Open mike 22/01/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, January 22nd, 2024 - 69 comments
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69 comments on “Open mike 22/01/2024 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    22 January 2024 at 6:44 am

    Melting permafrost is poisoning Alaska's rivers.

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-are-alaskas-rivers-turning-orange/

    If this doesn't scare you about about climate change, I don't know what would.

  2. Ad 2
    22 January 2024 at 8:12 am

    National are perfectly positioned to use Labour's comprehensive research work and legislative framing on water governance and management.

    Pretty much everything minus the co-governance.

    Looking forward to the nationwide debate on volumetric charging in the rural councils.

    • Robert Guyton 2.1
      22 January 2024 at 9:41 am

      Are they perfectly positioned to meet the legal challenges from iwi as a result of "minus the co-governance"?

    • Dennis Frank 2.2
      22 January 2024 at 12:24 pm

      Radical conservative dudester sends signal:

      Brown said he would be implementing the Local Water Done Well policy this year which was about working with councils and giving them "greater tools and opportunities to have ring-fenced, sufficient, water-service delivery funding and financing".

      But councils would also have to provide their own plans to government, once the legislation was in place, he said.

      He's made a lunge for aeshetic appeal: not only do fences not need to be rings, any true conservative would cling like hell to the straight line.

      The minister said councils were responsible for water investment and he wanted to know whether the water rates they have been raising from ratepayers have been going directly back into water infrastructure.

      Brown said he would be implementing the Local Water Done Well policy this year which was about working with councils and giving them "greater tools and opportunities to have ring-fenced, sufficient, water-service delivery funding and financing". But councils would also have to provide their own plans to government, once the legislation was in place, he said.

      This idea that a policy ought to be followed by appropriate action seems guaranteed to win the wee fella a reputation as an extreme radical. yes

      https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/507244/serious-concerns-about-councils-ability-to-manage-water-issues-minister

      • Ad 2.2.1
        22 January 2024 at 1:05 pm

        I have real skepticism that rural councils with high industrial dependence on water that don't have volumentric water charging will be courageous and face farmers down.

        Minister Brown knows he is in the frame for it, but he needs a really big drought to focus everyone's mind.

        If ordinary NZ residents used the same amount of water as our dairy farms, we would have a population of about 60 million people. Let's see if the same people as StopThreeWaters are prepared to roll over National for similar reasons.

      • SPC 2.2.2
        22 January 2024 at 4:13 pm

        Brown is being told by Infrastructure New Zealand that Local Water Done Well is no where enough.

        Moroney said (water body) financial independence from councils will allow them to borrow to fund significant backlogs in asset renewal and replacement.

        She said in the meantime it was likely that central government will need to consider credit wrapping council water services and providing bridging funding until the new entities were established and self-sufficient.

        Infrastructure NZ was also recommending volumetric water charges be explored so that, like other utilities such as telecommunications and electricity, consumer demand could be better managed and a direct service-related revenue stream created.

        https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2024/01/three-large-north-canterbury-fires-under-control-to-be-investigated.html?ref=ves-nextauto

  3. Ad 3
    22 January 2024 at 8:13 am

    Perhaps I'm a lone voice on the left, but I don't think the Treaty arrangements will last the 2040 Bicentennary unless we are prepared to face some fresh legislation on how it's relevant now.

    Black letter originalism will serve New Zealand about as well as it does in the United States.

    • Cricklewood 3.1
      22 January 2024 at 10:43 am

      We definitly need to find a way to have the conversation and modernize the treaty arrangements to better reflect society. The trick will be figuring out how the hell we do it.

      • bwaghorn 3.1.1
        22 January 2024 at 11:58 am

        I agree it needs a massive revamp with all parties ,especially Maori at the table, but you just know that isn't where act are coming from!!

    • Dennis Frank 3.2
      22 January 2024 at 12:34 pm

      Has seemed that way since I realised it 30 years ago but the response to Sir Geoffrey's reconstitutionalising campaign suggests that few kiwis are capable of intellectual progress. First off, everyone must factor in the equality demographics that put our 16% asian import group on parity with 16% Maori.

      Labour & National remain dead keen on getting the Asians up & over that parity threshold – just another left/right collusion thing. However they both have failed to man up to the ethnic justice consequences of their immigration policies.

      The normalcy of left/right paralysis is a key feature of our ongoing stasis. Folks do other stuff instead of noticing this phenomenon, so I only mention it in the spirit of public service. Better for everyone to get real about what's going on! The SJW syndrome has taken a beating in the public mind due to idiocy contagion but it remains an essential stance.

