sky 006, 8.30pm). I wonder if Sanjeev Bhasksar's character has got rid of that damn backpack in the third season of this cold case drama? Although, come ...2 days ago
Simon Bridges must be the unluckiest person in New Zealand politics. When he was elected as leader of the National party, he also became Leader of the Opposition – a position, he was entitled to assume, that would require him to “oppose”. But the government he set out to oppose ...2 days ago
Check out Speak Up For Women’s new podcasts: Episode 3 In this episode Speak Up For Women spokeswoman Ani O’Brien (@aniobrien) is joined by Beth Johnson (@beth_nosnhoj) to discuss the proposal from Statistics NZ to change standard data collection policy to “gender by default” rather than sex. They discuss why the ...3 days ago
Transcript: National Party policy announcement on roads – 8 July, 2020 Muller: Good afternoon everybody. Thank you for coming. Reporter 1: Is Hamish Walker a racist? Muller: Hang on… you haven’t even said good afternoon to me yet. Reporter 1: Good afternoon Mr Muller. Is Hamish Walker a racist? ...3 days ago
Today’s content Tiwai Point to close Hamish Rutherford (Herald): Government subsidising practically everything plays hardball with Rio Tinto (paywalled) Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Sudden closure of aluminium smelter worst outcome for jobs, consumers and the environment Brian Fallow (Herald): Tiwai closure sad news – and an opportunity for the environment (paywalled) Heather du Plessis-Allan (Newstalk ZB): Rio ...3 days ago
Reprehensible: There is much that could be said about Michael Woodhouse, but what would be the point? Any man who willingly involves himself in a situation as reprehensible as the one depicted in the above photograph has already vouchsafed all that decent people need to know about his character. That there have ...3 days ago
Some are surprised at this sudden brain implosion on the part of both Michelle Boag, former National Party President, and the National Party in general, in exposing the private, confidential details of COVID patients. Others…? Let’s be blunt: not so much. Too many of that Party have long operated with ...5 days ago
...7 days ago
Hon Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Economic Development The Provincial Growth Fund is providing up to $19.5 million to boost innovative primary sector businesses and create training and job opportunities for Northland locals through the construction of an innovation and enterprise park at Ngawha, Regional Economic Development Minister Shane Jones ...2 hours ago
The Green Party is today unveiling part one of its plan for a fossil-fuel free Aotearoa, including an immediate ban on new industrial coal boilers. ...1 day ago
New Zealanders deserve healthy rivers and lakes that are safe to swim in - but they have been getting worse for decades. That's why, with our latest announcement, we're investing in projects that will help clean up our rivers and lakes and restore them to health, within a generation. ...1 week ago
Four celebrated Māori and Pasifika events will receive up to $100,000 each in funding from the new Creative and Cultural Events Incubator fund, Economic Development Minister Phil Twyford announced today. The four events that were successful in the inaugural funding round are: Kia Mau Festival, Wellington Māoriland Film Festival, Otaki ...4 hours ago
New Zealanders can’t get enough of The Chase, so why can’t we have our own version? And what would a homegrown version of the quiz show look like anyway? If The Chase were a pandemic, we’d all have herd immunity by now. The British TV quiz show has never been ...59 mins ago
The gunman of the Christchurch mosque attacks has chosen to represent himself at his sentencing next month. In March, Brenton Tarrant made a late guilty plea to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one under the Terrorism Suppression Act. He is due to be sentenced on 24 ...1 hour ago
A road freight industry representative says a new announcement that negotiations will be extended - again - is further confirmation that something is not right with the project An announcement that a new cash payout will extend negotiations and 'winter works' even further than first thought is being heralded as a sign ...2 hours ago
NorthTec is very disappointed with the comments made by TEU representative Jill Jones in her press release “New Challenges for NorthTec”. ...2 hours ago
By Hamish Cardwell, RNZ News Grey Power is enraged by what it says is the “stupid and dangerous” behaviour of people fleeing managed isolation facilities, and says they need the book thrown at them. A person broke a window and absconded from an Auckland hotel on Friday, the fourth such ...3 hours ago
The Green Party wants to spend more on getting solar panels for state houses before ensuring they are warm and dry. ...3 hours ago
Investors still betting massive money-printing, despite growing fears of second wave lock-downs in America, India and Brazil, and as Australian cases spike ...5 hours ago
A coalition commitment to tackle bottled water exports falls by the wayside. ...7 hours ago
How authoritarian rule is applied to Hong Kong may make New Zealanders question whether closer interactions with China are necessarily desirable, writes Catherine Churchman Get ready for some in-your-face political repression, New Zealand. The Peoples Republic of China (PRC) has just extended its draconian rules on free speech and freedom ...7 hours ago
Using technology remotely to care for patients can go way beyond Zoom calls or basic telehealth measures. Professor Simon Malpas explains how tech can start to even out inequity in healthcare. Imagine you live in Ahipara, Northland. You also have early stage heart failure. It’s a 90-minute drive to your ...7 hours ago
Stephen Hoadley on how Donald Trump has moved the US from its decades-old role of international leadership, and why it might not be easy for a President Biden to restore that mantle. US elections and the resulting presidencies can be geopolitical turning points, whether reflecting them or causing them. Successive ...7 hours ago
The ACT party held its campaign launch in Auckland on Sunday and unveiled new policies, with a new team it hopes will bring a return to the days when it was more than a one man band. Mark Jennings reports. If the number of people paying to attend a political ...7 hours ago
Nicky Pellegrino and Stacy Gregg continue their podcast interview series with popular New Zealand writers. This week: Amy McDaid, the author of Fake Baby. Auckland’s Amy McDaid is an exciting new talent on our literary scene. Her debut novel, Fake Baby, strikes an elegant balance between dark comedy and compassion. ...7 hours ago
Is it finally time for Pacific rugby to come in from the cold in a new Super Rugby competition? Jim Kayes says it's time to believe. In Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot, the two lead characters wait on a country road, by a tree, for Godot’s arrival. He never ...7 hours ago
A broken foot threatened to derail sailor Alex Maloney's second Olympic campaign. But she's back on track, with a little help from her brother and his America's Cup team-mates. From now on, Alex Maloney will always seek a second opinion. Without it, the Rio Olympics sailing silver medallist saw her ...7 hours ago
Migrants protested in Auckland and Wellington - and NZ First launched into the first major event of its Northland 'do-or-die' campaign ...8 hours ago
The Kiwi nurse working in conflict zones, helping war-wounded, and improving hospital systems was forced to do a major pivot when Covid-19 hit Afghanistan. Gail Corbett tells Laura Walters about living her life in some of the world’s most dangerous places, and what keeps her going back. Gail Corbett was ...8 hours ago
This is a story about a Chinese shipwreck, the Māori guardians of the bones, and the documentary maker who' has upset two cultures with his efforts to tell the tale. Is a shipwreck with the bones of 499 Chinese miners a sacred gravesite or a part of history that should be ...8 hours ago
The Govt reviews its relationship with Hong Kong (and quietly re-adjusts on China), while pro-CCP leaders praise the new law. ...8 hours ago
A new Green Party announcement heralds a fast-exit out of fossil fuels through a massive state housing solar panel installation programme, a ban on new coal boilers, and the shifting of a target for renewable energy Solar panels and batteries would be installed in 30,000 State homes to create a "virtual power plant" if ...1 day ago
Dunedin writer Victor Billot pens topical verse every Sunday. This week: disgraced MP Hamish Walker. Showing promise The MP for Clutha-Southland did, it is true, post on Facebook that he had been door knocking in Mataura when he hadn’t. He lied. The MP for Clutha-Southland did, it is ...1 day ago
It’s one of the most commonly used weedkillers in the world, but pressure to phase out use of the herbicide glyphosate could force us to come up with alternatives quickly. Listen to the full episode of Two Cents Worth below. Subscribe to Two Cents' Worth for free on Apple ...1 day ago
The Covid-19 crisis has exposed gaps in the funding of early education that we should be bold in responding to, writes Sue Cherrington of Victoria University of Wellington Early childhood education has been in the media a great deal over recent weeks, initially with positive but increasingly with negative news reports. ...1 day ago
Unbelievable. A first-rank world leader picks a needless fight with blameless allies, thus imperiling their unity. But that’s General de Gaulle for you. Impressive work, even by his standards. In 1967, Canada was to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge (their Gallipoli – except that they ...2 days ago
The government is revitalising the wool sector, splashing out on freshwater restoration projects, relieving student stress and showing kindness to Muslims by extending the border exception criteria. It is also increasing its support (in announcements from two separate Green Party Ministers) for women and for wildlife institutions. And it is ...2 days ago
Finally impeachment is looking like a realistic prospect. I reported the breaking news last night on Open Mike. Nobody commented, so I suspect all the clamour for it last year by the Democrats has everyone in a state of disbelief, assuming it’s fake news.
