It’ll be interesting to see how frequently the TV1 and TV3 political polls are done and/or reported on next year. The thing about such polls, is not so much are the figures, as in how the journos spin them.
Morena Beautiful, what delightful news to read this morning about the polls. Isn’t it interesting that the media appears to be keeping hush about the polls. I’m a bit of a news junkie and haven’t heard boo about this poll apart from here on The Standard.
On the first day of solstice nature gave to me
A declining National Party.
On the second day of solstice nature gave to me….
I’m yet to find out what that will be…. 😀
Labour lacks voter trust. Therefore, is it wise for them to run an election campaign touting tax changes to be announced after the election?
Moreover, while Little reaffirmed his opposition to raising the retirement age, he failed to rule out other options such as changes to the current indexing (which links super to wage rates) no doubt leaving a number of voters feeling skeptical.
With such low voter trust, can Labour risk going into an election while leaving voters with such uncertainty?
My gut says it is all there to lose for Labour if they get it wrong and I hope they don’t because that ratpack of gnats is not very bright and don’t deserve to be ministers imo.
The Chairman
In general Labour goes into elections with detailed policy which is outlined on the labour website in the months leading up to the election, not earlier so as not to allow Labour light copying by National. Conversely National generally goes into elections with little detailed policy. Many policy changes such as the increasing of GST after the 2008 election are not anounced prior to the election. Pot calling kettle much!
To date, out of the small number of policies Labour have announced, a number of them are lacking, therefore could and should be improved.
Nevertheless, National can decide to adopt Labour policy at any given time, thus the argument for Labour keeping their powder dry doesn’t stack up.
Until recently, National had brand Key. A brand voters seemed to trust, thereby that political appeal allowed National to get away with more or less as the case may be.
Labour doesn’t carry such voter goodwill, therefore their approach must differ.
All I and my family want is a living wage, an adequate home, affordable doctors visits, some hope for my children, and a government that cares. Good by Blue team, you haven’t delivered, and your not capable.
That isn’t a problem that Labour has.
Their real problem is their leader. He doesn’t have any real opinions at all on anything except that everyone should contribute to the Unions so that they can finance his election campaign.
Little, Andrew bases his policy on a very simple system. Whatever National announce he will insist on the opposite. If National haven’t announced their policy he is helpless. His mouth opens and shuts but nothing emerges.
Look at the flag debate. Labour went into the last election with a firm policy of having a new flag. When National went ahead with the idea he flipped.
Labour went into the last election with a firm policy of raising the age for super. When Bill wouldn’t commit to the same thing Andrew flipped. He has currently come to the right approach but not for the right reason. If National were to announce that there is no need to raise the age Angry will do a double back flip with twist and adopt the other line again.
The man is a fool. Probably due to his original legal training he has no principles or firm beliefs about anything. He will argue either side of the debate, based merely on what pays him the most..
But what Andrew Little isn’t is a cut-and-runner, like Key. Little’s here for the contest. Captain Key’s abandoned ship, leaving his crew flailing wildly in rough seas; Bilge-water Bill at the wheel, fool steam ahead, damn the torpedoes housing crisis!
You really must be dreaming. Here is a man who has reached his 50s but who hasn’t, in spite of the good “rich prick” salaries he has been receiving for many years, apparently not been able to pay of his mortgage and who has accumulated neither savings nor investments.
At least according to his Parliamentary return of pecuniary interests.
Now he has got a job that pays him around $300,000/annum.
Leave? He’s in heaven. He will be like Walter Nash if he can and will be carried out at the age of 86.
Andrew Little, Prime Minister till he’s 86!!
Alwyn! You dark horse, you!
All your previous cantankerousness, a front, a facade for your true pro-Labour position! You had us going, you ol’ scally-wag!
Apparently not. Perhaps Andrew will emulate Walter. If he did it would make him PM in 2040 at the age of 75. He would keep the job for 3 years and then be dumped. They would even kick him out of his leader of the Labour Party in 2045. He would then revert to the back benches and die, still in harness, in 2051.
Possible? I suppose so but do you really think that Grant wouldn’t stab him in the back sometime in the next 24 years while Andrew remains Leader of the Opposition? If you do you clearly have more faith in Grant’s patience than I do.
Walter Nash was before my time, alwyn, and I’m no historian specializing in the Labour Party, as you appear to be and it’s good to have someone with a long memory on board the Good Ship T.S. In fact, I’m not a Labour man, though I certainly enjoy this site. Younger than you and more forgiving, me. I don’t think I’ve ever big-noted Labour or her MPs, but I certainly have sung the praises of some principled politicians at times. You seem not to believe in such creatures. I’ve met a number of them and while I understand the problems with holding a position of political responsibility and making decisions on behalf of a varied population (I’m a local body politician) I am able to forgive those who find themselves in impossible situations or wrongfully portrayed by punters such as yourself (and others – sorry to see Stunned Mullet’s untimely departure from today’s debate 🙂
I didn’t like Key though. I met him personally and felt he was untrustworthy. From my point of view, he seemed to be deceiving us all. I reckon my radar is pretty sound. Misleading, misdirecting; they are signs to give a person a very wide berth, in my opinion. Sadly, we had to tolerate him for a long time. Gone now though. Very Good Thing.
Perhaps you are right.
Looking at Andrew Little he does remind me of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi near the Wellington Railway station. Same haggard look and tatty clothing.
He is probably as intelligent as the statue, although not of course the real person.
I hope he has a better taste in what he drinks than the real Mahatma of course.
Ad-hominem (i.e. personal) attacks will get you nowhere, alwyn.
People have long memories and Aotearoa has a relatively small politically active community.
“Look at the flag debate. Labour went into the last election with a firm policy of having a new flag.” Indeed. A new flag. One chosen by the people of New Zealand. Not Key’s Personal corporate branding rag. You gotta admire Labour for winning that contest, despite Key having tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to waste on his attempt to impose his desire on us. And I suspect you do.
“One chosen by the people of New Zealand”.
And precisely how was that going to happen?
It would have been done in exactly the same way as was actually chosen. What alternative was there?
Why do you bother to waffle on about it being “Key’s Personal rag”. Are you really as stupid as you seem? Key didn’t “choose” it did he.
Probably yes, you really are that stupid. Anyone who thinks Little is Prime Ministerial material clearly must be pretty thick.
If you can’t come up with an argument that at least has a little bit of a connection to reality I don’t think I will waste any more of my time on responding to your dribbling. If you come up with something at least remotely corresponding to reality I may give your education some more of my time.
Am I really as stupid as I seem? If I seem stupid, I’d be stupid to claim otherwise. Regarding the flag, Key certainly appeared to favour one particular option, guided the selection of it, promote it heavily through his comments and wearing it on his lapel, so yes, Key chose a flag but failed to get his choice accepted widely enough to have it replace the existing flag. What alternative to the process Key chose for the selection of a new flag? May I ask you a question in response that that, alwyn? Did you not read anything, any where on the topic of alternative approaches the Government might have taken to the choosing of a flag? If you were and are completely unaware of any discussion around the process, I’m not sure what sort of person you might be – some would say you’d have to have been living under a rock to have missed that debate, but as I’m not in favour of usingad hominem techniques in a debate, (though I note you have no such compunction) I won’t suggest that applies to you. I feel confident that you live in a house, though perhaps you don’t receive a newspaper and maybe your computer only sends, not receives.
Alwyn
The press,national party people,and trolls like yourself always rubbish the current labour leader. Remember the nanny state cat call against Helen Clark and apologising for men’s violence toward women by David Cunliff as apologizing for being a man.This angry Andy thing is just one in a long line of personality bashing and to me shows that the blue machine must be really worried.
To alwyn:
The only fool here is you alwyn. You have been continually trying to knee-cap Andrew Little as leader of the opposition, just to voice your hatred for Labour.
Bill English is hardly solid leadership material, I would give Little a head-start in that department.
“He will argue either side of the debate, based merely on what pays him the most..” very immature of you alwyn.
The Chairman
I remember a few decades ago, Labour held conferences around the country talking to the people and asking what they thought was important. Would that up their profile, and bring them closer to a range of NZrs?
In 2014 there were “Meet the Candidates” sessions in various centres to discuss disability issues.
We attended the one in Hamilton and the one in Kaitaia. Notice was taken on who turned up and what they had to say. Looking back, NZ First fielded folk with the best working knowledge of the issues while some of us took the opportunity to put the National candidate in Hamilton on the griddle, and I understand some rather difficult questions were asked of Te Ureroa Flavell at the meeting in Wellington.
I admit that many of us “veterans” went into those meeting resigned to the fact that it would be SSDD…having expectations of anything getting better in the near or distant future is asking for disappointment.
If there were to be meetings such as you suggest greywarshark, they would have to be open to everyone…not just paid up party members.
Will Chester Borrows have a merry Christmas?
His front-seat passenger/shot-gun rider seems to be happy enough.
I wonder if anyone’s asked Paula for her version of events?
Paula will be like the three monkeys on this occasion, Robert G – see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. She probably had her eyes closed while Chester Borrows kept driving into those protestors.
Chester should have stopped, let the protestors make dicks of themselves and allowed the police to remove them.
That he drove slowly forward and managed to make them make even larger dicks of themselves was stupid, however, no one was seriously hurt.
So as I said Chester should be wrapped over the hand with a wet bus ticket give the appropriate apology and that should be the end of it.
Without knowing the circumstances of the incident you’re quoting it is difficult to offer any comment.
[I’m taking that as a face value accusation. And banning you for two weeks off the back of it. It should probably be longer, but hey, it’s the season of good will and cheer.] – Bill
“should have” agreed, Stunned Mullet, should have. “Legally obliged to” is another way of saying it. “No one was seriously hurt”, you say and that’s a good thing, but “not seriously hurt” is no legal defense against assault. So there it is and Chester and those of us interested in the case, await the judge’s decision. I wonder if Paula will be required to give evidence; What Paula Saw – or What Paula Said, would be interesting to know. We can speculate, for fun.
Let’s face it, it just wouldn’t be fair to expect a National MP to show some personal responsibility, now would it: far better to have some Stunned Lickspittle minimise and deflect instead.
There was a consequence for the protester (injured foot) and there should be one for Chester as well – the judge will decide. Better things for the courts to do? No doubt. Many cases would fall into that category, however, the courts are there for the purpose of issues great and small. This is a case that interests me and others. If you have no interest in the issue, perhaps you could concern yourself with those “better things”, Stunned.
Politicians are like that.
Remember the former Labour Party leader we had who claimed she never realised that he car night, just might, have been travelling at about twice the speed limit?
Concentrating on important papers she said. The other MP present said he was close to terror at the speed they were travelling.
