Recently lprent posted Climate of Deception at Fox News. Fox News can be worth watching, it isn’t all bad, but the network has obvious political agendas.
It may be a case of pot and kettle. Is there also a Climate of deception at The Standard?
The inevitable “attack the messenger” campaign will probably avoid addressing the self deception.
What any blog does is it’s own choice, but if posters obviously represent the ambitions if not the views of a political party the integrity of both are interwoven. It’s your call people, but Labour’s credibility is on the line.
PeteG apart from most of the commentators being of a similar ilk if you were to post this sort of spin at the sewer or kiwi blog you’d be ravaged and not in the nice way you’d get here.
Mind you looking at the history of your attack lines it wouldn’t be out of the question for you to get that here.
I’ve been ravaged at KB a damn sight more than here. Obviously people and blogs don’t like being confronted, I don’t either, but sometimes it’s necessary to stand up and point out crap to promote positive change.
PeteG’s cunning plan is to increase the number of hits on his website to give it credibility. He does this by posting a confrontational comment and a link early on in the general debate posts. Today he posted the above and this on the sewer early on:
The Zetetic/Mallard? thing raises wider question about anonymous political blogging. The Internet could be used to promote openness and honesty, the transparency but entrenched party practices can instead allow deception and dishonesty to overcome sensibility.
No party is immune, but most in the spotlight is the Climate of deception at The Standard.”
Can I urge everyone to avoid the temptation and not click through.
I figured that out from day one when he was ‘link whoring’. I am sorry I didn’t bring that to the attention of others here previously.
I have never visited his site and don’t intend to. The tonnes of rubbish he spouts on here give enough indication of how much more garbage he has. I don’t even bother to read his comments on TS and just scroll past them.
There are many other better things to do. Watching grass grow would give more insight into life, even if not eating it (it = grass).
[lprent: Link-whoring with appropriate comment isn’t something that we moderate for (we’ll moderate out anyone that does it inappropriately – because they are trying to use this site for spamming). ]
Same thing happened before the last election. This time we are somewhat more prepared when we get the bloody irritating trolls who just try to disrupt the site. They tend not to like my anti troll tactics.
But we see minor spates of it every time that Labour or the left starts making headway. Nice to see it happen again. Now let’s just hope that none of the Labour MPs (or their servers) disrupt the flow this time.
Yes Mickey, I had figured that this was what Pete G (aka as the Secret Squirrel) is up to.
Unfortunately I did visit his website a couple of times before this realisation. All I found was long-form badly thought out drivel. Needless to say I won’t be going there again, but if that’s the content you want Pete’s site’s the perfect place to be.
You keep having your arse handed to you on a plate by the likes of Felix et al. You destroy threads. Your comments vary between the banal and the stupid.
Posting here is a privilege. IMHO the Standard is one of the most open and has the most robust debate of any I have seen.
The only entity with credibility problems is yourself. Time to try and get some.
I wish there was a ‘Block Pete G’ application on this site that turns his comments blank as I’m totally fed up with seeing his tedious drivel everywhere, even inadvertently out of the corner of my eye.
What a load of pretentious drivel delivered in a sonorous portentous style, but it’s still drivel and merely gives Pete G filler for his pages. Why not set up a wood-whittling circle Pete G? You might end up with something worth viewing.
Here is a the full video: Core of corruption Part 1: In the shadows, which explores the connection between the alleged hijackers and the ruling elite. Very interesting is the operation Able danger which was sabotaged by elements in the US government. Anthony Schaffer, the officer involved in the operation wrote a book about it and while he still hangs on to he idea that is was al Qaeda who did the dirty on 911 his book is of huge value in it;s contribution to the search for truth.
Anthony has a facebook page and is linked to mine which has the same name as my moniker here.
In fact quite a few names from the 911 truth movement are connected to my page so have a visit and get closer to the people who actually do the hard slog.
I had a dig around for what Hilary Butler, the expert Sunday interviewed on vaccine risks, was involved with and lo behold found she’s firmly in the anti-vaccinations vaccines-cause-autism* loony camp. And couldn’t science to save her life judging by a most on polio on her blog where she failed utterly to understand that there are other things besides polio that can cause paralysis aka aetiology.
Though I’m a bit too lazy to go fully into cluebat mode and examine the full extent of her stupidity, I can say “wtf?” in relation to Sunday thinking it was a good idea to treat her as any form of expert. Then there that fact they didn’t bother to interview the likes of Sid Offit and David Gorski over in the USA, who have a long and excellent history of explaining vaccination and dealing with anti-vaccination bullshit. And explaining relative risks, i.e.
btw, “vaccine damage” (or “vaccine injury” in N-Am) is very much a non-diagnostic tool in the hands of people like Butler as they’ll link just about anything with vaccinations without even critically examining causation. In fact there were only two examples last night that were solid, and without access to ACC’s case files on the serious cases, it’s impossible to say with any certainty the causation of those cases…
Scientists have for a long time regarded autism as being 90% plus genetically caused.
Guess what, they were wrong. A recent large scale study looking at over 1000 children determined that actually more than 50% of the risk for autism comes from environmental factors.
So don’t be too quick to rule things out especially as chemical exposures are likely to play a significant role in that. (In fact I believe the study specifically implicated anti-depressants. Hundreds of thousands of NZ’ers take these drugs every day. Wonder what that is doing for our autism incidence).
…without even critically examining causation.
You know and I know that it is extremely difficult to definitively show causation unless the power of a study is very large, or the effect is very large.
In many cases association is the best one can hope for, and by the time causation can be undeniably demonstrated, thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people are likely to have been harmed.
Except of course, it looks strongly like ASD has many possible causations, so without pinning down specific neurological features and setting up tighter definitions and thus sample groups to turn genetics analysis tools on, the 50% narrow sense hereditary found to date makes a lot of sense. Also, if you were more informed about neurological development (and biochem/genetics) you’d know that there’s a massive knot of potential causations during development in the womb that lay down future brain growth and set up gene regulation in the brain. Thus from my perspective and from my understanding of brain development and ASD I see any attempt to pin ASD causation post birth as somewhat flawed….