Not if Cohen is telling the truth that he has proof Trump lied to Congress. That’s serious. The BBC is now onto the case, but gave it to a reporter who flounders around for a while without getting to the point: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46915909
Then, after that preliminary failure, their analyst gets to it: “The report on Thursday night that there is documentary evidence Donald Trump directed his former attorney to lie to Congress just lit a big fuse.” “If the Buzzfeed story is substantiated – and it asserts this evidence is already in the hands of Mr Mueller – this would appear to present a strong case for presidential obstruction of justice.”
Mueller has spent a couple of years taking out the small fry. Seems now’s the time for him to prove that he’s capable of holding a president accountable.
“The circular firing squad: Mueller targets turn on each other” https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/17/giuliani-mueller-collusion-investigation-1110671
“During a CNN interview, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer blurted out that the only person he knows about who didn’t collude with Russia was Trump himself.”
An unusual legal strategy, eh? The notion that the only apple in the barrel not rotten is the golden one sitting on top is unlikely to fly well in the court of public opinion. Giuliani also offered to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to the Washington Post at a discount price – although it’s possible that this was an attempt to change the subject.
Maybe not – he also made the same offer to NBC. [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/dems-vow-action-after-report-trump-directed-cohen-lie-about-n960156] Looks like he thinks he’ll get a better price via an auction…
I wouldn’t be celebrating until Trump has actually packed his bags and is boarding the helicopter on the White House lawn.
Then you have President Mike Pence to worry about.
Reminds me of the old “What, me worry?” from when I was a kid.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_E._Neuman
“”I want him to have this devil-may-care attitude, someone who can maintain a sense of humor while the world is collapsing around him.” I adapted and used that portrait, and that was the beginning… Mingo’s defining portrait was used on the cover of Mad #30 in late 1956 as a supposed write-in candidate for the Presidency”
I remember when I first saw it being somewhat horror-struck, thinking “That boy looks just like me!”
The Atlantic certainly thinks so, in this excellent piece
https://twitter.com/JeffreyGoldberg/status/1086266440297127937
Dems are talking about it again, after Cohen revelations
Ropata, do you know who you’ve just quoted? Jeffrey Goldberg is a cheerleader of the Israeli destruction of Palesitinian life, and was a loud enthusiast for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
You’re quoting him approvingly?
Do I care about ad hominems? No I am linking an article from the Atlantic about impeaching Trump
“Ad hominems?” I was alerting you to the fact you had unwittingly quoted one of the most bloodyminded and shameless propagandists in the United States or anywhere else for that matter.
There is a huge number of reputable, responsible and decent critics of Trump that you could have quoted, but you (unwisely) chose Jeffrey Goldberg.
Still, it’s your reputation at stake.
Doesn’t negate the value of arguments for impeachment, my reputation is already shot so no worries on that front 🙂
Don’t you worry, ropata—your reputation is still sky high amongst the team here at Daisycutter Sports Inc.
The talk is that because his Daughter Ivanka and also his sons are implicated in a lot of illegal dealings that he might strike a deal to resign in order to protect her and his sons.
They say he is the only president to have made a profit from his presidential campaign. Except for some initial seed money, he mostly loaned not gave money to his campaign and then got it back with interest as the political donations rolled in. He also rented out properties and event venues he owned to his campaign at way over market rates. Something Ivanka was involved in according to evidence.
Trump’s father was a scam artist and all he knows how to do well is scams. All of his legitimate businesses have ended in bankruptcies and all his main wealth has come from scams and tax avoidance. I would not be surprised if you traced some of the secured creditors from his bankrupt business you would not find Trump himself at the end of the long-hidden trail of money.
There’s been so many “smoking guns” the smell of cordite has addled the Press’ brains
Maybe its time to get back to “the noose is tightening”
I mean Buzzfeed, come on , didnt they break the “piss tape”
“Mueller breaks silence to dispute parts of bombshell report on Michael Cohen
Special counsel says elements of BuzzFeed story, claiming Trump told his former lawyer to lie to Congress, are ‘not accurate’”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/18/michael-cohen-robert-mueller-responds-lying-congress-buzzfeed-report
Yes, 3News just reported the same. Seems remarkable! The initial report was validated by a couple of govt insiders (ex-officials).
“The statement by Robert Mueller’s office on Friday night doesn’t cite any specific errors.” https://news.yahoo.com/latest-trump-claims-cohen-lying-reduce-jail-time-155631653–politics.html
So Mueller has felt the necessity of denying the accuracy, but has been careful to do so in general terms only!! Facts are evidently in dispute, but authorities disagree about which ones the public ought to be informed of…
“You’re as likely to get a response out of the Special Prosecutor’s Office as you are to be attacked by a wombat.” That’s what the MSNBC presenter says at the end of a discussion of the dispute between Mueller & Buzzfeed with a former govt legal expert.
The gist of his take is that Mueller is so alarmed by the interpretive spin Buzzfeed put on the facts that he felt the unprecedented need to perform counter-spin.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/mueller-filing-offers-insight-into-core-of-buzzfeed-cohen-report-1428745795556
The Mueller statement talks about the characterisation being wrong,
but says zip about the content.
Something about it was so significantly wrong that Mueller had to break his own self-imposed policy of media silence.
If you want a fun evaluation of the Buzzfeed report, google this: “Nine Reasons to Be Skeptical of BuzzFeed’s Cohen Report”. I tried to include the link but the Standard computer didn’t publish it, so it must be on the forbidden sources list.
Ah yes, Breitfart, the bastion of truth.
Dunno if I’d go quite that far… 😎
It’s not a case of Trump being merely the gangrenous limb. The whole organism is driseased.
A constitutional coup
The Republican controlled Senate, will do nothing to block Trump’s grab for ultimate power. See below.
If and when Trump makes his move,
What are the consequences for New Zealand?
What would it mean for our military and security forces which are closely tied to the US military and intelligence services?
Will our government order these ties to be cut until the US returns to democracy?
What if they refuse?
I had to laugh at this excellent headline from a Bloomberg Opinion piece…
“Trump’s Wall Won’t Protect Democrats Forever”.
So many ways to interpret that headline, and all true.
But as to the reality of The Wall..personally I dread the reality of Pelosi’s “technological wall” with little kids from Nicaragua being chased down by drones, and eventually, inevitably, being shot at or ‘marked’ in some horrific post apocalyptic manner…fascinating the way State Violence is hidden behind technological advances.
The system has been perverted by their greed and selfishness.
Wealth no matter what. They have a class system based on wealth.
So-called ‘women voters’ don’t exist. So why can’t we stop talking about them?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/18/democratic-party-women-jessa-crispin
(Hopefully Democrats and the NZ Green Party can have a read before they lose more voters with campaigns based on identity politics. Having inclusive policies will always trump a narrowing of identity, because as this articles shows, when they talk about a gender aka women, it is a certain type of women they are aiming it at, because women’s views are as diverse as mens!).
Jesus: Wisdom Teacher
The Path of Descent
Friday, January 18, 2019
Guest writer and CAC faculty member Cynthia Bourgeault continues exploring Jesus as
a wisdom teacher.
Jesus teaches the art of metanoia or “going into the larger mind.” Underlying all
his teaching is a clarion call to a radical shift in consciousness: away from the
alienation and polarization of the egoic operating system and into the unified field
of divine abundance that can be perceived only through the heart.
