Starry, starry night
Paint your palette blue and gray
Look out on a summer's day
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul…
….Now, I understand what you tried to say to me
And how you suffered for your sanity
And how you tried to set them free
They would not listen, they did not know how
Perhaps they'll listen now
I always scratch my head when confronted with such people, how can people believe such tripe, where is their discernment switch, is it seized up and need of some CRC, or WD40, if you are in the US?
And this is the man who said when speaking about North Korea's Kim Jung Un: "You've got to be honest about what it means to lead a country – it means killing people".
“We pray that the Lord admonish those madmen and help them to understand that any desire to destroy Russia will mean the end of the world.”
Yevgeny Satanovsky, President of the Institute of the Middle East.
“First of all, our main enemy is certainly the United States. What does the U.S. react to? They react to two things: the threat of physical annihilation….
….Not one pundit in the studio argued against Satanovsky’s macabre proposal. Drobnitsky had only one exception: “In our country, we embraced one American we wouldn’t want to kill: that would be Tucker Carlson.”
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
Apparently, the only one to be spared this threatened holocaust is Tucker Carlson.
Maybe like a cockroach, Tucker Carlson will be able to crawl out from under the rubble.
My DW and I just had a meeting with a guy from Harrisons Solar. I said it would be good for the government to start subsidising solar rather than building more dams etc.
He made an interesting comment. He said it would be better for the government to subsidise batteries. Because that would avoid the load problems power generators have to manage with large numbers feeding power back into the grid.
Indeed food for thought TSM – we have 10 solar panels on our roof plus one large hot water panel which was already in place when we purchased this property. It all helps with the power bill, especially during the spring, summer and autumn seasons. We even manage to export some power back to the grid during the winter months despite the pathetic buy back price. We thought long and hard about a battery to compliment the panels, but as the initial cost of the panels and installation depleted our savings somewhat, we didn't purchase one, simply because of the cost of them (this was 7 years ago). We may well get one if the price keeps reducing.
the problem with lithium batteries is no-one knows how to dispose of them yet at end of life. As always, it's not technology that should be leading but system change. In this case, cradle to grave thinking in design right from the get go.
Power generation should be nationalised and/or power companies forced to deal fairly in Just Transition terms with buying from grid tied solar households. I'm not convinced it's possible to transition to post-carbon with for profit power generation/retail irrespective of the tecnology.
The home battery and Onslow do different things. The home battery reduces and spreads load on the local grid in short time scales (days). Onslow works at a larger and / or longer scale, buffering wind and large scale solar when there's no wind or sun, and providing backup for dry years.
The biggest advantage / feature in Onslow is that it will completely upend the current electricity market by putting control of the peak electricity price with the State.
Ideally Onslow would be run in conjunction with the Clutha hydro system (Clyde and Roxburgh, with Hawea controlled storage), it would also have to be State controlled, that much power over the market would be untenable. So if it happens the first move would be to nationalise Contact, ie Government stands in the market for 100% of Contact or does a deal for the Clutha schemes. The remaining gen-tailers would be reduced to price takers rather than price fixers. Hence National hate the idea with a vengeance.
We still don't know if it's possible to build the thing, and at what price. Those investigations were supposed to be complete last year but have been delayed. Then there's investigations into how it's going to work in the market.
It's a very interesting proposal and I hope Labour gets another term (or two) to bring it to fruition, along with a vey different electricity supply market / industry.
For every house with full solar and unconnected to the grid in areas where they could be it means that the distribution price for every other user goes up as distribution is by far the biggest cost component of electricity supply. Why? Maintenance is hugely expensive as is capital cost and then every storm, earthquake, flood or other natural disaster is very costly for the lines companies. Don’t start on that old myth of if everyone had their own solar then there would be no distribution cost. That bullshit lasts until the first cold overcast winter.
Not being connected does not mean not being charged.
Numerous Rural water schemes have charges if the line goes past the property even if not connected. Big business will still need the supply net and it has to be paid for so what is the betting a similar "not connected – but it goes past so you could be" charge?
"For every house with full solar and unconnected to the grid in areas where they could be it means that the distribution price for every other user goes up as distribution is by far the biggest cost component of electricity supply"
I must admit to being 'that' guy.
TBF, I do live rurally and am independent in respects to water. Also looking to get indepent for the small amount of gas we use.
Part of Bradfords reforms that made me shift, was how the Lines Companies are not obliged to do a repair to the infrastructure of it isn't in their interests. Highly unlikely where I live TBF, but they were setting the rules to the market and I was responding to them.
Full disclosure, I do operate more from the heart reather than the head and it hasn't been a cheap excercise…
Onslow is a huge basin at quite a reasonable height in what is hopefully a quietish earthquake zone. The NI does not have anywhere large enough to do the job.
I don’t know where any of the waikato dams are next to each other.
A hydro battery is almost always pumped a short distance from a lower dam to a higher dam. You typically need to pump from still water so you don’t try to raise sediment. You only pump a short distance to reduce the amount of power required to pump it. Otherwise you pump power into fiction on pipe walls.
Dams require some pretty stringent anchor positions, locations tthat are suitable for two largish dams next to each other are rare.
My feeling is that some of those disparaging of Jacinda Ardern and calling her a dictator and divisive would be fans of Muldoon.
He was a bully who attracted bullies. Ardern said we need to wear masks, they cried, bitched and grizzled. If Muldoon had said wear masks they would has praised his decisiveness and been his mask police.
Muldoon was just as restrictive on our mobility with Carless Days and 80 kmh speed limit.
Can just imagine his Covid response. Total border closure, internal as well, from day one, rationing, with assigned shopping times at supermarkets and any other way he could control peoples lives. All enforced by police and military. He'd have been right in his element.
So he would have buckled to Ampol's bullying and subsidised them to keep it open? Although as tWiggle says below, he looked after his mates.
Oil companies were closing refineries all over the world, especially in Australia. Rationale for keeping a tiny orphan like Marsden Pt going was pretty thin, until everything goes to shit 12 months later, maybe
No loitering round Paliament grounds under Muldoon either. Police with batons would have been in licketty smart. I wondered at the time if Jacinda Ardern's softly-softly approach over the anti-vax protesters at Parliament was influenced by her father's experience on the Red Squad anti-protest policing unit during the 1981 Springbok tour.
I can't believe that liberals can't see what is happening. No, it's not an outlier. It's mainstream and common. Lesbians no longer have female only spaces (in Australia is now breaches Human Rights policy to run lesbian, female only events), they get banned from dating apps if they say female only.
They get told if they don't want dick that they are transphobic. There's almost no difference between that and homophobic straight blokes telling lesbians they just need a good root to come right.
When this pressure is applied to young women, it's basically conversion therapy. There are teens girls who are lesbian, who transition to being a trans man because being female is so goddamn awful socially, then later regret this and detransition only now they have no breasts, maybe no uterus, but have life long health issues associate with hormones and surgery including chronic pain and dysfunction.
Stonewall UK, one of the most influential gender identity lobby groups, is sending trans identified men who look like men into schools to do education work and in this case the dude is telling kids he is a lesbian. Fuck everyone who support this.
This tweet is one of many I see in my twitter feed like this every week. Because I pay attention, listen to lesbians and detrans people and make sure I know what is going on.
tbf, I haven't confirmed the veracity of the second tweet, but it is entirely consistent with everything else I see happening in the UK that has been verified.
The bearded bloke is called Alex Drummond. 50 something, no hormones, no surgery. Identifies as a woman and as a lesbian. Google "Alex Drummond Stonewall" to get the info.
Stonewall sends Alex around British schools talking about diversity and inclusion, and saying that this is what a lesbian looks like. When lesbians say "no" , Stonewall calls us sexual racists.
Ditto for the gay men that are called transphobic for not wanting to engage with a vagina having 'man'.
Ditto for the heterosexual female who would not want to larp lesbian with their now trans identifying male partner, ditto for the heterosexual male who does not want to larp gay couple.
This whole thing of male being women and females being men is just so fucked up. Yet, all the Parties support it. Go figure and never mind the broken and castrated and desexed bodies of those that learned the hard way they were not trans just non conform to sexist stereotypes.
