The sudden favouring of the very few who have user logins (authors or people with very old logins) has been fixed.
A option in the discussion page “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” got knocked on by accident 19 hours ago. I’ve now turned it back off.
Thank you! I saw the Word Press logo and thought I was on KiwiBlog.
Imagine the horror.
I’m on 999 posts over there, by the way. I promised the boys I’d make my 1,000th a real rip-snorter, but I still haven’t produced. I have a severe case of writer’s block, I’m afraid….
These days I always seem to have writers block for human level English.
Fortunately I don’t currently have it in c++, C#, python, … I have had blocks in those in the past and have found that writing English in troll suppression mode has usually sufficient to drive me back to rationality.
But this drought in English has been ongoing for a while. Perhaps I should start to resurrect writing in my piss-poor human French or German (or even historian Latin) to see if I can kickstart the English habit again.
Or perhaps just stopping the habit of writing anything on cellphones would help. I have to say that while they are great communication devices, they are piss-poor devices for writing coherently.
You’re correct, Anne. It’s not really writer’s block, it’s laziness on my part. I do really want to write a magnum opus, but I just can’t work up the enthusiasm. Maybe it’s all those down-votes taking their toll….
“Auckland’s century-old stormwater pipes overflow into the ocean almost every time it rains, and it’s putting many of the city’s beaches out of action.
It only takes 5mm of rain to fall before the combined sewage and stormwater pipes overflow.
“The frequency with which it happens in Auckland is a bit of a concern, because it’s 50 times a year,” says Auckland University wastewater engineer Dr Lokesh Padhye.
A Weekend Herald investigation found in a year, around 1 million cubic metres of wastewater is disposed of in the harbour each year.”
The important response from Watercare to sewerage spillovers in the Auckland isthmus region is the Central Interceptor project. See the video and explanation in the link below:
Back in the day most of the stormwater and wastewater were put into the same pipe and outflow. It’s taken the the best chunk of a century to gradually separate them. The Central Interceptor project – about $1.3b of work – deals with a whole bunch more of the separations. It’s not a full cure, but it’s a big step forward.
Some of those other places like Piha need to get much stronger support from the local community to get a comprehensive solution. Putting a population that size on septic tanks is ridiculous.
All septic tanks are ridiculous, in my view. Disposal of humanure to soil is the best practice. There are ways to do this in all situations (even in a space craft 🙂 and those methods could be developed into an exact and beneficial science, if there was the will to do so. Governments, councils, communities and households are loathe to explore the potential of “earth closets” because as individuals, we think poo is icky.
I don’t think that it is a problem with it being icky. More a problem with population densities and geography.
In Piha the basic soil is a high metal sand that doesn’t foster any kind of conversion into humus. A dog crap dropped on soil can take months to disappear. Furthermore the section sizes aren’t that different from somewhere like Grey Lynn because of the topography which doesn’t provide a lot of room for spreading whatever comes out of an “earth closet”.
I suspect that they’d have to truck the “night soil” a rather long way away to any place where it’d get a earth breakdown.
But I think that Ad is rather hoping to get any kind of sewerage system because the pump architecture and costs are rather high.
What they should do in Piha is to knock half of the houses down. That would reduce the density of septic tanks and the pollution and health risks associated with them.
I take your point, lprent and enjoyed your reference to night soil; there’s a future in collecting and disposal to soil of humanure in communities like Piha, imo. Where soils are sandy and un-lively as those you describe, importing activated soil from elsewhere and using that as a destination for night soil should be considered. Coupled with that would be a change in the diets of the residents but I recognise that is a big ask just now 🙂 Seperating liquid from solid at the site of delivery is necessary too; asking people to learn to separate their stuff was difficult enough when plastic recycling was started, so taking to people about the management of their bodily functions would be a challenge, though not an insurmountable one. Soil organisms had adapted to utilise humanure perfectly and no uv light, oxygenating clever-clogs system devised by humans will ever match them. It’s all about recognising where the best designs and processes come from and that ain’t the drawing board.
“In Piha the basic soil is a high metal sand that doesn’t foster any kind of conversion into humus. A dog crap dropped on soil can take months to disappear.”
In the Humanure system and variations, you don’t need soil to make humanure. You can even make it in a wheelie bin if you want. As Robert suggests, human crap is designed to break down with just microbes.
As Robert suggests, human crap is designed to break down with just microbes.
No, it’s not designed to do that – other organisms have evolved to do that.
But, still, I’d probably use a treatment plant and then deliver the product from that to the forested hills. Let nature take its course from there fertilising both the forests and the plains beneath them.
Whereas I’d take the pressure off the centralised system by having as much used onsite as possible and where appropriate, and where not appropriate take off site and use elsewhere. Makes the systems more resilient too.
Which means that you need to keep the centralised system.
And, no, it doesn’t make them more resilient. Think about it – when was the last time that the sewer system failed so completely that it caused issues? All you’re doing is using more resources to achieve the same end.
The last big failure I’m aware of is the Chch2. Some people set up modified humanure systems in response.
“All you’re doing is using more resources to achieve the same end.”
That depends on how you view it. If you use the humanure to grow trees and biomass locally then it’s a net gain.
If you are talking about centralised sewerage that is already in existence, then of course keep it. But it’s hugely wasteful to use potable water to dispose of human waste, and that’s going to be an issue going forward. There’s no problem with running two systems but using the least resource-dependent one the most.
Which is one of those things that doesn’t happen often enough to warrant all the extra resources going into every house effectively having its own treatment plant.
That depends on how you view it.
No it doesn’t. It’s most definitely bounded by physical reality.
If you use the humanure to grow trees and biomass locally then it’s a net gain.
Define locally. To put it another way, most houses don’t have enough land to be fully self-sufficient.
There’s no problem with running two systems but using the least resource-dependent one the most.
Yes there is because running two systems uses more resources.
One good reason to root for the Pittsburgh Steelers today
At an event the night before his inauguration, Donald Trump shouted out Patriots owner Bob Kraft in the crowd, complimenting him for a “great quarterback” in Tom Brady, and “great coach” in Bill Belichick. Belichick, who wrote a letter to Trump wishing him luck the day before the election, did not want to talk about it.
No, I don’t know who the Rooneys support. They’re probably Republican, it doesn’t matter. The reason anyone who cares about sporting values should root against the Patriots is because they have a nasty and foolish extreme right wing quarterback, and a coach who grovels to political slimeballs.
Then of course there’s the whole deflation-of-the-footballs scandal.
