Understandable if rich ole Bill owned the network, perhaps. Just weird. "The same number of people believe the pandemic is being used to force people into getting vaccinations."
Probably mean them commies in govt. SloMo & his suits, who they recently elected. "A new Essential poll has revealed the proportion of people who believe coronavirus conspiracy theories. One in five people believe the media and government are exaggerating the death toll to scare the population. Two in five think the virus was engineered and released from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan".
Still, I doubt anyone ever accused Australians of being rational. They seem to be becoming a lot more Australian than usual, though.
"The same number of people believe the pandemic is being used to force people into getting vaccinations."
Tell me, do you believe that an eventual covid19 vaccine should be entirely voluntary, without any kind of legal, social or economic coercion? Or do you think there should be negative incentives to increase uptake?
Does your position change if the vaccine is rushed to market with little testing?
Does it change if efficacy is unclear?
Do you think adverse reaction reporting will be better with covid than normal or worse?
No, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. But I'm also not going to write off concerns about covid vaccine use at the medical, social and political levels. The people raising concerns might seem stupid to some but the questions above are legitimate and need to be addressed at some point. Taking a vaccination is god approach won't help and will further polarise people.
(also, let's not forget the third party, nefarious actors in the debate. It's pretty clear that the trolls are there, and I would guess astroturferers as well).
btw, I think you will find that there are plenty of left wing voters who are in the subculture concerned about vaccination generally, and how it will be handled with covid specifically.
If a vaccine is developed, I wouldn't make people take it accept in the case of travel, all incoming people would need proof of vaccination and so world any exiting kiwis that wish to return.
I'm sure the PM will explain it patiently for people who need more time to get it, but if we get another outbreak and there's an effective vaccine with not nearly as many adverse effects as covid19 has, there are only a couple of options that stop us turning into UK/US/Sweden:
L4 no exemptions.
L4 with exemptions for vaccinated people.
Compulsory vaccination without L4.
If you can think of another variation that won't result in thousands of dead, sing out.
I understood what you meant McFlock. I am pointing out that mandatory and compulsory vaccination brings large societal issues and this is part of why the anti-vaxxers are all over covid. The polarisation will increase until there is a meeting ground.
Let's not forget it's not the anti-vaxxers in NZ that have dropped general vaccination rates, it's the neoliberal fuckery with the health system that has limited access. This is why the MoH isn't overly worried about anti-vaxxers.
true in some contexts. If we look at vaccination discussions on TS they tend to be the more heated ones and that's without the third party troll element. On FB and twitter it tends to be a shit show, so I would say that we have lost a large part of our ability to have the conversations.
Beyond that, most 'anti-vaxers' are often ordinary people with legitimate concerns about where society is going but not necessarily the frame work to discuss those in because of poor science literacy. My observation is that hating on them is radicalising them.
Somewhere like NZ, we still have a good chance of finding ways to both address concerns about vaccination and gain relatively high rates without having to use authoritarianism.
It's less authoritarian to offer a vaccine than it is just put everyone into level 4 without an opt-out.
As far as I can see, the discussion here has included compulsory vaccination only for people coming into the country. Personally, I favour compulsory quarantine, as vaccination records can be falsified.
As far as I can see, the discussion here has included compulsory vaccination only for people coming into the country.
Is that what you were meaning in this conversation? I thought you and I were talking about the NZ population.
Personally, I favour compulsory quarantine, as vaccination records can be falsified.
I favour quarantine until we have longer term data on efficacy of the vaccine. I'd be surprised if we have that at the point that it starts being rolled out overseas.
The MAGA crowd are dead against taking a vaccine. They have this twisted idea that a vaccine is used to control people and that Covid tests are designed just to collect a persons DNA.
Probably part of the reason Covid is running rampant over there, trump and his dimwitted supporters.
Yes. Vaccination is already a fact of life if you want to travel extensively. I carry two passports … the usual kiwi one, and my separate vaccination booklet. Yellow fever is the big one, but they’ll check for typhus and Hepatitis A as well.
Not all borders demand to see your vaccination booklet, but if you want to get home without dramas ….
I wouldn't be surprised if some employers require people to have the COVID vaccination (assuming there is one that is effective, safe, available and affordable), especially in some places or industries. Even if an employer cannot legally require existing employees to get a vaccination (can't see that happening but then again, maybe in some occupations it should), new employees could be required to have it or at least preferred. There may be exceptions for medical reasons perhaps.
My bet is that there will be no vaccine, it is much more likely that there may well be a treatment much like Aids. Too many victims have gotten the virus a second time in particular the U.S. sailors on their ship, which may prove that if you get over it but go back into or stay in an infected environment you have not acquired immunity.
It’s important to hold an acute awareness of why you got into this stuff in the first place. Whatever your individual ideological position, you got into this because you want to actually change things; to change the world, to cause a movement away from humanity’s unhealthy patterns and toward health. It’s not about petty vendettas against opposing factions or subfactions or individuals who don’t see things exactly the same way you do. And your energy expenditure should reflect this.
Generally, people in dissident circles are under the delusion that this whole thing is about having the perfect beliefs in your head. That if you can just have exactly the right opinions about what’s going on, you “win” in some way, so a ton of energy goes toward finding what looks like the very best set of opinions and arguing with anyone who sees things a tiny little bit differently. And that’s just not what this is about.
This thing is about changing the world, and changing you. That’s it. If you’re not actually, concretely doing one of those two things in any given moment while engaging in dissident circles, you’re just participating in another nerdy hobby group, with about as much consequence.
Goggle summary says about the publisher behind the link:
Medium (website) – Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Medium_(website)
Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams and launched in August 2012. It is owned by A Medium Corporation. The platform is an …
Owner: A Medium Corporation
CEO: Evan Williams
Founder(s): Evan Williams
Employees: 85 (May 2017)
Holacracy · freeCodeCamp · Electronic publishing · Social journalism
The reason why this is important is that no single individual can hold an sufficiently complete and sane view of the world in their head. Reality is too damned complicated for that … we actually need other people, with all of their confounding, contradictory disagreeable ideas and beliefs in order to arrive at sane, functional plans of action.
Controlled or otherwise, the fabric of politics is aggression. Pretty primitive stuff. To engage politically, one has to be fighting for or against something *clue-word, "fighting”
I quite like fighting, although I prefer tai chi to hard combat. Strength, tone, concentration, ability to be present can be built in the process, as well as the clarifying of ideas and intent.
I'm less convinced that politics *has to be this way though. Isn't there politics in everything, even the human endeavours that avoid fighting for or against?
Yes. Much more so than all the known alternatives.
But never forget this, effective political operators, for all the positional games they play, ultimately know how to make the deal. And deals are negotiated.
Agreed, and JA has mastered the art, by being awesome at networking (aka making friends).
2/ It wasn't until she stood up that day after Andrew Little rolled over that anyone (including her, probably) realised she was truly great in a crisis. Until then, her great political skill was forming networks. She wasn't so good at some other stuff, possibly still isn't.
Of course the alternative to the description of nerdy hobby groups is to be conservatively in favour of the status quo. My impression of National is they resist even considering "progressive" changes. Especially the big issues like Climate change, or social imbalances.
So I would like to see myself as championing valuable change. And I am not ashamed of that even though I can't do much about it.
China is covering up again in Northern China the new outbreak is far worse than the figures they are providing the WHO.
All other outbreaks around the world show a rapid increase followed by a slow decline.
The figures for the last 10 days show 1420 new cases every day for 10days no change.
Very suspicious no increase no decline but exactly the same number.
The National party want us to start bringing in students from overseas by July ,put them into isolation .why waste resources if one of those students need hospital care or are asymptomatic then we could be back to square one.
The National party want us to start bringing in students from overseas by July ,put them into isolation .why waste resources if one of those students need hospital care or are asymptomatic then we could be back to square one.
You don’t happen to have a link for that, do you?
I find your choice of words an odd one. What do you mean by “waste resources”? You do know that visitors to and guests in and of our country do receive medical attention and healthcare when required, don’t you? International students pay for mandatory health insurance AFAIK. How and why should an overseas student be seen differently from a returning Kiwi, who could equally be asymptomatic?