Yes, gay men are as interested in "mangina" (yes, that is a word), as I am in "ladydick" or worse still "girldick". However, the homophobic ideology of gender identity denies the very existence of same sex attraction.
Why this "fucked up" urge/choice to be trans? So difficult to empathise with those who make this bad choice. Should it even be a choice? With appropriate (non-surgical) therapy/counselling/support, many could overcome their illness(es) and (potentially) go on to lead happy, fulfilling and, importantly, normal lives that wouldn't confuse or threaten anyone anymore than ‘normal’ people do already.
“I decided that I didn’t want to be a woman before I had ever even experienced being a woman,” said Mosley, who is now studying psychology at a community college in Michigan. “Now I feel like I will never entirely know.”
…
Mosley said she wishes her doctors had focused more on her mental health instead of endorsing her desire to change her body. “I just took the cure that was handed to me,” she said, “and I ruined my life.”
Georgina Beyer: From prostitution to Parliament [2008] GB: Be who you are. Don't live a lie. Maintain your self-respect in the face of adversity and realize that you are not alone. Seek help when needed and know that all people have a right to be positive contributors to society; to strive to fulfill our potential; and be treated with respect and dignity.
Because even Georgina Beyer in the end was always a male. And no amount of lying will make that go away. And for what its worth, Self ID has very little to do with Transidentified people, no matter where they stand under the Queer/Trans Umbrella.
Self ID gives you the right to go into any female space by simply stating that you are a woman. Say that to the receptionist and she will let you into the female swimming hour at the CHCH pools, into the changing rooms/shower facilities of any gym, and of course lets you lift weights in the female olympic category where you then get to pretend that a 43 year old male on a daily dose of estrogen with a bunged shoulder is a women who competing against 20 year old girls has no supposed advantage. But then, stunning and brave indeed.
So there is a world of difference between Georgina Beyer who did what was good and right for them and the current Queer Ideology that wants to make you believe that your sex was assigned by some unknown deity and that you can 'change' that sex.
I sometimes wonder what Georgina would say to the current mess of males are women when males say they are women.
What does transgender mean?
The ways that transgender people are talked about in popular culture, academia and science are constantly changing, particularly as individuals’ awareness, knowledge and openness about transgender people and their experiences grow.
Because even Georgina Beyer in the end was always a male.
Indeed, like all transwomen she was/is male, and has chosen to identify as a woman, that apparently being her true 'sense of self' and so the identity she is comfortable with. Whether this means GB and/or her sense of self is "fucked up", or “stunning and brave“, is not for me to say.
Although they have always been a very small minority, trans people do seem more numerous that they once were. Perhaps they are only more visible, but either way it would be helpful (imho) to understand why a few teens seem fixated on adopting a trans ID, even to the point of surgery. Consensus expert opinion on various matters trans is a work in progress.
As you say, the whole thing is "just so fucked up" – why do they do it?
Why is it apparently so difficult for these teens to simply choose a conforming identity – some flavour of acceptable 'normal'?
I sometimes wonder what Georgina would say to the current mess of males are women when males say they are women.
Perhaps all sides can take what they need from words spoken 15-years ago.
GB: Be who you are. Don't live a lie. Maintain your self-respect in the face of adversity and realize that you are not alone. Seek help when needed and know that all people have a right to be positive contributors to society; to strive to fulfill our potential; and be treated with respect and dignity.
and no matter how you choose to live, where and with whom, you will not change your sex. You will be male or female. And as a female i would thus like to not see males in female changing rooms, female prison cells, female hospital wards, female sports, female awards and so on.
And i would like for teachers to not socially transition kids that aren't theirs. And i would like for government to not force medical transition as the only healthcare available to kids who questions sex stereo types that they may or may not want to live under.
And i would like for doctors to not castrate and de-sex kids before puberty via chemicals and then via surgery finish the job a few years later. Cause non of that is reversible.
All these males are just that males. Georgina Beyer was nothing more then a male who cut their dick of and wore garments typically associated with females. That was that. And that was all. I can she /her them all day long, but it changes nothing on the fact that Georgina is not a woman, but identifies AS a woman. Georgina is male.
And males thanks to self id do not have to do what Georgina Beyer did in order to become 'woman' – as in human male with a fetish. You can be a woman. You literally just have to state so, and any female will have to be kind to you poor little thing who can't live unless you get to be were literally no one wants you to be. In the Ladies. Go figure. Brave and stunning!!!!!
Consistent with, and following on from my comment @10.2.2.1.1:
I believe that transpeople should be able to adopt a (non-conforming) gender identity that differs from their sex at birth – insisting otherwise seems (to me) punitive and ultimately self-defeating.
I'm opposed to irreversible gender-reassignment therapies for sexually immature people, unless consensus medical opinion indicates a high risk of severe/irreversible self-harm.
I believe that people have the right not to feel threatened, marginalised or otherwise put at risk by the behaviour of a minority of the tiny minority that constitutes the trans community.
That community does, however, have a right to exist – it cannot and should not be unmade. People who decide to leave the trans community should be able to do so on the same basis that they joined – voluntarily.
Stunning and brave they are the most marginalised community ever, the ones that have government, police, academia and health do their bidding at the expense of women – human females of all ages and children in general.
So stunning. So brave. And for what its worth, i don't actually consider males who colonise female spaces, and who want to define what 'woman' and 'womanhood' as either brave or stunning. I consider them predatory, fetishistic, rapey and very emotionally and mentally abusive. And i would assume that in about 5 – 10 years time we will have a thousands of young people with no sexual organs, no sexual function, no reproductive organs, low bone density, all sorts of other health problem, mental health problems and a lot of people will say, but They CHOOSE Iit so ultimately they are responsible. Yes….totally.
Just as the surgeon Marcy Bowers that finished the castration process on Jazz Jennings did. You know the boy that got transed into a girl cause he liked his sisters bathing suit and his mum could not bare the idea that they may not be a proper boy and a cousin was a gender therapist and the rest is history faithfully documented on the Learning Channel making millions of dollars. The castration of boys is now entertainment.!!! So progressive.
Chemically castrated at 10 – surgically castrated at 17, and now at 21 one on his fourth revision surgery, obese, huge health issues and all he got for his trouble was the Eunuch Gender. Asexual, no sexual functions, no reproductive rights, nothing. Struggling to find a place in the world that fits him, struggling to tell his family that he struggles.
Just a poor castrated child that never stood a chance as no one dared to call the parents abusive, no one dared to call TLC who made millions of this poor childs abuse abusive and no one still dares to call Marcy Bowers a transwoman himself abusive for doing the job they does. And Marcy Bowers knows the damage they do.
Bowers also said that the surgery they opt for can leave people sexually dysfunctional – something she said was not discussed enough.
'The idea all sounded good in the very beginning,' she said.
Bowers and Anderson were both interviewed for the Substack newsletter run by Bari Weiss (above)
'Believe me, we're doing some magnificent surgeries on these kids, and they're so determined, and I'm so proud of so many of them and their parents. They've been great.
'But honestly, I can't sit here and tell you that they have better — or even as good — results. They're not as functional. I worry about their reproductive rights later. I worry about their sexual health later and ability to find intimacy.'
Anderson said she feared many young people would regret their decisions.
'It is my considered opinion that due to some of the – let's see, how to say it? what word to choose? – due to some of the, I'll call it just 'sloppy,' sloppy healthcare work, that we're going to have more young adults who will regret having gone through this process,' she told the site.
'And that is going to earn me a lot of criticism from some colleagues, but given what I see – and I'm sorry, but it's my actual experience as a psychologist treating gender variant youth – I'm worried that decisions will be made that will later be regretted by those making them.'
We can be kind to transpeople and we can be kind to women. We can have rights specifically for transpeople, and we can have rights for women. We can not however demand that women pretend that males can be women, and then let these males terrorize any woman – human females of all ages if they state that they are uncomfortable with males in their changing rooms, public showers, female swimming hours/sports/awards/competitions/olympic games, female prison cells, female senior housing, female hospital wards and so on and so forth.
