Heartbreaking, eh. One of my favourite recordings is the BBC program ‘festival in the desert’. DJ Andy Kershaw recorded 90 minutes or so of Touareg and Malian musicians in the desert near Timbuktu. The hightlight is a truly astonishing version of Whole Lotta Love sung by Robert Plant and played by Ali Farka Toure. Mali’s music will live on, but to lose this written heritage is a crime against humanity.
As a heritage librarian, this deeply saddens me.Timbuktu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and many of its treasures were destroyed when Al Qaida invaded last year. I see no purpose to this wanton act of destruction. Some of the manuscripts have been digitised, but it’s only a fraction.
This is what happens, when you have *al qaeda fighters*, imported into an area, with the mission of kill and destroy.
Have a look at the cultural destruction reeked by NATO forces around the ME/Africa, it is very likely that many of the *destroyed* artifacts, are in fact stolen, then sold/handed over to the *financiers*
Muzz, you have a unique ability to connect two arbitrary dots and call it “a nuanced reproduction of a lost Rembrandt, underneath all them other dots and lines and shit that were placed there by the powers that be to distract us”.
Cultural destruction takes many forms McFlock, perhaps the manuscripts were destroyed, perhaps Hallé Ousmani Cissé and his cronies took backhanders to sell them, who really knows!
The net loss amounts to the same thing so far as Mali, and its peoples are concerned, which is a real tragedy!
Have a look at the cultural destruction during Gulf War 1/2 in Iraq, then consider that some of those artifacts, are stolen/destroyed/sold off, to order!
…and still more between either of the above and seeing everything through the distorting paranoid lens of Project Onan.
This is the world in which “Al Quaeda” is a branch of the Illuminatii Special Ops Unit, remember, a waste of oxygen, bandwidth, and a perfectly good computer.
I thought it was pretty standard information that the CIA have been actively interfering with countries for the last half century plus. William Blum wrote a book listing a lot of them. Am I understanding the comments here to be sneering at Muzza’s comment concerned over this fact?
I find it very hard to watch international news now because I feel I am watching/listening to majorly distorted information, propaganda, I don’t know whether I am or not, however if there has been a book written listing many false flag style activities and describing them, (“researched from books, periodicals, newspapers and US Government publications” p12, W.Blum “The CIA a forgotten history”) and how it is not how it was reported at the time; then why would anyone believe that anything has changed now??
Horrible to hear about those libraries. Hope that the manuscripts were taken and not destroyed.
Yes. The CIA wants to destroy a heritage site to blame AQ. Just like the CIA destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. And flew 1/4 scale drones into the twin towers. /sarc
The trouble is that the CIA really have been fucking with the rest of the planet, but muzz shooting from the hip with absolutely no evidence to back it up simply muddies the waters even further.
But obviously be it a local small-town murder, large scale terrorist act or cultural vandalism half a world away, there is no incident Muzz won’t grasp with both hands to hawk their latest conspiracy allusions (never making an actual allegation, of course, just casting aspersions).
What would be an effective way of getting public support in a violent clash?
What about:
“Ooo, I know, lets destroy some historical manuscripts, we know that really gets people’s goat”
I am seriously “over” the international news; its horrible not keeping myself informed, yet I’d rather that than be misinformed. It is horrible what is going on in the world and we must question what we hear.
I’m not into conspiracies, (as in this is all being guided by a few very wealthy people), however I think it is without doubt that we are being fed a pack a crap and having our opinions massively manipulated, so that we simply do not stand up and demand “NO MORE”. This won’t occur until more people question what they are being told. Sneering at someone who does so, doesn’t come across as the most intelligent response; not these days.
The threats against Syria, co-ordinated in Washington and London, scale new peaks of hypocrisy. Contrary to the raw propaganda presented as news, the investigative journalism of the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung identifies those responsible for the massacre in Houla as the ‘rebels’ backed by Obama and Cameron. The paper’s sources include the rebels themselves. This has not been completely ignored in Britain. Writing in his personal blog, ever so quietly, Jon Williams, the BBC world news editor, effectively dishes his own ‘coverage’, citing western officials who describe the ‘psy-ops’ operation against Syria as ‘brilliant’. As brilliant as the destruction of Libya, and Iraq, and Afghanistan. ~J. Pilger
Yes, we can argue that incontrovertible proof in any circumstance is likely to be impossible to gather. But Muzz mouths off with no evidence – no journalists asking questions, no alt.nutbar.media rants, no nothing. Muzz sees an incident, and says “ooo, corporate thieves might well have stolen the manuscripts”. There’s a murder in the paper, and Muzz’ spidey sense says “looks like a police clean-up crew to cover something up”.
Shit. Can’t we just wait for the dust to settle before throwing accusations about who burned a library or killed a young mum, neither of which we’d heard of before it came through on the telly?
However, no, I don’t think we can wait for the dust to settle. For one thing, it never does, haven’t you noticed?
Can you imagine what it would be like in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. I’ll bet they wish that; that the Yanks and Brits would just F* right off and let the dust settle, that the bullets would stop flying. I hate to think what they think of us Westerners, wanting the dust to settle before we absorb the truth of the situation; that our culture is responsible for a whole lot of these problems.
Actually, we know pretty well who dropped the ball regarding Iraq’s historic monuments and museums, for example. Took a wee while though. Saddam was pretty crap to them, but the US assumption that post-invasion everything would be unicorns farting rainbows destroyed a large chunk of global history.
News has always been like this. Story breaks, truth emerges later.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s hardwired in. Journos report what they see and are, more often, told.
So when you read a story quoting someone as saying ‘Y says X killed a bunch of people in war zone yesterday’. That’s what the news is: Y saying it.
Most of the confusion comes from readers thinking that journos ought to be omniscient and able to verify the truth of what Y is saying. But that’s not their job. That would more easily lead to people playing them in fact.
News orgs want to get teh story out as fast as they can, and that’s both important and valuable.the reason news is called the first draft of history, is that it collects data into a timeline so that the truth can be later interpreted. That’s a different job.
I did think that a journalists job used to be reporting the facts as accurately as possible, and this used to involve doing some research, not simply relaying what someone tells them, or tells them to say. One reason you gave that this is not done now, is the time factor, another is political/financial interests of the particular news outlet.
Whatever the reason for the poor level of reporting, there is no reason to read/listen/watch news and believe that what is going on is being reported verbatim; it is not.
Agreed, BL. But (in the complete absence of any opposing evidence at this early stage) nor should we necessarily assume that something completely different “very likely” happened. Which was Muzza’s initial reaction.
With the consistently regular revelations that the CIA, American or British (French, Oil, Financial…) interests were involved in well less than scrupulous behaviour in such&such war, I think, is a pretty good reason to assume that it is unlikely what we are getting reported now is accurate to what is really going on.
I do not believe, however, it is beneficial to jump to conclusions about the details, i.e. who is behind it; this requires research. I do consider it rational to assume it is unlikely to be occurring, especially the given reasons, as it is reported.
The thing is that yeah, I can withhold judgement on whether the French involvement is out of the kindness of their hearts or simply because they want to put down a bit of a buffer against the Chinese global agricultural land grab. The latter involves plausible geopolitical motives consistent with neocolonial history.
But there’s no real benefit to burning down an ancient historic library and blaming it on AQ. It underlines the dickishness to people who value heritage libraries and ancient documents, but it’s not a significant selling point so much as, say, injured babies etc. Most people don’t give a shit about their local libraries, let alone ones in Africa. And looting the documents for financiers? Possible, but there’s a lot of risk involved for not much reward. If everyone’s looting, like post-invasion Iraq, then cool. But the French seem to have done their homework on this one.
So I don’t see any gain in fabricating or looting libraries as part of national policy.
But I do see it as consistent with previous (okay, apparent) AQ/fundy activities.
I definitely don’t think you should take every quote in a paper as gospel.
But I do think it’s safe to take the fact that a quote was given as legit. If you don’t, you’ve got nothing.
The question I ask is not so much “Why is the paper telling me this?” but “Why is the person quoted saying this?” All the paper is doing is reporting that x said y. It’s up to readers to think about the truth of y given what they know about x.
And it’s also true that western govts muck about all over the world doing things. But that doesn’t mean I interpret every event through that lens. What is going on in Mali, or Iraq, or anywhere else is primarily about the locals. They too have agendas. I’m largely ignorant about those agendas, so it’s tempting to assume that what we are doing is more important than what is happening with the locals. It’s a temptation that’s way more important to fight, in my view, than trusting media reporting.
In Mali, you’ve got 90 odd percent of the country living in the south, of one ethnic group, and another bunch up in the North. The Northern folk basically live in the Sahara. The problem of western intervention starts there. Why is that one country? Who drew that border? The west, and it’s not one that makes sense.
I guess my point here is that every war is unique, and based on local conditions. Outsiders will try, ( often with some success) to interfere for their own ends, but the success they have will depend on the local truths. It’s the local stuff that really matters. You can’t start a war in a country that doesn’t in some way want one anyway. More often, the west is trying to shape a local war in their own favour.
We shouldn’t take it as read that the west is stirring shit up, or even suspect it.
classic example is Syria, which is an absolute clusterfuck as far as the west is concerned, because it’s not about us in anyway whatsoever, and yet due to it’s position ad capabilities the west has strong self perceived interests there. But that doesn’t mean that we are manipulating events. It’s more likely that events are out of out control, as they usually are, and we are panicking.
that’s the other lesson from histories of western intelligence antics; mots of it is blundering and panic driven from a position of ignorance and hubris.
I don’t give the intelligence agencies enough credit to suspect they could pull of too many conspiracies.
Yeah, the conversation is heading toward who and what motivations might be creating the problem, and I am uncomfortable with that, however, I will mention that burning a library with ancient manuscripts in it is a whole lot different to burning down one of our local libraries! And I do understand there is a big market for manuscripts. I didn’t understand Muzza’s comment to be saying they burned the library “as part of National Policy” (lol), I understood Muzza’s comment to be indicating that “financiers” could benefit from the selling of these manuscripts.
Hopefully they have been looted prior to burning. It is clear that you don’t care much about ancient manuscripts, yet I find it very painful to hear they have been destroyed and I’m sure that many others, also, will too. Unsure whether it is common knowledge or not (so sorry if I am relaying something you already know)
We get the knowledge behind all our clever technology from the brilliant middle-eastern scholars who both translated and developed Greek knowledge, had they not done so, this knowledge would have been lost, due to our propensity for…burning knowledge…that didn’t fit in with the Christian paradigm of the time. Who knows what knowledge has been lost in these libraries that have been burned in Mali 🙁
Pascal’s bookie,
I agree with that approach, basically you are relaying ways to employ discernment with one’s intake of information.
To shape a war for one’s own purposes, is very manipulative and is really buggering things up for other countries, I sincerely wish that our Western culture would stop sticking its nose into other countries and get its own issues sorted. Best way to lead is by example, and “ours” is a shocking one.
Although I like the spirit of your comment of not giving intelligence agencies credit, I don’t agree. I was very swayed by “The Economic Hitman”, this was someone who was speaking about his personal experience and it sounded pretty damning. Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” and the William Blum book I mentioned earlier fairly well convince me that intelligence agencies are doing things that most wouldn’t believe and wouldn’t want to believe. And that, really, is the largest problem. Until people face what is going on, its unlikely to be improved upon.
Yes, fair enough. Having conversed with you, I can see that I have reached the end of actually believing what groups are labelled as on the news. Calling it the “crying wolf effect” may help you understand!
Perhaps in this case what has been reported has actually happened, or, perhaps, taking what PB noted, we may find out a different story in time to come. I just don’t see that Muzza’s comment was extraordinary in suggesting that the manuscripts could end up on the blackmarket.
Taking your & TRP’s comment below into account & also someone I was talking with, it does appear to be Al Qaeida’s M.O. to destroy heritage sites. And thus, yes, I concede, its a fair point. I continue, however, to get a very hollow feeling at any point I start feeling the remotest belief in what is being reported these days. I just smell a rat; view it as propaganda…oh dear, I’m turning into a cynic….
Perfectly possible that the manuscripts were stolen.
But based on one short report of a fire, it doesn’t follow to immediately assume that they were “most likely” stolen. The only hope we have of seeing through the bullshit is if we don’t make stuff up as we go along.
I have friends who are trying to find out what’s happening with their loved ones in Bundaberg. Apparently it’s quite difficult trying to find news through all the hollywood divorces and famous people feeling betrayed by Lance Armstrong. Most likely the powers that be made Lance confess to Oprah so that we’d not focus so closely on climate change. /sarc
Firstly, okay, “very likely” rather than “most likely”. Not sure where I got the most from, fair enough.
But then you still have no basis for assuming that it is very likely that many of the *destroyed* artifacts, are in fact stolen, then sold/handed over to the *financiers*.
Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan have all fallen victim to looters during previous wars, and Libya and Egypt, rich in archaeological sites, witnessed several attempts at looting during their more recent uprisings. In the case of Syria, however, the full-blown civil war may do more harm than simply the plundering of its culture. The burgeoning market for this ancient land’s priceless treasures could actually prolong and intensify the conflict, providing a ready supply of goods to be traded for weapons. Furthermore, the ongoing devastation inflicted on the country’s stunning archaeological sites—bullet holes lodged in walls of its ancient Roman cities, the debris of Byzantine churches, early mosques and crusader fortresses—rob Syria of its best chance for a post-conflict economic boom based on tourism, which, until the conflict started 18 months ago, contributed 12% to the national income.
Muzza, they burned the library and destroyed mosques because they believe that they are idolatrous or or in some way denying their version of the Mohammadan story. The taliban did similar shit in Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia bulldozed flat anything that wasn’t Wahhabi. AQIM didn’t steal the books and manuscripts, they burned them as a final act of twisted piety before abandoning Timbuktu.
By the way, is your google broken? This stuff isn’t hard to find.