What exactly is the problem with not being able to link?
I presume you mean this:
The MP [Dr Shane Reti] is proposing to reopen the border to international students for the second semester in July, if they undergo quarantine, and "if we open the border in a protected way … our arrivals card has to be perfect".
Yes, I understand that a returning Kiwi is coming home to the Motherland but what difference does that make to the health risks involved?
At least you’re open and honest about your biased and binary attitude towards education of international students. I’d say it is much more than what you make it out to be but that’s a different conversation and a different reason for refusing people entry into the country or a VISA to study here. FYI, the NZ universities are non-profit institutions and they are operating with a 3% operating surplus guideline set by TEC.
Sociopath war criminal given platform on BBC to spread more lies
Watch this utter wanker talking batshit bollocks & remember this is the guy who lied his arse off to send your sons & daughters into war. https://t.co/jCLaKcuaev
Oh dear – he has never realised that he has run the hero to zero trajectory. Perhaps we could refer the british media to our own Marist school cluster which looks like it may have been going for only about a week before everyone was asked to isolate.
Think tank report wanting more foreign direct investment.. Rather than us saving up and owning our own stuff
This think tank has had a number of reports quoted in stuff. They operate under the university of auckland but I wondered just how independent they are and who is funding them. They list at least one foundation partner who has given support who looks like they may be an overseas based hedge fund manager . A quick google and he looks like he may also have been the beneficiary of being able to buy sensitive NZ land by bunging some money to a local school (Not a policy I have ever been in favour of? ) Is there any conflict of interests?
Good research RedBaronCV (Curriculum vitae or CoronaVirus?)
I hope that our efficacious and tenacious legal and justice systems are checking to see whether these overseas 'invest-us' are getting value for money. /sarc
thank you GW. I spend a lot of my time wondering who pulls the strings. I'll go with corona virus as the cv is historical but i don't want to trouble the mods!
I've actually gone off and had a skim through some of their papers. What they do not appear to be is
– peer reviewed
– evidence based. although they do reference other publications – it's hard to know how selective this referencing might be
– whether these are academics operating within their expertise or not. I've seen elsewhere lawyers writing as if they were experts on how to format the advanced statistical modelling of virus transmission when the understanding is trite.
_ if these are “discussion papers” where and when is the feedback taken
Really it looks like academics who may be way outside their lane writing a blog and hiding behind a think tank designation/branding. to diseminate prefered political ideas/
Twitter and face book and the standard are likely better informed.
Personally I’ve always wondered where Mr Gluckman was as the Nact science advisor when Nact where doing all the drug testing and moving people out of their homes because of so called “P” contamination.
Think tank report wanting more foreign direct investment..
That $US 4 trillion Congress has given to US corporations is a lot of money that's going to be looking for somewhere to be in a world decimated by the depression that's coming straight at us.
edit – To clarify – I think there will be a lot of pressure to align with US business interests.
Well the heath app is here. I see they are making no promises about deleting the contact details . Just where you went after 21 days. And it looks like the data is on offshore servers.
Honestly I'm just going to take a photo of the businesses I'vr gone into – that will show where I have been.
And how long before there is discrimination – no app and you are not allowed in?
With that app, where you went is stored only on your phone. They get your contact details on their server.
And there have already been businesses trading for weeks that will not let you in the door without verifying you have logged into one of several other apps.
Yep I understand that but at the end of level two or level one when the tracing is no longer needed then they should delete the contact details on their server otherwise some new bad actor (Maybe Act gets elected) changes the rules and decides that it can be used for other purposes.
Are they going to enshrine these rules so an 80% majority is required to change them – thought not!
Well the “you must use an app” is a form of discrimination – no poor people need apply ? They can do without my money then. And if they have been trading for weeks then have they been breaking the lockdown rules?
The MOH shouldn't have stacks of data on me. I've opted out of everything plus I have the ultimate weapon. I belong to a long lived family that goes to the doctor about twice in an adult lifetime. I haven't been for years.
I don’t mind paper records – somebody stands on them or loses them pretty quickly in my experience. It’s the electronic stuff that hangs around.
Well that answers a few questions so why doesn't the health department put it on it's website? Looks like taking a photo of where I go (one in one out) is just as good as the app so why didn't they tell us that ages ago – instead of people like me just doing it and the government wasting money on the app. And for what it's worth I'm not interested in enriching Amazon even marginally with web hosting fees.
Just gone in and read the app FAQ on the MOH website. Well as far as I can see they have failed at the first step of being "transparent". Who developed this app. Peter Thiel – someone else? Are they a developer who may leave a trapdoor in the app so they can harvest data. Do they have a track record for respecting data privacy or not? Do they pay their taxes or just stuff it in tax havens?
Why is an email address necessary to use the app? Who apart from the contract tracing service is harvesting this email address? How do households who share an email address get along? Honestly if it is phone based why does it not simply record a phone number on the base so they can do a "call me text" to the phone owners they want to contact.
And of course they can't help themselves – they want extra information to collate -from the website below are these statements. And who reads the fine print and they are already saying that they are going to update it.
27.3. Aggregate demographic information of Consumers, including approximate age range, gender, and ethnicity, is captured to provide reporting on the usage of the CCTA by different segments of the population. This data is used to inform wider Ministry efforts about the equity of the overall technology response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
33.1. when recording their contact details for upload to the Ministry (other than the email address required for registration) they may choose what contact and identification details they include;
No I'm not anxious – I work in tech related fields – but it seriously annoys me when people stand up and go it's safe, nobody can see it and when you look closely that is simply not the case. Health seems particularly prone to this particular delusion. In particular terms of use can be changed unilaterally without options being given to delete the data. Or the whole contact tracing service could be sold (right wing government anyone?)
Think Facebook Cambridge Analytica, the creator of the digital face recognition who just helped themselves to private photos on the web. We should not be naive about data use and aggregation
And don’t forget that within the last few decades at various times abortions, homosexuality single parents unemployed, various ethnic groups have had to deal with their behaviour being either outright criminalised or the state has acted as if they basically were. Put not your trust in princes.
I agree. Credible information is reassuring but hard to find. Having done some work on health IT privacy, it is more advanced in thinking than some other areas. Not often well-explained though.
Totally agree RB. Anyone in receipt of a main benefit should seriously think twice about this, and it's not paranoia. Back in the 1970s the public were encouraged to dob in solo mums for putting a packet of chocolate biscuits in their supermarket trolley. The modern version of this you really don't want WINZ to find out you've been into a cafe or- heaven forbid, a cinema- because that's evidence that a)you're clearly being given too much money and more scarily b) you're lying about your disability if you're capable of leaving the house. Many people in the UK have been affected by the latter so it's a perfectly reasonable thing to consider.
No way will I ever trust any sort of tracking app created by anyone, yet alone the government. I'll sign in hard copy, but not electronic. Anyway, I don't have mobile data, so moot.
Good to see I have friends and it's not just me.The less info the govt has the better.
BTW as per the above – the solo parents who may be on a benefit or even families on a benefit are likely to be told they have to covid vaccine their kids – we'll get the usual rubbish about how they are slack parents and have to be told what to do.. Me I'd vaccinate all the parents who don't pay or play (look after their kids) then if it has some unusual side effects ….
#BREAKING: Evacuation orders issued for areas in and around the city of Midland, Michigan following the collapse of the Edenville Dam. pic.twitter.com/sNMtMNJ73D
<i>She [Professor Carolyn King] began her career in Oxford, and was studying weasels in 1971, when she was asked to come and help us get rid of stoats in New Zealand.
She wrote the first ever book on predators in New Zealand Immigrant Killers in 1984 and then The Handbook of New Zealand Mammals (1990), she’s is now working on the third edition.
"I am very concerned about the possibility of people getting carried away by genetic modification. There's a lot of talk about gene drives, modified genes that can be introduced to a population. They're trying some in Australia for example with the Daughterless Carp Program and these are fish that can produce sons but not daughters. So if you have a whole population with one gender, than sooner or later the population will die out, without you having to set traps or poisons..</i>
Is it possible some National Party leaning folk at Colmar Brunton or TVNZ might leak the result of their poll to Farrar or National Party HQ to allow them to strategise ahead of the release at 6:00pm tomorrow?
