Mike Feinberg from KIPP (Knowledge is Power Programme) is coming to New Zealand next week to promote charter schools for the ACT/National government. KIPP provides a hideous caricature of quality edcuation for kids from low-income communities in the US. Here is a snippet from a KIPP school which gives the flavour of what goes on provided by education researcher Howard Berlak after a recent visit to a KIPP school in San Francisco:
“When I was there children who followed all the rules were given points that could be exchanged for goodies at the school store. Those who resisted the rules or were slackers wore a large sign pinned to their clothes labeled “miscreant.” Miscreants sat apart from the others at all times including lunch, were denied recess and participation in all other school projects and events.
. . . . I’ve spent many years in schools. This one felt like a humane, low security prison or something resembling a locked-down drug rehab program for adolescents run on reward and punishments by well meaning people. Maybe a case can be made for such places, but I cannot imagine anyone (including the Times reporter) sending their kids there unless they have no other acceptable options. What is most disturbing is the apparent universal belief by KIPP staff and partisans that standardized tests scores are the singular and most important measure of a truly good education. ”
Remember this when you hear Feinberg the glossy salesman..
Thanks for that Tony. Of course some Nz teachers use a punishment/reward system though they don’t call it “punishment” but call it “consequences.” (Heard of Benching?) Not as extreme as the indefensible KIPP system of course.
“When I was there children who followed all the rules were given points that could be exchanged for goodies at the school store. Those who resisted the rules or were slackers wore a large sign pinned to their clothes labeled “miscreant.” Miscreants sat apart from the others at all times including lunch, were denied recess and participation in all other school projects and events.
run on reward and punishments by well meaning people. Earlier this week I mentioned the nasty authoritarian streak we have in this country: given the “poor are responsible for their own state” attitudes Feinberg will get a ready audience.
I had the misfortune this week (it was the only station the car radio would pick up whilst driving round Auckland) to listen to 15 minutes of Leighton (?dont know his name but “the Excrable” will do) rant about how we need to take responsibility and kill people who don’t have warrants and rego. FFS. To that we are reduced.
No. “Kill” is my metaphor for his desire to punish, he did say words to the effect of confiscate cars, fine $000s dollars etc. The whole thing centred on Leightons desire to make the citizen take “responsibility” whatever that means, and rather than being persuaded and enabled to do so the citizen was to be whipped into compliance. All very misanthropic and coercive.
Got into a major argument last night with a loved one who was regurgitating the talk-back hate-speech that she listens to practically all the time, and quoting from Ian frakking Wishart’s latest nasty, ignorant mixture of untruths and spin.
Probably shouldn’t have in the circumstances, but it’s not just talk but a means of aggression against targetted scapegoats, and I can’t always stay cool in the face of it.
Personal responsibility. The new metric of the right. Despite the recent
Law series on TV7 that clearly made the case against arguments of virtue.
The problem is the turd blossom. Which is a two step, any lie must be
two lies facing each other off.
Romney would not be as rich and as successful were it not for the
structure and nature of the peoples of the USA, so he makes out like a
Randian superhero that he never had to take no frigging handouts….
…then he shouts out that the other 50% are losers needing the
government. Exactly how long would Romney last in Haiti?
Yesterday in the welfare debate, a government MP declared that
the reforms to welfare will reduce criminality. Well actually he
said more like welfare reforms would do away with fraud.
The two lies, one that there is fraud, not the lapse in personal
responsibility of welfare recipients too many that is fraudulent,
and that the reforms which would see more lose entitlements
(like ACC model) would not create more crime and more costs on
the state from illhealth, etc.
Look I’m the first person who would welcome the goal of helping
people into work, but that’s not what the welfare reforms do, their
purpose is to lower the short-term costs of welfare, and raise them
in the medium to long term (when Key has left power).
Why do they hate so much? Why does Romney low America but
hate most Americans? Why does Key hate our grandkids, why
are we bequeathing the coming generations with a resource crisis,
climate crisis, social and debt crisises????
Personal responsibility is a core part of the NZ psyche. The only difference the Left needs to deliver is a social and economic environment where taking personal responsibility delivers substantial rewards.
100,000 NZers would start work on Monday if there were $15/hr jobs available. Its our failure as a society that they aren’t.
There’s plenty of work which desperately needs to be done in our community. But our current economic structures means fuck all of that work can be structured as paid jobs.
There’s plenty of work which desperately needs to be done in our community. But our current economic structures means fuck all of that work can be structured as paid jobs.
Our current structures means that things only get done if an owner is making a profit from someone else’s work. If that’s not happening then it doesn’t get done.
Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others originate those feelings.
They probably don’t even realise that they’re projecting their own failings onto others.
The “hate” is twinned with “fear”… they hate so much because there’s so much they’re afraid of. The system peddles fear and hate for control… dense emotions that are easy to tap the group conscious into. “Fight or flight” and by the time TPTB have bashed your life around the block a few times… many have no fight left.
Radio New Zealand is reporting that NZ was one of only two countries to vote against protection measures (banning gill and trawling nets) for the endangered Maui Dolphin. Although the vote was confidential the New Zealand DOC representative apparently announced that they were under instructions from the Ministry of Primary Industries to oppose the proposal.
Mauis dolphins are iconic in New Zealand and are facing extinction. It seems the Government does not care.
When you add this to the recent cabinet decision to oppose antarctic protection proposed by the US you get the feeling of a regime that it belligerently opposed to environmental measures just because profitability may be affected.
Neil Abel describes Joyce, Carter and Brownlee as “the dark heart of the anti-environment policy.”
In a telling passage he states
“There is a spirit of anti-environmental policy in our present administration which is centred on an interpretation of economics that has lead to the mine, drill, frack, cut, sell, build-a-road-through-it and ‘let the devil take the hindmost’ strategies that are the extent of our Government’s development inspiration in nearly four years of power.
An economy that relies on the steady degradation, destruction and using-up of its natural resources cannot by definition bring lasting human prosperity. ”
The reserve bank has gone back wards on inflation control ( returning to the outmoded 2% target .our dollar will now remain higher than need the money speculators will have a field day as they already are we are one of the few dumb arse countries that don’t play the devaluation game the speculators know this so its easy money for them.
Also of concern is the change in culture at DOC in the last decade. There are still many good people working in DOC, but there is now an ingrained institutional problem, where conservation is segmented, and often takes second place to supposed economic priorities. I’m not sure how many people realise the shift that has happened.
Why is DOC taking instructions from the Ministry of Primary Industries?