The Wahhabi teachings disapprove of veneration of the historical sites associated with early Islam, on the grounds that only God should be worshipped and that veneration of sites associated with mortals leads to idolatry.[61] Many buildings associated with early Islam, including mazaar, mausoleums and other artifacts have been destroyed in Saudi Arabia by Wahhabis from early 19th century through the present day.[62][63] This practice has proved controversial and has received considerable criticism from Sunni and Shia Muslims and in the non-Muslim World.
There’s a sectarian bent to this with most of the vandalism carried out by Sunni Wahhabis.
The Bamiyan Buddahs were destroyed by the Wahhabi backed Taliban and the rebels in Mali who destroyed ancient shrines, with many more under threat, were most probably Wahhabi backed.
There’s also an Egyptian extremist calling for the destruction of idols, the Sphinx and Pyramids.
Next time a politician or developer talks about building in Auckland or Christchurch, can someone ask them WHY the developers don’t have a ten year personal liability obligation as designers and builders do under the new regulations? Afterall it’s developers who take the biggest profit from building projects and drive the amount of money spent on a home of development, and if the leaky home saga is anything to go by they have cut and run and almost to a man have escaped any financial liability for those homes by dissolving their companies. I shudder to think what the landscape may look like in ten years if these guys lead the “build” and cut corners for greater profit as they did between 1990 and 2005.
I heard Mr Carver of Jennian home sthis morning whinging and yet he has franchised his business and so HQ and he personally dont actually have to stand behind anything they build.
This govt is heading us back down a building deregulation road, different to 1990’s but will have disastrous consequences… but not for non liable developers of course…
Simplistic and incorrect on several fronts there Tracey.
Simplistic in retutn …. go ask your local politician those questions. It is they who changed the laws and regs which led directly to this disaster.
Much exactly like Pike River.
edit: and if every person in the process is required to have a personal guarantee then while you’re with your local pollie suggest that he/she also provide such a personal guarantee
Can you explain to me vto how it is that a builder and designer can give (are forced to by regulation) such a guarantee but not the developer?? Please further explain how holding the developer liable for ten years post construction is simplistic? Surely the same logic applies to them as to the builders and designers, namely if they are personally liable they will do better work. As for the councils/territorial authorities, yes Govt has legislated immunity to them for any fuck ups they make… at least on one level it makes sense because it is the ratepayers who pay the price, but that doesn’t apply to the developers. I await your explanation of why it is simplistic to hold developers to account in this way. Can you also be specific about the area sin my post which are incorrect?
The govt has already singled out builders and designers, I suggest opening it up to developers who drive these projects. Your last (edit) comment is a straw man argument and doesn’t actually address what I wrote.
Tracey: The builders, developers and owners will build to the rules set by the government and councils or to put it another way if you make the speed limit 100km an hour people will drive to or about the limit but if you get caught breaking the limit you will then be breaking the rules/law and fined accordingly.
Now some people started traveling at 110km and know-one stopped them, then they pushed it out to 120km and still nothing was done, then some people just started going any speed they wanted and of course things started to go wrong.
You seem to have brought into the witch hunt this government have facilitated, the blame for this lays squarely at the foot of the National government of the day that deregulated the building industry and the councils for not enforcing what rules there where at the planing stage, and later during inspections.
This in no way excuses the dodgy builders or the dodgy developers who by the way take all the risks and property developing is a very risky business. Yes people or companies declare bankruptcy and walk away, but very few set out with this in mind, all the people I know that have gone tits up have lost almost everything along with the reputation. The National government of the day are to blame so the National government of today should be fixing it! But knowing them they will be waiting of the market to sort it out, yeah right!
Of course the aftermath of this and the CHCH earthquake will see more regulations, with that more expensive houses, basically the housing industry had been keeping prices down through cutting costs and corners for years now.
again you dodge my question. Given that builders and designers (rightly or wrongly) have had personal liability placed on them for ten years, why not developers.
“Of course the aftermath of this and the CHCH earthquake will see more regulations,” Really, so far the intent of this government is the opposite, less regulations already and intended, especially around developments (as opposed to single dwellings).
I am well aware that builders on the whole are unfairly having 80% liability sheeted tot hem in leaky building claims. This is why I point to developer liability as well. They will, and have in the past, made much more money than the builders on each home built.
As for intent, I dont think you have met many career developers because they absolutely, in consultation with their lawyer and accountant set up companies for a particular development, take the profit and then shut them down. Precisely to avoid any future liability on their work. Now back to your supposition that if caught breaking rules they will be fined… and how will they pay given without a legal entity to sue no one is liable?
The rise of Islamic activists may be unstoppable. The genie has come out of the bottle after being aroused by the west, USA and Russia (west?) mainly. The USA has to stop going to war as a means of getting their business indices trending upwards.
In the meantime Genghis Khan type policies are arising from both sides of the battle. Things will be likely to get worse if people with integrity and clever practical minds don’t get hold of the decision making and budget. We need another Churchill type. Not perfect but with clear understanding of the threats ahead.
Good chant? Out, out, out. John Key is too low key. Give us a Cheshire cat smile John.
Repeat! (Cheshire cat’s smile faded away to nothing – Alice through the Looking Glass I think.)
This government can’t do its governing effectively to ensure the best for the whole country. So what do they do? Interfere with local government, such as Christchurch and now to disdain the information given on housing by the Auckland Council instead quoting the opinions of business as if it was necessarily correct. Anything that is working is likely to be rejigged and end up replaced with some shonky stuff.
This also applies to Picton which needs to be on people’s agenda. That town is going to be hollowed out so that the government can cosy up to Chinese investors with bulging bank balances. Picton is a jewel, the interislander trip is a jewel, we are a poor country and can’t afford to adopt the throwaway society attitude to viable, effective, modern and good earning businesses. Mostly owned by NZs. With the profit remaining as a credit in NZ. If foreigners invest and leave money invested here, it is always a debt, a liability to us, that can be taken out at their will.
The interislander move is a slap in the face for kiwi small business and another win for their trucking lobby backers, like they haven’t been rewarded enough already with RONS, larger load sizes etc etc
I find this encapsulates the NACT in a nutshell and the MSM sucked it up without as much as a ‘hang on wait a minute…’ during the slow news season.
Can’t wait for 7 sharp to keep us all informed and invigorate debate. TVNZ falling behind Joyce’s lines to keep follks amused not informed while they go about their business. Can his mates at skycity have some of your studio in akl, you will not be needing it with production shifting to sky.
I took the words of Bill English in regards to land etc, aimed at the AKL Council, as a future forecast, veiled as a threat!
You need to gauge the reaction of the media/public when broadcasting, that central govt *might* look at taking over due process of an elected local govt.
People wanting to retail or build or develop or invest or live in teh CBD have been frightened off by the great overlord and his ways. Go to it Brownlee, the CBD is all yours. Let us know once you’ve finished and we’ll all come see how you’ve done.
Christchurch east is forgotten. Drive deep into the east and you will see what the stories are all about.
At the last election there was a swing in favour of Brownlee, but this was disaster politics at the time whereby the incumbent is always favoured as people want stability at all costs. Next time around in 2014? I predict a spectacular hiding to nothing. Even the true Nats are agin this government, e.g. the government approach to buying their CBD properties.
And then of course, once this government is tossed out the city will be left with some other new government which will no doubt move things around, change the goalposts and struggle to finish off Brownlee’s grand plan. Pessimism is just below the surface with many even today saying that they are still in two minds about the city and may well move yet.
Am just about willing to put money on the fact that National this far out from November 2014 are pretty much history,
A swing away from National in the Christchurch area as big as the swing that went toward them in that are in 2011 will all but finish them,
As will a further swing away from the Maori Party who’s voters gave them(except for Te Tai Tonga)the benefit of the doubt vote in 2011, it has taken a couple of election cycles for the Maori Party voters to realize that the crumbs off of the table they can expect to gain with an application to the ‘Whanau Ora’ program cannot make up for their loss as Paula cuts a swathe through benefit numbers…
Perhaps if more of them had voted Burns and Cosgrove, the government wouldn’t have a majority.
And perhaps if they’d voted for JA instead of parker.
Well, you get the gist.
You don’t think that South America was the only destination for those who featured in the losing side of a particular historic conflagration do you???…
One really has to wonder how Mr Milekowsky survived the Warsaw Ghetto, most didn’t, perhaps He was special,
It’s also well known among criminal circles, as well as certain political party’s that those who take on an alias do not usually stop at having just one of them…
Advice for David Shearer: ifyoudon’t
knowhow
todotherhythmof
convincingcommu
nication
thenyouneedto
markyourspeech
withprettycolouredpens
or
some
thing
otherwiseitspain
fultolistento
andthepointsdon’thavemuchim
pact
I don’t know which is worse, the woeful comedy routine of Key’s performance or Shearer’s fifth-form delivery. The latter is lost without a script, the former should just get lost.
That’s and have some actual policy to launch the year with. None in that speech.
If Shearer’s housing policy is the only thing pushing blood through Labour’s veins, then we’d better have a defibrilator ready. It’s a nasty risk to run to have it placed on that single hit to keep both hands on the ribcage, pressing.
With both anticipation and FEAR did I await the re-opening of Parliament this year, and today, my fears were confirmed yet again.
For heaven’s sake, Labourites, get meetings called, at base level, prepare for a take-over of the party, a kind of “reclaiming” of what Labour traditionally once stood for, and what a “real” opposition party in Parliament should stand for right now!
Start a bloody revolution, and once and for all, get RID of DEAD WOOD!
Shearer’s speech was less than mediocre, an embarrassment, even though he tried hard.
Key took off with attacking, blaming and slamming Labour and Shearer, then served up more of what the Nats have been preaching to us for the last few years, talked like an over-ambitious, half – intoxicated used car salesman, to hammer home to the public and Parliament, that they will push through their ideology driven agenda relentlessly.
It was just more rehashed stuff of what we have heard before, and in that “State of the Nation Speech” from Key.
Shearer was stumbling again, losing track, mis-spelling, mumbling and fumbling with his words, then at times seemed to get on track again, clearly wanted to present a message, but did anything but to convince. It was disappointing, and he is trying to act as one “leader” that he is not.
This is becoming such an embarrasment, and the whole party will suffer endlessly, if he is not forced to resign in the coming weeks. A challenge must be made, or this will be yet another lost political year. More defensive “selling” of the same housing policy, of youth apprenticeships for the dole, of a bit vague this and the other, that is NOT, what is needed now.
Endless criticism of the same of National is not enough, it is not policy, does not deliver enough of an alternative.
Good on Metiria Turei, she held a good, smart, balanced and promising speech, but the real OPPOSITION spokesperson and convincing debater today was Winston Peters!
Those that still cannot see the problem with Shearer, you will never learn and get it!
We don’t need a challenger Xtasy. Just 13 MPs brave enough to vote no confidence, to give us a vote.
The process then invites candidates plus the incumbent to step forward to campaign. Show us what they’ve got, their ideas, their style.
I really would like to hear from Robertson, Adern and Little. I don’t know enough about their potential as Leaders and want to see them strut their stuff.
What I don’t want is King/Mallard making any more Leadership decisions for us. It is not their right to decide when to knife Shearer and replace him with Robertson.
Let’s have an honest process now when we’ve time to pull it together and win well in 2014.
Yeah, those that are equally concerned, phone, email and talk to your MP, secretaries, tell them your concerns, put the clear message accross, that enough is enough.
It would be insanity to take further risks with the status quo. But then, who am I to talk.
I saw and heard much of Shearers speech once more in the evening, and it was maybe not quite as bad (less getting stuck and losing the thread of his speech than before), but he just does not come across well, lacks fire, is too wooden, insecure and tries to appear as a kind of person that he is not, and who he never will be able to be.
I don’t think slave labour camps are really the direction we want this country going in. Nor do we want prison labour undercutting the wages of free people in this country.
Slippery the Prime Minister re-invents the wheel making it square so it sits on the road better, back befor the Neo-liberals decided that there were grand ‘savings’ to be made by canning them there were all sorts of working arrangements for prison inmates, mostly these work initiatives were centered on the needs of the prisons infrastructure from painting and building gangs to full on commercial gardens and farming operations,
The empty suitcase of intellectual rigor who is masquerading as the New Zealand Prime Minister would better serve the employment in the economy of released prisoners by restricting access to those who have criminal convictions records except where the occupation is sensitive such as hospitals,schools, care positions etc etc etc,
Most employers these days conduct criminal history checks upon proposed employees including those who only offer day by day labour positions and wont employ anyone with a conviction that is less than ten years old,
There are a few tho that with deliberation who with deliberation employ ex prison inmates and are mostly rewarded with workers committed to their jobs who work hard and behave in a manner that is a credit to the particular company that hired them…
Yes, i know many close to home who remain unemployed casualties of the no risk employment environment and / or unforgiving moral culture (whats a little overt rebellion compared to white collar fraud?)
Indeed, whats a little white collar crime, the sum total of the fraudulent induced losses coming from the non-banking financial sector in the past 5 years makes the monetary loss of all the crimes committed by those incarcerated over that same 5 year period look insignificant, and, the only thing that comes remotely close to the cost of those fraudulent money transactions in the equation is the cost to the state of locking up the crims,
The minor ones that is, to coin a phrase, jail is where the big crims send the little crims to get rid of the competition…
Transparent play to the law and order crowd. Hey lets learn from the US, we can fire local council staff and have prisoners doing the rubbish collection and mowing lawns instead.
Seriously tho,”as Prime minister my one goal for the year is to get the crims to do a bit of graft”, i often comment on the Prime Ministers empty suitcase of intellectual rigor,
I think some crim must have run off with it, even for Slippery that was one bizaarely stupid speech…
its a monarch day here in the bay and they play play the Silk tree way
so some (bad kesy) Second-Hand News to keep us amused (won’t ya lay down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff…)
another 2.5 Billion people at the Arrival gate before 2050, dum dum diddle to be your fiddle , to be so near ya and not just hear ya…
Obesity an expanding “global pandemic” (Staple that to the fridge)
antibiotic resistant pathogens a threat “equivalent” to the GFC
Ak real estate brochures delivered to the living rooms of wealthy Chinese at home; how now
Brown cow?
