General Debate 7 April 2018

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peterwn

Cam Slater commented yesterday in the blog about Richard Griffin:
“That concerns me, though, because we saw the arrogance of National at the last election. I couldn’t put up with more of that and the incessant sycophancy from supporters.”

I take it arrogance means National not adopting policies (eg immigration, relationships with Fiji etc) which Cam Slater and Simon Lusk want to see adopted. As for ‘incessant sycophancy’, what does Cam mean and what does he expect? Does he think National supporters should have voted with NZ First so Winston could ’moderate’ National’s policies Cam did not like? Cam thought NZF would shun the Greens and go with National, and when NZF did not go with National he blamed Bill for not negotiating hard enough but it turned out when the dust had settled Winston only ‘negotiated’ with National to get Labour to up the ante. National dodged a bullet on this one. Cam ended up with egg on his face on this but is still trying to blame National and its core supporters for that disaster. So Cam’s political commentary IMO is about as useless as the commentary from journos Tracey Watkins, Gordon Campbell etc.

Core National Party members must surely account for much of Whaleoil’s customer base, or does this subscription base consist mainly of NZF members and supporters? Calling some of his subscribers and potential subscribers ‘sycopanths’ is not exactly going to help Cam attract and retain customers.

Cam called me a f-wit some time back (before Pete Belt’s time as moderator), so I have never have paid to subscribe.
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April 7, 2018 8:00am
- G152
  
  He killed Truth off and is now steadily working on web pages with inordinate amounts of vitriol …
  Sad…
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:17am
  - geoff3012
    
    2 comments I made yesterday with reference to the drunken dwarf……were moderated out …….I was a big fan but starting to wilt.
    
    Thought about subscribing but nah…..
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:30am
    - DigNap15
      
      I posted an inappropriate link (purely in error) and I got banned! No warning. Just banned. And when I apologized, their staff were rude to me!
      
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      April 7, 2018 8:33am
      - KevOB
        
        Rudeness persists on WO coup[ling with arrogance and bias is destructive.
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:43am
    - peterwn
      
      I would agree with Whaleoil’s moderators on this. As much as I detest the guy, calling him a ‘drunken dwarf’ is taking things too far.
      
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      April 7, 2018 8:47am
      - holysheet
        
        Having met the dwarf in the 1980’s, at National conferences, he is short and a drunk. How else would you describe him now?
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:53am
      - BananaLlama
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        I get sick of reading the asshurt as well. I wanted a Nat NZF government but there was fat chance of that happening when some clever fuckwit tried to smear Peters by releasing his pension details.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:05am
      - stigie
        
        Did Peters release his own pension fiasco to gain some traction in the media to make himself feel on top..?
        I wouldn’t put it past the prick !~
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:13am
      - BananaLlama
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        Truth hurts doesn’t it Kiwiblog. Remember how you were all here crowing it was the end of Peters and NZF? Now you can only spit out Drunken Dwarf.
        The Whale tried to warn you but you attacked him instead.
        Stupid.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:14am
      - Nev.
        
        BananaLlama’s logic:
        If more National voters had voted for Peter’s he would have gone with National.
        
        Nope. It just would have made his corrupt party get more useless dreg MP’s in Parliament and forced more concessions out of the CoL
        Nev.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:57am
      - 3-coil
        
        Stigie (9:13am) – during all the pre-election posturing WhaleOil was boasting about the big secret game-changer story about to blow…
        
        So, if Winston Peters’ chief fanboi Slater knew, he would be the perfect connection to release the story, blame it on his hated “ex” (ie the National Party) to nobble them – ah! such sweet revenge!!
        
        But Slater wouldn’t sink that low, would he?
        
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        April 7, 2018 10:43am
      - BananaLlama
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        Down tick all you want i will keep posting it.
        National, out of government
        Labor and the Greens, in Government
        Well done Kiwi bloggers you sure showed Peters lmao.
        
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        April 7, 2018 11:23am
      - holysheet
        
        You cannot even get that right. Let me correct you, It’s Liabore/Gangreen/ Winstonfirst in govt
        
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        April 7, 2018 11:49am
      - lifesgood
        
        I used to read WO avidly but very, very rarely look at it now. Cam has an almost pathological, and illogical, hatred towards some people, Bill English being one. Unfortunately his sycophants hang on his every word and when he says “vote for Winston to keep National honest” they do….idiots! Look where that’s got us. I don’t think he does Judith Collins any favours, either, being her number one fan boy.
        
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        April 7, 2018 11:54am
      - peterwn
        
        Stigie – I have been wondering the same but what does not stack up is that he is continuing to look for scalps unless he needs to save face in the longer term. This exercise would have cost him the best part of 6 figures by now, but no scalps. The two journos he sought discovery off were laughing their heads off and he has had to pay substantial costs to others. His lawyer claims things are pending against Bill and others but that was a while back. Perhaps he hopes he can make something of it in the 2020 campaign. Perhaps he needs to continue the smoke screen for one reason or another..
        
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        April 7, 2018 12:20pm
      - kaykaybee
        
        Have you checked Slater’s archives? Think you’ll find “drunken dwarf” would be a compliment compared to the way Slater used to refer to him.
        
        Just search Winston Peters prior to his conversion to NZ firstdom.
        
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        April 7, 2018 12:30pm
      - hullkiwi
        
        BananaLlama, you have flawed logic on several counts:
        
        1. He was never going to go with National – he lodged his writs with the High Court before the election;
        2. Yes he was upset National had squeezed him and his party, but hey we are talking politics in a democracy here. What are the Nats meant to do, rollover, play poodle and expect him to put National back into govt – it clearly wasn’t his plan, so why should we be polite about hime and his antics?;
        3. He has never been loyal to or a friend of the National Party, those of us who knew in the 1980s learned that he was loyal only unto Winston, hence our low opinions of him;
        4. His delay in issuing further writs, heavily suggests he had no case in the first place against the National Party MPs and staff, as for the leak – many of us suspected it was Winston and his continued silence on the matter, suggests it was him!
        
        Since getting into govt, he and his party have continued to live down to expectations. On current form, it can only be hoped that the 2020 election will see the final demise of NZF.
        
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        April 7, 2018 2:53pm
  - peterwn
    
    In fairness, Truth was already stuffed. He got it breathing for a while – circulation went up, but not even a top paramedic could save it.
    
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    April 7, 2018 12:02pm
- 3-coil
  
  peterwn (8:00am) – who cares what Slater says, you’re better off staying away from his toxic blog. He’s a bitter and twisted attention seeker, promoting himself as “the man” who can bring down the National Party…all to settle some ancient grudge he has re some Slater relative’s (real/imagined?) mistreatment by the Nats I think.
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:27am
  - geoff3012
    
    I think it was his father, who appearantly Boag and bill “took out” when he was president of Nats.
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:34am
  - mara
    
    If WO didn’t ban people left right and center, they wouldn’t have to beg for money every day. Sad really.
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:54am
    - G152
      
      All he needs is a street, cardboard for signs, a marker pen and an icecream container for the dosh 🙂
      
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      April 7, 2018 10:37am
      - holysheet
        
        Nah why not do a “Penny” and not pay his rates. He cannot stop paying his income tax. To be paying tax you have to be making money. If he is out begging daily, not much chance of a taxable income.
        
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        April 7, 2018 10:58am
      - peterwn
        
        holysheet – Cam rents so has to pay rates via landlord. If a property owner with a mortgage (Penny is one of the minority exceptions) does not pay rates the council taps the mortgagee on the shoulder for the rates and the mortgagee will just cough up and add it to the mortgage.
        Running a blog unless it is for a charitable purpose is a business and if it makes money the profit is taxable. GST may also apply.
        Soliciting alms (ie begging) for private use is almost certainly a taxable activity in the same was as prostitution is but IRD does not appear to be heavying beggars – yet.
        
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        April 7, 2018 11:36am
      - holysheet
        
        That would depend on who his landlord is. Might it be Slater senior? Might be getting free office space.
        
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        April 7, 2018 12:16pm
- VicParking
  
  In a rant this morning about Paul Eagle WO had to end his article as follows. “It took National nine years to develop this level of arrogance. Paul Eagle has been there just six months.” Cam has become so bitter and twisted about National its time SB sent him away for a good long “Pig Hunt”.
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:31am
  - 3-coil
    
    He is partially correct – Eagle really is a turkey.
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:40am
    - Chris R
      
      He is one of numerous Labour MPs who are there as they may tend to look good and to reflect society as the party sees things. This estimation by Labour ignores the fact that these “good lookin’ MPs” may be bereft of talent, ethics and style. Eagle is obviously in this camp.
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:16am
    - G152
      
      🙂
      
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      April 7, 2018 10:38am
  - lifesgood
    
    Who is this idiot BananaLlama? Winston released his own pension info because he knew someone had their hands on it. BL…you prove otherwise. Winston is utterly devious, he knew he would get votes by blaming all and sundry for the leak. Nat had nothing to gain from releasing the info. And btw, he knew damn well that he was claiming too much, he just hoped he’d get away with it.
    
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    April 7, 2018 12:00pm
    - Chris R
      
      I suspected that too at the time. In the interim Winston has abandoned court proceedings I believe and little else has been mentioned of it. If he did deliberately release this information what would Taxinda do? Nothing, I suppose? Where is the prosecution of Turei at? If ever, she is prosecuted, wouldn’t that be the perfect occasion for National to approach the two Green MPs who left the Party due to Turei’s theft, to join them in coalition as a new Green Party?
      
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      April 7, 2018 12:07pm
- Chris R
  
  A month or so before the election WO exhorted National supporters not to vote for NZ First simply to teach their own party a “lesson.” I recall, akin to the Bolger era, a call that National couldn’t allow themselves to sleep-walk to victory. In other words he was being cautious that the National vote didn’t erode. If it fell away it was marginal only and the erosion in the vote didn’t create a government from the CoL as has happened. I too, refuse to pay a subscription. I found Pete Belt to be a corrosive moderator…give a small man a big discretion and the discretion dies very quickly. If Belt ever returns the readership at WO will continue its current slide albeit at a faster pace.
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:44am
  - VicParking
    
    WO is a ‘Fair weather friend’ so long as you don’t upset Israel.
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:46am
- kaykaybee
  
  I could never pay to subscribe to anyone who thought voting for Winston Peters was a good idea.
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:13am
- cmm
  
  I got banned by Monkeyboy Pete for calling them out.
  
  A plane had gone missing from radar, WO reported this as an “exclusive” with baited breath. But then showed up again an hour or two later and they made some flippant comment along the lines of “damn it didn’t turn into hot news”.
  
  I said it was poor form (I think I said “it’s sick”) to wish hijacking, death and disaster on people just for a bit of salacious news.
  
  Instant lifetime ban.
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:17am
- DifferentPerspective
  
  Clip of the lying leader lying about never lying
  
  Despite all the hate WOBH does useful stuff from time to time.
  