Now the fact that SSRI’s are potentially linked* is actually interesting given the role serotonin in the brain in terms of fixing new neural connections, and I can definitely see that as far more potentially plausible. And I have no issues with that, barring that fact that the rise in ASD diagnoses was explained primarily by better awareness (public, GP’s, etc) + changes in diagnostic criteria that included those on the borderlines and the previously misdiagnosed. So thus I’d argue that SSRI’s might not be playing a role, but that’s what well designed ANCOVA GLM studies are for 😛
You know and I know that it is extremely difficult to definitively show causation unless the power of a study is very large, or the effect is very large.
In many cases association is the best one can hope for, and by the time causation can be undeniably demonstrated, thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people are likely to have been harmed.
Aetiology not difficult except when dealing with the likes of ASD where there are multiple potential causations, and in the rest of science it’s down to the design of the study and evidence quality, quantity and the plausibility of causation mechanisms. So as a general statement of truth, you’re wrong. At least for publishable claims of causation. Medical diagnostic’s is where you right, and I should have made what I meant by “critically examining causation” a bit more indepth. Such as mentioning the role of statistical evidence + having plausible mechanisms. which in the case of Butler etc are either absent, or seriously flawed, and Butler provides a very clear example of this with her claims about polio….
In the case of public health risks from pharmaceuticals, pesticides etc, yes there are serious implications concerning their potential causative links to diseases etc, which is why animal testing + glasshouse and field tests are incredibly important. As is long term population/environment monitoring, and robust research funding…
There’s also the other implication of the causation certainty issue in that we can’t likewise show with any total certainty that any drug/vaccine etc is 100% safe, so we’re left with balancing relative risk estimates. And given how utterly non intuitive that is, even for the moderately statistically literate, it makes it very easy for the anti-vaccination crowd to over inflate potentially risk, creating what is very much a moral hazard on the basis of the rather well known outcomes of low vaccination rates.
Anyhow, this slightly tangential to the issue of why Sunday bothered with someone who’s very much a crank, rather than talking with medical professionals/researchers. Especially for a lead piece, in light of the anti-vaccination bullshit and the negative public outcomes of it already seen here in NZ with the measles outbreaks we keep having.
Now I think you could possibly owe me a beer for this, given I could have been sitting nice a warm in the lounge reading Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science”, instead of in my freezing bedroom 😛
_______________________________________________________
*I can has source plz?
Totally recommend Ben Goldacre’s book ‘Bad Science’ and also his blog Bad Science. A must for beginning to sort the riff from the raff in health research. He’s happy to treat the quacks and the made up trials and marketing tricks of drugs companies with equal disdain.
As someone who nearly lost a 3 week old child thanks to an un-immunized child in my 6 y.o class at school I have nothing but contempt for those loonies.
In any medical scenario there is a very small risk of an untoward event; however, the risks of permanent harm to the masses of population from people not immunizing their children is far greater.
Re. the SSRI – if you check the weird and whacky ‘Flouride is poison’ (sic) group on Facebook you will find all the crazed anti Fluoride and anti-immunisation brigade quoting all manner of junk.
One example is that Fluoride is being added to water to sedate the masses and that is why it is the active ingredient in SSRI’s
I’ll strongly second Ian’s sentiments having spent part of the day cleaning up the chaos after a potential measles contact was brought onto a ward with immunosuppressed patients.
Anyone who doesn’t immunise their children, unless there is a very good reason not to, needs a bloody good kick up the arse.
Hadn’t heard the flouride one before ……….. there’s nowt as odd as folk.
Sunday and Hilary Butler stated in the programme that she was not a scientist. I think she had collated much information on vaccines as well cases of nasty outcomes from vaccinations.
My son had one such outcome as well as my friend whose child was permanently damaged from a whooping cough jab and recived damages(in the UK). Fortunately my doctor asked me if there had been any seizures in our family before he gave my son the whooping cough vaccine; there had and this meant it was not a good idea for my son to have it, as he too could become damaged. We were not warned about MMR though!!!!
My heart went out to the lad who had been damaged by the whooping cough vaccine and his mother. He was a similar age to my son. Both had been beautiful healthy babies.
I think he was right in saying that some people are able to take vaccinations some are not. Information should be given to parents about the pros and cons-especially the MMR, which I think is a bit too much for such young babies.
Well driving to work this morning was an adventure. Never really driven in snow before, and this is pretty deep – about 10cm deep in most places with some drifts deeper. Had the car skid around a little and crunched into the curb where I couldn’t see it, but no major issues.
Looking out my window I can see a line of trees just past the motorway, and then it’s completely grey-white beyond, can’t see the port hills at all. Seems like the world has shrunk.
Very heavy snow now, can just barely see the motorway and a few ghostly silhouets of cars going past, many of them very very close together so if any of them stop they’ll get rear-ended. Idiots.
It seems John Key is at it again. He claims he did tell Phil Goff about the Israeli spy affair. Anyone who saw the TV clip of Goff last week would know he was not lying. Anyone who has ever known Phil Goff would be able to tell you he is not a liar.
Is John Key a pathological liar in which case he should not be in the top job? Or is he attempting to divert attention from something else – eg. his very revealing initial response to the Norwegian massacre?
Update: the above is what I heard on a Radio NZ item, but it appears not to be strictly correct.
John Key has admitted he didn’t tell Phil Goff, but he claims “he understood the SIS director did..”.
As the leader of the main opposition party it was the duty of someone to inform Goff. That it didn’t happen is a serious breach of protocol…
Key has been complacent in handling the situation with Goff being informed. Had Key seen Goff, Goff may of been able to advise on not leaving loose ends. Key has created loose ends for himself and the public need to have confidence in him when it comes to national security. Key is unable to dismiss the attempt of passport identity theft, he is unable to verify this as well.
Look where being naive gets you (news of the world hacking) politicians, cops and editors/journalists) a lot of coverups will be uncovered. NZ is no different.
No protocol breach apparently – a memory breach by Goff.
Goff was angry that Key claimed he was briefed on the investigation. After hearing Key’s remark, Goff contacted SIS director Warren Tucker for a ”please explain”.