Back to school (1B5’s 30c; $3.00 the remainder of the year);NOvopay, League of Tables do not do Justice, NActional Standards, Christchurch rationalization and the flesh eating scaly one.
the educational IT divides escalating costs of campus technology integration, software / application licenses multiplying technology scrabbling mathematical illiteracy.
sadly, North Korean peasants eating their own as Kim continues to swear by the Enema tool of colonialist oppression while kiwis serve as social media guineas.Fine. John Steinbeck-The Pearl
admire it some time. Oh Joy! c’e st ill cheery picking manufacturing success stories.Press them out.
Consumption consumption consumption : wuyu- objectless desire.
WINZ overwhelmed; annual leave, sick leave, vacancies: it’s the dole or 6-6 6 days a week stacking apples for exports down in the Dec quarter; a drop in o / seas Dairy sales of 11.7% (may be churning market though) You choose.
Crop irrigation diverted to Throwing Copper above ground (Mister 13 tucks his patch under arm, bypassing the third long queue in an hour to front his case manager man (t#@lls better Knock on Wood; don’t get the wrong door though, “Sarge” might growl) Like water.Off a bucks back.
husband and cultivate the world to ones proclivities and context-
Vata-wind Ditta- bile Kapha-phlegm
as the inspirational myriad future is over-run by the phasic powerful present past devoted belonging
-Kale (Shoot To Thrill: did you know that playing aforementioned track was one attempt at “enhanced interrogation technique” by the screws at Guantanamo? Home on The Range may have been more effective)
p.s the opposition has NO confidence in lynda Carter Speaking wonderfully for the Family. Hey, for Variety, sponsor a local child in need; kiwi kids are milk bix kids.(in Isolation we may soon only see the Mailman for 1/2 days. Thirteen Monkeys?)
C.C. yes RL, imagine society without our social conscience (community meals start back soon); it would all be skeptical relativistic intersections (I want my MP3)
A Song For GeoffC; Topic? What is Collective Anarchism? 🙂
OMG (as they say amongst the truly connected). That bloody band of lefties at Radio NZ are at it again! John Quiggin has just been on spouting his bloody communist shite – but NOW there’s some specimen that sounds like a muppet called David Peter Farrar – just to be “fair and balanced” of course.
Roll on 5pm!
I understand your plight. I too sometimes go over the top. I just justify things by telling myself “There Is/Was No Alternative”. When that doesn’t work – I just watch Parliament.
Hey…..just btw (as they say in the truly connected world)……. now I know where some Slippery Dick comes by his dikshun. Yeee-oooh = “You know” Yearsnaturntiv = “There is no alterative”; RrrrAltee is = “The reality is”
I’m reverting to Parliament on Chenill Noitnyforwah;
It’s no wonder a Sikh mate of mine has such duffkilty with Unglish (over and above anywhere esse in the whurrl).
In any event (Rogue), we can be assured of the muppet status I’ve assigned and plead guilty to
Watched most of the speech and quite honestly the man sounded like one of the half cut oiks you hear braying at the hoi polloi as you walk past the Ellerslie members enclosure.
Some (bad kesy) Second-Hand News 😉 ;
another 2.5 billion people at the Arrival gateway before 2050 (dum dum diddle to be your fiddle, to be so near ya and not just hear ya)
Obesity a “global pandemic”; the 1.6 billion overweight and obese now outnumber the mal-nourished 2-1; The World is Fat-Barry Popkin, meanwhile Mozza’s ill with a bleeding ulcer
anti-biotic resistant pathogens are a threat equivalent to the GFC
Ak real estate being marketed to wealthy Chinese at home in their living rooms; how now Brown cow? or year of the snake?
Back to School- NOvopay, League tables not Justice from the NActional Standards alongside Christchurch rationalization by flesh-eating scaly ones the costs of integrating technology into campuses, software application licenses teacher IT student mathematical illiteracy
North Korean peasants literally eating their own as Kim swears by the imperialist enema
kiwis social media guineas.John Steinbeck-The Pearl, give it a whirl.
Well, we have enjoyed a nice holiday from the ranting John Key but already he is back at it. Very little talk about positive Government proposals of course. Certainly his usual loss of dignity (if ever he had that). Sneering and leering at opposition members (they must be getting under his skin so soon! Good sign!) This is a speech by “a decent bloke”? Spare me!
Oh Joy c’est ill cheerily picking manufacturer anecdotes,
Consumption consumption consumption : wuyi= objectless desire
locally WINZ overwhelmed; annual leave, sick leave, vacancies; it’s the dole or 6-6 6 days a week stacking apples. You choose.
(Mister 13 tucked his patch under his arm and bypassed the third long queue that hour to front his case manager man) Better knock, knock Knock on Wood; don’t get the wrong door now though, “Sarge” might growl.Like Water; off a bucks back.
Crop irrigation diverted to Throwing Copper above ground.
husband and cultivate and tailor world to ones proclivities and context
Vatta-Wind Ditta-Bile Kapha-Phlegm
inspirational myriad future over-run by the phasic powerful present past devoted belonging
“Internal fanaticism
This sort of internal fanaticism has been seen before, including when Don Brash’s supporters were undermining Bill English and when Paul Keating took out Bob Hawke. The strategy can work because, as Mr Hawke observed, it has a terrifying logic.
If a challenger’s faction, even a minority, is utterly determined to make life impossible for the incumbent, then eventually the leadership or even prime ministership ceases to be worth holding.
Labour’s new rules make the strategy even more likely to succeed and have created a risk of chronic instability. With members and unions now having the power to choose the leader, whichever faction happens to be in the minority will spend its time not taking the fight to the dreaded Tories, but signing up new members and manipulating union personnel.
The new rules put Labour at constant risk of old-fashioned Leninist entrism. Already, party bosses report infiltration by former members of the Alliance who have no interest in being part of a modern social democratic party but want to recreate Labour as a replica of their old far-left ideal.”
Well, one has to be mindful and alert about that man, making his odd appearance here.
So that is what he summarises comments made on TS like!?
feck! (less. sorry ’bout the place taken; Time and Space p-brane difficulties,or maybe some superstring)
anyway,
God Defend (foreign investment in) New Zealand; that’s the Key!
Do(o)m;
-in the letters; Housing Unaffordability-Banks and Boomers (they said it, not me)
-China is likely to reinforce the Fijian position with navy vessels, arms and vehicles, yet, were those Israeli jets seen around Fordow? while the NZX50 continues to Aspire 8.
Pr 11:18 The wicked man earns deceptive wages yet he who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward
11:25 A generous person will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
Alternatively,
the person who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what they have heard, yet doing it, they will be blessed in what they do.(Religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself free from being Polluted by the world)
-JJ (1:25 & 27; After Midnight, we gonna let it all hang out…for where we find envy and selfish ambition, there you find Disorder and every evil practice)
“boredom” was a researched topic discussed on RNZ theeuva day; apparently it’s a combination of appropriate stimulation unavailable and, a perceived absence of, and desire for similar. (not my problem; i find this site an adjunct though and it is an alternative meeting of the complete range of human motivations, for a change, particularly curiosity, and there is something healthy about a little idle collective creativity, i think, anyway)
NOW,
another topic of research i read recently was contrasting the “happiness” of the financially comfortable and those less so. (of course, a situational / extraneous variable that was Not addressed in the article, MSM, was the cultural context in which “happiness” factors were evaluated). Soooo, not surprisingly, people were “happier” in the Western culture studied if they had more dough.
Interestingly, Half of New Zealand exists on below the median income, and therefore may be considered (within the premises of the article) to be “less so”. Interesting, but then what would i know, I’m only a mad low-income gardener of Allsorts.
I have been invited to write lyrics for, and attempt vocals in a Garage Band, and my mates’ influences, amongst other things? Free Jazz and CrAss (you could not make some of the stuff that happens in our connected / collective lives up! (Unrestful Movements for both of us; just listen for once, just listen to Anti-Trend)
anyway, from another chapter, was amongst a group of formerly Very bad “perps” last night, who also have seen the “light”, and turning their lives away from The Island /Carousel
so there is hope.
-Barker (why dontcha come up and shee me sometime Moneypenny?; in fact, where I reside is another menage a trois of “connections” (never been that greedy, or lucky, in the literal sense, yet regrettably got a little too greedy one-to-one, but that too, is another story)
The real question to be asked of the Slippery Prime Minister after today’s ‘State of the Nation’ speech in the Parliament today is did He change His diapers befor or after the childish harangue of the Opposition Party’s,
The opening speech in the Parliamentary Year is a traditional opportunity for the Prime Minister to outline His or Her plans for the year and yet in what i detect as a display of fear our current one Slippery, chose instead at the last minute to drop the prepared speech notes in favor of a torrent of abuse directed at that opposition,
Don’t let the apparent confidence of the Prime Minister fool you for an instant, any Prime Minister who allows one simple opposition policy, in this case the twin housing policies of the Green/Labour portion of that opposition, to derail a prepared speech has definitely not only lost the political initiative ‘going forward’ but has also lost the ‘plot’ bigtime,
In another severely bizaare move by the Prime Minister,(possibly sniffing a knife in the back on the breeze), is the inclusion in the National MP’s ranks of a 3rd ‘party whip’, larger politicla party’s usually have two of these whips to organize their MP’s around their duties to the Select Committees and their duties in the House along with any other business the particular Party requires them to attend to,
Why have 3 whips tho, simple , there has since Slippery the Prime Minister took over the leadership of that National Party been a simmering but unreported tension within the Caucus between two basic camps,(the Slippery’s and the Other’s), over the Leadership of National, there’s a few schisms within these camps over who will get to plunge the knife into the back of the current Prime Minister at the appropriate time and such a boiling tension in the ranks is simply the moving of the pawns in the quest for Power as opposed to the tensions within the Labour Opposition Party which center more on direction and policy,
The extra whip??? in the political trade-offs between the two National Party factions the Cabinet make-up has largely become a finely balanced one for me and one for the Other’s juggling by the Prime Minister doling out the positions of power so as to delay that inevitable knifing from within His own ranks,
Having miscalculated in the sacking of 2 Cabinet Ministers,( it aint Merril Lynch Slippery, they still get to hang around after you’ve crapped all over them from a great height), Slippery the prime Minister has belatedly He has handed the Other’s a surprise advantage and tipped the delicate balance of power that exists in that National Party Caucus hence the hastily arranged 3rd ‘whips’ job dragging yet another Slippery-ite into the already bulging power structure who’s very position now depends upon His support of the current Prime Minister, balance is restored,
What tho to make of the theatrics of a clearly fearful Prime Minister in the chamber today lashing out at the opposition on a day that should have had Him proudly trumpeting the National Governments successes so far and outlining it’s ongoing plan for success, ( yes ha ha ha i am of course being facetious), what of a Government that according to the Prime Minister has a plan to push a few of the 8000 crims currently languishing in our jails into a bit of graft,
Thats it???? apparently so if the words of the Prime Minister are anything to go by, everything is just so hunky dory according to this particular Prime Minister, there is no crisis in affordable housing that need be urgently addressed, no crisis of unemployment that cannot wait until November 2014 when someone else can address it, neither a last quarter export data report that shows that instead of growing the country’s exports in the last quarter were the worst since 2009,
Nothing, not an iota of any pressing economic concern expressed, nary a care in the world shown for pressing societal issues while well meaning middle class New Zealanders set up Save the Children type websites so that the average New Zealander can sponsor Kiwi-kids an effort worthy of the third world,
Bluntly, all that was contained in this the 4th ‘State of the Nation’ speech by this Slippery Prime Minister of this FAILURE of a National Government was a silent admission that They havn’t got a clue, don’t really give a s**t anyway, and the face as the Head of this unholy mess is quite frankly more worried about being knifed in the back by His colleagues than anything else going on at the moment,
Wonder if His diapers are of the disposable variety, i just can’t imagine the abject horror inflicted upon the poor serf having to wash out the stench of such fear…
I’m not too sure about your 3rd whip theory but there’s certainly some truth to Key completely changing the script to focus on insulting the opposition parties for daring to have some solutions while National looks totally dead in the water.
Not only does the fact that Key let his emotions get the better of him look entirely pathetic, he threw some in the press gallery right off their stride and their usual towing of the party line. Some even went ahead and published their pre-written articles based on Key’s script that of course didn’t include any of Keys venomous diatribe, which just goes to show how stupid some right wing journalists can be.
Clearly National is bereft of ideas, and we have only just begun the 2013 cycle. If attack politics is all that the venal John Key is going to offer the public while the country slides ever further into economic and social decline, let’s just cut to the chase now and declare the 2014 election won for the left… Because if Key doesn’t show some actual leadership on some very pressing issues very soon, National is done and dusted.
Of course the right wing propagandists are declaring Keys pathetic display of juvenile taunts a huge success, all the while knowing full well that their jabbering fool of a “leader” simply doesn’t have what it takes to rally the troops behind him, and what a sad pathetic lot of sycophantic troops they are… You would find more cheer on a chain gang.
I have read Brian Edwards take on Shearer and i agree with his opinion.
There was a jump in the polls when Shearer sent Cunliffe to the backbenches, there must
be some very blood thirsty voters out there who are happy to see someone publicly denounced
in such a fashion and without merit or sound reason.
Is this what we have come down to? are these the levels that some find some comfort in, within
the wider Labour electorate ? a party that prided itself on being inclusive,caring,respectable,
apparantley those traits no longer exsist, perhaps.
If so many don’t see Shearer as the leader of labour,then why is that feeling not put to the
test, members of caucus should think long and hard whether they endorse Shearer
or not in the secret ballot and put their personal aspriations aside and vote in accordance with many in the wider electorate that consider Shearer is not the right person for the job.
To ignore the electorate and members is a folly and irresponsible, the ball is in the mp’s
court.
Chris Hipkins has become New Zealand’s 41st prime minister following Ardern’s unexpected resignation—perhaps the bold and unpredictable move Labour needed to improve its election chances. Just six days into his premiership and Labour had its first lead over National in thirteen weeks. National has had a largely uninterrupted run of ...
