Attitudes toward same-sex couple parents: A decade of change.
Find increases in support for samesex parents, and most of the covariates were related to attitudes about same-sex parents in a similar manner in 2012 as 2022
Findings suggest growth in support for both male and female same-sex parents. Underlying value orientations (politics and religiosity) appear to still drive differentials in public opinion
Economists look at a very limited and rather banal concept of what going for economic growth in the 21st C looks like (that could have been written 100 years earlier).
Have more foreigners invest in owning more stuff (and paying less tax at the same time) and continue with top of the ground and under the ground business activity, and some tourism and have a lower cost (downgrade from late to early century 20th C – one primitive in concept and capability) research infrastructure.
“There hasn’t really been any austerity yet,” he said.
*threatened
and also what?
and *confusion* is Simeon Brown their best minister or an enormous ideologue and electoral liability?
‘He also said it would be much better to reform the transport funding system so it was based on a cost-benefit analysis rather than pushing ahead with the Roads of National Significance.’
if you watch any podcast today, make it this one. The diagnosis is as scary as the projections, but a thoughtful can work out what to do from conversatrions like this.
I'm so relieved to be able to share this good news…
Trump has said Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has done a "very good job thus far" and that the pair have a "very good relationship". Asked by the BBC on board Air Force One about his relationship with Sir Keir, Trump added that they would be having a call "over the next 24 hours".
"I get along with him well. I like him a lot," Trump said of Sir Keir. "He's liberal, which is a bit different from me, but I think he's a very good person…
Could he say the same for the British ambassador though?
There have been further questions raised about whether Trump will accept Sir Keir's nomination of former Labour minister Lord Peter Mandelson as the British ambassador to Washington. Last month, Chris LaCivita, the co-manager of Trump's election campaign, called Lord Mandelson "an absolute moron" and said he "should stay home".
Trump's first secretary of state called him a moron too, so they will be able to share common ground – though Trump may not be absolute like Mandelson. Time will tell.
LaCivita's view that morons ought to be confined to home seems cruel. Dogs need a run around the park regularly – the analogous need for morons to do politics seems obvious.
A free & frank exchange of views is normal & can make a lively political meal:
Foreign Secretary David Lammy… described Trump as a "tyrant" and "a woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath" but the foreign secretary has since had dinner with him alongside the prime minister. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjvyyn7k99o
The circus has started in Wellington. The notorious Garry Judd KC spent his time attacking the integrity of the courts, judges, and lawyers. Not very lawyer-like to attack members of his own profession with highly subjective evidence:
"The bahaviour of some of our senior judges suggests they think they are entitled to make law, to ignore Parliament's laws, or to twist them into a shape they find more congenial."
Somehow we’ve actively chosen to disregard reality — and celebrate everything that isn’t.
The contemporary and twisted (of course!) version of Godwin’s Law is that likelihood of online communication (not: conversation, let alone discussion) involving Trump (or Musk) is getting higher by the day.
I'd be willing to entertain the possibility that Musk is an idiot or is fomenting mischief, or both, except for his speech to the far right political party in Germany.
One of the things I'm finding hardest at the moment is watching Amercians I know online responding to what is happening as if their democracy isn't about to fail. It's still focused on ridiculing Trump. A few I know have an analysis of how fascism comes about, but most still seem to think that Trump can simply be voted out next time.
Close behind that, is that NZ seems to be doing the same. If we want to stop fascism, here, now is the time to act, not when we are in the situation that Americans are in.
I agree. For example, many New Zealanders seem to think that National and NZFirst not supporting the Treaty Principles Bill past its first reading and ruling out a referendum is the end of it and a major victory. It isn’t (and David Seymour and ACT know it full well).
The Coalition is trigger-happy to open NZ’s doors to overseas investment and wholesale of assets such as land. This will speed up the growing influence of elitists with their fascist beliefs and approaches because they allegedly represent the only way to an economic nirvana of growth & prosperity and thus of wellbeing.
More precisely, we’re opening our doors to foreign capital, which inevitably attracts certain people with ‘foreign’ ideas but not all of those people are ‘dangerous’ as such. The problem is that quasi-corrupt neo-authoritarian governments have a habit of being highly selective in what they allow & encourage and what they reject/repeal & discourage – the Fast-track Approvals Bill is just one example of such selective and non-transparent process.
What I fear more than anything is that the leaders of the so-called "Free World" which includes NZ will behave like ostriches and stick their heads in the sand pretending everything is normal. That is what Britain and Europe did in the 1930s and it led to WW2. In its simplest form that is what happened anyway. We have already seen Starmer playing up to Trump and he has been rewarded with a good report from The Fuhrer No. 2.
I could not agree more that this is a disastrous response. The more he gets away with, the more he will do, until a time comes when the world is plunged into a nuclear war with cataclysmic consequences for all of us. I don't believe that is too drastic a prediction given the nature of the monster we are dealing with.
"I'd be willing to entertain the possibility that Musk is an idiot or is fomenting mischief, or both, except for his speech to the far right political party in Germany."
Rest assured (or maybe not – rest anxiously maybe, Musk is not only an idiot, but also a Ray Shist; self-appointed Master of the Universe with very average competency of coding ability, taking credit for the successful achievements of His underlings whilst blaming them for any failures; with an ego the size of a bus and a total lack of humility, and generally someone with quite an ergly disposition.
Should really have gone without saying.
There's a lot of it about however. Having spent the last August, September and October in San Fran and the Bay Area, I came across a number of His ilk and followers – most of whom had done their 'research' within their various bubbles.
Some of them even included encounters with our gorgeous Prime Munsters, including the current one with His squeeze Amanda and their gorgeous little offspring clones in their pyjama uniforms.
Seriously @ Weka: Musk is not very clever and nor is Trump and quite a few on SCOTUS.
On the positive side of the ledger, I did manage to see quite a bit of legit research into things like Cancer (at centres south of San Fran with links to 'lil 'ole NuZulln that punches above its weight); catch up with people formerly from Cupertino who assisted with the introduction of EFTPOS and Videotex in NuZulln based around Tandem Non-Stop II computers, and others of an artistic bent – former NZSO violinists now plucking strings in Santa Cruz and Modesto orchestra, and a shitload of other stuff.
Elon Musk doesn't have too much ahead of Him if He carries on in His current trajectory (The truth is, in that space, going forward, in the fullness of time, I'd start to pivot if I had the misfortune to inhabit His persona)
Oh, AND technically, He's probably an illegal immigrant if Stanford applied the same rules as they do to others.
born in Pretoria… At the age of 18 he immigrated to Canada, acquiring its citizenship through his Canadian-born mother… received bachelor's degrees in economics and physics… In 2002, Musk acquired United States citizenship
His Trumpist style is performative:
Musk’s public statements are better understood as reflecting philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s famous definition of “bullshit”. For Frankfurt, “bullshit” refers to statements made to impress or provoke in which the speaker is simply not concerned with whether the statement is actually true.
Yet he seems to have an intuitive grasp of metacognition:
When I see the troll emoji, it’s like looking in the mirror
Zionism has no problem with fascism. One of their axioms is that antisemitism is the natural state for all non Jews.
This natural state requires that all Jews should accept the necessity of a Jewish State which, as such, must remain under the control of a Zionist leadership.
This also explains why Zionists continually claim antisemitism against any and all types of criticism. Its a self reinforcing feedback loop.
It also explains why Israel is happy to engage with countries of the far right that may also have a lot of antisemirism. Both believe in nations of racial and ideolgic purity. Israel for the Jews and Germany for the Germans
It also explains why Musk can make Nazi salutes and the Israeli leadership can try to trivialise it.
Jews that arent comitted to the idea of Israel are no use to Israel. Any nation that can ramp up its antisemitism and thereby increase the flow of Jews to Israel is to be supported, especially given the current non appeal of Israel as a place to live.
I would finish by saying that the vast majority of Jews outside of Israel have no interest in Zionism and the majority are apalled at what Israel is doing
On the other hand, antisemitism is ancient, real and something to take seriously.
Its easy to spot because it is hatred against Jews as people rather than being against an oppressive State (Israel) or the ideology that is both rascist and the enactment of which requires apartheid at a minimum (Zionism)
It's not just the relatively modern embodiment of religious right in Zionist ideology. The brutal treatment of their neighbors by the Israelites in King David's time is well documented in the OT books eg 2 Samuel 8:2
David also defeated the Moabites. He made them lie down on the ground and measured them off with a length of cord. Every two lengths of them were put to death, and the third length was allowed to live. So the Moabites became subject to David and brought him tribute.
Many of the claims – such as a military conquest of Canaan were not true.
It merely reflected the c1200BCE border of Egypt and Gaza of the Philistines, meant the exercise of Egyptian power within Canaan was over. It is then merely a mix of Canaanite walled cities and those of the land.
George Monbiot at the Guardian explores myths about UK property.
"there is a massive housing surplus in this country. We have a higher ratio of bedrooms to population than ever before. The problem is that it’s woefully maldistributed: prosperous couples and single people knock around in mansions while families are crammed into tiny flats. Most of the expansion of housing supply in the UK since the 1980s has created extra space for wealthy people".
The bedroom-to-population ratio is a metric I haven't seen before.
This weekend, American officials sent two flights of Colombian illegal aliens as part of Trump's ongoing deportation program. Petro rejected the flights, writing that the U.S. cannot "treat Colombian migrants as criminals."
"I deny the entry of American planes carrying Colombian migrants into our territory," Petro said. "The United States must establish a protocol for the dignified treatment of migrants before we receive them."
In response, Trump unleashed a slew of punishments, including ordering a 25% tariff on all goods coming into the U.S. from Colombia.
"Petro’s denial of these flights has jeopardized the National Security and Public Safety of the United States, so I have directed my Administration to immediately take the following urgent and decisive retaliatory measures."
The tariff would rise to 50% after one week, Trump said. The president also ordered a travel ban and visa revocations for all Colombian government officials, plus "allies and supporters."
A former member of the M-19, a Marxist guerilla terrorist group that killed hundreds, Petro caved-in to Trump's demands with remarkable speed.