But how does one make this shift in consciousness? It’s one thing to admire it from
a distance, but quite another to create it within oneself. This is where spiritual
praxis comes into play. “Praxis” means the path, the actual practice you follow to
bring about the result that you’re yearning for. I think it’s fair to say that all
of the great spiritual paths lead toward the same center—the larger, nondual mind as
the seat of personal consciousness—but they get there by different routes.
While Jesus is typical of the wisdom tradition in his vision of what a whole and
unified human being looks like, the route he lays out for getting there is very
different from anything that had ever been seen on the planet up to that point. It
is still radical in our own time and definitely the “road less traveled” among the
various schools of human transformation. Many of the difficulties we run into trying
to make our Christianity work stem from the fact that we haven’t realized how
different Jesus’ approach really is. By trying to contain this new wine in old
wineskins, we inadvertently missed its own distinct flavor. In Jesus, everything
hangs together around a single center of gravity, and we need to know what this
center is before we can sense the subtle and cohesive power of his path.
What name might we give to this center? The apostle Paul suggests the word kenosis.
In Greek, the verb kenosein means “to let go,” or “to empty oneself,” and this is
the word Paul chooses to describe “the mind of Christ.”
Here is what Paul has to say (Philippians 2:6-8):
Though his state was that of God,
yet he did not deem equality with God
something he should cling to.
Rather, he emptied himself,
and assuming the state of a slave,
he was born in human likeness.
He, being known as one of us,
humbled himself, obedient unto death,
even death on the cross.
In this beautiful hymn, Paul recognizes that Jesus had only one “operational mode.”
Everything he did, he did by self-emptying. He emptied himself and descended into
human form. And he emptied himself still further, “even unto death on the cross.” In
every life circumstance, Jesus always responded with the same motion of
self-emptying—or to put it another way, descent: taking the lower place, not the
higher.
How many more wet metaphors can someone pack into a bad paragraph?
Cut past Paul and go back to the language of Christ himself.
You grow things Robert.
Start there.
Unfortunately it is required thinking for entry into whatever sort of land that respectful kind honest and practical people manage to salvage and continue.
From your utterances Ad you seem to want a return to 1980 with better technology and more efficiency. Back to the old New Industrial Revolution with robots and AI GM and other acronyms that hide their meanings in a code for people in a hurry to not waste time thinking, explaining while they move to self-destruct.
Robert I wondered if we could have in the near future of Sundays a post that looks at the various things people can do within their houses and properties to keep them cooler, conserve water. How thick mulch should be on the garden, Is mustard important, can it be used as ground cover and soil nourisher and be clipped for good nutrients into salads etc till when, does it get bitter when it flowers etc.
Is there a closed valve water feature that runs down and is drawn up all the time to take the top off really hot days – is there something. Who would make a spring system that keeps a circular clothesline turning back and forth so clothes get dry on still days. And would it be good to have a roof over a clothesline giving cool shade and unheated ground to sit under. Could apartments have a net sun cover overhead which you would lay your washing on and it would shade you as it dries. How to reduce heat retention around you. How to grow vertical gardens from apartments.
Have a checklist for householders preparing for heat. What should people in caravans and mobile homes do, summer and winter.
I saw doco called In The Zone about USA Black chap called Terrance Wallace who decided to use the system school zones in NZ to get capable schoolkids from poor backgrounds into the school zones of top schools that would give them entry and encourage them to aim for their dreams. He has done this in Auckland. He is trying it back in his home city of Chicago. One of the mothers said that the lack of air conditioning in the poor schools is one of the difficulties that the children from the ‘hood face. So some way of keeping the heat down will be necessary for a continuation of civilised society through knowledge.
Should we be digging basements for all houses, where the temperature is more stable?
As long as they are in areas where sea rise won’t be a problem, Robert.
Coober Pedy does this underground building for whole homes to get insulation from the heat and cold of desert conditions. So we know this works.
Awesome. Thanks Robert.
If words like Jesus, God, Christian etc stick in the craw, try replacing with love, awareness, presence.
This ’emptying of the self’ is common in many traditions.
A Zen master poring water into a cup and as the water approaches the top of the cup, the student urges the master to stop. The master keeps pouring till the cup overflows. “Your mind is like this cup, full, come and see me when your mind is empty”.
The essence is stillness of mind, what can I see, smell, hear, feel right now.
Not the opinions of what I am seeing, smelling etc.
I was so sure you’d play this clip…
Thank you, thank you, Siobhan and Adrian! !
Nice comment Robert.
Jesus. Praxis. Jesus.
Praxis makes perfect.
Rule you like a King II
Trump’s ‘National Emergency’ Gambit May Be The Easiest End To The Shutdown
“The most likely action for Congress is inaction”.
Matt Fuller – Huffington Post, January 10, 2019
Sabine vehemently disagrees with this analysis Here [pardon the profanity]
Subsequent events seem to be trending towards the Huffington Post analysis, that “The most likely action for Congress is inaction” over Sabine’s profanity laced counter opinion.
In the words of Sabine; Mitch McConnel, the Republican Majority Leader of of the Senate, shows himself more than willing, “to kiss his, (Trump’s), arse”, and “use tongue”.
The ‘Shameful’ Answer to #WheresMitch?
“If Senator McConnell is able to push through an anti-abortion bill to score political points, he surely should be able to schedule a vote on the House of Representatives’ bills to reopen the government.”
Julia Conley, staff writer – Common Dreams, January 17, 2019
McConnell knows the Dems are refusing to compromise, so why would he do what you suggest? Both parties have to be willing to make a deal to end the shut-down. I gather the Dems are refusing to deal because their real target is not Trump: it’s democracy. They want to prove to voters that the electoral mandate is no longer valid. That’s why they keep refusing to meet with Trump to do a deal, apparently.
So the stalemate suits both parties. Nobody has the leverage to achieve a resolution. It can only come via agreement, which can only come via compromise. Instead, both want to win. It’s like neither has heard of win/win outcomes.
Dennis, you seem to be persisting in your wilfull ignorance or misinterpretation of how the US political system works.
The president does not get, cannot get, a mandate for doing something like building a wall. Big policy decisions like that are the sole prerogative of the legislative branch, ie Congress, ie the House and Senate together. The president can only choose to agree or disagree with legislation put forward by Congress, and if he disagrees by exercising his veto Congress may still override that veto.
Here’s the relevant bits of the Constitution:
Article 1 section 1:
All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
Article 1 section 9 clause 7:
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law
The relevant bit of the constitution dealing with the powers of the president is Article 2. Feel free to point out what bit of that gives the president the power to choose to build a wall.
To be sure, the president may choose to try to influence what legislation goes through Congess. But the only tool he has for that is his powers of persuasion.
Yes, but you aren’t factoring in my response last time you made that point. The effect of such political behaviour on voters is to reduce their belief in democracy. That’s why so many don’t vote. A century or two of corruption in both parties has had that alienating effect.
So, to restore faith in the system, we need positive role models. The electoral contract is the moral basis of the mandate. If those elected respect the will and choice of the voters, they will act in accord with that principle.
That’s all good theory, Dennis, but I am with Andre on the above points. The US is very different to NZ in terms of its Constitution and constitutional history and political system; and therefore the thinking and expectations etc of US voters.
It isn’t an either/or situation. Both/and logic applies. Denial of the electoral contract doesn’t work because most people implicitly believe in it. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t vote on the basis of campaign promises, and wouldn’t identify with a party on that basis. The principle lies at the heart of representative democracy. That’s why I had to lobby all the key players so hard after Winston failed to articulate it clearly, to ensure the waka-jumping bill got passed.
That’s why I had to lobby all the key players so hard after Winston failed to articulate it clearly, to ensure the waka-jumping bill got passed.
Really???????
The waka jumping bill only passed because you lobbied the key players?
No, I didn’t mean to imply that, but it was a sustained campaign of document drafting and letter-writing. I had to counter the one-sided view from Jeanette Fitzsimons & Keith Locke that seemed in denial of the primary principle, to win over the Green MPs first, then the Minister of Justice & the PM. Got the desired result.
OK.
Sorry, I immediately thought of last year’s waka jumping bill – not the original one! Whole different ball game. I also thought I had added a LOL at the end to imply that I was having you on, so to speak.