As of now we rather call women – human females of all ages – bodies who bleed, bodies who have vaginas, bodies who give birth / are birth giving enabled, cervix havers, uterus havers, menopausers, menstruators, birth givers, afab, just to satisfy the needs of males who are not well in their own bodies and the women – human females will just have to suck it real hard and swallow, lest someone calls them Terfs and wishes violence upon them.
No-one has to like transpeople, as a group or as individuals – indeed, that would be pretty difficult if one focused solely on the images and impressions of 'transpeople' presented in The Standard. But they are here, and I'd guess not too many of them are truly awful.
It would be interesting to see where this issue (the "fucked up" transgender 'problem') will be in 80 years time, and if any satisfactory global final solution can be found, but we'll be long gone by then.
I do worry about the future of my (now distant) transgender niblings. They are brave (imho), and (subjectively) not particularly stunning.
The whole barrel is rotten. Perhaps it began with a few bad apples long ago, and of course some good ones will remain even now, but the rot in the Metropolitan force has spread.
You read of David Carrick, the officer who kept his uniform, his badge and, for many years, his gun even as he pursued a parallel career as a prolific sex offender, and of course you are sickened by the evil he has done: dozens of rapes and sexual offences against 12 women, over two decades, including imprisoning one of his victims, naked and terrified, in a tiny cupboard under the stairs. But an equal horror comes when you learn that the police had been warned eight times about Carrick’s behaviour – eight – but did nothing. In fairness, that’s not quite right; they did do something. They promoted him in 2009 to an elite armed unit.
We felt it when another serving Met officer, Wayne Couzens, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in 2021. We felt it when, that same year, Met officers were jailed for circulating photographs of the bodies of two murdered sisters – “dead birds”, they called them – for the titillation of their colleagues. And we felt it a year ago when we learned of the group at Charing Cross police station in London who traded WhatsApp messages casually joking about rape and speaking of women in terms so filled with hate the word “misogyny” scarcely does it justice.
snip
So what can be done?
snip
As a first step there needs to be a Macpherson-style investigation of misogyny in the Met.
snip
It’s an extreme solution, but the problem is extreme. The Metropolitan police fails the two tests that count. It cannot demonstrate efficiency – see last September’s damning report by the police inspectorate, finding that the Met is failing when it comes to investigating crime and protecting the vulnerable – and it has lost legitimacy.
snip
But the grimmer truth is that this malady goes far beyond the police. There were 70,000 rapes recorded last year in England and Wales alone – 1,350 a week – and those are just the ones that were reported, estimated as a mere quarter or fifth of all the rapes that happen. Of those recorded, just 1.3% resulted in a suspect being charged. Obviously only a fraction of those ended in a conviction. When fewer than one in a hundred rapists ever face any consequences, it’s time for a society to be honest with itself – and admit that it has, in effect, decriminalised rape. Worse, says Smith, it is creating serial rapists: a man does it once, gets away with it, and realises he can do it again. And again.
There are remedies, starting with a system that investigates the suspect instead of the victim rather than the other way around, as things work, perversely, at the moment. But the first step will be a recognition that a society where a woman is killed by a man every three days – more if you count the women whose suffering of domestic abuse leads to suicide – is confronting an emergency as lethal as any terror threat. Yes, we should tear down and replace the Met and shake up every other decayed force in the land. But this rot goes deeper than the police. It lies within.
women – human females of all ages, are they even human?
I'm pretty sure it's not just old-fuddy-duddy bias on my part, but NZ Policing culture has improved greatly in the past decades. UK policing is having its own Louise Nicholls moment, where the longterm rancid internal culture can no longer be hidden. It will take time to change, as it has here.
A low-state government after the next NZ election will no doubt cut police staffing back again, to our detriment, despite the law 'n order hoo-haa being stirred up by right leaning politicos and press. NACT will focus on pushing more people into privatised prisons by increasing sentences and offences. They may even push for politicisation of the police, by introducing elections for Police Commisioners, as in the UK. Don't forget that Luxon rushed over to the UK to have a strategy confab with the Tories soon after getting his spot. Yay, more importation of UK and US 'failed state' libertarian moves for us if the election goes the NACT's way.
A young rapist got 9 month home D for 4 rapes a few month ago. He will out of home d in about 4 – 5 month.
Yeah, we here in Aotearoa totally have that under control, and that young bloke will have learned his lesson and never rape again, cause staying at home for 9 month at mum'n'pops, watching telly eating popcorn and masturbating to some shitty porn is exactly the punishment a serial rapist should get.
That is not a policing issue, that is a youth justice/courts/sentencing issue. The police in this case clearly took him to prosecution in a timely manner. I imagine his family rustled up a fancy lawyer who made all the right noises. I personally thought it was light for such a nasty set of actions, but generally I trust that the NZ judiciary system tries its best.
Despite the current government's woeful tendency to give in under public pressure to media-pushed causes, here the judiciary is acting independently, as it should. The place for judicial reform is not in the social media arena, but in thoughtful legislative and judiciary review. Otherwise, you're asking for cases to be tried and sentenced in the court of public opinion, an opinion often manipulated by those with hidden agendas.
Part of the cacophony of anti-vax anti-government noise comes from external actors who want to break down trust in state procedures, and to destabilise nations. I don't believe I'm being paranoid about this. The day after the invasion of Ukraine, I saw NZ anti-vax social media pages come out with pro-Russia content. Less than 24 hours after, while the Parliament protest was still under way. Almost identical content over several sites. Certainly not independently derived opinion from the posters. Anti-vax, anti-government conspiracies and pro-Russia position spread by the same sources worries me.
I'm more cautious now about government and state-process issues that blow up through social media and are picked up by the press. Especially when NZ scores high on social freedoms and government transparency. Change in our law and its implementation needs to follow proper process, not just be driven by outrage-of-the-day. Good cheese and good government both take time.
The police literally makes the case for the court. If the police does not make a case it does not go to court. So yeah, it is a policing issue, firstly and then the justice system is equally useless, in the meantime people get raped.
The anti-woke and slightly heavily racist Dr. Caftan, after years of shredding Jacinda Ardern for being too right wing but also too left wing has cut and pasted today a thought piece on Chippy, quoting hard right wing dabblers, Luke Mouthpiss and Matty Hooters.
Everyone says Hipkins will be a better PM than the best thing to happen to NZ politics in three generations.
The author of this crappy article is, as by nature, at sixes and sevens throughout. Still, it appears he's pumping the new PM to be the final solution to the Ardern problem which will no doubt have misogynist white boomers clinking crystal.
As if out of the Transvaal, this sick puppet actually said, “woman of colour” because he couldn’t bring himself to say Māori or Polynesian. Red flag right there.
it shows how much attention is payed to policing others language by the woke. “Person of colour” is the preferred term in UK and America (a ridiculous term in my opinion)
as is person with uterus. or person with vagina. or pregnant people.
Any time we can not name something/someone properly for fear of offending someone who may or may not be that person, or of color, we just show how odious and idiotic is.
I got into a bad situation at a usually protected unnamed beach north of Auckland. It was during the strong easterlies around New Year,
Watched some young people swim 50-60m to a pontoon in a heavy swell and thought I'd like to do that. The lad and I started out but two thirds of the way there I realised I was not comfortable. I know this beach and have swum to that pontoon dozens of times. But that day was different.
When you get into that situation all energy is devoted to trying to get to a point of safety and to keep breathing. The more exhausted you get the harder it is to not take on seawater. The need to keep going forward to safety does not sit well with keeping your head above water.
There are people all around me including my own boy but it becomes terrifying and I am only 10m away from the pontoon. I look out for my child in this heaving water thinking they are in trouble too. Dreadful situation.
We reach the pontoon and I lie down, shocked. The short trip out was into the wind and swell. I assured myself the return would be easier.
It wasn't. The same exhaustion crushed me 20 meters from shore but it was a steep beach and still I couldn't touch the sand. One gulp of water and I am done. Constantly looking out for the precious kid.
Near disaster but two things could have avoided it. One, don't feel like you have to swim because it's your only chance this summer. Two, study hard people's condition after they do the swim you want to do. In hindsight I could see they found it very hard and I should have recognised that.
The difference between life and death in NZ coastal waters is only minutes into a bad decision.