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In other countries, the target-rich cohorts of swinging voters are given labels such as ‘Mondeo Man’, ‘White Van Man,’ ‘Soccer Moms’ and ‘Little Aussie Battlers.’ Here, the easiest shorthand is ‘Ford Ranger Man’ – as seen here parked outside a Herne Bay restaurant, inbetween two SUVs. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / ...
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Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTLDR: Here’s a quick roundup of the news today for paying subscribers on a slightly frantic, very wet, and then very warm day. In Aotearoa’s political economy today Read more ...
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Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
Lynn and I have just returned from a news conference where Hipkins, fresh from visiting a relief centre in Mangere, was repeatedly challenged to justify the extension of subsidies to create more climate emissions when the effects of climate change had just proved so disastrous. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The ...
A new Prime Minister, a revitalised Cabinet, and possibly revised priorities – but is the political and, importantly, economic landscape much different? Certainly some within the news media were excited by the changes which Chris Hipkins announced yesterday or – before the announcement – by the prospect of changes in ...
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Buzz from the Beehive Before he announced his Cabinet yesterday, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced he would be flying to Australia next week to meet that country’s Prime Minister. And before Kieran McAnulty had time to say “Three Waters” after his promotion to the Local Government portfolio, he was dishing ...
The quarterly labour market statistics were released this morning, showing that unemployment has risen slightly to 3.4%. There are now 99,000 people unemployed - 24,000 fewer than when Labour took office. So, I guess the Reserve Bank's plan to throw people out of work to stop wage rises "inflation", and ...
Another night of heavy rain, flooding, damage to homes, and people worried about where the hell all this water is going to go as we enter day twenty two of rain this year.Honestly if the government can’t sell Three Waters on the back of what has happened with storm water ...
* Dr Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins continues to be the new broom in Government, re-setting his Government away from its problem areas in his Cabinet reshuffle yesterday, and trying to convince voters that Labour is focused on “bread and butter” issues. The ministers responsible for unpopular reforms in water and DHB centralisation ...
Hi,It’s weird to me that in 2023 we still have people falling for multi-level marketing schemes (MLMs for short). There are Netflix documentaries about them, countless articles, and last year we did an Armchaired and Dangerous episode on them.Then you check a ticketing website like EventBrite and see this shit ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Nanaia Mahuta fell the furthest in the Cabinet reshuffle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson/Getty ImagesTLDR: PM Chris Hipkins unveiled a Cabinet this afternoon he hopes will show wavering voters that a refreshed Labour Government is focused on ‘bread and butter cost of living’ issues, rather than the unpopular, unwieldy and massively centralising ...
Shortly, the absolute state of Wayne Brown. But before that, something I wrote four years ago for the council’s own media machine. It was a day-in-the-life profile of their many and varied and quite possibly unnoticed vital services. We went all over Auckland in 48 hours for the story, the ...
Completed reads for January Lilith, by George MacDonald The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Christabel (poem), by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Saga of Ragnar Lodbrok, by Anonymous The Lay of Kraka (poem), by Anonymous 1066 and All That, by W.C. Sellar and R.J. ...
Pity the poor Brits. They just can’t catch a break. After years of reporting of lying Boris Johnson, a change to a less colourful PM in Rishi Sunak has resulted in a smooth media pivot to an end-of-empire narrative. The New York Times, no less, amplifies suggestions that Blighty ...
On that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth.Genesis 6:11-12THE TORRENTIAL DOWNPOURS that dumped a record-breaking amount of rain on Auckland this anniversary weekend will reoccur with ever-increasing frequency. The planet’s atmosphere is ...
Buzz from the Beehive There has been plenty to keep the relevant Ministers busy in flood-stricken Auckland over the past day or two. But New Zealand, last time we looked, extends north of Auckland into Northland and south of the Bombay Hills all the way to the bottom of the ...
Kia ora e te whānau. Today, we mark the anniversary of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi - and our commitment to working in partnership with Māori to deliver better outcomes and tackle the big issues, together. ...
We’ve just announced a massive infrastructure investment to kick-start new housing developments across New Zealand. Through our Infrastructure Acceleration Fund, we’re making sure that critical infrastructure - like pipes, roads and wastewater connections - is in place, so thousands more homes can be built. ...
The Green Party is joining more than 20 community organisations to call for an immediate rent freeze in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, after reports of landlords intending to hike rents after flooding. ...
When Chris Hipkins took on the job of Prime Minister, he said bread and butter issues like the cost of living would be the Government’s top priority – and this week, we’ve set out extra support for families and businesses. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to provide direct support to low-income households and to stop subsidising fossil fuels during a climate crisis. ...
The tools exist to help families with surging costs – and as costs continue to rise it is more urgent than ever that we use them, the Green Party says. ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today held their first bilateral meeting in Canberra. It was Chris Hipkins’ first overseas visit since he took office, reflecting the close relationship between New Zealand and Australia. “New Zealand has no closer partner than Australia. I was pleased to ...
New Zealand will immediately provide humanitarian support to those affected by the earthquakes in Türkiye and Syria, Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced today. “Aotearoa New Zealand is deeply saddened by the loss of life and devastation caused by these earthquakes. Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones affected,” ...
An historic Northland pā site with links to Ngāpuhi chief Hongi Hika is to be handed back to iwi, after collaboration by government, private landowners and local hapū. “It is fitting that the ceremony for the return of the Pākinga Pā site is during Waitangi weekend,” said Regional Development Minister ...
The Government is investing in a suite of initiatives to unlock Māori and Pacific resources, talent and knowledge across the science and research sector, Research, Science and Innovation Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Two new funds – He tipu ka hua and He aka ka toro – set to ...
Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta departs for India tomorrow as she continues to reconnect Aotearoa New Zealand to the world. The visit will begin in New Delhi where the Foreign Minister will meet with the Vice President Hon Jagdeep Dhankar and her Indian Government counterparts, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and ...
Over $10 million infrastructure funding to unlock housing in Whangārei The purchase of a 3.279 hectare site in Kerikeri to enable 56 new homes Northland becomes eligible for $100 million scheme for affordable rentals Multiple Northland communities will benefit from multiple Government housing investments, delivering thousands of new homes for ...
The Government is supporting one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant historic sites, the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, as it continues to recover from the impacts of COVID-19. “The Waitangi Treaty Grounds are a taonga that we should protect and look after. This additional support will mean people can continue to ...
A memorial event at a key battle site in the New Zealand land wars is an important event to mark the progress in relations between Māori and the Crown as we head towards Waitangi Day, Minister for Te Arawhiti Kelvin Davis said. The Battle of Ohaeawai in June 1845 saw ...
More Police officers are being deployed to the frontline with the graduation of 54 new constables from the Royal New Zealand Police College today. The graduation ceremony for Recruit Wing 362 at Te Rauparaha Arena in Porirua was the first official event for Stuart Nash since his reappointment as Police ...
The Government is unlocking an additional $700,000 in support for regions that have been badly hit by the recent flooding and storm damage in the upper North Island. “We’re supporting the response and recovery of Auckland, Waikato, Coromandel, Northland, and Bay of Plenty regions, through activating Enhanced Taskforce Green to ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has welcomed the announcement that Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, will visit New Zealand this month. “Princess Anne is travelling to Aotearoa at the request of the NZ Army’s Royal New Zealand Corps of Signals, of which she is Colonel in Chief, to ...
A new Government and industry strategy launched today has its sights on growing the value of New Zealand’s horticultural production to $12 billion by 2035, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said. “Our food and fibre exports are vital to New Zealand’s economic security. We’re focussed on long-term strategies that build on ...
25 cents per litre petrol excise duty cut extended to 30 June 2023 – reducing an average 60 litre tank of petrol by $17.25 Road User Charge discount will be re-introduced and continue through until 30 June Half price public transport fares extended to the end of June 2023 saving ...
The strong economy has attracted more people into the workforce, with a record number of New Zealanders in paid work and wages rising to help with cost of living pressures. “The Government’s economic plan is delivering on more better-paid jobs, growing wages and creating more opportunities for more New Zealanders,” ...
The Government is providing a further $1 million to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today. “Cabinet today agreed that, given the severity of the event, a further $1 million contribution be made. Cabinet wishes to be proactive ...
The new Cabinet will be focused on core bread and butter issues like the cost of living, education, health, housing and keeping communities and businesses safe, Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has announced. “We need a greater focus on what’s in front of New Zealanders right now. The new Cabinet line ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins will travel to Canberra next week for an in person meeting with Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. “The trans-Tasman relationship is New Zealand’s closest and most important, and it was crucial to me that my first overseas trip as Prime Minister was to Australia,” Chris Hipkins ...
The Government is providing establishment funding of $100,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Auckland following flooding, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced. “We moved quickly to make available this funding to support Aucklanders while the full extent of the damage is being assessed,” Kieran McAnulty ...
As the Mayor of Auckland has announced a state of emergency, the Government, through NEMA, is able to step up support for those affected by flooding in Auckland. “I’d urge people to follow the advice of authorities and check Auckland Emergency Management for the latest information. As always, the Government ...
Ka papā te whatitiri, Hikohiko ana te uira, wāhi rua mai ana rā runga mai o Huruiki maunga Kua hinga te māreikura o te Nota, a Titewhai Harawira Nā reira, e te kahurangi, takoto, e moe Ka mōwai koa a Whakapara, kua uhia te Tai Tokerau e te kapua pōuri ...
Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Social Development and Employment, has activated Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG) in response to flooding and damaged caused by Cyclone Hale in the Tairāwhiti region. Up to $500,000 will be made available to employ job seekers to support the clean-up. We are still investigating whether other parts ...
The 2023 General Election will be held on Saturday 14 October 2023, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “Announcing the election date early in the year provides New Zealanders with certainty and has become the practice of this Government and the previous one, and I believe is best practice,” Jacinda ...
Jacinda Ardern has announced she will step down as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Her resignation will take effect on the appointment of a new Prime Minister. A caucus vote to elect a new Party Leader will occur in 3 days’ time on Sunday the 22nd of ...
By Ian Chute in Suva Fijian Broadcasting Corporation (FBC) board chairman Ajay Bhai Amrit says he has receipts to prove former FBC chief executive officer Riyaz Sayed-Khaiyum received an annual package of $387,790 including benefits and entitlements. He said this worked out to $32,315 a month and that the board ...
PNG Post-Courier PNG Defence Force Commander Major-General Mark Goina says “appropriate force” will be dealt to the gunmen who ambushed and wounded two soldiers in Saugurap, Enga Province, last week. In a statement Major-General Goina said: “A section from the PNGDF contingent deployed in Enga Province were on routine duty, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation’s politics team. In this podcast Michelle and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe.Lukas Coch/AAP Australia’s cash rate has hit 3.35%, after the Reserve Bank raised interest rates for the ninth time in a row – and signalled ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hannah Della Bosca, PhD Candidate and Research Assistant at Sydney Environment Institute, University of Sydney Shutterstock While the days of overt climate denial are mostly over, there’s a distinct form of denial emerging in its stead. You may have experienced ...
A potential cyclone that could bring more severe wet weather to the upper North Island is now forecast to form a day earlier, Stuff reports. Due to ideal cyclone-formation conditions over the Coral Sea, a low south of the Solomon Islands has a high chance of turning into a cyclone ...
Author I.S. Belle reveals the top five influences on her debut LGBT horror/paranormal YA novel, Zombabe.Zombabe is a LGBT found family horror/paranormal YA about a group of friends putting down an ancient evil inextricably linked to their sleepy town of Bulldeen, Maine. Does all of that bring anything to ...
New Zealand prime minister Chris Hipkins and his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese are holding a joint press conference in Canberra. Watch live here. ...
The New Zealand government is providing $1.5 million in humanitarian support to those affected by destructive earthquakes in Turkey and Syria last night, foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced. The contribution of $1m to Turkey and $500,000 to Syria will be made via the International Federation of Red Cross and ...
In a state-of-the-nation-style lunchtime speech in Auckland today, the leader of the Act Party has taken aim at both major party leaders. “Throughout this speech,” David Seymour told supporters at the Maritime Museum, “I will do my best to differentiate between the Chrisses, but it may not be easy.” Seymour ...
In Canberra Chris Hipkins has met with Australia’s Anthony Albanese in Canberra, exchanging a few brief words to gathered reporters before heading inside for a closed doors meeting. Hipkins was driven into the courtyard of Parliament House, where he was greeted by Albanese in person. “Welcome prime minister,” said Albanese. A beaming ...
The acclaimed fashion designer has been crowned the ‘undisputed king of the frock’ – but with identical dresses widely available on fast fashion outlets, questions are being asked about his design practices.This story was first published on Stuff. He has been described as the “knight of New Zealand fashion”, his ...
In Canberra New Zealand’s media pack has arrived at Australia’s parliament ahead of this afternoon’s visit from prime minister Chris Hipkins. The PM will be met by his counterpart Anthony Albanese in the courtyard of parliament house, before heading inside for a closed doors meeting. Following the 45 minute meeting, ...
Two new funding initiatives, totalling $22 million, have been approved by Cabinet today to help ensure the cultural sector has the “certainty and support to thrive”, announced Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage. $10 million of Covid-19 recovery funding will support established arts, cultural and diversity festivals, while $12 ...
New Zealand Politics Daily is a collation of the most prominent issues being discussed in New Zealand. It is edited by Dr Bryce Edwards of The Democracy Project. Items of interest and importance todayWAITANGI, CO-GOVERNANCE, THREE WATERS Thomas Cranmer: Waitangi Day and the quiet revolution Glenn McConnell (Stuff): Waitangi in 2023: Plenty ...
ACT leader David Seymour has delivered a speech painting National and Labour as two sides of the same coin, and calling co-governance a "culture war". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Quigley, Associate Professor of Earthquake Science, The University of Melbourne Mustafa Karali / AP A pair of huge earthquakes have struck in Turkey, leaving more than 3,000 people dead and unknown numbers injured or displaced. The first quake, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kalinda Griffiths, Scientia lecturer, UNSW Sydney Getty/Marianne Purdie Cancer figures provide stark evidence of the gap between the health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-Indigenous people in Australia. The difference is confronting – and it’s increasing over ...