His lightning u-turn proves he's a marxist who can spin on a dime – possibly the only one in history so far, since marxists are usually conspicuous in adhering to doctrine. Trump ought to point him to William James, the famous advocate of the philosophy of pragmatism, late 19th century. Petro's innate feel for how to do it needs cultivating.
Interesting you pick fox news as a source. The Guardian give a bit more background than 'satanic marxist'.
After Trump's repatriation flights to Brazil were a shambles, with reported beatings, looks like the non-US americas have put their heads together for a common response to bad behaviour by Trump's enforcers.
Seems highly reasonable to me. They're OK with repatriation, if they are informed, and if those repatriated are treated decently.
Yet the deportees are illegal immigrants in the USA, right? Therefore, by definition, law-breakers. Anyone who entered knowing they were doing so illegally are morally in the wrong, so will be seen by the American public as offenders. Petro is flying his kite on the basis that lack of court conviction equals lack of criminality, seems to me.
Perhaps the marxist ought to have studied theology, where the number of angels capable of dancing on the head of a pin simultaneous has long been seen as of critical importance. That said, dignity of anyone does deserve respect even if only as an elementary courtesy (serial killers & cannibals excepted).
Looks like the crux was Trump's threatened shutdown of US visa processing for Columbians. Outside of trade wars and into fuck-you diplomatic strong-arming. Shows Trump will make any immediate threat, no matter how outside established diplomatic mores, to get what he wants.
That said, dignity of anyone does deserve respect even if only as an elementary courtesy
Colombia objected to the use of military planes. Trump decided on the mass transit, using such means, to grandstand for political purposes.
Or as any left winger would note – demonstrate force and power/power and force. Classic authoritarianism, impolitely called a normal move for someone of a fascist tendency disposition. And or wanting to be seen as such to appeal to their populist base, which they manipulate via American nationalism vs other.
I don't think there is a number big enough. Egypt and Jordan won't participate in Israel's expansionist ambitions.
Along with most of the other US backed autocracies and dictatorships, Egypt and Jordan are already partners in Israel's expansionist ambitions.
The number on the cheque may be big, but it won't be infinite.
$1.3billion was the number on the cheque that Obama gave to the Egyptian military as their reward for overthrowing Egypt's democratically elected Morsi government.
So what will be the number that Trump will be prepared to write on Egypt's cheque to take the Palestinians. A $10b figure should cover it. $1.5billion to house and care for the Palestinian refugees, and $8.5 billion in kickbacks to the Egyptian generals.
This $10b figure may not be Trump's final top offer, it all depends on how much he wants to cement US domination of the region by getting the Arab States to agree to normalise relations with Israel.
The US gives annual aid worth $1.3bn (£860m) to the Egyptian army. There were concerns in Egypt that this support might be discontinued in the aftermath of Morsi's departure.
Hamas and the Western-backed Palestinian Authority condemned the idea. Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told journalists that his country’s rejection of the proposed transfer of Palestinians was “firm and unwavering”.
The temporary or long-term transfer of Palestinians “risks expanding the conflict in the region and undermines prospects of peace and coexistence among its people,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Egypt and Jordan fiercely rejected the idea of accepting Gaza refugees early in the war, when it was floated by some Israeli officials.
Both countries have made peace with Israel but support the creation of a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem. They fear that the permanent displacement of Gaza's population could make that impossible.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi has also warned of the security implications of transferring large numbers of Palestinians to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, bordering Gaza.
It's not going to happen. It's also ethnic cleasning which is a form or genocide:
“I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations, and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” Trump said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right governing partners have long advocated what they describe as the voluntary emigration of large numbers of Palestinians and the reestablishment of Jewish settlements in Gaza. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who is now a crucial member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, called Trump’s proposal a “great idea”.
Human rights groups have already accused Israel of ethnic cleansing, which United Nations experts have defined as a policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove the civilian population of another group from certain areas “by violent and terror-inspiring means."
Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said Trump’s proposal, if implemented, “would amount to an alarming escalation in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and exponentially increase their suffering”.
Not that I would ever agree with that lot you are quoting, but Trump's full ethnic cleansing discussion coming on Holocaust Memorial Day is frankly disgusting.
Egypt has previously warned against any “forced displacement” of Palestinians from Gaza into the Sinai desert, which el-Sisi said could jeopardise the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.
"We are the people, We are returning, Soon, soon, soon, soon"
[Protest chant by Palestinian and Arab community contingent at Auckland vigil for Palestine, in Britomart Square, Queen Street.]
Whatever Trump and the US client states and Israel conspire to do, doesn't matter.
Tens of thousands are making good on that promise to return, and have marched on foot back to Gaza's capital. 'Gaza City', and surrounding towns in the north.
They will not be removed again. No matter what Trump thinks.
The cease-fire took effect on Jan. 19,The Rafah crossing illegally occupied and closed by Israel has been reopened. 600 to 900 truckloads of aid have been arriving in Gaza each day since.
Netanyahu says he has the support of Trump to restart the war, "even stronger".
If they restart the war Israel will try to retake the Rafah Crossing, as well as restart the genocidal bombing campaign. Both actions will lead to blood letting on an even bigger scale than before, live streamed to the world.
Mass protests will erupt all around the world, not least in the Middle East.
The fall of Syria shows that the Arab Spring is not dead.
If the military regime in Egypt lets Israel retake the Rafah Crossing without a fight, the Sisi regime will also fall, followed by Jordan
Egypt catergorically rejects any plan to relocate Palestinians.
In its statement on Sunday evening, the Egyptian foreign ministry warned that delays in resolving the conflict, ending the Israeli occupation, and restoring the Palestinian people's legitimate rights are the root causes of instability in the region.
Cairo also reaffirmed its unwavering support for the resilience of the Palestinian people on their land and their commitment to their inalienable rights under international law and humanitarian law.
The foreign ministry underscored its categorical rejection of any actions that undermine these rights, including settlement expansion, annexation of land, or the displacement of Palestinians—whether through temporary or permanent means.
The foreign ministry added that such measures would threaten regional stability, risk further escalation of the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence.
The statement stressed that Egypt calls on the international community to take concrete steps toward implementing the two-state solution.
According to an article on stuff today only 3% of applications to the COCs fund to underwrite housing development has been approved. 50% of applications have been declined. It closed down HNZ building new homes and replaced it with a fund that has a 3% success rate. Seems the only thing saving nz from a huge spike in homelessness is the record number of kiwis moving to aussie, the one export Nicola Willis is massively overachieving
Read it better. That was about the first 13 subnissions. 14 remain to be evaluated. Can't see this article at stuff site, but skimmed it in the physical paper today.
The State of it. Act's Seymour lays out his Vision for NZ's Future…IE the update/continuation of sir Roger Douglas and cronies plans…
He targets the usual….Health, Education, Housing, Assets, etc. with attacks on woke..and a new one, NZ's 2 tribes ?
New Zealand needs to get past the "squeamishness about privatisation", David Seymour has argued in his first major speech of the year.
Seymour said he believed the nation "is dominated by two invisible tribes".
One he called 'Change Makers', people who "act out the pioneering spirit that built our country every day."
"Change makers load up their mortgage to start a business and give other people jobs. They work the land to feed the world. They save up and buy a home that they maintain for someone else to live in."
He cast "ACT people" – its members and voters – as those change makers, saying "we carry the pioneering spirit in our hearts".
The other tribe, he said, was people building a "majority for mediocrity".
Seymour said a "bad housing market" and a "woke education system" combined were a "production line for left-wing voters".
In a stopped clock moment, he does call out….
He pointed to a "sunny" short-term outlook, "only because Labour was so bad."
"The truth is, though, it's easy to do a better job of Labour over 12 months. It's much harder to muster the courage to keep making difficult decisions over several years, even if they're not immediately popular."
He claimed New Zealand was in a "century of decline" and just stopping one government's "stupid stuff" and waiting for a "cyclical recovery" won't change the long-term trend.
"We need to act like a country at risk of reaching a tipping point and losing its first world status. We are facing some tough times, and tough times require tough choices to be made."
Labour..we on the Left are looking at you ! Who are you? What do you stand for ? sir Roger Douglas/cronies were wrong. Say it ! And make a Plan worth voting for you!
Union Stand up. As we all must..before its too late.
Public Service Association calls on Luxon to rule out privatisation: 'Not the New Zealand way'
Public Service Association acting national secretary Fleur Fitzsimons told RNZ these were "extreme right-wing policies", and had no place in New Zealand.
"We'll end up with a system of private health and private education where only rich people can access services," she said.
"It's not the New Zealand way.
"These are extreme right-wing policies that have failed in New Zealand before."
Framing suggestion for NZ peeps discussing National/ACT's clear plan to privatise healthcare: deploy the phrase "US-style health system" at will
You'll know how effective it is by how loudly the rightwing shills scream (cf their reaction to calling the Waikeria expansion a "US-style mega prison")
each party will be able to pick 25 submitters each… we deserve to know who
If the system won't tell us which parties chose which screwballs, that's the prerogative of the privileged elites which prop up the system. I agree it would be nice to know how our traditional patronage system selects nutters, but Labour and National will always defend privacy law – they usually use it to prevent transparency being incorporated into the system of democracy. There's a slim chance TMP & the Greens could support NRT and demand the nutter/party affiliation is exposed – but I bet they won't…
Nicola Witless loudly drops the axing of WFH rights…for foreigners. Now, they don't need to work from home, they don’t even need to work in their own country:
Because she has no idea what to do in her new role as growth minister (or her old role as finance minister), this appears to be a recycled policy adopted by some other countries…
Colombian President Gustavo Petro responds to Trump.
Trump, I don't really like travelling to the US, it's a bit boring, but I confess that there are some commendable things. I like going to the black neighbourhoods of Washington, where I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should join together.
I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller
I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, are memorable in the history of the USA and I follow them. They were murdered by labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists who are within the USA as well as within my country
I don't like your oil, Trump, you're going to wipe out the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, over a glass of whiskey, which I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I'm not, nor is any Colombian.
So if you know someone who is stubborn, that's me, period. You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I will die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don't want slavers next to Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves. What I want next to Colombia are lovers of freedom. If you can't accompany me, I'll go elsewhere. Colombia is the heart of the world and you didn't understand that, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels Aureliano Buendía, of which I am one, perhaps the last.