We have released 21-second newsreel clip featuring the last known images of the extinct Thylacine, filmed in 1935, has been digitised in 4K and released.
The fish people know a thing or two about targeting the vulnerable.
In its final 20 minutes, the documentary film AKA Jane Roe delivers quite the blow to conservatives who have weaponized the story of Jane Roe herself—real name, Norma McCorvey—to argue that people with uteruses should have to carry any and all pregnancies to term.
[…]
But those filmmakers, and the rest of the pro-life evangelical community, have another curveball coming. In the final third of director Nick Sweeney’s 79-minute documentary, featuring many end-of-life reflections from McCorvey—who grew up queer, poor, and was sexually abused by a family member her mother sent her to live with after leaving reform school—the former Jane Roe admits that her later turn to the anti-abortion camp as a born-again Christian was “all an act.”
“This is my deathbed confession,” she chuckles, sitting in a chair in her nursing home room, on oxygen. Sweeney asks McCorvey, “Did [the evangelicals] use you as a trophy?” “Of course,” she replies. “I was the Big Fish.” “Do you think you would say that you used them?” Sweeney responds. “Well,” says McCorvey, “I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say. That’s what I’d say.” She even gives an example of her scripted anti-abortion lines. “I’m a good actress,” she points out. “Of course, I’m not acting now.”
I read it and really felt for the restaurant staff . They didn't deserve to be dragged into some political statement not of their own making. But that's a Nat behaviour – no care for anyone else
Of course boosting a specific facebook campaigns numbers might be the point?
Robert Guyton, it might help to be able to read the link. The bits after the question mark can mean a lot of things to the web-site. In this case they appear to be showing that you came from facebook.com with a specific advertising campaign number. I don't know what utm_source=facebook.com, utm_content, utm_medium=social and utm_campaign mean specifically to that publisher (I can guess) but in some cases this can reveal information about how you came to that page.
In really dumb cases somebody encodes a user name and password into the url parameters and somebody else posts it elsewhere, though I haven't seen one of these for long time.
Though the parameters can lead to different pages, Sacha's rule of thumb is usually right because most sites don't do that.
Every lefty should be messaging Nat mp's saying "they won't vote national if Simon is removed, he is a fighter who will claw support back like he did last year" I'm rooting for you Simon, I'm almost certain he's a Labour party supporter! Hang on comrade! You're the best thing to ever happen to Labour!
it's kind of where the culture is at too. There's a taboo about talking about the sometimes severe limits of the biomedical model of psychiatry. That combined with 30 years of neoliberalism and health cuts is a potently bad brew.
Agree that the funding cuts haven't helped but really the predilection to medicate goes way back….my personal experience of the service is if you don't have forceful advocacy (and to a degree even if you do) then the easy option is the only option
Clarification…personal means family member in case anyone was wondering
Food prices increased by 4.4% average, with "grocery food prices" increasing 4.2%. Not sure how they got there because if I look at my weekly shopping my calculation comes to an increase that sits at double digits. And I am not the only one saying this.
With wages seeing a freeze and thousands loosing their job lets see how this looks in 3 months time. Any money needs to stretch even further, its even worse for people on any type of benefit.
Part of the ugly reality of Covid. 1000 FBU employees layed off. I struggle with the minimising covid deaths policy of the Labour led government when this is the trade off.
"We have to make some very difficult decisions which include looking at reducing the number of people we employ by approximately 10%. This will equate to around 1,000 positions across New Zealand."
Every country is seeing the same thing, ppl losing jobs, we are one of the few coming out of lockdown, infact we've had one of the shorter lock downs. Every one is feeling pain and disruption, again, saving lives is saving the economy.
Feel bad for the ones to be laid off but really what does Fletcher's think they are doing. The board & executive had to be really pushed to make even small $ cuts in their very large wages , there have been very strong signals about the levels of money to be spent on government infrastructure – so why not look to at least be creating half time jobs for those who may want this. Then they have at least some income plus half a week to do other work etc and be available when the infrastructure spend comes through
Yup, the wheels have come off ERC. When will they pull the plug? Next week, when National may or may not have new Leader? Imagine Simon surviving the challenge and then being kicked out of his sandpit.
"In New Zealand the UBI was raised during the last election campaign by Gareth Morgan and The Opportunities Party – TOP – and it’s back again pushing for it, (although Morgan is no longer the party leader) saying this is an important transitional period in people’s lives and they need support.
None of the parties in Parliament have picked it up so far.
Max Rashbrooke writes about economic inequality and is a 2020 JD Stout Fellow at Victoria University.
He says UBI is not the answer – not because he thinks we'll end up with a workless society, but because the system is hugely draining on the economy."
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
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The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
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Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University How do scabs form? — Talila, aged 8 Great question, Talila! Our skin has many different jobs. One is to act as a barrier, protecting us from harmful things in the ...
US President Donald Trump is pardoning former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who is accused of fraud in a case involving funds for the border wall. ...
Joel Little with Lorde, Dera Meelan with Church & AP, Josh Fountain with Maala and Randa and Benee – producers make good songs great. Now a new fund from NZ on Air is putting the focus on them.Six months ago it looked like the music industry was on the brink ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denise Buiten, Senior Lecturer in Social Justice and Sociology, University of Notre Dame Australia On average, one child is killed by a parent almost every fortnight in Australia. Last week, three children — Claire, 7, Anna, 5, and Matthew, 3 — were ...
This commendable and realistic decision again underlines that it is the police, not government, who are largely responsible for the reduction in cannabis prosecutions over the past 15 years, writes Russell Brown.The news that New Zealand police have discontinued the annual Helicopter Recovery Operation, which has, each summer for more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilan Noy, Professor and Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington We will not be able to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us until the world’s population is mostly immune through vaccination ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s US inauguration live blog: inauguration news, analysis and reaction, updated throughout Wednesday and Thursday, NZ time. Reach me at catherine@thespinoff.co.nz.4.00pm: What will Trump be doing tomorrow?It’s pretty well known by now that outgoing president Donald Trump intends to throw out the rulebook when it comes to ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance is calling out Mayor Phil Goff for his undignified comment that the claim made by Councillor Greg Sayers asking why Auckland Council is funding yoga classes is “bullshit.” Yesterday, Councillor Greg Sayers penned ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne At 4am Thursday AEDT, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be inaugurated as president and vice president of the United States, replacing Donald Trump and Mike Pence. What follows is ...
*This article was originally published on RNZ and is republished with permission. New Zealanders flocked to beaches and lakes this summer, but it wasn't enough to fill the gap left by international tourists in other regions. The tourism industry is struggling to fill a $6 billion hole left by international tourists ...
Summer reissue: Chef Monique Fiso joins us for a chat about Hiakai – her acclaimed Wellington restaurant, and the title of her stunning new book.First published November 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn ...
A new trough was brought to our attention this morning, although ethnicity will limit the numbers of eligible applicants. If you are non-Maori, it looks like you shouldn’t bother getting into the queue – but who knows?We learned of the trough from the Scoop website, where the Kapiti ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Britta Denise Hardesty, Principal Research Scientist, Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, CSIRO Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing costs economies up to US$50 billion globally each year, and makes up to one-fifth of the global catch. It’s a huge problem not only for the ...
Police stopping major cannabis eradication operations has given the green light to drug dealers and gangs to expand operations, make more profit, and continue to wreak havoc on the most vulnerable in our society, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. ...
Varieties of merino wool footwear are emerging faster than Netflix series about British aristocracy. Michael Andrew takes a look at the rise of the shoe that almost everyone – including his 95-year-old grandma – is wearing.Some might say it all started with Allbirds. After all, to the average consumer, it ...
A new report from New Zealand’s Independent Monitoring Mechanism (IMM) highlights the realities and challenges disabled people faced during the COVID-19 emergency. The report, Making Disability Rights Real in a Pandemic, Te Whakatinana i ngā Tika ...
The Maritime Union is questioning the reasons provided for ongoing delays at the Ports of Auckland. Maritime Union of New Zealand National Secretary Craig Harrison says there is a need for an honest conversation about what has gone wrong at the ...