Its environmental fraud by parliamentarians, when they degrade the future environment
for short term profits for a few private companies. Their lack of concern is a fraud
on the people of NZ who lose environmental wealth, future prosperity from tourism
and natural wealth (clean water, biodiversity)….
We are living through an age now typified by massive environmental fraud.
I have this song running in my head EVERY time I hear about the lack of environmental accountablity by this government: Midnight Oil put it nicely…
The tucker box is empty now
The heart of Kelly’s country cleared
The gangers on the southern line
Like the steam trains have disappeared
Pelicans glide
Miracles up in the skies
We vote for a government
With axes in it’s eyes
Mountains of Burma
The road to Mandalay
In the mountains of Burma
Light years away
Mountains of Burma
Will the sons of Solidarity
Still march on May Day ?
Will the sisters of the seventies
Still fight for equal pay
There’s no-one on the Reeperbahn
No more blankets handed out for land
We feed an economy
It’s got blood on it’s hands
Mountains of Burma
The road to Mandalay
Mountains of Burma
Light years away
In the mountains of Burma
The road to Mandalay
In the mountains of Burma
Hope you’re light years away
Pack your bags full of guns and ammunition
Bills fall due for the industrial revolution
Scorch the earth till the earth surrenders
Soldiers of armies
Storm empty fields
In a traveller’s trance
On the way to the high frontier
Sleepwalkers stumble
Cable cars run aground
Imaginary enemies
Form high above the clouds
It may be about the lucky country, but it is just as applicable here.
Mauis dolphins are iconic in New Zealand and are facing extinction. It seems the Government does not care.
This government doesn’t care about the environment or, indeed, life itself – they only care about getting more money for themselves and their rich mates.
An economy that relies on the steady degradation, destruction and using-up of its natural resources cannot by definition bring lasting human prosperity.
No respect for life, it will be a loss to NZ, and our souls.
They are beautiful creatures who understand, “All for one M8”.
And I will miss them if they go.
Serco – the company currently running one NZ prison in a PPP and contracted to do the same in the new prison being built in South Auckland, currently under scrutiny in the UK for falsifying data in relation to a contract for after hours medical treatment:
PROTEST AGAINST US SECRETARY OF DEFENCE LEON PANETTA!
TODAY! FRIDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2012
1 – 3PM
OUTSIDE GRAFTON RD ENTRANCE TO AUCKLAND DOMAIN (WAR MEMORIAL)
(ALONG FROM AK HOSPITAL ENTRANCE)
AT 2.45PM US SECRETARY OF DEFENCE LEON PANETTA WILL BE LAYING A WREATH INSIDE AT THE AUCKLAND HALL OF MEMORIES!
If YOU are opposed to this John Key National/ACT Government cosying up to the USA – BE THERE! (If you can!)
(Media have been alerted)
Penny Bright
[lprent: It might have to do with the capitals and repeated explanation marks. I know that when I see them my immediate response is to throttle the noise. I’m sure that if I were coding facebook, I’d get a bit of code to do it for me. ]
I suspect the wreath laying is not centre stage and that the main PR exercise is the powhiri & meeting at Government House with Coleman.
Key, in fact doesn’t meet up with Panetta until tomorrow for a barbecue lunch. How big a media event that barbecue is going to be I couldn’t say.
No doubt, America enjoys being referred to as No. 1.
As for terroism, perhaps your susceptible to the theory (which I’ve just made up) that the deliberate sinking of the Lexington (one of the missing carriers from Pearl Harbour) by a US destroyer 900 km NE of Rockhampton, was a “false flag” operation designed to inflame anti-Japanese sentiment in Australia & NZ. This then paved the way for the arrival of the 1st Marine division in NZ 3 months later.
(The marines then went on to Guadalcanal, & this being the 70th anniversary of that campaign, nicely brings us back to the wreath laying)
So, what’s your preference for the future?
Cut diplomatic ties?
Cut trade?
Ban American film & TV? (please exempt “Breaking Bad”)
Hi Penny. The post is up on fb. On the Stuff.co.nz fb page there is a ‘posts by others’ button. This takes you to a separate display of posts. There is also a ‘post by friends button’ More separstist behaviour in the media.
the lunartic is Off the grass( one week, researchers, and unsettling)
Corrections staff are identifying less staff ratio/increased physical and sexual assaults in Serco prisons.
“supported living” is preferable to in-valid; yet still more freakin labels upon people
Kapiti local bodies requesting Booze Barn be a “responsible’ corporate citizen;”oxymoron”.
(what is it about this government that they desire to keep facilitating the pouring of ethanol down our young people’s throats, clouding their brains and setting them up for failures and damage?)
let us not take our eyes of that which is above us-Fermi paradox (thanks DtB, had forgotten that one)
(He is everywhere and everything to me-Third Day,Öfferings)
-follow another human and u will only see their shadows on the cave wall
now, Kapital is ‘flying’ out of France (surprise, surprise) and yet the tax reforms only affect 1000’s
along with increasing suggestions of the challenges for demokracy by free speech
yet is speech free when cliches, platitudes and populist jingos etc are resorted thru?
Wittgenstein (in 90 minutes with a cup-a-tea)
I am about to commence “The Great Partnership”-Jonathan Sacks
after that? “Changing the World Through Kindness”
(gotta brace myself for the Anatomy of Human Destructiveness-Erich Fromm)
is it just a blog? may be a distributed mind..now,… there are a whole-lotta-thoughts Rosie
re telegraphing punches? Politics Is a dirty business (soiled) seeds fall where the may,
some on the path, some amongst rocky places, some amongst the thorns,
yet,
many fall on good soil (just saying)
-many of the “cats” have softened their look, yet cats still claw and bite
however, our glorious leader is still poncing about like some thing from The Great Gatsby/Vile Bodies
“When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice” Act 16:19
-years ago, when i was in treatment, WINZ staff acknowledged even then, that many people in New Zealand Aotearoa (thats one of my tells) would require supplementary redistributed income to flesh out what they earned through employment
The idiot editor is clearly basing her assumption that beneficiaries won’t be bashed by the government’s repressive welfare policy changes on nothing more than her own ivory tower ignorance…
Couldn’t agree more, I subscribed to the Listener for more than 30 years, gave it up prior to the 2008 election when it became overloaded with right wing apologists.
Bit harsh Dr T, it still has some good stuff that it probably copy’s paste’s from better outlets but it defenitely took a right turn politically some years ago with NACT spinsters like Billie (how to break a working engine) Ralston and Jane (you have diplomatic immunity) Clifton.
Most publications serving their masters interests did..