You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which is before yours, in the Americas. We are peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom.
You don't like our freedom, okay. I don't shake hands with white slavers. I shake hands with the white libertarian heirs of Lincoln and the black and white farm boys of the USA, at whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield, which I reached after walking the mountains of Italian Tuscany and after being saved from Covid.
They are the United States and before them I kneel, before no one else.
Overthrow me, President, and the Americas and humanity will respond.
Colombia now stops looking north, looks at the world, our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Cordoba, the civilization of that time, of the Roman Latins of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the republic, democracy in Athens; our blood has the black resistance fighters turned into slaves by you. In Colombia is the first free territory of America, before Washington, of all America, there I take refuge in its African songs.
My land is made up of goldsmiths who worked in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs and of the first artists in the world in Chiribiquete.
You will never rule us. The warrior who rode our lands, shouting freedom, who is called Bolívar, opposes us.
Our people are somewhat fearful, somewhat timid, they are naive and kind, loving, but they will know how to win the Panama Canal, which you took from us with violence. Two hundred heroes from all of Latin America lie in Bocas del Toro, today's Panama, formerly Colombia, which you murdered.
I raise a flag and as Gaitán said, even if it remains alone, it will continue to be raised with the Latin American dignity that is the dignity of America, which your great-grandfather did not know, and mine did, Mr. President, an immigrant in the USA,
Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do, do not disrespect it and you will give it your sweetness.
FROM TODAY ON, COLOMBIA IS OPEN TO THE ENTIRE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY.
I am informed that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the United States, and I do the same.
Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world
Their homes and businesses may be reduced to rubble, but since most left with only what they could carry, most of their family possessions, documents and even valuables still remain behind under that rubble. The ceasefire agreement stipulated that displaced Palestinians would be allowed to return to their homes in the North. Palestinians being prevented from entering the North, interviewed by local Al Jazeera journalists, said that they wanted to return to find the remains of their lost loved ones to give them a decent burial. Others said they needed to escape what they described as the torture of existing while trying to care for their families in cold damp tents amidst disease and filth.
In a breach of the ceasefire agreement, dramatic drone aerial footage from Gaza shows tens of thousands of Palestinians being prevented by the IDF from returning to their homes and property in North of Gaza which includes the capital, Gaza City. Video on the ground show IDF snipers shooting at civilians trying to return to the North.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Palestinians will not be allowed to enter the North until Hamas releases Israeli captive Arbel Yehud. Hamas have cited "technical reasons" for the delay in releasing Arbel Yehud.
Arbel Yehud is being held by Islamic Jihad, not Hamas. Israel has agreed to release 50 Palestinians for every soldier released by Hamas and 30 Palestinians for every Israeli civilian, Netanyahu claims that Arbel Yehud is a civilian, Islamic Jihad claim that Arbel Yehud is a soldier. Despite this disagreement, Islamic Jihad have agreed to release Yehud, separately before the 6 Israeli captives due to be released in the next handover. No details of the numbers of Palestinians to be released in exchange for Arbel Yehud have been released.
……the next day – January 16, three days before the ceasefire took effect – Israeli soldiers raided Alyeean’s home in Bethlehem and abducted his 22-year-old son, Adam, who was supposed to sit university exams in the coming days.
“They took him for no reason,” Alyeean, 60, told Al Jazeera over the phone. “There was no way to defend him or my family.
“We are not saboteurs,” he said, meaning they were not resisting or causing unrest.
Since the announcement of the Gaza ceasefire, Israel has arrested at least 95 Palestinians in raids and at checkpoints for no clear reasons across the West Bank,….
…… Israel has arrested and rearrested hundreds of people in the West Bank since it struck a captive deal with Hamas during a temporary ceasefire between the two warring parties in November 2023….
…..Mohamed Amro, a 55-year-old father of seven who lives in Hebron, said he was finally reunited with his 23-year-old daughter, Janin, who had been abducted in the middle of the night from the family’s home during an Israeli raid on December 3, 2023 – less than two months after the start of the war on Gaza.
He still recalls the events of that harrowing night, which have become a common experience for many Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank.
“The occupation soldiers broke down the door and stormed in and then abducted her from her bed,” Amro told Al Jazeera……
Amro said his daughter still does not know of any charges brought against her….
……The prisoners were supposed to be released around 4pm (14:00 GMT) in the late afternoon on January 19, but this was delayed until 2am (00:00 GMT) the next morning.
The next day, Israeli soldiers banged on Amro’s door and warned him not to have a party or celebrate Janin’s release, or else they would arrest her again.
He promised he wouldn’t, but he remains terrified that Israeli soldiers will raid his home again to arrest Janin or one of his other children.
Part of living under occupation, he explained, is realising that your loved ones can be arrested at any time for no obvious reason…..
It highlights there's no good definition of an Israeli civilian since they have compulsory military service and so all Israelis are either serving or have served for the Israeli military apparatus.
It also highlights the huge imbalance that one Israeli is worth between 30 to 50 Palestinians depending on the ambiguousness of that definition.
and was struck by a question he would like to have been asked of the new Economic Growth minister.
So, Nicola Willis has been appointed as the new Minister for Economic Growth and her number one solution is to encourage more tourism.
One question I was waiting for a journalist to ask her at the announcement was :
“Minister, what kind of increased Ferry capacity are you planning to deal with the flood of tourists you would like to see travelling between our islands?”
One wonders how she would answer? Perhaps, that's now Winston's problem?
Willis cheerfully evaded the questions put to her on this matter on Morning Report this morning. Seems to me the government is going to have to uncharacteristically put its hand in its pocket if it wants to see the kind of infrastructure to support this extra tourism actually built.
Otherwise it will just be another broken National Party promise to add to the growing list of the same.
I get it; the common factor is genocide. I suppose, if one took a performative view, one could argue that Farrar is adopting a rebel stance on the issue. He has chosen not to wear a tie! Nor iron his shirt!
Note also his carefully-presented round-shoulder look – sure to induce solidarity amongst accountants. Posture is everything when it comes to the biological signalling of primates.
The right of the coloniser to silence resistance to
1.the Treaty (in legislation)(diminishing the reach of the Tribunal) and indigenous peoples rights (UNDRIP) of Maori. So we are more like Oz by 2040, if not before
2.occupation of land designated for a Palestinian state.
The line up of Australia Day, Holocaust Memorial Day and the beginning of submissions on (majority)(military) power being the determination of right for a "democratic" state.
The denial of a specific group, its rights, is just the beginning of the sell out of the nation state citizenship sovereignty to international capital or the restoration of the hegemony of power over peoples and nations.
Class war by the oligarchy on the people is the internationale threat of this century.
The enemies within work with foreign oligarchs against the people, and they call that appeasement, our security alliance obligation.
The big lie is their legislation before parliament to criminalise resistance.
It seems Hobon's Pledge, because they are used to special privilege, want special privilege at the select committee:
Ahead of its submission, Hobson's Pledge emailed supporters alleging it had not been given a slot to speak on the bill, and had been forbidden from swapping its slot with another group, Democracy Action.
Ikilei raised it again at the start of the submission, saying Democracy Action had given up its slot so Hobson's Pledge could speak.
Committee chair James Meager told Ikilei this was not the case.
"Hobson's Pledge was invited in the first emails that went out to make a submission, and unfortunately they weren't able to respond by the deadline, and so those slots were filled up by those who did respond in time," he said.
In a follow-up statement to RNZ, however, Meager clarified "Hobson's Pledge did respond before the deadline, but by then all of the available slots had been allocated.
So they were emailed like everyone else about the process but didn't respond in time to be heard on the first day. First in first served is what they want for NZ but they grizzle like babies when it doesn't go their way. They want special treatment.
Funny how the agree crowd are moaning, because if it was fair and equatable like they say, they would have been drowned out by the no voices from day one. Some time later they would have been heard – but like always, they push their way to the front like entitled assholes they eat.
The last visit by a NZ foreign minister to Kiribati was Winston Peters in 2019. They cannot have been impressed because the Kiribati President and foreign minister has made himself unavailable for a repeat visit/junket by the NZF leader this time.
Peters of course has gone full Trump v Columbia on this and threatened to withhold aid to Kiribati because of this slight.
The deputy leader of Australia's Libs, in a badly-judged Australia Day speech, compared the arrival of British colonisers in the First Fleet (primarly convict ships) to Elon Musk's aim to colonise Mars. She's got some stick for it.
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report shows worsening food poverty and housing shortages mean more than 400,000 people now need welfare support, the highest level since the 1990s. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and ...
You're just too too obscure for meOh you don't really get through to meAnd there's no need for you to talk that wayIs there any less pessimistic things to say?Songwriters: Graeme DownesToday, I thought we’d take a look at some of the most cringe-inducing moments from last week, but don’t ...
Please note: I’ve delayed my “What can we do?” article for this video.The video above shows Destiny Church members assaulting staff and librarians as they pushed through to a room of terrified parents and young children.It was posted to social media last night.But if you read Sinead Boucher’s Stuff, you ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is sea level rise exaggerated? Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, not stagnating or decreasing. Warming global temperatures cause land ice ...
Here is a scenario, but first a historical parallel. Hitler and the Nazis could well have accomplished everything that they wanted to do within German borders, including exterminating Jews, so long as they confined their ambitious to Germany itself. After all, the world pretty much sat and watched as the ...
I’ve spent the last couple of days in Hamilton covering Waikato University’s annual NZ Economics Forum, where (arguably) three of the most influential people in our political economy right now laid out their thinking in major speeches about the size and role of Government, their views on for spending, tax ...
Simeon Brown’s Ideology BentSimeon Brown once told Kiwis he tries to represent his deep sense of faith by interacting “with integrity”.“It’s important that there’s Christians in Parliament…and from my perspective, it’s great to be a Christian in Parliament and to bring that perspective to [laws, conversations and policies].”And with ...
Severe geological and financial earthquakes are inevitable. We just don’t know how soon and how they will play out. Are we putting the right effort into preparing for them?Every decade or so the international economy has a major financial crisis. We cannot predict exactly when or exactly how it will ...