Well dont forget the Steelers with Impedegate (2013) • Steroidgate (1970-2007) • Salarycapgate (2000) • Shouldergate (1978) • PEDSgate (3x since 1991) • Crampgate (2012) • Tampergate (1994: Capers)
and are recognised as one of the largest cheats in NFL history. But thats OK if you like the owner huh?
God bless Google. But like all things – a few left wing people in NZ not cheering for a US team in a sport that most NZ does not care about will hardly upset Trump.
In fact – as a lot of people are saying its this kind of silly petulant behaviour that got him voted in in the first place.
Did you just write that Trump voters DISLIKE “silly petulant behaviour”? Come on, now, James, a laugh is a laugh but that’s just taking it beyond a joke.
And, as you probably know, a lot of fans feel contempt for Brady….
You mean the Democrats have lost it for a few years. Trump won’t last, but Pennsylvania will.
…and I would guess that a lot of Steelers team members are Trump voters.
Nonsense. The Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is similar to the new Waikato Chiefs coach Colin Cooper: frightened to say anything that might cause offence to loud-mouthed and aggressive white racists. But, in stark contrast to the young Republicans and flag-worshippers like Tom Brady, most NFL players, including the Pittsburgh Steelers, are in fact thoughtful and intelligent…..
Ramon Foster, the Steelers’ NFLPA representative, said the majority of the players support 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s right to protest racial inequality and police brutality during the national anthem.
Re: Trump *protests*
“So a bunch of people — most of them women — marched. What the media didn’t show you is who organized those marches and what they stand for. Let me give you an example; specifically, in Washington DC according to a tweet that was uncovered by Gateway Pundit (and which the person involved has since deleted)”
AWW, the person in this link is raving and making extreme assertions and leaps.
Do you think these marches were some kind of endorsement of Sharia Law? That’s ridiculous.
Perhaps one of the supporters/organisers of one of the marches supports some aspects of Sharia Law – the one shown is about charging interest on loans. That doesn’t mean she unthinkingly endorses all extreme versions of that belief system (ie cliterectomy). There are plenty of people who see themselves as Christian but don’t deny evolution, see homosexuality as a sin or battle to ban abortion.
BTW, the teaching about charging interest is also an historical Christian view – Antonio and Shylock argue about it in detail in The Merchant of Venice. It arises from the interpretation of a parable about Laban’s sheep.
Maybe your establishment minded detractors will prefer this link to the New York Times where they report that George Soros the multi-billionaire has links to more than 50 “partner” organisations of the Womens March on Washington D.C.
In other words, this is all part of a continuing deep state struggle by globalists like Soros to weaken and delegitimise Trump’s new Presidency.
Fair enough, james. He was blindsided. Here’s another asshat being hit, even harder, this time entirely within the rules of fair play. I don’t think anyone would do anything but applaud this one….
Yes, plenty of opportunities for teachers in our fine metropolis… just so long as they don’t mind dossing down in a cardboard box under Grafton Bridge.
National have failed our economy on housing. Of course National general handling of the economy is poor at best, interested in favoring the few, which makes NZ less innovative as the payoff to risk is lowered, the wealthy get the pie nomatter what under National. The mechanism of borrowing off your home to invest in a business is now an age issue, young dont got no home, oldies do.
Of course Hooten thinks the only thing we should consider when voting in the election, yet to be called, is Winston, or someother outlier distraction. Well, Clinton missed it, the economy of three northern states hurting middle class lifestyles mainly. So anywonder hOoten also does.
Its the economy of the middle that has been ravaged by tax cut happy politicians fuelling wealth for the weathiest while hurting poor and midle classes. Its a joke when English claims that half dont pay tax, whose fault is that when his policies lower relative incomes of the poorest and middle classes, and hand productivity gains to the wealthiest.
Combined party vote ceiling: 42% (maximum possible, though very unlikely IMO)
Most likely combined party vote LAB + GR: 35% to 37%
Party vote floor (again very unlikely, though possible IMO): 33%
Also:
1) There is zero chance that Winston will go with Labour/Greens if their combined party vote is under 40%. There is zero chance that LAB/GR can form a government without NZ First.
2) There is a better than 50/50 chance that National will put Paula Bennett at the top of the ticket. (Clarification: this is speculation on behalf of myself and my political team; I have no direct knowledge of this).
3) Labour list MP job security is VERY sensitive to any downward move in party vote cf. 2014. I am somewhat surprised given this circumstance that Little did not secure Rongotai or Mt Albert as his own seat as having no electorate MP experience may be a line of attack used by National.
4) The Gareth Morgan Party will waste a large number of votes which would otherwise go to Labour or Greens. In several ways, his is the new New Zealand Party.
5) Overall, 2:1 chance of a NAT win this year, which will move towards 3:1 if Bennett eventually gets put at the top of the ticket. The Labour Leadership team was geared up to fight Key, their approaches all have to be rethought now, and with Bennett they have even fewer strategies to oppose her than English. (Bennett needs a couple months of intensive coaching first).
6) If Bennett is put at the top of the ticket, National’s marketing pitch will be: working class beneficiary of Tainui decent made good, perfect as NZ’s first Maori PM and NZ’s first Maori Woman PM.
Reference – read this puff piece and tell me they aren’t positioning her hard already with clear prepared lines and spin.
“I didn’t have a job and it looked pretty bleak actually and I reckon it’s a credit to this country that there are opportunities and you get a second chance.
“And if you step up to them and then step in New Zealanders reward you for that hard work.”
Ms Bennett says those values drove her to the National Party…
Ms Bennett, of Tainui descent, spoke of her Maori heritage saying “I know where I come from and what it means”.
“I am incredibly proud of my Maori heritage and where I come from,” she said.
“Like a lot of New Zealanders I grew up certainly knowing that I was Tanui, certainly recognising that particularly through my grandmother in the Waikato.
“So I know where I come from and I know what that means but I also grew up in a household that didn’t speak Maori and that was kind of focused on being a New Zealander.”
I can see where you are coming from with these predictions CV and I don’t like it !!
Do you really think Paula is the answer? Also, won’t the TOP take votes off the Right as well as the Left?
1) I think that with Bennett, National have a crystal clear PR case to put to the country – in essence, working class background, beneficiary, experienced Cabinet Minister, and now the first Maori Woman Prime Minister of New Zealand. In this way National could use the culture of identity politics promulgated by the left, against the left.
2) TOP: the people attracted to TOP will be people who want an alternative to the two big parties (and damn if they’ll ever vote for the “hippies”). It’s certainly up for discussion as to whether or not these voters will be predominantly disaffected Labour voters or disaffected National voters.
3) With Key gone and the social conservatism of English and Bennett, I think most of the Conservative Party vote might fold back into National. If so, that’s a couple of percent boost there for the NATs.