      • Descendant Of Smith 3.2.1
        22 January 2024 at 1:11 pm

        "First off, everyone must factor in the equality demographics that put our 16% asian import group on parity with 16% Maori."

        Why? Makes no sense. All that means is that you can use immigration volumes to diminish the Maori voice and influence. Exactly what happened post treaty and how much of the land was stolen. Immigrant interests put ahead of Maori. The history of this is all there plain to see.

        It is exactly why it has to be a partnership – a joint approach between Maori and the crown. It is why we need Maori seats in parliament, it is why we need Maori seats on councils and so on.

        The thing is all those who seem to want a "discussion" seem opposed to the nature of a partnership are are fixated on individualistic approaches of one person one vote. This is capitalistic. The notion that a Maori voice could be larger than its sum of people is clearly a problem for some, but it must be so in a modern context of the treaty and the massive levels of immigration that has occurred since then.

        Reminder too that much of the opposition to Maori was capitalism against their communistic tendencies e.g. collective ownership of land.

        The treaty only had two parties to it. It is time they worked together as equals for the betterment of the country.

        • Dennis Frank 3.2.1.1
          22 January 2024 at 1:50 pm

          Makes no sense

          Only if you discount the civil rights of asians. However it's up to them to lobby for parity or complain about de facto discrimination.

          I don't disagree with the rest of your comment but advise caution around the one-nation syndrome ACT are promoting – no suitable poll has measured belief in the holist/fundamentalist paradigm. It could come in around 30% of voters.

          The sensible thing for the left & right to do is avoid measuring the public mind. Continue the fraudulent attempt to misrepresent it instead will be common ground Labour & National keep on colluding upon.

          • Descendant Of Smith 3.2.1.1.1
            22 January 2024 at 2:31 pm

            I see no difference between the civil rights of Asians and those of Europeans – we're all here because the Treaty allows it. We all vote in those to represent us.

            (Appreciating the fact that previously European immigrants discriminated against Asians and other multitude of groups).

            one-nation syndrome ACT are promoting

            I don't even see how that was relevant to my comment. I'm clearly opposed to that being the only paradigm – in a democracy we elect people to look after not just the majority but also minorities and special interest groups. The tyranny of the majority is well purported to be evil.

            Linked to that is also why I detest legislation passed under "urgency".

            • bwaghorn 3.2.1.1.1.1
              22 January 2024 at 3:29 pm

              I see no difference between the civil rights of Asians and those of Europeans

              Most modern immigrants are dual citizenship holders(something I detest)

              Where.as most euro kiwis on have 1 country to call home.

              • Descendant Of Smith …
                22 January 2024 at 4:47 pm

                Really. Pretty much every person, family and otherwise, I am aware of kept their UK citizenship and passport, after emigrating here. Both old and recent. People like my father-in-law used to deliberately travel out on one passport and back on the other to sow confusion with government systems.

                NZ allows dual citizenship. Given some of our immigration disasters we would likely have less immigrants from places like India if they had to give up their citizenship as India does not allow dual citizenship if living in India.

                Anyway last census gave info about country of birth.

                Country of birth
                Asia 447,168
                UK and Ireland 260,280
                Pacific Islands 160,248
                Middle East and Africa 103,620
                Europe 83,580
                Australia 58,535
                North America 35,382
              • Jilly Bee …
                22 January 2024 at 7:37 pm

                bwaghorn – my husband emigrated to Aotearoa N Z in 1962 as a $10 Pom which didn't necessitate him having a passport to enter. We travelled to UK in 1998, hubby on a UK passport. He has since let it lapse and is now a very proud Kiwi with citizenship and a A-NZ passport. I suppose he could reapply for a UK passport, but he has no intention of doing so and due to our 'mature' age we have no intention of travelling to UK or pretty much anywhere.

              • Obtrectator …
                22 January 2024 at 9:21 pm

                Like Jilly Bee's husband I'm entitled to a UK passport (by right of birth) and so is Obtrectatrix (by patriality). Neither of us has bothered to obtain or renew one this many decades (seen the cost of 'em lately?). All it ever gained us was a slightly quicker passage through Customs and Immigration at Heathrow.

  4. Descendant Of Smith 4
    22 January 2024 at 8:32 am

    One practical thing we can do this year as non-Maori is to join Maori at the local treaty signing celebrations to show that we are in this together. It seems to me over the years Maori place much, much greater importance on this at a local level – whereas pakeha seem content with just the national event at Waitangi to represent them.