My personal pet theory is American politics swings between getting pissed off at the current prez, and a preference for divided government so the only change that happens is by bipartisan consensus.
First up is the way midterms almost always go against the current prez. The only recent counter-examples are ’96 (likely due to a backlash against the partisan stuntsmanship leading up to Clinton’s impeachment), and ’02 with Shrub getting a boost from his wars.
Most recently, there wasn’t a whole lot for most people to be pissed off at Obama about and it looked like Clinton had it in the bag, so they delivered a Repug House and Senate. Leading up to 08, they were utterly disgusted with Shrub, which lead to a wholesale clean-out of Repugs. In 00, they were OK with Clinton’s record and the polls were back and forth, so both the House and Senate results were close too.
IMO you have probably hit the nail on the head! It really is a very different political system to ours, and those in the UK, Canada, Australia etc.
Each system has their pros and cons but IMO the US system cannot be directly compared to the others. More importantly, because of the different system and political history, the behavior of US politicians and voters (and the latter’s expectations) are also very different and cannot be predicted or judged on that of voters in these other countries/political systems.
I was drawn into the discussion by the points you made in your 5.1.1, in particular your second paragraph as I spent my teens in Washington DC and was therefore subject to the compulsory US Civics courses at high school – as well as living in the US political capital during interesting times (the 1960s). My comments here were in addition to some comments I made to Dennis earlier today at 18.1.1.1.1.2 on OM 18 Jan re my opinion that religion (including fundamentalist Christianity) plays a much greater role in community and political life in the US than in NZ; and also supporting your comments at 5.1.1.
I’ll try a link but my links within TS seem to do funny things at present and go to the full post rather than the comment itself, so if it does do that, I will delete the link itself.
Since you seem interested in my background: born in Oregon in ’63, when I was 2yr old the family moved to Japan for a year, then to Geneva for three years, California for four years, then to NZ. Grew up in Palmerston North, went to uni at Massey, then Auckland. Spent most of the 90s in the US, 5 years in Philadelphia, 1 year in Madison Wisconsin, 2 years in San Diego. Came back to NZ in 99 and been here ever since.
If you did your high school years in DC then you’ve had more formal US civics education than I have. But it was certainly noticeable that in the US there was a fair bit of awareness about the mechanics of government.
I didn’t particularly directly notice the religious influence. But then the areas I lived and worked in were generally pretty liberal (Bill’s taking a break so it’s low risk of an argument about that word). Being involved in engineering products, sometimes I’d work pretty closely with shop-floor people. It’s possible religion played a bigger part in their lives than I ever cottoned on to, but they just kept it to themselves.
While it’s obvious that a lot of legislation is driven by religious issues, I find it hard to understand exactly how much the vote is influenced by religious issues. There was worried talk about Kennedy taking orders from the Pope, but he still got elected. In the early days of Romney, that he was a Mormon was speculated to be a deal-breaker, but as that campaign progressed it kind of died away. The Great Orange Libertine makes feeble claims every now and then about his religious beliefs, but that sham is immediately obvious and his fervently religious followers don’t care. I can’t help wondering if the expectation that the president be a “person of faith” will be one of those things that is true until suddenly one day it isn’t.
You write about corruption in both parties as if they are equivalent. It’s a false equivalence, and people that repeat it are adding to the problem.
There’s only one party that routinely indulges in efforts to suppress the vote. There’s only one party that regularly seeks to allow increases in ways for organisations favourable to themselves to spend ever more money trying to influence the vote. While it’s possible to find gerrymandering in strongly Democrat jurisdictions (Maryland being the most prominent), it’s a corrupt tool tool that Republicans employ much more readily when they get the chance. The only states that have fully signed up to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact are strongly Democratic.
We’ve just had the best positive role for a long long time in American politics with Obama. So much for that being the panacea American politics needed.
edit: here’s a piece that nicely highlights the differences in viewpoint to respecting the will of the voters between the two parties.
https://www.vox.com/2019/1/18/18188150/mitch-mcconnell-house-democrats-anti-corruption-bill-hr1
Anyone who reads the history of American politics encounters episodes of corrruption in both parties right back into the 19th century. Only a partisan would deny history. I agree the Republicans have been to the fore on this in recent times.
the choice of the voters in the last midterm was to give the House to the Democrats. That means the Democrats hold the purse.
In the great spirit of Democracy and positive role models, i am all for the shitstain to start paying the 800.000 people and the uncounted contractors – estimated 1 million – who currently aren’t getting their wages, who don’t receive the funds for governmental projects and so forth, who risk loosing their houses, their bank ratings and risk ending up homeless etc etc etc and get on with business, and to respect the wish of the people who elected the Democrats to the House, the constitution and the principle of three equal branches of government.
It’s his stated policy to build a wall.
It’s not within his power to legislate for it, or fund it.
Same for the tax cuts.
His policy, their means.
He might argue it can be done under existing legislation.
the dems send the bill Paul Ryan passed before handing over the House, the bill that passed in the Senate, the bill that himself said he was gonna sign until Ann Coulter called him a weakling and a ‘push over’.
that bill has been send three times now to the Senate for signing. The bill that has bipartisan support from the house.
the bill that yertl the turtle refuses to pass because he knows that the weakling and push over in the whitehouse is not gonna sign. Btw, did you know that the Senate under yertl the turtle could over ride a persidential veto?
so no it is not the democrats fault, unless you believe that the opposition is to rubberstamp the president at all times, and then i would like for you to think for a moment and ask yourself if you would hold the same position if the roles were reversed.
So please stop posting this bullshit.
It’s a very simple political calculation for Repugs in Congress, most of whom are in very safe Repug seats. Risk the anger of King Con by voting to reopen the government, and reap the wrath of hundreds of thousands of angry Drumpfkins at your next primary. Or just keep cowering in fear hoping to stay out of sight and just coast on through the next primary and election. Yertle McConnell is up for election in 2020, you can be damn sure that’s the only thing he’s thinking about.
@Jenny – How to get there? 5
19 January 2019 at 9:02 am
I could call the shitstain the velveeta shartcannon if you prefer. But i think shitstain is perfect, a shitstain in the annals of history.
I have read your post several times and i have yet to figure what you are saying other then you have an issue with my calling the shitstain a shitstain.
In essence i have laid out what he can do on his own, sit on the shitter, tweet and scream emergency emergency. And then it goes to congress – nope she says, the speaker of the house, and then of to the senate, and yertl the turtle can either do his job and say nope no emergency here, just self inflicted injury to apease Ann Coulter and Hannity, or he can say yes my lord, how high should i jump.
As of today there are still three equal branches of government. They might not be there tomorrow, but yesterday and today it still was / is.
I also said, and you left that out for some reason 🙂 – go figure, that really it is up to the republicans, both in congress, senate and in the voting public who will need to take a decision as to how far they want to go in their submission to the shitstain and if they really want to give up the republic they have to form the United States of Trump.
And believe me, as an astute reader of history and coming from a country with a lot of baggage, i can guarantee you that if they go for the United States of Trump that they will bow, they will kiss his arse and every other arse they are told to kiss and they will use tongue if they want to stay alive, continue to work, keep their privileges and so on.
What the shitstain is currently doing is a shake down, a hostage taking, of a country, a populace, its workers. And the republican held senate and the House – which was repbulcican held until two weeks ago are enabling him. And as someone else said, why would anyone trust the shitstain? The house and senate – under the republicans – about 4 weeks ago signed the bill, send it to the white house for signing and he did not sign it? why ? Ask Ann coulter, cause she squeezed his balls hard and as a result 800000 people directly and 1 million via contractors do not receive their wages and might loose their lifelyhood.
and for some it seems that is all good, cause ………………………..its entertaining? or something?
but yeah, profanity, priorities.
but don’t believe me, believe her?
One hopes Labour’s commitment to focus on “wellbeing” doesn’t overlook the “wellbeing” of our vulnerable elderly.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/109967742/hidden-pain-in-aged-care-delayed-and-missed-care-commonplace–survey
Thrown under the ‘targeting’ bus I gather.
Can you expand on that, millsy?