NZ Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese have used a joint media conference to affirm the nations' relationship is that of "family". ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Alcohol bans are being reimposed on Northern Territory Indigenous communities, as the federal and territory governments grapple with intractable problems in Alice Springs and elsewhere in the NT. The situation in Alice Springs and the ...
I was told to avoid gluten. I was told it was all in my head. When 10% of women experience endometriosis, why does it take so long for its classic symptoms to be recognised? It was 2011 when I had my first period. It felt like a very exciting moment ...
In Canberra Chris Hipkins has touched down in Australia’s capital – his first overseas visit since becoming prime minister just three weeks ago. After disembarking from the Airforce Boeing, Hipkins was greeted by his former caucus colleague and current high commissioner to Australia, Dame Annette King. The pair hugged on ...
The rise of TikTok-inspired ‘algospeak’ is making online communication even more of a nightmare, writes SYSCA‘s Lucy Blakiston.This is an excerpt from the Shit You Should Care About daily newsletter – sign up here.Content warning: sexual assault The other day I was chatting with a friend about algospeak – ...
School, finally, is back this week in the nation’s largest city to howls of relief from many parents and (one hopes) some students also. Yet the resumption of normal service shouldn’t obscure a curious inconsistency. The past few weeks have shown ...
MediaRoom column: On the eve of a Cabinet decision on the fate of the proposed public broadcasting merger, questions emerge over the engagement by the TVNZ chief executive of two former National government aides to change the narrative and push TVNZ's view on the Government's plan Within weeks of taking over ...
Olivia Sisson performs a good old-fashioned cost comparison – and it might change the way you buy your veges.The price of food in New Zealand is shocking. So, how to cope? The recommendations are starting to feel like the avo-toast-flat-white trope. Cut those items out and there it is, ...
An early morning fire at an egg-laying farm in Orini, Waikato yesterday has claimed the lives of at least 50,000 hens. The farm is operated by New Zealand’s largest egg producer Zeagold, the country’s biggest egg producer, whose eggs are sold under ...
The Natural and Built Environment Bill and Spatial Planning Bill will make resource management issues worse and should be withdrawn, Federated Farmers has told the Environment Select Committee. "Farmers agree the costly, slow and unpredictable processes ...
New police minister Stuart Nash has met with new health minister Ayesha Verrall to talk about the issue with the aim of preventing ram raids. Nash wants to speed up the scheduled reduction of dairies that can sell cigarettes. Nash made the comments at a police graduation ceremony in Porirua last ...
It’s Tuesday, February 7 and welcome to a special edition of The Spinoff’s live updates. Stewart Sowman-Lund will be on the ground in Canberra today as PM Chris Hipkins meets with his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese. What you need to know Chris Hipkins will meet Australian PM ...
Politicking by politicians was less overt but whether there was less politics probably depends on your definition of the word and what lay beneath the optics, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. ...
Why is it becoming harder to achieve debt-free status? Money Sweetspot is a new company that uses compassion and incentives to help people pay off their debts. Co-founder Sasha Lockley talks to Simon about using gamification to increase financial literacy, breaking the cycle of poverty, and how she intends to ...
Prime minister Chris Hipkins is heading to Australia today for his first face-to-face meeting with an international leader. He’ll be meeting with Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese during his single-day visit to Canberra. The Spinoff live updates will be on the ground in Australia as the meeting takes place and ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By C Raina MacIntyre, Professor of Global Biosecurity, NHMRC Principal Research Fellow, Head, Biosecurity Program, Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney Pexels/Uriel Mont The question of whether and to what extent face masks work to prevent respiratory infections such as COVID and influenza ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Mackinnon, Professor and Director, Centre for Clean Energy Technologies and Practices, Queensland University of Technology Superconducting cables transmit electicity without lossesShutterstock For most of us, transmitting power is an invisible part of modern life. You flick the switch and the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Munro, Professor, Faculty of Education and Arts, Australian Catholic University Shutterstock Many students are returning to school this year face a renewed focus on grammar. Just before Christmas, the NSW curriculum was overhauled to include the “explicit teaching of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Debra Dudek, Associate professor, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan University Universal Life is full of surprises – some pleasant and some painful – but there can be no surprises without expectations. We expect the sun to come up ...
News stories have honed in on the fact Wayne Brown and his staff were left off a ‘vital’ email distribution list on the night of the Auckland floods. But internal emails from the mayor’s chief of staff show he was getting regular briefings from officials.Internal council emails obtained by ...
In a reality shaped by climate crisis, how do you think and feel about the changed present – and the changing future – without spiralling into despair?In the midst of a flood there’s not much time to think about the future. But when the water recedes, the reality of ...
06 Feb The news today of the death of 75,000 chickens at an egg farm in Waikato is yet another outrageous and avoidable tragedy. “The fact that so many hens died in this fire in the Waikato is a testament to the systemic neglect and disregard ...
Lawmakers are being urged to bridge the legal and scientific divide over braided rivers. David Williams reports What is a river? More particularly, what is a braided river? An expert group known as The Land The Law Forgot is urging politicians considering the Natural and Built Environment Bill – one ...
UK and US deals for NZ novels Three of the best New Zealand novels of recent years are about to be published in the UK and the US. All three books – She's a Killer by Kirsten McDougall, Greta and Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly, and The New Animals ...
Confidence from US Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell kept markets buoyant. But mortgage payments and job losses could dampen consumer spending in NZ ...
Someone left the Swift out in the rain - insurance agents are overloaded with calls about flood-damaged vehicles It’s been a big week for testing the submarining abilities of the family station wagon. Thousands of cars around the upper North Island have been written off following the devastating floods of ...
The first of the air force's new Poseidon aircraft has landed in New Zealand. But is this the sort of workhorse the military needs? Our old heroes of the Air Force, the P-3 Orions, have retired after 56 years of service - and the first of the flash new Poseidon ...
Chris Hipkins’ first overseas trip as Prime Minister comes on relatively friendly territory. But while there have been marked improvements in the trans-Tasman relationship since a change in Canberra, there is still plenty to discuss, as Sam Sachdeva writes In many ways, it is fitting Chris Hipkins should make Australia the ...
Fiordland National Park is the crowning jewel of our national parks and arguably our greatest tourist magnet. But conservationists warn that marine life has been put at risk because the park’s waters are unprotected. Heidi Bendikson’s investigation shows they are right. Tourists on the 'M.V Sinbad' clamber to the bow to ...
As Auckland copes with unprecedented flooding, Mairi Jay points to lessons from extreme weather events in British Columbia that could be vitally important for policy-makers and administrators here “Expect extreme weather events” the climate scientists tell us. But sometimes the extreme is beyond our imagining. On Thursday January 26, New Zealand’s Met Service predicted ...
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RNZ News New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has described today’s Waitangi Day dawn service as moving and says he welcomes the shift away from a focus on politics. Hundreds of people gathered before dawn to commemorate 183 years since Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed. Hipkins said the national ...
By Hilaire Bule, RNZ Pacific Vanuatu correspondent in Port Vila Vanuatu’s prime minister has stressed any future employment within the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) Secretariat must be from MSG member countries. Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau, who is also chair of the MSG Secretariat, made the statement following the recruitment of ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Yamin Kogoya On Friday 10 February 2023, it will be one month since the Papua Governor Lukas Enembe was “kidnapped” at a local restaurant during his lunch hour by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) and security forces. The crisis began in September 2022, when Governor Enembe was ...
By Kālino Lātū, editor of Kaniva News Dr Sitiveni Halapua, former deputy leader of Tonga’s Democratic Movement, has died aged 74. Born on February 13, 1949, he was a respected academic, a pioneer of Tonga’s democratic reforms and pioneer of a conflict resolution system based on traditional practices. Halapua earned ...
COMMENTARY:By Richard Naidu in Suva Five weeks on from Christmas Eve, I think most of us are still a bit stunned at what has happened in Fiji. A new government came to power in dramatic circumstances. It took not one but two Sodelpa management board meetings to change it, ...
By Red Tsounga Another house done, and onto the next . . . Volunteers working in Mount Roskill community over the past few days helping those suffering from Auckland’s flash flood devastation have done us proud. Tremendous work by everybody. Here are some random photos of our volunteer teams on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Mick Tsikas/AAP Senator Lidia Thorpe announced on Monday that she would be leaving the Greens. Thorpe had split with the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis B. Desmond, Lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast The news of a so-called “Chinese spy balloon” being shot down over the US has reignited interest in how nation-states spy on one another. It’s not confirmed that the ...
Today, at a Waitangi ki Waititi concert hosted by Te Whānau o Waipareira at Hoani Waititi Marae, West Auckland; Takutai Moana Natasha Kemp was officially announced as Te Pāti Māori Candidate for Tāmaki Makaurau for the 2023 Election. Hailing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Daniel Pockett/AAP Victorian Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe has defected from the Greens to sit on the crossbench, declaring she wants to fully represent the “Blak Sovereign Movement” in parliament. The announcement by ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Daniel Pockett/AAP Victorian Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe has defected from the Greens to sit on the crossbench, declaring she wants to fully represent the “Blak Sovereign Movement” in parliament. The announcement by ...
Sure, Scotty Morrison’s Māori At Work is a wonderful resource for Aotearoa’s collective te reo Māori journey. But is it judgemental enough for the modern office environment?First published September 12 2019 The growing strength of te reo is palpable across Aotearoa, with record numbers of people participating in Mahuru ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jane Mills, Professor and Dean La Trobe Rural Health School, La Trobe University Shutterstock It can be tough to access front-line health care outside the cities and suburbs. For the seven million Australians living in rural communities there are significant ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Donald Rothwell, Professor of International Law, Australian National University Chad Fish/AP Was the balloon that suddenly appeared over the US last week undertaking surveillance? Or was it engaging in research, as China has claimed? While the answers to these ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Research Fellow, The University of Queensland Shutterstock The generative AI industry will be worth about A$22 trillion by 2030, according to the CSIRO. These systems – of which ChatGPT is currently the best known – can write ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Doug Drury, Professor/Head of Aviation, CQUniversity Australia Shutterstock When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not. Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, ...
Rather sad end to the Al Quada occupation of Timbuktu:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/28/mali-timbuktu-library-ancient-manuscripts
That’s just awful.
Heartbreaking, eh. One of my favourite recordings is the BBC program ‘festival in the desert’. DJ Andy Kershaw recorded 90 minutes or so of Touareg and Malian musicians in the desert near Timbuktu. The hightlight is a truly astonishing version of Whole Lotta Love sung by Robert Plant and played by Ali Farka Toure. Mali’s music will live on, but to lose this written heritage is a crime against humanity.
Try Page and Plant-No Quarter,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Quarter:_Jimmy_Page_and_Robert_Plant_Unledded
As a heritage librarian, this deeply saddens me.Timbuktu is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and many of its treasures were destroyed when Al Qaida invaded last year. I see no purpose to this wanton act of destruction. Some of the manuscripts have been digitised, but it’s only a fraction.
This is what happens, when you have *al qaeda fighters*, imported into an area, with the mission of kill and destroy.
Have a look at the cultural destruction reeked by NATO forces around the ME/Africa, it is very likely that many of the *destroyed* artifacts, are in fact stolen, then sold/handed over to the *financiers*
Muzz, you have a unique ability to connect two arbitrary dots and call it “a nuanced reproduction of a lost Rembrandt, underneath all them other dots and lines and shit that were placed there by the powers that be to distract us”.
Cultural destruction takes many forms McFlock, perhaps the manuscripts were destroyed, perhaps Hallé Ousmani Cissé and his cronies took backhanders to sell them, who really knows!
The net loss amounts to the same thing so far as Mali, and its peoples are concerned, which is a real tragedy!
Have a look at the cultural destruction during Gulf War 1/2 in Iraq, then consider that some of those artifacts, are stolen/destroyed/sold off, to order!
There’s a lot of difference between not planning for an occupation of an entire country and just burning down a library.
…and still more between either of the above and seeing everything through the distorting paranoid lens of Project Onan.
This is the world in which “Al Quaeda” is a branch of the Illuminatii Special Ops Unit, remember, a waste of oxygen, bandwidth, and a perfectly good computer.
I thought it was pretty standard information that the CIA have been actively interfering with countries for the last half century plus. William Blum wrote a book listing a lot of them. Am I understanding the comments here to be sneering at Muzza’s comment concerned over this fact?
I find it very hard to watch international news now because I feel I am watching/listening to majorly distorted information, propaganda, I don’t know whether I am or not, however if there has been a book written listing many false flag style activities and describing them, (“researched from books, periodicals, newspapers and US Government publications” p12, W.Blum “The CIA a forgotten history”) and how it is not how it was reported at the time; then why would anyone believe that anything has changed now??
Horrible to hear about those libraries. Hope that the manuscripts were taken and not destroyed.
Yes. The CIA wants to destroy a heritage site to blame AQ. Just like the CIA destroyed the Bamiyan Buddhas. And flew 1/4 scale drones into the twin towers. /sarc
The trouble is that the CIA really have been fucking with the rest of the planet, but muzz shooting from the hip with absolutely no evidence to back it up simply muddies the waters even further.
But obviously be it a local small-town murder, large scale terrorist act or cultural vandalism half a world away, there is no incident Muzz won’t grasp with both hands to hawk their latest conspiracy allusions (never making an actual allegation, of course, just casting aspersions).
How would someone get proof?
What would be an effective way of getting public support in a violent clash?
What about:
“Ooo, I know, lets destroy some historical manuscripts, we know that really gets people’s goat”
I am seriously “over” the international news; its horrible not keeping myself informed, yet I’d rather that than be misinformed. It is horrible what is going on in the world and we must question what we hear.