Tucker told him he had ”flicked the issue past him” during a regular meeting with Goff in March. The pair meet every eight weeks. Goff said he couldn’t recall the matter being discussed in the meeting, which occurred a week to a fortnight from the quakes.
Goff said he was shown one of three documents about the investigation this morning, but wouldn’t discuss its contents.
”The head of the Security Intelligence Service said he flicked the issue past me and said there wasn’t much to it,” Goff said.
”He ‘didn’t dwell on it’, was his comments.
”If there had been anything of substance said to me I’m sure I would recollect it.”
An apology from Goff to the SIS and to the PM will be issued in due course.
(That’s just a guess).
The fact that Goff was involved in diplomacy regarding the 2004 passport scam would have set off alarm bells. The SIS director surely has some notes. I think the Key words here are Key, flicked past, and passport. Sorry but not good enough to flick past at a routine meeting, a sitting on the fence passport identity attempt. Loose ends only create a problem.
“Sorry but not good enough to flick past at a routine meeting”
If Goff was interested in more detail I presume he could have asked for it. I expect politicians at his level get bombarded with a heap of information and it would be easy to not take it all fully on board.
If at the time the SIS thought it minor and Goff thought it not worth dwelling on then it would normally have been forgotten and left at that. Goff wasn’t to know the issue would have been stoked by someone. But still, the mistake’s on him and so should be the apology.
The mistake is on the SIS director because it is the job of the SIS to prevent any future passport identity theft. Israel apologised after the 2004 passport identy theft and assured NZ that it would not happen again. Goff is not an SIS operative.
Goff insisted that he was not briefed. SIS director Warren Tucker corrected him saying in fact he did run it past him. Goff isn’t denying it further so yeah it looks apparent that he did made a mistake.
No protocol breach apparently – a memory breach by Goff.
If Goff had been properly informed of course he would remember it. Especially since he was closely involved with the 2004 passport scandal. Sounds to me like Mr Tucker might be on a damage control exercise. A flick past? Could that mean a momentary, semi-audible mumble designed (perhaps) to be misheard or ‘missed’ altogether?
Shit dude there are a thousand ways an official can slide information under the nose of an elected representative so that the official can say its been done, but the chances of the elected representative ever remembering any details at all are very slight.
“Well we’re running out of time, those last couple of bullet points there, low priority items really. If anything else comes up on those we’ll brief you further. Right, next we have some properly important matters…”
To PG:
As it should be as Goffs comments implied that the SIS director had been lacking in his job and had not informed him.
If Goff had of checked documents etc then he would have noticed that he had been informed. So this is a serious issue I feel as Goff has accused this man of failing in his role.
Interesting that when Key makes a slight error by saying “if it was a terroist bombing” he gets heaps on this site. But when Goff makes a unfounded statement gets a oh well he cant of been told properly or a well he just forgot.
But then it is expected on a site like this to experience that one eyed comment.
@ Pete G.
”The head of the Security Intelligence Service said he flicked the issue past me and said there wasn’t much to it,” Goff said.
”He ‘didn’t dwell on it’, was his comments.
“If there had been anything of substance said to me I’m sure I would recollect it.”
This sounds like the head of SIS did not dwell on it , not Mr.Goff.
I am appalled that the National Government should be so careless and lacking in respect as regards their obligation to inform the opposition about security matters.It also shows a lack of regard and respect to the citizens of this country in the matter of our security and safety that a matter of security should be “flicked” past the honourable leader of the opposition.
Of course Phil Goff would remember anything said to him about such matters so I think ‘flick’ is short hand for ‘nothing was said’. Apart from the fact that Mr.Goff is highly intelligent he was a very competent Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade as well as Minister of Defence and would recollect if anything had been said as he was so used to dealing with such matters and would be attuned.
Mr Goff is certainly up to the play in this situation; more than can be said for the usually underprepared and totally “out of the ball park so as to be nowhere near the play” John Keys.
May I just say I am eternally grateful to those of you who endure visiting the sewers and reporting back for us. Of course it saves column inches by providing links to support your comments rather than quoting verbatim from their posts but I can take it from your signatures that you are well informed and that it is just more of the b/s that he pours out on Mora’s afternoons. I would prefer not to leave a trace on their respective sites so thank you all very much.
Speculating on things without enough information is a dangerous practice at the best of times. You run the risk of appearing the fool if that guess work is later shown to be incorrect.
Charlie Brooker on the stupidity of those who leapt to blame Muslim terrorism for the Norwegian attacks. He’s having a pop at the ‘experts’, but it applies nicely to our PM’s efforts.
Malaysia and Australia agreed on Monday to swap refugees in a new strategy aimed at deterring asylum seekers from undertaking boat journeys to Australia.
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The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
The Government is again adding to New Zealand’s growing unemployment, this time cutting jobs at the agencies responsible for urban development and growing much needed housing stock. ...
With Minister Karen Chhour indicating in the House today that she either doesn’t know or care about the frontline cuts she’s making to Oranga Tamariki, we risk seeing more and more of our children falling through the cracks. ...
The Labour Party is saddened to learn of the death of Sir Robert Martin, a globally renowned disability advocate who led the way for disability rights both in New Zealand and internationally. ...
Labour is calling for the Government to urgently rethink its coalition commitment to restart live animal exports, Labour animal welfare spokesperson Rachel Boyack said. ...
Today’s Financial Stability Report has once again highlighted that poverty and deep inequality are political choices - and this Government is choosing to make them worse. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to do more for our households in most need as unemployment rises and the cost of living crisis endures. ...
Unemployment is on the rise and it’s only going to get worse under this Government, Labour finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said. Stats NZ figures show the unemployment rate grew to 4.3 percent in the March quarter from 4 percent in the December quarter. “This is the second rise in unemployment ...
The New Zealand Labour Party welcomes the entering into force of the European Union and New Zealand free trade agreement. This agreement opens the door for a huge increase in trade opportunities with a market of 450 million people who are high value discerning consumers of New Zealand goods and ...