    Would be great to see a much larger non-European contingent at all events. A peaceful sort of protest and an acknowledgement to Maori that we value the treaty too.

    • Robert Guyton 4.1
      22 January 2024 at 9:36 am

      Agreed.

      I'm going to Te Rau Aroha Marae at Motupohue/Bluff, for the Te Waipounamu event.

  5. mikesh 5
    22 January 2024 at 9:00 am

    Starmer thinks that NATO will be at war with Russia within 20 years.

    Sir Keir Starmer has warned that "Russia is a constant threat" and that we must be "mindful of that threat from Russia to Europe." The Labour leader was speaking during a visit to British troops de…

    And some accuse Putin of paranoia !!??

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/350152552/nato-warns-all-out-war-russia-next-20-years

    • UncookedSelachimorpha 5.1
      22 January 2024 at 9:31 am

      It is more the (correct) accusation of him repeatedly invading and slaughtering his neighbours, that worries people.

      Putin's initially offhand comment that "Russia's borders do not end anywhere", now repeated on official russian propaganda bill boards – I suppose means nothing.

      • mikesh 5.1.1
        22 January 2024 at 11:27 am

        A recent posting, to the Counterpunch website, concerning the origins of the cold war, seems to have a bearing on the Ukraine war.

        Fleming’s testimony in the 1971 House hearings on “Cold War? Origins and Developments” gives us another way of thinking about the way the crisis in Ukraine might have been managed by the United States in 2022. A knowledge of Russian history might have given our leaders pause before acting on the idea of NATO expansion to that country’s borders, an obvious apple of discord for a people thrice traumatized by the invasions so vividly described by Fleming. If the goal of our policy in Ukraine had been peace and stability in that part of the world instead of the absorption of that country into our own system, we would have followed his recommendation in dealing with Russia, to show a good deal more diplomatic imagination and sensitivity than a militarized foreign policy allows.

        https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/01/19/d-f-flemings-and-arnold-toynbees-lessons-of-russian-history-as-a-way-of-understanding-the-war-in-ukraine/

        Though not specifically about the Ukraine war, I think it is well worth a read.

      • Dennis Frank 5.1.2
        22 January 2024 at 12:38 pm

        Might be time to get those cannon back into their slots in Auckland's North Head fortifications? They went in originally due to general paranoia about the Tsar's imminent invasion, so Putin's just recycling imperial foreign policy.

        • joe90 5.1.2.1
          22 January 2024 at 1:39 pm

          The Balts know.

          Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia agreed on Friday to set up a common Baltic defense zone on their borders with Russia and Belarus amid growing security concerns.

          The defense ministers of the three Baltic countries met on Friday in Riga to approve the construction of "anti-mobility defensive installations" on their eastern frontiers. They also agreed to develop missile-artillery cooperation.

          Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur stressed the need for bunkers at the border, saying: “Russia's war in Ukraine has shown that in addition to equipment, ammunition and manpower, we also need physical defensive structures at the border from the first meter to protect Estonia."

          https://www.politico.eu/article/latvia-lithuania-estonia-common-defense-zone-russia-border-security-concerns/

    • Morrissey 5.2
      22 January 2024 at 9:43 am

      Starmer has no credibility whatsoever when it comes to human rights. Kitty Laing summed him up precisely on LBC radio the other day. Her criticism stands, in spite of the groveling apology she was forced to make…

      Laing also deleted her Instagram after using her account to call UK's Labour Party leader Keir Starmer a "total moral coward" for invoking Israel's “right to defend" itself on his LBC radio show.

      Laing has apologized and stated, "With hindsight I realize how naïve I have been and that much of the information on social media surrounding the conflict is unsubstantiated and hurtful."

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/rosaescandon/2023/10/26/united-agents-head-of-comedy-apologizes-for-israel-posts-amid-conflict/

    • SPC 5.3
      22 January 2024 at 11:53 am

      An actual war would be a failure of containment, the reason NATO exists was to prevent a war with the USSR/Soviet Union over borders.

      George Kennan would have welcomed the end of the Warsaw Pact, with the end of the Communist Internationale aspect of Kremlin imperialism, while aware American hubris could result in a revival of an aggressive Russian nationalism.

      And it is unlikely NATO will exist in its current form in 20 years time.

      The greatest risk being American isolationism.

      There is the chance of a EU having its own military and defence agreements with Russia and the remnant of NATO (UK/Norway/Canada and USA).