Where is Winston on this elder neglect now that he’s in power?
It’s hilarious watching various Republican senators and House members purportedly ‘holding the faith’ with sour complaints about Pelosi’s intended travel to Afghanistan during the shutdown……looking true to Donald J. Swamp by talking banal (forgettable) trivialities the mouthing of which won’t ultimately impede their scramble to the nearest political emergency exit when the shit hits the fan(boy).
McConnell, Ryan, Cruz, Graham et al are more culpable in their facilitation of Donald J. Swamp pissing on the Constitution than the crazy himself. Essentially Swamp’s a George III (mad) and thus forgiveable in measure……these people (who warned of his unfitness during the primaries) have acted entirely out of the cheapest personal political motives.
Thank God for The Grandma from San Francisco !
Funny too that there were republicans on that bus.
Pelosi is mentioned, but that delegation was bipartisan. A little lesson for the repubs, don’t ever piss of the tyrant, lest you get stuck on the bus.
Who’s vice is it, the power takers or ours, for refusing to confront them?
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/18/adam-curtis-and-vice-director-adam-mckay-on-how-dick-cheney-masterminded-a-rightwing-revolution
‘Because what Hitler and Stalin had done was show us as mass crowds – and that went badly out of control and led to horror.
I think that went very deep into the liberal psyche, that the mob is frightening. It’s dangerous. And that’s why, when we get to this point – where someone like Cheney and the anti-democratic forces around him have taken power away. To challenge that, you’re going to have to bring people together with a very powerful story. But that’s frightening – potentially dangerous. So the left retreat into that mantra which you find everywhere online, that we are all self-contained individuals who all have our own little story. And we’re all going to tell each other those personal stories on Instagram and Twitter, and it’s going to be a nice, stable balance. Well, it’s too late for that now. The have-nots are fed up with that system – and are turning to powerful nationalist stories coming from the far right.’
Happy #WinnieThePoohDay peeps!
I love it!
I get really heart-broken when constantly confronted with the awfulness of the American Pooh et al, but these are so cool 🙂
Walt Disney will never be forgiven for destroying the mystique of Pooh Bear. The crowning insult was to clothe Pooh in a red coat.
Every page of Pooh Bear holds philosophical ideas for me and my boys, which are readily transferable to modern times. Americans should stick to destroying their own heritage and leave the good stuff alone.
That character in the bottom strip, with the mane and pinned-on tail – The Chairman?
Looks like Labour requires to do far more in regards to the “wellbeing” of beneficiaries.
The latest statistics from the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) show that more than $100 million was spent on hardship grants in the December quarter of last year.
More than 385,000 grants were issued – an increase of almost 95,000 on the same period the previous year.
Increasing demand for food assistance was one of the leading contributors to the growth in hardship grants, the Ministry said.
Spending on food grants alone was almost $20m, an increase of more than $5m compared to the last three months of 2017.
Susan St John from the Child Poverty Action Group said the situation was desperate for many families and the government needed to act quickly rather than waiting for the budget in May.
“What we would like the government to do is increase benefits by 20 percent immediately and to make sure that all low-income families get the entire Working for Families package,” Ms St John said.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/380435/government-benefits-still-not-enough-a-poverty-action-group-says
Government’s response? Points to the high cost of housing, but no new action to better address the growing problem mentioned.
Are we here on the left all comfortable with that or would you like to see more being done?
I for one am far from comfortable with this inaction, hence give the Government my full support to do more.
Who knows, if more of us express our concern and support for the Government to do more, perhaps they might take heed.
Or we can sit there and say nothing, largely reaffirming we are happy with the status quo.
The young woman who boasted from a Thai prison that she had evidence of Russian manipulation in US politics is manhandled in Moscow after being deported from Thailand.
https://www.newsweek.com/nastya-rybka-escort-trump-russia-823374
Oh yes, those Russian masterminds. They control everyone. They’re supersmart, just like those dastardly North Korean masterminds.
Yes indeed.
Vote Hillary. (She’s endorsed by Beyoncé.)
Received a pamphlet from Labour today outlining their plan.
Couldn’t help but notice they are still touting lies.
For example, they continue to claim they’ve stopped foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes. Yet, the policy has been released and as we all know, that claim is a lie. The largest foreign investors (Australians) are exempt and foreign investors can buy new Kiwi homes.
Hence, Labour’s insistence continuing on pushing this false line makes them look phony as hell.
How do they expect voters to trust them with this blatant lying carry on taking place?
Labour are still very much in favour of selling off NZ to offshore ‘investors’ and so they put in place ineffective ‘restrictions’ to make it look like they’re doing something about it but refuse to go to the full ban that the majority of people actually want. Yes, it’s an unscientific poll that’s going to be inaccurate as hell but I think it’s good enough in this case to show majority opinion.
To have a Govt. that is not actively full throttle ahead for a rorting economic system was and is an achievement at this stage in practicality, when it comes to the state of the NZ political system.
“Labour are still very much in favour of selling off NZ to offshore ‘investors’ and so they put in place ineffective ‘restrictions’ to make it look like they’re doing something about it but refuse to go to the full ban…”
That is how it looks. Labour policy falling short once again.
You are the one who is lying or at best… spinning like a Hooton top.
Labour made it clear well before the election that Australian investors would be exempted (I guess they are not regarded as foreigners) in their ban to exclude foreigners from purchasing existing NZ houses. But if foreign purchasers were to build new houses then they would be welcomed in NZ.
I remember Phil Twford explaining this night after night on TV both before and after the General Election.
Is it NZ Government policy to regard Australian citizens as ‘not foreigners’, at least for the purposes of purchasing NZ houses?
Asking because it seems the Aussie Government currently regards NZ citizens as foreigners in regard to just about everything.
The key question (which Twyford probably explained time-after-time, but I forget) is what was the rationale for exempting Australian ‘investors’? Is it something to do with the AUS/NZ CER agreement?
CER yes. Would breach this agreement.
I don’t have any experience or knowledge in this area, but is CER a reciprocal agreement if Aussie citizens living in Australia are treated as NZ citizens for the purposes of buying (investment) properties in NZ, whereas “NZ citizens living in NZ and permanent residents of NZ, however, will be treated the same as any other foreign citizens in Australia.“?
https://www.homeloanexperts.com.au/blog/non_resident/australian-mortgages-for-new-zealand-citizens/#
New Zealanders can buy residential property in Australia. I’m not sure what point you are trying to make.
I’m not sure either. Maybe it’s that Australian citizens living in Australia, and Singaporean citizens living in Singapore, seem to be getting preferential treatment (compared with non-residents that are citizens of other countries) when it comes to buying NZ properties.
Whereas it appears that New Zealand citizens living in NZ have to compete with the rest of the world when purchasing properties in Australia.
Of course I’m all for giving Australians preferential treatment – after all they’re ‘giving it‘ to us!
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/377727/andrew-little-to-raise-nz-citizens-concerns-over-treatment-in-australia-at-talks
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1807/S00125/australia-new-zealand-in-a-duel-over-deportations.htm
Neither of the articles you link to talk about New Zealanders buying residential property in Australia. CER is an agreement for ‘closer economic relations’, it is a trade deal not an immigration deal.
Sorry solkta, the relevant link was in the comment @12.2.1.1.1
As solkta has said, the arrangements re Australians being able to buy property in NZ is part of the Closer Economic Relations (CER) Agreement between NZ and Australia which has been in place for many years (cannnot remember the date).
Yes, the Australians are not exactly acting in accord with the CER deal at present on how they are treating NZ citizens resident in Australia – and all of this is under discussion between the two governments.
With regard to Singapore, the terms of the NZ – Singapore Trade Agreement currently also provides for Singapore citizens to be able to buy property in NZ. Most other similar trade agreements do not specifically cover this, and I understand that discussions are underway with Singapore to remove or put some restrictions on this property provision.
Sorry, all of the top of my head, but am busy at the moment.
IIRC, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s website has some very good information on all of the above.
Thanks vv, and solkta. I’m not Aussie-phobic; was visiting family (some long-term resident, some now Aussie citizens) there last month.