The other MP wasn’t concentrating on important papers, plus, he was not a cool-as-a-cucumber Prime Minister.
In any case, alwyn-of-the-long-and-bitter-memory, that was then, this is now. Chester was at the wheel and can’t claim to be “concentrating on important papers”…can he? Maybe that’s his defense! Or perhaps Paula had just dropped the “Key’s doing a runner and I’m gunna be Deputy” bombshell and he lost control of his foot.
Yes, it was a long time ago. It is of course just as long since we had a competent leader of the Labour Party.
Keep the faith brother. Someday those glory years will return.
I’m not going to hold my breath while I wait for them though.
People justified Hitler by saying he had them in some mystical thrall. Key projected confidence, that’s all. I could be more direct but I would probably get banned from this forum.
Eyes closed and squealing? I doubt it. She’s no shrinking violet. She’d have been egging Chester on. Whatever it was she said, she’ll be keeping it close to her Chest.
“A French court on Monday convicted International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde of “negligence” for her role in a controversial €400 million payout to a French tycoon in 2008 while she was finance minister.
The Court of Justice did not hand down a sentence, a decision welcomed by her lawyer, Patrick Maisonneuve, as a “partial” victory.
“We wanted a complete acquittal, instead we got a partial one,” said Maisonneuve. “The court has decided not to penalise her – in fact, the court even decided this should not go on Madame Lagarde’s criminal record.”
The executive board representing the IMF’s 189 member countries reaffirmed its full confidence in Lagarde’s ability to lead the crisis lender, hours after the verdict was issued.
Media in France seized on the guilty-without-punishment verdict, voicing indignation in editorials Tuesday morning. In the left-leaning daily Libération, Laurent Joffrin wrote, “The ordinary person answerable to the law, less apt to be handled with kid gloves, will draw from this the notion that the ordinary fellow, who doesn’t enjoy an ‘international reputation’, to quote the decision, will not be able to benefit from similar indulgence.””
“…will not be able to benefit from similar indulgence.” Indeed!
Listen to the BBC, the Washington Post, Radio New Zealand and read the Independent, the Times, the Guardian, Fairfax Media or NZME – you will not hear these voices.
We just hear from activists operating out of Eastern Aleppo, whose reports are uncritically picked up by the corporate media.
Did you read Hitchens?
I’ll repeat two key sections.
“Our sources for this [that the pro-Assad coalition is systematically destroying civilian infrastructure] are people inside eastern Aleppo. There hasn’t, as far as I know, been a single, independent, Western journalist in eastern Aleppo. We rely entirely on propaganda sources, on pictures which always show wounded children being carried by noble, unarmed men in heaps of rubble. And we rely on this and we take it as read.”
“The sources for these reports are so-called ‘activists’. Who are they? As far as I know, there was not one single staff reporter for any Western news organisation in eastern Aleppo last week. Not one.
This is for the very good reason that they would have been kidnapped and probably murdered. The zone was ruled without mercy by heavily armed Osama Bin Laden sympathisers, who were bombarding the west of the city with powerful artillery (they frequently killed innocent civilians and struck hospitals, since you ask). That is why you never see pictures of armed males in eastern Aleppo, just beautifully composed photographs of handsome young unarmed men lifting wounded children from the rubble, with the light just right.”
There’s nothing wrong with only hearing about eastern Aleppo from people living in eastern Aleppo. The problem has been that only the voices of Jihadis in eastern Aleppo have been heard.
And now that eastern Aleppo is clear, who do ‘our’ media go running after? Well, the little girl of a family who decided to evacuate with the terrorists….not any of the vast majority who headed to west Aleppo.
The irony of Kathyrn Ryan’s interview with journalist Kim Zetter this morning summed up how lost the msm have become.
First of all they talk about fake news, commenting on how internet sources do not fact check their sources, then they go on to discuss the twitter account of a 7 year old from Aleppo.
Do you really think we are that stupid?
Susie, Kathryn and Kim need to expand their #SOURCES beyond AP, Reuters, BBC (State organ) and WaPo.
Endless recitals of “white helmet – Mannequin challenge anyone?” and Syria One Man Observatory “syriahr- put another tyre on the fire Danny ! – More smoke now” certainly do SUM to a hysteria that needs such balance.
#SMORGASBOARD
The rise of celebrity culture did not happen by itself. It has long been cultivated by advertisers, marketers and the media. And it has a function. The more distant and impersonal corporations become, the more they rely on other people’s faces to connect them to their customers.
Corporation means body; capital means head. But corporate capital has neither head nor body. It is hard for people to attach themselves to a homogenised franchise owned by a hedge fund whose corporate identity consists of a filing cabinet in Panama City. So the machine needs a mask. It must wear the face of someone we see as often as we see our next-door neighbours. It is pointless to ask what Kim Kardashian does to earn her living: her role is to exist in our minds. By playing our virtual neighbour, she induces a click of recognition on behalf of whatever grey monolith sits behind her this week.
Why do people become obsessed with others in the MSM? Why do they allow themselves to be so overtly manipulated?
For myself not a day goes by where I don’t question the ‘why’ of the masses. If its any consolation the existence of Bernie, Corbyn and Brexit (oh God, and Trump) are the first real cracks in the Manufacturing of Consent in the ‘West’.
Before celebrity culture, there was the Star system – Hollywood stars also performed a role within capitalism from the 1920s -1950s/60s.
They were larger than life, glamorous fronts for US capitalist culture of individualism, the US dream, consumer products, and allegedly an egalitarian culture where individuals could speak out about their concerns. They were part of a magical world on the big screen, that took people out of their everyday lives and worries.
Celebrity culture arose with shifts in both capitalism (to neoliberalism and corporate transnational dominance) and media/communications technologies.
Celebrities appear on small screens, and started to arise in the 1980s with video technologies – where everyone could own movies in their own homes.
Celebrities inhabit more of our everyday world, and are part of more interactive communications – people can phone/txt in their votes for reality TV celebs. And the rise of mobile technologies, and social media, shifted the celebrity culture even more into people’s everyday lives.
I think the percentages of cultural coverage quoted, comparing early & later 20th century with 21st century, are misleading. Media and communications had changed. Late 20th century and 21st century media and communications saturate our lives in ways they never did earlier in the 20th century.
Both Hollywood stars of past times, and more recent celebrity culture, sell a version of capitalism to the general population – albeit different versions.
…with the promise to free up more land for development and fast track consents.
There may even be something in there to give hope to those seeking affordable housing….cue, Tui slogan.
So, while huge tracts of fertile Waikato farm land is being subsumed into housing expansion, with the very real possibility that these developments will join up with the huge tracts of fertile South Auckland horticultural land also being converted….will the new inhabitants of these housing areas have the best vegetable gardens in New Zealand?
And from the ‘nothing better to do with their time’ file…our Friend Wayne, you know,
Wayne ‘New Zealand’s never been in better shape’ Mapp is participating in a belated conversation over on Kiwibog about the Legatum Institute report putting NZ at the top of the most prosperous nation pile.
And obviously because the discussion over on Kiwibog is so predictably formulaic, Friend Wayne has to share with the Kiwiboggers what Standardnistas are thinking about the economic state of the nation.
‘Legatum Limited, also known as Legatum, is a private investment firm headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. With a long-term perspective, Legatum invests proprietary capital in global capital markets.
The Legatum Institute Foundation was established in 2007 as an independent non-partisan charitable public policy think-tank that seeks to understand what drives and restrains national success and individual flourishing. ‘
So an extreme neo-liberal think-tank reckons we are great.
We should be worried, not flattered.
Pity the corporate media does not do a back check on these dodgy organisations.
Notice bullshit Wayne actually starts by talking about GDP per capita, where we have got way behind Australia since our 80’s “reforms.
But he fudges by using total GDP as an indication of our gains over Australia. As this is the result of immigration earthquakes and housing speculation. It is nothing to be proud of.
Out of curiosity I had a look at Kiwiblog, held my nose and read the preceding comments to Wayne Mapp’s contribution. My initial reaction to these were ‘Wow, just wow’ – the ‘names’ of some of the commenters, to me are simply sickening and their comments are obviously par for the course of a blog of that nature. The vitriol, hostility, and contempt towards comments from those who vote other than for Act/National, unions and their members, women (including of course Helen Clark – still after all this time) was quite mind blowing and any moderate comments disagreeing with the theme got the big thumbs down. I felt quite sullied after a few minutes and got out of there. I realise that some of TS commenters are pretty robust at times but the clear majority are sensible and thought provoking. I noticed that a few of the commenters have cropped up on other blogs (including TS), I sometimes read and while they are forthright in their views they are not in the same league as the bile they feel at liberty to spew forth over at KB.
Yep, Farrar’s little cesspit of barely veiled hate -speechers is an eye opener alright.
Kiwibog, the home of the always, always right.
It’s almost as if Farrar has taken it upon himself to keep hate alive.
I think that actually there is Farrar, his disabled person hating mate Garrett and our mutual friend Wayne Mapp who are actually real individuals. The rest, I’m pretty sure are made up personas that enable Farrar to really let down what’s left of his hair on full noise slander and slagging.
I could be wrong.
Now watch one of the Standard mods step in and give me a ticking off for bald shaming. 😉
Peter Hitchens argues for Aleppo and Mosul as equivalent, says terrorists are being defeated in both.
“To me the extraordinary thing about this [the events in eastern Aleppo City] is the attitude we have towards it. We still take a ‘something must be done’ view of Aleppo, when in fact what is happening is that the very, very nasty al-Nusra Front—the kind of people who a few years ago we were denouncing as al-Qaeda and regarding as hopelessly impossible Islamists—are being defeated. And that city [Aleppo] is finally going to come to the point where there will at least be peace. The only mercy in war is a swift victory and there hasn’t been a swift victory. But after seven—nearly seven—years of war in Syria it looks as if we might be reaching the point where Saudi Arabia, and us [Britain], and the French are going—and the Americans—are going to give up trying to overthrow a government, and people can at last begin to rebuild the country. …
Our sources for this [that the pro-Assad coalition is systematically destroying civilian infrastructure] are people inside eastern Aleppo. There hasn’t, as far as I know, been a single, independent, Western journalist in eastern Aleppo. We rely entirely on propaganda sources, on pictures which always show wounded children being carried by noble, unarmed men in heaps of rubble. And we rely on this and we take it as read. You never see any of this kind of reporting from Mosul or from Fallujah, where similar things have happened, which have been done by our side. This blackening of the Russians just seems to me to be particularly ridiculous. The thing is nearly over. We should be pleased at least that they can start rebuilding.”
The reality is that al-Qaeda in Syria, now rebranded as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (JFS) and ostensibly severed from al-Qaeda, had at most 900 fighters inside Aleppo City when this assault began, about 11% of a total insurgent force of 8,000, which has always been dominated in this area by nationalists.