Anyone done some objective analysis on the publications the NZX swallowed up under Mr Smarmy boy Weldon’s watch to see if tone/direction has altered…..they were mainly rural publications that had some anti Fonterra listing angles at times… funny that.
You do realize that the Council OK’d the POAL policy to kick the Union workers in the guts captain hook? Any pretext of caring that Len Brown showed when it became apparent in the media that POAL are a bunch of nasty bastards was simply grandstanding. The mayor will do nothing!
He can’t bud, it’d be shareholder vote stuff, not a singular individuals’ call.
And while the actual definition of “Shareholder” remains ambiguous, everyone keeps missing the point.
It’s a power stuggle between the people who have that implied power and the ones they represent.
The Chasers crew returns to ABC on Oz TV monday with their “Hamster Wheel”
‘The timing of last year’s episodes turned out to be a gift, coinciding with another chapter in the long-running Julia Gillard-Kevin Rudd leadership saga, the circus of an anti-carbon-tax rally in Canberra led by Sydney radio shock-jock Alan Jones, and the appointment of blowhard conservative Paul Henry to lead Channel Ten’s (failed) assault on the breakfast-TV market.’
AND
‘If A Current Affair was the gift to us in 2006, Paul Henry is the gift to us in 2012,” Licciardello says. ”He’s an interesting media performer because he’s both intentionally and unintentionally funny.’
berny d I know that but the management have managed to convince themselves that they are the owners when they are not.
they need to be removed so that decent people with the public good at heart are installed.
this charade must stop and the thieves relieved of their positions.
Of course it is important that the company keep going because Auckland is a major entrepot but that does not mean that jumped up accountants can sit there and scheme on how to take it out of public ownership and into their own grubby little hands.
What the fuck is going on in this world?
basis for the “sun”: maybe it is all wind
btw, the reignited fatwa upon Rushdie may not be the Moor’s last sigh
“they” label the ‘left’ ‘thought police’: how about thought facilitators?
to the Social Security recipient ‘label-ers’; do ‘they’ consider all the voluntary intellectual and vocational services many recipients of Social Security provide to Their community??
Yep. 5 new State Houses for the Chathams. Are they considering Transportation as mentioned by an earlier poster?
The liberalisation of retail (FDI) in Indian is very sad. How many times must the sub-continent be colonised?
interestingly, an Indian aquaintence informed me that many Indians go into Health Professions out of
Vocational Altruism
(Brahmen respect falling-maybe the Aryan taint)
Apparently live-stock thefts are ever-increasing in Hawkes Bay and gutted carcasses left near residential areas. Man, imo, this type offence is likely to get worse.
Max Keiser on RT continuously discusses the eventuation of Gold Standard-based currencies once more. May be why there are so many newspaper advertisements seducing people to relinquish theirs. (as is often stated, u cannot eat it though) Nom Nom!
John Bradshaw on “The Family”
Love? Agape`
Hookie! $13.50 may buy 1-6 second-hand books
i pray all these new educationalists serving masters are instilling Self-mastery
Can u own a “Gravitional Conflagration” ?, question of the day?
Go Winston Peters: At least he’s trying to contribute too informed debate.
Go Greens: They’re always civilised.
Go Labour: Their questions are designed to inspire constructive debate.
Go Mana: Their responses are designed too inform us and contribute too constructive debate
Go Everyone else: There’s a civilised debate happening.
Go Nats: We don’t debate, we “Lead M8”, (Pending debate)
to the Social Security recipient ‘label-ers’; do ‘they’ consider all the voluntary intellectual and vocational services many recipients of Social Security provide to Their community??
Compassion for other people is relatively easy, relatively speaking. Compassion for oneself, not so easy. Which person can love the other by not wishing to change them?
The labellers suffer from a deficit or lack of compassion for themselves. Which person can love themselves by not wishing to change anything?
Aspiration – to what? Imperfection? More perfect than perfection itself? “…do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Mathew 6 :3
“Heaven arms with compassion those it would not see destroyed”.
The labelled need to understand that they can reject the label and stop the cycle. Though in our “christian times” the labelled have their work cut out. It won’t stop the hate banging on the windows, but at least it can be seen as outside banging on the windows, no need to invite it in.
“Sleep without dreaming, awake without anxiety.”
No one need do anything to make oneself worthy in the eyes of another; do only for the other, anything else is by-product, not focus.
“…do not worry …for the day is its own trouble.” Mathew 6 : 25 – 34
New Zealand is the only country to vote against further protection for the critically endangered Maui’s dolphins at the world’s largest conservation summit.
Well, we now know, without a doubt, where this governments priorities lie and it isn’t in maintaining life on this world.
The Antarctic Ocean Alliance released maps earlier today that show that New Zealand’s proposal will maintain the status quo, leaving the majority of the Ross Sea’s biodiversity hotspots and the most heavily fished areas open and vulnerable to exploitation.
I think we can assume that this government will say that they’re putting in place protections for the environment but what they will actually mean is that they’ll be putting in place protections for the fishing industry.
Does our vote against mean that the protection will not go ahead?
Well, I don’t think it was actual international law that was being voted upon so we’re not bound by it.
Strange new species discovered off South America, The Planet is still trying for us.
Speaks volumes about the Tenacity of the Life engine we live on.
She’d even work with us given a quantified chance.
But it has to be a real, future oriented request.
The will is obvious, life will continue.
If thats the spieces I think you are referring to, you can be reasonably assured that unless its some kind of hoax, that it came from a laboratory somewhere!`
paraphrased- “…the 21st Century conception of the world is one of 3rd Century before Christ;..the age of the Stoics, Sceptics, Cynics, and above all, the Epicurean.”
-The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning.-Jonathan Sacks.
(is shaping up to be a really helpful book, …if one is interested. consistency being the hobgoblin of the small minded and all that-Emerson)
nah.
kweewee doesn’t really understand what that word means.
as soon as the whole National Party realises that he and his gang only represent themselves then he is dead meat.
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"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
Last night, a British court ruled that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US. Unfortunately, its not because all he is "guilty" of is journalism, or because the offence the US wants to charge him with - espionage - is of an inherently political nature; instead the judge accepted ...
Is the Gender Identity Movement a movement for human liberation, or is it a regressive movement which undermines women’s liberation and promotes sexist stereotypes? Should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sport, use women-only spaces (public toilets, changing rooms, other facilities), be able to have access to everything ...
Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of BirminghamSpace exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. The coming year is shaping up to be just as interesting. Here are some of ...
Michael Head, University of SouthamptonThe UK has become the first country to authorise the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for public use, with roll-out to start in the first week of 2021. This vaccine is the second to be authorised in the UK – following the Pfizer vaccine. The British government ...