TOP party appeal is hard to guess at. I see the ideas of Gareth Morgan as essentially still mainstream economics (e.g if we just tweek our tax policies a bit the the market will solve all the underlying problems causing inequity and such). But this idea is likely to appeal to many on the Left and I read 7.3 above as the opinion of just such a potential convert. I would not be surprised if lots of prior Labour supporters give TOP a punt.
Do you know any history? The New Zealand party took votes off the government of the day. But then again, I suppose you are all post truth now?
Your diatribe is actually just spin for the national party, and holds nothing for working people. So I take it you are embracing your inner middle class prat?
You were not the only one who picked trump would win once the dnc went crazy, but you are the only one who has gone full man love of trump.
So as you are not interested in the hopes and dreams of working people anymore, why don’t you go help whale oil? Nothing you write talks to the people who did not vote, nothing you now rant about actually helps working people, it is nothing more than vainglorious gasconade.
p.s if you come back with anything trump, or the left are with their head in the sand. I’ll just know you off into lala land. Because i’ll say this only once, organise or get out of the way.
“You were not the only one who picked trump would win once the dnc went crazy, but you are the only one who has gone full man love of trump.”
This.
“p.s if you come back with anything trump, or the left are with their head in the sand. I’ll just know you off into lala land. Because i’ll say this only once, organise or get out of the way.”
And this.
CV is has been banned for 4 weeks. Perhaps we should get on and organise while we have some breathing space 🙂
I was intending to reply to CV’s political predictions post by making a prediction myself; that CV would suffer a lengthy ban from the Standard for anarchic, anti-progressive trolling.
It seems CV was too quick with his anti-worker trolling and I was too slow with my prediction.
Adam, are you aware if CVs suggested National party strategy is *the* National party strategy you have just engaged in shooting the messenger, and demanded that nobody should discuss the election positioning of the Government in an election year. You should stop attacking people who are trying to assist with your understanding of the political landscape!
Even the big US media outlets acknowledged the lie in their headlines, to their credit. But they will need to figure out a whole different way to cover this administration. Look, even the Auckland Herald has a story about that: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11787056
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
And there is not a single major media outlet that will promote or encourage anything that might hold the potential to challenge institutional power and authority. So yes, the likes of yesterdays marches and protests will get covered. But only in ways and to an extent that ensures everything remains safe and in its proper place.
So today, I see some headlines about audience or viewing figures. And I see opinion pieces and analytical wankery on what it all means or might mean or doesn’t mean. That, apparently, is where the ball is. And so that’s where we’re all meant to rush headlong to.
Please do let me know how my reply is off-topic or irrelevant to that, so I can avoid the same error again?
The first para is not about some tittle-tattle about a dishonest politician. You really think, even for a second, that a lying spokesperon or politician is in any was a threat to institutional power or authority?
For fucks sake, that kind of shit can be (and is) analysed and turned over, buried and dug up again to be poked at, precisely because it is utterly meaningless in terms of power or in terms of challenges to it.
Meanwhile, stuff that could (if reported thoroughly and honestly) lead to institutional power being seriously challenged or undermined (such as major follow up reports on the marches and protests) is swept under the carpet.
It seems you completely missed the point of the post. Shit happens.
You need to ask Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, and the Trump administration Spokes person as to why they would lie about crowd sizes, and why would it matter to them (comparing dick sizes is usually something blokes do, and this reminds me a bit like that….mine is bigger then yours 🙂 blablahbalh ) .
Cause the women and their supporters showed up, at their expense, took days of work, spend hours in trains/busses/cars etc, braved the same shit weather etc. as did the Trump supporters.
Or maybe the showing of supporters was just a showing of the actually numbers of support each candidate got in the End.
I mean D. Trump won by 80.000 votes in three states to carry the electoral College, so one could say that 250.000 coming to his installment was a good shot.
Hillary Clinton got almost three million more votes by individual voters then DTrump, so the size of 3.3 million would reflect that no?
As for what its good? I don’t know, should we just do away with Protests/Rallies so as to not upset the nice people?
Maybe its only got to do with this : ” Good girls go to heaven but bad girls go every where ”
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Sorry Bill, but I found this opinion piece asinine, short-sighted and very trivializing. If I do you a disservice by saying you don’t have much faith in the democratic process, then I apologize. I am persuaded after following the American media, both pre and post Rupert Murdoch, that they do uncover the truth – even if eventually. When someone as stupid and ignorant and arrogant as Trump, doesn’t even bother to hide his failings, but instead tries to re-term the word “liar” with “fake news” and “alternative reality”, then your football analogy is trite. Trump is telling you the game isn’t football, but baseball, and regrettably you seem to be defending the indefensible. Because this US election is so far removed from the traditional political model, largely because of Russian cyber-warfare and a partisan FBI director’s shenanigans, a megalomaniac has gained the White House. I don’t doubt for a minute, that the full weight of the American Press will investigate and publish, nor that that saner heads will prevail, both in the US Senate and House. Look for an early impeachment, with the media doing what it’s supposed to do – shine a light on the truth for all to see. That’s democracy at work. Despite what economists like to think, politics encompasses economics, not the other way round.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
@Skeptic – The Russian thing and FBI shenanigans were not the main factors of Trump being elected, rather it was the DNC who decided to choose Clinton over Bernie Sanders and decided to rig the outcome of the primary. It certainly wasnt “the mainstream media doing what it’s supposed to do – shine a light on the truth for all to see” – democracy wasn’t working….. the few media corporations (6 of them I think) are hugely corrupted themselves. The US Senate and the House are ‘owned’ by the Corporations and Banks, I doubt “saner heads will prevail”. Ironically it may be Trump that ends up blowing up the media corruption……my 10c worth.
Nic you are in la la land if you believe sanders a socialist would have won election. A socialist can’t even win in Nz and we have a lot stonger left bent or affliction than the US The issue I see is both democrats and republicans had terrible candidates ( including sanders) if democrats had put up any one half middle ground ie Bieden etc they would have strolled in
Sorry Nick, but as my pseudonym implies, I don’t and never have subscribed to conspiracy theories – all of my tertiary studies have settled beyond any shadow of doubt that so-called conspiracies deflate in direct proportion to the number of people purportedly involved – and therefore are, by and large, figments of the imaginations of deluded souls believing in Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Man in the Moon. Rather than a huge conspiracy involving thousands of ordinary motivated members of the DNC, and the hundreds of thousands making up the US media, all of whom are supposedly acting in secret to undermine Bernie Sanders, and the tens of thousands of people supporting and assisting the elected officials of one the most open states on the planet – again supposedly acting secret to advance the aims of the “Corporations & Banks” (numbering in their millions if you include all their employees) and not one of these is going to leak the big secret – yeah right! Sorry mate, but the real “secret” is that although it takes a while, ulterior motives will always be shown the light of day. Blowhards and egotists are always revealed for what they really are. And despite it’s very tarnished reputation, and self censorship depending on its editorial slant, the US media is mostly very, very good at uncovering facts. Given the release of various documents under the US FOI Act, and comparing these with back copies of newspapers of the day, their facts are surprisingly accurate even if their opinions are not. I think Trump is due to find this unpalatable truth out very shortly.