Just thought that The Chairman @12 had a legitimate point, if Labour “continue to claim they’ve stopped foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes“, without mentioning that Aussies and Singaporeans are exempt (for valid reasons.)
Do believe (in a hopeful way) that the coalition government are doing what they can to address the shortage of affordable homes/rentals – must be a daunting task.
NZ with money and high skills I believe can get into a more accepted level of settlers and might even get Oz citizenship.
It’s the ordinary citizen that gets the Aussie salute. It’s a bit like the practice we pull on people coming here.
Seriously Anne? Defending their lying. You are doing more damage than good.
The best thing Labour and their defenders can do is own it and stop touting the lie. Having defenders attempt to defend it is insulting.
I would suggest the main reason Labour have to continually explain that Australian investors and new builds are exempt comes down to them continually touting the lie they’ve stopped foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes. Which creates the confusion, hence their need to explain.
You are lying Chairman and what’s more you know it. Time to disconnect you from TS because your’e just a f*****g troll.
I’m not lying, Anne. As you acknowledged, there are vast exemptions, hence they haven’t stopped foreign purchasing of Kiwi homes.
Their measures may have reduced it somewhat or simply redirected it to new builds but they haven’t stopped it.
Therefore, your assertion that I’m a troll coupled with your call to have me disconnected is outrageously out of order.
Continually touting the lie is not in Labour’s interest if they want voters to trust them.
Moreover, imagine the embarrassment if they are officially caught out (if someone lays a complaint) for misleading advertising.
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2011-07/22/content_12959437.htm
Probably just coincidence
Like the breakdown of cause of death…
“15 were murdered, 17 committed suicide, seven died from accidents, 14 were executed according to the law and 19 died from diseases”
Also interesting that they imply someone enters the billionaire category at 100 million Yuan, or about USD 15.5 million at the time (2011)
“There were approximately 60,000 people with 100 million yuan in the Chinese mainland at the end of 2010, according to the GroupM Knowledge – Hurun Wealth Report 2011.”
Disappearing insects cause for concern
This obviously needs to be researched but there’s nothing coming from government. Probably won’t make a profit I suppose and it would further point to the fact that we have to change our ways.
A looming crisis. It’s awful to think about the scale of the problem.
i was driving around countryside today and it is a hilly bare brown landscape. Not a tree in sight.
not a shrub in sight.
just brown hills devoid of anything other then brown grass.
Same for the suburbs.
and my neighbors are winging about the lawns.
New Zealand really needs to take this shit seriously. Taranaki and Southland councils ought to be sacked for environmental destruction – also ECan and Hawkes Bay while we’re at it – for total negligence of waterways and covering up problems raised by experts in the field like Dr Mike Joy
as a recent visitor to europe the overwhelming impression was the dearth of wildlife, particularly birds…it was concerningly noticeable.
Sad. I have seen only 1 monarch butterfly this summer. New Zealand is not immune to these issues
There is a wee thread that discussed this same thing 7 Jan
Nothing has changed in the garden except aphids are the only insect seen on any plants.
Even on holiday noticed the absence of flies or mosquitoes. Nice but also concerning 😳
Herodotus 6.1
7 January 2019 at 10:20 am
Slight detour
There has been no sign of Cicadas in our local area (yet)
Also notice the absence of Monarch Butterflies (Swan plants are ready to be inundated with caterpillars), as well as few wasps and flies.
the wasps are one of the reasons we don’t have Monarchs, they love the larvae of the Monarchs.
Had a scot visitor about 20 years back she reckoned insects were rare in their cities then. A simple moth would freak her out.
These isolated islands and other places free from insecticide spraying that they tout as evidence insecticides are not causing insect population collapses are either lying or conveniently ignoring source-sink dynamics at play. The so called sanctuaries are geographical evolutionary bottlenecks in a matrix of spray zones.
Insects leave. They do not come back. New genes do not arrive.
Yes climate change is a big problem. But so is all the shit they’ve sprayed on and sold us to kill insects since before Rachel Carlson sounded the alarm in 1962 with her aptly named book ‘Silent Spring’.
It is heartening that in many places in NZ bird numbers are rising but without corresponding plant and insect sources to feed them there will be inevitable issues. Having been raised in the country I know: from the lack of windscreen splat, we’ve killed most of the insects we had in the 70’s, all throughout the north islands countryside.
Have our entomologists any plans? Any reports? Power to their prefab?
Plant for insects – plant plentifully, plant variously and plant like there’s no tomorrow!
trying real hard. Was pleased to see bees a few weeks ago enjoying the clover and other flowers in my unkempt lawn. Bumblebees showed up. But no butterflies, no dragon flies, just the standard black fly and mozzies now.
and i live near a wilderniss/wetland/floodzone …. nothing. It is so very very strange.
We can only try and that means create places for them to live and breed. It’s not sensible to try to nominate favourites and tailor plantings for them; plant, plant, plant and make it a complex, wild mix! There’s not too much time left.
its interesting tho that my wild garden seems to be free of fluffy bums, aphids and the likes.
like anyone who grows veggies i check often to make sure i don’t miss a budding pest invasion, and so far toi toi toi.
i generally only keep a few places ‘tidy’ its where i grow my veggies, but even that is only ‘so’ tidy, meaning i still let weeds grow – even dock, and just keep them from overtaking.
And it works i find.
It’s not that simple Robert. Go to a plant store buy a swan plant chances are it is covered in insecticide. People are buying plants to save butterflies and helping to kill them.
Those sprays have to go. Only planting is like saying you are going to clean rivers and doing nothing about Dairy.
Poison merchants and lazy husbandry. Both to blame for caring more for money than life.
Big oil and their sleazy chemical counterparts, fucking the planet – again, lying about it with fudged up science and information, again. I try every day to be diplomatic but I have nothing to say to these motherfuckers that isn’t invective and hate.
I’m puzzled by the passion for Monarch butterflies; they’re not native to NZ, nor are they robust enough to survive without the provision of an exotic plant for them to feed from. Perhaps it’s because they don’t fly in the far-south; the only ones we see (briefly) are those escaped through an open window in a child-care centre 🙂 Paper wasps aren’t getting ours, the weather is.
I notice @ 5.1 that even slaters are threatened.
Missed the point.
If people buy plants to save insects, but all those plants are coated in insecticide…
Planting is the right move for people who can source safe plants.
Govt and councils must stop the sprays. Garden centres and nurseries are all too heavy handed with such products.
The insects are doomed if they do not stop spraying.
Some think this is a rural issue but they are wrong. It can even be worse in cities where home gardeners, unrestrained by the daunting budgets of a large farm, use substances freely and liberally.
Back in 65 we tested for insecticides in people from non sprayed zones and came up winners!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2475895/
Now it is convenient not to look at fats – or facts.
if it were only the cities I may not have so readily noticed it but I spent over half my time in rural locations over 3 different countries….for all our problems here, and they are many , i dont think we understand how much worse things are in the northern hemisphere
Must feel weird for the Nats to pretend to have a conscience *now* after all the poverty that they created
With Slater lying low due to his health issues, Demcracymum is set to take over as National’s head attack blogger.
How about your conscience? No disappointment hardship grants are up almost 95,000 on the same period (the December quarter) the previous year?
It is one thing to mock the Nats but shouldn’t we also let our side know we’re not happy about it and we expect better?
Or do you see it as more of a case of Labour won the election so who on the left really cares now how they run the place?
our side
@10 Are we here on the left
You are working it real hard today. I notice that you seem to have given up concern trolling the Greens and are now focusing on Labour.
I’m not trolling any party. I’m genuinely here discussing recent political news.
And in that respect, as usual, the Greens are MIA . Hence, little to say about them at the moment other than why aren’t they running with these news items too?
Elder neglect and poverty should be high on their radar. Someone please wake them up.
Could this rising figure be due to a more compassionate policy being observed than previously?
Going off the large queues at the foodbank this year, one would say not.
To know for sure, we’d have to know total numbers applying and not just grants issued for both periods.
However, if that is the case, one would expect Labour to have released a press statement highlighting that. I’ve yet to see one, have you?