So, Boris Johnson has been footering about in hospitals again. We should be grateful, perhaps, that on this occasion the Clown-in-Chief is only (probably) getting in the way and causing distractions, rather than taking up a bed, vital equipment and resources and adding more strain and danger to exhausted staff.Look at ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to ZeroThat’s one of several recent ...
The situation in the UK is looking catastrophic.Cases: over *70,000* people who were tested in England on 29th December tested positive. This is *not* because there were more tests on that day. It *is* 4 days after Christmas though, around when people who caught Covid on Christmas Day might start ...
by Don Franks For five days over New Year weekend, sixteen prisoners in the archaic pre WW1 block of Waikeria Prison defied authorities by setting fires and occupying the building’s roof. They eventually agreed to surrender after intervention from Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi. A message from the protesting men had stated: ...
Lost Opportunity: The powerful political metaphor of the Maori Party leading the despised and marginalised from danger to safety, is one Labour could have pre-empted by taking the uprising at Waikeria Prison much more seriously. AS WORD OF Rawiri Waititi’s successful intervention in the Waikeria Prison stand-off spreads, the Maori ...
Dear friends, it’s been a covidious year,A testing time for all of us here—Citizens of an island nationIn a state of managed isolation,A team (someone said) five million strong,Making it up as we went along:Somehow in typical Kiwi fashion,Without any wild excess ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Dec 27, 2020 through Sat, Jan 2, 2021Editor's Choice7 Graphics That Show Why the Arctic Is in Trouble Arctic Sea Ice: NSIDC It’s no secret that the Arctic is ...
One of the books I read in 2020 was She, by H. Rider Haggard (1887). I thoroughly enjoyed it, as being an exemplar of a good old-fashioned adventure story. I also noted with amusement ...
Scottish doctor Malcolm Kendrick looks at the pandemic and the responses to it 30th December 2020 I have not written much about COVID19 recently. What can be said? In my opinion the world has simply gone bonkers. The best description can be found in Dante’s Inferno, written many hundreds of ...
I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or the numbers seem very low please check this out. After correcting send me the URL for your ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
Understanding the connection between chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘long Covid’ might be helpful in treating symptoms that doctors will find all too easy to dismiss.When people began to report signs of “long Covid”, characterised by a lack of full recovery from the virus and debilitating fatigue, I recognised their stories. ...
Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her.I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of ...
Summer reissue: In the final episode of this season of Bad News, Alice is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to look at how well we’re honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2020.First published September 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
Lucy Revill’s The Residents is a blog about daily life in Wellington that has morphed into a stylish, low-key coffee-table book featuring interviews and photographic portraits of 38 Wellingtonians. In this extract, Revill profiles Eboni Waitere, owner and executive director of Huia Publishers. The Residents features names like Monique Fiso ...
Pacific Media Watch correspondent The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader. A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the ...
“Last year ACT warned that rewarding protestors at Ihumātao with taxpayer money would promote further squatting. We just didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it is in Shelly Bay” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The prosperity of all ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Program Director, Centre for Policy Development, and Associate Professor of Education, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Childcare centres across Australia are suffering staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Many childcare workers across Australia left when parents started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rhetoric plays an important role in tax debate and therefore tax policy. If your side manages to gain traction in the public imagination with labels such as “death ...
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission* Whoever leads the Republican Party post-Trump will need to consider how they will maintain the rabid support of his “base”, while working to regain more moderate voters who defected from the party in the 2020 election. In a historic ...
Covid-19 fears accelerated banks’ moves towards cashless transactions. But the Reserve Bank is fighting to protect cash, and those who still use it. ...
Good morning and welcome to this one-off edition of The Bulletin, covering major stories from the last few weeks.A quick preamble to this: Today’s special edition of The Bulletin is all about filling you in on some of the stories you might have missed over the summer period. Perhaps you had ...
Summer reissue: In this episode of Bad News, Alice Snedden is forced to confront her own mortality before hosting a very special dinner party to get to grips with the euthanasia debate.First published August 27, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
The contrast between the words of John F Kennedy and today’s anti-democratic demagogue is inescapable, writes Dolores Janiewski I still remember three eloquent speeches by an American president. One happened in January 1961 and spoke about a “torch being passed to a new generation”. Two years later and one day apart, ...
The debate over cutting down a large macrocarpa to make way for a new residential development has highlighted a wider agreement between developers and protesters: that we also need to be planting far more trees. At the corner of Great North Road and Ash Street in Avondale, a 150-year-old macrocarpa stands its ground ...
More infectious variants of Covid-19 are increasingly being intercepted at the country’s borders, but the minister running New Zealand’s response is resisting pressure to accelerate vaccination plans despite demands from health experts as well as political friends and foes, Justin Giovannetti reports.New Zealand’s first Covid-19 jabs will be administered in ...
As CEO of her iwi rūnanga, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was on the frontline protecting her community during the first outbreak of Covid-19. Now that more virulent strains threaten to breach our borders, the Māori Party co-leader calls on the government to introduce much stricter measures.As we enter the New Year I ...
The Prada Cup challenger series starts today. Suzanne McFadden goes behind the scenes of the world's only live yachting regatta to see what's in store for the next five weeks. At 6am on race days, Iain Murray wakes up and immediately checks the weather outside his Auckland window. “It’s all ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raquel Peel, Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland This story contains spoilers for Bridgerton The first season of Bridgerton, Netflix’s new hit show based on Julia Quinn’s novels, premiered on December 25 last year. The show is set in London, during the ...
The New Zealand government believes its own negotiations with Rio Tinto will be resolved "fairly quickly" now there is certainty about the future of the Tiwai Point smelter. ...
Amanda Thompson and her family are attempting to cut back on the meat, so they gave all the vego sausies the local supermarket had to offer a hoon on the barbie. Here are the results.I was a vegetarian once. Even the best of us take a well-meaning wrong turn on ...
The Taxpayers’ Union welcomes the call by Wellington City Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons for a shift to land value based rates charges. Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "Local government leaders across the country should join in Fitzsimons’s call ...
It’s been described as ‘pointless revenge’, but impeaching the president has a firm moral purpose, argues Michael Blake – setting a limit to what sorts of action a society will accept.A House majority, including 10 Republicans, voted today to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection”. The vote will initiate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bryan Cranston, Lead Academic Teacher – Politics & Social Science (Swinburne Online), Swinburne University of Technology In a historic vote today, Donald Trump became the only US president to be impeached twice. By a margin of 232–197, the Democrat-controlled US House of ...