Questions1. How did Old Mate Grabaseat describe his soon-to-be-Deputy-PM’s letter to police advocating for Philip Polkinghorne?a.Ill-advisedb.A perfect letterc.A letter that will live in infamyd.He had me at hello2. What did Seymour say in response?a.What’s ill-advised is commenting when you don’t know all the facts and ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff has called on OJI Fibre Solutions to work with the government, unions, and the community before closing the Kinleith Paper Mill. “OJI has today announced 230 job losses in what will be a devastating blow for the community. OJI needs to work with ...
NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff is sounding the alarm about the latest attack on workers from Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety Brooke van Velden, who is ignoring her own officials to pursue reckless changes that would completely undermine the personal grievance system. “Brooke van Velden’s changes will ...
Hi,When I started writing Webworm in 2020, I wrote a lot about the conspiracy theories that were suddenly invading our Twitter timelines and Facebook feeds. Four years ago a reader, John, left this feedback under one of my essays:It’s a never ending labyrinth of lunacy which, as you have pointed ...
And if you said this life ain't good enoughI would give my world to lift you upI could change my life to better suit your moodBecause you're so smoothAnd it's just like the ocean under the moonOh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from youYou got the ...
Aotearoa remains the minority’s birthright, New Zealand the majority’s possession. WAITANGI DAY commentary see-saws manically between the warmly positive and the coldly negative. Many New Zealanders consider this a good thing. They point to the unexamined patriotism of July Fourth and Bastille Day celebrations, and applaud the fact that the ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: and on the week in geopolitics, including the latest from Donald Trump’s administration over Gaza and Ukraine; on the ...
Up until now, the prevailing coalition view of public servants was that there were simply too many of them. But yesterday the new Public Service Commissioner, handpicked by the Luxon Government, said it was not so much numbers but what they did and the value they produced that mattered. Sir ...
In a moment we explore the question: What is Andrew Bayly wanting to tell ACC, and will it involve enjoying a small wine tasting and then telling someone to fuck off? But first, for context, a broader one: What do we look for in a government?Imagine for a moment, you ...
As expected, Donald Trump just threw Ukraine under the bus, demanding that it accept Russia's illegal theft of land, while ruling out any future membership of NATO. Its a colossal betrayal, which effectively legitimises Russia's invasion, while laying the groundwork for the next one. But Trump is apparently fine with ...
This is a guest post by George Weeks, reviewing a book called ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin AshtonBook review: ‘How to Fly a Horse’ by Kevin Ashton (2015) – and what it means for Auckland. The title of this article might unnerve any Greater Auckland ...
This story was originally published by Capital & Main and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story. Within just a week, the sheer devastation of the Los Angeles wildfires has pushed to the fore fundamental questions about the impact of the climate crisis that have been ...
In this world, it's just usYou know it's not the same as it wasSongwriters: Harry Edward Styles / Thomas Edward Percy Hull / Tyler Sam JohnsonYesterday, I received a lovely message from Caty, a reader of Nick’s Kōrero, that got me thinking. So I thought I’d share it with you, ...
In past times a person was considered “unserious” or “not a serious” person if they failed to grasp, behave and speak according to the solemnity of the context in which they were located. For example a serious person does not audibly pass gas at Church, or yell “gun” at a ...
Long stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Thursday, February 13 are:The coalition Government’s early 2024 ‘fiscal emergency’ freeze on funding, planning and building houses, schools, local roads and hospitals helped extend and deepen the economic and jobs recession through calendar ...
For obvious reasons, people feel uneasy when the right to be a citizen is sold off to wealthy foreigners. Even selling the right to residency seems a bit dubious, when so many migrants who are not millionaires get turned away or are made to jump through innumerable hoops – simply ...
A new season of White Lotus is nearly upon us: more murder mystery, more sumptuous surroundings, more rich people behaving badly.Once more we get to identify with the experience of the pampered tourist or perhaps the poorly paid help; there's something in White Lotus for all New Zealanders.And unlike the ...
In 2016, Aotearoa shockingly plunged to fourth place in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. Nine years later, and we're back there again: New Zealand has seen a further slip in its global ranking in the latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). [...] In the latest CPI New Zealand's score ...
1. You’ve started ranking your politicians on how much they respect the rule of law2. You’ve stopped paying attention to those news publications3. You’ve developed a sudden interest in a particular period of history4. More and more people are sounding like your racist, conspiracist uncle.5. Someone just pulled a Nazi ...
Transforming New Zealand: Brian EastonBrian Easton will discuss the above topic at 2/57 Willis Street, Wellington at 5:30pm on Tuesday 26 February at 2/57 Willis Street, WellingtonThe sub-title to the above is "Why is the Left failing?" Brian Easton's analysis is based on his view that while the ...
Salvation Army’s State of the Nation 2025 report highlights falling living standards, the highest unemployment rates since the 1990s and half of all Pacific children going without food. There are reports of hundreds if not thousands of people are applying for the same jobs in the wake of last year’s ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Correction: On the article The Condundrum of David Seymour, Luke Malpass conducted joint reviews with Bryce Wilkinson, the architect of the Regulatory Standards Bill - not Bryce Edwards. The article ...
Tomorrow the council’s Transport, Resilience and Infrastructure Committee meet and agenda has a few interesting papers. Council’s Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport Every year the council provide a Letter of Expectation to Auckland Transport which is part of the process for informing AT of the council’s priorities and ...
All around in my home townThey're trying to track me down, yeahThey say they want to bring me in guiltyFor the killing of a deputyFor the life of a deputySongwriter: Robert Nesta Marley.Support Nick’s Kōrero today with a 20% discount on a paid subscription to receive all my newsletters directly ...
Hi,I think all of us have probably experienced the power of music — that strange, transformative thing that gets under our skin and helps us experience this whole life thing with some kind of sanity.Listening and experiencing music has always been such a huge part of my life, and has ...
Business frustration over the stalled economy is growing, and only 34% of voters are confidentNicola Willis can deliver. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Wednesday, February 12 are:Business frustration is growing about a ...
I have now lived long enough to see a cabinet minister go both barrels on their Prime Minister and not get sacked.It used to be that the PM would have a drawer full of resignations signed by ministers on the day of their appointment, ready for such an occasion. But ...
This session will feature Simon McCallum, Senior Lecturer in Engineering and Computer Science (VUW) and recent Labour Party candidate in the Southland Electorate talking about some of the issues around AI and how this should inform Labour Party policy. Simon is an excellent speaker with a comprehensive command of AI ...
The proposed Waimate garbage incinerator is dead: The company behind a highly-controversial proposal to build a waste-to-energy plant in the Waimate District no longer has the land. [...] However, SIRRL director Paul Taylor said the sales and purchase agreement to purchase land from Murphy Farms, near Glenavy, lapsed at ...
The US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has been a vital tool in combatting international corruption. It forbids US companies and citizens from bribing foreign public officials anywhere in the world. And its actually enforced: some of the world's biggest companies - Siemens, Hewlett Packard, and Bristol Myers Squibb - have ...
December 2024 photo - with UK Tory Boris Johnson (Source: Facebook)Those PollsFor hours, political poll results have resounded across political hallways and commentary.According to the 1News Verizon poll, 50% of the country believe we are heading in the “wrong direction”, while 39% believe we are “on the right track”.The left ...
A Tai Rāwhiti mill that ran for 30 years before it was shut down in late 2023 is set to re-open in the coming months, which will eventually see nearly 300 new jobs in the region. A new report from Massey University shows that pensioners are struggling with rising costs. ...
As support continues to fall, Luxon also now faces his biggest internal ructions within the coalition since the election, with David Seymour reacting badly to being criticised by the PM. File photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Not since 1988 when Richard Prebble openly criticised David Lange have we seen such a challenge to a Prime Minister as that of David Seymour to Christopher Luxon last night. Prebble suggested Lange had mental health issues during a TV interview and was almost immediately fired. Seymour hasn’t gone quite ...
Three weeks in, and the 24/7 news cycle is not helping anyone feel calm and informed about the second Trump presidency. One day, the US is threatening 25% trade tariffs on its friends and neighbours. The reasons offered by the White House are absurd, such as stopping fentanyl coming in ...
This video includes personal musings and conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Wherever you look, you'll hear headlines claiming we've passed 1.5 degrees of global warming. And while 2024 saw ...
Photo by Heather M. Edwards on UnsplashHere’s the key news, commentary, reports and debate around Aotearoa’s politics and economy in the week to Feb 10 below. That’s ahead of live chats on the Substack App and The Kākā’s front page on Substack at 5pm with: on his column in The ...
Is there anyone in the world the National Party loves more than a campaign donor? Why yes, there is! They will always have the warmest hello and would you like to slip into something more comfortable for that great god of our age, the High Net Worth Individual.The words the ...
Waste and fraud certainly exist in foreign aid programs, but rightwing celebration of USAID’s dismantling shows profound ignorance of the value of soft power (as opposed to hard power) in projecting US influence and interests abroad by non-military/coercive means (think of “hearts and minds,” “hugs, not bullets,” “honey versus vinegar,” ...
Health New Zealand is proposing to cut almost half of its data and digital positions – more than 1000 of them. The PSA has called on the Privacy Commissioner to urgently investigate the cuts due to the potential for serious consequences for patients. NZNO is calling for an urgent increase ...
We may see a few more luxury cars on Queen Street, but a loosening of rules to entice rich foreigners to invest more here is unlikely to “turbocharge our economic growth”. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate ...
Let us not dance daintily around the elephant in the room. Our politicians who serve us in the present are not honest, certainly not as honest as they should be, and while the right are taking out most of the trophies for warping narratives and literally redefining “facts”, the kiwi ...
A few weeks ago I took a look at public transport ridership in 2024. In today’s post I’m going to be looking a bit deeper at bus ridership. Buses make up the vast majority of ridership in Auckland with 70 million boardings last year out of a total of 89.4 ...
Oh, you know I did itIt's over and I feel fineNothing you could say is gonna change my mindWaited and I waited the longest nightNothing like the taste of sweet declineSongwriters: Chris Shiflett / David Eric Grohl / Nate Mendel / Taylor Hawkins.Hindsight is good, eh?The clarity when the pieces ...
Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on UnsplashHere’s what we’re watching in the week to February 16 and beyond in Aotearoa’s political economy around housing, climate and poverty:Monday, February 10The Kākā’s weekly wrap-up of news about politics and the economy is due at midday, followed by webinar for paying subscribers in Substack’s ...
A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, February 2, 2025 thru Sat, February 8, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...
Today, I stumbled across a Twitter Meme: the ending of The Lord of the Rings as a Chess scenario: https://x.com/mellon_heads/status/1887983845917564991 It gets across the basic gist. Aragorn and Gandalf offering up ‘material’ at the Morannon allows Frodo and Samwise to catch Sauron unawares – fair enough. But there are a ...
Last week, Kieran McAnulty called out Chris Bishop and Nicola Willis for their claims that Kāinga Ora’s costs were too high.They had claimed Kāinga Ora’s cost were 12% higher than market i.e. private devlopersBut Kāinga Ora’s Chair had already explained why last year:"We're not building to sell, so we'll be ...
Stuff’s Political Editor Luke Malpass - A Fellow at New Zealand IniativeLast week I half-joked that Stuff / The Post’s Luke Malpass1 always sounded like he was auditioning for a job at the New Zealand Initiative.Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. For a limited time, subscriptions are 20% off. Thanks ...
At a funeral on Friday, there were A4-sized photos covering every wall of the Dil’s reception lounge. There must have been 200 of them, telling the story in the usual way of the video reel but also, by enlargement, making it more possible to linger and step in.Our friend Nicky ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is methane the ...
The Government’s idea is that the private sector and Community Housing Providers will fund, build and operate new affordable housing to address our housing crisis. Meanwhile, the Government does not know where almost half of the 1,700 children who left emergency housing actually went. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong ...
Oh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youOh, home, let me come homeHome is wherever I'm with youSongwriters: Alexander Ebert / Jade Allyson CastrinosMorena,I’m on a tight time frame this morning. In about an hour and a half, I’ll need to pack up and hit the road ...
This is a post about the Mountain Tui substack, and small tweaks - further to the poll and request post the other day. Please don’t read if you aren’t interested in my personal matters. Thank you all.After oohing-and-aahing about how to structure the Substack model since November, including obtaining ...
This transcript of a recent conversation between the Prime Minister and his chief economic adviser has not been verified.We’ve announced we are the ‘Yes Government’. Do you like it?Yes, Prime Minister.Dreamed up by the PR team. It’s about being committed to growth. Not that the PR team know anything about ...
The other day, Australian Senator Nick McKim issued a warning in the Australian Parliement about the US’s descent into fascim.And of course it’s true, but I lament - that was true as soon as Trump won.What we see is now simply the reification of the intention, planning, and forces behind ...
Among the many other problems associated with Musk/DOGE sending a fleet of teenage and twenty-something cultists to remove, copy and appropriate federal records like social security, medicaid and other supposedly protected data is the fact that the youngsters doing the data-removal, copying and security protocol and filter code over-writing have ...
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tuneBird fly high by the light of the moonOh, oh, oh, JokermanSong by Bob Dylan.Morena folks, I hope this fine morning of the 7th of February finds you well. We're still close to Paihia, just a short drive out of town. Below is the view ...
It’s been an eventful week as always, so here’s a few things that we have found interesting. We also hope everyone had a happy and relaxing Waitangi Day! This week in Greater Auckland We’re still running on summer time, but provided two chewy posts: On Tuesday, a guest ...
Queuing on Queen St: the Government is set to announce another apparently splashy growth policy on Sunday of offering residence visas to wealthy migrants. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories short, the top six things in our political economy around housing, climate and poverty on Friday, February 7:PM Christopher ...
The fact that Waitangi ended up being such a low-key affair may mark it out as one of the most significant Waitangi Days in recent years. A group of women draped in “Toitu Te Tiriti” banners who turned their backs on the politicians’ powhiri was about as rough as it ...
National’s cuts to disability support funding and freezing of new residential placements has resulted in significant mental health decline for intellectually disabled people. ...
The hundreds of jobs lost needlessly as a result of the Kinleith Mill paper production closure will have a devastating impact on the Tokoroa community - something that could have easily been avoided. ...
Today Te Pāti Māori MP for Te Tai Tokerau, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, released her members bill that will see the return of tamariki and mokopuna Māori from state care back to te iwi Māori. This bill will establish an independent authority that asserts and protects the rights promised in He Whakaputanga ...
The Whangarei District Council being forced to fluoridate their local water supply is facing a despotic Soviet-era disgrace. This is not a matter of being pro-fluoride or anti-fluoride. It is a matter of what New Zealanders see and value as democracy in our country. Individual democratically elected Councillors are not ...
Nicola Willis’ latest supermarket announcement is painfully weak with no new ideas, no real plan, and no relief for Kiwis struggling with rising grocery costs. ...
Half of Pacific children sometimes going without food is just one of many heartbreaking lowlights in the Salvation Army’s annual State of the Nation report. ...
The Salvation Army’s State of the Nation report is a bleak indictment on the failure of Government to take steps to end poverty, with those on benefits, including their children, hit hardest. ...
New Zealand First has today introduced a Member’s Bill which would restore decision-making power to local communities regarding the fluoridation of drinking water. The ‘Fluoridation (Referendum) Legislation Bill’ seeks to repeal the Health (Fluoridation of Drinking Water) Amendment Act 2021 that granted centralised authority to the Direct General of Health ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill aimed at preventing banks from refusing their services to businesses because of the current “Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Framework”. “This Bill ensures fairness and prevents ESG standards from perpetuating woke ideology in the banking sector being driven by unelected, globalist, climate ...
Erica Stanford has reached peak shortsightedness if today’s announcement is anything to go by, picking apart immigration settings piece by piece to the detriment of the New Zealand economy. ...
Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. The intention was to establish a colony with the cession of sovereignty to the Crown, ...
Te Whatu Ora Chief Executive Margie Apa leaving her job four months early is another symptom of this government’s failure to deliver healthcare for New Zealanders. ...
The Green Party is calling for the Prime Minister to show leadership and be unequivocal about Aotearoa New Zealand’s opposition to a proposal by the US President to remove Palestinians from Gaza. ...
The latest unemployment figures reveal that job losses are hitting Māori and Pacific people especially hard, with Māori unemployment reaching a staggering 9.7% for the December 2024 quarter and Pasifika unemployment reaching 10.5%. ...
Waitangi 2025: Waitangi Day must be community and not politically driven - Shane Jones Our originating document, theTreaty of Waitangi, was signed on February 6, 1840. An agreement between Māori and the British Crown. Initially inked by Ngā Puhi in Waitangi, further signatures were added as it travelled south. ...
Despite being confronted every day with people in genuine need being stopped from accessing emergency housing – National still won’t commit to building more public houses. ...
The Green Party says the Government is giving up on growing the country’s public housing stock, despite overwhelming evidence that we need more affordable houses to solve the housing crisis. ...
Before any thoughts of the New Year and what lies ahead could even be contemplated, New Zealand reeled with the tragedy of Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming losing her life. For over 38 years she had faithfully served as a front-line Police officer. Working alongside her was Senior Sergeant Adam Ramsay ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson will return to politics at Waitangi on Monday the 3rd of February where she will hold a stand up with fellow co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick. ...
Te Pāti Māori is appalled by the government's blatant mishandling of the school lunch programme. David Seymour’s ‘cost-saving’ measures have left tamariki across Aotearoa with unidentifiable meals, causing distress and outrage among parents and communities alike. “What’s the difference between providing inedible food, and providing no food at all?” Said ...
The Government is doubling down on outdated and volatile fossil fuels, showing how shortsighted and destructive their policies are for working New Zealanders. ...
Green Party MP Steve Abel this morning joined Coromandel locals in Waihi to condemn new mining plans announced by Shane Jones in the pit of the town’s Australian-owned Gold mine. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to strengthen its just-announced 2030-2035 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and address its woeful lack of commitment to climate security. ...
Today marks a historic moment for Taranaki iwi with the passing of the Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill in Parliament. "Today, we stand together as descendants of Taranaki, and our tūpuna, Taranaki Maunga, is now formally acknowledged by the law as a living tūpuna. ...
Labour is relieved to see Children’s Minister Karen Chhour has woken up to reality and reversed her government’s terrible decisions to cut funding from frontline service providers – temporarily. ...
It is the first week of David Seymour’s school lunch programme and already social media reports are circulating of revolting meals, late deliveries, and mislabelled packaging. ...
The Green Party says that with no-cause evictions returning from today, the move to allow landlords to end tenancies without reason plunges renters, and particularly families who rent, into insecurity and stress. ...
The Government’s commitment to get New Zealand’s roads back on track is delivering strong results, with around 98 per cent of potholes on state highways repaired within 24 hours of identification every month since targets were introduced, Transport Minister Chris Bishop says. “Increasing productivity to help rebuild our economy is ...
The former Cadbury factory will be the site of the Inpatient Building for the new Dunedin Hospital and Health Minister Simeon Brown says actions have been taken to get the cost overruns under control. “Today I am giving the people of Dunedin certainty that we will build the new Dunedin ...
From today, Plunket in Whāngarei will be offering childhood immunisations – the first of up to 27 sites nationwide, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. The investment of $1 million into the pilot, announced in October 2024, was made possible due to the Government’s record $16.68 billion investment in health. It ...
New Zealand’s strong commitment to the rights of disabled people has continued with the response to an important United Nations report, Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston has announced. Of the 63 concluding observations of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), 47 will be progressed ...
Resources Minister Shane Jones has launched New Zealand’s national Minerals Strategy and Critical Minerals List, documents that lay a strategic and enduring path for the mineral sector, with the aim of doubling exports to $3 billion by 2035. Mr Jones released the documents, which present the Coalition Government’s transformative vision ...
Firstly I want to thank OceanaGold for hosting our event today. Your operation at Waihi is impressive. I want to acknowledge local MP Scott Simpson, local government dignitaries, community stakeholders and all of you who have gathered here today. It’s a privilege to welcome you to the launch of the ...