Bless you MB. I for one am glad you are still here.
I had a similar experience years ago….floating on my back and drifting out beyond the waves on a beach I (thought) I knew well. Next thing I knew two life guards are beside me. I look to shore, I am miles away, caught by a rip. So I set off closer in to shore with them and very glad too.
My take away was that even on days when the waves are tiny, going out beyond them is always a risk. That floating and drifting is not an experience for beach swimming, we must keep ourselves aware and safe and observant at all times.
It felt like a very personal story to post on this site, but also very important because it's a real experience. Several people have had similar experiences in the water since, and are now dead.
Easily the closest I have been to drowning and it all happened within the space of 15 mins in a normally sheltered bay only 50m offshore.
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Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
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 ...
What is it with the mining industry? Its not enough for them to pillage the earth - they apparently can't even be bothered getting resource consent to do so: The proponent behind a major mine near the Clutha River had already been undertaking activity in the area without a ...
Photo # 1 I am a huge fan of Singapore’s approach to housing, as described here two years ago by copying and pasting from The ConversationWhat Singapore has that Australia does not is a public housing developer, the Housing Development Board, which puts new dwellings on public and reclaimed land, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Reactions to news of the government’s readiness to make urgent changes to “the resource management system” through a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) suggest a balanced approach is being taken. The Taxpayers’ Union says the proposed changes don’t go far enough. Greenpeace says ...
I’m starting to wonder if Anna Burns-Francis might be the best political interviewer we’ve got. That might sound unlikely to you, it came as a bit of a surprise to me.Jack Tame can be excellent, but has some pretty average days. I like Rebecca Wright on Newshub, she asks good ...
Chris Trotter writes – Willie Jackson is said to be planning a “media summit” to discuss “the state of the media and how to protect Fourth Estate Journalism”. Not only does the Editor of The Daily Blog, Martyn Bradbury, think this is a good idea, but he has also ...
Graeme Edgeler writes – This morning [April 21], the Wellington High Court is hearing a judicial review brought by Hon. Karen Chhour, the Minister for Children, against a decision of the Waitangi Tribunal. This is unusual, judicial reviews are much more likely to brought against ministers, rather than ...
Both of Parliament’s watchdogs have now ripped into the Government’s Fast-track Approvals Bill. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s political economy and beyond on the morning of Tuesday, April 23 are:The Lead: The Auditor General,John Ryan, has joined the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah SpengemanPeople wait to board an electric bus in Pune, India. (Image credit: courtesy of ITDP) Public transportation riders in Pune, India, love the city’s new electric buses so much they will actually skip an older diesel bus that ...
The infrastructure industry yesterday issued a “hurry up” message to the Government, telling it to get cracking on developing a pipeline of infrastructure projects.The hiatus around the change of Government has seen some major projects cancelled and others delayed, and there is uncertainty about what will happen with the new ...
Hi,Over the weekend I revisited a podcast I really adore, Dead Eyes. It’s about a guy who got fired from Band of Brothers over two decades ago because Tom Hanks said he had “dead eyes”.If you don’t recall — 2001’s Band of Brothers was part of the emerging trend of ...
Buzz from the Beehive The 180 or so recipients of letters from the Government telling them how to submit infrastructure projects for “fast track” consideration includes some whose project applications previously have been rejected by the courts. News media were quick to feature these in their reports after RMA Reform Minister Chris ...
It would not be a desirable way to start your holiday by breaking your back, your head, or your wrist, but on our first hour in Singapore I gave it a try.We were chatting, last week, before we started a meeting of Hazel’s Enviro Trust, about the things that can ...
Calling all journalists, academics, planners, lawyers, political activists, environmentalists, and other members of the public who believe that the relationships between vested interests and politicians need to be scrutinised. We need to work together to make sure that the new Fast-Track Approvals Bill – currently being pushed through by the ...
Feel worried. Shane Jones and a couple of his Cabinet colleagues are about to be granted the power to override any and all objections to projects like dams, mines, roads etc even if: said projects will harm biodiversity, increase global warming and cause other environmental harms, and even if ...
Bryce Edwards writes- The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. ...
Michael Bassett writes – If you think there is a move afoot by the radical Maori fringe of New Zealand society to create a parallel system of government to the one that we elect at our triennial elections, you aren’t wrong. Over the last few days we have ...
Without a corresponding drop in interest rates, it’s doubtful any changes to the CCCFA will unleash a massive rush of home buyers. Photo: Lynn GrievesonTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate on Monday, April 22 included:The Government making a ...
Sunday was a lazy day. I started watching Jack Tame on Q&A, the interviews are usually good for something to write about. Saying the things that the politicians won’t, but are quite possibly thinking. Things that are true and need to be extracted from between the lines.As you might know ...
In our Weekly Roundup last week we covered news from Auckland Transport that the WX1 Western Express is going to get an upgrade next year with double decker electric buses. As part of the announcement, AT also said “Since we introduced the WX1 Western Express last November we have seen ...
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to April 29 include:PM Christopher Luxon is scheduled to hold a post-Cabinet news conference at 4 pm today. Stats NZ releases its statutory report on Census 2023 tomorrow.Finance Minister Nicola Willis delivers a pre-Budget speech at ...
A listing of 29 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 14, 2024 thru Sat, April 20, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week hinges on these words from the abstract of a fresh academic ...
The ability of the private sector to quickly establish major new projects making use of the urban and natural environment is to be supercharged by the new National-led Government. Yesterday it introduced to Parliament one of its most significant reforms, the Fast Track Approvals Bill. The Government says this will ...
This is a column to say thank you. So many of have been in touch since Mum died to say so many kind and thoughtful things. You’re wonderful, all of you. You’ve asked how we’re doing, how Dad’s doing. A little more realisation each day, of the irretrievable finality of ...
Identifying the engine type in your car is crucial for various reasons, including maintenance, repairs, and performance upgrades. Knowing the specific engine model allows you to access detailed technical information, locate compatible parts, and make informed decisions about modifications. This comprehensive guide will provide you with a step-by-step approach to ...
Introduction: The allure of racing is undeniable. The thrill of speed, the roar of engines, and the exhilaration of competition all contribute to the allure of this adrenaline-driven sport. For those who yearn to experience the pinnacle of racing, becoming a race car driver is the ultimate dream. However, the ...
Introduction Automobiles have become ubiquitous in modern society, serving as a primary mode of transportation and a symbol of economic growth and personal mobility. With countless vehicles traversing roads and highways worldwide, it begs the question: how many cars are there in the world? Determining the precise number is a ...
Maintaining a safe and reliable vehicle requires regular inspections. Whether it’s a routine maintenance checkup or a safety inspection, knowing how long the process will take can help you plan your day accordingly. This article delves into the factors that influence the duration of a car inspection and provides an ...
Mazda Motor Corporation, commonly known as Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automaker headquartered in Fuchu, Aki District, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. The company was founded in 1920 as the Toyo Cork Kogyo Co., Ltd., and began producing vehicles in 1931. Mazda is primarily known for its production of passenger cars, but ...
Your car battery is an essential component that provides power to start your engine, operate your electrical systems, and store energy. Over time, batteries can weaken and lose their ability to hold a charge, which can lead to starting problems, power failures, and other issues. Replacing your battery before it ...
In most states, you cannot register a car without a valid driver’s license. However, there are a few exceptions to this rule. Exceptions to the RuleIf you are under 18 years old: In some states, you can register a car in your name even if you do not ...
Mazda, a Japanese automotive manufacturer with a rich history of innovation and engineering excellence, has emerged as a formidable player in the global car market. Known for its reputation of producing high-quality, fuel-efficient, and driver-oriented vehicles, Mazda has consistently garnered praise from industry experts and consumers alike. In this article, ...
Struts are an essential part of a car’s suspension system. They are responsible for supporting the weight of the car and damping the oscillations of the springs. Struts are typically made of steel or aluminum and are filled with hydraulic fluid. How Do Struts Work? Struts work by transferring the ...
Car registration is a mandatory process that all vehicle owners must complete annually. This process involves registering your car with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and paying an associated fee. The registration process ensures that your vehicle is properly licensed and insured, and helps law enforcement and other authorities ...