Nope. Skeptic is saying conspiracies almost always get found out. The more people involved, the quicker it’s found out (on average). So if there had been some kind of conspiracy beyond the clumsy fumblings revealed by the DNC e-mails, we can be very confident we would have found out by now.
Nope he does not, he categorically states “I don’t and never have subscribed to conspiracy theories”. Then move’s towards a dnc consisting of thousands, ummmm on what planet? The DNC has some 300 odd members, but in real terms the committee is run by sub-committees. With power held firmly in the fundraising and election steering committees. So sure if it was thousands, fine. Hundreds we’d even get a feel for it. But 12 people, it’s possible they can keep their mouth shut for years. So confidence we could find out, nope, that is just a theory as well.
“A conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain a perceived real-world occurrence through the actions of a secretive, usually evil and very selfish group. Not all conspiracy theories are wrong, but if the theory requires greater suspension of disbelief than random chance would to explain the occurrence,”
So the theory is the DNC helped h.r.c get the nomination by making it difficult for anyone else to run, the use of super delegates, and the by timing of elections. Then the media helped by ignoring other canditates, or extensively talking about h.r.c and her suport by super delegates.
So that is the conspiracy theory as it stands. I did not think it was that far out, or weird, and actually did a good job explaining what happen, but ,once again it is only a thoery. Much like your possition Andre, you are just offering a conspiracy theory as well. That everyone who looked dirty was clean. I find that harder to belive.
Skeptic, Trump is president and the Media were big influencers in that outcome. The fact parts seemed minor. The sensationalism was front and center. US media dropped the ball.
I’m thinking you missed the point of the piece Skeptic.
I’ve no idea why you’re banging on about ‘uncovering the truth’ when the piece clearly wasn’t about that…or about “fake news” (a term coined by Liberals that’s well and truly biting them on the arse now).
And the football analogy wasn’t about what Trumps says or wants or any fucking thing to do with Trump…it was about mindlessly running around to “achieve” something with no accompanying strategy or eye to the bigger picture or thought to exactly what it is that’s been done or what might be achieved by it – jist get the ba – get the ba! Kick it. Kick it! Kick it!!
Anyway.
Cyber warfare? Fuck off. Irrelevant to the piece.
FBI directors? Fuck off. Irrelevant to the piece.
Did you even read the fucking words I posted? Or did you just imagine a springboard and go all ‘bouncey, bouncey’ dive, dive?
The only reason I’m not kicking your comment to Open Mike is because (unfortunately) it’s sat as a piece of distracting smash for three hours now and has essentially already derailed discussion.
Labour and Greens combined will be less then 40%. NZF will be less than 10% How can there ever be another Labour led government? This is the 21st century. Labour governments were a feature of last century.
I know most RWNJs here will be upset that the anarchist CV has been banned for the first time of many this year. But with that first banning, it is time for the rest of us socially conscious people to celebrate that we might for once discuss a change in government on policy rather than strategy.
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Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
TL;DR: The podcast above of the weekly ‘hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers last night features co-hosts and talking with:The Kākā’s climate correspondent talking about the National-ACT-NZ First Government’s release of its first Emissions Reduction Plan;University of Otago Foreign Relations Professor and special guest Dr Karin von ...
Open access notablesImproving global temperature datasets to better account for non-uniform warming, Calvert, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society:To better account for spatial non-uniform trends in warming, a new GITD [global instrumental temperature dataset] was created that used maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to combine the land surface ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
Comment: It was a good two hours into the conversation when Tyrone Marks raised the most basic of questions when I first spoke to him in 2017. “They didn’t explain the things they did to me. They never told me why. And they still haven’t. There’s no explanation for it. ...
Madeleine Chapman rounds out Death Week on The Spinoff with a final recommendation. You can read all of our Death Week coverage here. Nothing forces you to reflect on your life and relationships quite like proximity to death. For those whose nearest and dearest have died, there are reasonably obvious ...
Whitney Greene takes us through her life in television, including the TV character she’d like to plan a funeral for and her cow lung catastrophe on The Traitors NZ. “If the phone rings, I have to answer it,” Whitney Greene from The Traitors NZ warns as we begin our My ...
Maddie Ballard reviews the debut essay collection of Pōneke writer Flora Feltham.In ‘The Raw Material’, the longest essay in Flora Feltham’s dazzling debut collection, the author heads out for a run after hours of weaving and sees the world turn to textile. “Pounding along the Parade, I saw the ...
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Pacific Media Watch A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli air strike in south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris this week in honour of her peers who have been wounded and killed in the field — especially in Gaza and Lebanon. Christina Assi of Agence ...
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The sudden favouring of the very few who have user logins (authors or people with very old logins) has been fixed.
A option in the discussion page “Users must be registered and logged in to comment” got knocked on by accident 19 hours ago. I’ve now turned it back off.
Thank you.
Thank you! I saw the Word Press logo and thought I was on KiwiBlog.
Imagine the horror.
I’m on 999 posts over there, by the way. I promised the boys I’d make my 1,000th a real rip-snorter, but I still haven’t produced. I have a severe case of writer’s block, I’m afraid….
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/12/general_debate_20_december_2016.html/comment-page-1#comment-1840994
These days I always seem to have writers block for human level English.
Fortunately I don’t currently have it in c++, C#, python, … I have had blocks in those in the past and have found that writing English in troll suppression mode has usually sufficient to drive me back to rationality.
But this drought in English has been ongoing for a while. Perhaps I should start to resurrect writing in my piss-poor human French or German (or even historian Latin) to see if I can kickstart the English habit again.
Or perhaps just stopping the habit of writing anything on cellphones would help. I have to say that while they are great communication devices, they are piss-poor devices for writing coherently.
Placebo seem to have nailed it..
I have a severe case of writer’s block, I’m afraid….
Not possible. 😮 😮 😮
You’re correct, Anne. It’s not really writer’s block, it’s laziness on my part. I do really want to write a magnum opus, but I just can’t work up the enthusiasm. Maybe it’s all those down-votes taking their toll….