Amid the bombs of Aleppo, all you can hear are the lies.
Peter Hitchens
An excerpt
In the past few days we have been bombarded with colourful reports of events in eastern Aleppo, written or transmitted by people in Beirut (180 miles away and in another country), or even London (2,105 miles away and in another world). There have, we are told, been massacres of women and children, people have been burned alive.
The sources for these reports are so-called ‘activists’. Who are they? As far as I know, there was not one single staff reporter for any Western news organisation in eastern Aleppo last week. Not one.
This is for the very good reason that they would have been kidnapped and probably murdered. The zone was ruled without mercy by heavily armed Osama Bin Laden sympathisers, who were bombarding the west of the city with powerful artillery (they frequently killed innocent civilians and struck hospitals, since you ask). That is why you never see pictures of armed males in eastern Aleppo, just beautifully composed photographs of handsome young unarmed men lifting wounded children from the rubble, with the light just right.
The women are all but invisible, segregated and shrouded in black, just as in the IS areas, as we saw when they let them out.
For reasons that I find it increasingly hard to understand or excuse, much of the British media refer to these Al Qaeda types coyly as ‘rebels’ (David Cameron used to call them ‘moderates’). But if they were in any other place in the world, including Birmingham or Belmarsh, they would call them extremists, jihadis, terrorists and fanatics. One of them, Abu Sakkar, famously cut out and sank his teeth into the heart of a fallen enemy, while his comrades cheered. This is a checked and verified fact, by the way.
Sakkar later confirmed it to the BBC, when Western journalists still had contact with these people, and there is film of it if you care to watch. There is also film of a Syrian ‘rebel’ group,
Nour al-din al Zenki, beheading a 12-year-old boy called Abdullah Issa. They smirk a lot. It is on the behalf of these ‘moderates’ that MPs staged a wholly one-sided debate last week, and on their behalf that so many people have been emoting equally one-sidedly over alleged massacres and supposed war crimes by Syrian and Russian troops – for which I have yet to see a single piece of independent, checkable evidence.
When I used to travel a lot in the communist world, I especially hated the fact that almost every official announcement was a conscious lie, taunting the poor subjugated people with their powerlessness to challenge it.
I would spend ages twiddling dials and shifting aerials to pick up the BBC World Service on my short-wave set – ‘the truth, read by gentlemen’ – because it refreshed the soul just to hear it. These days the state-sponsored lies have spread to my own country, and to the BBC, and I tell the truth as loudly as I can, simply because I cannot hear anyone else speaking it. If these lies go unchallenged, they will be the basis of some grave wrong yet to come.
Peter Hitchens is a right-wing authoritarian (who would voluntarily describe themselves as a “Burkean conservative,” for fuck’s sake?) who works for the Daily Mail, so if you’re quoting him you should maybe re-think what you’re doing. Eva Bartlett is a Syrian regime shill. John Pilger’s a has-been with an obsession that everything bad that happens is somehow the work of the US government. The others actually are proper journalists but don’t appear to share your enthusiasm for the Assad regime.
Also, you’re arguing from authority again. It doesn’t become less of a logical fallacy the more it’s repeated, you know.
There’s more propaganda than news coming out of Aleppo this week
The foreign media has allowed – through naivety or self-interest – people who could only operate with the permission of al-Qaeda-type groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar al-Sham to dominate the news agenda.
There is more than one truth to tell in the heartbreaking story of Aleppo
But it’s time to tell the other truth: that many of the “rebels” whom we in the West have been supporting – and which our preposterous Prime Minister Theresa May indirectly blessed when she grovelled to the Gulf head-choppers last week – are among the cruellest and most ruthless of fighters in the Middle East. And while we have been tut-tutting at the frightfulness of Isis during the siege of Mosul (an event all too similar to Aleppo, although you wouldn’t think so from reading our narrative of the story), we have been willfully ignoring the behaviour of the rebels of Aleppo.
For the past few weeks, British news-papers have been informing their readers about two contrasting battles in the killing grounds of the Middle East. One is Mosul, in northern Iraq, where western reporters are accompanying an army of liberation as it frees a joyful population from terrorist control. The other concerns Aleppo, just a few hundred miles to the west. This, apparently, is the exact opposite. Here, a murderous dictator, hellbent on destruction, is waging war on his own people.
Both these narratives contain strong elements of truth. There is no question that President Assad and his Russian allies have committed war crimes, and we can all agree that Mosul will be far better off without Isis. Nevertheless, the situations in Mosul and Aleppo are fundamentally identical. In both cases, forces loyal to an internationally recognised government are attacking well-populated cities, with the aid of foreign air power. These cities are under the control of armed groups or terrorists, who are holding a proportion of their population hostage.
A further double standard concerns the reporting of Russian and Syrian atrocities. Much has — rightly — been made of the so-called barrel bombs dropped on Aleppo by the Russians. Yet rebel commanders in eastern Aleppo use equally hideous weapons. Last April, fighters from Jaish al-Islam, backed by Saudi Arabia and considered moderate enough that American diplomats retain relations with them, admitted to using chemical weapons against the Kurds in Aleppo. This attack received almost no attention from the media, and failed to generate the faintest outrage in Britain.
Jaish al-Islam employ a so-called ‘hell cannon’ to fire gas canisters and shrapnel weighing up to 40 kilograms into civilian areas. These are every bit as murderous as the barrel bombs. Reports in the western press have suggested that hell cannons are examples of the engineering ingenuity of plucky rebels. Few journalists have dwelled on the fact that these improvised weapons have been deliberately used to kill hundreds of Aleppo civilians.
Yet another double standard applies to the destruction of hospitals. When I was in Aleppo, I interviewed Mohamad El-Hazouri, head of the department of health, at the Razi hospital. He told me that when rebel groups entered the city they put six of the 16 hospitals out of service, as well as 100 of the 201 health centres, and wiped out the ambulance service.
They’ve all pointed out that the rebel forces in east Aleppo include some very unpleasant people, yes. Which actually hasn’t been concealed from us by our media, because we all knew about it before we read Fisk et al’s pieces on it. You keep quoting them and posting excerpts from their work as if they’d somehow proved that it’s actually OK for the Assad regime and its patrons to be carrying out indiscriminate bombardment of rebel-held cities, but they haven’t proved anything of the kind, or tried to prove it, and would probably be horrified that you’re trying to misrepresent their work in that way.
Peter Hitchens may be right wing and he may right for the Mail. I disagree with him on most things, like George Galloway does.
However, he is not an establishment figure on several issues.
A great deal more independent thinker than the establishment corporate media you get your ideas from.
Clearly you did not watch this or if you did, you did not understand what he was saying.
Well, sure. Famous right-wing authoritarian Peter Hitchens shares your enthusiasm for authoritarian nationalist dictatorships. That’s not something to be proud of.
Eva Bartlett appears brave and independent to me.
And seems to have the authority of the United Nations behind her at this press conference.
Here she schools a mainstream journalist about their biased coverage.
That’s your problem in a nutshell. Someone who’s plainly a regime shill, embarrassingly-obviously so, appears to you “brave and independent.” It explains the risible propaganda you post to this blog every day all by itself.
Opinion is still opinion no matter how ilustrious the source. It pays to try and discuss the facts. Contest them if you can.
What I find with most Assad supporters is that instead of defending or challenging the facts I put up, they tend to talk right past or simply just ignore them if it dosen’t fit their narrative.
On 11 August 2015, the popular gonzo news site VICE published a story about a conspiracy theory surrounding the children’s storybook characters the Berenstain Bears. The theory went like this: many people remember that the bears’ name was spelt “Berenstein” – with an “e” – but pictures and old copies proved it was always spelt with an “a”. The fact that so many people had the same false memory was seen as concrete proof of the supernatural.
“Berenstein” truthers believe in something called the “Mandela Effect”: a theory that a large group of people with the same false memory used to live in a parallel universe (the name comes from those who fervently believe that Nelson Mandela died while in prison). VICE’s article about the theory was shared widely, leading thousands of people to r/MandelaEffect, a subreddit for those with false memories to share their experiences.
Dude spent three years writing a chapter by chapter review of the book without orcs.
Atlas Shrugged
Foreword
A Novel for the 1% (March 22, 2013)
Atlas Shrugged is more popular than ever among economic conservatives, precisely because it offers a full-blown defense of rapacious, predatory capitalism in a time of vast inequality.
So the answer to a question about, say, had you been asked one of course, which no-one would do since you never ever answer awkward questions, house prices along the lines of, oh I dunno, try “Why are there insufficient builders, fisiani?”, then the answer would be Celtic and National?
Well, bugger me. you’re half right. It is National’s fault that the number of apprentices has fallen by nearly half since 2008, and that this is al;so the answer to why there are insufficient builders.
Yay, fisiani. At last a true answer. Well done!
The other answer, Celtic, is also true because of the number of Irish builders brought into the country after the failure of the Celtic Tiger.
Compared to last Election, Lab+Green up 7 points, Opposition Bloc up 5, Right Bloc down 5. Nat’s lead over Lab+Green slashed from 11 points to a mere 2.
Incidentally, my little Tory cheerleader, one minute your implying you’re of Noble Black African birth*, next moment you’re apparently a Catholic Glaswegian from Pollokshields , immersed in the Old Firm Rivalry (“See you, Wee Jimmy“).
Whit are ye daein ya dobber !, Make your mind up, ya wee dunderheed.
It has been largely forgotten that one of the key objectives of postwar free-trade policy was to maintain a roughly balanced trade account—a goal that the country is likely about to pursue anew and that will likely affect its policies touching on not just trade, but investments, currency, technology, and labor as well.
Which, of course, is why we have floating currencies but they’ve been set to float incorrectly being based upon demand rather than actual trade-weighting. This has resulted in a huge misalignment in the economy and such action as the 1987 attack on our own currency by Kreiger and our own John Key.
Trade-weighting would have to take into account the actual balance of trade, the balance of payments, working conditions, the minimum wage and other factors. In other words, all the things that are ignored by present FTAs.
‘Fake News’ in America: Homegrown, and Far From New
Chris Hedges
The media landscape in America is dominated by “fake news.” It has been for decades. This fake news does not emanate from the Kremlin. It is a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry that is skillfully designed and managed by public relations agencies, publicists and communications departments on behalf of individuals, government and corporations to manipulate public opinion. This propaganda industry stages pseudo-events to shape our perception of reality. The public is so awash in these lies, delivered 24 hours a day through electronic devices and print, that viewers and readers can no longer distinguish between truth and fiction.