Zoom is a video conferencing service that allows you to share your screen, webcam, and audio with other participants. In addition to sharing your own audio, you can also share the audio from your computer with other participants. This can be useful for playing music, sharing presentations with audio, or ...
Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Dell laptops are renowned for their reliability, performance, and versatility. Whether you’re a student, a professional, or just someone who needs a reliable computing device, a Dell laptop can meet your needs. However, if you’re new to Dell laptops, you may be wondering how to get started. In this comprehensive ...
Two-thirds of the country think that “New Zealand’s economy is rigged to advantage the rich and powerful”. They also believe that “New Zealand needs a strong leader to take the country back from the rich and powerful”. These are just two of a handful of stunning new survey results released ...
In today’s digital world, screenshots have become an indispensable tool for communication and documentation. Whether you need to capture an important email, preserve a website page, or share an error message, screenshots allow you to quickly and easily preserve digital information. If you’re an Asus laptop user, there are several ...
A factory reset restores your Gateway laptop to its original factory settings, erasing all data, apps, and personalizations. This can be necessary to resolve software issues, remove viruses, or prepare your laptop for sale or transfer. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to factory reset your Gateway laptop: Method 1: ...
“You talking about me?”The neoliberal denigration of the past was nowhere more unrelenting than in its depiction of the public service. The Post Office and the Railways were held up as being both irremediably inefficient and scandalously over-manned. Playwright Roger Hall’s “Glide Time” caricatures were presented as accurate depictions of ...
Roger Partridge writes – When the Coalition Government took office last October, it inherited a country on a precipice. With persistent inflation, decades of insipid productivity growth and crises in healthcare, education, housing and law and order, it is no exaggeration to suggest New Zealand’s first-world status was ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – In 2022, the Curriculum Centre at the Ministry of Education employed 308 staff, according to an Official Information Request. Earlier this week it was announced 202 of those staff were being cut. When you look up “The New Zealand Curriculum” on the Ministry of ...
Chris Bishop’s bill has stirred up a hornets nest of opposition. Photo: Lynn Grieveson for The KākāTL;DR: The six things that stood out to me in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, poverty and climate from the last day included:A crescendo of opposition to the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill is ...
Monday left me brokenTuesday, I was through with hopingWednesday, my empty arms were openThursday, waiting for love, waiting for loveThe end of another week that left many of us asking WTF? What on earth has NZ gotten itself into and how on earth could people have voluntarily signed up for ...
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. ...
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. ...
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. ...
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. ...
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 National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
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 ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
It’s not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
Pacific Media Watch Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders. According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. 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 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
ACT's Rural Communities and Veterans spokesman Mark Cameron responds to cancellations and protests of ANZAC Day commemorations in Wellington. He says, "These pitiful attempts to detract from ANZAC Day are not at all indicative of the feelings of mainstream ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Pōneke based peace activists staged a silent protest at the ANZAC day service to highlight New Zealand’s complicity in war and genocide, and urge the government to take concrete steps to stop the genocide in Palestine. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Magdalena M.E. Bunbury, Postdoctoral Researcher, James Cook University Burial with a horse at the Rákóczifalva site, Hungary (8th century AD).Sándor Hegedűs, Hungarian National Museum, CC BY How do we understand past societies? For centuries, our main sources of information have been ...
Amanda Thompson doesn’t really do Anzac Day. But what she does do is remember the people she knew who had a lifetime to remember stuff they didn’t really want to, because of a war they didn’t ask for. And she does make Anzac biscuits.First published in 2021.All my ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Willis, Postdoctoral Researcher, CSIRO Xavier Boulenger/Shutterstock In the two decades to 2019, global plastic production doubled. By 2040, plastic manufacturing and processing could consume as much as 20% of global oil production and use up 15% of the annual carbon ...
With our collective remembrance, and steadfast belief in our common humanity, we strengthen our hope and resolve to do what we can to foster dialogue and understanding, and to heal divisions in our pursuit of peace. ...
Principal reasons for the opposition is the loss of the public’s democratic right to have “a fair say” and the vital need for a government free from corruption, said Casey Cravens of Dunedin, president of the New Zealand Federation of Freshwater ...
Never mind the scoreboard – in the 2000 Bledisloe Cup decider, the real trans-Tasman battle was won before kickoff.First published in 2016. The dawn of the new millennium was a dark time for the All Blacks. Their final game pre-Y2K was a 22-18 loss to South Africa in the ...
I’m on the wrong side of 40, I never pursued creative work and now my job is killing my soul. Help! Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nzDear Hera,May I start with the least original conversation opener you’re likely to hear around the motu at the moment, particularly in Wellington: ...
“Never again - No AUKUS” was the message of the wreath laid at this morning’s national ANZAC Day commemorative service at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park this morning by the Stop AUKUS group. ...
Until this month, Auckland swimmer Hazel Ouwehand had never met a qualifying time in an Olympic event for a New Zealand team, even as a junior. Now she’s very likely off to the Paris Olympics after swimming well under the qualifying standard in the 100m butterfly twice – both in ...
While Anzac Day has experienced a resurgence in recent years, our other day of remembrance has slowly faded from view.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand. Original illustrations by Hope McConnell.First published in 2022.The high school’s head girl and ...
Australian and New Zealand volunteers fought together in the Waikato War, yet still its place in the Anzac tradition is unacknowledged by our defence forces or Returned Services Association.First published in 2018.When I was a boy cub I attended Anzac Day services in the South Auckland suburb of ...
A poem by Wellington writer Tayi Tibble.Hoki Mai She kisses him goodbye with her eyes still wet and alight from their last swim in the Awatere river. At the train station celebration, she leads the Kapa Haka but her voice keeps breaking under and over itself like waves. ...
A poem from Bill Manhire’s 2017 book of verse Some Things to Place in a Coffin.My World War I Poem Inside each trench, the sound of prayer. Inside each prayer, the sound of digging. Image courtesy of Auckland War Memorial Museum. ...
There are three books I have wolfed down in one sitting over the last two years. Colleen Maria Lenihan’s gorgeous and sad debut Kōhine, Noelle McCarthy’s memoir Grand about becoming her mother and then unbecoming her, and now Hine Toa, a staunch yet gentle self-portrait by living legend Ngāhuia te ...
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Asia Pacific Report Students and activist staff at Australia’s University of Sydney (USyd) have set up a Gaza solidarity encampment in support of Palestinians and similar student-led protests in the United States. The camp was pitched as mass graves, crippled hospitals, thousands of civilian deaths and the near-total destruction of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James B. Dorey, Lecturer in Biological Sciences, University of Wollongong Australian teddy bear bees are cute and fluffy, but get a look at that massive (unbarbed) stinger! James Dorey Photography Most of us have been stung by a bee and we ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Gregory Moore I had the good fortune to care for the sugar gum at The University of Melbourne’s Burnley Gardens in Victoria where I worked for ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Ong ViforJ, ARC Future Fellow & Professor of Economics, Curtin University Just when we think the price of rentals could not get any worse, this week’s Rental Affordability Snapshot by Anglicare has revealed low-income Australians are facing a housing crisis like ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tracey Holmes, Professorial Fellow in Sport, University of Canberra When the news broke last weekend that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive to a banned drug in early 2021 and were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Olympic Games six months later ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cally Jetta, Senior Lecturer and Academic Lead; College for First Nations, University of Southern Queensland Australian War MemorialAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people, as well as sensitive historical information ...
RNZ News Melissa Lee has been ousted from New Zealand’s coalition cabinet and stripped of the Media portfolio, and Penny Simmonds has lost the Disability Issues portfolio in a reshuffle. Climate Change and Revenue Minister Simon Watts will take Lee’s spot in cabinet. Simmonds was a minister outside of cabinet. ...
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Will they listen now?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk&ab_channel=wysty67
Achieved with threats of personal violence against her and targetted misogynist slurs. The global far right gloat over their victory
https://twitter.com/banthebbc/status/1615935645469532160?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1615935645469532160%7Ctwgr%5E4073a06756048ebb365d8fe8e54b37168c95ab33%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen%2Farticle%2Fn7zpgz%2Fjacinda-ardern-resignation-new-zealand-far-right
I always scratch my head when confronted with such people, how can people believe such tripe, where is their discernment switch, is it seized up and need of some CRC, or WD40, if you are in the US?