The National-led Government continues its fiscal jiggery pokery with its Pharmac announcement today, Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall says. “The government has increased Pharmac funding but conceded it will only make minimal increases in access to medicine”, said Ayesha Verrall “This is far from the bold promises made to fund ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
The Government has delivered on its election promise to provide a financially sustainable model for Auckland under its Local Water Done Well plan. The plan, which has been unanimously endorsed by Auckland Council’s Governing Body, will see Aucklanders avoid the previously projected 25.8 per cent water rates increases while retaining ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters discussed the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and enhanced cooperation in the Pacific with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock during her first official visit to New Zealand today. "New Zealand and Germany enjoy shared interests and values, including the rule of law, democracy, respect for the international system ...
The Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop today released his decision on four recommendations referred to him by the Western Bay of Plenty District Council, opening the door to housing growth in the area. The Council’s Plan Change 92 allows more homes to be built in existing and new ...
Thank you, John McKinnon and the New Zealand China Council for the invitation to speak to you today. Thank you too, all members of the China Council. Your effort has played an essential role in helping to build, shape, and grow a balanced and resilient relationship between our two ...
The Government is modernising insurance law to better protect Kiwis and provide security in the event of a disaster, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly announced today. “These reforms are long overdue. New Zealand’s insurance law is complicated and dated, some of which is more than 100 years old. ...
The coalition Government is refreshing its approach to supporting pay equity claims as time-limited funding for the Pay Equity Taskforce comes to an end, Public Service Minister Nicola Willis says. “Three years ago, the then-government introduced changes to the Equal Pay Act to support pay equity bargaining. The changes were ...
Structured literacy will change the way New Zealand children learn to read - improving achievement and setting students up for success, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “Being able to read and write is a fundamental life skill that too many young people are missing out on. Recent data shows that ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay says Canada’s refusal to comply in full with a CPTPP trade dispute ruling in our favour over dairy trade is cynical and New Zealand has no intention of backing down. Mr McClay said he has asked for urgent legal advice in respect of our ‘next move’ ...
The rights of our children and young people will be enhanced by changes the coalition Government will make to strengthen oversight of the Oranga Tamariki system, including restoring a single Children’s Commissioner. “The Government is committed to delivering better public services that care for our most at-risk young people and ...
The Government is making it easier for minor changes to be made to a building consent so building a home is easier and more affordable, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “The coalition Government is focused on making it easier and cheaper to build homes so we can ...
New Zealand lost a true legend when internationally renowned disability advocate Sir Robert Martin (KNZM) passed away at his home in Whanganui last night, Disabilities Issues Minister Louise Upston says. “Our Government’s thoughts are with his wife Lynda, family and community, those he has worked with, the disability community in ...
Good evening – Before discussing the challenges and opportunities facing New Zealand’s foreign policy, we’d like to first acknowledge the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs. You have contributed to debates about New Zealand foreign policy over a long period of time, and we thank you for hosting us. ...
From today, passengers travelling internationally from Auckland Airport will be able to keep laptops and liquids in their carry-on bags for security screening thanks to new technology, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Creating a more efficient and seamless travel experience is important for holidaymakers and businesses, enabling faster movement through ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
RNZ News A group of academic staff at New Zealand’s largest university have expressed concern at the administration’s move to block a protest encampment that was planned to take place on campus calling for support for the rights of Palestinians. This week, the University of Auckland warned that while it ...
Genterwocky After a hard days marching, Sir Doocey calls in at the Village Tavern For a pint of ale and a pork pie. The grim villagers stare at him. “Do not be travelling on the forest road,” warns a crusty old beak. “And why is that, antique peasant?” Grins Sir ...
Political conferences after a party returns to power are usually a chance for some healthy, even unhealthy backslapping. Yet National Party president Sylvia Wood’s address to its mainland representatives on Saturday hardly contained the unalloyed delight that one might have expected following National’s escape from the wilderness of opposition. Yes, ...
Comment: Almost half the world is voting in national elections this year and artificial intelligence is the elephant in the room. There are genuine fears AI-generated or AI-edited deepfakes will potentially manipulate election outcomes not just in the US and UK, but critically in countries such as India. For that ...
Ahead of the reality franchise’s return to New Zealand, allow us to introduce the eight brides and grooms. Chuck on a veil and tie back your man bun, because it’s time to say “I do” to a new season of Married at First Sight NZ. The reality TV “social experiment” ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Norton, Professor in the Practice of Higher Education Policy, Australian National University Every year on June 1, student debt in Australia is indexed to inflation. In 2023, high inflation pushed the indexation rate to 7.1%, the highest since 1990. This ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Changes in the May 14 budget will cut the student debt of more than three million people, wiping more than $3 billion from what people owe. The government will cap the HELP indexation rate ...
Asia Pacific Report The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has appealed for an end to what it calls intimidation of its staff, saying such threats could constitute an offence against the “administration of justice” by the world’s permanent war crimes court. The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor ...
By Patrick Decloitre, RNZ Pacific correspondent French Pacific desk A women’s union in New Caledonia has staged a sit-in protest this week to support senior Kanak indigenous journalist Thérèse Waia, who works for public broadcaster Nouvelle-Calédonie la Première, after a smear attack by critics. The peaceful demonstration was held on ...
New Zealand Food Safety is monitoring overseas recalls of Indian packaged spice products manufactured by MDH and Everest due to concerns over a cancer-causing pesticide. ...
By Stephen Wright and Stefan Armbruster of BenarNews Fiji’s ranking in a global press freedom index has jumped into the top tier of countries with free or mostly free media after its government last year repealed a draconian law that threatened journalists with prison for doing their jobs. Fiji’s improvement ...
We might be in Invercargill but all anyone can talk about is Gore. Specifically, Salford Street. That’s where three-year-old Lachlan Jones lived, south of the centre of town, between the A&P Showgrounds and the Mataura River. Roughly 1.2 km away from the single level home he lived in with his ...
MONDAY I lined up the latest round of civil servants from city hall against the wall, and signalled for the firing squad to drop their rifles. I stepped up onto a wooden crate to look at the office workers in the eye. But that didn’t feel right, so I found ...