  For instance, he’s posted on Youtube the priceless clip from the Leaders’ debate where Jacinda lies (like a hooker at a charity shagathon) about not lying.
  
  Please save this to your bookmarks and send the link to any of your family and friends who still dare to say Jacinda is any good.
  
  Aside from anything else, it’ll be good to keep track of this to see how long it takes YouTube to censor it (or maybe Jacinda will just go visit YouTube HQ and shoot them up like that mad Iranian chick did the other day)
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:28am
- RW Capitalist
  
  He seems to have changed, around the time that his influence and place near the inner circle of National’s MP’s (ie where he got most of his info from) diminished.
  Now instead of promoting much of what National were doing, he seems hell bent on undermining and criticizing it.
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:44am
- rightoverlabour
  
  Cam Slater – the has-been of political commentary. He thinks he is still relevant. Intelligent readers have moved on. Have not been there since before the election, won’t go back – ever. Don’t know why Spanish Bride has been so patient, she was /is good value, and probably needs a knighthood for sticking with him. Ironically, it was through his blog that I came across this one…
  
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  April 7, 2018 6:43pm
holysheet

Just for Kimbo.
I asked Mrs Holy to describe me in 5 words. She said I’m mature, I’m moral, I’m pure, I’m polite and I’m perfect. Then she added that I also had a fundamental lack of understanding about apostrophes and spaces.
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April 7, 2018 8:05am
- KiWombat
  
  I haven’t spoken to Mrs W for years, I don’t want to interrupt her !
  
  As for me, I have the body of a god… Buddha !
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:15am
  - Keeping Stock
    
    Yes, I’m the same. My abdomen is not so much a six-pack as a flagon…
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:29am
    - Viking2
      
      Takes a lot of beer to make a barrel K.S.
      
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      April 7, 2018 4:10pm
- Nookin
  
  Good one Holy. I am sure there will be a prolonged dawning for some but that makes it a good one.
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:21am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Your not one that has problem’s with apostrophe’s ,then?
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:38am
    - holysheet
      
      Very good maggy.
      
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      April 7, 2018 8:43am
    - rightoverlabour
      
      Hi Maggy
      
      You can’t even crack a joke and some twat downticks you. I have a suspicion of who one was. Have a good day.
      
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      April 7, 2018 10:17am
      - calendar girl
        
        …. maybe just someone with stephie-like punctuation skills?
        
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        April 7, 2018 10:46am
- DifferentPerspective
  
  Thank you holysheet.
  
  If nothing else, I think it’d be worth coming to KB just to read your ‘funnies’.
  
  Love your work 🙂
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:10am
- RW Capitalist
  
  So she said “I’m pure…..”
  What exactly did she say about YOU?
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:45am
- Kimbo
  
  Thanks for the plug, holysheet, and I take back my accusation that your humour is misanthropic and never at your own expense. Most amusing.
  
  However, the misue of apostrophes is David Garrett’s gig. My shtick is emphatic adverbs, hence:
  
  I’m absolutely mature, I’m completely moral, I’m utterly pure, I’m certainly polite and I’m totally perfect
  
  Nonetheless, I thank you for the opportunity to segue and thereby contribute to Kimbo’s law* becoming an internet meme.
  
  * “in blogworld the validity of an argument is in inverse proportion to the use of emphatic adverbs”.
  
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  April 7, 2018 11:42am
Manolo

It is all on:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china/trade-dispute-escalates-as-trump-threatens-100-billion-more-in-china-tariffs-idUSKCN1HC1RW

President Donald Trump on Thursday directed U.S. trade officials to identify tariffs on $100 billion more Chinese imports, upping the ante in an already high-stakes trade confrontation between the world’s two largest economies.
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April 7, 2018 8:09am
- mikewasmild
  
  But trade wars are good and easy to win, aren’t they?
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:15am
- DigNap15
  
  At least Trumps takes action.
  Bush and Obama just kept talking about the Chinese trade imbalance and unfair pricing.
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:17am
  - mikewasmild
    
    Not true. The US government has a long record of taking action through the WTO to punish unfair trade practices.
    Trump’s blundering will just wreck the kind of confidence in trade rules that previous approaches work to build.
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:26am
    - DigNap15
      
      So what was the result of all those WT actions? China stopped subsiding old steel mills? yeah right.
      
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      April 7, 2018 8:31am
      - holysheet
        
        Actually, you would be surprised at the changes occuring in China. Stuff I get from China has increased in price because they have closed 1,000’s of polluting factories. To compete on the world market, they need to be seen fixing up their old production plants. This will make other producers world wide more profitable in the long term, who already produce under strict environmental conditions.
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:39am
      - stephieboy
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        holysheet , do you spend an ordinate amount of time and money in $2.00 shops?
        
        Whats the attraction?
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:20am
      - cmm
        
        holy: Are those environmental improvements really “to compete on the world markets”?
        
        Nobody really cares much about the environmental impact of their tat.
        
        Instead it is much more likely that as the country gets more wealthy and less oppressed, and the middle class start wanting the finer things in life, they are demanding better environmental standards.
        
        The same basically happened in the Black Triangle
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Triangle_(region)
        
        Same basic story for London which is now cleaner than it was from 1500s to 1950s.
        
        Poor people don’t have time and resources to worry about environmental issues. The best way to improve the environment is to make people wealthy.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:25am
      - holysheet
        
        Fuck off stoooopidboy.
        I see you have not made a comment about the use of apostrophes above. I knew it would present you with a problem trying to get the gist of it. Way above your feeble mind…..
        
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        April 7, 2018 10:00am
      - rightoverlabour
        
        Ahh Stephieboy..
        
        Fuck Off.
        
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        April 7, 2018 10:18am
      - stephieboy
        
        cmm, make more people wealthy through this?
        
        http://m.chinadaily.com.cn/en/2015-11/09/content_22409391.htm
        
        Clown!
        
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        April 7, 2018 11:04am
    - DifferentPerspective
      
      Milky
      If you read DN15’s comment you’ll see there was an important operative word there “action”. Going through a long, drawn out globalist process at the WTO is not taking action, it’s only “looking like you are taking action” at the end of the day so much time passes for nothing more than a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket.
      
      It doesn’t work against totalitarian regimes, because they will outlast the democratically elected administration that initiated the action.
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:13am
      - stephieboy
        
        DP , my bet is that you never used those arguments against ” Marxist ” Jane Kelsey and her objections to TPPA ?
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:23am
    - flipper
      
      GO away milkybar kiddie….
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:57am
  - KevOB
    
    When the US corporates offshored their businesses and taxable profits they left the market wide open.
    The Americans have bitten themselves on the backside. Pres. Trump is right to be concerned about Amazon too.
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:48am
    - mikewasmild
      
      It’s pretty terrible that Amazon is propping up the US Post Service almost single handed.
      
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      April 7, 2018 8:58am
      - Inandout
        
        It’s terrible that China props up the Warehouse.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:11am
      - CHFR1
        
        Bit it’s not, Amazon have a deal where the US postal service loses $1.20 for every package they deliver. Only someone i government could see/negotiate this deal and think amazon props up the Postal Service. They are more like a parasitic wasp eating their host from the inside out.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:16am
      - stephieboy
        
        Inandout , do you think we should be opening factories making Veons?
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:24am
      - SPC
        
        CHFR1, believe what Trump says and be proven wrong.
        
        https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/31/trump-amazon-us-postal-service-tweets
        
        http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/02/donald-trump/trump-usps-postal-service-amazon-losing-fortune/
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:28am
- VicParking
  
  The problem is the Chinese Government will just devalue the Renminbi to offset the tariffs. The US however can’t afford to do that because of the US dollars position in world markets. The advantage China has is they dont care a dam about their citizens its all about ideology. Sort of reminds you of what’s happening in NZ currently.
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:39am
  - Andrei
    
    Wrong – all of this is about China buying oil in Renminbi and not $US
    
    Not to forget the eye watering value of the US treasury bonds held by China
    
    The house of cards that holds the USA up is collapsing – Americans on the make go into finance, young Chinese go into engineering
    
    I think America will decide to go out with a bang and we will get WW3
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:53am
    - Inandout
      
      I watched the first episode of Trump on Netflix and noted his arrogance and bullying, but he generally got his way. This trait however is what the US need when dealing with China, because they respect no other way. You can’t fight fire with piss and wind.
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:18am
      - stephieboy
        
        Inandout , international relations is not reality TV that the President thinks it is.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:29am
    - SPC
      
      A developing story alright. It explains why the USA is so tight with Saudi Arabia – China buys from Iran and Russian in yuan and wants to do the same with Gulf States.
      
      https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=China+buying+oil+in+Renminbi&oq=China+buying+oil+in+Renminbi&aqs=chrome..
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:35am
      - Andrei
        
        The whole deal is about dominating international trade, trade routes and settlement systems
        
        This is why the USA has its huge military with bases all over the world, controls the settlement systems and more or less demands that international trade is settled in $US.
        
        The most important commodity traded globally is energy and it is no accident that countries rich in energy resources that don’t go along with the US are “rogue” states – Iran, Libya (now in ruins) , Iraq (now in ruins), Venezuela and Syria where the plans to trash it have been blocked by the evil Putin and of course Russia
        
        The big threat to US dominance is the “New Silk Road” initiative where goods flow overland particularly energy supplies through pipelines
        
        And what those of us who are awake are witnessing is the attempts to block the development of non American dominated trade routes and settlement systems
        
        Libya was trashed when Ghaddfi tried to settle oil trades in the Gold backed Dinar but doing to Russian and China what was done to the late Colonel is a much tougher proposition
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:51am
    - VicParking
      
      Andrei, Quick pull back the blinds and see the Pigs flying past you window
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:52am
      - Andrei
        
        Vic Parking what made the British Empire was the British navy
        
        Have you heard of the Opium Wars? Where they about bringing freedom and democracy to China or were they about protecting British mercantile interests in the Far East?
        
        What are American Carrier groups for if not deploying standover tactics on small nations who do not comply with Western mercantile interests?
        
        There is an old name for it “Gun Boat” diplomacy
        
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        April 7, 2018 11:39am
    - rightoverlabour
      
      I read somewhere once that China could buy all of the USA debt, and still be cash positive (or something to that effect). The uncertainty in China’s population estimate is evidently larger than the total USA population. We don’t really grasp just how big China is in terms of population, industry, military manpower etc. I would not fuck with them.
      
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      April 7, 2018 6:52pm
  - James Stephenson
    
    I think you’ll find that there is an implict deal between the Chinese and their government, where they basically don’t care how authoritarian the regime is, as long as their quality of live keeps incrementally improving.
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:08am
  - stephieboy
    
    VicParking, sort of reminds what a political irrelevance you are post 23/9/17
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:27am
    - VicParking
      
      Said by the man who follows people around $2 shops.
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:54am
    - Salacious Crumb
      
      Does posting here over and over again make you feel relevant Stephieboy?
      
      9 0
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      April 7, 2018 1:58pm
      - rightoverlabour
        
        Yup, no matter what the comment, Stephieboy always has an opinion, a bit like a whore that needs to feel included when no one wants her services….
        