Partly, yes. It’s a bit less stressful to have any sort of contact with WINZ at the moment so people are finally getting access to what they are entitled to BY LAW. Numbers of grants needed are up only on paper. in reality they were always there and just couldn’t be accessed. Last time I has to physically go near an office (1st time since regime change) the guard was still at the door, but there was no request for ID, no checklist to see if I had an appointment/reason for going, and he was actually very friendly. Even the interaction with the frontline worker was perfectly civil. Encouraging sign.
I don’t like the idea that staff can suddenly switch between being nasty and nice on order of government of the day, but so long as they’re playing by the rules.
@Chairman, given your very real concern for this situation I trust you are writing letters to the editor, posting your thoughts on every blog/news site possible and writing to all politicians with your concerns?
“Numbers of grants needed are up only on paper. in reality they were always there and just couldn’t be accessed…”
Do you have the number of total applications for both periods that back that assertion?
As you can see, I do my bit. And as you well know, democracy doesn’t all rest upon me. It generally takes numbers for political parties to take note. So ask yourself, are you doing your part? Question the ones that aren’t, not the ones that are.
The increased number of hardship grants seems to correlate quite strongly with the number of migrant arrivals over the past year.
(inconvenient narrative alert)
Are you suggesting that in the last year large numbers of migrants have come to NZ to seek hardship benefits? Nothing to do with locals struggling to make ends meet?
At least Jacinda admitted (in her facebook post) more needs to be done, albeit she hasn’t raced to do more.
But I see you have no conscience, you take advantage of the increase to mock National while look to form excuses for the increase when it becomes an inconvenient narrative.
No I am accusing all Governments of negligence in allowing immigration to spiral out of control in the middle of a housing crisis, making inequality even worse, and needlessly throwing thousands of Kiwis into hardship
I see.
And where is this concern of negligence when it comes to Labour’s inaction to do more?
I have a very critical view of Labour’s neoliberal tendencies… Grant Robertson parsimoniously claiming fiscal responsibility was a serious misstep. His top responsibility is to the people of Aotearoa not his crummy little spreadsheet and certainly not to a bunch of international financiers
I hear you and totally agree.
From assisting out with a charity over Christmas, I hope that both the volume of those that were assisted will be down next year and those that will need any assistance (food, presents etc) that their needs will not be as severe.
IMO we need to give the current govt a years grace before seeing any improvements, if the needs are similar to Dec 18 (this year was the most severe I have seen) then the govt. does need to be questioned that after 2 years in power anecdotal observations show no sign of improvement.
After their input (Families Package etc) I think they were rather surprised how little impact it really had, forcing Jacinda to publicly acknowledge (on her facebook post when visiting the food bank in the run up to Christmas) more needs to be done.
Anecdotal observations show no sign of improvement now.
Moreover, so does the latest data release.
Hence, Susan St John from the Child Poverty Action Group is calling for action to be taken now.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/380435/government-benefits-still-not-enough-a-poverty-action-group-says
The worse it is allowed to become the harder and more expensive it will be to fix.
This drips and drabs approach by Labour will end up costing us (socially and fiscally) far more in the long run. Hence, one really needs to question Labour’s claim of being fiscally responsible.
Have to agree with Bernard Hickey on this.
@ ropata
Indeed. Bernard is right. Time to think big.
There was/is a lot of expectation from voters when Labour came to power and if they don’t feel things have improved by the next election, there will be a lot of disappointment. Especially so if people feel they are worse off than when Labour came to power.
Therefore, Labour’s inaction now could potentially damage the left’s standing in politics for a long time to come.
Depends.
What’s the reason why its up? Is it because things are worse or because WINZ has a better culture (due to the change in government) where they actually help people?
According to poverty action group and Salvation Army, demand (the need for help) is on the increase. Hence, the call for more to be done now.
The goal for more social housing is still set far to low. And we know core benefit rates are also set far to low. So is the minimum wage.
Moreover, if it’s up merely because WINZ has a better culture, one would have expected Labour to have announced that or at lease highlighted that when questioned on the matter. I’ve seen neither.
Labour’s drips and drabs approach is holding back the required progress. As a result, problems will worsen, hence will become more difficult and expensive to fix.
Even in death, this young woman is insulted by this Australian paper.
This looks like another awful case. Aiia Maasarwe was a young Palestinian Israeli woman who was attacked and killed in Melbourne. This Melbourne Age report deliberately refuses to acknowledge that she is a Palestinian, and labels her by the cynical Israeli government term of “Israeli Arab.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/australia/110032290/aspiring-rapper-codey-herrmann-arrested-over-death-of-israeli-student-aiia-maasarwe-in-melbourne
“In Canberra last week I met some Australian members of parliament. It gave me hope, because until I heard them speak I had always thought that Israel’s right wing politicians were the worst. —-(LAUGHTER)— I’ve never heard any Israeli politician speak about the Palestinian people the way that those Australian politicians did. But they are Australia’s problem, not mine. (LAUGHTER) I spoke with the Australian foreign minister; she talked and she was very nice but we could not agree on anything. (LAUGHTER)”
—-Famed Israeli journalist GIDEON LEVY, speaking in Auckland, Dec. 3, 2017
The RNC, the NRA, Facebook, and the transition team. Why not the NYT?
With the recent revelation that the FBI has long suspected Donald Trump of being a Russian puppet, Dean Baquet owes Liz Spayd an overdue apology.
In May 2017, Baquet, as New York Times executive editor, oversaw the elimination of the paper’s public-editor position, effectively firing Spayd before her two-year term was up. As public editor, it was Spayd’s job to act as an internal Times watchdog, answer reader questions, and address concerns about news coverage.
Why was Spayd pushed out?
[…]
How dubious was the Times’ Russia coverage in 2016? Prior to the election, Times reporters knew about the blockbuster Steele dossier, which detailed international concerns about Trump’s Russia alliance. Over time, the dossier has proven to be remarkably accurate. During the 2016 campaign, the Times knew that the dossier’s author was a respected British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, and could find no holes or red flags in the dossier information that was checkable. Yet the newspaper sat on the sensational news of the dossier’s existence.
This is the same newspaper that had spent 18 months treating Hillary Clinton’s emails like Iran-Contra and Watergate put together.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/1/17/1827048/-The-New-York-Times-is-overdue-on-a-Russia-reckoning-What-went-wrong-in-2016
Someone’s got themselves deep in it.
irony alert
“US Vice-President Mike Pence has called criticism of his wife’s decision to resume teaching at an anti-LGBT school “deeply offensive”.
In an interview with a Catholic TV network, Mr Pence said it amounted to an “attack” on religious education.
The school that Mrs Pence chose bars staff from engaging in or condoning “homosexual or lesbian sexual activity” and “transgender identity”.
She previously taught art there for 12 years while Mr Pence was in Congress.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46924489
Some interesting history for those that might not know about these events…
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/maori-european-contact-pre-1840/captain-stewart-and-the-elizabeth
Kia ora R & R Waiata is good for the wairua each to there own on the money they want to get for there waiata.
Waiata is a good mediam for telling storys truth full storys .
I say that we will find a great maori musicin soon they are out there just need the correct team around them how know how the Papatuanuku works at the minute
Ka kite ano
brexit was a con job from the alt right on the common people who’s belif that its there right to make money anyway they can dream up weather it ruins the country selling state assets kill’s people arms sales or selling out there grandchildrens future global warming and the capitalist system is based on selling out the grandchildrens future targeting inflation this policy is selling the future out making dollars worth less for the grandchildren think about it.
The Tories now treat the nation as they have long treated the poor
brexit did not come from nowhere. The jerry-built utopianism, the indifference to and ignorance of how the British live and what they need to keep them safe, the know-nothing pride in ignorant generalisations and the cocksure love of sweeping solutions have their roots in the right that emerged a decade ago.
Before the Brexiters wrecked the country, they wrecked the lives of the poor. Universal credit was the Conservatives’ fantasy when they took power 2010. Iain Duncan Smith offered a dream so seductive that even his natural critics could not find it in their hearts to condemn him unequivocally. His grand project would remove disincentives to work. It would simplify the complicated and create a benefits system that was “a doorway to real aspiration and achievement”.