Keen hiker and second-year MSc student Liam Hewson wears two hats when he’s in the great outdoors. “The scientist in me appreciates nature and goes, ‘Oh, there’s that thing and there’s another thing,’ but then the tramper and the outdoorsy person in me thinks, ‘Cool bush.’” Born and bred in ...
After a long and illustrious career as a goal kicker, Dan Carter’s favourite way to unwind is… kicking goals. Why can’t he get enough of it? And what it’s like to watch him do it for an hour straight? A semicircle of people wielding cameras and phones has formed in ...
Dame Susan Devoy takes us through her life in television, including late night ER debriefs, her proudest CTI moment and the show she watches in secret. Quite aside from her four world champion squash titles, Dame Susan Devoy will likely go down in history as one of the best Celebrity ...
Hera Lindsay Bird reveals the best places in Ōtepoti to score more for your apocalypse-prep book hoard.Sometimes I get the feeling I’ve been killed in a car crash, and this second half of my life is just the brain unspooling itself, like one of those episodes of a hospital ...
ThreeNow’s new murder mystery series takes us on a dark, damp journey into the Australian wilderness.This is an excerpt from our weekly pop culture newsletter Rec Room. Sign up here. High Country is ThreeNow’s new Australian eight-part crime drama, set in a remote part of the Victorian highlands. It tells ...
Introducing a new way to read The Spinoff every weekend. After nearly 10 years of being an online magazine, we’re finally embracing the weekend liftout. Despite our best efforts to convince you otherwise, writers and editors at The Spinoff don’t work weekend. It is through the sheer power of technology ...
Tip one: let yourself be nurtured by this big old man. Tip two: don’t ask him to adopt you. So, you’ve arrived at your first session with a new therapist. He tells you to make yourself comfortable and you opt for the tweed armchair, hoping it makes you look like ...
I didn’t know books could open you back up; that there were books that stayed with you, where reading was like a chemical event. I knew nothing.The Sunday Essay is made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.Not too long ago, I was listening to the American ...
Former Olympic swimmer James Magnussen has already started training for the Enhanced games, though says he won’t start taking performance enhancing substances until about nine months out from the competition. The Australian world champion was the first athlete to be announced by Enhanced, but he says the organisation has had ...
Everyone thinks he’s dead. Every day they expect his body to be washed up along the coast. Most likely up Karitane way, the way the tide’s running. But nobody’ll be too surprised if his body’s never found. Even in death he wouldn’t have wished for such attention. He would have ...
Council members voted 21 to 4 in favour of Ahluwalia returning to the Laucala campus following a much-awaited meeting in Vanuatu this week. It comes as USP and its two unions — the Association of the University of the South Pacific Staff (AUSPS) and the Administration and Support Staff Union ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Nicola Henry, Professor & Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University Shutterstock Following an emergency meeting of the National Cabinet this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has announced a raft of measures to tackle the problem ...
Analysis - A poll showing the opposition is more popular than the government raises questions, politicians go through their 'trial by pay rise' and a Green MP loses her cool in the debating chamber. ...
The entire stretch of Tokomaru Bay on the East Coast will be subject to a joint customary marine title for two hapū, and extending up to four miles out to sea. A High Court judge has found the two groups, who during the case settled a dispute over boundaries for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Hall, Lecturer, Media & Cultural Studies, Edith Cowan University A longstanding feud between TikTok and Universal Music Group seems to have finally reached an end, with both parties signing a deal that will see Universal-backed music returned to the social media ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Siobhan O’Dean, Postdoctoral Research Associate, The Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney After several highly publicised alleged murders of women in Australia, the Albanese government this week pledged more than A$925 million over five years ...
Political parties have now fully disclosed the donations they received last year - with National getting more than double the cash of any other party. ...
A Pacific regionalism expert has called out New Zealand's Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters for withholding information from the public on AUKUS military pact. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard de Grijs, Professor of Astrophysics, Macquarie University Bruno Scramgnon/Pexels All systems are “go” for tonight’s launch of China’s next step in a carefully planned lunar exploration program. Placed on top of a powerful Long March 5 rocket, the Chang’e 6 ...
National returned a massive donation the day after a Newsroom story linked the donors to a property being investigated for operating unlawfully as a migrant workers’ hostel. The party’s 2023 donation filings, released on Friday, show it returned a $200,000 donation from Buen Holdings on August 23. That was the ...
Pacific Media Watch New Zealand has slumped to an unprecedented 19th place in the annual Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index survey released today on World Press Freedom Day — May 3. This was a drop of six places from 13th last year when it slipped out of its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Joshua Black, Political Historian and Administrator Officer, Australian Historical Association, Australian National University Australia has had its fair share of public record-keeping controversies in recent years. Some have been mere farce, as in the case of two formerly government-owned filing cabinets (containing ...
Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL), a United Nations-affiliated organization dedicated to fostering peace through civilian-led initiatives, has issued a statement in response to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. ...
A poem by Tessa Keenan, from AUP New Poets 10. Mātou These days we are a photograph; one of a farm strewn with cows that used to be bright harakeke or swamp. The kids point at it and say the sun sits behind a smudge (left by someone at Christmas); ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)The masterful Irish writer ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. Key facts Marriages and civil unions In ...
Marriage and civil union statistics record the number of marriages and civil unions registered in New Zealand each year, and divorce statistics record the number of divorces granted in New Zealand each year. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lennon Y.C. Chang, Associate Professor of Cyber Risk and Policy, Deakin University Taiwan stands out as a beacon of democracy, innovation and resilience in an increasingly autocratic region. But this is under growing threat. In recent years, China has used a variety ...
In this excerpt from her new memoir, Dame Susan Devoy remembers her turn as star contestant on the 2022 season of Celebrity Treasure Island. The most anxious time of every day was pre-elimination, when you knew this could be your final day on the show. I felt such contradictory emotions, ...
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The world has been experiencing a productivity slowdown, from which New Zealand has not been exempt. COVID-19 temporarily boosted labour productivity, but more recently, productivity has retreated. The overall trend since 2007 has been one of slow productivity ...