The fuckwittery is astonishing.
https://twitter.com/serenity22/status/1616324701382651904
https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/music/pink-floyd-rainbow
You have to wonder if they are even human.
The Pavlovian response of the Troll Bots…. ?
And this is the man who said when speaking about North Korea's Kim Jung Un: "You've got to be honest about what it means to lead a country – it means killing people".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Carlson.
No further comment needed.
He is a vicious idiot Jenny.
It seems vicious idiots love each other
Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty
“Russia’s top propagandists, from former President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev to state TV host Vladimir Solovyov, have been spreading the same not-so subtle nuclear threat far and wide”
https://news.yahoo.com/putin-henchmen-threaten-tens-thousands-035652530.html
Apparently, the only one to be spared this threatened holocaust is Tucker Carlson.
Maybe like a cockroach, Tucker Carlson will be able to crawl out from under the rubble.
It's old, but a timely reminder that freedom of the press is important.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VosUSJwWTQ
My DW and I just had a meeting with a guy from Harrisons Solar. I said it would be good for the government to start subsidising solar rather than building more dams etc.
He made an interesting comment. He said it would be better for the government to subsidise batteries. Because that would avoid the load problems power generators have to manage with large numbers feeding power back into the grid.
Food for thought.
The only type of battery this country should go near is the Onslow one, plus find a suitable site up north.
Indeed food for thought TSM – we have 10 solar panels on our roof plus one large hot water panel which was already in place when we purchased this property. It all helps with the power bill, especially during the spring, summer and autumn seasons. We even manage to export some power back to the grid during the winter months despite the pathetic buy back price. We thought long and hard about a battery to compliment the panels, but as the initial cost of the panels and installation depleted our savings somewhat, we didn't purchase one, simply because of the cost of them (this was 7 years ago). We may well get one if the price keeps reducing.
FWIW, I have lived off grid sonce 2003. Bradfords reforms were the impetus and we were relocating our house.
If you are grid-tied the newish technology Lithium batteries are the way to go. They are at their best when they have a grid back-up/trickle charge.
Partially in response to tsmithfield above, there needs to be some reform around ownership/kaupapa of the power companies too.
the problem with lithium batteries is no-one knows how to dispose of them yet at end of life. As always, it's not technology that should be leading but system change. In this case, cradle to grave thinking in design right from the get go.
Power generation should be nationalised and/or power companies forced to deal fairly in Just Transition terms with buying from grid tied solar households. I'm not convinced it's possible to transition to post-carbon with for profit power generation/retail irrespective of the tecnology.
The home battery and Onslow do different things. The home battery reduces and spreads load on the local grid in short time scales (days). Onslow works at a larger and / or longer scale, buffering wind and large scale solar when there's no wind or sun, and providing backup for dry years.
The biggest advantage / feature in Onslow is that it will completely upend the current electricity market by putting control of the peak electricity price with the State.
Ideally Onslow would be run in conjunction with the Clutha hydro system (Clyde and Roxburgh, with Hawea controlled storage), it would also have to be State controlled, that much power over the market would be untenable. So if it happens the first move would be to nationalise Contact, ie Government stands in the market for 100% of Contact or does a deal for the Clutha schemes. The remaining gen-tailers would be reduced to price takers rather than price fixers. Hence National hate the idea with a vengeance.
We still don't know if it's possible to build the thing, and at what price. Those investigations were supposed to be complete last year but have been delayed. Then there's investigations into how it's going to work in the market.
It's a very interesting proposal and I hope Labour gets another term (or two) to bring it to fruition, along with a vey different electricity supply market / industry.
There's other utility / grid scale storage options coming through as well. This popped up the other day, iron / air batteries that work at a grid scale and lower cost than lithium
For every house with full solar and unconnected to the grid in areas where they could be it means that the distribution price for every other user goes up as distribution is by far the biggest cost component of electricity supply. Why? Maintenance is hugely expensive as is capital cost and then every storm, earthquake, flood or other natural disaster is very costly for the lines companies. Don’t start on that old myth of if everyone had their own solar then there would be no distribution cost. That bullshit lasts until the first cold overcast winter.
Not being connected does not mean not being charged.
Numerous Rural water schemes have charges if the line goes past the property even if not connected. Big business will still need the supply net and it has to be paid for so what is the betting a similar "not connected – but it goes past so you could be" charge?
"For every house with full solar and unconnected to the grid in areas where they could be it means that the distribution price for every other user goes up as distribution is by far the biggest cost component of electricity supply"
I must admit to being 'that' guy.
TBF, I do live rurally and am independent in respects to water. Also looking to get indepent for the small amount of gas we use.
Part of Bradfords reforms that made me shift, was how the Lines Companies are not obliged to do a repair to the infrastructure of it isn't in their interests. Highly unlikely where I live TBF, but they were setting the rules to the market and I was responding to them.
Full disclosure, I do operate more from the heart reather than the head and it hasn't been a cheap excercise…
Onslow is a huge basin at quite a reasonable height in what is hopefully a quietish earthquake zone. The NI does not have anywhere large enough to do the job.
The Waikato hydro power stations are fed from Lake Taupō so could that be recharged by pumping some of the Waikato discharge back up to it?
I don’t know where any of the waikato dams are next to each other.
A hydro battery is almost always pumped a short distance from a lower dam to a higher dam. You typically need to pump from still water so you don’t try to raise sediment. You only pump a short distance to reduce the amount of power required to pump it. Otherwise you pump power into fiction on pipe walls.
Dams require some pretty stringent anchor positions, locations tthat are suitable for two largish dams next to each other are rare.
What about non-water based systems, where weights are lifted?
https://qz.com/1355672/stacking-concrete-blocks-is-a-surprisingly-efficient-way-to-store-energy
Less land usage, can be set up anywhere and no need to fill and maintain a dam.
Has Wayne Smith contacted David Rennie about his old job yet? Has Farrah Palmer, Ruahei Demant …
"Worst PM ever" is trending.. I foolishly clicked it.. was relieved to see Aussies mentioning ScoMo and Kiwis nominating this tinpot dictator
https://twitter.com/m5gnolia/status/1616080119025790983?s=20
Hooboy…
https://twitter.com/Michell64931824/status/1616307896362618881
lol excellent
My feeling is that some of those disparaging of Jacinda Ardern and calling her a dictator and divisive would be fans of Muldoon.
He was a bully who attracted bullies. Ardern said we need to wear masks, they cried, bitched and grizzled. If Muldoon had said wear masks they would has praised his decisiveness and been his mask police.
Muldoon was just as restrictive on our mobility with Carless Days and 80 kmh speed limit.
Can just imagine his Covid response. Total border closure, internal as well, from day one, rationing, with assigned shopping times at supermarkets and any other way he could control peoples lives. All enforced by police and military. He'd have been right in his element.
For all that, he would not have had Ampol bully him into allowing Marsden Point to close.
He wouldn't have allowed it to be privatised in the first place.
Not so sure that Muldoon had clean hands. Quite a few of his mates had close association with his Think Big projects.
So he would have buckled to Ampol's bullying and subsidised them to keep it open? Although as tWiggle says below, he looked after his mates.
Oil companies were closing refineries all over the world, especially in Australia. Rationale for keeping a tiny orphan like Marsden Pt going was pretty thin, until everything goes to shit 12 months later, maybe
No loitering round Paliament grounds under Muldoon either. Police with batons would have been in licketty smart. I wondered at the time if Jacinda Ardern's softly-softly approach over the anti-vax protesters at Parliament was influenced by her father's experience on the Red Squad anti-protest policing unit during the 1981 Springbok tour.
I can't believe that liberals can't see what is happening. No, it's not an outlier. It's mainstream and common. Lesbians no longer have female only spaces (in Australia is now breaches Human Rights policy to run lesbian, female only events), they get banned from dating apps if they say female only.
They get told if they don't want dick that they are transphobic. There's almost no difference between that and homophobic straight blokes telling lesbians they just need a good root to come right.