      Equivalence being no American or Russian missiles in Turkey or Cuba (1962), no missiles in W and E Europe (198*) and no American or Russian forces in Europe (20**).

      Russia gains the most from the change, though politicians lose the nationalism card and the importance of a strong military declines (part of their current status in the world).

  6. Morrissey 6
    22 January 2024 at 9:30 am

    RNZ National's coverage of international events is a continuing insult

    Monday 22 January 2024

    On the 7 a.m. news: the death toll in the latest "mowing of the lawn" in the Gaza concentration camp has exceeded 25,000. In a small but welcome change, the newsreader (Nicola Wright) did not add the usual propaganda provocation (almost certainly dictated by that notorious RNZ board) "according to the Hamas-run health authority."

    However, that small sign of resistance by one of the poor souls forced to read this awful stuff was instantly negated when she read out her next sentence: "The conflict began in October when Hamas militants killed more than thirteen hundred people."

    That's a lie. It's naked propaganda that might as well have come straight out of that blood-soaked regime in Tel Aviv. There was no acknowledgement in that "news report" that more than 300 of the people killed in the October 7 breakout were IOF soldiers. And there was no mention of the fact that a large number of the Israeli deaths were because their homes and cars were fired on by Israeli troops, who were ordered to follow the dictates of the disturbing "Hannibal directive" and kill everybody in the vicinity of an attacker, in order to prevent hostage-taking.

    This distortion of reality passing for news has persisted, in respect to the slaughter in Gaza, for more than three months now. But it's not the only case where RNZ has shown contempt for its audience. The panicked reaction of its board after one journalist tried to put a little context into the station's coverage of the Ukraine proxy war was an occasion for international scorn and derision….

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1669228835936632832.html

    • Ed 6.1
      22 January 2024 at 9:49 am

      I look at Al Jazeera – just can't bear the bias and the shallowness of RNZ's reporting.

      • Morrissey 6.1.1
        22 January 2024 at 9:52 am

        It's usually very good on Israel-Palestine. But its coverage of Syria is as bad and as biased as anything in the U.S. or Britain.

    • Kay 6.2
      22 January 2024 at 9:53 am

      Nicola Wright wasn't the newsreader this morning. Karen McCarthy (IIRC)

      • Morrissey 6.2.1
        22 January 2024 at 4:55 pm

        Thanks, Kay. I thought after I posted that it might have been Catriona McLeod. All of them are virtually indistinguishable, with their flat, carefully affectless tone reading out material they surely know is propaganda. Or maybe it just doesn't bother them.

        I listened to Marama T'Pole read the 2 p.m. news today; for the first item she read for nearly a minute from a press release by ACT ninny David Seymour, then featured him speaking, or more precisely, rambling, for about fifteen seconds; for the second, she read out, again for an extended period, Mr. Netanyahu's attempt to justify his refusal to negotiate with the "monsters" of Hamas. In neither case was there any counter-argument reported.

        Any dissent at all seems to have been eliminated at RNZ. It was a different story when someone of character and conscience, like Lloyd Scott, was there…

        https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-10052013/#comment-630836

    • weston 6.3
      22 January 2024 at 12:21 pm

      RNZ news this morn etc ; although i did notice they said " health ministry figures say"…….where as previously they invairyably read "Hammas controlled gaza health ministry figures "

      is that a shift ?

  7. Ad 7
    22 January 2024 at 9:40 am

    I hadn't realised this:

    "… Finance Minister Nicola Willis's husband, Duncan Small, was a senior manager at Air NZ and has worked for CIAL on the Tarras airport project."

    ‘Bribery, bullshit and bullying’. Why plans for an international airport in Tarras have become so controversial. | The Post

    Also Simeon Brown is studiously neutral on CIAL's intent despite the government owning 25% of it.

    With Luxon likely contaminated being an ex-AIRNZ CEO, the Minister of Finance conflicted out, and Simeon Brown silent, it makes it very hard for any future decision to be "called in" by a relevant Minister.

    This political integration would also make special enabling legislation very difficult to propose in Cabinet let alone Parliament.

    So that says this proposed new South Island airport is heading straight to Environment Court.

    The business case decision will put unusual weight on the Canterbury Holding Company, worse than the Dunedin stadium decision did on their own holding company.

    I suspect this debate will grow this year.

  8. Dennis Frank 8
    22 January 2024 at 12:52 pm

    Shane smells a rat, yet doesn't seem to realise that the public service play was aimed at making Seymour look a fool (not all that hard).