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        April 7, 2018 6:53pm
  - flipper
    
    Yep …
    Chinese Government = Klingons !!!!!!
    Milkybar kiddie and stupid = baby Klingons.
    Anyone who believes poly-lies or the Guardian is a baby Klingon.
    
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    April 7, 2018 10:03am
  - KevOB
    
    Such a devaluation would make Chinese imports even cheaper. The Americans want to export money, the Chinese goods. Goods wins.
    
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    April 7, 2018 11:50am
- Scott
  
  I must say I’ve had a change of mind on this issue. Basically America and NZ have embraced free trade but in reality it is neither free nor fair. The big business owners have basically outsourced all manufacturing to 3rd world countries and left their local workers high and dry.
  American manufacturing after a long decline is coming back. They are making things again rather than just being consumers. Its a key Trump promise, make America great again, by restoring American pride in what they make.
  And everyone agrees, China has been ripping them off for decades.
  We could do with those policies here. Let’s have some modest tariffs to protect and reestablish our manufacturing base. Let’s cut taxes. Let’s have kiwi pride about what we make rather than what we consume.
  Let’s be a self reliant people who pay their own way.
  Not going to happen under this current government but God willing, they won’t be there forever.
  
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  April 7, 2018 11:33am
  - Kimbo
    
    The problem with that view is that I would suggest it is a form of theft – theft of opportunity from the third world. Unless they are given the opportunity to compete and sell goods and services in the global market place with the one thing they do have a distinct advantage in compared to the developed world – low wage rates – then they will remain permanent subsistence basket cases. Which will only exacerbate the problem of illegal third world economic migrants trying to illegally access the United States, Europe and Australia.
    
    And it is not “American manufacturing” that Trump is seeking to revive. It is “American Rustbelt manufacturing” in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. Good luck to him and them for playing the cards as the American electoral system allows him, but as with Thatcher and the North of England, the unskilled industry that originally developed in the North of England during the Industrial Revolution is not coming back. The economics of wages determines that.
    
    No matter how many “deals” Trump brokers to create a temporary stream that benefits a comparative few, the increased costs to American consumers will mean he is trying, Canute-like, to reverse the tide. In the meantime, like Shane Jones throwing around his money, this is likely doing more long-term harm to the Mid-West than good. We know it is nonsense when Jones does it, and when you dig down past the initial benefits, the opportunity and other hidden costs soon add up, and it does more harm than good. Plus it increases the power of politicians, and thereby decreases our freedoms.
    
    Better that they get on with restructuring and finding new ways to generate income, and/or de-populating (all Americans, like Kiwis were once immigrants, so they are not stuck forever in the Mid-West, and incapable to moving elsewhere in their huge and rich land for new opportunties. Communities, like people, are born, live, and then die),
    
    …than the 19th and early to mid-20th century options of mining coal, making steel, or assembling motor vehicles.
    
    No one owes anyone in this world a living, whether you are a white Mid-Western American former General Motors employee, a third world illegal Mexican migrant, a Chinese factory worker, whatever. An opportunity? Yeah, sure. But then as I said, those in the third world, with low wage advantages deserve their opportunity at the first rung on the industrialisation ladder, especially as the people of the American Rust Belt have a hell of a lot more available to them…
    
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    April 7, 2018 12:07pm
Humble Capitalist

This govt wants to increase everything apart from producdivity. No mention from our business savvy govt front bench on how that will magically happen. This is what your policies will do Cindy and Grant – Costs up (pay rises not in line with productivity, collective bargaining, increased overtime rates, more holiday pay, fuel increases, inflationary cost of goods increases due to all of these points), productivity flat, selling prices have to increase, less competitive vs imported goods/foreign labour/other export competitors, sales volumes down, jobs lost.
Some people have no concept of the effects of continually hammering the goose that lays the golden egg as they have never been in business. Not every business is making huge profits. The NZ Trade Unions Party would have no idea about this or wouldn’t care. They make me sick.
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April 7, 2018 8:37am
- VicParking
  
  They don’t comprehend that “sticking it to the Rich and Productive” has an effect on the :poor and down trodden” as well. They should all read ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’.
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:45am
  - stephieboy
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    VicParking , you do have a vivid and florid imagination.
    I suppose you can write part 2 when Jacinda sends you off to the Gulag at the Auckland Islands.
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:33am
    - VicParking
      
      Don’t joke Stephie, Good morning by the way.
      They came for the Rich Pricks but I was poor, They came for the shop keepers but I sweeped streets, they came for the Goat f*kers so I pointed to Stephie’s house.
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:57am
      - RW Capitalist
        
        Didn’t Auntie Helen try to get a guy for sedition, for simply breaking her office window?
        D’ya think Jacinda is any different?
        
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        April 7, 2018 10:54am
- mikewasmild
  
  What do you think the NZ record on productivity has looked like over the past 20 years or so?
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:59am
  - Humble Capitalist
    
    How do you think a 27% wage rise over the next couple of years sounds to business when there is no working groups formed yet to discuss how productivity will increase to cover this?
    Peters warned of a possible recession but ‘don’t blame us when it happens’ and then on the other hand says have a 27% wage rise over the next few years. Those above min wage will expect relativity rises as well. If the state of the economy is as shakey as Peters claimed then a responsible government would increase min wages accordingly on a yearly basis.
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:12am
    - mikewasmild
      
      I didn’t know I was getting a 27% wage rise over the next few years. That’s great.
      But what productivity increases do you think we saw over the last 10 or 20 years?
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:40am
      - Humble Capitalist
        
        NZ productivity has been below par and not enough to sustain the current employment law reform and inflationary policies without significant increase to unemployment in my opinion
        
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        April 7, 2018 10:05am
- Scott
  
  Humble capitalist – quite agree. The people in our current government know nothing about business. All they know is tax and spend. For them, to every problem there is a government solution.
  It’s a shame that National governments painstakingly build up our wealth. Then eventually Labour comes in and spends it like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Sad!
  
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  April 7, 2018 11:37am
redeye

Israel Folau is in hot water for claiming gays would be sent to hell unless they repent.
He should have claimed his religion as Islam then his comments wouldn’t have been reported.
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April 7, 2018 8:51am
- Longknives
  
  Yep- I mentioned this yesterday.
  It is so fucking hypocritical of New Zealand Sports Media and Fans to shriek their outrage over this but turn a blind eye to Sonny Bill Williams and his actions/affiliations..
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:56am
  - mikewasmild
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    It’s obviously impossible to call out one homophobe’s nasty slurs unless one is 100% virtuous in every other respect in living up to Longknives’s SJW standards.
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:00am
    - Nukuleka
      
      Folau is 100% entitled to his opinions about anything really. It’s called ‘free speech’. Funny how an opinion only becomes ‘hate speech’ when it differs from one’s own- if one is a SJW, that is.
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:29am
      - mikewasmild
        
        Absolutely. He is entitled to his loonie beliefs, and to air them from his position of prominence in the sporting world.
        Anyone is entitled to condemn his beliefs and dissociate themselves from him as a result, too.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:33am
  - MCos
    
    I don’t recall SBW, or any other prominent NZ sportsperson for that matter, announcing that any particular group of people should be condemned to eternal damnation.
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:43am
    - mikewasmild
      
      But we are dealing with social justice warriors like Longknives here. Condemn everyone he dislikes, or condemn no one.
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:48am
    - Lance
      
      Has any reporter ever asked SBW what Islam thinks of gays?
      … no?…. funny that
      
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      April 7, 2018 10:58am
      - MCos
        
        It’s not what Islam thinks. It’s what SBW thinks that matters.
        Plenty of Catholics, for example, disagree on all sorts of the church teachings & I’m sure Muslims are the same.
        
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        April 7, 2018 11:13am
      - Nev.
        
        Not sure why you got down ticks for that MCos. I agree with both what you and Lance say. You and I may differ on political beliefs but I always find you are respectful and intelligent.
        
        We know what Islam thinks of queers, it’s SBW’s opinion that would be controversial if he follows the tenets of the faith.
        Nev.
        
        Edit to add – Folau was born in Auckland (not sure if he is an Australian citizen). He can’t be banned from entering New Zealand because as an Australian or a Kiwi he has unfettered access to NZ anyway.
        
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        April 7, 2018 1:44pm
      - Kimbo
        
        @ Nev.
        
        We know what Islam thinks of queers, it’s SBW’s opinion that would be controversial if he follows the tenets of the faith
        
        And the key word in that statement is, “if”. So, as you rightly imply, and as per MCos, the issue isn’t what the religion or ideology teaches, nor what the supposed expert supporters or even critics of any religion or ideology says its tenets are
        
        …but what the actual individual believes, says and does that counts. Hence, whereas SBW’s views on the matter are pure speculation and a red herring in the context, whereas, as a result of Israel Folau’s (since-deleted) public statements, we know what he does think and say on the matter.
        
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        April 7, 2018 1:53pm
      - stephieboy
        
        nev, not sure if that is actually the case.Many Catholics follow the tenets of their faith and are pro-gay. Mormons and other Christian denomination likewise.
        
        And I’m not sure if you were one until ISIS came on the scene.
        
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        April 7, 2018 1:55pm
      - Kimbo
        
        Many Catholics follow the tenets of their faith and are pro-gay.
        
        Stop trolling, including playing the deceitful equivocation game with “pro-gay”. As a Catholic one can be both faithful and unfaithful to the various tenets of their (authority-directed) faith. Hence a Roman Catholic abstaining from unnatural contraception is faithful to the tenets of their faith, whereas engaging in a homosexual relationship, or even endorsing and approving of one as a valid relationship is unfaithful…and it’s possible to do either/or at the same time.
        
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        April 7, 2018 2:03pm
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        As a good Muslim SBW is allowed to lie to Infidels anyway, so don’t assume you will ever get an honest answer to such a question.
        
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        April 7, 2018 5:26pm
      - Kimbo
        
        @ UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        Is that like, as a good keyboard warrior, you’re allowed to make whatever slurs you want with impunity, and you’ld likely never front him or any Muslim in person with that accusation? 😉
        
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        April 7, 2018 5:33pm
      - rightoverlabour
        
        @ kimbo Catholics must love all people, but we don’t have to agree with their actions. (Stephieboy is possibly an exception). In Catholicism, conscience has primacy, ( although it should be guided by church teaching and scripture) But this does give us wiggle room. By the way, Stephieboy, as a Catholic I am commanded to love you, but that does not stop me from telling you on a daily basis to go away with forceful intent. So Fuck Off in a loving, caring sort of way….
        
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        April 7, 2018 7:05pm
      - Kimbo
        
        @ rightoverlabour
        
        Yes, have come across that. The doctrine of probabilism, I believe:
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_probabilism
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:18pm
- VicParking
  
  The hypocrisy is that they are calling it Racist.
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:00am
- Scott
  
  Yes it’s actually orthodox Christian teaching, that unrepentant sinners cannot expect to get to heaven. Indeed not so long ago homosexuality was almost universally condemned as queer.
  