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2016/12/key_retires.html/comment-page-1#comment-1831641
Well , if it were me I would lay the blame at the door of the new president of the USA. Four years of that megalomaniac is a very depressing thought.
Thanks Anne. That’s a splendid wheeze!
testing
No summer swimming at several Auckland beaches
“Auckland’s century-old stormwater pipes overflow into the ocean almost every time it rains, and it’s putting many of the city’s beaches out of action.
It only takes 5mm of rain to fall before the combined sewage and stormwater pipes overflow.
“The frequency with which it happens in Auckland is a bit of a concern, because it’s 50 times a year,” says Auckland University wastewater engineer Dr Lokesh Padhye.
A Weekend Herald investigation found in a year, around 1 million cubic metres of wastewater is disposed of in the harbour each year.”
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/01/no-summer-swimming-at-several-auckland-beaches.html
The important response from Watercare to sewerage spillovers in the Auckland isthmus region is the Central Interceptor project. See the video and explanation in the link below:
https://www.watercare.co.nz/about-watercare/projects/central-interceptor/Pages/default.aspx
Back in the day most of the stormwater and wastewater were put into the same pipe and outflow. It’s taken the the best chunk of a century to gradually separate them. The Central Interceptor project – about $1.3b of work – deals with a whole bunch more of the separations. It’s not a full cure, but it’s a big step forward.
Some of those other places like Piha need to get much stronger support from the local community to get a comprehensive solution. Putting a population that size on septic tanks is ridiculous.
All septic tanks are ridiculous, in my view. Disposal of humanure to soil is the best practice. There are ways to do this in all situations (even in a space craft 🙂 and those methods could be developed into an exact and beneficial science, if there was the will to do so. Governments, councils, communities and households are loathe to explore the potential of “earth closets” because as individuals, we think poo is icky.
Billy at his best….
I don’t think that it is a problem with it being icky. More a problem with population densities and geography.
In Piha the basic soil is a high metal sand that doesn’t foster any kind of conversion into humus. A dog crap dropped on soil can take months to disappear. Furthermore the section sizes aren’t that different from somewhere like Grey Lynn because of the topography which doesn’t provide a lot of room for spreading whatever comes out of an “earth closet”.
I suspect that they’d have to truck the “night soil” a rather long way away to any place where it’d get a earth breakdown.
But I think that Ad is rather hoping to get any kind of sewerage system because the pump architecture and costs are rather high.
What they should do in Piha is to knock half of the houses down. That would reduce the density of septic tanks and the pollution and health risks associated with them.
I take your point, lprent and enjoyed your reference to night soil; there’s a future in collecting and disposal to soil of humanure in communities like Piha, imo. Where soils are sandy and un-lively as those you describe, importing activated soil from elsewhere and using that as a destination for night soil should be considered. Coupled with that would be a change in the diets of the residents but I recognise that is a big ask just now 🙂 Seperating liquid from solid at the site of delivery is necessary too; asking people to learn to separate their stuff was difficult enough when plastic recycling was started, so taking to people about the management of their bodily functions would be a challenge, though not an insurmountable one. Soil organisms had adapted to utilise humanure perfectly and no uv light, oxygenating clever-clogs system devised by humans will ever match them. It’s all about recognising where the best designs and processes come from and that ain’t the drawing board.
http://www.zingbokashi.co.nz/about-ecoflo-composting-toilets/
I know of folk who have composting toilets in their housetrucks and motorhomes.
If they can work in tiny homes….
“In Piha the basic soil is a high metal sand that doesn’t foster any kind of conversion into humus. A dog crap dropped on soil can take months to disappear.”
In the Humanure system and variations, you don’t need soil to make humanure. You can even make it in a wheelie bin if you want. As Robert suggests, human crap is designed to break down with just microbes.
No, it’s not designed to do that – other organisms have evolved to do that.
But, still, I’d probably use a treatment plant and then deliver the product from that to the forested hills. Let nature take its course from there fertilising both the forests and the plains beneath them.
Whereas I’d take the pressure off the centralised system by having as much used onsite as possible and where appropriate, and where not appropriate take off site and use elsewhere. Makes the systems more resilient too.
Which means that you need to keep the centralised system.
And, no, it doesn’t make them more resilient. Think about it – when was the last time that the sewer system failed so completely that it caused issues? All you’re doing is using more resources to achieve the same end.
The last big failure I’m aware of is the Chch2. Some people set up modified humanure systems in response.
“All you’re doing is using more resources to achieve the same end.”
That depends on how you view it. If you use the humanure to grow trees and biomass locally then it’s a net gain.
If you are talking about centralised sewerage that is already in existence, then of course keep it. But it’s hugely wasteful to use potable water to dispose of human waste, and that’s going to be an issue going forward. There’s no problem with running two systems but using the least resource-dependent one the most.
Which is one of those things that doesn’t happen often enough to warrant all the extra resources going into every house effectively having its own treatment plant.
No it doesn’t. It’s most definitely bounded by physical reality.
Define locally. To put it another way, most houses don’t have enough land to be fully self-sufficient.
Yes there is because running two systems uses more resources.
I’d like the locals to take a cup of cement and agree to Watercare getting a decent comprehensive system in there. Piha locals
I’d like the locals to take a cup of cement and agree to Watercare getting a decent comprehensive system in there.
Piha locals like to stop things.
“Piha locals like to stop things”
Then could we issue each of them with a bung?
One good reason to root for the Pittsburgh Steelers today
http://deadspin.com/bill-belichick-on-trump-mentioning-him-in-speech-weve-1791431753
So support the other team just because the owner supported the candidate you didn’t like.
That is so petty and pathetic.
No, I don’t know who the Rooneys support. They’re probably Republican, it doesn’t matter. The reason anyone who cares about sporting values should root against the Patriots is because they have a nasty and foolish extreme right wing quarterback, and a coach who grovels to political slimeballs.
Then of course there’s the whole deflation-of-the-footballs scandal.
Well dont forget the Steelers with Impedegate (2013) • Steroidgate (1970-2007) • Salarycapgate (2000) • Shouldergate (1978) • PEDSgate (3x since 1991) • Crampgate (2012) • Tampergate (1994: Capers)
and are recognised as one of the largest cheats in NFL history. But thats OK if you like the owner huh?
God bless Google. But like all things – a few left wing people in NZ not cheering for a US team in a sport that most NZ does not care about will hardly upset Trump.
In fact – as a lot of people are saying its this kind of silly petulant behaviour that got him voted in in the first place.