As New Zealand faces a dire shortage of veterinarians, a petition has been launched urging the Government to reclassify veterinarians as critical workers so we can Get Vets into NZ. “New Zealand desperately needs veterinarians from overseas to counter ...
New Zealand is fast developing a reputation as a South Pacific vandal, says Greenpeace, as the government continues to fight against increased ocean protection. At the upcoming meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO), ...
The Department of Internal Affairs and Netsafe are urging parents and caregivers to be mindful of the online content their tamariki may be consuming in the lead up to the inauguration of president-elect of the United States of America Joe Biden ...
Care is at the centre of Auckland Zoo’s mandate, and it’s clear to see when you witness the staff doing their day-to-day jobs up close. Leonie Hayden went behind the scenes to talk to two people who would do anything for the animals they look after. “We were having this ...
The Game Animal Council (GAC) is applying its expertise in the use of firearms for hunting to work alongside Police, other agencies and stakeholder groups to improve the compliance provisions for hunters and other firearms users. The GAC has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Verica Rupar, Professor, Auckland University of Technology “The lie outlasts the liar,” writes historian Timothy Snyder, referring to outgoing president Donald Trump and his contribution to the “post-truth” era in the US. Indeed, the mass rejection of reason that erupted in a ...
The internet ain’t what it used to be, thanks to privacy issues, data leaks, censorship and hate speech. But a group of New Zealanders are working on a way to give power back to the people. A flood of headlines over the last week made it clear: the internet has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Brooks, Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW’s Grand Challenges Program, UNSW The views of women and men can differ on important gendered issues such as abortion, gender equity and government spending priorities. Surprisingly, however, average differences in sex ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jennifer S. Hunt, Lecturer in National Security, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenant of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Collins, Laureate Professor in Nutrition and Dietetics, University of Newcastle In Australia and around the world, research is showing changes in body weight, cooking, eating and drinking patterns associated with COVID lockdowns. Some changes have been positive, such as people cooking ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hao Tan, Associate professor, University of Newcastle Australian coal exports to China plummeted last year. While this is due in part to recent trade tensions between Australia and China, our research suggests coal plant closures are a bigger threat to Australia’s export ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Asha Bowen, Head, Skin Health, Telethon Kids Institute A year ago, in late January 2020, Australia reported its first cases of COVID-19. Since then, we have seen almost 29,000 confirmed cases and 909 deaths. As cases climbed in Australian cities in 2020, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kevin Davis, Emeritus Professor of Finance, University of Melbourne Political pressure forced the federal government in 2017 – when Scott Morrison was treasurer – to call the royal commission into misconduct in the banking, superannuation and financial services sector. Commissioner Kenneth Hayne ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Justin Ellis, Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Newcastle, University of Newcastle The Rise and Fall of Saint George is a story about place, belonging and community that taps into universal tensions of identity and faith in multicultural societies. Playing for ...
An in-depth analysis of media coverage of the euthanasia and cannabis referendums has found that while both sides of the euthanasia referendum were given reasonably fair and balanced coverage, the YES position in the cannabis debate received a heavily ...
*This article was originally published on RNZ and is republished with permission Auckland has no plans to hand over the ownership of it assets under the government's planned water reforms, with Auckland Mayor Phil Goff saying his top priority is to ensure it stacks up for the city. Despite ...
Auckland Transport is putting nine new electric buses on the roads today, as it dramatically accelerates its plans to get rid of all its diesel buses – in a funding challenge to the council. Public transport operators are being told to not buy any more diesel buses or risk losing their council ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden as they find out exactly what we’re voting on in the cannabis referendum, and discover how legalising weed is a women’s issue.First published August 4, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
A principal analyst for the Climate Change Commission says more needs to be done to reduce agricultural emissions or the country will miss its methane targets. ...
New Zealand needs to be bold in making developers enhance the environment - not just limit its degradation, writes Stephen Knight-Lenihan All human activity should help restore the natural world. This is a concept that may resonate following the upheavals of 2020 and one which is beginning to appear in law. Imagine ...
Derek Challis, son of the legendary author Robin Hyde, died last Thursday. Michelle Leggott pays tribute He opens a suitcase and there they are, the precious manuscript notebooks written by his poet mother Iris Wilkinson aka Robin Hyde. We are in Dunedin for a Hyde conference. Yes, says Derek Arden ...
Former New Zealand gymnast Katya Nosova is now a champion bodybuilder, who was prepared to spend Christmas alone in quarantine to compete in the 'Olympics' of her sport. Katya Nosova was willing to do everything she could to pose on the world stage in her third Ms Olympia. Despite a ...
Concerts and some sports look likely to be on the move in Auckland after a big win for Eden Park – and politicians and officials may now want to win the public some control over the independent stadium. The advent of big concerts at Eden Park will, in all likelihood, mean ...
Despite promises of improvement, questions remain about colonoscopy services in Otago and Southland.David Williams reports The apology, when it came, was fulsome. “On behalf of the Southern DHB, I offer a sincere apology for lapses and inadequacies in colonoscopy services over the past several years,” district health board chair ...
The issues political editor Justin Giovannetti will be keeping an eye on in 2021 (that have nothing to do with Covid-19).New Zealand will be busy in 2021. The border will remain closed to nearly all travellers and Covid-19 will continue to lead the news, but the country has a packed ...
A former case manager says that his experience working with beneficiaries suggests claims of a ‘complete shift’ in the service’s approach are laughable.A former Work and Income case manager who now works with beneficiaries engaging with the service has spoken out on a “toxic” culture which he says denies beneficiaries ...
ACC Minister Carmel Sepuloni must confirm whether the Government supports ACC’s apparent policy to make payouts for illegal overstayers , says the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union . Union spokesman Jordan Williams says, “Since when was it ACC policy to ...
By RNZ News An independent panel says Chinese officials could have applied public health measures more forcefully in January to curb the initial covid-19 outbreak, and criticised the World Health Organisation (WHO) for not declaring an international emergency until 30 January. The experts reviewing the global handling of the pandemic, ...
Pacific Media Watch newsdesk Fiji’s NGO Coalition on Human Rights has called for stronger accountability and commitment to human rights at home in response to the country taking the world stage as the head of a UN body. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHCR) elected Fiji’s ambassador Nazhat Shameem as ...
Danyl McLauchlan reviews Stuart Ritchie’s Science Fictions, which outlines the staggering systemic flaws in the funding and publication of scientific papers. Back in August of 2006 a number of New Zealand scientists were caught up in a media controversy about whether Māori had a genetic predisposition towards violent crime. It kicked ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert G. Patman, Professor of International Relations, University of Otago America is currently experiencing its worst political and constitutional crisis since the civil war when the very survival of Abraham Lincoln’s government “of, by and for the people” was at stake. On ...
Manaaki Rangatahi report that young people experiencing homelessness are being further traumatized within the emergency accommodation where they have sought safety. Often these environments are unsafe, and unsuitable for young people to live in, and rangatahi ...
Can you figure out which of the above is the real Jacinda Ardern? Probably! But one day, that might not be true.There are many reasons to believe the internet shouldn’t exist. Social media empires exerting, intentionally or not, their control over sovereign governments. Baby Shark. Your aunt on Facebook.It pains ...
The Point of Order Ministers on a Mission Monitor has flickered only fleetingly for much of the month. More than once, the minister to trigger it has been David Parker, who set it off again yesterday with an announcement that shows how he has been spending our money. He welcomed ...
Ban Bomb Day event at the New Brighton Pier, 9am, on January 22nd, 2021 January 22nd, 2021, marks the first day the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) Enters into Force and becomes international law. Aotearoa NZ is one of the ...
Why are New Zealand’s 2 Minute Noodles called 3 Minute Noodles in the UK? It’s a puzzle that has taken hold of Dylan Reeve and refuses to let go.I’m a child of the 80s and 90s. I watched a lot of TV and was a big fan of aggressively marketed ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonatan A Lassa, Senior Lecturer, Humanitarian Emergency and Disaster Management, College of Indigenous Futures, Arts and Society, Charles Darwin University News of storms battering parts of Queensland and the threat posed by Cyclone Kimi reminded me of a recent experience I’d had. ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that the use of force to effect the arrest of a wanted offender in Auckland was justified and proportionate to the risk he posed. A man, who was well known to Police, was wanted by Police for an aggravated ...