  But this is the battle ground now. The gaystapo will brook no free speech. Either you fall into line or be excluded from our gay little nation it seems? To me, that’s just gay!
  
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  April 7, 2018 11:42am
  - stephieboy
    
    Scott , so we can gather from that piece of blather your pro-gay?
    
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    April 7, 2018 1:57pm
Southern Raider

Is Claire back yet or still hidden away on the Gold Coast at our expense?
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April 7, 2018 8:51am
- Longknives
  
  Enjoying business class flights and a luxury accommodation trip to the Commonwealth Games at OUR expense as I understand it.
  All while under investigation for some very dubious activity.
  This Government are a fucking corrupt disgrace.
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:58am
  - KiWombat
    
    She’s as useless as Anne Frank’s drum kit !
    
    Whenever Clare opens her mouth it seems it is only to change whichever foot was previously there !
    
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    April 7, 2018 11:28am
- kaykaybee
  
  She’ll have turned it into a typical redistribution socialist junket.
  
  Friends in Brisbane? Tick.
  Sunday lunch on the Sunshine Coast? Tick
  Swan around in general? Tick
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:23am
  - sooty
    
    I wonder if there are any protest she could march in over the weekend? Maybe she will do a Honi and go walkabout!
    
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    April 7, 2018 12:19pm
VicParking

The failing newspapers new trick is to have video’s start playing automatically as soon as you open the page they are on. This means that if you are streaming music or radio to a speaker like HomePod or are listing to music via Apple TV or Spotify they are cut out and replaced by the adverts sound. They put me off reading their expensive cat litter and now they have chased me away from their online propaganda as well.
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April 7, 2018 8:58am
- rangitoto
  
  You should be able to block the videos from auto playing. I think chrome has an add on to do it and firefox has it as a config setting. Don’t know about other browsers.
  
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  April 7, 2018 1:33pm
SPC

Why is Israel’s ranking on international surveys of press freedom so low (101 out of 170)?

https://www.mintpressnews.com/214245-2/214245/

Sort of explains the closer relationship with Saudi Arabia and Egypt after they sought to censor al Jazeera.
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April 7, 2018 9:00am
- VicParking
  
  One and one make THrē
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:02am
Longknives

Caster Semenya ‘The Face of the Commonwealth Games’ blah blah
‘Everyone loves her’ blah blah

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/commonwealth-games/102907986/the-big-love-fuelling-track-star-caster-semenya-at-the-commonwealth-games

Caster Semenya lives as a man, is married to a woman and is quite simply a fucking cheat- And his/her ilk will be responsible for the death of Women’s sport.
You would think the Feminists would be outraged?..But they live in a strange world.
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April 7, 2018 9:02am
- Southern Raider
  
  Don’t forget Laurel Hubbard representing NZ
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:52am
  - VicParking
    
    I see he/she got a good old shellacking in the UK papers
    
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    April 7, 2018 10:03am
  - DifferentPerspective
    
    HDPA almost came in her pants when she was lauding Gavin Hubbard’s bravery and heroism the other day.
    
    She seems to tip-toe up to sanity and then run screaming back in to full blown libtardery. Still she’s better than most on the radio these days.
    
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    April 7, 2018 10:03am
    - Southern Raider
      
      It was amazing listening to the sports commentators on the radio this week who had to constantly delay what they we saying to ensure they referred to him as she not he
      
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      April 7, 2018 10:28am
- MCos
  
  People like you are never happy.
  Caster Semenya was born a woman and competes as a women, but you seem to be suggesting she should be classified as a bloke because of her unusual physical characteristics.
  There is a women in the NZ weight lifting team who used to be a bloke and has had a gender change. I expect you think you think you should compete as a male also.
  What about Valerie Adams? Do you think she should compete against Tom Walsh. She’s certainly taller than him. But wait, she’s just had a baby!
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:05am
  - MrLovebucket
    
    Semenya and Hubbard are blokes with mental issues. End of story. It’s cruel and patronising to let them compete against actual women.
    
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    April 7, 2018 7:07pm
Catons

Slater is at least consistent. He is a prick to everyone.
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April 7, 2018 9:03am
waikatogirl

Have been watching the old revised comedy “Roseanne” TV3, 7.30, Thursdays.

Roseanne & Dan, working class, Trump supporters.
Roseanne’s sister Jacqui, Clinton supporter and SJW.
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April 7, 2018 9:13am
- mikewasmild
  
  Saw about 5 minutes of it and thought it a pretty lame rehash of the original, which itself is hardly a classic.
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:16am
DifferentPerspective

Hilarious! Feminists do the Survivor Island thing – badly

When feminist rhetoric crashes painfully into reality!

Reality TV of a bunch of women trying to survive on a small jungle island, aside from being pants-wettingly hilarious, I kept on thinking that this was probably what it was like in the Labour caucus rooms.

They get dropped off in failing light, after an hour, they’re still weeing in the sea, hugging and shreiky girly screeching at each other.

After the first night, the feeble women have to stay where they were dropped off and weep. The rest go off to find water and a better location – 2 days later they’re still walking around in circles and crying.

If only they’d brought a few old white males with them!
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April 7, 2018 9:22am
- Nev.
  
  It will somehow be the patriarchy’s fault for not teaching them the skills required for living off the grid.
  Nev.
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:51am
Hugh Pavletich

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Posted at … https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/04/weekend-reading-7-8-april-2018/#comment-3082716

THE URBAN CONTAINMENT EFFECT (ZONING EFFECT) ON AUSTRALIAN HOUSE PRICES … WENDELL COX … NEW GEOGRAPHY

http://www.newgeography.com/content/005921-the-urban-containment-effect-zoning-effect-australian-house-prices

… extract …

• In Sydney, the urban containment effect adds $489,000 to the house price making the annual mortgage payments $29,000 higher. Figure 4 shows the components of the average house price in Sydney.

• In Melbourne, the urban containment effect adds $324,000 to the house price, making the annual mortgage payments $19,000 higher.

• In Brisbane, the urban containment effect adds $159,000 to the house price, making the annual mortgage payments $9,000 higher.

• In Perth, the urban containment effect adds $206,000 to the house price, making the annual mortgage payments $12,000 higher.

• No data is available for Adelaide, but the present median multiple (median house price divided by median household income) suggests that urban containment effect adds at least $13,000 to the mortgage. … read more via hyperlink above …
.
.
Housing – New Zealand Labour Party

http://www.labour.org.nz/housing

… extract …

Remove barriers that are stopping Auckland growing up and out

Labour will remove the Auckland urban growth boundary and free up density controls. This will give Auckland more options to grow, as well as stopping landbankers profiteering and holding up development. New developments, both in Auckland and the rest of New Zealand, will be funded through innovative infrastructure bonds. … read more via hyperlink above …
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April 7, 2018 9:46am
- Hugh Pavletich
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Follow – up comment …
  
  Posted at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/04/weekend-reading-7-8-april-2018/#comment-3082727
  
  Banking royal commission may trigger financial advice crisis … The Australian … behind paywall …
  
  The banking royal commission is set to trigger a crisis in the financial advice sector: while banks are considering a potential exit from the sector, … With a clear need to lift education and professional standards, FASEA is trying to impose new education standards on 12,000 planners around Australia. … read more via article above …
  .
  .
  What lessons about the risks of high multiple lending will be learned from the Irish 2007 experience… as just one example of many …
  
  https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/03/abcs-business-irresponsible-mortgage-lending/#comment-3060351
  
  And too … the significance of the concepts of true market value and political / urban planning value … refer Reserve Bank of Australia Discussion Paper above …
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:49am
  - stigie
    
    Im not sure anyone is reading your shit Hugh, im certainly not !~
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:58am
    - Hugh Pavletich
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      Postings of the follow – up comment …
      
      https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/04/weekend-reading-7-8-april-2018/#comment-3082727 … and … https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/04/an_own_goal_on_affordable_housing.html/comment-page-1#comment-2180638 … and … https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/04/general_debate_7_april_2018.html/comment-page-1#comment-2180622
      
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      April 7, 2018 10:14am
      - Hugh Pavletich
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        Banking royal commission may trigger credit crunch, flatten house prices | afr.com … behind paywall …
        
        http://www.afr.com/business/banking-and-finance/banking-royal-commission-may-trigger-credit-crunch-flatten-house-prices-20180405-h0ydq1
        
        One of Australia’s biggest lenders has warned against a return to manual home loan assessments saying it would raise interest rates while a leading bank analyst has warned of a looming credit crunch.
        
        Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer told attendees at The Australian Financial Review Banking & Wealth Summit said any move to step back from automated decision making would be an overreaction and have immediate impact on borrowers. … VIEW & READ more via hyperlink above …
        
        AUSTRALIA … Keating: “The housing boom is really over” – MacroBusiness Au
        
        https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/04/keating-housing-boom-really/
        
        Paul Keating yesterday at the AFR conference:
        
        Mr Keating said the banks were facing tighter controls as a result of the Basel rules on capital adequacy, while financial regulators had had a “gutful” of them. This was likely to lead to changes that would restrict the banks’ ability to lend.
        
        “The housing boom is really over,” he said. … read more via hyperlink above …
        
        Paul Keating – Wikipedia
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keating
        
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        April 7, 2018 10:57am
      - Hugh Pavletich
        
        Housing Minister supports UN call for housing strategy | Māori Television
        
        http://www.maoritelevision.com/news/politics/housing-minister-supports-un-call-housing-strategy
        
        (NEW ZEALAND) Housing Minister Phil Twyford is supporting the United Nations’ call for the government to create a national housing strategy to increase the availability of quality affordable housing to low income, Māori and Pasifika families.
        
        Twyford has welcomed the findings of the UN committee and is on a mission to make it happen.
        
        “Housing is a human right and it’s a terrible scandal that so many of our people are denied decent affordable housing,” says Twyford, “We want thousands of whānau Māori to get access to home ownership, that’s what we’re doing”. … read more via hyperlink above …
        .
        .
        following mid – week report …
        .
        .
        United Nations calls on NZ to adopt human rights-based national housing strategy | Stuff.co.nz
        
        https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/102830739/united-nations-calls-on-nz-to-adopt-human-rightsbased-national-housing-strategy
        
        The United Nations is supporting calls for New Zealand to adopt a human rights-based national housing strategy, and has asked the Government to report back to it on the matter within 18 months.
        
        The support was issued by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in response to a submission from the Human Rights Commission (HRC).
        
        A human rights-based housing strategy requires housing to be affordable, habitable, accessible and secure in tenure.
        
