Funny Memes Trump Signing New Fence
The outlook does not look that promising. Forecasting an economy is a mug's game. The database on which the forecasts are founded is incomplete, out-of-date, and subject to errors, some of which will be revised after the forecasts are published. (No wonder weather-forecasting is easier.) One often has to adopt ...
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by Don Franks It seems that almost each day now another ram raid shatters someone's shop front and loots the premises. Prestigious Queen street is not immune, while attacks on small dairies have long stopped being headline news. Those of us not directly affected are becoming numbed to this form ...
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It's hard to believe that when we created Sciblogs in 2009, the iPhone was only two years old, being a 'Youtuber' wasn't really a thing and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok didn't exist. But Science blogging was a big thing, particularly in the United States, where a number of scientists had ...
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For 13 years, Sciblogs has been a staple in New Zealand's science-writing landscape. Our bloggers have written about a vast variety of topics from climate change to covid, and from nanotechnology to household gadgets. But sadly, it's time to close shop. Sciblogs will be shutting down on 30 June. When ...
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Radical Options: By allocating the Broadcasting portfolio to the irrepressible, occasionally truculent, leader of Labour's Māori caucus, Willie Jackson, the Prime Minister has, at the very least, confirmed that her appointment of Kiri Allan was no one-off. There are many words that could be used to describe Ardern's placement of ...
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A Delicate Juggler? The new Chief Censor, Ms Caroline Flora, owes New Zealand a comprehensive explanation of how she sees, and how she proposes to carry out, her role. Where, for example, is her duty to respect and protect the citizen's right to freedom of expression positioned in relation to ...
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Good grief. Has foreign policy commentary really devolved to the point where our diplomatic effort is being measured by how many overseas trips have been taken by our Foreign Minister? Weird, but apparently so. All this week, a series of media policy wonks have been invidiously comparing how many trips ...
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Where we've been Time flies. This coming summer will mark 15 years of Skeptical Science focusing its effort on "traditional" climate science denial. Leaving aside frivolities, we've devoted most of our effort to combatting "serious" denial falling into a handful of broad categories of fairly crisp misconceptions: "radiative physics is wrong," "geophysics is ...
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Mercenary army of bogus skeptics on parade Because they're both squarely centered in the Skeptical Science wheelhouse, this week we're highlighting two articles from our government and NGO section, where we collect high-quality articles not originating in academic research but featuring many of the important attributes of journal publications. Our mission ...
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In the latest episode of AVFA Selwyn Manning and I discuss the evolution of Latin American politics and macroeconomic policy since the 1970s as well as US-Latin American relations during that time period. We use recent elections and the 2022 Summit of the Americas as anchor points. ...
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The Scottish government has announced plans for another independence referendum: Nicola Sturgeon plans to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence in October next year if her government secures the legal approval to stage it. Angus Robertson, the Scottish government's constitution secretary, said that provided ample time to pass ...
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So far, the closer military relationship envisaged by Jacinda Ardern and Joseph Biden at their recent White House meeting has been analysed mainly in terms of what this means for our supposedly "independent" foreign policy. Not much attention has been paid to what having more interoperable defence forces might mean ...
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters For those puzzling over the various hurricane computer forecast models to figure out which one to believe, the best answer is: Don't believe any of them. Put your trust in the National Hurricane Center, or NHC, forecast. Although an individual ...
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By Imogen Foote (Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington) A lack of consensus among international conservation regimes regarding albatross taxonomy makes management of these ocean roaming birds tricky. My PhD research aims to generate whole genome data for some of our most threatened albatrosses in a first attempt ...
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Well, if that's "minor" I'd be interested to see what a major reshuffle looks like.Jacinda Ardern has reminded New Zealand of the steel behind the spin in her cabinet refresh announced today. While the Prime Minister stressed that the changes were "triggered" by Kris Faafoi and Trevor Mallard and their ...
6 days ago
A company gives a large amount of money to a political party because they are concerned about law changes which might affect their business model. And lo and behold, the changes are dumped, and a special exemption written into the law to protect them. Its the sort of thing we ...