Racing Minister, Winston Peters has announced the Government is preparing public consultation on GST policy proposals which would make the New Zealand racing industry more competitive. “The racing industry makes an important economic contribution. New Zealand thoroughbreds are in demand overseas as racehorses and for breeding. The domestic thoroughbred industry ...
Business confidence remains very high and shows the economy is on track to improve, Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis says. “The latest ANZ Business Outlook survey, released yesterday, shows business confidence and expected own activity are ‘still both very high’.” The survey reports business confidence fell eight points to +54 ...
Enabling works have begun this week on an expanded radiology unit at Hawke’s Bay Fallen Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital which will double CT scanning capacity in Hawke’s Bay to ensure more locals can benefit from access to timely, quality healthcare, Health Minister Simeon Brown says. This investment of $29.3m in the ...
The Government has today announced New Zealand’s second international climate target under the Paris Agreement, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand will reduce emissions by 51 to 55 per cent compared to 2005 levels, by 2035. “We have worked hard to set a target that is both ambitious ...
Nine years of negotiations between the Crown and iwi of Taranaki have concluded following Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua/the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill passing its third reading in Parliament today, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “This Bill addresses the historical grievances endured by the eight iwi ...
As schools start back for 2025, there will be a relentless focus on teaching the basics brilliantly so all Kiwi kids grow up with the knowledge, skills and competencies needed to grow the New Zealand of the future, Education Minister Erica Stanford says. “A world-leading education system is a key ...
Housing Minister Chris Bishop and Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson have welcomed Kāinga Ora’s decision to re-open its tender for carpets to allow wool carpet suppliers to bid. “In 2024 Kāinga Ora issued requests for tender (RFTs) seeking bids from suppliers to carpet their properties,” Mr Bishop says. “As part ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour has today visited Otahuhu College where the new school lunch programme has served up healthy lunches to students in the first days of the school year. “As schools open in 2025, the programme will deliver nutritious meals to around 242,000 students, every school day. On ...
Minister for Children Karen Chhour has intervened in Oranga Tamariki’s review of social service provider contracts to ensure Barnardos can continue to deliver its 0800 What’s Up hotline. “When I found out about the potential impact to this service, I asked Oranga Tamariki for an explanation. Based on the information ...
A bill to make revenue collection on imported and exported goods fairer and more effective had its first reading in Parliament, Customs Minister Casey Costello said today. “The Customs (Levies and Other Matters) Amendment Bill modernises the way in which Customs can recover the costs of services that are needed ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Department of Internal Affairs [the Department] has achieved significant progress in completing applications for New Zealand citizenship. “December 2024 saw the Department complete 5,661 citizenship applications, the most for any month in 2024. This is a 54 per cent increase compared ...
Reversals to Labour’s blanket speed limit reductions begin tonight and will be in place by 1 July, says Minister of Transport Chris Bishop. “The previous government was obsessed with slowing New Zealanders down by imposing illogical and untargeted speed limit reductions on state highways and local roads. “National campaigned on ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has announced Budget 2025 – the Growth Budget - will be delivered on Thursday 22 May. “This year’s Budget will drive forward the Government’s plan to grow our economy to improve the incomes of New Zealanders now and in the years ahead. “Budget 2025 will build ...
For the Government, 2025 will bring a relentless focus on unleashing the growth we need to lift incomes, strengthen local businesses and create opportunity. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today laid out the Government’s growth agenda in his Statement to Parliament. “Just over a year ago this Government was elected by ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour welcomes students back to school with a call to raise attendance from last year. “The Government encourages all students to attend school every day because there is a clear connection between being present at school and setting yourself up for a bright future,” says Mr ...
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https://bsky.app/profile/drcompton.bsky.social/post/3lgnw5xt7ks2j
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jomf.13065
Economists look at a very limited and rather banal concept of what going for economic growth in the 21st C looks like (that could have been written 100 years earlier).
Have more foreigners invest in owning more stuff (and paying less tax at the same time) and continue with top of the ground and under the ground business activity, and some tourism and have a lower cost (downgrade from late to early century 20th C – one primitive in concept and capability) research infrastructure.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/540030/economists-challenge-details-of-luxon-s-new-growth-plan
“There hasn’t really been any austerity yet,” he said.
*threatened
and also what?
and *confusion* is Simeon Brown their best minister or an enormous ideologue and electoral liability?
‘He also said it would be much better to reform the transport funding system so it was based on a cost-benefit analysis rather than pushing ahead with the Roads of National Significance.’
Yemen,
Ethiopia, Sudan and Chad it goes on.https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/01/26/at-least-70-people-killed-in-attack-on-hospital-in-sudan/
if you watch any podcast today, make it this one. The diagnosis is as scary as the projections, but a thoughtful can work out what to do from conversatrions like this.
I'm so relieved to be able to share this good news…
Could he say the same for the British ambassador though?
Trump's first secretary of state called him a moron too, so they will be able to share common ground – though Trump may not be absolute like Mandelson. Time will tell.
LaCivita's view that morons ought to be confined to home seems cruel. Dogs need a run around the park regularly – the analogous need for morons to do politics seems obvious.
A free & frank exchange of views is normal & can make a lively political meal:
The circus has started in Wellington. The notorious Garry Judd KC spent his time attacking the integrity of the courts, judges, and lawyers. Not very lawyer-like to attack members of his own profession with highly subjective evidence:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360560255/nz-politics-live-david-seymour-kicks-first-day-treaty-bill-submissions
Some people look and do still see despite the smoke and mirrors. David Farrier is one of them.
If It Looks Like a Nazi & Quacks Like a Nazi… [from the Feeds section]
The contemporary and twisted (of course!) version of Godwin’s Law is that likelihood of online communication (not: conversation, let alone discussion) involving Trump (or Musk) is getting higher by the day.
I'd be willing to entertain the possibility that Musk is an idiot or is fomenting mischief, or both, except for his speech to the far right political party in Germany.
One of the things I'm finding hardest at the moment is watching Amercians I know online responding to what is happening as if their democracy isn't about to fail. It's still focused on ridiculing Trump. A few I know have an analysis of how fascism comes about, but most still seem to think that Trump can simply be voted out next time.
Close behind that, is that NZ seems to be doing the same. If we want to stop fascism, here, now is the time to act, not when we are in the situation that Americans are in.
I agree. For example, many New Zealanders seem to think that National and NZFirst not supporting the Treaty Principles Bill past its first reading and ruling out a referendum is the end of it and a major victory. It isn’t (and David Seymour and ACT know it full well).
The Coalition is trigger-happy to open NZ’s doors to overseas investment and wholesale of assets such as land. This will speed up the growing influence of elitists with their fascist beliefs and approaches because they allegedly represent the only way to an economic nirvana of growth & prosperity and thus of wellbeing.
I agree
Why load the Waitangi tribunal with your own stooges if you're just humouring ACT?
And we should never have opened our doors to seriously dangerous people like Peter Thiel with his nutty post apocalyptic ideas
More precisely, we’re opening our doors to foreign capital, which inevitably attracts certain people with ‘foreign’ ideas but not all of those people are ‘dangerous’ as such. The problem is that quasi-corrupt neo-authoritarian governments have a habit of being highly selective in what they allow & encourage and what they reject/repeal & discourage – the Fast-track Approvals Bill is just one example of such selective and non-transparent process.
What I fear more than anything is that the leaders of the so-called "Free World" which includes NZ will behave like ostriches and stick their heads in the sand pretending everything is normal. That is what Britain and Europe did in the 1930s and it led to WW2. In its simplest form that is what happened anyway. We have already seen Starmer playing up to Trump and he has been rewarded with a good report from The Fuhrer No. 2.
I could not agree more that this is a disastrous response. The more he gets away with, the more he will do, until a time comes when the world is plunged into a nuclear war with cataclysmic consequences for all of us. I don't believe that is too drastic a prediction given the nature of the monster we are dealing with.
Expect guitars to be banned anytime soon……………..
"I'd be willing to entertain the possibility that Musk is an idiot or is fomenting mischief, or both, except for his speech to the far right political party in Germany."
Rest assured (or maybe not – rest anxiously maybe, Musk is not only an idiot, but also a Ray Shist; self-appointed Master of the Universe with very average competency of coding ability, taking credit for the successful achievements of His underlings whilst blaming them for any failures; with an ego the size of a bus and a total lack of humility, and generally someone with quite an ergly disposition.
Should really have gone without saying.
There's a lot of it about however. Having spent the last August, September and October in San Fran and the Bay Area, I came across a number of His ilk and followers – most of whom had done their 'research' within their various bubbles.
Some of them even included encounters with our gorgeous Prime Munsters, including the current one with His squeeze Amanda and their gorgeous little offspring clones in their pyjama uniforms.
Seriously @ Weka: Musk is not very clever and nor is Trump and quite a few on SCOTUS.
On the positive side of the ledger, I did manage to see quite a bit of legit research into things like Cancer (at centres south of San Fran with links to 'lil 'ole NuZulln that punches above its weight); catch up with people formerly from Cupertino who assisted with the introduction of EFTPOS and Videotex in NuZulln based around Tandem Non-Stop II computers, and others of an artistic bent – former NZSO violinists now plucking strings in Santa Cruz and Modesto orchestra, and a shitload of other stuff.
Elon Musk doesn't have too much ahead of Him if He carries on in His current trajectory (The truth is, in that space, going forward, in the fullness of time, I'd start to pivot if I had the misfortune to inhabit His persona)
Oh, AND technically, He's probably an illegal immigrant if Stanford applied the same rules as they do to others.
He's probably an illegal immigrant
Nah, citizen of 3 nations:
His Trumpist style is performative:
Yet he seems to have an intuitive grasp of metacognition:
Musk was in the USA to do a course in 1995. A course he never started.
Instead he began to work.
He had no authorisation to work in the USA until 1997.
For two years he was in breach of his residency.
He still makes false claims about it.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/washington-post-reports-elon-musk-briefly-worked-illegally-us-1990s-2024-10-26/
I wonder if the president of the New Zealand Jewish Council can see? Nope:
I'd say Musk is misunderstood. By her.
https://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2025/01/zionist-juliet-moses-defends-fascism.html?m=1
Zionism has no problem with fascism. One of their axioms is that antisemitism is the natural state for all non Jews.