Hurrah. The PM is back to posting her announcements on the government’s official website, her deputy is back in the business of self-congratulation, Rio Tinto is back in the business of sucking up cheap electricity to produce aluminium at Tiwai Point, near Bluff. And overseas students (some, anyway) can come ...
The electricity sector, Government and people of Southland are rejoicing after Tiwai Point aluminium smelter owner Rio Tinto announced the major industrial would be open until the end of 2024, Marc Daalder reports Stakeholders in the electricity sector and across Southland are celebrating the extension of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter's ...
If you’ve been on social media this week, you may well have come across a surge in interest in sea shanties. We asked a veteran of the style why. In case you missed it, soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum. If that sentence is even ...
“It is basic human decency to speak up and protect any vulnerable child from harm, so withholding information in child abuse cases and allowing the abuse to happen by not speaking up is, put simply, a cowardly move,” says Jess McVicar Co-Leader ...
Allowing 1,000 returning international students back to New Zealand is the right move by the Government, and hopefully we will be able to welcome more, says ExportNZ Executive Director Catherine Beard. "International education has contributed ...
A majority of the House of Representatives have voted to make Donald Trump the first US president ever to be impeached twice, formally charging him in his waning days in power with inciting an insurrection just a week after a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Follow the ...
The Youth of NZ will be standing up for climate action once again on January 26th outside of Parliament for School Strike 4 Climate NZ’s 100 Days 4 Action campaign rally. “We believe it is vital to hold our new Labour-led government to account ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Rotorua Lakes District Council to urgently release the engineering report on the public safety and structural integrity of the visible foundation-misalignment and lean of the City’s Hemo Gorge monument to government ...
Changes in income and movement in and out of poverty over time are only weakly associated with higher rates of child hospitalisation in New Zealand, according to a new University of Auckland study. Published today in PLOS ONE, the collaborative study led by Dr ...
With a long, hot summer upon us, pet owners are urged to be extra mindful of their pet’s health and safety. Unusually warm weather can quickly take its toll on furry family members, who aren’t well equipped for dealing with blazing heat. The National ...
The Council for Civil Liberties is challenging a claim by former National Party leader Simon Bridges that people should have total freedom of expression on Twitter. ...
A century of sexual abuse of women in New Zealand is analysed in a University of Auckland study. The newly-published research looks back as far as 1922 by analysing interviews with thousands of women about their lifetime experiences. The study indicates ...
62,686 more native trees will be planted in New Zealand in 2021 thanks to generous Kiwis who chose to go green for Christmas gifting. <img src="https://img.scoop.co.nz/stories/images/2101/cf409712f141732a8543.jpeg" width="720" height="540"> Trees That Count, a programme ...
Source: Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Analysis-Reportage By Arturo López-LevyOakland, CaliforniaUnfortunately, the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, encouraged by the Inciter-in-Chief, will not be the last act of mischief. Trump is insisting on causing as much damage as possible to the interests and values ...
This was amusing:
(Nick Clegg apologising with subtitles)
Funny how satire can be so true.
From John Minto
Mike Feinberg from KIPP (Knowledge is Power Programme) is coming to New Zealand next week to promote charter schools for the ACT/National government. KIPP provides a hideous caricature of quality edcuation for kids from low-income communities in the US. Here is a snippet from a KIPP school which gives the flavour of what goes on provided by education researcher Howard Berlak after a recent visit to a KIPP school in San Francisco:
“When I was there children who followed all the rules were given points that could be exchanged for goodies at the school store. Those who resisted the rules or were slackers wore a large sign pinned to their clothes labeled “miscreant.” Miscreants sat apart from the others at all times including lunch, were denied recess and participation in all other school projects and events.
. . . . I’ve spent many years in schools. This one felt like a humane, low security prison or something resembling a locked-down drug rehab program for adolescents run on reward and punishments by well meaning people. Maybe a case can be made for such places, but I cannot imagine anyone (including the Times reporter) sending their kids there unless they have no other acceptable options. What is most disturbing is the apparent universal belief by KIPP staff and partisans that standardized tests scores are the singular and most important measure of a truly good education. ”
Remember this when you hear Feinberg the glossy salesman..
Thanks for that Tony. Of course some Nz teachers use a punishment/reward system though they don’t call it “punishment” but call it “consequences.” (Heard of Benching?) Not as extreme as the indefensible KIPP system of course.
A genius like the late Gore Vidal would most certainly have been labelled a “miscreant” during his detested schooling days!
Ha, what do you mean “would most certainly have”? Her certainly was.
My giddy aunt! That’s insane…
run on reward and punishments by well meaning people. Earlier this week I mentioned the nasty authoritarian streak we have in this country: given the “poor are responsible for their own state” attitudes Feinberg will get a ready audience.
I had the misfortune this week (it was the only station the car radio would pick up whilst driving round Auckland) to listen to 15 minutes of Leighton (?dont know his name but “the Excrable” will do) rant about how we need to take responsibility and kill people who don’t have warrants and rego. FFS. To that we are reduced.
Did he really say kill? Or was it a general description of acts that would lead to someone not breathing?
No. “Kill” is my metaphor for his desire to punish, he did say words to the effect of confiscate cars, fine $000s dollars etc. The whole thing centred on Leightons desire to make the citizen take “responsibility” whatever that means, and rather than being persuaded and enabled to do so the citizen was to be whipped into compliance. All very misanthropic and coercive.
Got into a major argument last night with a loved one who was regurgitating the talk-back hate-speech that she listens to practically all the time, and quoting from Ian frakking Wishart’s latest nasty, ignorant mixture of untruths and spin.
Probably shouldn’t have in the circumstances, but it’s not just talk but a means of aggression against targetted scapegoats, and I can’t always stay cool in the face of it.
Personal responsibility. The new metric of the right. Despite the recent
Law series on TV7 that clearly made the case against arguments of virtue.
The problem is the turd blossom. Which is a two step, any lie must be
two lies facing each other off.
Romney would not be as rich and as successful were it not for the
structure and nature of the peoples of the USA, so he makes out like a
Randian superhero that he never had to take no frigging handouts….
…then he shouts out that the other 50% are losers needing the
government. Exactly how long would Romney last in Haiti?
Yesterday in the welfare debate, a government MP declared that
the reforms to welfare will reduce criminality. Well actually he
said more like welfare reforms would do away with fraud.
The two lies, one that there is fraud, not the lapse in personal
responsibility of welfare recipients too many that is fraudulent,
and that the reforms which would see more lose entitlements
(like ACC model) would not create more crime and more costs on
the state from illhealth, etc.