    "I like my documents from the bureaucracy to be pithy and not written as manifestos. https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/22/shane-jones-odd-mixture-of-treaty-iwi-mania-rippling-around/

    I guess if life necessitates reading the advice of a bureaucrat, stylistic critique is a suitable response. However public servants will see it as an affront: they have as much right to issue a political manifesto as any other stroppy citizen.

    I expect Shane has got them in a tizz right now. They may even be bristling with indignation! surprise

  9. Peter 9
    22 January 2024 at 1:08 pm

    The insanity of US politics. Some of the economic indicators are good and it's not because whatever is happening is good, it's because Trump is going to be elected? What?

    Americans as much as anywhere deserve the politicians they get.

    • tc 9.1
      22 January 2024 at 2:00 pm

      I always thought the handmaids tale wasn't all that far from a potential reality with the faith based divide it depicts in America.

      The true believers are very committed to what they believe in be it orange45, god, guns etc

      • Ad 9.1.1
        22 January 2024 at 4:23 pm

        The Handmaid's Tale has much closer analogue in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, UAE, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, African countries from Mali and Somalia upwards, most of India, all of China during the 1-child policy era (with leader and Party worship), and in a small-state form Tonga.

  10. Anne 10
    22 January 2024 at 5:01 pm

    So, the weasel thinks his interpretation of the ToW is the correct one and the rest of NZ is wrong. He had better not come within spitting distance of me:

    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/507272/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-partnership-a-misinterpretation-david-seymour-believes

    • SPC 10.1
      22 January 2024 at 6:05 pm

      What David Seymour says

      “It is a document that founds New Zealand as a country, where in

      Article 1 the government has the right to govern,

      in Article 2 we each have the right to tino rangatiratanga – the right to flourish in self-chosen ways

      – and in Article 3 we all have nga tikanga katoa rite tahi, or the same.”

      https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/te-tiriti-o-waitangi-partnership-a-misinterpretation-david-seymour-believes/XLWOW3CAIZDJFNXUNKLVTB3MAI/

      How he gets that from this is the mystery. He is not competent to lead any debate.

      What does the Treaty say?

      The Treaty has three articles.

      In the English version, Māori cede the sovereignty of New Zealand to Britain;

      Māori give the Crown an exclusive right to buy lands they wish to sell and, in return, are guaranteed full rights of ownership of their lands, forests, fisheries and other possessions;

      and Māori are given the rights and privileges of British subjects.

      The Treaty in Māori was deemed to convey the meaning of the English version, but there are important differences.

      Maori version

      Most significantly, in the Māori version the word ‘sovereignty’ was translated as ‘kawanatanga’ (governance).

      Some Māori believed that the governor would have authority over the settlers alone; others thought that were giving up the government over their lands but retaining the right to manage their own affairs.

      The English version guaranteed ‘undisturbed possession’ of all properties, but the Māori version guaranteed ‘tino rangatiratanga’ (full authority) over ‘taonga’ (treasures, which can be intangible).

      The precise nature of the exchange within the Treaty of Waitangi is a matter of debate.

      https://nzhistory.govt.nz/politics/treaty/treaty-faqs

    • Obtrectator 10.2
      22 January 2024 at 9:36 pm

      In recognition of his suddenly-important Maori heritage, I propose we rechristen the ACT party leader as Tewi Seymour. (Or "Rawiri", or any of the other equivalents to "David" that appear to exist in Te Reo.)

  11. Robert Guyton 11
    22 January 2024 at 6:07 pm

    How to get there (remix)

    “The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…”

    Epictetus

  12. weka 12
    22 January 2024 at 6:49 pm

    Good lord, I finally read this piece by Trotter and I’m thinking the challenge is with the nominal left as well as the reactionary right. The politics of fear.

    https://democracyproject.substack.com/p/when-push-comes-to-shove

    • Muttonbird 12.1
      22 January 2024 at 8:50 pm

      I said in a previous comment this could have been written by Hitler himself.

      What I don't understand is how VUW lend their name to this hatred. Particularly when the Democracy Oligarchy Project's Bryce Edwards seeks and receives obscure funding and also runs a paid substack platform.

      Nothing democratic about it.

      • weka 12.1.1
        23 January 2024 at 8:08 am

        Well Good Lord again, I think saying his post is something Hitler could have written is also inflammatory and reactionary.