What’s more wasteful than spending $315k on syrup and machine maintenance? Trying to drum up a controversy about it.Cast your mind back to the pre-pandemic idylls of 2019. A “rat” was a disgusting rodent and not a self-administered plague test; the sixth Labour government was in power; and the ...
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Wow! Lots of lovely white stuff out there this morning. I imagine there are lots of chilly houses here this morning. Rug up Cantabs!
Recently lprent posted Climate of Deception at Fox News. Fox News can be worth watching, it isn’t all bad, but the network has obvious political agendas.
It may be a case of pot and kettle. Is there also a Climate of deception at The Standard?
The inevitable “attack the messenger” campaign will probably avoid addressing the self deception.
What any blog does is it’s own choice, but if posters obviously represent the ambitions if not the views of a political party the integrity of both are interwoven. It’s your call people, but Labour’s credibility is on the line.
I detected 9 reasons to pulverise this post upon one reading, please PG spare us first thing on a Monday morning in future.
PeteG apart from most of the commentators being of a similar ilk if you were to post this sort of spin at the sewer or kiwi blog you’d be ravaged and not in the nice way you’d get here.
Mind you looking at the history of your attack lines it wouldn’t be out of the question for you to get that here.
I’ve been ravaged at KB a damn sight more than here. Obviously people and blogs don’t like being confronted, I don’t either, but sometimes it’s necessary to stand up and point out crap to promote positive change.
PeteG’s cunning plan is to increase the number of hits on his website to give it credibility. He does this by posting a confrontational comment and a link early on in the general debate posts. Today he posted the above and this on the sewer early on:
Can I urge everyone to avoid the temptation and not click through.
You mean that ass-hole is link farming? Figures.
Ooops, too late, but will certainly never visit his site again.
I figured that out from day one when he was ‘link whoring’. I am sorry I didn’t bring that to the attention of others here previously.
I have never visited his site and don’t intend to. The tonnes of rubbish he spouts on here give enough indication of how much more garbage he has. I don’t even bother to read his comments on TS and just scroll past them.
There are many other better things to do. Watching grass grow would give more insight into life, even if not eating it (it = grass).
[lprent: Link-whoring with appropriate comment isn’t something that we moderate for (we’ll moderate out anyone that does it inappropriately – because they are trying to use this site for spamming). ]
The good thing is that this thread has been reported over at TM’s messageboard; http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=770521&topic=7&#p15515857
The frenzy shown over “The Standard” suggests that National is getting worried that Labour is a real threat.
Same thing happened before the last election. This time we are somewhat more prepared when we get the bloody irritating trolls who just try to disrupt the site. They tend not to like my anti troll tactics.
But we see minor spates of it every time that Labour or the left starts making headway. Nice to see it happen again. Now let’s just hope that none of the Labour MPs (or their servers) disrupt the flow this time.
Yes Mickey, I had figured that this was what Pete G (aka as the Secret Squirrel) is up to.
Unfortunately I did visit his website a couple of times before this realisation. All I found was long-form badly thought out drivel. Needless to say I won’t be going there again, but if that’s the content you want Pete’s site’s the perfect place to be.
PeteG You have this annoying habit of trolling.
You keep having your arse handed to you on a plate by the likes of Felix et al. You destroy threads. Your comments vary between the banal and the stupid.
Posting here is a privilege. IMHO the Standard is one of the most open and has the most robust debate of any I have seen.
The only entity with credibility problems is yourself. Time to try and get some.
I wish there was a ‘Block Pete G’ application on this site that turns his comments blank as I’m totally fed up with seeing his tedious drivel everywhere, even inadvertently out of the corner of my eye.
+1
+ 170,000
trying to boost your blog stats mate?
What a load of pretentious drivel delivered in a sonorous portentous style, but it’s still drivel and merely gives Pete G filler for his pages. Why not set up a wood-whittling circle Pete G? You might end up with something worth viewing.
Here is a the full video: Core of corruption Part 1: In the shadows, which explores the connection between the alleged hijackers and the ruling elite. Very interesting is the operation Able danger which was sabotaged by elements in the US government. Anthony Schaffer, the officer involved in the operation wrote a book about it and while he still hangs on to he idea that is was al Qaeda who did the dirty on 911 his book is of huge value in it;s contribution to the search for truth.
Anthony has a facebook page and is linked to mine which has the same name as my moniker here.
In fact quite a few names from the 911 truth movement are connected to my page so have a visit and get closer to the people who actually do the hard slog.
Anyone out there got access to Ken Ring’s almanack for July? I gather he predicted pretty settled weather in the north for last week…
I had a dig around for what Hilary Butler, the expert Sunday interviewed on vaccine risks, was involved with and lo behold found she’s firmly in the anti-vaccinations vaccines-cause-autism* loony camp. And couldn’t science to save her life judging by a most on polio on her blog where she failed utterly to understand that there are other things besides polio that can cause paralysis aka aetiology.
Though I’m a bit too lazy to go fully into cluebat mode and examine the full extent of her stupidity, I can say “wtf?” in relation to Sunday thinking it was a good idea to treat her as any form of expert. Then there that fact they didn’t bother to interview the likes of Sid Offit and David Gorski over in the USA, who have a long and excellent history of explaining vaccination and dealing with anti-vaccination bullshit. And explaining relative risks, i.e.
btw, “vaccine damage” (or “vaccine injury” in N-Am) is very much a non-diagnostic tool in the hands of people like Butler as they’ll link just about anything with vaccinations without even critically examining causation. In fact there were only two examples last night that were solid, and without access to ACC’s case files on the serious cases, it’s impossible to say with any certainty the causation of those cases…
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*I heart science: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/02/yet_another_really_bad_day_for_antivacci.php
Scientists have for a long time regarded autism as being 90% plus genetically caused.
Guess what, they were wrong. A recent large scale study looking at over 1000 children determined that actually more than 50% of the risk for autism comes from environmental factors.
So don’t be too quick to rule things out especially as chemical exposures are likely to play a significant role in that. (In fact I believe the study specifically implicated anti-depressants. Hundreds of thousands of NZ’ers take these drugs every day. Wonder what that is doing for our autism incidence).