Look I’m the first person who would welcome the goal of helping
people into work, but that’s not what the welfare reforms do, their
purpose is to lower the short-term costs of welfare, and raise them
in the medium to long term (when Key has left power).
Why do they hate so much? Why does Romney low America but
hate most Americans? Why does Key hate our grandkids, why
are we bequeathing the coming generations with a resource crisis,
climate crisis, social and debt crisises????
Personal responsibility….likes J Banks takes for his actions, or P Bennett for hers, or sideshow john for the many lies he’s perpetrated etc etc.
They’ve got the hypocrasy so ingrained it’s second nature to them.
Personal responsibility, code for the desire to punish, subjugate and dominate.
Personal responsibility is a core part of the NZ psyche. The only difference the Left needs to deliver is a social and economic environment where taking personal responsibility delivers substantial rewards.
100,000 NZers would start work on Monday if there were $15/hr jobs available. Its our failure as a society that they aren’t.
There’s plenty of work which desperately needs to be done in our community. But our current economic structures means fuck all of that work can be structured as paid jobs.
Our current structures means that things only get done if an owner is making a profit from someone else’s work. If that’s not happening then it doesn’t get done.
++1 Draco
Psychological Projection
They probably don’t even realise that they’re projecting their own failings onto others.
“Vital Lies, Simple Truths”- The psychology of Self-Deception, is a populist paperback
-said the joker to the thief..
(not meaning u D.)
Why do they hate so much…?
The “hate” is twinned with “fear”… they hate so much because there’s so much they’re afraid of. The system peddles fear and hate for control… dense emotions that are easy to tap the group conscious into. “Fight or flight” and by the time TPTB have bashed your life around the block a few times… many have no fight left.
Radio New Zealand is reporting that NZ was one of only two countries to vote against protection measures (banning gill and trawling nets) for the endangered Maui Dolphin. Although the vote was confidential the New Zealand DOC representative apparently announced that they were under instructions from the Ministry of Primary Industries to oppose the proposal.
Mauis dolphins are iconic in New Zealand and are facing extinction. It seems the Government does not care.
When you add this to the recent cabinet decision to oppose antarctic protection proposed by the US you get the feeling of a regime that it belligerently opposed to environmental measures just because profitability may be affected.
Neil Abel describes Joyce, Carter and Brownlee as “the dark heart of the anti-environment policy.”
In a telling passage he states
“There is a spirit of anti-environmental policy in our present administration which is centred on an interpretation of economics that has lead to the mine, drill, frack, cut, sell, build-a-road-through-it and ‘let the devil take the hindmost’ strategies that are the extent of our Government’s development inspiration in nearly four years of power.
An economy that relies on the steady degradation, destruction and using-up of its natural resources cannot by definition bring lasting human prosperity. ”
A very apt description of this Government.
The reserve bank has gone back wards on inflation control ( returning to the outmoded 2% target .our dollar will now remain higher than need the money speculators will have a field day as they already are we are one of the few dumb arse countries that don’t play the devaluation game the speculators know this so its easy money for them.
Well, that’s going to push interest rates up which will make the banks happy – more money for them from printing the stuff.
Also of concern is the change in culture at DOC in the last decade. There are still many good people working in DOC, but there is now an ingrained institutional problem, where conservation is segmented, and often takes second place to supposed economic priorities. I’m not sure how many people realise the shift that has happened.
Why is DOC taking instructions from the Ministry of Primary Industries?
Its environmental fraud by parliamentarians, when they degrade the future environment
for short term profits for a few private companies. Their lack of concern is a fraud
on the people of NZ who lose environmental wealth, future prosperity from tourism
and natural wealth (clean water, biodiversity)….
We are living through an age now typified by massive environmental fraud.
I have this song running in my head EVERY time I hear about the lack of environmental accountablity by this government: Midnight Oil put it nicely…
The tucker box is empty now
The heart of Kelly’s country cleared
The gangers on the southern line
Like the steam trains have disappeared
Pelicans glide
Miracles up in the skies
We vote for a government
With axes in it’s eyes
Mountains of Burma
The road to Mandalay
In the mountains of Burma
Light years away
Mountains of Burma
Will the sons of Solidarity
Still march on May Day ?
Will the sisters of the seventies
Still fight for equal pay
There’s no-one on the Reeperbahn
No more blankets handed out for land
We feed an economy
It’s got blood on it’s hands
Mountains of Burma
The road to Mandalay
Mountains of Burma
Light years away
In the mountains of Burma
The road to Mandalay
In the mountains of Burma
Hope you’re light years away
Pack your bags full of guns and ammunition
Bills fall due for the industrial revolution
Scorch the earth till the earth surrenders
Soldiers of armies
Storm empty fields
In a traveller’s trance
On the way to the high frontier
Sleepwalkers stumble
Cable cars run aground
Imaginary enemies
Form high above the clouds
It may be about the lucky country, but it is just as applicable here.
‘There is a spirit of anti-environmental policy in our present administration ..’ and anti democracy, anti evidence/fact based policy etc etc
It’s that Hollowman policy that’s never uttered in public, only in private gov’t, dining, golf, leisure, business settings etc etc
This government doesn’t care about the environment or, indeed, life itself – they only care about getting more money for themselves and their rich mates.
QFT
No respect for life, it will be a loss to NZ, and our souls.
They are beautiful creatures who understand, “All for one M8”.
And I will miss them if they go.
Serco – the company currently running one NZ prison in a PPP and contracted to do the same in the new prison being built in South Auckland, currently under scrutiny in the UK for falsifying data in relation to a contract for after hours medical treatment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/sep/20/serco-nhs-false-data-gps
URGENT!!!!
(For some reason – can’t post this on facebook)
PROTEST AGAINST US SECRETARY OF DEFENCE LEON PANETTA!
TODAY! FRIDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2012
1 – 3PM
OUTSIDE GRAFTON RD ENTRANCE TO AUCKLAND DOMAIN (WAR MEMORIAL)
(ALONG FROM AK HOSPITAL ENTRANCE)
AT 2.45PM US SECRETARY OF DEFENCE LEON PANETTA WILL BE LAYING A WREATH INSIDE AT THE AUCKLAND HALL OF MEMORIES!
If YOU are opposed to this John Key National/ACT Government cosying up to the USA – BE THERE! (If you can!)
(Media have been alerted)
Penny Bright
[lprent: It might have to do with the capitals and repeated explanation marks. I know that when I see them my immediate response is to throttle the noise. I’m sure that if I were coding facebook, I’d get a bit of code to do it for me. ]
Penny, are you really surprised you can’t post that on Facebook?