        The HRC’s chief commissioner David Rutherford said New Zealanders, “particularly our most vulnerable”, were experiencing the flow-on effects of governments “over many decades neglecting to treat housing as a human right”. … read more via hyperlink above …
        .
        .
        … Get past the waffle … what affordable housing is must be clearly defined and incorporated within public policies … read on …
        .
        .
        DEFINITION OF AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING MARKET … http://www.PerformanceUrbanPlanning.org
        .
        .
        Why building affordable housing is a nonsense issue … read on …
        
        https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/03/macro-afternoon-393/#comment-3079568
        
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        April 7, 2018 6:29pm
      - Hugh Pavletich
        
        Posted at … https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/04/weekend-reading-7-8-april-2018/#comment-3083016
        
        ‘The Property Boom Is Officially Over … ‘ Martin North of Digital Financial Analytics …
        
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ihFdqe8ebc
        
        Within the above Mr North states that we are likely to see a substantial fall in Banks’ lending multiples … from north of 5.0 times to less than 4.0 times annual household ( … real for a change) incomes …
        
        I had touched on the matter of lending multiples earlier …
        
        LEARNING FROM THE IRISH 2007 HOUSING CRASH … THE SEVERE COSTS OF MULTIPLE STRETCH …
        
        https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2018/02/nab-tightens-loan-income-limits/#comment-3052010
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:02pm
stephieboy

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
It is most encouraging and reassuring that a man like Professor Sir Peter Glucklam can give such a learned and erudite overview of the reality of Climate Change,

http://www.pmcsa.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/Climate-Change-website-printable-version.pdf
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April 7, 2018 9:51am
- Andrei
  
  You are just trolling for downticks – you will be gratified to learn I have obliged with the first of many to come
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:55am
  - stephieboy
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Andrei, how do you explain Putin’s and the Kremlin’s flipflop on climate change?
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:59am
- Keeping Stock
  
  It would be a good start if you could get Sir Peter’s name right Stephie; it’s GLUCKMAN, not Glucklam 😀
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:55am
  - stephieboy
    
    KS , correct!But you must agree he is a most reassuring and sane voice in the climate change debate ?
    
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    April 7, 2018 11:07am
    - holysheet
      
      Bullshit Stoooopidboy. Just because Gluckman knows a bit about paediatrics, doesn’t mean he knows everything about climate change.
      It’s a bit like saying because you attend the confused sky fairy St Albans church at Balmoral, that you know everything about religion.
      
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      April 7, 2018 11:20am
      - stephieboy
        
        holysheet , and what “shit ” do you know about climate change?
        
        BTW , he is the Governments top science advisor. I bet the former government did do not sneer at his scientific credentials!
        
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        April 7, 2018 11:32am
      - holysheet
        
        So what? Not every scientist is an expert in every field. cmm appears like he knows a bit about computer programming . That doesn’t mean he is an expert in all technology.
        
        Read below and think about what really constitutes an expert. Enjoy….
        
        At the National Gallery a husband and wife were staring at a portrait that had them completely confused. The painting depicted three black men totally naked sitting on a park bench. Two of the figures had black penises, but the one in the middle had a pink penis. The curator of the gallery realized that they were having trouble interpreting the painting and offered his assessment. He went on for over half an hour explaining how it depicted the sexual emasculation of black men in a predominately white, patriarchal society. ‘In fact,’ he pointed out, ‘some serious critics believe that the pink penis also reflects the cultural and sociological oppression experienced by gay men in contemporary society.’
        After the curator left, a man approached the couple and said, ‘Would you like to know what the painting is really about?’
        ‘Now why would you claim to be more of an expert than the curator of the gallery?’ asked the couple.
        ‘Because I’m the man who painted it,’ he replied. ‘In fact, there are no black men depicted at all! They’re just three Welsh coal miners. The guy in the middle went home for lunch.
        
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        April 7, 2018 12:07pm
      - holysheet
        
        Or this one…
        A scientific expert has said that modern technology will soon abolish the need for paper altogether. Sure… let’s see him wiping his arse with an iPad.
        
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        April 7, 2018 12:13pm
      - stephieboy
        
        Holysheet , your clumsy and feeble attempts at humour are obviously not in the same league of the science of climate change
        
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        April 7, 2018 2:00pm
    - wiseowl
      
      Gluckman is not a climate scientist and the government should also have scientists who can give the opposing view about the global warming scam.
      
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      April 7, 2018 12:02pm
      - stephieboy
        
        wiseowl , like who?
        
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        April 7, 2018 2:01pm
      - KevOB
        
        Having a real scientist who can stand their ground against the Royal Society, the Parliamentary Commissar if the Environment and others would be helpful.
        
        Thankfully the worm appears to be turning but it may be 10 years before the activists put on their woollies.
        
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        April 7, 2018 5:22pm
Monique Watson

That old Commie Simon Wilson having a rant:

Simon Wilson: 10 pieces of nonsense they’re talking about transport

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12027631
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April 7, 2018 9:56am
- stephieboy
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Monique Watson, a six-lane expressway Auckland to Wellington on your wish list?
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:02am
- BeaB
  
  I wish the media would talk about trams instead of light rail.
  
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  April 7, 2018 11:18am
- Duxton
  
  I haven’t read any of Simon Wilson’s crap for years, and would rather go through chemotherapy than start now.
  
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  April 7, 2018 7:42pm
Nev.

Pavelitch’s dog and peepooboy are here. That’s the blog fucked for the day. Ciao!
Nev.
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April 7, 2018 10:00am
- VicParking
  
  It’s Saturday, Stephie’s goat stands in for him on Saturdays cant you tell, his comments are only half shit??
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:07am
Monique Watson

And what is wrong with that, Stephanie? I’d eight lane it actually from Hamilton to Auckers. It works well pulling the commuter traffic into San Francisco.
And then we have BART. That monster carts thousands of people into Market Street every day. What we don’t want is a shitty tram system having fuck all of an effect on congestion.
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April 7, 2018 10:09am
- stephieboy
  
  Monique Watson, so more gridlock and eight-lane superhighways to Auckland and Wellington and beyond ?
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:42am
Anne Glen Eden

I have to agree with Mark Dawson’s comments about John Key’s ‘regrets’ at failing to change the NZ flag. “A desire to change the flag, and other similar symbolic gestures, should come from the grass roots up, not from the top down.” There is no such desire and no ‘nationhood’.

In fact, in the eight years of Key’s tenure, no political strategy daunted my view that John Key ‘ran the country effectively and efficiently for eight years’, or probably as well as could be expected of anyone. John Key’s ‘regrets’ and bizarre belief that a change of flag would create ‘a more overt sense of national pride’ really signifies the ‘bubble’ that some live in and has finally coalesced with his other occasional ‘weirdness’ of fashion shows and the like to bring me to ‘Thank God he went’. Muldoon deteriorated over his time in power as well and, at the end, appeared little short of ‘batshit crazy’ to me. Winston Peters has undergone the same fate.

The Labour movement, at least, is consistent. It deteriorated en masse decades ago and has remained that way so its indistinguishable in the individuals. The current government is the outstanding banner of testament to it, led by Snow ‘Jacinda’ White and her band of unruly and incompetent ideological ‘dwarves’, happily mining for more taxes.

I remember the last time I spoke of NZ with any ‘pride’ and it was 40 odd years ago – and it occurred before a very large ‘fall’. Since then, we’ve become the most mentally, emotionally, and physically violent and destructive population to each other in the developed world. In the tradition of true ‘liquid modernity’, disparate and flexible groups, obsessed with institutionalizing their own peculiar ideologies, fight for power to dominate all the others in time, energy, resources, and control – most particularly, many can only thrive, and be seen to thrive, if others are overtly and visibly parasitically shrivelled. We specialize in predation of the weakest and most vulnerable.

There is no perspective or distance, no ‘big picture’, not the slightest interest in understanding latent functions (otherwise known as the unintended consequences), and certainly no knowledge or understanding of the real processes at work and/or the inevitable rational outcomes. Uncaring and/or heedless of the casualties produced, there is no conscience about any of the collateral damage. Politicians, political lobbyists, and academia are all ‘above’ (below) that sort of thing – just endless justifications, mitigations, recriminations…

There is one photographic image which represents the entire history of the human species. You can substitute any group of people you like on either side of the equation because they all have had their turn and continue to have them – NZ has adopted it as a guiding ‘light’ on every micro- and macro- level.
http://100photos.time.com/photos/jeff-widener-tank-man

It used to be in the ‘old days’ (sorry) that children would say, “I want to do …. because ‘everyone’ is doing it.” The response used to be, “If everyone was jumping off a cliff would you do it?” These days, the response would be, “Wait. I’ll come with you. Should we drive or take public transport to get there? Which/whose cliff did you have in mind to obtain the maximum ‘glory’?” or alternatively, “I have this cliff. How would you like to try jumping off it?”

It is fitting that, like an absent physical image of Christ, Tankman remains ‘the ‘unknown rebel’ and his fate remains unknown’. At the moment, he’s Israel Folau or children or legal interns or nurses – and many other individuals and groups. Tankman is ‘everyman/woman’, certainly in NZ.

NZ was always small enough – enough of a village – to develop with an enhanced sense of mutuality and grace. Instead, it’s imported and adopted the inhumanity of the rest of the world and exaggerated it as it seeks to similarly create a competitive ‘empire’ of its own.

Neither the species nor NZ will have made any ‘progress’ nor can they claim any source of ‘pride’ until they can change the equation and work to support and sustain each other, rather than tearing each other limb from limb and hiding or tolerating the body count. But the fact is, many people are genuinely ‘proud’ of the latter, would (and do) drive over Tankman in a heartbeat and parody God by saying ‘It was good’, just as the same sort crucified Christ.

There is no part of this that I am ‘proud’ of and any flag celebrating it would have earned my outright contempt, not least for being utterly fraudulent in supposedly representing ‘one’ anything outside of a geographical boundary.
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April 7, 2018 10:24am
- stephieboy
  
  Ann Glen Eden ,
  
  How does this sit with you ?
  
  We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.
  
  Barack Obama
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:48am
  - Anne Glen Eden
    
    Sounds great, Stephie. Until you start defining the terms and decide that the end justifies the means.
    
    What are the ‘responsibilities’? Middle America devoid of jobs or homes as the former are shipped out to low-wage economies overseas? Ah, the noble poor who should willingly suffer and sacrifice.
    
    ‘What’s in it for me?’ You mean, Obama curtailed the activities of all the financiers who caused the GFC and devoted all taxpayers money to the poor and homeless – as opposed to bailing out the ‘rich pricks’ who caused it – and continue to cause it?
    
    ‘A commitment to others…love…charity’. Who exactly? And at whose expense? Where did Trump’s supporters come from? Certainly not from those who experienced all this ‘love or charity’.
    
    ‘Patriotism’? Really? The sportspeople who don’t honour their flag/anthem? Those rioting in the streets because they don’t accept democracy? Lots of love and charity there, as well.
    
    The ‘unworthy of our founding ideals’? Which they’re trying to remove from their Constitution?
    
    ‘those who died in their defense’? You mean all the older people who should hurry up and die because they ‘killed people’ and are supposedly ruining the lives of youth?
    