When this pressure is applied to young women, it's basically conversion therapy. There are teens girls who are lesbian, who transition to being a trans man because being female is so goddamn awful socially, then later regret this and detransition only now they have no breasts, maybe no uterus, but have life long health issues associate with hormones and surgery including chronic pain and dysfunction.
Stonewall UK, one of the most influential gender identity lobby groups, is sending trans identified men who look like men into schools to do education work and in this case the dude is telling kids he is a lesbian. Fuck everyone who support this.
This tweet is one of many I see in my twitter feed like this every week. Because I pay attention, listen to lesbians and detrans people and make sure I know what is going on.
https://twitter.com/c_kennaugh/status/1616590576157163521
tbf, I haven't confirmed the veracity of the second tweet, but it is entirely consistent with everything else I see happening in the UK that has been verified.
The bearded bloke is called Alex Drummond. 50 something, no hormones, no surgery. Identifies as a woman and as a lesbian. Google "Alex Drummond Stonewall" to get the info.
Stonewall sends Alex around British schools talking about diversity and inclusion, and saying that this is what a lesbian looks like. When lesbians say "no" , Stonewall calls us sexual racists.
Thanks for confirmation.
I now about Drummond but didn't realise he was telling school kids he's a lesbian. What ages is that do you know?
No, I don't. Secondary schools I think.
Ditto for the gay men that are called transphobic for not wanting to engage with a vagina having 'man'.
Ditto for the heterosexual female who would not want to larp lesbian with their now trans identifying male partner, ditto for the heterosexual male who does not want to larp gay couple.
This whole thing of male being women and females being men is just so fucked up. Yet, all the Parties support it. Go figure and never mind the broken and castrated and desexed bodies of those that learned the hard way they were not trans just non conform to sexist stereotypes.
Kindness…..for whom?
Yes, gay men are as interested in "mangina" (yes, that is a word), as I am in "ladydick" or worse still "girldick". However, the homophobic ideology of gender identity denies the very existence of same sex attraction.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/gender-diversity/page-1
Why do some young people have such a "fucked up" sense of self? Baffling.
Why this "fucked up" urge/choice to be trans? So difficult to empathise with those who make this bad choice. Should it even be a choice? With appropriate (non-surgical) therapy/counselling/support, many could overcome their illness(es) and (potentially) go on to lead happy, fulfilling and, importantly, normal lives that wouldn't confuse or threaten anyone anymore than ‘normal’ people do already.
Life may seem miserable, and that will change. Cultivate resilience and be patient if you can – Georgina Beyer waited until she was 27.
Because even Georgina Beyer in the end was always a male. And no amount of lying will make that go away. And for what its worth, Self ID has very little to do with Transidentified people, no matter where they stand under the Queer/Trans Umbrella.
Self ID gives you the right to go into any female space by simply stating that you are a woman. Say that to the receptionist and she will let you into the female swimming hour at the CHCH pools, into the changing rooms/shower facilities of any gym, and of course lets you lift weights in the female olympic category where you then get to pretend that a 43 year old male on a daily dose of estrogen with a bunged shoulder is a women who competing against 20 year old girls has no supposed advantage. But then, stunning and brave indeed.
So there is a world of difference between Georgina Beyer who did what was good and right for them and the current Queer Ideology that wants to make you believe that your sex was assigned by some unknown deity and that you can 'change' that sex.
I sometimes wonder what Georgina would say to the current mess of males are women when males say they are women.
Indeed, like all transwomen she was/is male, and has chosen to identify as a woman, that apparently being her true 'sense of self' and so the identity she is comfortable with. Whether this means GB and/or her sense of self is "fucked up", or “stunning and brave“, is not for me to say.
Although they have always been a very small minority, trans people do seem more numerous that they once were. Perhaps they are only more visible, but either way it would be helpful (imho) to understand why a few teens seem fixated on adopting a trans ID, even to the point of surgery. Consensus expert opinion on various matters trans is a work in progress.
As you say, the whole thing is "just so fucked up" – why do they do it?
Why is it apparently so difficult for these teens to simply choose a conforming identity – some flavour of acceptable 'normal'?
Perhaps all sides can take what they need from words spoken 15-years ago.
and no matter how you choose to live, where and with whom, you will not change your sex. You will be male or female. And as a female i would thus like to not see males in female changing rooms, female prison cells, female hospital wards, female sports, female awards and so on.
And i would like for teachers to not socially transition kids that aren't theirs. And i would like for government to not force medical transition as the only healthcare available to kids who questions sex stereo types that they may or may not want to live under.
And i would like for doctors to not castrate and de-sex kids before puberty via chemicals and then via surgery finish the job a few years later. Cause non of that is reversible.
All these males are just that males. Georgina Beyer was nothing more then a male who cut their dick of and wore garments typically associated with females. That was that. And that was all. I can she /her them all day long, but it changes nothing on the fact that Georgina is not a woman, but identifies AS a woman. Georgina is male.
And males thanks to self id do not have to do what Georgina Beyer did in order to become 'woman' – as in human male with a fetish. You can be a woman. You literally just have to state so, and any female will have to be kind to you poor little thing who can't live unless you get to be were literally no one wants you to be. In the Ladies. Go figure. Brave and stunning!!!!!
Consistent with, and following on from my comment @10.2.2.1.1:
I believe that transpeople should be able to adopt a (non-conforming) gender identity that differs from their sex at birth – insisting otherwise seems (to me) punitive and ultimately self-defeating.
I'm opposed to irreversible gender-reassignment therapies for sexually immature people, unless consensus medical opinion indicates a high risk of severe/irreversible self-harm.
I believe that people have the right not to feel threatened, marginalised or otherwise put at risk by the behaviour of a minority of the tiny minority that constitutes the trans community.
That community does, however, have a right to exist – it cannot and should not be unmade. People who decide to leave the trans community should be able to do so on the same basis that they joined – voluntarily.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stunning_and_brave#Usage_notes
That is right.
Stunning and brave they are the most marginalised community ever, the ones that have government, police, academia and health do their bidding at the expense of women – human females of all ages and children in general.
https://twitter.com/womenreadwomen/status/1583356013016907776
So stunning. So brave. And for what its worth, i don't actually consider males who colonise female spaces, and who want to define what 'woman' and 'womanhood' as either brave or stunning. I consider them predatory, fetishistic, rapey and very emotionally and mentally abusive. And i would assume that in about 5 – 10 years time we will have a thousands of young people with no sexual organs, no sexual function, no reproductive organs, low bone density, all sorts of other health problem, mental health problems and a lot of people will say, but They CHOOSE Iit so ultimately they are responsible. Yes….totally.
Just as the surgeon Marcy Bowers that finished the castration process on Jazz Jennings did. You know the boy that got transed into a girl cause he liked his sisters bathing suit and his mum could not bare the idea that they may not be a proper boy and a cousin was a gender therapist and the rest is history faithfully documented on the Learning Channel making millions of dollars. The castration of boys is now entertainment.!!! So progressive.
Chemically castrated at 10 – surgically castrated at 17, and now at 21 one on his fourth revision surgery, obese, huge health issues and all he got for his trouble was the Eunuch Gender. Asexual, no sexual functions, no reproductive rights, nothing. Struggling to find a place in the world that fits him, struggling to tell his family that he struggles.
Just a poor castrated child that never stood a chance as no one dared to call the parents abusive, no one dared to call TLC who made millions of this poor childs abuse abusive and no one still dares to call Marcy Bowers a transwoman himself abusive for doing the job they does. And Marcy Bowers knows the damage they do.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10058951/Leading-transgender-medics-warn-children-given-gender-reassignment-surgery.html
and the interveiw on Bari Weiss substack
https://www.thefp.com/p/top-trans-doctors-blow-the-whistle
We can be kind to transpeople and we can be kind to women. We can have rights specifically for transpeople, and we can have rights for women. We can not however demand that women pretend that males can be women, and then let these males terrorize any woman – human females of all ages if they state that they are uncomfortable with males in their changing rooms, public showers, female swimming hours/sports/awards/competitions/olympic games, female prison cells, female senior housing, female hospital wards and so on and so forth.