6 days ago
Active Shooters: With more than two dozen gang-related drive-by shootings dominating (entirely justifiably) the headlines of the past few weeks, there would be something amiss with our democracy if at least one major political party did not raise the issues of law and order in the most aggressive fashion. (Photo ...
6 days ago
Going Down? Governments also suffer in recessions and depressions – just like their citizens. Slowing economic activity means fewer companies making profits, fewer people in paid employment, fewer dollars being spent, and much less revenue being collected. With its own "income" shrinking, the instinct of most government's is to sharply ...
6 days ago
In the 50 years since Norm Kirk first promised to take the bikes off the bikies, our politicians have tried again and again to win votes by promising to crack down on gangs. Canterbury University academic Jarrod Gilbert (an expert on New Zealand's gang culture) recently gave chapter and verse ...
6 days ago
Misdirection: New Zealanders see burly gang members, decked out in their patches, sitting astride their deafening motorcycles, cruising six abreast down the motorway as frightened civilians scramble to get out of their way, and they think these guys are the problem. Fact is, these guys represent little more than the misdirection ...
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New Zealand's defence minister, Peeni Henare, has had a very busy first half of the year. In January, Henare was the face of New Zealand's relief effort to Tonga, following the eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha'apai volcano. Then, from March onwards, Henare was often involved in Jacinda Ardern's announcements ...
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James Heartfield wrote this article on intersectionalism and its flaws nine years ago. He noted on Twitter: "Looking back, these problems got worse, not better." Published 17 November 2013. Is self-styled revolutionary Russell Brand really just a 'Brocialist'? Is Lily Allen's feminist pop-video racist? Is lesbian activist Julie Bindel a ...
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The New Zealand First donations scandal trial began in the High Court this week. And it's already showing why the political finance laws in this country need a significant overhaul. The trial is the outcome of a high-profile scandal that unfolded in the 2020 election year, when documents were made ...
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The televised hearings into the storming of the Capitol are revealing to the American public a truth that was obvious to some of us from the outset – that the Trumpian "big lie" about a "stolen" election was part of a determined attempt at a coup that would have been ...
1 week ago
When in 1980 I introduced the term 'Think Big' to characterise the major (mainly energy) projects, I was concerned about the wider issue of state-led development strategies. From that perspective, the 1980s program was not our first 'think big'. That goes back to Vogel in 1870, who wanted to develop ...
1 week ago
Malaysia will abolish the death penalty: The government has agreed to abolish the mandatory death penalty, giving judges discretion in sentencing. Law minister Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the decision was reached following the presentation of a report on substitute sentences for the mandatory death penalty, which he presented ...
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We Can Be Heroes: Ukrainian newly-weds pose for the cameras before heading-off to the front-lines. The Russo-Ukrainian War has presented young people with the inescapable reality of heroism. They see Volodymyr Zelensky in his olive-drab T-shirts; they see men and women their own age stepping-up to do their bit. They have ...
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I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed the irony of Boris Johnson's desperate attempts to cling onto power.I recall, almost immediately after Jermey Corbyn was elected, a bunch of memes based on the WW2 film Downfall, associating the mild manner Jermey Corbyn with Hitler in his final, ...
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Terms and conditions may change For myriad reasons we'd like to think and know that dumping our outmoded and dangerous fossil fuel energy sources may be difficult and may require a lot of investment but that when we're done, it'll be back to business as usual in terms of what ...
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Yesterday the Supreme Court quashed Alan Hall's conviction for murder, declaring it was a miscarriage of justice. In doing so, the Chief Justice found that "such departures from accepted standards must either be the result of extreme incompetence or of a deliberate and wrongful strategy to secure conviction" - effectively, ...
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New Zealand may have finally jumped off its foreign policy tightrope act between China and the US. Last week, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern effectively chose sides, leaping into the arms of the US, at the expense of the country's crucial relationship with China. That's the growing consensus amongst observers of ...