There are established journalists who have spent their entire careers repackaging press releases or attending official briefings or press conferences—I knew several when I was with The New York Times. They work as stenographers to the powerful. Many such reporters are highly esteemed in the profession…..
……The corporations that own media outlets, unlike the old newspaper empires, view news as simply another revenue stream. Revenue streams compete inside a corporation. When the news division does not make what is seen as enough profit, the ax comes down. Content is irrelevant. The courtiers in the press, beholden to their corporate overlords, cling ferociously to their privileged and well-compensated perches. Because they slavishly serve the interests of corporate power, they are hated by America’s workers, whom they have rendered invisible. They deserve the hate they get…….
……….The object of fake news is to shape public opinion by creating fictional personalities and emotional responses that overwhelm reality. Hillary Clinton, contrary to how she often was portrayed during the recent presidential campaign, never fought on behalf of women and children—she was an advocate for the destruction of a welfare system in which 70 percent of the recipients were children. She is a tool of the big banks, Wall Street and the war industry. Pseudo-events were created to maintain the fiction of her concern for women and children, her compassion and her connections to ordinary people. Trump never has been a great businessman. He has a long history of bankruptcies and shady business practices. But he played the fictional role of a titan of finance on his reality television show, “The Apprentice.”……………
…….Images, which are how most people now ingest information, are especially prone to being made into fake news. Language, as the cultural critic Neil Postman wrote, “makes sense only when it is presented as a sequence of propositions. Meaning is distorted when a word or sentence is, as we say, taken out of context; when a reader or a listener is deprived of what was said before and after.” Images do not have a context. They are “visible in a different way.” Images, especially when they are delivered in long, rapid-fire segments, dismember and distort reality. The condition “recreates the world in a series of idiosyncratic events.”………..
………..A populace divorced from print and bombarded by discordant and random images is robbed of the vocabulary as well as the historical and cultural context to articulate reality. Illusion is truth. A whirlwind of emotionally driven cant feeds our historical amnesia.
The internet has accelerated this process. It, along with cable news shows, has divided the country into antagonistic clans. Members of a clan watch the same images and listen to the same narratives, creating a collective “reality.” Fake news abounds in these virtual slums. Dialogue is shut down. Hatred of opposing clans fosters a herd mentality. Those who express empathy for “the enemy” are denounced by their fellow travelers for their supposed impurity. This is as true on the left as it is on the right. These clans and herds, fed a steady diet of emotionally driven fake news, gave rise to Trump.
Trump is adept at communicating through image, sound bites and spectacle. Fake news, which already dominates print and television reporting, will define the media under his administration. Those who call out the mendacity of fake news will be vilified and banished. The corporate state created this monstrous propaganda machine and bequeathed it to Trump. He will use it.
‘This is a huge waste of taxpayer money’
Families are facing a bleak Christmas in cramped motel rooms that are costing taxpayers thousands of dollars each week.
There is a complete Bias in the Western Media
Press Conference at the United Nations against propaganda and regime change, for peace and national sovereignty.
Yep – post Liberation 130K residents of East Aleppo fled Westward – reunification and safety – now a viable option.
No reports of people “escaping” West Aleppo to the East – at any stage.
Eva Bartlett spoke in Santa Cruz, California on December 14, 2016.
Her speech contextualizes and demystifies the mainstream media portrayal of current events happening on the ground in Aleppo, Syria.
Hey Psycho, that is a ‘Hakenkreuz’ .. broken cross .. any way you cut it.
Symbols have meanings. It may be very ‘post-modern’ to play with them, but you will still get strong emotional reactions. I’m off to bed ..
Session thirty-three was highly abbreviated, via having to move house in a short space of time. Oh well. The party decided to ignore the tree-monster and continue the attack on the Giant Troll. Tarsin – flying on a giant summoned bat – dumped some high-grade oil over the ...
Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
With criticism from National piling on over the property market, the prime minister has detailed when the government will make housing announcements. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Marco Rizzi, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Western Australia Some Australians could be receiving a COVID-19 vaccine within weeks. Amid the continued spread of the virus and emergence of highly contagious variants, the federal government has accelerated the start of the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Euan Ritchie, Professor in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University Australia’s Threatened Species Strategy — a five-year plan for protecting our imperilled species and ecosystems — fizzled to an end last year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Arosha Weerakoon, Lecturer, General Dentist & PhD Candidate, The University of Queensland Baby teeth, or milk teeth, act like lighthouses to guide the adult ones to their correct destination. A baby tooth will become wobbly and fall out because the adult tooth ...
Business is Boring is a weekly podcast series presented by The Spinoff in association with Callaghan Innovation. Host Simon Pound speaks with innovators and commentators focused on the future of New Zealand. This week he’s joined by Simon Coley, co-founder of All Good and Karma Drinks.Bananas are one of the ...
Tackling topics such as rugby and body image, Stuff’s latest podcast shines a much-needed light on Aotearoa’s complex relationship with masculinity, writes Trevor McKewen, author of the book Real Men Wear Black.I wasn’t sure what to think when two episodes of the new local podcast He’ll Be Right landed in ...
The Rainforest Alliance reveals that 68%* of Kiwis say the COVID-19 pandemic has made them more conscious about environmental and social sustainability issues. Seventy two percent* state that they have been trying to make more sustainable purchasing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin University The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has raised concerns that Australia’s proposed News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code could fundamentally break the internet as we know it. His concerns ...
ANALYSIS:By Scott Lucas, University of Birmingham Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire destroying everything in its path Two weeks after the storming of the US Capitol by the followers of his predecessor, in the middle of an out-of-control pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Cantrell, Lecturer, Creative Writing & English Literature, University of Southern Queensland Described as “the world’s greatest storyteller”, Roald Dahl is frequently ranked as the best children’s author of all time by teachers, authors and librarians. However, the new film adaptation of ...
Peak housing body, Community Housing Aotearoa (CHA) welcomes the updated Public Housing Plan announced today by Minister Woods, and the commitment by this Government to fix New Zealand’s housing crisis. The 8,000 additional homes are a significant ...
Having recently walked much of the South Island stretch of Te Araroa, Kirsten O’Regan reflects on the magnificent landscapes and interesting characters she encountered along the way.On our 36th day of walking, we climb through the fire-blackened hills above Ohau, stopping to examine heat-disfigured trail markers. Fresh green shoots have ...
Miss Torta in central Auckland is putting the spotlight on a snack that’s commonplace in Mexico, but until now relatively unknown in New Zealand.You’ve heard of a torta, but what is it, exactly? Well, depending on the cuisine it can mean a flatbread, cake, tart, sweet pie, savoury pie or ...
Two of three ministerial statements from the Beehive have been released in the name of the PM over the past two days. The more important, insofar as it involves political action that will affect the wellbeing of significant numbers of Kiwis, was the release of the government’s Public Housing Plan ...
Jacinda Ardern has reminded Labour MPs "ongoing vigilance" will be required in 2021 to avoid another Covid outbreak, admitting she held her breath over the summer break. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Despite many young Australians having a deep interest in political issues, most teenagers have a limited understanding about their nation’s democratic system. Results from the 2019 National Assessment Program – Civics and ...
Pinged $65 for overstaying 10 minutes in a parking block? Put away your hard-earned cash and read this first.Hopefully, by now, I’ve already established myself at The Spinoff as the resident tightarse, determined to avoid all unfair and unnecessary punishments (see: oversize baggage charges). Today, I’m focusing my attention on ...
Nuclear weapons states and their allies risk reputational ruin if they flout a new UN Treaty, Carolina Panico argues The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will come into force this month, on January 22, 2021, turning nuclear weapons into illegal objects. It is an achievement that ...
How does one turn into a rabid extremist over the description of a children’s bike? Emily Writes looks at Facebook comments so you don’t have to.You’ve been there, I know it. You’re scrolling along, trying to avoid QAnon conspiracy theories and Trump apocalypse memes when a story catches your eye. ...
Joe Biden is now the President of the United States and many people across America and throughout the world will consequently be breathing more easily. But while the erratic, unpredictable and irresponsible years of the Trump Presidency may be over, ...
Tough border testing for New Zealand honey imports to Japan is re-igniting the conversation about the use of the weed killer glypohsate in New Zealand. ...
The Taxpayers Union should be aware of the law and of the history of ACC. The ACC is a legal system introduced in 1974 to replace the common law right of accident victims to sue for damages for personal injury sustained as a result of negligence ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne Terrorism, political extremism, Donald Trump, social media and the phenomenon of “cancel culture” are confronting journalists with a range of agonising free-speech dilemmas to which there are no easy answers. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nial Wheate, Associate Professor of the Sydney Pharmacy School, University of Sydney You’ve just come from your monthly GP appointment with a new script for your ongoing medical condition. But your local pharmacy is out of stock of your usual medicine. Your ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Deanna D’Alessandro, Professor & ARC Future Fellow, University of Sydney On Wednesday this week, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured at at 415 parts per million (ppm). The level is the highest in human history, and is growing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Renwick, Professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington It might be summer in New Zealand but we’re in for some wild weather this week with forecasts of heavy wind and rain, and a plunge in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Zareh Ghazarian, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, Monash University Despite many young Australians having a deep interest in political issues, most teenagers have a limited understanding about their nation’s democratic system. Results from the 2019 National Assessment Program – Civics and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle O’Shea, Senior Lecturer, School of Business, Western Sydney University Last week, the McIver’s Ladies Baths in Sydney came under fire for their (since removed) policy stating “only transgender women who’ve undergone a gender reassignment surgery are allowed entry”. The policy was ...
There are good grounds for optimism after the guardrails of American democracy held firm through to Joe Biden's inauguration today as President, writes Stephen Hoadley Pessimism abounds about the perilous condition of American democracy. Commentators and headline writers proffer memes such as ‘broken and divided nation’, ‘the threat from within’. ...
A new plan shows how and where the Government will build 8,000 new state housing places it funded in Budget 2020, Marc Daalder reports Jacinda Ardern has kicked off the political year with a major announcement, promising hundreds of new state housing places in regional centres across the country. With ...
*This article was originally appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. Donald Trump will forever be remembered as the president who was impeached twice - and for his rhetoric that struck a chord so deep in America that it will take years to dissipate. Donald Trump leaves Washington with the lowest approval ...
This is the full transcript of President Joe Biden's speech after being sworn in at his inauguration this morning in Washington DC Chief Justice Roberts, Vice President Harris, Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McConnell, Vice President Pence, and my distinguished guests, my fellow Americans, this is America's day. This ...
Analysis: President Donald Trump has left the White House, and his deputy chief of staff confirms he is withdrawing his candidacy to lead the OECD. New Zealander Christopher Liddell withdrew his nomination to be Secretary-General of the powerful 37-member OECD and was one of the last members of the Trump Administration to depart ...