You know and I know that it is extremely difficult to definitively show causation unless the power of a study is very large, or the effect is very large.
In many cases association is the best one can hope for, and by the time causation can be undeniably demonstrated, thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people are likely to have been harmed.
argh shit,
Not touching this with a bargepole 🙂
Except of course, it looks strongly like ASD has many possible causations, so without pinning down specific neurological features and setting up tighter definitions and thus sample groups to turn genetics analysis tools on, the 50% narrow sense hereditary found to date makes a lot of sense. Also, if you were more informed about neurological development (and biochem/genetics) you’d know that there’s a massive knot of potential causations during development in the womb that lay down future brain growth and set up gene regulation in the brain. Thus from my perspective and from my understanding of brain development and ASD I see any attempt to pin ASD causation post birth as somewhat flawed….
Now the fact that SSRI’s are potentially linked* is actually interesting given the role serotonin in the brain in terms of fixing new neural connections, and I can definitely see that as far more potentially plausible. And I have no issues with that, barring that fact that the rise in ASD diagnoses was explained primarily by better awareness (public, GP’s, etc) + changes in diagnostic criteria that included those on the borderlines and the previously misdiagnosed. So thus I’d argue that SSRI’s might not be playing a role, but that’s what well designed ANCOVA GLM studies are for 😛
Aetiology not difficult except when dealing with the likes of ASD where there are multiple potential causations, and in the rest of science it’s down to the design of the study and evidence quality, quantity and the plausibility of causation mechanisms. So as a general statement of truth, you’re wrong. At least for publishable claims of causation. Medical diagnostic’s is where you right, and I should have made what I meant by “critically examining causation” a bit more indepth. Such as mentioning the role of statistical evidence + having plausible mechanisms. which in the case of Butler etc are either absent, or seriously flawed, and Butler provides a very clear example of this with her claims about polio….
In the case of public health risks from pharmaceuticals, pesticides etc, yes there are serious implications concerning their potential causative links to diseases etc, which is why animal testing + glasshouse and field tests are incredibly important. As is long term population/environment monitoring, and robust research funding…
There’s also the other implication of the causation certainty issue in that we can’t likewise show with any total certainty that any drug/vaccine etc is 100% safe, so we’re left with balancing relative risk estimates. And given how utterly non intuitive that is, even for the moderately statistically literate, it makes it very easy for the anti-vaccination crowd to over inflate potentially risk, creating what is very much a moral hazard on the basis of the rather well known outcomes of low vaccination rates.
Anyhow, this slightly tangential to the issue of why Sunday bothered with someone who’s very much a crank, rather than talking with medical professionals/researchers. Especially for a lead piece, in light of the anti-vaccination bullshit and the negative public outcomes of it already seen here in NZ with the measles outbreaks we keep having.
Now I think you could possibly owe me a beer for this, given I could have been sitting nice a warm in the lounge reading Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science”, instead of in my freezing bedroom 😛
_______________________________________________________
*I can has source plz?
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/07/110704174606.htm
Cheers dude, you explained your point of view well, and I learned one or two things 🙂
Totally recommend Ben Goldacre’s book ‘Bad Science’ and also his blog Bad Science. A must for beginning to sort the riff from the raff in health research. He’s happy to treat the quacks and the made up trials and marketing tricks of drugs companies with equal disdain.
And Hilary Butler just keeps looking more and more stupid the more I read her blog…
/shudder
As someone who nearly lost a 3 week old child thanks to an un-immunized child in my 6 y.o class at school I have nothing but contempt for those loonies.
In any medical scenario there is a very small risk of an untoward event; however, the risks of permanent harm to the masses of population from people not immunizing their children is far greater.
Re. the SSRI – if you check the weird and whacky ‘Flouride is poison’ (sic) group on Facebook you will find all the crazed anti Fluoride and anti-immunisation brigade quoting all manner of junk.
One example is that Fluoride is being added to water to sedate the masses and that is why it is the active ingredient in SSRI’s
I’ll strongly second Ian’s sentiments having spent part of the day cleaning up the chaos after a potential measles contact was brought onto a ward with immunosuppressed patients.
Anyone who doesn’t immunise their children, unless there is a very good reason not to, needs a bloody good kick up the arse.
Hadn’t heard the flouride one before ……….. there’s nowt as odd as folk.
Sunday and Hilary Butler stated in the programme that she was not a scientist. I think she had collated much information on vaccines as well cases of nasty outcomes from vaccinations.
My son had one such outcome as well as my friend whose child was permanently damaged from a whooping cough jab and recived damages(in the UK). Fortunately my doctor asked me if there had been any seizures in our family before he gave my son the whooping cough vaccine; there had and this meant it was not a good idea for my son to have it, as he too could become damaged. We were not warned about MMR though!!!!
My heart went out to the lad who had been damaged by the whooping cough vaccine and his mother. He was a similar age to my son. Both had been beautiful healthy babies.
I think he was right in saying that some people are able to take vaccinations some are not. Information should be given to parents about the pros and cons-especially the MMR, which I think is a bit too much for such young babies.
Well driving to work this morning was an adventure. Never really driven in snow before, and this is pretty deep – about 10cm deep in most places with some drifts deeper. Had the car skid around a little and crunched into the curb where I couldn’t see it, but no major issues.
Looking out my window I can see a line of trees just past the motorway, and then it’s completely grey-white beyond, can’t see the port hills at all. Seems like the world has shrunk.
Still snowing.
Just saw a plough go past on the motorway, must have been going about 70-80 and shoving a huge plume of snow out the side. Pretty impressive.
Very heavy snow now, can just barely see the motorway and a few ghostly silhouets of cars going past, many of them very very close together so if any of them stop they’ll get rear-ended. Idiots.
How thick out your way? We managed 20cm on the lawn out in Shirley and the walk out to Stanmore Rd was fun (new tramping boots, Haix ftw!).
It seems John Key is at it again. He claims he did tell Phil Goff about the Israeli spy affair. Anyone who saw the TV clip of Goff last week would know he was not lying. Anyone who has ever known Phil Goff would be able to tell you he is not a liar.