This natural state requires that all Jews should accept the necessity of a Jewish State which, as such, must remain under the control of a Zionist leadership.
This also explains why Zionists continually claim antisemitism against any and all types of criticism. Its a self reinforcing feedback loop.
It also explains why Israel is happy to engage with countries of the far right that may also have a lot of antisemirism. Both believe in nations of racial and ideolgic purity. Israel for the Jews and Germany for the Germans
It also explains why Musk can make Nazi salutes and the Israeli leadership can try to trivialise it.
Jews that arent comitted to the idea of Israel are no use to Israel. Any nation that can ramp up its antisemitism and thereby increase the flow of Jews to Israel is to be supported, especially given the current non appeal of Israel as a place to live.
I would finish by saying that the vast majority of Jews outside of Israel have no interest in Zionism and the majority are apalled at what Israel is doing
^^^^
This – And has been so for at least 3 thousand years.
One wonders if it will ever stop.
Zionism is a relatively recent phenomenon.
On the other hand, antisemitism is ancient, real and something to take seriously.
Its easy to spot because it is hatred against Jews as people rather than being against an oppressive State (Israel) or the ideology that is both rascist and the enactment of which requires apartheid at a minimum (Zionism)
The Likud version of Zionism does.
It's not just the relatively modern embodiment of religious right in Zionist ideology. The brutal treatment of their neighbors by the Israelites in King David's time is well documented in the OT books eg 2 Samuel 8:2
David also defeated the Moabites. He made them lie down on the ground and measured them off with a length of cord. Every two lengths of them were put to death, and the third length was allowed to live. So the Moabites became subject to David and brought him tribute.
I didn't realise the old testament was quite so brutal.
It goes to show the evolutionary traps that "immutable" laws fall into.
What doesn't change must die
Many of the claims – such as a military conquest of Canaan were not true.
It merely reflected the c1200BCE border of Egypt and Gaza of the Philistines, meant the exercise of Egyptian power within Canaan was over. It is then merely a mix of Canaanite walled cities and those of the land.
George Monbiot at the Guardian explores myths about UK property.
"there is a massive housing surplus in this country. We have a higher ratio of bedrooms to population than ever before. The problem is that it’s woefully maldistributed: prosperous couples and single people knock around in mansions while families are crammed into tiny flats. Most of the expansion of housing supply in the UK since the 1980s has created extra space for wealthy people".
The bedroom-to-population ratio is a metric I haven't seen before.
Marxism yields to realpolitik: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/colombian-leader-quickly-caves-after-trump-threats-offers-presidential-plane-deportation-flights
His lightning u-turn proves he's a marxist who can spin on a dime – possibly the only one in history so far, since marxists are usually conspicuous in adhering to doctrine. Trump ought to point him to William James, the famous advocate of the philosophy of pragmatism, late 19th century. Petro's innate feel for how to do it needs cultivating.
Interesting you pick fox news as a source. The Guardian give a bit more background than 'satanic marxist'.
After Trump's repatriation flights to Brazil were a shambles, with reported beatings, looks like the non-US americas have put their heads together for a common response to bad behaviour by Trump's enforcers.
Seems highly reasonable to me. They're OK with repatriation, if they are informed, and if those repatriated are treated decently.
Hm. “A migrant is not a criminal and must be treated with the dignity that a human being deserves,” Petro said. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-and-colombias-president-clash-over-deportation-flights-raising-tariffs-in-retribution
Yet the deportees are illegal immigrants in the USA, right? Therefore, by definition, law-breakers. Anyone who entered knowing they were doing so illegally are morally in the wrong, so will be seen by the American public as offenders. Petro is flying his kite on the basis that lack of court conviction equals lack of criminality, seems to me.
Perhaps the marxist ought to have studied theology, where the number of angels capable of dancing on the head of a pin simultaneous has long been seen as of critical importance. That said, dignity of anyone does deserve respect even if only as an elementary courtesy (serial killers & cannibals excepted).
Looks like the crux was Trump's threatened shutdown of US visa processing for Columbians. Outside of trade wars and into fuck-you diplomatic strong-arming. Shows Trump will make any immediate threat, no matter how outside established diplomatic mores, to get what he wants.
Colombia objected to the use of military planes. Trump decided on the mass transit, using such means, to grandstand for political purposes.
Or as any left winger would note – demonstrate force and power/power and force. Classic authoritarianism, impolitely called a normal move for someone of a fascist tendency disposition. And or wanting to be seen as such to appeal to their populist base, which they manipulate via American nationalism vs other.
Trump is meeting with the Egyptian President today on how to relocate all Gazans.
The question is the number on the cheque.
I don't think there is a number big enough. Egypt and Jordan won't participate in Israel's expansionist ambitions.
Along with most of the other US backed autocracies and dictatorships, Egypt and Jordan are already partners in Israel's expansionist ambitions.
The number on the cheque may be big, but it won't be infinite.
$1.3billion was the number on the cheque that Obama gave to the Egyptian military as their reward for overthrowing Egypt's democratically elected Morsi government.
So what will be the number that Trump will be prepared to write on Egypt's cheque to take the Palestinians. A $10b figure should cover it. $1.5billion to house and care for the Palestinian refugees, and $8.5 billion in kickbacks to the Egyptian generals.
This $10b figure may not be Trump's final top offer, it all depends on how much he wants to cement US domination of the region by getting the Arab States to agree to normalise relations with Israel.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/539104/donald-trump-says-he-ll-use-gaza-deal-momentum-to-expand-israel-s-regional-ties
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/539104/donald-trump-says-he-ll-use-gaza-deal-momentum-to-expand-israel-s-regional-ties
Trump will also back expanding Golan Heights and Lebanon south into neutral.
He's on a roll.
$10b to cleanse Gaza so Israel can expand settlements? Don't think so.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/egypt-army-four-military-aircraft-us
It's not going to happen. It's also ethnic cleasning which is a form or genocide:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360560775/donald-trump-wants-clean-out-gaza-heres-why-idea-rejected
Not that I would ever agree with that lot you are quoting, but Trump's full ethnic cleansing discussion coming on Holocaust Memorial Day is frankly disgusting.
This is something you might respect:
Not so trivial now, is it?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/26/ethnic-cleansing-feared-as-trump-asks-jordan-egypt-to-take-gaza-residents
We're a bit beyond fear of ethnic cleansing.
Nothing Egypt or Jordan says right now can be relied upon. It's total flux.
The only thing holding is the ceasefire. One day at a time.
Clearly you are beyond it.
As always, I'm trying to get to the bottom of your commenting, and as always it's a total mystery.
'
"We are the people, We are returning, Soon, soon, soon, soon"
[Protest chant by Palestinian and Arab community contingent at Auckland vigil for Palestine, in Britomart Square, Queen Street.]
Whatever Trump and the US client states and Israel conspire to do, doesn't matter.
Tens of thousands are making good on that promise to return, and have marched on foot back to Gaza's capital. 'Gaza City', and surrounding towns in the north.
They will not be removed again. No matter what Trump thinks.
The cease-fire took effect on Jan. 19, The Rafah crossing illegally occupied and closed by Israel has been reopened. 600 to 900 truckloads of aid have been arriving in Gaza each day since.
Netanyahu says he has the support of Trump to restart the war, "even stronger".
If they restart the war Israel will try to retake the Rafah Crossing, as well as restart the genocidal bombing campaign. Both actions will lead to blood letting on an even bigger scale than before, live streamed to the world.
Mass protests will erupt all around the world, not least in the Middle East.
The fall of Syria shows that the Arab Spring is not dead.
If the military regime in Egypt lets Israel retake the Rafah Crossing without a fight, the Sisi regime will also fall, followed by Jordan
Egypt catergorically rejects any plan to relocate Palestinians.
https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/1234/539276/Egypt/Foreign-Affairs/Egypt-categorically-rejects-any-displacement-of-Pa.aspx
According to an article on stuff today only 3% of applications to the COCs fund to underwrite housing development has been approved. 50% of applications have been declined. It closed down HNZ building new homes and replaced it with a fund that has a 3% success rate. Seems the only thing saving nz from a huge spike in homelessness is the record number of kiwis moving to aussie, the one export Nicola Willis is massively overachieving
Read it better. That was about the first 13 subnissions. 14 remain to be evaluated. Can't see this article at stuff site, but skimmed it in the physical paper today.
I'm currently listening to the Justice Select Committee:
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/scl/justice/news-archive/watch-public-meetings-of-the-justice-committee/
Some are impressive – other sadly much less so.
The State of it. Act's Seymour lays out his Vision for NZ's Future…IE the update/continuation of sir Roger Douglas and cronies plans…
He targets the usual….Health, Education, Housing, Assets, etc. with attacks on woke..and a new one, NZ's 2 tribes ?
In a stopped clock moment, he does call out….
Labour..we on the Left are looking at you ! Who are you? What do you stand for ? sir Roger Douglas/cronies were wrong. Say it ! And make a Plan worth voting for you!
Union Stand up. As we all must..before its too late.
A useful style guide.
.
Stephanie Rodgers – Toitū te Tiriti!
@bootstheory.bsky.social
Framing suggestion for NZ peeps discussing National/ACT's clear plan to privatise healthcare: deploy the phrase "US-style health system" at will
You'll know how effective it is by how loudly the rightwing shills scream (cf their reaction to calling the Waikeria expansion a "US-style mega prison")
https://bsky.app/profile/bootstheory.bsky.social/post/3lc3dxpdw322p
Very pertinent as RFK's appointment to Cooker in chief..
The other tribe, he said, was people building a "majority for mediocrity".
As the song says: mediocrity is not a mortal sin.
Democracy often features racist conspiracist haters. Best if you continue to avoid the reason why, so don't read this blog: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2025/01/we-deserve-to-know-who-chose-this.html
If the system won't tell us which parties chose which screwballs, that's the prerogative of the privileged elites which prop up the system. I agree it would be nice to know how our traditional patronage system selects nutters, but Labour and National will always defend privacy law – they usually use it to prevent transparency being incorporated into the system of democracy. There's a slim chance TMP & the Greens could support NRT and demand the nutter/party affiliation is exposed – but I bet they won't…
Nicola Witless loudly drops the axing of WFH rights…for foreigners. Now, they don't need to work from home, they don’t even need to work in their own country:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/540059/watch-live-visa-rules-for-digital-nomads-to-be-loosened-nicola-willis-announces
Because she has no idea what to do in her new role as growth minister (or her old role as finance minister), this appears to be a recycled policy adopted by some other countries…
…Third world countries.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro responds to Trump.