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Farmers are currently enjoying the highest prices and payouts in the history of this country. They will never be better placed to acknowledge that their wealth comes on the back of climate-changing emissions and causes serious amounts of water and soil pollution. Costs which everyone else is having to shoulder. ...
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A ballot for two member's bills was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Electoral (Right to Switch Rolls Freely) Amendment Bill (Rawiri Waititi) Customs and Excise (Child Sex Offender Register Information Sharing) Amendment Bill (Erica Stanford) The first is also covered in Golriz Ghahraman's ...
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It never rains but it pours. A day after we get the mysterious landscape of TirHarad, we finally get Empire Magazine's image of the Amazon Celebrimbor, as played by Charles Edwards: Now, I would be lying if I said that this Celebrimbor looks in any way like the ...
2 weeks ago
The world is currently going through a surge of inflation - some of it due to the ongoing breakdown in the global supply chain, some of it due to disruptions to oil and food supply due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but much of it due to pure corporate profiteering. ...
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The He Waka Eke Noa report has finally been released, and it shows that the entire project was a scam from start to finish. The scam starts with the title, which translates as "we are all in this together". But the whole purpose of the policy is to ensure that ...
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Today is a Member's Day, and first up is the second reading of the Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill. Like the recent Rotorua bill, this is going to be controversial, as it ditches the principle of fully-elected local bodies in favour of iwi appointments (and disproportionate ones at ...
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As per Fellowship of Fans, we now have a couple more images from The Rings of Power, this time what appears to be some items from the upcoming Empire Magazine article. 
This first ...
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In this Free Speech podcast Daphna Whitmore speaks to Nina Power – an English social critic, philosopher, and author of the new book "What Do Men Want". Nina was previously a senior lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University in Britain. She writes for Telegraph, Art Review, and The Spectator and ...
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Back in 2017, then-opposition leader Jacinda Ardern declared climate change to be "my generation's nuclear-free moment". Since then the government she leads has passed the Zero Carbon Act, legislating a net-zero (except for methane) 2050 target and strengthening our interim 2030 target. But that target has been rated as "insufficient" ...
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That giant sucking noise is the sound of the jobs of our nurses, doctors, and midwives being vacuumed up by medical recruiters from New South Wales. The conservative Perrottet NSW state government has just announced ambitious aims to recruit more than 10,000 nurses, doctors and other staff as part of ...
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A Man May Smile And Smile: Stan Rodger was an affable almost avuncular figure although it's important to recall that no-one gets to the top of the then largest union in the country without exercising the skills commonly found in any political snake pit; ostensible bands of brothers and sisters ...
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Karin Kirk The rising cost of gasoline and diesel is both a frequent headline and an ongoing financial drain for many, let alone a major issue in the upcoming November midterm elections. But unlike previous gas crunches, some consumers now have options ...
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New Zealand's motley collection of Public Holidays tell a story about who we are as a people. New Year's, Waitangi Day, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, Anzac Day, Queen's Birthday, Labour Day, Christmas. We've ...
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In one of his interviews with the UK's BBC News, President Volodymyr Zelensky had expressed some dismay at the West's toleration of sanctioning Russia on the one hand, while with the other still taking considerable income and influence from Russia via a range of sources, such as fuel (gas ...
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Apres moi ...? Queen Elizabeth II, photographed nearly 70 years ago at her coronation. A remarkable monarch, but she is faltering. Unable to attend so many of the Jubilee's dazzling spectacles, the Queen's frailty attests to the unalterable fact of human mortality. Unlike palaces and castles, human-beings cannot be strengthened ...
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A Sun-Hardened Road To Victory: The point of maximum danger will come if/when a day arrives when the Russian forces in Ukraine lose all offensive capability and begin to fall back under Ukrainian pressure. That moment is likely to come when the state-of-the-art weaponry currently being dispatched from the United ...
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It's All In Our Heads: Prefixing right and left with the word "centre" was once a gesture of moderation, intended to reassure voters that the people being put up for election by these "mainstream" parties weren't crazies. Today, however, the use of the word in relation to parties like America's ...