    It all sounds so very good. The only problem being, they don’t mean a single word of it and/or haven’t the vaguest notion of how to achieve it – even with the entirety of human history to learn from – which they have now discarded and are rewriting and falsifying to suit pockets of different interest groups.
    
    Don’t make me laugh. It sounds good but to suggest that even his own Party held it as a goal, let alone anyone else, is moronic. Neither do I believe it was anymore than the ‘beauty pageant’ stated desire for ‘world peace’ where he was concerned either.
    
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    April 7, 2018 11:16am
    - stephieboy
      
      Ann GlenEden,
      
      “‘What’s in it for me?’ You mean, Obama curtailed the activities of all the financiers who caused the GFC and devoted all taxpayers money to the poor and homeless – as opposed to bailing out the ‘rich pricks’ who caused it – and continue to cause it?
      
      He did no such thing! He had to act on the bailout ( including the car industry initiated by GWB ) of the prospects of serious 20-30% unemployment .
      
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      April 7, 2018 2:04pm
  - Scott
    
    I don’t think Obama ever really understood patriotism? Certainly the abiding images of his time in office were Black Lives Matter radicals threatening to kill police officers and 3rd world illegal immigrants from Mexico protesting candidate Trump while waving the national flag, of Mexico!
    
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    April 7, 2018 12:22pm
    - stephieboy
      
      Scott , can we include the largest mass shooting in Las Vegas and Parklands etc
      
      Plus the shootings of unarmed citizens?
      
      Yeah right !
      
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      April 7, 2018 2:06pm
- wiseowl
  
  Very good Anne.
  Some can see the gradual deterioration of society and some can’t.
  Unfortunately politicians are being led instead of leading and the quest for power usurps the need to do what is right.
  
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  April 7, 2018 11:53am
- calendar girl
  
  Anne, I’m a proud New Zealander who has a rather different view of our country from the unhappy assessment that you outline from your own perspective.
  
  I do agree with you that our country has its faults and limitations – most countries do – and that nationalistic ‘flag waving’ for its own sake (or for political purposes?) is no substitute for an objective assessment of a nation’s true character.
  
  Where we differ is in the degree of community degradation and individual narcissism that you attribute to New Zealand and its people in general. Inevitably, communities change over the decades as a result of technological and societal change. And not everyone necessarily benefits from such change, but many do – in living standards, in personal opportunities, in the emergence of fresh and vibrant communities, and in relative protection from such scourges as famine and warfare. New Zealand and its people are highly favoured on many such counts. And to me, our country is never typified – faithfully – by the personalities or actions of its temporary leaders, be they a Muldoon, a Key, or an Ardern.
  
  What has changed significantly over the “40 odd years” to which you refer is quite complex, but it certainly includes a diminution of our own ‘local village’ and its traditionally-close inter-personal relationships. Two major contributors to that change have been individual access to motor-cars, and to immediate world-wide media via the internet.
  
  At the level of ordinary people and communities in our country, there remains much to be admired in the way that people deal with each other at a personal level, support those who face adversity, and care for the general welfare of their neighbourhoods. In my personal view, the self-serving actions and proclamations of politicians do not represent or reflect “my New Zealand”. The heart of our people themselves, as a whole, is always in much better health than that of those whom we choose to ‘lead’ us.
  
  Despite our somewhat different perspectives, my up-tick of your comment recognises the value of reflecting from time to time on our ‘national character’ (as well as on the qualities of our politicians!).
  
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  April 7, 2018 1:48pm
  - stephieboy
    
    Monique Watson and Ann Glen Eden etc,
    
    Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.
    
    Mark Twain
    
    And of course you moral-and ethical quibbles and pontificating don’t apply to Donald Trump ?
    
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    April 7, 2018 2:10pm
Manolo

Is stephieboy behind this? 😀
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/holden-ad-contains-islamic-state-salute/ar-AAvze8R
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April 7, 2018 10:25am
- stephieboy
  
  Manolo ,
  
  “A Holden TV advertisement contained several uses of an Islamic State salute, at least according to a complaint laid with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).did you lodge the complaint ”
  
  Were you the complainant?
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:52am
Monique Watson

I think my dog’s a Democrat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3VLqLLWxbQ
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April 7, 2018 10:39am
- stephieboy
  
  Monique Watson, didn’t you know the US presidential election campaign is long gone?
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:50am
  - Monique Watson
    
    It’s never over until the Midterms Sunshine.
    
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    April 7, 2018 10:58am
    - stephieboy
      
      Monique Watson, but not the Presidential obviously.
      Yes ?
      
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      April 7, 2018 11:09am
- waikatogirl
  
  Thanks Monique. Brilliant!
  
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  April 7, 2018 11:28am
  - Monique Watson
    
    I know right? My dog’s a Democrat but as long as he gets a daily walk in, I can tolerate his big brown sob eyes. He gets to sniff a few butts and I chat with Republicans.
    
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    April 7, 2018 12:34pm
Suze Wainwright

How long has it been since Cindy last said she was immensely proud to lead this relentlessly positive government…?
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April 7, 2018 10:43am
- stigie
  
  It must be tuff being two thirds through your pregnancy and having to keep in line these ministers that should not be in government.
  I bet she can’t wait for the smarmy Peters to take over !~
  
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  April 7, 2018 10:52am
  - sooty
    
    Whinney telling Labour were to get off. That’s going to be fun. Can he demote anyone?
    
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    April 7, 2018 12:09pm
Komata

Suze

Not sure; the committtee that she convened to discuss it and deliver a final, definitive, verdict is still meeting…

No doubt they will eventually decide, but you’d better exhale; the decision making could take a while…
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April 7, 2018 10:55am
Kimbo

And the New York Mets throw down the gauntlet against quality opposition such as the Nationals, and the historically-strong Cardinals, and sit atop of the National League East Division. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, but maybe, just maybe, “This year…!” 😉

Meanwhile, and just picking another team, any team at random…in the National League Central Division, the Cubs make an ok start, 3-3:

https://www.google.com/search?q=National+League+Central+division&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-ab#sie=lg;/g/11ggrb69vn;4;/m/09p14;st;fp;1
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April 7, 2018 11:27am
wreck1080

Another Truck crash this morning.

Why is there a cluster of truck crashes?
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April 7, 2018 11:28am
- Nev.
  
  Simple. The CoL wants to take trucks off roads and replace them with trains.
  Notice how they have fixed child poverty and homelessness it 100 days?
  Nev.
  
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  April 7, 2018 11:54am
  - sooty
    
    YEP! The parcels and goods are all going to catch the bus from the railway station by them selves. Robot parcels maybe?
    
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    April 7, 2018 12:07pm
- greybeard
  
  Most of which are in the Waikato / B.O.P regions. The killing fields of NZ.
  http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/road-deaths/toll.html#road-deaths-lgu
  
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  April 7, 2018 12:00pm
Monique Watson

I can see it’s going to be slow today, Sat in NZ? Pollies are asleep or on a junket but it’s no excuse for the journo’s to be out for the count. I’ll do my best to keep things chattering along:

A kid walks up to his Grandpa and asks for a sip of his beer the Grandpa asks “does you penis touch your asshole ?” The kid says “no” The next day the kid asks for a sip of his Grandpa’s beer and the Grandpa asks ” does your penis touch your asshole ? ” The kid says “no” So the next day the kid is eating a cookie and the Grandpa asks for a bite and the kid asks “does your penis touch your butt ?” the Grandpa says “yes” so the kid says “go fuck yourself”.
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April 7, 2018 11:38am
- KiWombat
  
  Unbecoming Monique !
  
  Loved the democrat dog song though !
  
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  April 7, 2018 1:39pm
Fletch

A law-abiding African American lets a city council have it with both barrels on his second amendment rights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dZn0D_9VY8
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April 7, 2018 12:31pm
- Fletch
  
  ps, not literally both barrels.
  
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  April 7, 2018 1:22pm
- Paulus
  
  I have very recently read that in the USA the African American people represent 12.5% of the population – very similar to Maori in New Zealand.
  
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  April 7, 2018 2:17pm
Fletch

And we thought our weightlifter was controversial….

Eight of Iran’s women’s football team are actually men awaiting sex change operations, it has been claimed.

The country’s football association was accused of being “unethical” for knowingly fielding eight men in its women’s team.

Mojtabi Sharifi, an official close to the Iranian league, told an Iranian news website: “[Eight players] have been playing with Iran’s female team without completing sex change operations.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/11903290/Eight-of-Irans-womens-football-team-are-men.html

Sports is going to become an unfair free-for-all.
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April 7, 2018 1:30pm
Jack5

Ngai Tahu are trying to muscle a bigger say for themselves in a regional organisation being set up in Southland.

The plan is: four four local bodies will own three-quarters of the new organisation, whose goal will be to promote the region’s economic development. The other 25 per cent will be held by organisations such as community trusts and the south’s licensing trusts. The idea is to have Ngai Tahu representation in this section.

Assets, staff, and the name of the present promotional entity, Venture Southland, will be transferred to the new organisation.

However, the Ngai Tahu tribe is pressing to be on an equal footing with the four local authorities in the 75 per cent ownership block, and to have a tribal representative on the board of the new organisation.

According to Statistics NZ, about a tenth of the Southland population identifies as Maori. Ngai Tahu can recognise as tribal members people with and level of Ngai Tahu ancestry. At present number of generations since the Waitangi Treaty, this means tribal members people could be as little as a sixteenth or a thirty-second Ngai Tahu. Even with this liberal classificatio , Ngai Tahu, make up no more than half of Southland Maori.

So Ngai Tahu, for, say, a twentieth of the population of the region, want guarantee of a tribal representative on the board.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/southland-times/news/102868846/ngai-tahu-want-bigger-say-in-southland-regional-development
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April 7, 2018 1:40pm
Rodney Randall

https://twitter.com/SebGorka/status/982386031646461952

“How is it that within a matter of just days the Vegan PETA-activist shooting at the biggest media company in the World is no longer of interest to the Media?”
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April 7, 2018 2:11pm
milkmaid

Uh-oh. Golriz has discovered that there are racist trolls on Twitter. http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2018/04/green-mp-golriz-ghahraman-harassed-by-racist-twitter-trolls.html

Lucky they aren’t racist sexist ageist trolls.

Perhaps David Seymour could give her some advice – after all he recently had to deal with a barrage of feminist trolls for wearing a t-shirt, ironically from the same people who went strangely quiet about a kids booze&grope camp just a few days later.
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April 7, 2018 2:15pm
- Longknives
  
  Ha Ha you wouldn’t meet a bigger troll than her sometimes boyfriend Guy Williams!
  The guy relentlessly mocks anyone with Christian beliefs (His attack on Brooke Fraser was appalling) and mercilessly mocks people with serious illnesses like Parkinson’s Disease.. (Posting pictures of John Armstrong and taunting him)
  Golriz is a lying, hypocritical piece of s**t.
  
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  April 7, 2018 2:29pm
  - milkmaid
    
    I have seen him. He calls himself a comedian but it is some sort of humour that I don’t get. Apparently I am not alone.
    