A distinctly colonial institution, banking has long ignored te ao Māori. Teaho Pihama believes investment in tikanga Māori at Kiwibank can have significant, positive outcomes for Māori.In early 90s Tāmaki Makaurau, when Teahooterangi (Teaho) Pihama was growing up riding his bike around the streets of Kingsland until the streetlights came ...
Donald Trump’s awful presidency expires at midday on Wednesday [US time] when Air Force One will have deposited him in Florida. He retreats to his Mar-a-Lago resort and Joseph R Biden Junior takes command of the White House. Trump’s has been an unpleasant presidency, brought about largely by his own ...
The New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations (NZUSA) has elected its National President for 2021. The election took place last Friday at an NZUSA Special General Meeting (SGM) in Wellington. Andrew Lessells, 22, was elected to serve as the National ...
Think twice before you accept that surprise school reunion invite, writes Chris Schulz.It started with a Facebook notification. A school reunion was being organised. It sounded fun, with a fancy dress party set to be held in the city where I grew up, Whanganui. I hadn’t seen some of my ...
Unlike the US, there is very little NZ precedent for politicians to issue discretionary pardons – creating a challenge for those like Prof Sean Davison who might have a humanitarian claim to mercy. ...
Schools have told the Education Review Office that some children lost 10 weeks of learning in last year's lockdowns, but the overall impact of the pandemic is still unclear. In a report based on surveys of thousand of students, teachers and principals during and after last year's national and Auckland ...
The government seems to still be in holiday mode when in the past two weeks alone we have had six homicides, countless firearms incidents, and police needing to arm themselves against gangs almost every second day," says Sensible Sentencing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert Crawford, Associate Professor in Construction and Environmental Assessment, University of Melbourne Over the past few years, Australians have embraced online food delivery services such as UberEats, Deliveroo and Menulog. But home-delivered food comes with a climate cost, and single-use packaging is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Quiggin, Professor, School of Economics, The University of Queensland When the coronavirus pandemic hit Australia in March 2020, the Morrison government took bold and imaginative action. The most notable examples were its income support programs – JobKeeper, paying a A$750 weekly ...
Ocean Ute, which arrived at Port Taranaki yesterday, is the second live export ship to arrive in New Zealand this year. Taranaki Animal Rights Group has two demonstrations planned for today. A protest at midday and a vigil at 6.30pm tonight . The number ...
The Department of Corrections is well within its rights to refuse Jared Savage’s “Gangland” book from being read by inmates and it is outrageous that resources and time are now potentially going to be wasted in court about it, says Sensible ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Cowling, Associate Professor – Information & Communication Technology (ICT), CQUniversity Australia We’ve probably all been there. We buy some new smart gadget and when we plug it in for the first time it requires an update to work. So we end ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor’s fellow, La Trobe University The new trade minister, Dan Tehan, has been handed one of the Morrison government’s most demanding roles. Despite a lot of chest-thumping in government circles about the need to stand up to “Chinese bullying”, Tehan’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Philip Weinstein, Professorial Research Fellow, University of Adelaide There’s no question the rising rate of unemployment is one of the worst consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of Australians seeking work is heading towards 10%, almost double the pre-pandemic Australian average ...
Paranoia strikes deep into Oz: "One in eight Australians believe Microsoft founder Bill Gates is somehow responsible for the coronavirus and the 5G wireless network is to blame for spreading the disease." https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/utterly-baseless-one-in-eight-australians-believe-5g-spreading-covid-19
Understandable if rich ole Bill owned the network, perhaps. Just weird. "The same number of people believe the pandemic is being used to force people into getting vaccinations."
Probably mean them commies in govt. SloMo & his suits, who they recently elected. "A new Essential poll has revealed the proportion of people who believe coronavirus conspiracy theories. One in five people believe the media and government are exaggerating the death toll to scare the population. Two in five think the virus was engineered and released from a lab in the Chinese city of Wuhan".
Still, I doubt anyone ever accused Australians of being rational. They seem to be becoming a lot more Australian than usual, though.
It's about the poor education system, I suspect – like America
That article is an excellent example of the Association Fallacy.
"The same number of people believe the pandemic is being used to force people into getting vaccinations."
Tell me, do you believe that an eventual covid19 vaccine should be entirely voluntary, without any kind of legal, social or economic coercion? Or do you think there should be negative incentives to increase uptake?
Does your position change if the vaccine is rushed to market with little testing?
Does it change if efficacy is unclear?
Do you think adverse reaction reporting will be better with covid than normal or worse?
No, I'm not an anti-vaxxer. But I'm also not going to write off concerns about covid vaccine use at the medical, social and political levels. The people raising concerns might seem stupid to some but the questions above are legitimate and need to be addressed at some point. Taking a vaccination is god approach won't help and will further polarise people.
(also, let's not forget the third party, nefarious actors in the debate. It's pretty clear that the trolls are there, and I would guess astroturferers as well).
btw, I think you will find that there are plenty of left wing voters who are in the subculture concerned about vaccination generally, and how it will be handled with covid specifically.
If a vaccine is developed, I wouldn't make people take it accept in the case of travel, all incoming people would need proof of vaccination and so world any exiting kiwis that wish to return.
what if we end up with community transmission in NZ again? And more deaths and disability as a result?
Recruiting 🙂
what?
An old joke about getting more people into the disabled community. Philip Patson had a good version in his comedy routine.
ah, yes.
Except one of the issues here will be rushing out a vaccine and any harm done by that.
We accept all-comers.
To some degree, it would depend on the efficacy of the vaccine. We might be able to protect some if voluntary uptake is sufficient.
If not, L4 or a jab. You choose, police enforce, ankle tags if necessary.
Or if that framing is unpalatable, everyone goes into L4 again unless they get the vaccine.
this is why there are anti-vaxxers.
It's pretty simple: if there is community transmission without a vaccine, we all go back into L4 again.
If you don't want the vaccine, go back into L4. Just don't get upset that people who made a different choice get to leave their homes.
And any unintended harm from vaccine is just put down to… collateral damage, taking one for the team?
We also just take everything the pharmaceutical company says as gospel?
I'd imagine said vaccine would cost a pretty penny too.
You don't want it, you don't have to have it.
Just stay home under L4 conditions. Like we've all just done.
"You don't want it, you don't have to have it."
Let's stomp on any nuance and jump straight to fundamentalism.
This isn't a nuanced issue.
I'm sure the PM will explain it patiently for people who need more time to get it, but if we get another outbreak and there's an effective vaccine with not nearly as many adverse effects as covid19 has, there are only a couple of options that stop us turning into UK/US/Sweden:
If you can think of another variation that won't result in thousands of dead, sing out.
I am not so good at the political terms.
I imagine what you have described is on the authoritarian end of the scale.
I would imagine there would be a lot of resistance to your idea, and not just from the pro plaguers.
"Authoritarian scale".
We just came out of Level 4. That's as authoritarian as it gets. Because of a fecking pandemic.
A voluntary vaccine gives you an alternative to Level 4, but you need to take it for it to work.
It certainly will Gsays , the race to a vaccine isn't a race to save lives, its a race to make shitloads of money
I understood what you meant McFlock. I am pointing out that mandatory and compulsory vaccination brings large societal issues and this is part of why the anti-vaxxers are all over covid. The polarisation will increase until there is a meeting ground.
Let's not forget it's not the anti-vaxxers in NZ that have dropped general vaccination rates, it's the neoliberal fuckery with the health system that has limited access. This is why the MoH isn't overly worried about anti-vaxxers.
People can discuss societal issues and ethics without being anti-vax. In the same way people can have a moral framework without being religious.
And a lot of the time, either flavour is just noise drowning out more developed discussions.
true in some contexts. If we look at vaccination discussions on TS they tend to be the more heated ones and that's without the third party troll element. On FB and twitter it tends to be a shit show, so I would say that we have lost a large part of our ability to have the conversations.