Kate Wills is facing stage four cancer with the same fierce approach she takes into her ocean swimming - never say can't. Even on the mornings Kate Wills feels wretched from her fortnightly chemotherapy treatment, she drags herself up at 5am and goes swimming. “I have to. It’s my job – to ...
Some costs associated with meetings speak for themselves, others are less conspicuous. Victoria University of Wellington's Val Hooper lays those costs out, making suggestions on where we can rein them in. Meetings – when last did we count the costs? And so it’s back to work and one of the ...
Andrew Paul Wood assesses the best-selling picture book by Grahame Sydney It's no great secret the commercially very successful Grahame Sydney has a long-standing beef that his work doesn’t receive more critical and institutional approval. I sympathise about the lack of critical attention, but I can understand why. The Discourse™ ...
This story was produced in collaboration with the Center for Public Integrity and Columbia Journalism Investigations. It was originally published by Public Integrity, Mother Jones, The Arizona Republic and Orlando Sentinel. It is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the ...
Analysis: It has been easy to ignore anyone daring to criticise or even question any aspect of the government’s Covid-19 response. Their voices have rarely been heard, and when they have been raised they have been quickly and decisively howled down by the favoured coterie of academics. ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s US presidential inauguration live blog: inauguration news, analysis and reaction, updated through Wednesday and Thursday. The inauguration ceremony begins at 5.15am Thursday, NZ time, and Joe Biden takes the oath of office around 6am. 7.25am: And what about Trump?In the early hours of this morning, NZ ...
In 10 x 100, we survey a group of 100 people via Stickybeak and ask them 10 questions. Last month we quizzed Wellingtonians. Today, we ask NZ drivers how they’ve found a holiday period without international tourists, and what they get up to while they’re on the road.Across Aotearoa roads ...
Emmanuel Macron's anti-separatist policies have garnered backlash from the international Muslim community. Now, a global coalition has complained to the UN. ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden as they go on an odyssey of women’s rage, and find out how we can channel our anger into good. First published September 15, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by ...
By Lorraine Ecarma in Cebu City The University of the Philippines Visayas (UPV) will continue to stand against any threats to human rights, chancellor Clement Camposano has declared in response to the termination of a long-standing accord preventing military incursion on campus. In a Facebook post, Camposano said the academic ...
ANALYSIS:By Jennifer S. Hunt, Australian National University Every four years on January 20, the US exercises a key tenant of democratic government: the peaceful transfer of power. This year, the scene looks a bit different. If the last US presidential inauguration in 2017 debuted the phrase “alternative facts”, the ...
By Lulu Mark in Port Moresby In spite of Papua New Guinea’s mandatory mask-wearing requirement under the National Pandemic Act 2020, many public servants attending a dedication service in Port Moresby have failed to wear one. They were issued masks before entering the Sir John Guise Indoor Complex but took ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christian Moro, Associate Professor of Science & Medicine, Bond University How do scabs form? — Talila, aged 8 Great question, Talila! Our skin has many different jobs. One is to act as a barrier, protecting us from harmful things in the ...
US President Donald Trump is pardoning former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who is accused of fraud in a case involving funds for the border wall. ...
Joel Little with Lorde, Dera Meelan with Church & AP, Josh Fountain with Maala and Randa and Benee – producers make good songs great. Now a new fund from NZ on Air is putting the focus on them.Six months ago it looked like the music industry was on the brink ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denise Buiten, Senior Lecturer in Social Justice and Sociology, University of Notre Dame Australia On average, one child is killed by a parent almost every fortnight in Australia. Last week, three children — Claire, 7, Anna, 5, and Matthew, 3 — were ...
This commendable and realistic decision again underlines that it is the police, not government, who are largely responsible for the reduction in cannabis prosecutions over the past 15 years, writes Russell Brown.The news that New Zealand police have discontinued the annual Helicopter Recovery Operation, which has, each summer for more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ilan Noy, Professor and Chair in the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington We will not be able to put the COVID-19 pandemic behind us until the world’s population is mostly immune through vaccination ...
Welcome to The Spinoff’s US inauguration live blog: inauguration news, analysis and reaction, updated throughout Wednesday and Thursday, NZ time. Reach me at catherine@thespinoff.co.nz.4.00pm: What will Trump be doing tomorrow?It’s pretty well known by now that outgoing president Donald Trump intends to throw out the rulebook when it comes to ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance is calling out Mayor Phil Goff for his undignified comment that the claim made by Councillor Greg Sayers asking why Auckland Council is funding yoga classes is “bullshit.” Yesterday, Councillor Greg Sayers penned ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne At 4am Thursday AEDT, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be inaugurated as president and vice president of the United States, replacing Donald Trump and Mike Pence. What follows is ...
*This article was originally published on RNZ and is republished with permission. New Zealanders flocked to beaches and lakes this summer, but it wasn't enough to fill the gap left by international tourists in other regions. The tourism industry is struggling to fill a $6 billion hole left by international tourists ...
Summer reissue: Chef Monique Fiso joins us for a chat about Hiakai – her acclaimed Wellington restaurant, and the title of her stunning new book.First published November 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn ...
A new trough was brought to our attention this morning, although ethnicity will limit the numbers of eligible applicants. If you are non-Maori, it looks like you shouldn’t bother getting into the queue – but who knows?We learned of the trough from the Scoop website, where the Kapiti ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Britta Denise Hardesty, Principal Research Scientist, Oceans and Atmosphere Flagship, CSIRO Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing costs economies up to US$50 billion globally each year, and makes up to one-fifth of the global catch. It’s a huge problem not only for the ...
Police stopping major cannabis eradication operations has given the green light to drug dealers and gangs to expand operations, make more profit, and continue to wreak havoc on the most vulnerable in our society, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. ...
Varieties of merino wool footwear are emerging faster than Netflix series about British aristocracy. Michael Andrew takes a look at the rise of the shoe that almost everyone – including his 95-year-old grandma – is wearing.Some might say it all started with Allbirds. After all, to the average consumer, it ...
A new report from New Zealand’s Independent Monitoring Mechanism (IMM) highlights the realities and challenges disabled people faced during the COVID-19 emergency. The report, Making Disability Rights Real in a Pandemic, Te Whakatinana i ngā Tika ...
The Maritime Union is questioning the reasons provided for ongoing delays at the Ports of Auckland. Maritime Union of New Zealand National Secretary Craig Harrison says there is a need for an honest conversation about what has gone wrong at the ...
As New Zealand faces a dire shortage of veterinarians, a petition has been launched urging the Government to reclassify veterinarians as critical workers so we can Get Vets into NZ. “New Zealand desperately needs veterinarians from overseas to counter ...
New Zealand is fast developing a reputation as a South Pacific vandal, says Greenpeace, as the government continues to fight against increased ocean protection. At the upcoming meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO), ...
The Department of Internal Affairs and Netsafe are urging parents and caregivers to be mindful of the online content their tamariki may be consuming in the lead up to the inauguration of president-elect of the United States of America Joe Biden ...
Care is at the centre of Auckland Zoo’s mandate, and it’s clear to see when you witness the staff doing their day-to-day jobs up close. Leonie Hayden went behind the scenes to talk to two people who would do anything for the animals they look after. “We were having this ...
The Game Animal Council (GAC) is applying its expertise in the use of firearms for hunting to work alongside Police, other agencies and stakeholder groups to improve the compliance provisions for hunters and other firearms users. The GAC has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Verica Rupar, Professor, Auckland University of Technology “The lie outlasts the liar,” writes historian Timothy Snyder, referring to outgoing president Donald Trump and his contribution to the “post-truth” era in the US. Indeed, the mass rejection of reason that erupted in a ...
The internet ain’t what it used to be, thanks to privacy issues, data leaks, censorship and hate speech. But a group of New Zealanders are working on a way to give power back to the people. A flood of headlines over the last week made it clear: the internet has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Brooks, Scientia Professor of Evolutionary Ecology; Academic Lead of UNSW’s Grand Challenges Program, UNSW The views of women and men can differ on important gendered issues such as abortion, gender equity and government spending priorities. Surprisingly, however, average differences in sex ...
It’ll be interesting to see how frequently the TV1 and TV3 political polls are done and/or reported on next year. The thing about such polls, is not so much are the figures, as in how the journos spin them.
Morena Beautiful, what delightful news to read this morning about the polls. Isn’t it interesting that the media appears to be keeping hush about the polls. I’m a bit of a news junkie and haven’t heard boo about this poll apart from here on The Standard.
On the first day of solstice nature gave to me
A declining National Party.
On the second day of solstice nature gave to me….
I’m yet to find out what that will be…. 😀
I think National should be rendered in apostrophes – thus .. ‘national’.
They are anything *but* national !
Labour lacks voter trust. Therefore, is it wise for them to run an election campaign touting tax changes to be announced after the election?
Moreover, while Little reaffirmed his opposition to raising the retirement age, he failed to rule out other options such as changes to the current indexing (which links super to wage rates) no doubt leaving a number of voters feeling skeptical.
With such low voter trust, can Labour risk going into an election while leaving voters with such uncertainty?
My gut says it is all there to lose for Labour if they get it wrong and I hope they don’t because that ratpack of gnats is not very bright and don’t deserve to be ministers imo.
My gut says this approach (leaving so much uncertainty) is extremely risky, thus increases their rate of failure at the polls.
They still have time to re-examine this approach, rebuild voter trust by telling voters what they plan to do.
They are really pushing it if they expect people to race out and vote for the unknown.
“…..rebuild voter trust by telling voters what they plan to do.”
A perfect way to begin the day’s discussion.
(And what that young fella Toby Morris was saying the other day on the wireless….)
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-she-ll-have-the-fish
Labour’s menu is looking rather bare.
I’ve been told Labour don’t want to startle the horses, well uncertainty startles voters.
Expecting voters to vote for change is one thing but expecting them to vote for uncertain change is a step too far.
Labour needs to bring voters along, not leave them out in the dark.
The Chairman
In general Labour goes into elections with detailed policy which is outlined on the labour website in the months leading up to the election, not earlier so as not to allow Labour light copying by National. Conversely National generally goes into elections with little detailed policy. Many policy changes such as the increasing of GST after the 2008 election are not anounced prior to the election. Pot calling kettle much!
To date, out of the small number of policies Labour have announced, a number of them are lacking, therefore could and should be improved.
Nevertheless, National can decide to adopt Labour policy at any given time, thus the argument for Labour keeping their powder dry doesn’t stack up.
Until recently, National had brand Key. A brand voters seemed to trust, thereby that political appeal allowed National to get away with more or less as the case may be.
Labour doesn’t carry such voter goodwill, therefore their approach must differ.