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    April 7, 2018 2:41pm
  - milkmaid
    
    If you don’t like trolls you can always stay the fuck away from Twitter. But if you are seeking maximum attention you are left in a quandry …
    
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    April 7, 2018 4:14pm
Chuck Bird

I wonder if some guy kicked Laurel Hubbard in the balls if a charge of male assaults female would fly.
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April 7, 2018 2:22pm
Anne Glen Eden

To put a more practical spin on my earlier rant, Chester Burrows has written the same thing in a different way talking about ‘justice’.

“…we should never let ignorance get in the road of justice, fairness or government policy. Yet it seems we have been happy to do this for long enough for the sake of political expediency…
…large chunks of the community would rather not know the prison exists let alone admit they know anybody inside or close to it … NZers would rather remain stoically ignorant of the reasons for offending and the evidence-based need and reasons for incarceration – they never care until they have friends or family before the court… “

Yep. It’s always ‘them’, never ‘us’ and never ‘our responsibility’. BUT

…the biggest elephant in the room is Maori over-representation… If we are the utopia for race relations that most of us would consider ourselves, how can such disparity exist…

I have no idea who believes this. it’s all a political crock. Until I was 20, we were ‘us’. Ever since, Maori are ‘them’. Short of a very radical change in policy, I can’t see that changing either – and it certainly wasn’t done by me or with my consent. You can argue the case but the outcome was inevitable. One of the best examples of the political ‘liquid modernity’ is Simon Bridges and Paula Bennett. In one context, they’re Maori. In the other, they’re ‘us’. And those two identities are definitely not the same thing. Similar thing with all groups, really.

Maori consider themselves ‘us’ in their own minds, while determinedly keeping themselves as ‘them’ to the wider society. It hardly builds ‘empathy’ and, in fact, can’t and won’t. Other than in the concept of ‘white colonial guilt’, which group has spent more time than any other driving into NZers’ minds that Maori are none of anyone’s business but Maori, that 90% odd of the country don’t, can’t, and never will be able to ‘understand’ by virtue of ethnicity – and should have no say, input, or participation in correcting any of it, other than handing out money? What do you want the 90% odd to do?

The Offenders
“…we decided to imprison those we need to be kept safe from and not just those who annoy us by being on the street…”

I’m not sure who’s in jail for being an ‘annoyance’ – what does that mean? Theft? 15,000 people have been jailed/home detained for political convenience? Really? I know I disparage our justice system, but really? Clearly it doesn’t include those let or left out to maim and kill more people.

Trouble is, we don’t imprison those we need to be kept safe from, which just increases the frustration, anger, and resentment which tends to people wanting to imprison them earlier in the process for longer.

…what protections can be put around those who grow up to be victims and offenders, because they are largely the same people …91 per cent of prisoners with a diagnosed mental health condition or a substance dependence…”

Yep. From being abused since conception if you include the substance abuse.

Protect the children – deal with the problems in families, irrespective of who they are, in the present, rather than awaiting a preferred sociological ‘evolution’ in 50 years’ time which probably won’t happen. Get the drugs out of prison. But Maori, while demanding exclusive control and that everyone else ‘butt out’, cannot or will not change their abusive behaviours in the home or society – or the substance abuse. The casualties power their ‘resurgence’ – they are their ‘identity’.

The Lobbyists and the MSM

“…the politics, the prejudice and then the policy around our justice system… people choose to remain ignorant or unchallenged on their favourite hobby-horses… if media did not pursue the “if it bleeds, it leads” policy and if the public decided to become informed on these issues…”

Yep. The politicians, the lobbyists, and the MSM are largely shallow, biased, and consciously/unconsciously tell a lot of lies. The inhumanity resident in our society is endemic – across the board. However, I don’t think imposing a media blackout of the victims of crime will help.

I repeat, what do you want the 90% odd to think, say, or do when the more numerable ‘sufferers’ are Maori, Maori won’t allow them any input and exclude them at every turn, and are insistent they have nothing (but money) to contribute.

“A cross-sector accord which takes the political parties, the media heat, and the rhetoric out but allows the science and psychology into the debate is the only way to have sensible justice policy.”

You’re right. And that means everyone giving up their little ‘hobbyhorses’ for the good of the damaged human beings – most particularly stopping the damage to children. I see no sign of that happening because there is no ‘us’ or desire for or commitment to ‘us’, especially amongst politicians and lobbyists.

The financial and egocentric benefits deriving from the casualties are too great for the recipients to want to undermine their hobbyhorse base. The victims of crime, especially violent crime, are never going to accept it and will continue to seethe and demand protection, certain in the knowledge that they’re paying a lot of money to cover the guilt of their antecedents without any of the benefits of ‘protection’.
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April 7, 2018 2:23pm
Left Right and Centre

I just love breeders . . .
(so sorry to offend if you are one of many)

When you find yourself with seven kids

Hey mate – want to give them some cash for their giveahandout ten seater van ?

All the time with these breeder stories – are they finished now or what ? I’d love to know if they go for another one – idiots.

They had one, twins, one and triplets. So – they would’ve had at least five – that’s enough. But then – you don’t know that they would’ve stopped at five anyway. Three’s enough for a lot of couples. Four ?

Why not just have fifteen ? At what point do the well-wishers wither ?

Er – they didn’t ‘find themselves’ with seven kids. They mated multiple times obviously zilch contraception.
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April 7, 2018 2:26pm
- Longknives
  
  I really want to find the link to the hit piece the Herald ran prior to the Election last year.
  ‘Poverty in New Zealand’ ‘Heartless National Government’ ”You can’t live on benefit’ blah blah
  It was an interview with a ‘Struggling’ solo Mum who had TEN fucking kids…TEN!!!
  
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  April 7, 2018 2:34pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I couldn’t find the 10-kid story
    will 9 do?
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11890786
    
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    April 7, 2018 3:45pm
    - Longknives
      
      There was one (I thought it was the Herald but it may have been Stuff) who had a Solo Mum of ten kids to assorted fathers crying ‘Poverty’ and ‘Heartless Government’ etc etc.
      I shudder to think what WINZ pay her a week…
      
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      April 7, 2018 5:04pm
Manolo

A step into the right direction:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5586773/Refugees-South-Sudan-Somalia-Iran-excluded-settling-government-program.html

Refugees from South Sudan, Somalia and Iran have been excluded from settling in Australia through the government’s sponsorship-based program.
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April 7, 2018 3:26pm
Manolo

Another incompetent is in charge:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/04/sadiq-khan-is-a-lousy-london-mayor-why-hasnt-anyone-noticed/

But Khan is not in opposition. He is in office, the holder of substantial powers and responsibilities, and there is a limit to how long he can carry on blaming all London’s problems on others.

Nor is it in Londoners’ interests to attack the government constantly when it gives you most of the money you spend. Perhaps Khan is becalmed because he saw the mayoralty mainly as a stepping stone to his actual goal of the Labour leadership.
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April 7, 2018 3:32pm
- Longknives
  
  Watch for Khan to try to ban any criticism of his performance as ‘Hate Speech’ in the near future.
  The guy is fucking bad news.
  
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  April 7, 2018 5:02pm
Nostradamus

Thread analysis:

– Stephieboy comments: 24
– Total comments: 198
– Stephieboy percentage: 12%

Is Kiwiblog a recommended form of therapy for you, Stephieboy?
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April 7, 2018 3:38pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Looks more like a threadworm count.
  
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  April 7, 2018 3:40pm
  - Nostradamus
    
    If a threadworm can fix holes in my sweater, Maggy, then I could be persuaded that threadworms are useful!
    
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    April 7, 2018 3:41pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      ooooooooooh, no!
      
      Weren’t you taught how to darn at your mother’s knee?
      
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      April 7, 2018 3:46pm
      - Nostradamus
        
        I learnt everything I needed to know about embroidery, deportment and elocution by ~~visiting Eggleston Hall~~ watching all 5 series of the TV reality show Laddette to Lady!
        
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        April 7, 2018 3:50pm
- stephieboy
  
  Nostadamus , still doing my best by keeping with the 28, 000 plus posts by alt-right maestro, Manolo
  
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  April 7, 2018 6:05pm
  - Awww C-mon
    
    But I thought you were the alt right poster boy Stephie-misogynist
    
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    April 7, 2018 7:43pm
- stephieboy
  
  Nostsradamus , I’ve truly gratified the considerable waste of time you spent gathering those pointless stats.
  
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  April 7, 2018 6:11pm
  - Nostradamus
    
    Stephieboy:
    
    You’re a slow learner. As I’ve told you before:
    
    Your “thank you” expression of gratitude is unwarranted. I have a technique that allows me to count your comments automatically and which filters out references to “Stephieboy” in other people’s comments.
    
    Shouldn’t you be watching the women’s hockey? I was informed (see last night’s GD thread) that they have “small but ample breasts”, so you’ll enjoy yourself!
    
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    April 7, 2018 6:44pm
    - nasska
      
      His enjoyment could hinge on what size undergarments they wear Nostra.
      
      That was his major concern with Maggy.
      
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      April 7, 2018 6:52pm
    - mikewasmild
      
      Serious questions for you chaps:
      Do you think stephieboy is the most obnoxious commenter on this blog?
      Do you think, given his obvious mental limitations, that it is good form to pick on him?
      
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      April 7, 2018 7:09pm
      - Kimbo
        
        Yeah, but you had a go at a certain often-confused elderly resident of Ngaruawahia today. Mind you he was especially vile and obnoxious, and went one better going off topic over about the PM’s partner. I would have said something myself but we have a truce at present and I’ve decided I’m bored with racking him up unless it is really worth the hassle.
        
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        April 7, 2018 7:20pm
      - nasska
        
        …..”Do you think stephieboy is the most obnoxious commenter on this blog”…..
        
        Possibly no but certainly the biggest pain in the arse. Mind you we have to consider his stalking & unnecessary abuse of Maggy.
        
        …..”given his obvious mental limitations, that it is good form to pick on him”…..
        
        Definitely! Everyone here has a purpose. Some inform, others amuse while kicking a fuckwit like him is therapeutic.
        
        It also gives meaning to his otherwise worthless life. 🙂
        
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        April 7, 2018 7:25pm
      - mikewasmild
        
        Well that’s just beautiful for you and your Chuckie, but I hadn’t counted you among stephieboy’s inverse fan club.
        
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        April 7, 2018 7:27pm
      - mikewasmild
        
        nasska
        I think it might be more about you choosing an easy target to bully.
        Both you and Nostradamus are smarter than that.
        I think we all know that stephieboy is pretty pathetic. But he’s hardly a vile speck of humanity like D4J, igm, Chuck Bird, EAD or flipper. All of whom should be rounded up and confined to a special section of Masterton.
        Enough from me though. Everyone gets to find their own fun.
        
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        April 7, 2018 7:33pm
      - Kimbo
        
        Flushed stephieboy years ago although I’ll give him the occasional slap down. But I probably interact too often with EAD and give him the attention he craves.
        