Beyond that, most 'anti-vaxers' are often ordinary people with legitimate concerns about where society is going but not necessarily the frame work to discuss those in because of poor science literacy. My observation is that hating on them is radicalising them.
Somewhere like NZ, we still have a good chance of finding ways to both address concerns about vaccination and gain relatively high rates without having to use authoritarianism.
It's less authoritarian to offer a vaccine than it is just put everyone into level 4 without an opt-out.
As far as I can see, the discussion here has included compulsory vaccination only for people coming into the country. Personally, I favour compulsory quarantine, as vaccination records can be falsified.
Is that what you were meaning in this conversation? I thought you and I were talking about the NZ population.
I favour quarantine until we have longer term data on efficacy of the vaccine. I'd be surprised if we have that at the point that it starts being rolled out overseas.
bwaghorn mentioned it being compulsory for people coming into NZ.
I've simply been saying that if we get community transmission, we'll all return to level 4 except the ones who choose to vaccinate.
That's not compulsory vaccination, it's compulsory isolation with an out. Currently, there is no out for L4.
The MAGA crowd are dead against taking a vaccine. They have this twisted idea that a vaccine is used to control people and that Covid tests are designed just to collect a persons DNA.
Probably part of the reason Covid is running rampant over there, trump and his dimwitted supporters.
I confidant that enough people will voluntarily get vaccinated to get herd immunity. This is a scary bug.
Yes. Vaccination is already a fact of life if you want to travel extensively. I carry two passports … the usual kiwi one, and my separate vaccination booklet. Yellow fever is the big one, but they’ll check for typhus and Hepatitis A as well.
Not all borders demand to see your vaccination booklet, but if you want to get home without dramas ….
I've been to countries, in the past, where you couldn't enter without Cholera, Yellow fever and even TB, vaccinations.
And parents need to show proof of vaccination certs when children enter pre-school and school.
I wouldn't be surprised if some employers require people to have the COVID vaccination (assuming there is one that is effective, safe, available and affordable), especially in some places or industries. Even if an employer cannot legally require existing employees to get a vaccination (can't see that happening but then again, maybe in some occupations it should), new employees could be required to have it or at least preferred. There may be exceptions for medical reasons perhaps.
My bet is that there will be no vaccine, it is much more likely that there may well be a treatment much like Aids. Too many victims have gotten the virus a second time in particular the U.S. sailors on their ship, which may prove that if you get over it but go back into or stay in an infected environment you have not acquired immunity.
Here's an Australian worth reading
This quote in particular speaks to me .I recognise myself and others
"The mind can turn anything into a toy for the ego, and this is never more clear than in online discussion forums."
https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/dissident-circles-too-often-become-another-nerdy-hobby-group-7bd43bdf9bf8
Well spotted!
Edited.
And this bit nuts things out well.
Generally, people in dissident circles are under the delusion that this whole thing is about having the perfect beliefs in your head. That if you can just have exactly the right opinions about what’s going on, you “win” in some way, so a ton of energy goes toward finding what looks like the very best set of opinions and arguing with anyone who sees things a tiny little bit differently. And that’s just not what this is about.
This thing is about changing the world, and changing you. That’s it. If you’re not actually, concretely doing one of those two things in any given moment while engaging in dissident circles, you’re just participating in another nerdy hobby group, with about as much consequence.
Goggle summary says about the publisher behind the link:
Medium (website) – Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Medium_(website)
Medium is an online publishing platform developed by Evan Williams and launched in August 2012. It is owned by A Medium Corporation. The platform is an …
Owner: A Medium Corporation
CEO: Evan Williams
Founder(s): Evan Williams
Employees: 85 (May 2017)
Holacracy · freeCodeCamp · Electronic publishing · Social journalism
The reason why this is important is that no single individual can hold an sufficiently complete and sane view of the world in their head. Reality is too damned complicated for that … we actually need other people, with all of their confounding, contradictory disagreeable ideas and beliefs in order to arrive at sane, functional plans of action.
Agreed .And we need to observe our combative urges , to notice them , but let them go in order to listen to other points of view
Oh but what vicious pleasures there are in adversarial flame wars
Politics is aggression.
No it's fucking not.
sorry, couldn't resist.
Controlled or otherwise, the fabric of politics is aggression. Pretty primitive stuff. To engage politically, one has to be fighting for or against something *clue-word, "fighting”
I quite like fighting, although I prefer tai chi to hard combat. Strength, tone, concentration, ability to be present can be built in the process, as well as the clarifying of ideas and intent.
I'm less convinced that politics *has to be this way though. Isn't there politics in everything, even the human endeavours that avoid fighting for or against?
Politics is controlled confrontation.
Aggression is what happens when politics fails.
Politics is passive-aggressive Machiavellian power games in a silk suit. I guess that makes it more civilised?
Yes. Much more so than all the known alternatives.
But never forget this, effective political operators, for all the positional games they play, ultimately know how to make the deal. And deals are negotiated.
Agreed, and JA has mastered the art, by being awesome at networking (aka making friends).
Grey, what's your point about the people behind the publishing platform?
Evan Williams has rock solid credentials in that space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evan_Williams_(Internet_entrepreneur)
Of course the alternative to the description of nerdy hobby groups is to be conservatively in favour of the status quo. My impression of National is they resist even considering "progressive" changes. Especially the big issues like Climate change, or social imbalances.
So I would like to see myself as championing valuable change. And I am not ashamed of that even though I can't do much about it.
China is covering up again in Northern China the new outbreak is far worse than the figures they are providing the WHO.
All other outbreaks around the world show a rapid increase followed by a slow decline.
The figures for the last 10 days show 1420 new cases every day for 10days no change.
Very suspicious no increase no decline but exactly the same number.
The National party want us to start bringing in students from overseas by July ,put them into isolation .why waste resources if one of those students need hospital care or are asymptomatic then we could be back to square one.
You don’t happen to have a link for that, do you?
I find your choice of words an odd one. What do you mean by “waste resources”? You do know that visitors to and guests in and of our country do receive medical attention and healthcare when required, don’t you? International students pay for mandatory health insurance AFAIK. How and why should an overseas student be seen differently from a returning Kiwi, who could equally be asymptomatic?
RNZ this morning for Nationals Education spokes person.
I still can't get the sharing link working.
Looking at ABC news one person has tested positive 3 times over 2 month as covid has come back twice after initial infection.
So if some body coming in from overseas and starts another cluster that could cost us way more .
What exactly is the problem with not being able to link?
I presume you mean this:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/417075/sore-throat-omitted-from-covid-19-arrival-cards
You haven’t answered how this is any different for an overseas traveller compared to a returning Kiwi.
I'm guessing it is the basic mechanics at issue. #101
The most obvious difference is a returning Kiwi is coming home.
The student is here as part of a commercial arrangement, a cog in a profit driven enterprise. That's enough for me to make a discernment.
Yes, I understand that a returning Kiwi is coming home to the Motherland but what difference does that make to the health risks involved?
At least you’re open and honest about your biased and binary attitude towards education of international students. I’d say it is much more than what you make it out to be but that’s a different conversation and a different reason for refusing people entry into the country or a VISA to study here. FYI, the NZ universities are non-profit institutions and they are operating with a 3% operating surplus guideline set by TEC.
https://www.universitiesnz.ac.nz/about-university-sector/how-nz-universities-are-funded
A returning Kiwi/NZ resident we can't refuse but we have a choice about anyone else who comes in.
Of course.
I had to walk away from this thread.
Firstly your use of Motherland, "I find your choice of words an odd one".
Then to go on and imply there was some basic racist intention behind my thinking – binary and biased.
It is the indecent rush to BAU, that motivated me, just because current funding models are not enough.
Not to fear, have I got a politician for you: Muller wants to open our border to China, right after Aussie.
China is covering up again in Northern China the new outbreak is far worse than the figures they are providing the WHO.
The figures for the last 10 days show 1420 new cases every day for 10days no change
Link or links? Thank you in advance.