Did you just write that Trump voters DISLIKE “silly petulant behaviour”? Come on, now, James, a laugh is a laugh but that’s just taking it beyond a joke.
And, as you probably know, a lot of fans feel contempt for Brady….
http://deadspin.com/is-this-the-dildo-thrown-onto-the-field-yesterday-by-a-1788407737
PA. is now a Trump state, and I would guess that a lot of Steelers team members are Trump voters.
PA. is now a Trump state
You mean the Democrats have lost it for a few years. Trump won’t last, but Pennsylvania will.
…and I would guess that a lot of Steelers team members are Trump voters.
Nonsense. The Steelers coach Mike Tomlin is similar to the new Waikato Chiefs coach Colin Cooper: frightened to say anything that might cause offence to loud-mouthed and aggressive white racists. But, in stark contrast to the young Republicans and flag-worshippers like Tom Brady, most NFL players, including the Pittsburgh Steelers, are in fact thoughtful and intelligent…..
http://triblive.com/sports/steelers/11117937-74/johnson-steelers-cockrell
Re: Trump *protests*
“So a bunch of people — most of them women — marched. What the media didn’t show you is who organized those marches and what they stand for. Let me give you an example; specifically, in Washington DC according to a tweet that was uncovered by Gateway Pundit (and which the person involved has since deleted)”
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231774
AWW, the person in this link is raving and making extreme assertions and leaps.
Do you think these marches were some kind of endorsement of Sharia Law? That’s ridiculous.
Perhaps one of the supporters/organisers of one of the marches supports some aspects of Sharia Law – the one shown is about charging interest on loans. That doesn’t mean she unthinkingly endorses all extreme versions of that belief system (ie cliterectomy). There are plenty of people who see themselves as Christian but don’t deny evolution, see homosexuality as a sin or battle to ban abortion.
BTW, the teaching about charging interest is also an historical Christian view – Antonio and Shylock argue about it in detail in The Merchant of Venice. It arises from the interpretation of a parable about Laban’s sheep.
AKA – the stupidest man on the internet.
/
Hi AsleepWhileWalking
Maybe your establishment minded detractors will prefer this link to the New York Times where they report that George Soros the multi-billionaire has links to more than 50 “partner” organisations of the Womens March on Washington D.C.
In other words, this is all part of a continuing deep state struggle by globalists like Soros to weaken and delegitimise Trump’s new Presidency.
http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billionaire-george-soros-has-ties-to-more-than-50-partners-of-the-womens-march-on-washington/
Trump is antifascist anti communist.
The latter I suspect gets on your wik.
Just noting that neither Russia nor China are communist any more – they are State Capitalism / market economy hybrids.
10 GIFs That Will Make You Feel Better About Inauguration Day
by ANNA MERIAN, Jezebel, Jan. 20, 2017
Today was a very difficult day for many Americans. Please take a moment and see if these GIFs make you feel a tiny bit better, though?
1. White supremacist thought leader Richard Spencer getting punched right in his head twice.
……
http://theslot.jezebel.com/10-gifs-that-will-make-you-feel-better-about-inaugurati-1791451682
Now – I think the guy is an asshat – but I dont condone violence and especially do not feel better watching someone being smacked in the head.
Fair enough, james. He was blindsided. Here’s another asshat being hit, even harder, this time entirely within the rules of fair play. I don’t think anyone would do anything but applaud this one….
meh … kinda got to agree with you on that one.
Issues more important than discussing whether Obama or Trump had a bigger crowd.
Teacher shortages in Auckland due to the housing crisis.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/322867/pupils-due-back-but-akl-schools-still-scrambling-to-find-teachers
Yes, plenty of opportunities for teachers in our fine metropolis… just so long as they don’t mind dossing down in a cardboard box under Grafton Bridge.
Yes boss
National have failed our economy on housing. Of course National general handling of the economy is poor at best, interested in favoring the few, which makes NZ less innovative as the payoff to risk is lowered, the wealthy get the pie nomatter what under National. The mechanism of borrowing off your home to invest in a business is now an age issue, young dont got no home, oldies do.
Of course Hooten thinks the only thing we should consider when voting in the election, yet to be called, is Winston, or someother outlier distraction. Well, Clinton missed it, the economy of three northern states hurting middle class lifestyles mainly. So anywonder hOoten also does.
Its the economy of the middle that has been ravaged by tax cut happy politicians fuelling wealth for the weathiest while hurting poor and midle classes. Its a joke when English claims that half dont pay tax, whose fault is that when his policies lower relative incomes of the poorest and middle classes, and hand productivity gains to the wealthiest.
CV’s NZ Election Predictions 2017
I will update these if needed down the track
Labour/Greens block
Combined party vote ceiling: 42% (maximum possible, though very unlikely IMO)
Most likely combined party vote LAB + GR: 35% to 37%
Party vote floor (again very unlikely, though possible IMO): 33%
Also:
1) There is zero chance that Winston will go with Labour/Greens if their combined party vote is under 40%. There is zero chance that LAB/GR can form a government without NZ First.
2) There is a better than 50/50 chance that National will put Paula Bennett at the top of the ticket. (Clarification: this is speculation on behalf of myself and my political team; I have no direct knowledge of this).
3) Labour list MP job security is VERY sensitive to any downward move in party vote cf. 2014. I am somewhat surprised given this circumstance that Little did not secure Rongotai or Mt Albert as his own seat as having no electorate MP experience may be a line of attack used by National.
4) The Gareth Morgan Party will waste a large number of votes which would otherwise go to Labour or Greens. In several ways, his is the new New Zealand Party.
5) Overall, 2:1 chance of a NAT win this year, which will move towards 3:1 if Bennett eventually gets put at the top of the ticket. The Labour Leadership team was geared up to fight Key, their approaches all have to be rethought now, and with Bennett they have even fewer strategies to oppose her than English. (Bennett needs a couple months of intensive coaching first).
6) If Bennett is put at the top of the ticket, National’s marketing pitch will be: working class beneficiary of Tainui decent made good, perfect as NZ’s first Maori PM and NZ’s first Maori Woman PM.
Reference – read this puff piece and tell me they aren’t positioning her hard already with clear prepared lines and spin.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/reflective-paula-bennett-shares-her-story-bleak-time-unemployed-solo-mum-nationals-deputy-leader
I can see where you are coming from with these predictions CV and I don’t like it !!
Do you really think Paula is the answer? Also, won’t the TOP take votes off the Right as well as the Left?