“National can decide to adopt Labour policy at any given time, thus the argument for Labour keeping their powder dry doesn’t stack up.”
Nonsensical.
It’s not nonsensical, it’s the reality Labour face.
Regardless of when Labour announce policy, National can decide to adopt it or elements of it.
All I and my family want is a living wage, an adequate home, affordable doctors visits, some hope for my children, and a government that cares. Good by Blue team, you haven’t delivered, and your not capable.
While National has shown they can’t deliver your desires, a change of Government is pointless if they are also unable to deliver.
They should wait until Bingles announces his policy instead of letting him flog theirs as usual.
That isn’t a problem that Labour has.
Their real problem is their leader. He doesn’t have any real opinions at all on anything except that everyone should contribute to the Unions so that they can finance his election campaign.
Little, Andrew bases his policy on a very simple system. Whatever National announce he will insist on the opposite. If National haven’t announced their policy he is helpless. His mouth opens and shuts but nothing emerges.
Look at the flag debate. Labour went into the last election with a firm policy of having a new flag. When National went ahead with the idea he flipped.
Labour went into the last election with a firm policy of raising the age for super. When Bill wouldn’t commit to the same thing Andrew flipped. He has currently come to the right approach but not for the right reason. If National were to announce that there is no need to raise the age Angry will do a double back flip with twist and adopt the other line again.
The man is a fool. Probably due to his original legal training he has no principles or firm beliefs about anything. He will argue either side of the debate, based merely on what pays him the most..
But what Andrew Little isn’t is a cut-and-runner, like Key. Little’s here for the contest. Captain Key’s abandoned ship, leaving his crew flailing wildly in rough seas; Bilge-water Bill at the wheel, fool steam ahead, damn the
torpedoeshousing crisis!Andrew Little leave voluntarily?
You really must be dreaming. Here is a man who has reached his 50s but who hasn’t, in spite of the good “rich prick” salaries he has been receiving for many years, apparently not been able to pay of his mortgage and who has accumulated neither savings nor investments.
At least according to his Parliamentary return of pecuniary interests.
Now he has got a job that pays him around $300,000/annum.
Leave? He’s in heaven. He will be like Walter Nash if he can and will be carried out at the age of 86.
Andrew Little, Prime Minister till he’s 86!!
Alwyn! You dark horse, you!
All your previous cantankerousness, a front, a facade for your true pro-Labour position! You had us going, you ol’ scally-wag!
You do remember Walter Nash, do you?
Apparently not. Perhaps Andrew will emulate Walter. If he did it would make him PM in 2040 at the age of 75. He would keep the job for 3 years and then be dumped. They would even kick him out of his leader of the Labour Party in 2045. He would then revert to the back benches and die, still in harness, in 2051.
Possible? I suppose so but do you really think that Grant wouldn’t stab him in the back sometime in the next 24 years while Andrew remains Leader of the Opposition? If you do you clearly have more faith in Grant’s patience than I do.
Walter Nash was before my time, alwyn, and I’m no historian specializing in the Labour Party, as you appear to be and it’s good to have someone with a long memory on board the Good Ship T.S. In fact, I’m not a Labour man, though I certainly enjoy this site. Younger than you and more forgiving, me. I don’t think I’ve ever big-noted Labour or her MPs, but I certainly have sung the praises of some principled politicians at times. You seem not to believe in such creatures. I’ve met a number of them and while I understand the problems with holding a position of political responsibility and making decisions on behalf of a varied population (I’m a local body politician) I am able to forgive those who find themselves in impossible situations or wrongfully portrayed by punters such as yourself (and others – sorry to see Stunned Mullet’s untimely departure from today’s debate 🙂
I didn’t like Key though. I met him personally and felt he was untrustworthy. From my point of view, he seemed to be deceiving us all. I reckon my radar is pretty sound. Misleading, misdirecting; they are signs to give a person a very wide berth, in my opinion. Sadly, we had to tolerate him for a long time. Gone now though. Very Good Thing.
Grow up son. Mortgage, savings, and investments ?
Go travel in India. Broaden your perspectives ..
Alwyn .. +1
Perhaps you are right.
Looking at Andrew Little he does remind me of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi near the Wellington Railway station. Same haggard look and tatty clothing.
He is probably as intelligent as the statue, although not of course the real person.
I hope he has a better taste in what he drinks than the real Mahatma of course.
Ad-hominem (i.e. personal) attacks will get you nowhere, alwyn.
People have long memories and Aotearoa has a relatively small politically active community.
“Look at the flag debate. Labour went into the last election with a firm policy of having a new flag.” Indeed. A new flag. One chosen by the people of New Zealand. Not Key’s Personal
corporate brandingrag. You gotta admire Labour for winning that contest, despite Key having tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to waste on his attempt to impose his desire on us. And I suspect you do.“One chosen by the people of New Zealand”.
And precisely how was that going to happen?
It would have been done in exactly the same way as was actually chosen. What alternative was there?
Why do you bother to waffle on about it being “Key’s Personal rag”. Are you really as stupid as you seem? Key didn’t “choose” it did he.
Probably yes, you really are that stupid. Anyone who thinks Little is Prime Ministerial material clearly must be pretty thick.
If you can’t come up with an argument that at least has a little bit of a connection to reality I don’t think I will waste any more of my time on responding to your dribbling. If you come up with something at least remotely corresponding to reality I may give your education some more of my time.
Am I really as stupid as I seem? If I seem stupid, I’d be stupid to claim otherwise. Regarding the flag, Key certainly appeared to favour one particular option, guided the selection of it, promote it heavily through his comments and wearing it on his lapel, so yes, Key chose a flag but failed to get his choice accepted widely enough to have it replace the existing flag. What alternative to the process Key chose for the selection of a new flag? May I ask you a question in response that that, alwyn? Did you not read anything, any where on the topic of alternative approaches the Government might have taken to the choosing of a flag? If you were and are completely unaware of any discussion around the process, I’m not sure what sort of person you might be – some would say you’d have to have been living under a rock to have missed that debate, but as I’m not in favour of usingad hominem techniques in a debate, (though I note you have no such compunction) I won’t suggest that applies to you. I feel confident that you live in a house, though perhaps you don’t receive a newspaper and maybe your computer only sends, not receives.
Alwyn
The press,national party people,and trolls like yourself always rubbish the current labour leader. Remember the nanny state cat call against Helen Clark and apologising for men’s violence toward women by David Cunliff as apologizing for being a man.This angry Andy thing is just one in a long line of personality bashing and to me shows that the blue machine must be really worried.
To alwyn:
The only fool here is you alwyn. You have been continually trying to knee-cap Andrew Little as leader of the opposition, just to voice your hatred for Labour.
Bill English is hardly solid leadership material, I would give Little a head-start in that department.
“He will argue either side of the debate, based merely on what pays him the most..” very immature of you alwyn.
Yes dear.
I ‘m in mind of a gallstone.
And a bunion. Right foot, big toe.
Edit: Hang on! Gout! That’s it!
Shingles?
The Chairman
I remember a few decades ago, Labour held conferences around the country talking to the people and asking what they thought was important. Would that up their profile, and bring them closer to a range of NZrs?
In 2014 there were “Meet the Candidates” sessions in various centres to discuss disability issues.
We attended the one in Hamilton and the one in Kaitaia. Notice was taken on who turned up and what they had to say. Looking back, NZ First fielded folk with the best working knowledge of the issues while some of us took the opportunity to put the National candidate in Hamilton on the griddle, and I understand some rather difficult questions were asked of Te Ureroa Flavell at the meeting in Wellington.
I admit that many of us “veterans” went into those meeting resigned to the fact that it would be SSDD…having expectations of anything getting better in the near or distant future is asking for disappointment.
If there were to be meetings such as you suggest greywarshark, they would have to be open to everyone…not just paid up party members.
@ greywarshark
There are a number of ways a Party can put their finger on the pulse of public opinion.
Holding conferences around the country tend to only attract the truly interested.
As well as rebuilding trust, Labour require to get more people interested, they need to create a buzz.
Will Chester Borrows have a merry Christmas?
His front-seat passenger/shot-gun rider seems to be happy enough.
I wonder if anyone’s asked Paula for her version of events?
Paula will be like the three monkeys on this occasion, Robert G – see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil. She probably had her eyes closed while Chester Borrows kept driving into those protestors.
Waste of court time and money.
Chester should be wrapped over the hand with a wet bus ticket give the appropriate apology and that should be the end of it.
Another one who thinks we should have open season on running people over/ Assualt with a deadly weapon it is properly called.
A young brown person who ran over someones toe is still in Ngawha.
Are you still [deleted] KJT ?
Chester should have stopped, let the protestors make dicks of themselves and allowed the police to remove them.
That he drove slowly forward and managed to make them make even larger dicks of themselves was stupid, however, no one was seriously hurt.
So as I said Chester should be wrapped over the hand with a wet bus ticket give the appropriate apology and that should be the end of it.
Without knowing the circumstances of the incident you’re quoting it is difficult to offer any comment.
[I’m taking that as a face value accusation. And banning you for two weeks off the back of it. It should probably be longer, but hey, it’s the season of good will and cheer.] – Bill
“should have” agreed, Stunned Mullet, should have. “Legally obliged to” is another way of saying it. “No one was seriously hurt”, you say and that’s a good thing, but “not seriously hurt” is no legal defense against assault. So there it is and Chester and those of us interested in the case, await the judge’s decision. I wonder if Paula will be required to give evidence; What Paula Saw – or What Paula Said, would be interesting to know. We can speculate, for fun.
..and the protesters are legallly obliged to not block the footpath Robert…
Don’t you thing the courts have better things to waste their time on ?
Let’s face it, it just wouldn’t be fair to expect a National MP to show some personal responsibility, now would it: far better to have some Stunned Lickspittle minimise and deflect instead.
+111
I have yet to see the “Party for personal responsibility” take personal responsibility for anything!
Did Bill take responsibility for double-dipping?
Well, IIRC, he did stop doing it once caught and did pay back some of the money but was still complaining that it was all legal.
Draco – perhaps for a right-winger, that’s as far as it’s possible to go; reluctant faux admission and token amends?
They’re happy to claim responsibility for all sorts of things.
On examination, these claims turn out to be nothing but symptoms of the self-attribution fallacy.
Self-attribution fallacy
@Robert Guyton
It does seem that these people are so weak as to be unable to admit any fault about themselves.
There was a consequence for the protester (injured foot) and there should be one for Chester as well – the judge will decide. Better things for the courts to do? No doubt. Many cases would fall into that category, however, the courts are there for the purpose of issues great and small. This is a case that interests me and others. If you have no interest in the issue, perhaps you could concern yourself with those “better things”, Stunned.
Politicians are like that.