Sociopath war criminal given platform on BBC to spread more lies
Oh dear – he has never realised that he has run the hero to zero trajectory. Perhaps we could refer the british media to our own Marist school cluster which looks like it may have been going for only about a week before everyone was asked to isolate.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121561276/coronavirus-new-zealand-needs-to-wise-up-says-report
Think tank report wanting more foreign direct investment.. Rather than us saving up and owning our own stuff
This think tank has had a number of reports quoted in stuff. They operate under the university of auckland but I wondered just how independent they are and who is funding them. They list at least one foundation partner who has given support who looks like they may be an overseas based hedge fund manager . A quick google and he looks like he may also have been the beneficiary of being able to buy sensitive NZ land by bunging some money to a local school (Not a policy I have ever been in favour of? ) Is there any conflict of interests?
https://informedfutures.org/our-story/
Good research RedBaronCV (Curriculum vitae or CoronaVirus?)
I hope that our efficacious and tenacious legal and justice systems are checking to see whether these overseas 'invest-us' are getting value for money. /sarc
thank you GW. I spend a lot of my time wondering who pulls the strings. I'll go with corona virus as the cv is historical but i don't want to trouble the mods!
CV = Colonial Viper, cause of many historical flamewars (and much amusement)
I've actually gone off and had a skim through some of their papers. What they do not appear to be is
– peer reviewed
– evidence based. although they do reference other publications – it's hard to know how selective this referencing might be
– whether these are academics operating within their expertise or not. I've seen elsewhere lawyers writing as if they were experts on how to format the advanced statistical modelling of virus transmission when the understanding is trite.
_ if these are “discussion papers” where and when is the feedback taken
Really it looks like academics who may be way outside their lane writing a blog and hiding behind a think tank designation/branding. to diseminate prefered political ideas/
Twitter and face book and the standard are likely better informed.
Personally I’ve always wondered where Mr Gluckman was as the Nact science advisor when Nact where doing all the drug testing and moving people out of their homes because of so called “P” contamination.
Think tank report wanting more foreign direct investment..
That $US 4 trillion Congress has given to US corporations is a lot of money that's going to be looking for somewhere to be in a world decimated by the depression that's coming straight at us.
edit – To clarify – I think there will be a lot of pressure to align with US business interests.
yep US business interests will arrive here just long enough to rip us off before stuffing it into a tax haven.
Well the heath app is here. I see they are making no promises about deleting the contact details . Just where you went after 21 days. And it looks like the data is on offshore servers.
Honestly I'm just going to take a photo of the businesses I'vr gone into – that will show where I have been.
And how long before there is discrimination – no app and you are not allowed in?
With that app, where you went is stored only on your phone. They get your contact details on their server.
And there have already been businesses trading for weeks that will not let you in the door without verifying you have logged into one of several other apps.
Yep I understand that but at the end of level two or level one when the tracing is no longer needed then they should delete the contact details on their server otherwise some new bad actor (Maybe Act gets elected) changes the rules and decides that it can be used for other purposes.
Are they going to enshrine these rules so an 80% majority is required to change them – thought not!
Well the “you must use an app” is a form of discrimination – no poor people need apply ? They can do without my money then. And if they have been trading for weeks then have they been breaking the lockdown rules?
The Ministry of Health already has lots of information about us on its servers. This adds very little.
Not all businesses were banned from trading. All of them needed to record who was entering their premises.
You are welcome to stay away from all places that require you to record your presence, if that makes you feel better.
The MOH shouldn't have stacks of data on me. I've opted out of everything plus I have the ultimate weapon. I belong to a long lived family that goes to the doctor about twice in an adult lifetime. I haven't been for years.
I don’t mind paper records – somebody stands on them or loses them pretty quickly in my experience. It’s the electronic stuff that hangs around.
For those interested in answers: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/05/20/1180650/everything-you-need-to-know-about-nzs-new-covid-19-app
Well that answers a few questions so why doesn't the health department put it on it's website? Looks like taking a photo of where I go (one in one out) is just as good as the app so why didn't they tell us that ages ago – instead of people like me just doing it and the government wasting money on the app. And for what it's worth I'm not interested in enriching Amazon even marginally with web hosting fees.
That is a very good reason against, in this case. Not like that guy needs any more money.
Just gone in and read the app FAQ on the MOH website. Well as far as I can see they have failed at the first step of being "transparent". Who developed this app. Peter Thiel – someone else? Are they a developer who may leave a trapdoor in the app so they can harvest data. Do they have a track record for respecting data privacy or not? Do they pay their taxes or just stuff it in tax havens?
Why is an email address necessary to use the app? Who apart from the contract tracing service is harvesting this email address? How do households who share an email address get along? Honestly if it is phone based why does it not simply record a phone number on the base so they can do a "call me text" to the phone owners they want to contact.
And of course they can't help themselves – they want extra information to collate -from the website below are these statements. And who reads the fine print and they are already saying that they are going to update it.
27.3. Aggregate demographic information of Consumers, including approximate age range, gender, and ethnicity, is captured to provide reporting on the usage of the CCTA by different segments of the population. This data is used to inform wider Ministry efforts about the equity of the overall technology response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
33.1. when recording their contact details for upload to the Ministry (other than the email address required for registration) they may choose what contact and identification details they include;
You seem anxious. What would it take for that to change?
No I'm not anxious – I work in tech related fields – but it seriously annoys me when people stand up and go it's safe, nobody can see it and when you look closely that is simply not the case. Health seems particularly prone to this particular delusion. In particular terms of use can be changed unilaterally without options being given to delete the data. Or the whole contact tracing service could be sold (right wing government anyone?)
Think Facebook Cambridge Analytica, the creator of the digital face recognition who just helped themselves to private photos on the web. We should not be naive about data use and aggregation
And don’t forget that within the last few decades at various times abortions, homosexuality single parents unemployed, various ethnic groups have had to deal with their behaviour being either outright criminalised or the state has acted as if they basically were. Put not your trust in princes.
I agree. Credible information is reassuring but hard to find. Having done some work on health IT privacy, it is more advanced in thinking than some other areas. Not often well-explained though.
If the covid app is a sign of advanced health privacy I 'll push the opt out button.
BTW has any thought to ask if the data on the amazon server is actually encrypted and everything can be hacked
Totally agree RB. Anyone in receipt of a main benefit should seriously think twice about this, and it's not paranoia. Back in the 1970s the public were encouraged to dob in solo mums for putting a packet of chocolate biscuits in their supermarket trolley. The modern version of this you really don't want WINZ to find out you've been into a cafe or- heaven forbid, a cinema- because that's evidence that a)you're clearly being given too much money and more scarily b) you're lying about your disability if you're capable of leaving the house. Many people in the UK have been affected by the latter so it's a perfectly reasonable thing to consider.
No way will I ever trust any sort of tracking app created by anyone, yet alone the government. I'll sign in hard copy, but not electronic. Anyway, I don't have mobile data, so moot.
yep, me as well. Same reason I won't use the login on the WINZ website, nor any govt ID validation.
Good to see I have friends and it's not just me.The less info the govt has the better.
BTW as per the above – the solo parents who may be on a benefit or even families on a benefit are likely to be told they have to covid vaccine their kids – we'll get the usual rubbish about how they are slack parents and have to be told what to do.. Me I'd vaccinate all the parents who don't pay or play (look after their kids) then if it has some unusual side effects ….
Everything is fine.
Home of Dow Chemical, I saw some other footage of the flooding, it's pretty bad.
Has chump blamed Obama yet?
This sounds a good caution.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018746935/expert-feature-professor-carolyn-king-invasive-mammals
<i>She [Professor Carolyn King] began her career in Oxford, and was studying weasels in 1971, when she was asked to come and help us get rid of stoats in New Zealand.
She wrote the first ever book on predators in New Zealand Immigrant Killers in 1984 and then The Handbook of New Zealand Mammals (1990), she’s is now working on the third edition.
But her most recent published book is called Invasive Predators in New Zealand – Disaster on Four Small Paws...
"I am very concerned about the possibility of people getting carried away by genetic modification. There's a lot of talk about gene drives, modified genes that can be introduced to a population. They're trying some in Australia for example with the Daughterless Carp Program and these are fish that can produce sons but not daughters. So if you have a whole population with one gender, than sooner or later the population will die out, without you having to set traps or poisons..</i>
Is it possible some National Party leaning folk at Colmar Brunton or TVNZ might leak the result of their poll to Farrar or National Party HQ to allow them to strategise ahead of the release at 6:00pm tomorrow?