I’m not into conspiracies, (as in this is all being guided by a few very wealthy people), however I think it is without doubt that we are being fed a pack a crap and having our opinions massively manipulated, so that we simply do not stand up and demand “NO MORE”. This won’t occur until more people question what they are being told. Sneering at someone who does so, doesn’t come across as the most intelligent response; not these days.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/history-is-the-enemy-as-brilliant-psy-ops-become-the-news/31528
Yes, we can argue that incontrovertible proof in any circumstance is likely to be impossible to gather. But Muzz mouths off with no evidence – no journalists asking questions, no alt.nutbar.media rants, no nothing. Muzz sees an incident, and says “ooo, corporate thieves might well have stolen the manuscripts”. There’s a murder in the paper, and Muzz’ spidey sense says “looks like a police clean-up crew to cover something up”.
Shit. Can’t we just wait for the dust to settle before throwing accusations about who burned a library or killed a young mum, neither of which we’d heard of before it came through on the telly?
I guessed there was history with Muzza.
However, no, I don’t think we can wait for the dust to settle. For one thing, it never does, haven’t you noticed?
Can you imagine what it would be like in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. I’ll bet they wish that; that the Yanks and Brits would just F* right off and let the dust settle, that the bullets would stop flying. I hate to think what they think of us Westerners, wanting the dust to settle before we absorb the truth of the situation; that our culture is responsible for a whole lot of these problems.
Actually, we know pretty well who dropped the ball regarding Iraq’s historic monuments and museums, for example. Took a wee while though. Saddam was pretty crap to them, but the US assumption that post-invasion everything would be unicorns farting rainbows destroyed a large chunk of global history.
I dunno.
News has always been like this. Story breaks, truth emerges later.
It’s not a conspiracy, it’s hardwired in. Journos report what they see and are, more often, told.
So when you read a story quoting someone as saying ‘Y says X killed a bunch of people in war zone yesterday’. That’s what the news is: Y saying it.
Most of the confusion comes from readers thinking that journos ought to be omniscient and able to verify the truth of what Y is saying. But that’s not their job. That would more easily lead to people playing them in fact.
News orgs want to get teh story out as fast as they can, and that’s both important and valuable.the reason news is called the first draft of history, is that it collects data into a timeline so that the truth can be later interpreted. That’s a different job.
Yes, good point Pascal’s bookie,
I did think that a journalists job used to be reporting the facts as accurately as possible, and this used to involve doing some research, not simply relaying what someone tells them, or tells them to say. One reason you gave that this is not done now, is the time factor, another is political/financial interests of the particular news outlet.
Whatever the reason for the poor level of reporting, there is no reason to read/listen/watch news and believe that what is going on is being reported verbatim; it is not.
Agreed, BL. But (in the complete absence of any opposing evidence at this early stage) nor should we necessarily assume that something completely different “very likely” happened. Which was Muzza’s initial reaction.
With the consistently regular revelations that the CIA, American or British (French, Oil, Financial…) interests were involved in well less than scrupulous behaviour in such&such war, I think, is a pretty good reason to assume that it is unlikely what we are getting reported now is accurate to what is really going on.
I do not believe, however, it is beneficial to jump to conclusions about the details, i.e. who is behind it; this requires research. I do consider it rational to assume it is unlikely to be occurring, especially the given reasons, as it is reported.
The thing is that yeah, I can withhold judgement on whether the French involvement is out of the kindness of their hearts or simply because they want to put down a bit of a buffer against the Chinese global agricultural land grab. The latter involves plausible geopolitical motives consistent with neocolonial history.
But there’s no real benefit to burning down an ancient historic library and blaming it on AQ. It underlines the dickishness to people who value heritage libraries and ancient documents, but it’s not a significant selling point so much as, say, injured babies etc. Most people don’t give a shit about their local libraries, let alone ones in Africa. And looting the documents for financiers? Possible, but there’s a lot of risk involved for not much reward. If everyone’s looting, like post-invasion Iraq, then cool. But the French seem to have done their homework on this one.
So I don’t see any gain in fabricating or looting libraries as part of national policy.
But I do see it as consistent with previous (okay, apparent) AQ/fundy activities.
Sooner or later William of Occam has a shave.
I definitely don’t think you should take every quote in a paper as gospel.
But I do think it’s safe to take the fact that a quote was given as legit. If you don’t, you’ve got nothing.
The question I ask is not so much “Why is the paper telling me this?” but “Why is the person quoted saying this?” All the paper is doing is reporting that x said y. It’s up to readers to think about the truth of y given what they know about x.
And it’s also true that western govts muck about all over the world doing things. But that doesn’t mean I interpret every event through that lens. What is going on in Mali, or Iraq, or anywhere else is primarily about the locals. They too have agendas. I’m largely ignorant about those agendas, so it’s tempting to assume that what we are doing is more important than what is happening with the locals. It’s a temptation that’s way more important to fight, in my view, than trusting media reporting.
In Mali, you’ve got 90 odd percent of the country living in the south, of one ethnic group, and another bunch up in the North. The Northern folk basically live in the Sahara. The problem of western intervention starts there. Why is that one country? Who drew that border? The west, and it’s not one that makes sense.
I guess my point here is that every war is unique, and based on local conditions. Outsiders will try, ( often with some success) to interfere for their own ends, but the success they have will depend on the local truths. It’s the local stuff that really matters. You can’t start a war in a country that doesn’t in some way want one anyway. More often, the west is trying to shape a local war in their own favour.
We shouldn’t take it as read that the west is stirring shit up, or even suspect it.
classic example is Syria, which is an absolute clusterfuck as far as the west is concerned, because it’s not about us in anyway whatsoever, and yet due to it’s position ad capabilities the west has strong self perceived interests there. But that doesn’t mean that we are manipulating events. It’s more likely that events are out of out control, as they usually are, and we are panicking.
that’s the other lesson from histories of western intelligence antics; mots of it is blundering and panic driven from a position of ignorance and hubris.
I don’t give the intelligence agencies enough credit to suspect they could pull of too many conspiracies.
@ McFlock,
Yeah, the conversation is heading toward who and what motivations might be creating the problem, and I am uncomfortable with that, however, I will mention that burning a library with ancient manuscripts in it is a whole lot different to burning down one of our local libraries! And I do understand there is a big market for manuscripts. I didn’t understand Muzza’s comment to be saying they burned the library “as part of National Policy” (lol), I understood Muzza’s comment to be indicating that “financiers” could benefit from the selling of these manuscripts.
Hopefully they have been looted prior to burning. It is clear that you don’t care much about ancient manuscripts, yet I find it very painful to hear they have been destroyed and I’m sure that many others, also, will too. Unsure whether it is common knowledge or not (so sorry if I am relaying something you already know)
We get the knowledge behind all our clever technology from the brilliant middle-eastern scholars who both translated and developed Greek knowledge, had they not done so, this knowledge would have been lost, due to our propensity for…burning knowledge…that didn’t fit in with the Christian paradigm of the time. Who knows what knowledge has been lost in these libraries that have been burned in Mali 🙁
Pascal’s bookie,
I agree with that approach, basically you are relaying ways to employ discernment with one’s intake of information.
To shape a war for one’s own purposes, is very manipulative and is really buggering things up for other countries, I sincerely wish that our Western culture would stop sticking its nose into other countries and get its own issues sorted. Best way to lead is by example, and “ours” is a shocking one.
Although I like the spirit of your comment of not giving intelligence agencies credit, I don’t agree. I was very swayed by “The Economic Hitman”, this was someone who was speaking about his personal experience and it sounded pretty damning. Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” and the William Blum book I mentioned earlier fairly well convince me that intelligence agencies are doing things that most wouldn’t believe and wouldn’t want to believe. And that, really, is the largest problem. Until people face what is going on, its unlikely to be improved upon.
but there are no reports it was looted. Just of fire.
So for muzz to say that “most likely” it was looted is just adding 1 and 1 together to get 8.
@ McFlock,
Yes, fair enough. Having conversed with you, I can see that I have reached the end of actually believing what groups are labelled as on the news. Calling it the “crying wolf effect” may help you understand!
Perhaps in this case what has been reported has actually happened, or, perhaps, taking what PB noted, we may find out a different story in time to come. I just don’t see that Muzza’s comment was extraordinary in suggesting that the manuscripts could end up on the blackmarket.
Taking your & TRP’s comment below into account & also someone I was talking with, it does appear to be Al Qaeida’s M.O. to destroy heritage sites. And thus, yes, I concede, its a fair point. I continue, however, to get a very hollow feeling at any point I start feeling the remotest belief in what is being reported these days. I just smell a rat; view it as propaganda…oh dear, I’m turning into a cynic….
Perfectly possible that the manuscripts were stolen.
But based on one short report of a fire, it doesn’t follow to immediately assume that they were “most likely” stolen. The only hope we have of seeing through the bullshit is if we don’t make stuff up as we go along.
I have friends who are trying to find out what’s happening with their loved ones in Bundaberg. Apparently it’s quite difficult trying to find news through all the hollywood divorces and famous people feeling betrayed by Lance Armstrong. Most likely the powers that be made Lance confess to Oprah so that we’d not focus so closely on climate change. /sarc
I said, very likely McFlock, and then linked to the time article below to illustrate how these things can play out.
Of course it’s conclusive, as shown by TRP’s link to a bbc article in todays (30/1) open mike.
The story keeps changing, the articles are more or less worthless in terms of credibility, which is generally what I am pointing out.
Blue Leopard/P’s B seems to understand, and I enjoyed reading their sensible comments, followed by what reads as a concession of sorts, from you!
My comment above should read
Of course it’s NOT conclusive, as shown by TRP’s link to a bbc article in todays (30/1) open mike.
Firstly, okay, “very likely” rather than “most likely”. Not sure where I got the most from, fair enough.
But then you still have no basis for assuming that it is very likely that many of the *destroyed* artifacts, are in fact stolen, then sold/handed over to the *financiers*.
Criminal activity thrives in chaos, and the theft of antiquities for a rapacious international black market is no exception
In case McFlock has forgotten recent history
Same crew reeking war upon the planet, same techniques employed to destroy/plunder nations, same techniques to fool the naive!
So what reports of looting of Mali’s treasures have there been, muzz? Do you have anything from reality upon which to base your logical leap?
Muzza, they burned the library and destroyed mosques because they believe that they are idolatrous or or in some way denying their version of the Mohammadan story. The taliban did similar shit in Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia bulldozed flat anything that wasn’t Wahhabi. AQIM didn’t steal the books and manuscripts, they burned them as a final act of twisted piety before abandoning Timbuktu.
By the way, is your google broken? This stuff isn’t hard to find.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabi
Excerpt:
The Wahhabi teachings disapprove of veneration of the historical sites associated with early Islam, on the grounds that only God should be worshipped and that veneration of sites associated with mortals leads to idolatry.[61] Many buildings associated with early Islam, including mazaar, mausoleums and other artifacts have been destroyed in Saudi Arabia by Wahhabis from early 19th century through the present day.[62][63] This practice has proved controversial and has received considerable criticism from Sunni and Shia Muslims and in the non-Muslim World.
Edit: snap joe90 below
There’s a sectarian bent to this with most of the vandalism carried out by Sunni Wahhabis.
The Bamiyan Buddahs were destroyed by the Wahhabi backed Taliban and the rebels in Mali who destroyed ancient shrines, with many more under threat, were most probably Wahhabi backed.
There’s also an Egyptian extremist calling for the destruction of idols, the Sphinx and Pyramids.
Next time a politician or developer talks about building in Auckland or Christchurch, can someone ask them WHY the developers don’t have a ten year personal liability obligation as designers and builders do under the new regulations? Afterall it’s developers who take the biggest profit from building projects and drive the amount of money spent on a home of development, and if the leaky home saga is anything to go by they have cut and run and almost to a man have escaped any financial liability for those homes by dissolving their companies. I shudder to think what the landscape may look like in ten years if these guys lead the “build” and cut corners for greater profit as they did between 1990 and 2005.
I heard Mr Carver of Jennian home sthis morning whinging and yet he has franchised his business and so HQ and he personally dont actually have to stand behind anything they build.
This govt is heading us back down a building deregulation road, different to 1990’s but will have disastrous consequences… but not for non liable developers of course…
Simplistic and incorrect on several fronts there Tracey.
Simplistic in retutn …. go ask your local politician those questions. It is they who changed the laws and regs which led directly to this disaster.
Much exactly like Pike River.
edit: and if every person in the process is required to have a personal guarantee then while you’re with your local pollie suggest that he/she also provide such a personal guarantee
I have asked those questions.
Can you explain to me vto how it is that a builder and designer can give (are forced to by regulation) such a guarantee but not the developer?? Please further explain how holding the developer liable for ten years post construction is simplistic? Surely the same logic applies to them as to the builders and designers, namely if they are personally liable they will do better work. As for the councils/territorial authorities, yes Govt has legislated immunity to them for any fuck ups they make… at least on one level it makes sense because it is the ratepayers who pay the price, but that doesn’t apply to the developers. I await your explanation of why it is simplistic to hold developers to account in this way. Can you also be specific about the area sin my post which are incorrect?
The govt has already singled out builders and designers, I suggest opening it up to developers who drive these projects. Your last (edit) comment is a straw man argument and doesn’t actually address what I wrote.
I look forward to your more detailed response.
Hammurabi’s Rule. Looks like ancient Babylon had it sorted.
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/78071828-nassim-taleb-on-wall-street-protest-banking.html
Tracey: The builders, developers and owners will build to the rules set by the government and councils or to put it another way if you make the speed limit 100km an hour people will drive to or about the limit but if you get caught breaking the limit you will then be breaking the rules/law and fined accordingly.
Now some people started traveling at 110km and know-one stopped them, then they pushed it out to 120km and still nothing was done, then some people just started going any speed they wanted and of course things started to go wrong.
You seem to have brought into the witch hunt this government have facilitated, the blame for this lays squarely at the foot of the National government of the day that deregulated the building industry and the councils for not enforcing what rules there where at the planing stage, and later during inspections.
This in no way excuses the dodgy builders or the dodgy developers who by the way take all the risks and property developing is a very risky business. Yes people or companies declare bankruptcy and walk away, but very few set out with this in mind, all the people I know that have gone tits up have lost almost everything along with the reputation. The National government of the day are to blame so the National government of today should be fixing it! But knowing them they will be waiting of the market to sort it out, yeah right!