Trump, I don't really like travelling to the US, it's a bit boring, but I confess that there are some commendable things. I like going to the black neighbourhoods of Washington, where I saw an entire fight in the US capital between blacks and Latinos with barricades, which seemed like nonsense to me, because they should join together.
I confess that I like Walt Whitman and Paul Simon and Noam Chomsky and Miller
I confess that Sacco and Vanzetti, who have my blood, are memorable in the history of the USA and I follow them. They were murdered by labor leaders with the electric chair, the fascists who are within the USA as well as within my country
I don't like your oil, Trump, you're going to wipe out the human species because of greed. Maybe one day, over a glass of whiskey, which I accept, despite my gastritis, we can talk frankly about this, but it's difficult because you consider me an inferior race and I'm not, nor is any Colombian.
So if you know someone who is stubborn, that's me, period. You can try to carry out a coup with your economic strength and your arrogance, like they did with Allende. But I will die in my law, I resisted torture and I resist you. I don't want slavers next to Colombia, we already had many and we freed ourselves. What I want next to Colombia are lovers of freedom. If you can't accompany me, I'll go elsewhere. Colombia is the heart of the world and you didn't understand that, this is the land of the yellow butterflies, of the beauty of Remedios, but also of the colonels Aureliano Buendía, of which I am one, perhaps the last.
You will kill me, but I will survive in my people, which is before yours, in the Americas. We are peoples of the winds, the mountains, the Caribbean Sea and of freedom.
You don't like our freedom, okay. I don't shake hands with white slavers. I shake hands with the white libertarian heirs of Lincoln and the black and white farm boys of the USA, at whose graves I cried and prayed on a battlefield, which I reached after walking the mountains of Italian Tuscany and after being saved from Covid.
They are the United States and before them I kneel, before no one else.
Overthrow me, President, and the Americas and humanity will respond.
Colombia now stops looking north, looks at the world, our blood comes from the blood of the Caliphate of Cordoba, the civilization of that time, of the Roman Latins of the Mediterranean, the civilization of that time, who founded the republic, democracy in Athens; our blood has the black resistance fighters turned into slaves by you. In Colombia is the first free territory of America, before Washington, of all America, there I take refuge in its African songs.
My land is made up of goldsmiths who worked in the time of the Egyptian pharaohs and of the first artists in the world in Chiribiquete.
You will never rule us. The warrior who rode our lands, shouting freedom, who is called Bolívar, opposes us.
Our people are somewhat fearful, somewhat timid, they are naive and kind, loving, but they will know how to win the Panama Canal, which you took from us with violence. Two hundred heroes from all of Latin America lie in Bocas del Toro, today's Panama, formerly Colombia, which you murdered.
I raise a flag and as Gaitán said, even if it remains alone, it will continue to be raised with the Latin American dignity that is the dignity of America, which your great-grandfather did not know, and mine did, Mr. President, an immigrant in the USA,
Your blockade does not scare me, because Colombia, besides being the country of beauty, is the heart of the world. I know that you love beauty as I do, do not disrespect it and you will give it your sweetness.
FROM TODAY ON, COLOMBIA IS OPEN TO THE ENTIRE WORLD, WITH OPEN ARMS, WE ARE BUILDERS OF FREEDOM, LIFE AND HUMANITY.
I am informed that you impose a 50% tariff on the fruits of our human labor to enter the United States, and I do the same.
Let our people plant corn that was discovered in Colombia and feed the world
https://xcancel.com/petrogustavo/status/1883624818811236502
Arrogance of the occupier
Their homes and businesses may be reduced to rubble, but since most left with only what they could carry, most of their family possessions, documents and even valuables still remain behind under that rubble. The ceasefire agreement stipulated that displaced Palestinians would be allowed to return to their homes in the North. Palestinians being prevented from entering the North, interviewed by local Al Jazeera journalists, said that they wanted to return to find the remains of their lost loved ones to give them a decent burial. Others said they needed to escape what they described as the torture of existing while trying to care for their families in cold damp tents amidst disease and filth.
In a breach of the ceasefire agreement, dramatic drone aerial footage from Gaza shows tens of thousands of Palestinians being prevented by the IDF from returning to their homes and property in North of Gaza which includes the capital, Gaza City. Video on the ground show IDF snipers shooting at civilians trying to return to the North.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Palestinians will not be allowed to enter the North until Hamas releases Israeli captive Arbel Yehud. Hamas have cited "technical reasons" for the delay in releasing Arbel Yehud.
Arbel Yehud is being held by Islamic Jihad, not Hamas. Israel has agreed to release 50 Palestinians for every soldier released by Hamas and 30 Palestinians for every Israeli civilian, Netanyahu claims that Arbel Yehud is a civilian, Islamic Jihad claim that Arbel Yehud is a soldier. Despite this disagreement, Islamic Jihad have agreed to release Yehud, separately before the 6 Israeli captives due to be released in the next handover. No details of the numbers of Palestinians to be released in exchange for Arbel Yehud have been released.
Arrogance of the occupier II
Israel has detained more Palestinians than they have released.
From Al Jazeera:
It highlights there's no good definition of an Israeli civilian since they have compulsory military service and so all Israelis are either serving or have served for the Israeli military apparatus.
It also highlights the huge imbalance that one Israeli is worth between 30 to 50 Palestinians depending on the ambiguousness of that definition.
Ultra Orthodox Jews training at a yeshiva are exempt from military service.
Nor for any other country that has (or once had) compulsory conscription.
What countries? Say what you mean, please.
You are the one claiming there is no good definition of a civilian for any country that has conscription.
Don't squirm, own it.
I'll do your homework for you. Here's the map:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conscription_map_of_the_world.svg
The map changes in war-time.
I was reading Bryan Bruce's substack posting about growth in the economy:
https://bryanbruce.substack.com/p/the-sunday-long-read-growth-for-what?r=pr9pu
and was struck by a question he would like to have been asked of the new Economic Growth minister.
One wonders how she would answer? Perhaps, that's now Winston's problem?
Willis cheerfully evaded the questions put to her on this matter on Morning Report this morning. Seems to me the government is going to have to uncharacteristically put its hand in its pocket if it wants to see the kind of infrastructure to support this extra tourism actually built.
Otherwise it will just be another broken National Party promise to add to the growing list of the same.
Anyone want to comment on this?
I recognise the subject of the lower picture, and the place it was taken, but why is it there?
As for the upper picture: I recognise the subject, and assume it’s a Select Committee hearing – but again, why is it there?
The first picture is David Farrar submitting to the Treaty Principles Bill select committee, today, International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The second picture is Golriz Gharaman, former Greens MP showing support for Palestinian causes with her attire, in the NZ parliament.
I get it; the common factor is genocide. I suppose, if one took a performative view, one could argue that Farrar is adopting a rebel stance on the issue. He has chosen not to wear a tie! Nor iron his shirt!
Note also his carefully-presented round-shoulder look – sure to induce solidarity amongst accountants. Posture is everything when it comes to the biological signalling of primates.
It reminds me of MAGAs and the NZ Jewish Council protesting that Elon Musk is not a really a Nazi, just autistic.
Farrar may have made a similar deliberate gaff to wind up the lefties. He does that a lot.
Short of going out and buying a Palestine keffiyeh, this is the closest thing he could have pulled out of his wardrobe to it…
…on Remembrance Day.
The right of the coloniser to silence resistance to
1.the Treaty (in legislation)(diminishing the reach of the Tribunal) and indigenous peoples rights (UNDRIP) of Maori. So we are more like Oz by 2040, if not before
2.occupation of land designated for a Palestinian state.
The line up of Australia Day, Holocaust Memorial Day and the beginning of submissions on (majority)(military) power being the determination of right for a "democratic" state.
The denial of a specific group, its rights, is just the beginning of the sell out of the nation state citizenship sovereignty to international capital or the restoration of the hegemony of power over peoples and nations.
Class war by the oligarchy on the people is the internationale threat of this century.
The enemies within work with foreign oligarchs against the people, and they call that appeasement, our security alliance obligation.
The big lie is their legislation before parliament to criminalise resistance.
Most people have got the musk outed himself as a far right scum bag.
Great image in the link "Heil Tesla"
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/heil-tesla-controversial-image-of-elon-musk-displayed-on-tesla-factory-in-germany-7548717
It seems Hobon's Pledge, because they are used to special privilege, want special privilege at the select committee:
So they were emailed like everyone else about the process but didn't respond in time to be heard on the first day. First in first served is what they want for NZ but they grizzle like babies when it doesn't go their way. They want special treatment.
Lol.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/540018/select-committee-treaty-principles-bill-submissions-hearings-begin
Funny how the agree crowd are moaning, because if it was fair and equatable like they say, they would have been drowned out by the no voices from day one. Some time later they would have been heard – but like always, they push their way to the front like entitled assholes they eat.
HIKOI: Thousands of Palestinians return to Northern Gaza Associated Press
Videophone live feed variable reception.
The last visit by a NZ foreign minister to Kiribati was Winston Peters in 2019. They cannot have been impressed because the Kiribati President and foreign minister has made himself unavailable for a repeat visit/junket by the NZF leader this time.
Peters of course has gone full Trump v Columbia on this and threatened to withhold aid to Kiribati because of this slight.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/540085/new-zealand-s-aid-for-kiribati-under-review-after-meeting-cancelled-with-winston-peters
Oh, remember how we all laughed at Nanaia Mahuta for not travelling in a one in one hundred year pandemic? Well, at least she didn’t abandon Kiribati.
The deputy leader of Australia's Libs, in a badly-judged Australia Day speech, compared the arrival of British colonisers in the First Fleet (primarly convict ships) to Elon Musk's aim to colonise Mars. She's got some stick for it.
Sound so coloniser, doubling down on opposition to One Voice.