Is John Key a pathological liar in which case he should not be in the top job? Or is he attempting to divert attention from something else – eg. his very revealing initial response to the Norwegian massacre?
Update: the above is what I heard on a Radio NZ item, but it appears not to be strictly correct.
John Key has admitted he didn’t tell Phil Goff, but he claims “he understood the SIS director did..”.
As the leader of the main opposition party it was the duty of someone to inform Goff. That it didn’t happen is a serious breach of protocol…
Key has been complacent in handling the situation with Goff being informed. Had Key seen Goff, Goff may of been able to advise on not leaving loose ends. Key has created loose ends for himself and the public need to have confidence in him when it comes to national security. Key is unable to dismiss the attempt of passport identity theft, he is unable to verify this as well.
Look where being naive gets you (news of the world hacking) politicians, cops and editors/journalists) a lot of coverups will be uncovered. NZ is no different.
No protocol breach apparently – a memory breach by Goff.
An apology from Goff to the SIS and to the PM will be issued in due course.
(That’s just a guess).
More to be covered on this.
The fact that Goff was involved in diplomacy regarding the 2004 passport scam would have set off alarm bells. The SIS director surely has some notes. I think the Key words here are Key, flicked past, and passport. Sorry but not good enough to flick past at a routine meeting, a sitting on the fence passport identity attempt. Loose ends only create a problem.
“Sorry but not good enough to flick past at a routine meeting”
If Goff was interested in more detail I presume he could have asked for it. I expect politicians at his level get bombarded with a heap of information and it would be easy to not take it all fully on board.
If at the time the SIS thought it minor and Goff thought it not worth dwelling on then it would normally have been forgotten and left at that. Goff wasn’t to know the issue would have been stoked by someone. But still, the mistake’s on him and so should be the apology.
Glad Key apologised first.
The mistake is on the SIS director because it is the job of the SIS to prevent any future passport identity theft. Israel apologised after the 2004 passport identy theft and assured NZ that it would not happen again. Goff is not an SIS operative.
Goff insisted that he was not briefed. SIS director Warren Tucker corrected him saying in fact he did run it past him. Goff isn’t denying it further so yeah it looks apparent that he did made a mistake.
No protocol breach apparently – a memory breach by Goff.
If Goff had been properly informed of course he would remember it. Especially since he was closely involved with the 2004 passport scandal. Sounds to me like Mr Tucker might be on a damage control exercise. A flick past? Could that mean a momentary, semi-audible mumble designed (perhaps) to be misheard or ‘missed’ altogether?
Who trains SIS operatives?
Can you define what ‘properly informed’ is and your qualifications to judge? Even Goff admits he was told.
Shit dude there are a thousand ways an official can slide information under the nose of an elected representative so that the official can say its been done, but the chances of the elected representative ever remembering any details at all are very slight.
“Well we’re running out of time, those last couple of bullet points there, low priority items really. If anything else comes up on those we’ll brief you further. Right, next we have some properly important matters…”
Exactly CV.
A Sir Humphrey Appleby (Yes Minister) moment.
That’s exactly the scene I had in mind! 🙂
To PG:
As it should be as Goffs comments implied that the SIS director had been lacking in his job and had not informed him.
If Goff had of checked documents etc then he would have noticed that he had been informed. So this is a serious issue I feel as Goff has accused this man of failing in his role.
Interesting that when Key makes a slight error by saying “if it was a terroist bombing” he gets heaps on this site. But when Goff makes a unfounded statement gets a oh well he cant of been told properly or a well he just forgot.
But then it is expected on a site like this to experience that one eyed comment.
@ Pete G.
”The head of the Security Intelligence Service said he flicked the issue past me and said there wasn’t much to it,” Goff said.
”He ‘didn’t dwell on it’, was his comments.
“If there had been anything of substance said to me I’m sure I would recollect it.”
This sounds like the head of SIS did not dwell on it , not Mr.Goff.
I am appalled that the National Government should be so careless and lacking in respect as regards their obligation to inform the opposition about security matters.It also shows a lack of regard and respect to the citizens of this country in the matter of our security and safety that a matter of security should be “flicked” past the honourable leader of the opposition.
Of course Phil Goff would remember anything said to him about such matters so I think ‘flick’ is short hand for ‘nothing was said’. Apart from the fact that Mr.Goff is highly intelligent he was a very competent Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade as well as Minister of Defence and would recollect if anything had been said as he was so used to dealing with such matters and would be attuned.
Mr Goff is certainly up to the play in this situation; more than can be said for the usually underprepared and totally “out of the ball park so as to be nowhere near the play” John Keys.
The fact that Jonkey is pathological liar was proven some time ago.
More than likely.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2011/07/its_the_putting_right_that_counts.html
DPF running spin lines on Key’s ‘it was global terrorists which is why we’re in Afganisblad, yay NZ’ comment post the Norway tragedy.
I’m so sick of this odious little slug.
May I just say I am eternally grateful to those of you who endure visiting the sewers and reporting back for us. Of course it saves column inches by providing links to support your comments rather than quoting verbatim from their posts but I can take it from your signatures that you are well informed and that it is just more of the b/s that he pours out on Mora’s afternoons. I would prefer not to leave a trace on their respective sites so thank you all very much.
Tell me about it Tigger
Jumping to Conclusions
Speculating on things without enough information is a dangerous practice at the best of times. You run the risk of appearing the fool if that guess work is later shown to be incorrect.
Actually ‘the fool’ has an important role to play:
http://www.foolsforhire.com/info/history.html
Shonkey, on the other hand, is just playing at an important role.
and you heard it from the horse’s mouth…
Why socialists should support Hone and Mana
http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2011/07/hone-should-be-complemented-not.html
Of course, Hone sucking up to Density Church is a major reason why we shouldn’t…
Charlie Brooker on the stupidity of those who leapt to blame Muslim terrorism for the Norwegian attacks. He’s having a pop at the ‘experts’, but it applies nicely to our PM’s efforts.
Paul Krugman on Ratings Agencies
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/moodys-blues-poor-standards-and-the-debt/
Australian and Malaysian refugee deal . It’ll be interesting to see how it works.