      • Morrissey 12.1.2
        23 January 2024 at 9:05 am

        I don't think Trotter is like Hitler. He's more in the line of one of those self-satisfied, reactionary buffoons that infest the public discourse in the United States. The way that Trotter has behaved on RNZ's light talk show The Panel over the years—scolding people who spoke out against the Deep South jury that exonerated the killer of Trayvon Martin, mocking the suffering of a political prisoner, speaking with arch condescension about the problem of "Waitakere Man" and the "Jake the Muss vote"—is very much in the spirit of such mean-spirited drones as John Podhoretz, Bret Stephens, or John Kass.

        https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19072013/#comment-664870

        • Muttonbird 12.1.2.1
          23 January 2024 at 11:40 am

          Nah, just saying it reads like Hitler. The framing of Maori as dangerous to the nation is similar to the way Hitler described Jews. Here for instance he equates the government's de-Maorification program to the previous government's pandemic response, therefore equating Maori with a virus:

          Like the rest of the country, Māori leaders would have observed the enormous difficulties experienced by the New Zealand Police in assembling sufficient non-lethal force to clear Parliament Grounds of anti-government protesters in March 2022. Were such occupations and disruptions to be replicated all over the country, the ability of the Police to both keep the peace and enforce the law – without recourse to deadly force – would be seriously compromised.

          Once again, I can’t see how VUW want to be associated with this.

          • Morrissey 12.1.2.1.1
            23 January 2024 at 3:43 pm

            VUW employs some extremely unsavoury people. Perhaps the most unsavoury of all are to be found in its splendidly titled School of Strategic Studies….

            https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-19112015/#comment-1097870

            https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-06102016/#comment-1240595

            [I see that you ignored my earlier Mod note for you today. Never mind, this is your last warning.

            You’re a one-trick pony and your MO is to take down or out third party players with your idiosyncratic vacuous smears that are often rooted in a distant past. As such, you contribute nothing but noise to this site.

            Lift your game – Incognito]

            • Incognito 12.1.2.1.1.1
              23 January 2024 at 4:03 pm

              Mod note

            • Morrissey 12.1.2.1.1.2
              23 January 2024 at 4:22 pm

              My critique of Robert Ayson's comments were anything but "vacuous". They were a verbatim report of some extremely chilling comments he made, claiming that American killing of civilians was morally superior to that of other countries. The same applies to the wandery, timid remarks by his colleague Paul Sinclair.

              As for being "rooted in a distant past", the same things are being done right now, and the same people are excusing them. Professor Ayson is one of the most rabid anti-Russian voices in academia, as anyone who has heard him on Radio NZ, where he continues to be used as an "expert", would understand.

              [So, yesterday, when you embraced your moniker “moronic superhero” and implied that you were going to wear it as a badge of honour (https://thestandard.org.nz/labour-and-the-democrats/#comment-1985972) you weren’t joking.

              Your first link was indeed one of your idiosyncratic ‘verbatim reports’ aka transcripts. There was no commentary from you. There was no ‘critique’. A transcript is not a critique.

              Your second link was even worse. It contained some unhinged rambling about comedians and targeted a colleague of the person whom you did NOT critique in your first link, with only a mention of his name.

              Here you double down on attacking two people employed by the same university and find them ‘guilty by osmosis’. There is no valid argument or critique – it is vacuous and moronic.

              You claim that your first target continues to be used by Radio NZ as an “expert” and that he’s “one of the most rabid anti-Russian voices in academia”. You don’t provide a shred of evidence for these baseless and moronic accusations.

              I googled the RNZ website and I could not find a single reference to that academic AND Russia in the last year.

              Despite our collective efforts to encourage you to lift your game you keep wasting our time with your moronic comments. Take seven weeks off – Incognito]

              • Incognito …
                23 January 2024 at 5:05 pm

                Mod note

              • Incognito …
                24 January 2024 at 2:42 pm

                @ Morrissey,

                FFS!

                I clicked on this link: https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2018882476/analysis-white-house-official-s-trip-to-nz

                There’s not a single mention in the written text of Russia. So, I wasted almost 7 minutes listening to the interview and there’s not a single mention of Russia in it either.

                When I wrote “academic AND Russia”, I capitalised “AND”, which means both criteria had to be met in the Google search (it’s simple operator logic that’s used in advanced searching in search engines such as Google – yes, I know how to do internet searches).

                You’ve now finally dredged up one measly RNZ link that doesn’t even support your unhinged accusations, e.g., “Professor Ayson is one of the most rabid anti-Russian voices in academia”.

                You’re still wasting more of my time. You attack third-party people with your misplaced superiority and misguided rants. Your comments are not critiques, as you allege, and they are generally unhinged unsupported ramblings of a “moronic superhero”.

                I’m tempted to double your current ban angry