Remember the former Labour Party leader we had who claimed she never realised that he car night, just might, have been travelling at about twice the speed limit?
Concentrating on important papers she said. The other MP present said he was close to terror at the speed they were travelling.
The other MP wasn’t concentrating on important papers, plus, he was not a cool-as-a-cucumber Prime Minister.
In any case, alwyn-of-the-long-and-bitter-memory, that was then, this is now. Chester was at the wheel and can’t claim to be “concentrating on important papers”…can he? Maybe that’s his defense! Or perhaps Paula had just dropped the “Key’s doing a runner and I’m gunna be Deputy” bombshell and he lost control of his foot.
Yes, it was a long time ago. It is of course just as long since we had a competent leader of the Labour Party.
Keep the faith brother. Someday those glory years will return.
I’m not going to hold my breath while I wait for them though.
I thought, judging by some of your blue-faced comments, that you were.
Why has Key been labelled a popular leader and what has he really done for New Zealand? Probably bugger all!
People justified Hitler by saying he had them in some mystical thrall. Key projected confidence, that’s all. I could be more direct but I would probably get banned from this forum.
Eyes closed and squealing? I doubt it. She’s no shrinking violet. She’d have been egging Chester on. Whatever it was she said, she’ll be keeping it close to her Chest.
Radio blearing Baubles Bangles and Beads,–heard nothing, your honor.
http://www.france24.com/en/20161219-imf-christine-lagarde-found-guilty-negligence-2008-payout-french-tycoon-tapie
“A French court on Monday convicted International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde of “negligence” for her role in a controversial €400 million payout to a French tycoon in 2008 while she was finance minister.
The Court of Justice did not hand down a sentence, a decision welcomed by her lawyer, Patrick Maisonneuve, as a “partial” victory.
“We wanted a complete acquittal, instead we got a partial one,” said Maisonneuve. “The court has decided not to penalise her – in fact, the court even decided this should not go on Madame Lagarde’s criminal record.”
The executive board representing the IMF’s 189 member countries reaffirmed its full confidence in Lagarde’s ability to lead the crisis lender, hours after the verdict was issued.
Media in France seized on the guilty-without-punishment verdict, voicing indignation in editorials Tuesday morning. In the left-leaning daily Libération, Laurent Joffrin wrote, “The ordinary person answerable to the law, less apt to be handled with kid gloves, will draw from this the notion that the ordinary fellow, who doesn’t enjoy an ‘international reputation’, to quote the decision, will not be able to benefit from similar indulgence.””
“…will not be able to benefit from similar indulgence.” Indeed!
Having influential friends makes all the difference. It’s nice to be reassured that justice isn’t blind, just mentally defective.
Have we ever got justice from our justice system?
This letting the rich and famous off while hammering the poor has been going on for a long time.
Some balance at last on Radio New Zealand.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/world/321032/syrian-mp-defends-regime-'would-you-send-al-qaeda-roses-‘
“Balance?” I don’t recall them interviewing any spokespeople for the defenders that they’d need to balance out by interviewing a regime official.
They were to busy with other tasks.
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201612221048855277-video-syrian-terrorist-daughter-mission/
We have only heard the Jihadis’ point of view for the past 3 months.
That is out and out rubbish and absolute bullshit. YOU have been spamming longer than that.
The following independent journalists have all questioned the propaganda being disseminated by the mainstream western media about Aleppo.
Patrick Cockburn
Peter Hitchens
Robert Fisk
John Pilger
Peter Oborne
Eva Bartlett
What do you know that the 6 journalists above do not know?
You disproved your own point.
Listen to the BBC, the Washington Post, Radio New Zealand and read the Independent, the Times, the Guardian, Fairfax Media or NZME – you will not hear these voices.
We just hear from activists operating out of Eastern Aleppo, whose reports are uncritically picked up by the corporate media.
Did you read Hitchens?
I’ll repeat two key sections.
“Our sources for this [that the pro-Assad coalition is systematically destroying civilian infrastructure] are people inside eastern Aleppo. There hasn’t, as far as I know, been a single, independent, Western journalist in eastern Aleppo. We rely entirely on propaganda sources, on pictures which always show wounded children being carried by noble, unarmed men in heaps of rubble. And we rely on this and we take it as read.”
“The sources for these reports are so-called ‘activists’. Who are they? As far as I know, there was not one single staff reporter for any Western news organisation in eastern Aleppo last week. Not one.
This is for the very good reason that they would have been kidnapped and probably murdered. The zone was ruled without mercy by heavily armed Osama Bin Laden sympathisers, who were bombarding the west of the city with powerful artillery (they frequently killed innocent civilians and struck hospitals, since you ask). That is why you never see pictures of armed males in eastern Aleppo, just beautifully composed photographs of handsome young unarmed men lifting wounded children from the rubble, with the light just right.”
Hitchens scrambles it.
There’s nothing wrong with only hearing about eastern Aleppo from people living in eastern Aleppo. The problem has been that only the voices of Jihadis in eastern Aleppo have been heard.
And now that eastern Aleppo is clear, who do ‘our’ media go running after? Well, the little girl of a family who decided to evacuate with the terrorists….not any of the vast majority who headed to west Aleppo.
(shrug)
The irony of Kathyrn Ryan’s interview with journalist Kim Zetter this morning summed up how lost the msm have become.
First of all they talk about fake news, commenting on how internet sources do not fact check their sources, then they go on to discuss the twitter account of a 7 year old from Aleppo.
Do you really think we are that stupid?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201828679
Vanessa Beeley, a journalist who just returned from Aleppo with the real story
They think you’re smart enough not to need telling that the little girl’s mum was somewhat involved in proceedings. Were they over-optimistic?
Psycho Milt: What is the significance of the swastika-like symbol you use on this forum ?
“Pedant?” Surely “Ignoramus” would be more appropriate? That’s twice in two days I’ve had to link to this: https://crassahistory.wordpress.com/2010/09/06/15/
Psycho Milt: do you seriously think that is *original* ?
A lot of people have been there before you. It’s derivative and boring .. and can offend people with family histories from that era.
http://deeperweb.com/results.php?cx=%21004415538554621685521%3Avgwa9iznfuo&cof=FORID%3A11%3BNB%3A1&ie=UTF-8&q=swastika+%27broken+cross%27&as_qdr=&siteurl=http%3A%2F%2Fdeeperweb.com%2F
.. and you have the nerve to label someone an ‘ignoramus’ ?
The only charitable explanation is that you are a naive and ignorant young man.
Susie, Kathryn and Kim need to expand their #SOURCES beyond AP, Reuters, BBC (State organ) and WaPo.
Endless recitals of “white helmet – Mannequin challenge anyone?” and Syria One Man Observatory “syriahr- put another tyre on the fire Danny ! – More smoke now” certainly do SUM to a hysteria that needs such balance.
#SMORGASBOARD
RNZ just part of the MSM echo chamber/ propaganda machine.
Yeah – maybe RNZ should interview Craig Murray to attain a #SMORGASBOARD of #SOURCES .
Can’t see that they have done it recently ;
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=rnz+%22craig+muurray%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab&gfe_rd=cr&ei=Cp5bWOLDGKHz8AeZ2qPoCQ
Help to balance ;
https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=rnz+observatory+syria&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab&gfe_rd=cr&ei=b59bWMDwJOP98wexg7bYBg#q=rnz+%22white+helmets%22
Interesting article
https://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2016/12/21/trump-opponents-and-supporters-have-divergent-racial-attitudes/
No no no, it’s all about white people’s economic anxiety……..
/
Celebrity isn’t just harmless fun – it’s the smiling face of the corporate machine
Why do people become obsessed with others in the MSM? Why do they allow themselves to be so overtly manipulated?
Monbiot is one of my favourite writers.
Here’s my list of commentators I enjoy.
I’d love to hear other people’s suggestions….
New Zealand
Rachel Stewart
Bryan Bruce
Rod Oram
Frank Macskasy
Laila Harré
John Minto
International
Robert Fisk
John PIlger
George Monbiot
George Galloway
Owen Jones
Patrick Cockburn
Peter Hitchens ( my right wing entry)
Jimmy Dore on YouTube I enjoy.
Just watched a couple.
Really good.
Here’s Jimmy Dore on Eva Bartlett.
So there aren’t any international women commentators of note?
I’d also include Jane Kelsey & Sue Bradford in NZ.
And Naomi Klein internationally.
Probably some others, too.
oh, yeah – Morgan Godfery…
tired this evening.
and don’t really want to add some sort of celebrity worship of the above.
http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2014/08/23/noam-chomsky-to-become-new-x-factor-judge/
Not wishing to derail the conversation;)
For myself not a day goes by where I don’t question the ‘why’ of the masses. If its any consolation the existence of Bernie, Corbyn and Brexit (oh God, and Trump) are the first real cracks in the Manufacturing of Consent in the ‘West’.
You know it’s taking the piss out of Chomsky don’t you?
Before celebrity culture, there was the Star system – Hollywood stars also performed a role within capitalism from the 1920s -1950s/60s.
They were larger than life, glamorous fronts for US capitalist culture of individualism, the US dream, consumer products, and allegedly an egalitarian culture where individuals could speak out about their concerns. They were part of a magical world on the big screen, that took people out of their everyday lives and worries.
Celebrity culture arose with shifts in both capitalism (to neoliberalism and corporate transnational dominance) and media/communications technologies.
Celebrities appear on small screens, and started to arise in the 1980s with video technologies – where everyone could own movies in their own homes.
Celebrities inhabit more of our everyday world, and are part of more interactive communications – people can phone/txt in their votes for reality TV celebs. And the rise of mobile technologies, and social media, shifted the celebrity culture even more into people’s everyday lives.
I think the percentages of cultural coverage quoted, comparing early & later 20th century with 21st century, are misleading. Media and communications had changed. Late 20th century and 21st century media and communications saturate our lives in ways they never did earlier in the 20th century.
Both Hollywood stars of past times, and more recent celebrity culture, sell a version of capitalism to the general population – albeit different versions.
The day is fast approaching when Hamilton and Auckland will be joined in a vast, sprawling megalopolis.
Hamilton City Council has just released it’s Housing Accord…a la Auckland and Tauranga….http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/87821424/hamilton-signs-housing-accord-with-government
…with the promise to free up more land for development and fast track consents.
There may even be something in there to give hope to those seeking affordable housing….cue, Tui slogan.
So, while huge tracts of fertile Waikato farm land is being subsumed into housing expansion, with the very real possibility that these developments will join up with the huge tracts of fertile South Auckland horticultural land also being converted….will the new inhabitants of these housing areas have the best vegetable gardens in New Zealand?
There may very well be a silver lining here….
“The day is fast approaching when Hamilton and Auckland will be joined in a vast, sprawling megalopolis”
So finally Auckland will get some style.