It would be nice if you could show respect for the fallen by taking your protest somewhere else, like the consulate.
It would be nice if Key could show respect for the fallen by taking his PR exercise with a VIP from the world’s No. 1 terrorist state somewhere else.
+1
I suspect the wreath laying is not centre stage and that the main PR exercise is the powhiri & meeting at Government House with Coleman.
Key, in fact doesn’t meet up with Panetta until tomorrow for a barbecue lunch. How big a media event that barbecue is going to be I couldn’t say.
No doubt, America enjoys being referred to as No. 1.
As for terroism, perhaps your susceptible to the theory (which I’ve just made up) that the deliberate sinking of the Lexington (one of the missing carriers from Pearl Harbour) by a US destroyer 900 km NE of Rockhampton, was a “false flag” operation designed to inflame anti-Japanese sentiment in Australia & NZ. This then paved the way for the arrival of the 1st Marine division in NZ 3 months later.
(The marines then went on to Guadalcanal, & this being the 70th anniversary of that campaign, nicely brings us back to the wreath laying)
So, what’s your preference for the future?
Cut diplomatic ties?
Cut trade?
Ban American film & TV? (please exempt “Breaking Bad”)
I’d say all of the above, especially the last, but that’s just me!
+ 100,000!
Key and his lot are, as usual, hoping to have it both ways as concerns relations with the US and China. Again, a very dangerous bit of gambling!
Hi Penny. The post is up on fb. On the Stuff.co.nz fb page there is a ‘posts by others’ button. This takes you to a separate display of posts. There is also a ‘post by friends button’ More separstist behaviour in the media.
the lunartic is Off the grass( one week, researchers, and unsettling)
Corrections staff are identifying less staff ratio/increased physical and sexual assaults in Serco prisons.
“supported living” is preferable to in-valid; yet still more freakin labels upon people
Kapiti local bodies requesting Booze Barn be a “responsible’ corporate citizen;”oxymoron”.
(what is it about this government that they desire to keep facilitating the pouring of ethanol down our young people’s throats, clouding their brains and setting them up for failures and damage?)
let us not take our eyes of that which is above us-Fermi paradox (thanks DtB, had forgotten that one)
(He is everywhere and everything to me-Third Day,Öfferings)
-follow another human and u will only see their shadows on the cave wall
now, Kapital is ‘flying’ out of France (surprise, surprise) and yet the tax reforms only affect 1000’s
along with increasing suggestions of the challenges for demokracy by free speech
yet is speech free when cliches, platitudes and populist jingos etc are resorted thru?
Wittgenstein (in 90 minutes with a cup-a-tea)
I am about to commence “The Great Partnership”-Jonathan Sacks
after that? “Changing the World Through Kindness”
(gotta brace myself for the Anatomy of Human Destructiveness-Erich Fromm)
is it just a blog? may be a distributed mind..now,… there are a whole-lotta-thoughts Rosie
re telegraphing punches? Politics Is a dirty business (soiled) seeds fall where the may,
some on the path, some amongst rocky places, some amongst the thorns,
yet,
many fall on good soil (just saying)
-many of the “cats” have softened their look, yet cats still claw and bite
however, our glorious leader is still poncing about like some thing from The Great Gatsby/Vile Bodies
“When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them to the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice” Act 16:19
-years ago, when i was in treatment, WINZ staff acknowledged even then, that many people in New Zealand Aotearoa (thats one of my tells) would require supplementary redistributed income to flesh out what they earned through employment
Nice summary M8!
Am I missing something but Bryce Edwards Political Roundup seems to have stopped with Tueday 18 September “Tide Turns against Banks.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10834800
Maybe he’s waiting for some News.
Edwards said something last week about taking a bit of a break from daily round-ups.
I wonder how much currency trading John Key does these days.
I wonder what bets he’s taken on the NZD.
Listener editor government apologist
The idiot editor is clearly basing her assumption that beneficiaries won’t be bashed by the government’s repressive welfare policy changes on nothing more than her own ivory tower ignorance…
Nobody with a little intelligence would subscribe to the Listener.
Couldn’t agree more, I subscribed to the Listener for more than 30 years, gave it up prior to the 2008 election when it became overloaded with right wing apologists.
Me too, mismatched statistics, two of the top columnists in bed with top nats, Bill Railston raving on, etc, etc.
Me too. I read my sister’s copy of a Listener recently and had no regrets about my cancellation of the sub about 2 years ago.
Richard Prebble does a column every so often, too.
Bit harsh Dr T, it still has some good stuff that it probably copy’s paste’s from better outlets but it defenitely took a right turn politically some years ago with NACT spinsters like Billie (how to break a working engine) Ralston and Jane (you have diplomatic immunity) Clifton.
Most publications serving their masters interests did..
Anyone done some objective analysis on the publications the NZX swallowed up under Mr Smarmy boy Weldon’s watch to see if tone/direction has altered…..they were mainly rural publications that had some anti Fonterra listing angles at times… funny that.
so has Len Brwon got the intestinal fortitude to fire the management of P.O.A. L.
when is he going to do it?
You do realize that the Council OK’d the POAL policy to kick the Union workers in the guts captain hook? Any pretext of caring that Len Brown showed when it became apparent in the media that POAL are a bunch of nasty bastards was simply grandstanding. The mayor will do nothing!
He can’t bud, it’d be shareholder vote stuff, not a singular individuals’ call.
And while the actual definition of “Shareholder” remains ambiguous, everyone keeps missing the point.
It’s a power stuggle between the people who have that implied power and the ones they represent.
The Chasers crew returns to ABC on Oz TV monday with their “Hamster Wheel”
‘The timing of last year’s episodes turned out to be a gift, coinciding with another chapter in the long-running Julia Gillard-Kevin Rudd leadership saga, the circus of an anti-carbon-tax rally in Canberra led by Sydney radio shock-jock Alan Jones, and the appointment of blowhard conservative Paul Henry to lead Channel Ten’s (failed) assault on the breakfast-TV market.’
AND
‘If A Current Affair was the gift to us in 2006, Paul Henry is the gift to us in 2012,” Licciardello says. ”He’s an interesting media performer because he’s both intentionally and unintentionally funny.’
berny d I know that but the management have managed to convince themselves that they are the owners when they are not.
they need to be removed so that decent people with the public good at heart are installed.
this charade must stop and the thieves relieved of their positions.
I hear ya, but like I said, who’s going to instigate the shareholder vote?
The workers union just needs to keep operating in good faith.
“Trustworthy” is a 2 way street, if the company itself has funding issues, it should be open about that at the negotiating table.