And Bridges wants to move the caucus vote to Friday to leave less time for plotting after the poll. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300016914/simon-bridges-considering-early-caucus-meeting-to-head-off-leadership-challenge
It's on: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300016914/national-caucus-will-meet-on-friday-to-decide-simon-bridges-fate
Dang, what an ending to the week, one more sleep until the poll, two more sleeps until a possible roll.
Hehehe the tories can't complain that the media isn't covering them now LMAO!
Humans, huh.
Beautiful, but heartbreakingly sad.
The fish people know a thing or two about targeting the vulnerable.
In its final 20 minutes, the documentary film AKA Jane Roe delivers quite the blow to conservatives who have weaponized the story of Jane Roe herself—real name, Norma McCorvey—to argue that people with uteruses should have to carry any and all pregnancies to term.
[…]
But those filmmakers, and the rest of the pro-life evangelical community, have another curveball coming. In the final third of director Nick Sweeney’s 79-minute documentary, featuring many end-of-life reflections from McCorvey—who grew up queer, poor, and was sexually abused by a family member her mother sent her to live with after leaving reform school—the former Jane Roe admits that her later turn to the anti-abortion camp as a born-again Christian was “all an act.”
“This is my deathbed confession,” she chuckles, sitting in a chair in her nursing home room, on oxygen. Sweeney asks McCorvey, “Did [the evangelicals] use you as a trophy?” “Of course,” she replies. “I was the Big Fish.” “Do you think you would say that you used them?” Sweeney responds. “Well,” says McCorvey, “I think it was a mutual thing. I took their money and they took me out in front of the cameras and told me what to say. That’s what I’d say.” She even gives an example of her scripted anti-abortion lines. “I’m a good actress,” she points out. “Of course, I’m not acting now.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jane-roe-confesses-anti-abortion-conversion-all-an-act-paid-for-by-the-christian-right
( alt link http://archive.li/B8tTv )
Someone told me Northland MP Matt King was arrogant. I know the world isn't going to end over his latest publicity.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12333489
I read it and really felt for the restaurant staff . They didn't deserve to be dragged into some political statement not of their own making. But that's a Nat behaviour – no care for anyone else
Dowie out, Simmonds in.
https://whatsoninvers.nz/sit-boss-looking-forward-to-new-challenge/?utm_content=buffer84e40&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR36fr4Hl4Q_Kb5Tvz9ZO59Yf1TgKS_6mNTO47sgKX46H8dh-9-PmcuUjoE
https://whatsoninvers.nz/sit-boss-looking-forward-to-new-challenge/
I see now.
look for the question mark.
The ol' eroteme, eh! Elegant!
Of course boosting a specific facebook campaigns numbers might be the point?
Robert Guyton, it might help to be able to read the link. The bits after the question mark can mean a lot of things to the web-site. In this case they appear to be showing that you came from facebook.com with a specific advertising campaign number. I don't know what utm_source=facebook.com, utm_content, utm_medium=social and utm_campaign mean specifically to that publisher (I can guess) but in some cases this can reveal information about how you came to that page.
In really dumb cases somebody encodes a user name and password into the url parameters and somebody else posts it elsewhere, though I haven't seen one of these for long time.
Though the parameters can lead to different pages, Sacha's rule of thumb is usually right because most sites don't do that.
Thanks, Nic, I knew none of that, till now. You and Sacha have delivered me a good learning' and I'm grateful for it.
Robert G @ 14
Whenever I hear a pollie talking about having "a passion" for something I turn off.
Every lefty should be messaging Nat mp's saying "they won't vote national if Simon is removed, he is a fighter who will claw support back like he did last year" I'm rooting for you Simon, I'm almost certain he's a Labour party supporter! Hang on comrade! You're the best thing to ever happen to Labour!
Simply the Best – Better Than All the Rest (thank-you Tauranga)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12322849
Disturbing that the mental health services first. last and (almost) only option appears to be medication, efficacious or not.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/2018747288/more-lives-at-risk-in-mental-health-units-grieving-parents
it's kind of where the culture is at too. There's a taboo about talking about the sometimes severe limits of the biomedical model of psychiatry. That combined with 30 years of neoliberalism and health cuts is a potently bad brew.
Agree that the funding cuts haven't helped but really the predilection to medicate goes way back….my personal experience of the service is if you don't have forceful advocacy (and to a degree even if you do) then the easy option is the only option
Clarification…personal means family member in case anyone was wondering
Food prices increased by 4.4% average, with "grocery food prices" increasing 4.2%. Not sure how they got there because if I look at my weekly shopping my calculation comes to an increase that sits at double digits. And I am not the only one saying this.
With wages seeing a freeze and thousands loosing their job lets see how this looks in 3 months time. Any money needs to stretch even further, its even worse for people on any type of benefit.
CPI is not representative…we need a new way to measure inflation …but that doesn't suit those that run the system
Everything is political.
Part of the ugly reality of Covid. 1000 FBU employees layed off. I struggle with the minimising covid deaths policy of the Labour led government when this is the trade off.
"We have to make some very difficult decisions which include looking at reducing the number of people we employ by approximately 10%. This will equate to around 1,000 positions across New Zealand."
https://www.nzx.com/announcements/353361
In the cold calculus of cost-benefit analysis, a highly pessimistic view of the economic costs of Australia’s shutdown comes to around $90 billion.
It is a small price to pay compared to the statistical value of lives the shutdown should save, around A$1.1 trillion.
It produces a simple message. The shutdown wins."
https://theconversation.com/the-costs-of-the-shutdown-are-overestimated-theyre-outweighed-by-its-1-trillion-benefit-138303
NZ will be the same
Every country is seeing the same thing, ppl losing jobs, we are one of the few coming out of lockdown, infact we've had one of the shorter lock downs. Every one is feeling pain and disruption, again, saving lives is saving the economy.
Feel bad for the ones to be laid off but really what does Fletcher's think they are doing. The board & executive had to be really pushed to make even small $ cuts in their very large wages , there have been very strong signals about the levels of money to be spent on government infrastructure – so why not look to at least be creating half time jobs for those who may want this. Then they have at least some income plus half a week to do other work etc and be available when the infrastructure spend comes through
Because our managers aren't very imaginative RedBaron, or creative. It's quite unfortunate and that is what is "ruining" NZ.
Hear hear about the management. They use the same playbook every time. I'm debating buying some shares the AGM could be a doosie .
Yup, the wheels have come off ERC. When will they pull the plug? Next week, when National may or may not have new Leader? Imagine Simon surviving the challenge and then being kicked out of his sandpit.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/121570573/coronavirus-prime-minister-defends-letter-ordering-ministers-and-officials-not-to-appear-before-covid-select-committee
"In New Zealand the UBI was raised during the last election campaign by Gareth Morgan and The Opportunities Party – TOP – and it’s back again pushing for it, (although Morgan is no longer the party leader) saying this is an important transitional period in people’s lives and they need support.
None of the parties in Parliament have picked it up so far.
Max Rashbrooke writes about economic inequality and is a 2020 JD Stout Fellow at Victoria University.
He says UBI is not the answer – not because he thinks we'll end up with a workless society, but because the system is hugely draining on the economy."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/the-detail/story/2018746923/could-a-free-money-for-all-scheme-catch-on-here
A much better proposal
Couple of late night vids for amusement (via Kos)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdQbIt1lRTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igh9iO5BxBo
Kia Ora Newshub.
A 4 day week could work out.
The dolphins putting spung on their nose show me they are intelligent and have personalitys.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
It looks like we are going to have A tangata government for the next election Ka pai.
I say Maori trust farms should open their eyes and see exactly how there tangata are treated.
Its good to see more wahine with moko kau.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
William he is just stirring the pot to boost the viewers.
That's correct they forgot about training Kiwis it's cheaper to just import them who cares about the lower classes.
That's is cool New Zealand being 3rd in the World for charity koha.
No Kanikani in bars.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
That's awesome all the Tangata supporting that Kuia from ponsonby who received a bad letter kia kaha.
Ka kite Ano