Ha!
Beautiful!
And from the ‘nothing better to do with their time’ file…our Friend Wayne, you know,
Wayne ‘New Zealand’s never been in better shape’ Mapp is participating in a belated conversation over on Kiwibog about the Legatum Institute report putting NZ at the top of the most prosperous nation pile.
And obviously because the discussion over on Kiwibog is so predictably formulaic, Friend Wayne has to share with the Kiwiboggers what Standardnistas are thinking about the economic state of the nation.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/12/a_jealous_aussie.html#comment-1842012
I guess he thinks more of this site than I thought.
‘Legatum Limited, also known as Legatum, is a private investment firm headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. With a long-term perspective, Legatum invests proprietary capital in global capital markets.
The Legatum Institute Foundation was established in 2007 as an independent non-partisan charitable public policy think-tank that seeks to understand what drives and restrains national success and individual flourishing. ‘
So an extreme neo-liberal think-tank reckons we are great.
We should be worried, not flattered.
Pity the corporate media does not do a back check on these dodgy organisations.
No wonder people don’t trust the msm any more.
Notice bullshit Wayne actually starts by talking about GDP per capita, where we have got way behind Australia since our 80’s “reforms.
But he fudges by using total GDP as an indication of our gains over Australia. As this is the result of immigration earthquakes and housing speculation. It is nothing to be proud of.
The right-wing have to lie because reality does not conform to their delusion.
Out of curiosity I had a look at Kiwiblog, held my nose and read the preceding comments to Wayne Mapp’s contribution. My initial reaction to these were ‘Wow, just wow’ – the ‘names’ of some of the commenters, to me are simply sickening and their comments are obviously par for the course of a blog of that nature. The vitriol, hostility, and contempt towards comments from those who vote other than for Act/National, unions and their members, women (including of course Helen Clark – still after all this time) was quite mind blowing and any moderate comments disagreeing with the theme got the big thumbs down. I felt quite sullied after a few minutes and got out of there. I realise that some of TS commenters are pretty robust at times but the clear majority are sensible and thought provoking. I noticed that a few of the commenters have cropped up on other blogs (including TS), I sometimes read and while they are forthright in their views they are not in the same league as the bile they feel at liberty to spew forth over at KB.
Yep, Farrar’s little cesspit of barely veiled hate -speechers is an eye opener alright.
Kiwibog, the home of the always, always right.
It’s almost as if Farrar has taken it upon himself to keep hate alive.
I think that actually there is Farrar, his disabled person hating mate Garrett and our mutual friend Wayne Mapp who are actually real individuals. The rest, I’m pretty sure are made up personas that enable Farrar to really let down what’s left of his hair on full noise slander and slagging.
I could be wrong.
Now watch one of the Standard mods step in and give me a ticking off for bald shaming. 😉
Peter Hitchens on Syria.
Listen from 1:37:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxzisV5Z-bA
And more from Hitchens.
Peter Hitchens argues for Aleppo and Mosul as equivalent, says terrorists are being defeated in both.
Amid the bombs of Aleppo, all you can hear are the lies.
Peter Hitchens
An excerpt
Read the whole article here.
Amid the bombs of Aleppo, all you can hear are the lies
So let’s review the situation….
The following independent journalists have all questioned the propaganda being disseminated by the mainstream western media about Aleppo.
Patrick Cockburn
Peter Hitchens
Robert Fisk
John Pilger
Peter Oborne
Eva Bartlett
Yet pm, Jenny, Peter Swift and others on this site disagree with them.
What do they know that the 6 journalists above do not know?
Peter Hitchens is a right-wing authoritarian (who would voluntarily describe themselves as a “Burkean conservative,” for fuck’s sake?) who works for the Daily Mail, so if you’re quoting him you should maybe re-think what you’re doing. Eva Bartlett is a Syrian regime shill. John Pilger’s a has-been with an obsession that everything bad that happens is somehow the work of the US government. The others actually are proper journalists but don’t appear to share your enthusiasm for the Assad regime.
Also, you’re arguing from authority again. It doesn’t become less of a logical fallacy the more it’s repeated, you know.
Patrick Cockburn
Robert Fisk
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/aleppo-falls-to-syrian-regime-bashar-al-assad-rebels-uk-government-more-than-one-story-robert-fisk-a7471576.html
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/11/youre-not-hearing-the-whole-story-about-aleppo/
Peter Oborne
And your point is?
You can’t work it out?
OK.
All 3 of these independent journalists have all questioned the propaganda being disseminated by the mainstream western media about Aleppo.
They’ve all pointed out that the rebel forces in east Aleppo include some very unpleasant people, yes. Which actually hasn’t been concealed from us by our media, because we all knew about it before we read Fisk et al’s pieces on it. You keep quoting them and posting excerpts from their work as if they’d somehow proved that it’s actually OK for the Assad regime and its patrons to be carrying out indiscriminate bombardment of rebel-held cities, but they haven’t proved anything of the kind, or tried to prove it, and would probably be horrified that you’re trying to misrepresent their work in that way.
John PIlger is a proper journalist by anyone;s standards – except yours.
Here is is most recent film.
The Coming War on China.
Peter Hitchens may be right wing and he may right for the Mail. I disagree with him on most things, like George Galloway does.
However, he is not an establishment figure on several issues.
A great deal more independent thinker than the establishment corporate media you get your ideas from.
Clearly you did not watch this or if you did, you did not understand what he was saying.
Well, sure. Famous right-wing authoritarian Peter Hitchens shares your enthusiasm for authoritarian nationalist dictatorships. That’s not something to be proud of.
Eva Bartlett appears brave and independent to me.
And seems to have the authority of the United Nations behind her at this press conference.
Here she schools a mainstream journalist about their biased coverage.
Eva Bartlett appears brave and independent to me.
That’s your problem in a nutshell. Someone who’s plainly a regime shill, embarrassingly-obviously so, appears to you “brave and independent.” It explains the risible propaganda you post to this blog every day all by itself.
The risible propaganda can be seen on the BBC, CNN and other MSM sources.
Ask Patrick Cockburn.
You were looking squarely in the mirror and speaking only to yourself when you wrote that, right?
Opinion is still opinion no matter how ilustrious the source. It pays to try and discuss the facts. Contest them if you can.
What I find with most Assad supporters is that instead of defending or challenging the facts I put up, they tend to talk right past or simply just ignore them if it dosen’t fit their narrative.
Found out why RWNJs always try to rewrite history:
Yep. They’re all from a different dimension. 😈
Dude spent three years writing a chapter by chapter review of the book without orcs.
Atlas Shrugged
Foreword
A Novel for the 1% (March 22, 2013)
Atlas Shrugged is more popular than ever among economic conservatives, precisely because it offers a full-blown defense of rapacious, predatory capitalism in a time of vast inequality.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/series/atlas-shrugged/
Celtic 14 points clear. National 14 points ahead. It’s going to be a great 2017.
Was that an answer to a question?
Celtic and National are always the right answer.
Celtic, huh…
So, what you’re saying is that I should embrace my Celtic heritage and go medieval on your heinie right?
So the answer to a question about, say, had you been asked one of course, which no-one would do since you never ever answer awkward questions, house prices along the lines of, oh I dunno, try “Why are there insufficient builders, fisiani?”, then the answer would be Celtic and National?
Well, bugger me. you’re half right. It is National’s fault that the number of apprentices has fallen by nearly half since 2008, and that this is al;so the answer to why there are insufficient builders.
Yay, fisiani. At last a true answer. Well done!
The other answer, Celtic, is also true because of the number of Irish builders brought into the country after the failure of the Celtic Tiger.
100% accuracy, fisiani.
MMP.
Fisi “Celtic 14 points clear. National 14 points ahead. It’s going to be a great 2017”
Here you go, sweetness …
Compared to last Election, Lab+Green up 7 points, Opposition Bloc up 5, Right Bloc down 5. Nat’s lead over Lab+Green slashed from 11 points to a mere 2.
Incidentally, my little Tory cheerleader, one minute your implying you’re of Noble Black African birth*, next moment you’re apparently a Catholic Glaswegian from Pollokshields , immersed in the Old Firm Rivalry (“See you, Wee Jimmy“).
Whit are ye daein ya dobber !, Make your mind up, ya wee dunderheed.
* https://thestandard.org.nz/john-keys-housing-announcement/#comment-959169
Ohhhh! Going forensic on him, swordy!
Big ups.
‘Listening to the voices’: UK priest goes to Aleppo to ‘see what’s really going on’
another sign of arrogance that may yet be rued?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/321029/national-to-stand-controversial-young-mp-again
Globalization Doesn’t Make as Much Sense as It Used To
Which, of course, is why we have floating currencies but they’ve been set to float incorrectly being based upon demand rather than actual trade-weighting. This has resulted in a huge misalignment in the economy and such action as the 1987 attack on our own currency by Kreiger and our own John Key.
Trade-weighting would have to take into account the actual balance of trade, the balance of payments, working conditions, the minimum wage and other factors. In other words, all the things that are ignored by present FTAs.
Napier welders being paid $3 an hour, legally
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2016/12/napier-welders-being-paid-3-an-hour-legally.html
John Key’s legacy
#brighterfuture (best wear goggles)
‘Fake News’ in America: Homegrown, and Far From New
Chris Hedges
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/fake_news_homegrown_and_far_from_new_20161218
‘This is a huge waste of taxpayer money’
Families are facing a bleak Christmas in cramped motel rooms that are costing taxpayers thousands of dollars each week.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11771870
There is a complete Bias in the Western Media
Press Conference at the United Nations against propaganda and regime change, for peace and national sovereignty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eG6Zw1HiPQ
East Aleppo residents tell of living under al Qaeda rule.
Interview by Vanessa Beeley, December 2016
Yep – post Liberation 130K residents of East Aleppo fled Westward – reunification and safety – now a viable option.
No reports of people “escaping” West Aleppo to the East – at any stage.
Maximally 4K terrorists (and dependents) graciously continue to be “bused” to Idlib where they will likely be “re-provisioned” MANPAD-wise
#SOURCES https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/5293
Idlib – where it started
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-13857654
Eva Bartlett spoke in Santa Cruz, California on December 14, 2016.
Her speech contextualizes and demystifies the mainstream media portrayal of current events happening on the ground in Aleppo, Syria.
The BBC has form on bias.
Just ask the Scots.
Hey Psycho, that is a ‘Hakenkreuz’ .. broken cross .. any way you cut it.
Symbols have meanings. It may be very ‘post-modern’ to play with them, but you will still get strong emotional reactions. I’m off to bed ..
This is the type of manufacturing that 3D printing will be replacing first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFNEqY6nn0g