If Brexit incinerated the rules of prudence, the right’s treatment of the poor provided the kindling. Universal credit brought homelessness and pushed families to beg at food banks because Duncan Smith and his fellow half-educated idealists thought they could understand poverty like a mathematical theorem. They say now that their revolution failed because the Treasury stabbed their utopian plans in the back when it failed to provide sufficient resources – and you should get used to “stab in the back” theories because you will hear little else as the disillusionment with Brexit grows and the charlatans who led us on bluster like toddlers denying they wrecked the playpen. In truth, universal credit was doomed from the start. The right failed to see the poor as they were rather than as they wanted them to be. People are losing tenancies and going without food not only because universal credit is underfunded but because it imposes delays of five weeks or more before it pays anything at all to claimants. The delays are a matter of deliberate policy. In 2010, rightwingers wanted poverty to be the result of chaotic lives, alcoholism, drug addiction and, above all, for this is was what got the religious right’s rocks off, the breakdown of traditional families. They blamed individuals, not the system. A month’s wait for money would make the feckless pull themselves together and learn to live like members of the respectable middle class, who must wait a month for their first salary cheques when they take new job
Brexit is a globalised version of the same failure to see the world as it is rather than how the right insists it must be. The greatest delusion is one that Burke would have laughed to scorn: the belief that we can have a wrenching economic, diplomatic and constitutional change without breaking into a sweat. Don’t laugh. Millions still believe in a Brexit without tears and their leaders are still promising they can have it.
A second delusion flowed from the first: that the countries of the European Union would quail before the newly resurgent British as we awoke like lions from their slumber and scramble to meet our demands. This is what David Davis meant when he said British negotiators would be striking deals in Berlin rather than Brussels. As it is, the supposedly squabbling nations of the EU have held together, while the British political system has imploded. Ka kite ano link below P.S The whole world need to live with in its means a humble happy world for all
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/19/tories-now-treat-the-nation-as-they-have-long-treated-the-poor-universal-credit-brexit
Some Eco Maori Music for the minute
Kia ora R & R I sat te reo should be taught to all tamariki under a certain age. I also say that no tamariki should be allowed to leave school without a education /trade qualification invest in the future and it will pay big dividends for Aotearoa society the people that don’t agree have alternative reason a uneducated person is easily CONTROL con. I also say every one should be part of Kiwi saver. Saving for our future at the minute we’re are spending our future.
Yes Te reo is a taonga treasure for all Kiwis. Ka kite ano
R & R compolsery voting big yes from ECO Maori Ka kite ano
Kia Kaha wahine don’t let the alt right red neck cheat and stop your goals for EQUALITY good on you for the marches around the world letting everyone know its time for CHANGE as MAN has made a MESS of the WORLD
Women in more than 30 countries around the world are expected to gather on Saturday as part of the global Women’s March, to protest against violence against women and the impact of policies of austerity.
In London thousands are expected to gather outside Portland Place in central London at 12.30pm and march to Trafalgar Square by 1.30pm, ending in a two-hour rally.
Saturday marks the third anniversary of the first Women’s March in 2017, when as many as 6 million people around the world gathered in protest at the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Last year thousands gathered in central London for the Time’s Up rally, in honour of the campaign against sexual harassment and honouring the #MeToo movement.
While the global theme of the 2019 Women’s Wave is ending violence against women and girls, the theme of the London march has been named “bread and roses”, in honour of the Polish-born American suffragette and workers’ rights campaigner Rose Schneiderman and reflects marchers’ “hunger to thrive and not just survive on bread”, said organisers. After the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911 where 146 mainly female garment-industry workers died, Schneiderman declared: “The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too.”
The UK rally is likely to have an anti-Brexit flavour as organisers accuse the government of ignoring the fact that women would suffer the most severe consequences in a post-Brexit Britain. he phrase “bread and roses” captures a desperate need for women’s voices as the devastating impact of austerity in the noise around Britain’s messy departure from the EU is forgotten, said Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu, the founder of the Women in Leadership publication and co-organiser of Women’s March London.
Women’s March to take to streets after controversy divides movement
Read more
“The 1912 bread and roses march revolutionised workers’ rights for women and once again on Saturday women are leading the way in the fight against austerity,” she said. “We see women bearing the brunt of the economic and social impact of austerity and we know that after Brexit women will bear the brunt of the fallout. Our lives are being held to ransom because of politics.
“We know that post-Brexit Britain will not be any better for women unless assurances are put in place to protect us. Yet none of the conversations happening at the moment are focusing on the impact of women and I find that absolutely ridiculous.”
Sarah Green, of the End Violence Against Women coalition, said the link between austerity and violence against women was marked, adding it was harder than ever for women to challenge injustice as a result of cuts to legal aid and the closing of courts Ka kite ano links below P.S I see trumps little puppets trolls have been suppresing this story quite hard to find a positive one on the wahine marchs trump is suppresing the media on climate change topic to
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/18/womens-march-30-countries-set-to-take-part-in-third-global-protest
Renewable energy doe not put the huge strains or pollute local water supplies WHY are we still burning carbon to prouduce power when renewable energy has so many positive features . Its the oil barons cheating our grandchildrens future.
TIn addition, wind and solar energy require essentially no water to operate and thus do not pollute water resources or strain supplies by competing with agriculture, drinking water, or other important water needs. In contrast, fossil fuels can have a significant impact on water resources: both coal mining and natural gas drilling can pollute sources of drinking water, and all thermal power plants, including those powered by coal, gas, and oil, withdraw and consume water for cooling.
Biomass and geothermal power plants, like coal- and natural gas-fired power plants, may require water for cooling. Hydroelectric power plants can disrupt river ecosystems both upstream and downstream from the dam. However, NREL’s 80-percent-by-2050 renewable energy study, which included biomass and geothermal, found that total water consumption and withdrawal would decrease significantly in a future with high renewables [7].his page explores the many positive impacts of clean energy, including the benefits of wind, solar, geothermal, hydroelectric, and biomass. For more information on their negative impacts—including effective solutions to avoid, minimize, or mitigate—see our page on The Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy Technologies.
Less global warming
Human activity is overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other global warming emissions. These gases act like a blanket, trapping heat. The result is a web of significant and harmful impacts, from stronger, more frequent storms, to drought, sea level rise, and extinction.
In the United States, about 29 percent of global warming emissions come from our electricity sector. Most of those emissions come from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas [1, 2].
Human activity is overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other global warming emissions. These gases act like a blanket, trapping heat. The result is a web of significant and harmful impacts, from stronger, more frequent storms, to drought, sea level rise, and extinction.
In the United States, about 29 percent of global warming emissions come from our electricity sector. Most of those emissions come from fossil fuels like coal and natural gas [1, 2].
In contrast, most renewable energy sources produce little to no global warming emissions. Even when including “life cycle” emissions of clean energy (ie, the emissions from each stage of a technology’s life—manufacturing, installation, operation, decommissioning), the global warming emissions associated with renewable energy are minimal [3].
The comparison becomes clear when you look at the numbers. Burning natural gas for electricity releases between 0.6 and 2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour (CO2E/kWh); coal emits between 1.4 and 3.6 pounds of CO2E/kWh. Wind, on the other hand, is responsible for only 0.02 to 0.04 pounds of CO2E/kWh on a life-cycle basis; solar 0.07 to 0.2; geothermal 0.1 to 0.2; and hydroelectric between 0.1 and 0.5.
Renewable electricity generation from biomass can have a wide range of global warming emissions depending on the resource and whether or not it is sustainably sourced and harvested. Ka kite ano links below.
https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/renewable-energy/public-benefits-of-renewable-power#.XEPjIPZuJjo
https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-energy/energy-water-use/water-energy-electricity-overview#.XEPnR_ZuJjo
Kia ora Newshub condolences to the people who lost there love ones in that oil pipeline explosion in Mexico.
E scooter are becoming a bit of a problem it would be good to see the %data on the accidents
Patel car meet is cool yes not all car loving enthusiast people are not all fools who play silly buggers E cars is coming on strong that is the new age.
It ain’t half hot MUM is a classic TV show given me many sore faces condolences to Windsor Davies whano.
Ka kite ano