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.
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.
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 ….
<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?
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."
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Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
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The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
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Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nick Chartres, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Sydney shutterstockAhmet Misirligul/Shutterstock You go to the gym, eat healthy and walk as much as possible. You wash your hands and get vaccinated. You control your health. This is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jacqueline Hendriks, Research Fellow and Lecturer, Curtin University Children and young people may be seeing news headlines about men murdering women or footage of people rallying to call for action. Perhaps they or their friends have even gone to the protests. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jessica Balanzategui, Senior Lecturer in Media, RMIT University ABC “Bluey mania” shows no sign of abating. Bluey’s season finale, The Sign, was the most viewed ABC program of all time on iView. A “hidden” follow-up episode, aptly named The Surprise, created ...
Labour market figures came in softer than the Reserve Bank had forecast, but they won’t be enough to move the needle on interest rates, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. Unemployment ...
The campaign will engage the community and encourage submissions on the bill to the New Zealand government by the closing submission deadline of Friday 31st of May 2024 4pm. ...
The paper raises concerns about declining trust in New Zealand's political institutions and democratic processes, and the role that the overuse of Parliamentary urgency plays in that. ...
The Urban Habitat Collective was an attempt to built an innovative new form of apartment building in Wellington. Here’s why it failed, and why the idea could still work, writes co-founder Bronwen Newton. When we started the Urban Habitat Collective in November 2018, we thought we were starting a revolution, ...
Two decades ago this week, a controversial law that attempted to define ownership of the foreshore and seabed prompted a formidable display of outrage and kōtahitanga as 15,000 marched to parliament. Jamie Tahana looks back.‘Hīkoi, hīkoi,” they chanted by the thousands as the biggest Māori march in a generation ...
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Why has New Zealand slipped from third to 12th on Quality of Death Indexes over the past decade or so? Hospice New Zealand Chief Executive Wayne Naylor has a list of reasons. “We don’t have a current national strategy – the Government hasn’t renewed our 2001 strategy, so we don’t ...
While women’s sport is exploding in Aotearoa and around the world, you still don’t hear a lot of talk about athletes and their periods, RED-S, breastfeeding and visible panty-lines. SASS (Suze and Sez Sports)Talk isn’t afraid to have that kōrero.LockerRoom founder Suzanne McFadden and Olympian broadcaster Sarah ...
On an unusually hot night in January 2019, a little boy’s lifeless body was found face up in a small town’s sewage oxidation pond. To the police, it was an open and shut case: three-year-old Lachlan Jones had run away from his home in the Southland town of Gore, climbed ...
A Labour Party Member’s Bill aims to plug a culpability gap between manslaughter and health and safety breaches The post New push for corporate killing laws appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Terence O’Brien had the rare and no doubt undesired distinction of rising to one of the most exalted positions in New Zealand diplomacy, then being unceremoniously recalled to Wellington without explanation just when his career was at its zenith. What is perhaps more surprising is that he appears to have ...
Rongotai MP Julie Anne Genter has apologised in Parliament after National accused her of intimidating and attacking one of its ministers in the House. ...
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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).
https://twitter.com/publicaddress/status/1262996506488889344?s=20
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
https://twitter.com/five15design/status/1262852969977937922?s=20
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.
https://twitter.com/UrgentAlertNews/status/1262894788610789377
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.
https://twitter.com/NFSAonline/status/1262599231447003136
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
https://twitter.com/rhymeswithbeg/status/1260251496345743364
https://www.tiktok.com/@austyn_farrell/video/6825242909328166149
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)
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