As of now we rather call women – human females of all ages – bodies who bleed, bodies who have vaginas, bodies who give birth / are birth giving enabled, cervix havers, uterus havers, menopausers, menstruators, birth givers, afab, just to satisfy the needs of males who are not well in their own bodies and the women – human females will just have to suck it real hard and swallow, lest someone calls them Terfs and wishes violence upon them.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/stunning_and_brave#Usage_notes
No-one has to like transpeople, as a group or as individuals – indeed, that would be pretty difficult if one focused solely on the images and impressions of 'transpeople' presented in The Standard. But they are here, and I'd guess not too many of them are truly awful.
It would be interesting to see where this issue (the "fucked up" transgender 'problem') will be in 80 years time, and if any satisfactory global final solution can be found, but we'll be long gone by then.
I do worry about the future of my (now distant) transgender niblings. They are brave (imho), and (subjectively) not particularly stunning.
Georgina Beyer gives an indication in this episode of Alice Sneddens's Bad News: Terfs.
(For which taxpayers contributed approx $48k for 12 mins.)
https://youtu.be/kQ37Nn5q8ec
"willfully deny" 😆
fuck, I can't believe how bad that video is. I want to Fisk it 😈
sexism, the real kind.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/20/violence-against-women-terrorism-police-met-rapists-murderers?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
women – human females of all ages, are they even human?
We do keep count. "Counting Dead Women".
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/02/the-81-women-killed-in-28-weeks
And we wonder why there's a trend of young females trying to become male…
I don't. I totally understand them.
I'm pretty sure it's not just old-fuddy-duddy bias on my part, but NZ Policing culture has improved greatly in the past decades. UK policing is having its own Louise Nicholls moment, where the longterm rancid internal culture can no longer be hidden. It will take time to change, as it has here.
A low-state government after the next NZ election will no doubt cut police staffing back again, to our detriment, despite the law 'n order hoo-haa being stirred up by right leaning politicos and press. NACT will focus on pushing more people into privatised prisons by increasing sentences and offences. They may even push for politicisation of the police, by introducing elections for Police Commisioners, as in the UK. Don't forget that Luxon rushed over to the UK to have a strategy confab with the Tories soon after getting his spot. Yay, more importation of UK and US 'failed state' libertarian moves for us if the election goes the NACT's way.
A young rapist got 9 month home D for 4 rapes a few month ago. He will out of home d in about 4 – 5 month.
Yeah, we here in Aotearoa totally have that under control, and that young bloke will have learned his lesson and never rape again, cause staying at home for 9 month at mum'n'pops, watching telly eating popcorn and masturbating to some shitty porn is exactly the punishment a serial rapist should get.
That is not a policing issue, that is a youth justice/courts/sentencing issue. The police in this case clearly took him to prosecution in a timely manner. I imagine his family rustled up a fancy lawyer who made all the right noises. I personally thought it was light for such a nasty set of actions, but generally I trust that the NZ judiciary system tries its best.
Despite the current government's woeful tendency to give in under public pressure to media-pushed causes, here the judiciary is acting independently, as it should. The place for judicial reform is not in the social media arena, but in thoughtful legislative and judiciary review. Otherwise, you're asking for cases to be tried and sentenced in the court of public opinion, an opinion often manipulated by those with hidden agendas.
Part of the cacophony of anti-vax anti-government noise comes from external actors who want to break down trust in state procedures, and to destabilise nations. I don't believe I'm being paranoid about this. The day after the invasion of Ukraine, I saw NZ anti-vax social media pages come out with pro-Russia content. Less than 24 hours after, while the Parliament protest was still under way. Almost identical content over several sites. Certainly not independently derived opinion from the posters. Anti-vax, anti-government conspiracies and pro-Russia position spread by the same sources worries me.
I'm more cautious now about government and state-process issues that blow up through social media and are picked up by the press. Especially when NZ scores high on social freedoms and government transparency. Change in our law and its implementation needs to follow proper process, not just be driven by outrage-of-the-day. Good cheese and good government both take time.
The police literally makes the case for the court. If the police does not make a case it does not go to court. So yeah, it is a policing issue, firstly and then the justice system is equally useless, in the meantime people get raped.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/91052680/10-years-on-police-rape-survivor-louise-nicholas-welcomes-final-commission-of-inquiry-report-response
Wasn't just my feeling that things had improved after Louise Nicholls' horrendous complaints of police corruption were finally dealt with.
Incredible.
The anti-woke and
slightlyheavily racist Dr. Caftan, after years of shredding Jacinda Ardern for being too right wing but also too left wing has cut and pasted today a thought piece on Chippy, quoting hard right wing dabblers, Luke Mouthpiss and Matty Hooters.Everyone says Hipkins will be a better PM than the best thing to happen to NZ politics in three generations.
The author of this crappy article is, as by nature, at sixes and sevens throughout. Still, it appears he's pumping the new PM to be the final solution to the Ardern problem which will no doubt have misogynist white boomers clinking crystal.
As if out of the Transvaal, this sick puppet actually said, “woman of colour” because he couldn’t bring himself to say Māori or Polynesian. Red flag right there.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/bryce-edwards-prime-minister-chris-hipkins-resets-labour-to-the-right/G3I23PBIO5H4JIN6ZFJNUA3PYE/
it shows how much attention is payed to policing others language by the woke. “Person of colour” is the preferred term in UK and America (a ridiculous term in my opinion)
but here “women of colour” is wrong speak
thats identify politics for you.
Well, you have admitted it is a ridiculous term.
as is person with uterus. or person with vagina. or pregnant people.
Any time we can not name something/someone properly for fear of offending someone who may or may not be that person, or of color, we just show how odious and idiotic is.
And yet, we do it. Lest we not be 'inclusive'.
Stupid, so stupid that he’ll never suspect that he's stupid.
https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1616112728581763073
https://twitter.com/MacFarlaneNews/status/1616184957403295745
Sounds like me in 4th form on 3rd declension Latin. 🙁
Or in my case, school C and quadratic equations.
I got into a bad situation at a usually protected unnamed beach north of Auckland. It was during the strong easterlies around New Year,
Watched some young people swim 50-60m to a pontoon in a heavy swell and thought I'd like to do that. The lad and I started out but two thirds of the way there I realised I was not comfortable. I know this beach and have swum to that pontoon dozens of times. But that day was different.
When you get into that situation all energy is devoted to trying to get to a point of safety and to keep breathing. The more exhausted you get the harder it is to not take on seawater. The need to keep going forward to safety does not sit well with keeping your head above water.
There are people all around me including my own boy but it becomes terrifying and I am only 10m away from the pontoon. I look out for my child in this heaving water thinking they are in trouble too. Dreadful situation.
We reach the pontoon and I lie down, shocked. The short trip out was into the wind and swell. I assured myself the return would be easier.
It wasn't. The same exhaustion crushed me 20 meters from shore but it was a steep beach and still I couldn't touch the sand. One gulp of water and I am done. Constantly looking out for the precious kid.
Near disaster but two things could have avoided it. One, don't feel like you have to swim because it's your only chance this summer. Two, study hard people's condition after they do the swim you want to do. In hindsight I could see they found it very hard and I should have recognised that.
The difference between life and death in NZ coastal waters is only minutes into a bad decision.
Stay safe.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300789577/spate-of-auckland-tragedies-two-people-dead-at-piha-beach
Bless you MB. I for one am glad you are still here.
I had a similar experience years ago….floating on my back and drifting out beyond the waves on a beach I (thought) I knew well. Next thing I knew two life guards are beside me. I look to shore, I am miles away, caught by a rip. So I set off closer in to shore with them and very glad too.
My take away was that even on days when the waves are tiny, going out beyond them is always a risk. That floating and drifting is not an experience for beach swimming, we must keep ourselves aware and safe and observant at all times.
Thanks, Shanreagh.
It felt like a very personal story to post on this site, but also very important because it's a real experience. Several people have had similar experiences in the water since, and are now dead.
Easily the closest I have been to drowning and it all happened within the space of 15 mins in a normally sheltered bay only 50m offshore.
God bless Jacinda for her compassion and her service.