Of course the aftermath of this and the CHCH earthquake will see more regulations, with that more expensive houses, basically the housing industry had been keeping prices down through cutting costs and corners for years now.
again you dodge my question. Given that builders and designers (rightly or wrongly) have had personal liability placed on them for ten years, why not developers.
“Of course the aftermath of this and the CHCH earthquake will see more regulations,” Really, so far the intent of this government is the opposite, less regulations already and intended, especially around developments (as opposed to single dwellings).
I am well aware that builders on the whole are unfairly having 80% liability sheeted tot hem in leaky building claims. This is why I point to developer liability as well. They will, and have in the past, made much more money than the builders on each home built.
As for intent, I dont think you have met many career developers because they absolutely, in consultation with their lawyer and accountant set up companies for a particular development, take the profit and then shut them down. Precisely to avoid any future liability on their work. Now back to your supposition that if caught breaking rules they will be fined… and how will they pay given without a legal entity to sue no one is liable?
You have to make the accountability of directors (former directors) in law, outlive the existence of the company.
The rise of Islamic activists may be unstoppable. The genie has come out of the bottle after being aroused by the west, USA and Russia (west?) mainly. The USA has to stop going to war as a means of getting their business indices trending upwards.
In the meantime Genghis Khan type policies are arising from both sides of the battle. Things will be likely to get worse if people with integrity and clever practical minds don’t get hold of the decision making and budget. We need another Churchill type. Not perfect but with clear understanding of the threats ahead.
And if we don’t get a Churchill type, we may get someone far worse, from the other side of history.
Good chant? Out, out, out. John Key is too low key. Give us a Cheshire cat smile John.
Repeat! (Cheshire cat’s smile faded away to nothing – Alice through the Looking Glass I think.)
This government can’t do its governing effectively to ensure the best for the whole country. So what do they do? Interfere with local government, such as Christchurch and now to disdain the information given on housing by the Auckland Council instead quoting the opinions of business as if it was necessarily correct. Anything that is working is likely to be rejigged and end up replaced with some shonky stuff.
This also applies to Picton which needs to be on people’s agenda. That town is going to be hollowed out so that the government can cosy up to Chinese investors with bulging bank balances. Picton is a jewel, the interislander trip is a jewel, we are a poor country and can’t afford to adopt the throwaway society attitude to viable, effective, modern and good earning businesses. Mostly owned by NZs. With the profit remaining as a credit in NZ. If foreigners invest and leave money invested here, it is always a debt, a liability to us, that can be taken out at their will.
The interislander move is a slap in the face for kiwi small business and another win for their trucking lobby backers, like they haven’t been rewarded enough already with RONS, larger load sizes etc etc
I find this encapsulates the NACT in a nutshell and the MSM sucked it up without as much as a ‘hang on wait a minute…’ during the slow news season.
Can’t wait for 7 sharp to keep us all informed and invigorate debate. TVNZ falling behind Joyce’s lines to keep follks amused not informed while they go about their business. Can his mates at skycity have some of your studio in akl, you will not be needing it with production shifting to sky.
I took the words of Bill English in regards to land etc, aimed at the AKL Council, as a future forecast, veiled as a threat!
You need to gauge the reaction of the media/public when broadcasting, that central govt *might* look at taking over due process of an elected local govt.
And the bad played on!
This government is losing it in Christchurch.
People wanting to retail or build or develop or invest or live in teh CBD have been frightened off by the great overlord and his ways. Go to it Brownlee, the CBD is all yours. Let us know once you’ve finished and we’ll all come see how you’ve done.
Christchurch east is forgotten. Drive deep into the east and you will see what the stories are all about.
People are forgotten. People are still living in squalor http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/8233403/Quake-hit-Christchurch-families-still-living-in-squalor Well done Brownlee, well done.
At the last election there was a swing in favour of Brownlee, but this was disaster politics at the time whereby the incumbent is always favoured as people want stability at all costs. Next time around in 2014? I predict a spectacular hiding to nothing. Even the true Nats are agin this government, e.g. the government approach to buying their CBD properties.
And then of course, once this government is tossed out the city will be left with some other new government which will no doubt move things around, change the goalposts and struggle to finish off Brownlee’s grand plan. Pessimism is just below the surface with many even today saying that they are still in two minds about the city and may well move yet.
Am just about willing to put money on the fact that National this far out from November 2014 are pretty much history,
A swing away from National in the Christchurch area as big as the swing that went toward them in that are in 2011 will all but finish them,
As will a further swing away from the Maori Party who’s voters gave them(except for Te Tai Tonga)the benefit of the doubt vote in 2011, it has taken a couple of election cycles for the Maori Party voters to realize that the crumbs off of the table they can expect to gain with an application to the ‘Whanau Ora’ program cannot make up for their loss as Paula cuts a swathe through benefit numbers…
Perhaps if more of them had voted Burns and Cosgrove, the government wouldn’t have a majority.
And perhaps if they’d voted for JA instead of parker.
Well, you get the gist.
Better luck next election, Christchurch.
Hey vto it’s not all bad news coming out of CHCH. Fletcher’s shareholders are do quite nicely, thank you very much
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/8233237/Fletcher-hot-property-as-payouts-exceed-1b
nice to see a silver lining eh
So apparently Israel has been administering contraceptives to Ethiopian Jews without their consent. And not, like, ages ago. They’ve only just issued an order to stop.
That state just loves heaping on the irony, doesn’t it?
😯 they did this to Jews???
Obviously, they weren’t the right type of Jews.
something in the milk, and Honey ( Hi. oh it’s good to talk to you, you are sweeter than wine…and just how do we define “pseudo-science’? hmm? Himm?)
Dark ones, though. /sarc
You don’t think that South America was the only destination for those who featured in the losing side of a particular historic conflagration do you???…
-wow- And as a wee bit of related background or context, this from last year- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/20/israel-netanyahu-african-immigrants-jewish
I wonder if they’re going to deport the refugees to Madagascar?
I don’t think the Ethiopians are regarded as real Jews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_Israel
Meet Mr.Mileikowsky</a.
One really has to wonder how Mr Milekowsky survived the Warsaw Ghetto, most didn’t, perhaps He was special,
It’s also well known among criminal circles, as well as certain political party’s that those who take on an alias do not usually stop at having just one of them…
Irony meter: exploded.
Advice for David Shearer: ifyoudon’t
knowhow
todotherhythmof
convincingcommu
nication
thenyouneedto
markyourspeech
withprettycolouredpens
or
some
thing
otherwiseitspain
fultolistento
andthepointsdon’thavemuchim
pact
I don’t know which is worse, the woeful comedy routine of Key’s performance or Shearer’s fifth-form delivery. The latter is lost without a script, the former should just get lost.
That’s and have some actual policy to launch the year with. None in that speech.
If Shearer’s housing policy is the only thing pushing blood through Labour’s veins, then we’d better have a defibrilator ready. It’s a nasty risk to run to have it placed on that single hit to keep both hands on the ribcage, pressing.
With both anticipation and FEAR did I await the re-opening of Parliament this year, and today, my fears were confirmed yet again.
For heaven’s sake, Labourites, get meetings called, at base level, prepare for a take-over of the party, a kind of “reclaiming” of what Labour traditionally once stood for, and what a “real” opposition party in Parliament should stand for right now!
Start a bloody revolution, and once and for all, get RID of DEAD WOOD!
Shearer’s speech was less than mediocre, an embarrassment, even though he tried hard.
Key took off with attacking, blaming and slamming Labour and Shearer, then served up more of what the Nats have been preaching to us for the last few years, talked like an over-ambitious, half – intoxicated used car salesman, to hammer home to the public and Parliament, that they will push through their ideology driven agenda relentlessly.
It was just more rehashed stuff of what we have heard before, and in that “State of the Nation Speech” from Key.
Shearer was stumbling again, losing track, mis-spelling, mumbling and fumbling with his words, then at times seemed to get on track again, clearly wanted to present a message, but did anything but to convince. It was disappointing, and he is trying to act as one “leader” that he is not.
Brian Edwards is right in his analysis:
http://brianedwardsmedia.co.nz/2013/01/why-david-shearer-should-give-up-acting-hes-just-no-good-at-it/
This is becoming such an embarrasment, and the whole party will suffer endlessly, if he is not forced to resign in the coming weeks. A challenge must be made, or this will be yet another lost political year. More defensive “selling” of the same housing policy, of youth apprenticeships for the dole, of a bit vague this and the other, that is NOT, what is needed now.
Endless criticism of the same of National is not enough, it is not policy, does not deliver enough of an alternative.
Good on Metiria Turei, she held a good, smart, balanced and promising speech, but the real OPPOSITION spokesperson and convincing debater today was Winston Peters!
Those that still cannot see the problem with Shearer, you will never learn and get it!
We don’t need a challenger Xtasy. Just 13 MPs brave enough to vote no confidence, to give us a vote.
The process then invites candidates plus the incumbent to step forward to campaign. Show us what they’ve got, their ideas, their style.
I really would like to hear from Robertson, Adern and Little. I don’t know enough about their potential as Leaders and want to see them strut their stuff.
What I don’t want is King/Mallard making any more Leadership decisions for us. It is not their right to decide when to knife Shearer and replace him with Robertson.
Let’s have an honest process now when we’ve time to pull it together and win well in 2014.
Yeah, those that are equally concerned, phone, email and talk to your MP, secretaries, tell them your concerns, put the clear message accross, that enough is enough.
It would be insanity to take further risks with the status quo. But then, who am I to talk.
I saw and heard much of Shearers speech once more in the evening, and it was maybe not quite as bad (less getting stuck and losing the thread of his speech than before), but he just does not come across well, lacks fire, is too wooden, insecure and tries to appear as a kind of person that he is not, and who he never will be able to be.
Please, please, end this nightmare, Labourites.
John Key announces more working prisons
I don’t think slave labour camps are really the direction we want this country going in. Nor do we want prison labour undercutting the wages of free people in this country.
Slippery the Prime Minister re-invents the wheel making it square so it sits on the road better, back befor the Neo-liberals decided that there were grand ‘savings’ to be made by canning them there were all sorts of working arrangements for prison inmates, mostly these work initiatives were centered on the needs of the prisons infrastructure from painting and building gangs to full on commercial gardens and farming operations,
The empty suitcase of intellectual rigor who is masquerading as the New Zealand Prime Minister would better serve the employment in the economy of released prisoners by restricting access to those who have criminal convictions records except where the occupation is sensitive such as hospitals,schools, care positions etc etc etc,
Most employers these days conduct criminal history checks upon proposed employees including those who only offer day by day labour positions and wont employ anyone with a conviction that is less than ten years old,
There are a few tho that with deliberation who with deliberation employ ex prison inmates and are mostly rewarded with workers committed to their jobs who work hard and behave in a manner that is a credit to the particular company that hired them…
Yes, i know many close to home who remain unemployed casualties of the no risk employment environment and / or unforgiving moral culture (whats a little overt rebellion compared to white collar fraud?)
Indeed, whats a little white collar crime, the sum total of the fraudulent induced losses coming from the non-banking financial sector in the past 5 years makes the monetary loss of all the crimes committed by those incarcerated over that same 5 year period look insignificant, and, the only thing that comes remotely close to the cost of those fraudulent money transactions in the equation is the cost to the state of locking up the crims,
The minor ones that is, to coin a phrase, jail is where the big crims send the little crims to get rid of the competition…
Transparent play to the law and order crowd. Hey lets learn from the US, we can fire local council staff and have prisoners doing the rubbish collection and mowing lawns instead.
Maybe prisoners could milk Garth McVicar’s cows. That’d please the anti-immigration crowd as well.
Seriously tho,”as Prime minister my one goal for the year is to get the crims to do a bit of graft”, i often comment on the Prime Ministers empty suitcase of intellectual rigor,
I think some crim must have run off with it, even for Slippery that was one bizaarely stupid speech…
that’s Busting some slapstick humour there Murray
its a monarch day here in the bay and they play play the Silk tree way
so some (bad kesy) Second-Hand News to keep us amused (won’t ya lay down in the tall grass and let me do my stuff…)
another 2.5 Billion people at the Arrival gate before 2050, dum dum diddle to be your fiddle , to be so near ya and not just hear ya…
Obesity an expanding “global pandemic” (Staple that to the fridge)
antibiotic resistant pathogens a threat “equivalent” to the GFC
Ak real estate brochures delivered to the living rooms of wealthy Chinese at home; how now
Brown cow?
Back to school (1B5’s 30c; $3.00 the remainder of the year);NOvopay, League of Tables do not do Justice, NActional Standards, Christchurch rationalization and the flesh eating scaly one.
the educational IT divides escalating costs of campus technology integration, software / application licenses multiplying technology scrabbling mathematical illiteracy.
sadly, North Korean peasants eating their own as Kim continues to swear by the Enema tool of colonialist oppression while kiwis serve as social media guineas.Fine. John Steinbeck-The Pearl
admire it some time. Oh Joy! c’e st ill cheery picking manufacturing success stories.Press them out.
Consumption consumption consumption : wuyu- objectless desire.
WINZ overwhelmed; annual leave, sick leave, vacancies: it’s the dole or 6-6 6 days a week stacking apples for exports down in the Dec quarter; a drop in o / seas Dairy sales of 11.7% (may be churning market though) You choose.
Crop irrigation diverted to Throwing Copper above ground (Mister 13 tucks his patch under arm, bypassing the third long queue in an hour to front his case manager man (t#@lls better Knock on Wood; don’t get the wrong door though, “Sarge” might growl) Like water.Off a bucks back.
husband and cultivate the world to ones proclivities and context-
Vata-wind Ditta- bile Kapha-phlegm
as the inspirational myriad future is over-run by the phasic powerful present past devoted belonging
Exploitative hoarding marketing : Receptive?
Hedonistic respectable ingenious : Authentic?
Cynical here fatalistic yesterdays relativistic intervals : Believable pathways tomorrow?