1) I think that with Bennett, National have a crystal clear PR case to put to the country – in essence, working class background, beneficiary, experienced Cabinet Minister, and now the first Maori Woman Prime Minister of New Zealand. In this way National could use the culture of identity politics promulgated by the left, against the left.
2) TOP: the people attracted to TOP will be people who want an alternative to the two big parties (and damn if they’ll ever vote for the “hippies”). It’s certainly up for discussion as to whether or not these voters will be predominantly disaffected Labour voters or disaffected National voters.
3) With Key gone and the social conservatism of English and Bennett, I think most of the Conservative Party vote might fold back into National. If so, that’s a couple of percent boost there for the NATs.
Thanks CV. So you think it is only lefties that don’t like Paula pulling up the ladder behind her?
TOP party appeal is hard to guess at. I see the ideas of Gareth Morgan as essentially still mainstream economics (e.g if we just tweek our tax policies a bit the the market will solve all the underlying problems causing inequity and such). But this idea is likely to appeal to many on the Left and I read 7.3 above as the opinion of just such a potential convert. I would not be surprised if lots of prior Labour supporters give TOP a punt.
Do you know any history? The New Zealand party took votes off the government of the day. But then again, I suppose you are all post truth now?
Your diatribe is actually just spin for the national party, and holds nothing for working people. So I take it you are embracing your inner middle class prat?
You were not the only one who picked trump would win once the dnc went crazy, but you are the only one who has gone full man love of trump.
So as you are not interested in the hopes and dreams of working people anymore, why don’t you go help whale oil? Nothing you write talks to the people who did not vote, nothing you now rant about actually helps working people, it is nothing more than vainglorious gasconade.
p.s if you come back with anything trump, or the left are with their head in the sand. I’ll just know you off into lala land. Because i’ll say this only once, organise or get out of the way.
CV hates working people. Presumably that’s why he was thrown out of NZ Labour, Dunedin South.
CV hates working people so much he proposes doubling the price of fuel overnight.
He also hates left wing people. Hard to see if there’s anything else.
“You were not the only one who picked trump would win once the dnc went crazy, but you are the only one who has gone full man love of trump.”
This.
“p.s if you come back with anything trump, or the left are with their head in the sand. I’ll just know you off into lala land. Because i’ll say this only once, organise or get out of the way.”
And this.
CV is has been banned for 4 weeks. Perhaps we should get on and organise while we have some breathing space 🙂
Damn.
I was intending to reply to CV’s political predictions post by making a prediction myself; that CV would suffer a lengthy ban from the Standard for anarchic, anti-progressive trolling.
It seems CV was too quick with his anti-worker trolling and I was too slow with my prediction.
Organise – Indeed!
Adam, are you aware if CVs suggested National party strategy is *the* National party strategy you have just engaged in shooting the messenger, and demanded that nobody should discuss the election positioning of the Government in an election year. You should stop attacking people who are trying to assist with your understanding of the political landscape!
Nic the NZer, if that all it was, I would have said nothing – but…
Not sure you’ll have the opportunity.
I predict multiple suspensions for CV on the Standard this year for repeated and petulant trolling of socially conscious opinions.
Not sure CV has ever gotten over Phil Twyford’s call for data on Chinese speculative purchasing of Auckland property.
It seems to have consumed him down there in Dunedin South.
Davos 2017 – A Basic Income for All: Dream or Delusion?
https://youtu.be/7rL6gJkdlNU
Plenty of discussion about the substance rather than the distraction in this post and its links: https://thestandard.org.nz/starting-out-with-an-obvious-lie/
Even the big US media outlets acknowledged the lie in their headlines, to their credit. But they will need to figure out a whole different way to cover this administration. Look, even the Auckland Herald has a story about that: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11787056
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
From the original post:
Please do let me know how my reply is off-topic or irrelevant to that, so I can avoid the same error again?
The first para is not about some tittle-tattle about a dishonest politician. You really think, even for a second, that a lying spokesperon or politician is in any was a threat to institutional power or authority?
For fucks sake, that kind of shit can be (and is) analysed and turned over, buried and dug up again to be poked at, precisely because it is utterly meaningless in terms of power or in terms of challenges to it.
Meanwhile, stuff that could (if reported thoroughly and honestly) lead to institutional power being seriously challenged or undermined (such as major follow up reports on the marches and protests) is swept under the carpet.
It seems you completely missed the point of the post. Shit happens.
Thank you for the reply. Seems several of us missed your point.
Yup.
Still scratching my head about that one :-). I thought it was clear enough.
You need to ask Donald Trump, Kellyanne Conway, and the Trump administration Spokes person as to why they would lie about crowd sizes, and why would it matter to them (comparing dick sizes is usually something blokes do, and this reminds me a bit like that….mine is bigger then yours 🙂 blablahbalh ) .
Cause the women and their supporters showed up, at their expense, took days of work, spend hours in trains/busses/cars etc, braved the same shit weather etc. as did the Trump supporters.
Or maybe the showing of supporters was just a showing of the actually numbers of support each candidate got in the End.
I mean D. Trump won by 80.000 votes in three states to carry the electoral College, so one could say that 250.000 coming to his installment was a good shot.
Hillary Clinton got almost three million more votes by individual voters then DTrump, so the size of 3.3 million would reflect that no?
As for what its good? I don’t know, should we just do away with Protests/Rallies so as to not upset the nice people?
Maybe its only got to do with this : ” Good girls go to heaven but bad girls go every where ”
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
It was probably around 600,000. Only a small fraction of Obama’s turnout in 2009 of course.
According to Trump’s new press secretary Sean Spicer, there are more than 100,000 people in this photo….
http://previews.123rf.com/images/paha_l/paha_l1203/paha_l120302479/12489119-Rows-of-green-seats-in-an-empty-stadium-Focus-on-front-seats-Stock-Photo.jpg
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
Sean Spicer is pretty terrible, but it appears he’s actually
better than the guy Trump first chose as his “communications director”
This is not a parody of a reality show, I swear….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4064608/Donald-Trump-s-communications-director-Jason-Miller-quits-amid-sex-scandal-rumors.html
Trump’s Secretary of Education.