And as long as they keep paying, the workers are gauranteed too continue, it is their livelihoods afterall.
The company itself will continue to function. That’s the objective surely?
Of course it is important that the company keep going because Auckland is a major entrepot but that does not mean that jumped up accountants can sit there and scheme on how to take it out of public ownership and into their own grubby little hands.
What the fuck is going on in this world?
basis for the “sun”: maybe it is all wind
btw, the reignited fatwa upon Rushdie may not be the Moor’s last sigh
“they” label the ‘left’ ‘thought police’: how about thought facilitators?
to the Social Security recipient ‘label-ers’; do ‘they’ consider all the voluntary intellectual and vocational services many recipients of Social Security provide to Their community??
Yep. 5 new State Houses for the Chathams. Are they considering Transportation as mentioned by an earlier poster?
The liberalisation of retail (FDI) in Indian is very sad. How many times must the sub-continent be colonised?
interestingly, an Indian aquaintence informed me that many Indians go into Health Professions out of
Vocational Altruism
(Brahmen respect falling-maybe the Aryan taint)
Apparently live-stock thefts are ever-increasing in Hawkes Bay and gutted carcasses left near residential areas. Man, imo, this type offence is likely to get worse.
Max Keiser on RT continuously discusses the eventuation of Gold Standard-based currencies once more. May be why there are so many newspaper advertisements seducing people to relinquish theirs. (as is often stated, u cannot eat it though) Nom Nom!
John Bradshaw on “The Family”
Love? Agape`
Hookie! $13.50 may buy 1-6 second-hand books
i pray all these new educationalists serving masters are instilling Self-mastery
remember the is/ought fallacy too Tory Trolls
(John Key, the man who sold the world)
Can u own a “Gravitional Conflagration” ?, question of the day?
Go Winston Peters: At least he’s trying to contribute too informed debate.
Go Greens: They’re always civilised.
Go Labour: Their questions are designed to inspire constructive debate.
Go Mana: Their responses are designed too inform us and contribute too constructive debate
Go Everyone else: There’s a civilised debate happening.
Go Nats: We don’t debate, we “Lead M8”, (Pending debate)
Demotics Bud (Uturn to thank for that one) never forget a-muse
btw, let us all stare at the S(u)n.hee hee
Compassion for other people is relatively easy, relatively speaking. Compassion for oneself, not so easy. Which person can love the other by not wishing to change them?
The labellers suffer from a deficit or lack of compassion for themselves. Which person can love themselves by not wishing to change anything?
Aspiration – to what? Imperfection? More perfect than perfection itself? “…do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” Mathew 6 :3
“Heaven arms with compassion those it would not see destroyed”.
The labelled need to understand that they can reject the label and stop the cycle. Though in our “christian times” the labelled have their work cut out. It won’t stop the hate banging on the windows, but at least it can be seen as outside banging on the windows, no need to invite it in.
“Sleep without dreaming, awake without anxiety.”
No one need do anything to make oneself worthy in the eyes of another; do only for the other, anything else is by-product, not focus.
“…do not worry …for the day is its own trouble.” Mathew 6 : 25 – 34
all ways, compassion, moderation (work in progress) and humility (more work in progress)
-acculturated memory fades over time. U started it!
love your neighbour as yourself is easy-peasy; it is the hurtful, harmful Romans that lead me to want overturn the tables of the money-exchangers
Heke tipu oranga, he taonga tuku iho, ka pakanga ake, aue te aiotanga, te manawanui.
-Persist in the battle and journey for wellbeing, it is a treasure handed down from the heavens, then comes confidence and peace.
Te Mauri Ora!
As Parata releases the National Standards data she just reveals what was already known and her Government refuses to address the real causes of under achievement. Of course the cheapest solution is to just blame the teachers again.
http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/09/natiional-standards-solve-nothing.html
People really need to watch this documentary. It’s about the level of extinctions going on right now.
Dolphin vote ‘tarnishes NZ’s reputation’
Well, we now know, without a doubt, where this governments priorities lie and it isn’t in maintaining life on this world.
Something is not right with this – Who else voted, where is the full list, and what does it mean in terms of the votes made supposedly from NZ.
Does our vote against mean that the protection will not go ahead?
More details required!
Well, considering this:
I think we can assume that this government will say that they’re putting in place protections for the environment but what they will actually mean is that they’ll be putting in place protections for the fishing industry.
Well, I don’t think it was actual international law that was being voted upon so we’re not bound by it.
Strange new species discovered off South America, The Planet is still trying for us.
Speaks volumes about the Tenacity of the Life engine we live on.
She’d even work with us given a quantified chance.
But it has to be a real, future oriented request.
The will is obvious, life will continue.
If thats the spieces I think you are referring to, you can be reasonably assured that unless its some kind of hoax, that it came from a laboratory somewhere!`
Breaking The Set is a new current affairs/news show on RT to replace the Alyona Show…worth a watch.
paraphrased- “…the 21st Century conception of the world is one of 3rd Century before Christ;..the age of the Stoics, Sceptics, Cynics, and above all, the Epicurean.”
-The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning.-Jonathan Sacks.
(is shaping up to be a really helpful book, …if one is interested. consistency being the hobgoblin of the small minded and all that-Emerson)
US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta is staying at Langham Hotel – 83 Symonds St Auckland City (close to K Rd)
http://auckland.langhamhotels.co.nz/locate/location_map.htm
PROTEST & SHOW THAT NOT ALL NZers SUPPORT COSYING UP TO THE U$A!
OUTSIDE LANGHAM HOTEL
83 SYMONDS ST
8pm – 10pm!
PLEASE FORWARD!
A few of us had an effective protest outside the entrance to the Domain (where Panetta laid a wreath at 2.45pm at the Auckland Hall of Memories).
The entourage could not miss these banners – both going into and coming out of the Domain.
(Got coverage on TV1 )
Will bring same banners tonight!
WHO CAN COME?
IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT!!!
Arguably the most significant US visit for 30 years?
Thanks
Penny Bright
National standards results out today don’t look too flash. John Key should be taking urgent steps to improve them.
Maybe Keys visit to the Chatham’s found that national could learn some new standards.
http://www.cic.govt.nz/community.html
nah.
kweewee doesn’t really understand what that word means.
as soon as the whole National Party realises that he and his gang only represent themselves then he is dead meat.
Nothing effective will be done.
PROTEST AGAINST U$A SECRETARY OF STATE LEON PANETTA, OUTSIDE THE LANGHAM HOTEL FRIDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2012!
Penny Bright