-Kale (Shoot To Thrill: did you know that playing aforementioned track was one attempt at “enhanced interrogation technique” by the screws at Guantanamo? Home on The Range may have been more effective)
p.s the opposition has NO confidence in lynda Carter Speaking wonderfully for the Family. Hey, for Variety, sponsor a local child in need; kiwi kids are milk bix kids.(in Isolation we may soon only see the Mailman for 1/2 days. Thirteen Monkeys?)
C.C. yes RL, imagine society without our social conscience (community meals start back soon); it would all be skeptical relativistic intersections (I want my MP3)
A Song For GeoffC; Topic? What is Collective Anarchism? 🙂
OMG (as they say amongst the truly connected). That bloody band of lefties at Radio NZ are at it again! John Quiggin has just been on spouting his bloody communist shite – but NOW there’s some specimen that sounds like a muppet called David Peter Farrar – just to be “fair and balanced” of course.
Roll on 5pm!
for some balance, can somebody please release me from moderation (i used the “t” word) when will i learn 🙁
I understand your plight. I too sometimes go over the top. I just justify things by telling myself “There Is/Was No Alternative”. When that doesn’t work – I just watch Parliament.
……or listen to everyone’s best friend “good ole Jum” on RNZ
Hey…..just btw (as they say in the truly connected world)……. now I know where some Slippery Dick comes by his dikshun. Yeee-oooh = “You know” Yearsnaturntiv = “There is no alterative”; RrrrAltee is = “The reality is”
I’m reverting to Parliament on Chenill Noitnyforwah;
It’s no wonder a Sikh mate of mine has such duffkilty with Unglish (over and above anywhere esse in the whurrl).
In any event (Rogue), we can be assured of the muppet status I’ve assigned and plead guilty to
wellll, that sounds like some pretty damn fine Adobe Flash (there is always an alternative to the Somme) 😉
John Key’s pointless, wandering 2013 opening speech was the straw that finally made my camel lose its shit.
http://www.ben.geek.nz/2013/01/getting-active/
lol
Nice post.
Interesting comments too. Go Greens.
Watched most of the speech and quite honestly the man sounded like one of the half cut oiks you hear braying at the hoi polloi as you walk past the Ellerslie members enclosure.
Some (bad kesy) Second-Hand News 😉 ;
another 2.5 billion people at the Arrival gateway before 2050 (dum dum diddle to be your fiddle, to be so near ya and not just hear ya)
Obesity a “global pandemic”; the 1.6 billion overweight and obese now outnumber the mal-nourished 2-1; The World is Fat-Barry Popkin, meanwhile Mozza’s ill with a bleeding ulcer
anti-biotic resistant pathogens are a threat equivalent to the GFC
Ak real estate being marketed to wealthy Chinese at home in their living rooms; how now Brown cow? or year of the snake?
Back to School- NOvopay, League tables not Justice from the NActional Standards alongside Christchurch rationalization by flesh-eating scaly ones the costs of integrating technology into campuses, software application licenses teacher IT student mathematical illiteracy
North Korean peasants literally eating their own as Kim swears by the imperialist enema
kiwis social media guineas.John Steinbeck-The Pearl, give it a whirl.
Well, we have enjoyed a nice holiday from the ranting John Key but already he is back at it. Very little talk about positive Government proposals of course. Certainly his usual loss of dignity (if ever he had that). Sneering and leering at opposition members (they must be getting under his skin so soon! Good sign!) This is a speech by “a decent bloke”? Spare me!
Oh Joy c’est ill cheerily picking manufacturer anecdotes,
Consumption consumption consumption : wuyi= objectless desire
locally WINZ overwhelmed; annual leave, sick leave, vacancies; it’s the dole or 6-6 6 days a week stacking apples. You choose.
(Mister 13 tucked his patch under his arm and bypassed the third long queue that hour to front his case manager man) Better knock, knock Knock on Wood; don’t get the wrong door now though, “Sarge” might growl.Like Water; off a bucks back.
Crop irrigation diverted to Throwing Copper above ground.
husband and cultivate and tailor world to ones proclivities and context
Vatta-Wind Ditta-Bile Kapha-Phlegm
inspirational myriad future over-run by the phasic powerful present past devoted belonging
Exploitative hoarding marketing : Receptive?
Hedonistic respectable ingenious : Authentic?
cynicalhere fatalistic yesterdays relativistic intervals : Believable pathways Tommorow?
Hooton labeling Standardistas as “fanatics” and “wreckers” of Labour’s November conference:
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/labour-heading-another-meltdown-set-go-weekend-review-lf-134941
“Internal fanaticism
This sort of internal fanaticism has been seen before, including when Don Brash’s supporters were undermining Bill English and when Paul Keating took out Bob Hawke. The strategy can work because, as Mr Hawke observed, it has a terrifying logic.
If a challenger’s faction, even a minority, is utterly determined to make life impossible for the incumbent, then eventually the leadership or even prime ministership ceases to be worth holding.
Labour’s new rules make the strategy even more likely to succeed and have created a risk of chronic instability. With members and unions now having the power to choose the leader, whichever faction happens to be in the minority will spend its time not taking the fight to the dreaded Tories, but signing up new members and manipulating union personnel.
The new rules put Labour at constant risk of old-fashioned Leninist entrism. Already, party bosses report infiltration by former members of the Alliance who have no interest in being part of a modern social democratic party but want to recreate Labour as a replica of their old far-left ideal.”
Well, one has to be mindful and alert about that man, making his odd appearance here.
So that is what he summarises comments made on TS like!?
He is an expert manipulator, that is for sure.
feck! (less. sorry ’bout the place taken; Time and Space p-brane difficulties,or maybe some superstring)
anyway,
God Defend (foreign investment in) New Zealand; that’s the Key!
Do(o)m;
-in the letters; Housing Unaffordability-Banks and Boomers (they said it, not me)
-China is likely to reinforce the Fijian position with navy vessels, arms and vehicles, yet, were those Israeli jets seen around Fordow? while the NZX50 continues to Aspire 8.
Pr 11:18 The wicked man earns deceptive wages yet he who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward
11:25 A generous person will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.
Alternatively,
the person who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what they have heard, yet doing it, they will be blessed in what they do.(Religion that God accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself free from being Polluted by the world)
-JJ (1:25 & 27; After Midnight, we gonna let it all hang out…for where we find envy and selfish ambition, there you find Disorder and every evil practice)
Not yours, ever.
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/01/the-most-ridiculous-law-of-2013-so-far-it-is-now-a-crime-to-unlock-your-smartphone/272552/
True? where do you find these articles joe? 😉
l
Link farms, Reddit, Metafilter, BoingBoing etc, a voracious appetite and the attention span of a sand fly with a low boredom threshold.
“boredom” was a researched topic discussed on RNZ theeuva day; apparently it’s a combination of appropriate stimulation unavailable and, a perceived absence of, and desire for similar. (not my problem; i find this site an adjunct though and it is an alternative meeting of the complete range of human motivations, for a change, particularly curiosity, and there is something healthy about a little idle collective creativity, i think, anyway)
NOW,
another topic of research i read recently was contrasting the “happiness” of the financially comfortable and those less so. (of course, a situational / extraneous variable that was Not addressed in the article, MSM, was the cultural context in which “happiness” factors were evaluated). Soooo, not surprisingly, people were “happier” in the Western culture studied if they had more dough.
Interestingly, Half of New Zealand exists on below the median income, and therefore may be considered (within the premises of the article) to be “less so”. Interesting, but then what would i know, I’m only a mad low-income gardener of Allsorts.
Sad but true, Rogue. Welcome to Mega City.
I have been invited to write lyrics for, and attempt vocals in a Garage Band, and my mates’ influences, amongst other things? Free Jazz and CrAss (you could not make some of the stuff that happens in our connected / collective lives up! (Unrestful Movements for both of us; just listen for once, just listen to Anti-Trend)
anyway, from another chapter, was amongst a group of formerly Very bad “perps” last night, who also have seen the “light”, and turning their lives away from The Island /Carousel
so there is hope.
-Rem (imagine being on The Radio!)
http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/3784804.html
you know, and I know, my clone sleeps alone
-Barker (why dontcha come up and shee me sometime Moneypenny?; in fact, where I reside is another menage a trois of “connections” (never been that greedy, or lucky, in the literal sense, yet regrettably got a little too greedy one-to-one, but that too, is another story)
The real question to be asked of the Slippery Prime Minister after today’s ‘State of the Nation’ speech in the Parliament today is did He change His diapers befor or after the childish harangue of the Opposition Party’s,
The opening speech in the Parliamentary Year is a traditional opportunity for the Prime Minister to outline His or Her plans for the year and yet in what i detect as a display of fear our current one Slippery, chose instead at the last minute to drop the prepared speech notes in favor of a torrent of abuse directed at that opposition,
Don’t let the apparent confidence of the Prime Minister fool you for an instant, any Prime Minister who allows one simple opposition policy, in this case the twin housing policies of the Green/Labour portion of that opposition, to derail a prepared speech has definitely not only lost the political initiative ‘going forward’ but has also lost the ‘plot’ bigtime,
In another severely bizaare move by the Prime Minister,(possibly sniffing a knife in the back on the breeze), is the inclusion in the National MP’s ranks of a 3rd ‘party whip’, larger politicla party’s usually have two of these whips to organize their MP’s around their duties to the Select Committees and their duties in the House along with any other business the particular Party requires them to attend to,
Why have 3 whips tho, simple , there has since Slippery the Prime Minister took over the leadership of that National Party been a simmering but unreported tension within the Caucus between two basic camps,(the Slippery’s and the Other’s), over the Leadership of National, there’s a few schisms within these camps over who will get to plunge the knife into the back of the current Prime Minister at the appropriate time and such a boiling tension in the ranks is simply the moving of the pawns in the quest for Power as opposed to the tensions within the Labour Opposition Party which center more on direction and policy,
The extra whip??? in the political trade-offs between the two National Party factions the Cabinet make-up has largely become a finely balanced one for me and one for the Other’s juggling by the Prime Minister doling out the positions of power so as to delay that inevitable knifing from within His own ranks,
Having miscalculated in the sacking of 2 Cabinet Ministers,( it aint Merril Lynch Slippery, they still get to hang around after you’ve crapped all over them from a great height), Slippery the prime Minister has belatedly He has handed the Other’s a surprise advantage and tipped the delicate balance of power that exists in that National Party Caucus hence the hastily arranged 3rd ‘whips’ job dragging yet another Slippery-ite into the already bulging power structure who’s very position now depends upon His support of the current Prime Minister, balance is restored,
What tho to make of the theatrics of a clearly fearful Prime Minister in the chamber today lashing out at the opposition on a day that should have had Him proudly trumpeting the National Governments successes so far and outlining it’s ongoing plan for success, ( yes ha ha ha i am of course being facetious), what of a Government that according to the Prime Minister has a plan to push a few of the 8000 crims currently languishing in our jails into a bit of graft,
Thats it???? apparently so if the words of the Prime Minister are anything to go by, everything is just so hunky dory according to this particular Prime Minister, there is no crisis in affordable housing that need be urgently addressed, no crisis of unemployment that cannot wait until November 2014 when someone else can address it, neither a last quarter export data report that shows that instead of growing the country’s exports in the last quarter were the worst since 2009,
Nothing, not an iota of any pressing economic concern expressed, nary a care in the world shown for pressing societal issues while well meaning middle class New Zealanders set up Save the Children type websites so that the average New Zealander can sponsor Kiwi-kids an effort worthy of the third world,
Bluntly, all that was contained in this the 4th ‘State of the Nation’ speech by this Slippery Prime Minister of this FAILURE of a National Government was a silent admission that They havn’t got a clue, don’t really give a s**t anyway, and the face as the Head of this unholy mess is quite frankly more worried about being knifed in the back by His colleagues than anything else going on at the moment,
Wonder if His diapers are of the disposable variety, i just can’t imagine the abject horror inflicted upon the poor serf having to wash out the stench of such fear…
better than a bad Stuff. carry on weeding, I find it therapeutic, and then, then, productive plants can grow.
I’m not too sure about your 3rd whip theory but there’s certainly some truth to Key completely changing the script to focus on insulting the opposition parties for daring to have some solutions while National looks totally dead in the water.
Not only does the fact that Key let his emotions get the better of him look entirely pathetic, he threw some in the press gallery right off their stride and their usual towing of the party line. Some even went ahead and published their pre-written articles based on Key’s script that of course didn’t include any of Keys venomous diatribe, which just goes to show how stupid some right wing journalists can be.
Clearly National is bereft of ideas, and we have only just begun the 2013 cycle. If attack politics is all that the venal John Key is going to offer the public while the country slides ever further into economic and social decline, let’s just cut to the chase now and declare the 2014 election won for the left… Because if Key doesn’t show some actual leadership on some very pressing issues very soon, National is done and dusted.
Of course the right wing propagandists are declaring Keys pathetic display of juvenile taunts a huge success, all the while knowing full well that their jabbering fool of a “leader” simply doesn’t have what it takes to rally the troops behind him, and what a sad pathetic lot of sycophantic troops they are… You would find more cheer on a chain gang.
I have read Brian Edwards take on Shearer and i agree with his opinion.
There was a jump in the polls when Shearer sent Cunliffe to the backbenches, there must
be some very blood thirsty voters out there who are happy to see someone publicly denounced
in such a fashion and without merit or sound reason.
Is this what we have come down to? are these the levels that some find some comfort in, within
the wider Labour electorate ? a party that prided itself on being inclusive,caring,respectable,
apparantley those traits no longer exsist, perhaps.
If so many don’t see Shearer as the leader of labour,then why is that feeling not put to the
test, members of caucus should think long and hard whether they endorse Shearer
or not in the secret ballot and put their personal aspriations aside and vote in accordance with many in the wider electorate that consider Shearer is not the right person for the job.
To ignore the electorate and members is a folly and irresponsible, the ball is in the mp’s
court.
CEO: An over-paid bureaucrat, usually in the private sector, working against the good of society.
Afewknowmanytruths
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/blacksabbath/afterforever.html
just foolin’ around
night (it’s another day tomorrow) 🙂
p.s thanks for the “bread” D.