Sorry Bill, but I found this opinion piece asinine, short-sighted and very trivializing. If I do you a disservice by saying you don’t have much faith in the democratic process, then I apologize. I am persuaded after following the American media, both pre and post Rupert Murdoch, that they do uncover the truth – even if eventually. When someone as stupid and ignorant and arrogant as Trump, doesn’t even bother to hide his failings, but instead tries to re-term the word “liar” with “fake news” and “alternative reality”, then your football analogy is trite. Trump is telling you the game isn’t football, but baseball, and regrettably you seem to be defending the indefensible. Because this US election is so far removed from the traditional political model, largely because of Russian cyber-warfare and a partisan FBI director’s shenanigans, a megalomaniac has gained the White House. I don’t doubt for a minute, that the full weight of the American Press will investigate and publish, nor that that saner heads will prevail, both in the US Senate and House. Look for an early impeachment, with the media doing what it’s supposed to do – shine a light on the truth for all to see. That’s democracy at work. Despite what economists like to think, politics encompasses economics, not the other way round.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
@Skeptic – The Russian thing and FBI shenanigans were not the main factors of Trump being elected, rather it was the DNC who decided to choose Clinton over Bernie Sanders and decided to rig the outcome of the primary. It certainly wasnt “the mainstream media doing what it’s supposed to do – shine a light on the truth for all to see” – democracy wasn’t working….. the few media corporations (6 of them I think) are hugely corrupted themselves. The US Senate and the House are ‘owned’ by the Corporations and Banks, I doubt “saner heads will prevail”. Ironically it may be Trump that ends up blowing up the media corruption……my 10c worth.
Nic you are in la la land if you believe sanders a socialist would have won election. A socialist can’t even win in Nz and we have a lot stonger left bent or affliction than the US The issue I see is both democrats and republicans had terrible candidates ( including sanders) if democrats had put up any one half middle ground ie Bieden etc they would have strolled in
Clinton didn’t rate Sanders either Red.
Sorry Nick, but as my pseudonym implies, I don’t and never have subscribed to conspiracy theories – all of my tertiary studies have settled beyond any shadow of doubt that so-called conspiracies deflate in direct proportion to the number of people purportedly involved – and therefore are, by and large, figments of the imaginations of deluded souls believing in Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Man in the Moon. Rather than a huge conspiracy involving thousands of ordinary motivated members of the DNC, and the hundreds of thousands making up the US media, all of whom are supposedly acting in secret to undermine Bernie Sanders, and the tens of thousands of people supporting and assisting the elected officials of one the most open states on the planet – again supposedly acting secret to advance the aims of the “Corporations & Banks” (numbering in their millions if you include all their employees) and not one of these is going to leak the big secret – yeah right! Sorry mate, but the real “secret” is that although it takes a while, ulterior motives will always be shown the light of day. Blowhards and egotists are always revealed for what they really are. And despite it’s very tarnished reputation, and self censorship depending on its editorial slant, the US media is mostly very, very good at uncovering facts. Given the release of various documents under the US FOI Act, and comparing these with back copies of newspapers of the day, their facts are surprisingly accurate even if their opinions are not. I think Trump is due to find this unpalatable truth out very shortly.
Are you saying there have never been conspiracies Skeptic? Because it seems you are, and that is a very dangerous position.
Nope. Skeptic is saying conspiracies almost always get found out. The more people involved, the quicker it’s found out (on average). So if there had been some kind of conspiracy beyond the clumsy fumblings revealed by the DNC e-mails, we can be very confident we would have found out by now.
Nope he does not, he categorically states “I don’t and never have subscribed to conspiracy theories”. Then move’s towards a dnc consisting of thousands, ummmm on what planet? The DNC has some 300 odd members, but in real terms the committee is run by sub-committees. With power held firmly in the fundraising and election steering committees. So sure if it was thousands, fine. Hundreds we’d even get a feel for it. But 12 people, it’s possible they can keep their mouth shut for years. So confidence we could find out, nope, that is just a theory as well.
A conspiracy is different to “conspiracy theory”.
“A conspiracy theory is an attempt to explain a perceived real-world occurrence through the actions of a secretive, usually evil and very selfish group. Not all conspiracy theories are wrong, but if the theory requires greater suspension of disbelief than random chance would to explain the occurrence,”
from http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_conspiracy_theories
So the theory is the DNC helped h.r.c get the nomination by making it difficult for anyone else to run, the use of super delegates, and the by timing of elections. Then the media helped by ignoring other canditates, or extensively talking about h.r.c and her suport by super delegates.
So that is the conspiracy theory as it stands. I did not think it was that far out, or weird, and actually did a good job explaining what happen, but ,once again it is only a thoery. Much like your possition Andre, you are just offering a conspiracy theory as well. That everyone who looked dirty was clean. I find that harder to belive.
Skeptic, Trump is president and the Media were big influencers in that outcome. The fact parts seemed minor. The sensationalism was front and center. US media dropped the ball.
I’m thinking you missed the point of the piece Skeptic.
I’ve no idea why you’re banging on about ‘uncovering the truth’ when the piece clearly wasn’t about that…or about “fake news” (a term coined by Liberals that’s well and truly biting them on the arse now).
And the football analogy wasn’t about what Trumps says or wants or any fucking thing to do with Trump…it was about mindlessly running around to “achieve” something with no accompanying strategy or eye to the bigger picture or thought to exactly what it is that’s been done or what might be achieved by it – jist get the ba – get the ba! Kick it. Kick it! Kick it!!
Anyway.
Cyber warfare? Fuck off. Irrelevant to the piece.
FBI directors? Fuck off. Irrelevant to the piece.
Investigations, publishing findings, saner heads, impeachment?!
Did you even read the fucking words I posted? Or did you just imagine a springboard and go all ‘bouncey, bouncey’ dive, dive?
The only reason I’m not kicking your comment to Open Mike is because (unfortunately) it’s sat as a piece of distracting smash for three hours now and has essentially already derailed discussion.
edit – Actually. Fuck it. Gone.
“jist get the ba – get the ba!”
Lovely bit of Scots dialect there, Bill. Very Partick Thistle.
Abby Martin getting close to what people are feeling on the ground, protesting yesterday. More to come, this is just a teaser.
Naomi Klein on Trump Election: “This is a Corporate Coup d’État”
https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/20/naomi_klein_on_trump_election_this
Labour and Greens combined will be less then 40%. NZF will be less than 10% How can there ever be another Labour led government? This is the 21st century. Labour governments were a feature of last century.
I know most RWNJs here will be upset that the anarchist CV has been banned for the first time of many this year. But with that first banning, it is time for the rest of us socially conscious people to celebrate that we might for once discuss a change in government on policy rather than strategy.
Oh, please, yes. Seems too many on left wing blogs and other sites focus on strategy and treating politics as a team sport.
Sadly too many think of it as a not just a team sport, but as a contact sport.
There is a lot of attacking the person / or messenger.
hmm, I think strategy is important, but can you please explain what you mean so I can see if we mean the same thing?
Lol
Didn’t he only come back from self imposed exile a day or two back?
Must have wanted to boost his right wing street cred with a ban.
This is pathetic.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]