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This makes me want to puke:The Jubilee weekend isn't just an opportunity for us to reflect on the 70 years since Her Majesty's accession to the throne – although it will, of course, be that. And it isn't simply a chance for a country wearied by the extraordinary circumstances of the ...
2 weeks ago
'Dark Towers', a book on Deutsche Bank, throws light on a long running economic dispute.In 1959, William Baumol, perhaps the most innovative modern economist who was never a Nobel laureate, published Business Behavior, Value and Growth, which argued that firms did not maximise shareholder value but maximised their own growth, ...
2 weeks ago
We're clever. Now let's be wise, together. "If people are at the heart of climate action, then understanding and tackling climate change cannot be done by engineers or natural scientists alone. All disciplines need to work together–not least a range of social sciences including political science, sociology, geography and ...
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Coming on the heels of the recently signed Solomon Islands-PRC bilateral economic and security agreement, the whirlwind tour of the Southwestern Pacific undertaken by PRC Foreign Minister Wang Yi has generated much concern in Canberra, Washington DC and Wellington as well as in other Western capitals. Wang and the PRC ...
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It came at a "critical moment" according to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, referring to her meeting yesterday with US President Joe Biden. She was talking about the need for New Zealand and its superpower ally to have dialogue in the midst of their panic over China's increasing diplomatic presence in ...
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Stan's Our Man: A decent, moderate Labour Party stalwart, Stan Rodger navigated the treacherous waters of the Rogernomics era to such effect that he was able to state, with complete honesty, that he belonged to none of the factions that were tearing the Fourth Labour Government apart. Unfortunately, as Aneurin ...
2 weeks ago
Like a unicorn, New Zealand's independent foreign policy is a fabulous creature – highly treasured, rarely seen but credited with magical healing powers. Some say that if judiciously applied, it could even bring peace between the warring parties in Ukraine. Yet right now, it is very difficult to see much ...
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It is somehow appropriate that in today's Herald, Mike Hosking, in his anxiety to pin the blame for inflation on the government, should ignore the evidence from around the world of world-wide inflation rates and supply-side constraints occasioned by the pandemic and the Ukraine war, and should go further – ...
2 weeks ago
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters Residents of Hurricane Alley can anticipate an above-average Atlantic hurricane season in 2022, NOAA's Climate Prediction Center said Tuesday, May 24. In its first seasonal forecast for 2022, NOAA predicted a 65% chance for an above-average Atlantic hurricane season, a 25% chance ...
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People should think for themselves. Peter Hitchens says "Not since the wild frenzy after the death of Princess Diana have I ever met such a wave of ignorant sentiment. Nobody knows anything about Ukraine. Everyone has ferocious opinions about it." See "Can anyone explain to me why this was ...
3 weeks ago
First day of Winter in this part of the world. Not cold, of course. Dunedin hasn't had a properly cold winter since 2015. But the skies are appropriately grey. It is also time for my monthly reading and writing update. Completed reads for May: Sad Cypress, by ...
3 weeks ago
Stuff reports that the Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that a pair of police prosecutors acted "unprofessionally" in discussing a prosecution with a colleague who was a defendant in the case: "The defendant had approached the prosecution staff to discuss aspects of his case and in doing ...
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For supporters of New Zealand teams, the Super Rugby Pacific competition has produced some entertaining matches (entertaining in terms, at least, of the closeness of the results, rather than, so much, the skill and quality of the play). But, all too often, we have seen – even from the Crusaders, ...
3 weeks ago
Dangerous Political Narrator? What this Labour Government risks is the emergence of what might be called a "super-narrative" in which all the negatives of co-governance, media capture, and Neo-Tribal Capitalism are rolled into one big story about the deliberate corruption of New Zealand democracy. The guilty parties would be an ...
3 weeks ago
In Mandarin, Taiwan is spelt U-K-R-A-I-N-E: It is all very well for President Joe Biden to pledge his country's military intervention should China invade Taiwan, the real trick is making Beijing believe him. Why would it, when Washington has been so careful to ensure that its own forces, and those ...
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Source: https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-15-06-2022/
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