        Also, while DPF is entitled to administer his blog as he sees fit, and like a rugby referee he is the final judge of fact on Kiwiblog, I thought your latest suspension was a bit rough. Or at least, as when Cyril Brownlie was sent off, the one who started the fight should also have been dismissed from the field of play too. Not that I have any disagreement with flipper. Indeed, after a bad start we get on well because I do like his R D Muldoon stories. ?
        
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        April 7, 2018 7:33pm
      - mikewasmild
        
        flipper is a complete wanker with no redeeming features. He is habitually abusive and has a charmed life accusing others of paedophilia. Nearly as nasty as the proud Nazi EAD.
        His memories of Muldoon are either made up or dimly recalled episodes of fellatio.
        
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        April 7, 2018 7:45pm
      - Kimbo
        
        He he he. Tell us what you really think!
        
        Meanwhile, here in a genuine metropolitan city with a decent club competition in contrast to the minor sub-uinion in which you and Johnboy reside, the mighty Ponsonby have retained the Waka Nathan Cup for the pre-season comp, beating Eden 34-30. So off to a good start, but way overdue for a return of the Gallaher Shield. So 2018 is hopefully the year.
        
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        April 7, 2018 7:51pm
      - nasska
        
        ….”All of whom should be rounded up and confined to a special section of Masterton”…..
        
        Whoa! Okay, Masterton has its Eastside but by & large they’re good upright citizens when you compare them to the cream of Naenae!
        
        Interesting that you mentioned “flipper” though. Three warnings & three strikes then DPF treated his outburst on the 15th March as a first strike.
        
        Karma will bite his arse someday. 🙂
        
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        April 7, 2018 7:52pm
      - Stars And Stripes
        
        FWIW I don’t think Stephieboy is the worst.
        I know why he is like he is but I will leave it at that as I don’t really want to dissect his life on here.
        For me the worst people on here are shills,apologists and sycophants of which their are plenty for a variety of people, countries and political parties.
        Just boring and predictable.
        Humour wins every time for me.
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:07pm
      - stephieboy
        
        Stars and Stripes, humour wins with you?
        
        Such as?
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:32pm
      - Kimbo
        
        …Such as “Postcards from Stars and Stripes” (© 2017, Kimbo Enterprises). The pithy and amusing anthropological anecdotes of a Mt Roskill-raised* lad, at large in a modern multicultural New Zealand.
        
        * back when it was the white bread, Keith Hay Homes-built, working class Bible Belt of old Auckland town.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:09pm
      - sooty
        
        For me Hugh is the worst, all ways rambling on about the same shit and having at least six post on it. Even his mate Twitford in Labour is ignoring him. Not even invited to sit on any conversations. He must be a small man or something. At least stephie will bang on about anythung and everything, making a dick of him self, doing it. Except giving Maggy shit with sexual overtones. He’s obversely been to a Labour youth camp. Downtick and move on.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:18pm
- DigNap15
  
  You mean Stephie boys or Stephie people.
  
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  April 7, 2018 6:38pm
sooty

Has anyone poked a fork into Curran to see if she’s done yet?
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April 7, 2018 4:34pm
Nostradamus

Malcolm Turnbull on 15 September 2015:

The one thing that is clear about our current situation is the trajectory. We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott’s leadership.

Malcolm Turnbull on 12 March 2018:

Leigh Sales: Before we finish up, as we all know when you challenged Tony Abbott for the prime ministership, one of the reasons that you cited was he lost 30 Newspolls in a row. You said it was evidence that the public had made up its mind on his leadership. You are about to hit the same benchmark, notwithstanding a turnaround. Let me play you something that your predecessor had to say on radio last week.

Tony Abbott [Audio]: It was the Prime Minister who set this test and I guess if he fails the test it will be the Prime Minister who will have to explain why the test was right for one and not right for the other. It’ll be up to him to tell us all why the test doesn’t apply in his case.

Leigh Sales: That’s a valid question, isn’t it?

Malcolm Turnbull: Well the only test that determines whether you lead the Liberal Party or not is having the support of the Party Room. That’s the test.
…
Leigh Sales: Do you regret opening it up – this constant questioning about polls, because you yourself were the one who put it on the table?

Malcolm Turnbull: Well it’s an observation I made in the course of mounting a challenge but others are free to refer to it, of course. But the fact is that the leadership of the Liberal Party is determined by the Party Room. It’s not determined by Newspoll, it’s not determined by the 7.30 Report, it’s determined by the Party Room. That’s the test.

Oh – “an observation I made in the course of mounting a challenge” – isn’t politics fun when your own quotes come back to bite you!
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April 7, 2018 4:42pm
- wiseowl
  
  Turnbull is an arse.
  I hope he gets rolled .
  
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  April 7, 2018 5:37pm
Surely Knott

Carmel Sepuloni has complained on the local community facebook page, because the Vintage Car community day organised by the local GE business association, of which she is a member, wouldn’t let her put up a political stand. Local candidates in the current by-election bought vintage cars which they had restored wore shirts or signs and posted on facebook. Sounds like There is a huge difference between bringing a vintage car to a wheels festival and putting your political brochures on the seat to putting up a labour party political stand which has no relevance to the event. Plenty of funny pictures of a labour mp admiring the muscle cars when their parties goal is to raise petrol tax, reduce speed and put us all on bicycles. She could have bought an ebike to the event and joined in by wearing a tshirt .
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April 7, 2018 5:12pm
- Nostradamus
  
  Is it always Labour Party people who complain when they’re prevented from politicising a community event?
  
  Labour Party candidate threatens night market operators after failing to get free access for Jacinda Ardern
  
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  April 7, 2018 5:16pm
  - Surely Knott
    
    It obviously didn’t go the way she wanted it to. The post has now been removed from facebook.
    
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    April 7, 2018 6:01pm
- RF
  
  Sepuloni is known as the sewer !!
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:19pm
DigNap15

Stuff ran a story this morning about NZ having just about the highest grocery prices in the world.

Aside from the usual
Take GST off food
And buy fruit and veges in season
And the duopoly
Its all rubbish
One of the reasons is our small market we can only buy in low volume eg one pallet versus 2 containers.
Our distance – shipping costs are very high.
But all of these are no reasons to charge us so much more.

We need to take action by posting on Facebook and blogs etc and shaming the supermarkets and importers.
Pointing out actual price differences of identifiable goods like a IK block of cheese. A can of coke.
A packet of milo
A bottle of tomato sauce.
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April 7, 2018 5:22pm
- Jack5
  
  Yep DigNap15, just about everyone notices the high prices of food here.
  
  We are so isolated, and import so much, and we have a tough geography for distribution.
  
  Prices will likely rise further as fuel taxes push up transport costs.
  
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  April 7, 2018 11:35pm
Kimbo

And Alex “who stole the ‘e’ from my surname” Swney describes prison as “miserable, punitive and negative”:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12028092

Good. So we can but hope that you, and maybe others like you who are contemplating the type of fraud you committed, will now think twice? Purpose of the experience fulfilled.
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April 7, 2018 7:07pm
- mikewasmild
  
  Has there been any comment in recent days from Kiwigblog’s resident insensible sentencing expert about the new report on the justice system produced by the government’s chief science adviser?
  http://www.pmcsa.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/Using-evidence-to-build-a-better-justice-system.pdf
  
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  April 7, 2018 7:12pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    No.
    
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    April 7, 2018 7:46pm
    - mikewasmild
      
      Oh, that’s a shame. Maybe he will do a guest post on how Gluckman has got it all wrong.
      
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      April 7, 2018 7:52pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        The report is really from Assoc. Prof Ian Lambie.
        
        Well he did the first draft…
        wonder why it needed the Gluckman spin.
        
        Anyway, have you read it?
        (I have)
        Many, many problems to solve long before the bad buggas end up in prison.
        
        1.Our schools have to change…. or we must have different types of schools available for kids who have disengaged at an early stage with the NZ ed system.
        2. Some of our teachers have to go change.
        3. Kids can’t be left in /returned to violent homes.
        4. gangs are crap
        5. Drugs are crap.
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:00pm
      - mikewasmild
        
        I have read it, yes. It seems to summarise very well what is known about what works with offenders.
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:11pm
      - stephieboy
        
        Maggy Wassilieff , you seem to have your own kind of spin and simplistic magic wand solutions.
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:22pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        @mike…
        Oh really?
        
        The report I read, gives the stats on who is in our prisons and the factors that drive/lead them there..
        Then it discusses the cost-effectiveness of some intervention programmes,.
        
        I must have missed the chapters that told me what actually worked to stop offenders from offending, esp. the ones who have been in prison.
        http://www.pmcsa.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/Using-evidence-to-build-a-better-justice-system.pdf
        
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        April 7, 2018 8:27pm
      - Jack5
        
        I’ve just read the report.
        
        To me, it’s Utopian dreaming. Everyone wants crime prevented, or even greatly minimised, but given human nature, that’s impossible.
        
        It seems totalitarian to think everyone can be moulded so that no-one, or extremely few, break the boundaries of life.
        
        Gluckman’s approach minimises the role of choice in human actions. For balance with the Utopian views of the Left on crime, he could start by reading Doestoevsky.
        
        However, if society can influence (but not decide) choices of young people, then providing more jobs, or sufficient job choices, is the way. What will more likely divert a Maori or Pakeha kid in, say, the East Coast of the North Island from joining a gang? A job that provides income, a sense of self-esteem, and workmates who meet responsibilities? Or a special court system, absence of jails, and racks of social workers?
        
        Gluckman has a fine record in medical science, and I believe his previous role in medical research was more beneficial to society than being the Government’s Chief Science Adviser.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:15pm
      - mikewasmild
        
        Did you enjoy Maggie’s little smear of Gluckman, Jack?
        And her (deliberate?) misunderstanding of what I said?
        Almost as stupid as you imagining that anyone who disagrees with you is a prisoner of his or her political ideology.
        Maybe you don’t realise that your point about Gluckman sticking to medicine is irrelevant when you already reject, due to your personal cognitive deficiencies, any evidence on any subject that conflicts with your prejudices.
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:43pm
      - Jack5
        
        Milky, re your:
        
        ” …you already reject, due to your personal cognitive deficiencies, any evidence on any subject that conflicts with your prejudices.”
        
        You never were able to get into the school debating team, were you Milky?
        
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        April 7, 2018 9:51pm
      - Jack5
        
        Further to Maggy W’s mention of the academic Ian Lambie in her 8.00 post:
        
        The link below gives an idea of the roles that Gluckman, plus Lambie and other social scientists, are playing in our bureaucracy.
        
        Lambie is chief science advisor to the Justice sector. In the Corrections Deparment profile of him, he says:
        
        “The role of science advisor is a new appointment. The team is led by Sir Peter Gluckman, Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister. There are science advisors appointed for Ministry of Social Development, Health, Education, Environment, Conservation, and Ministry for Primary Industries.
        
        “The role was borne from recognising the value in the better use of evidence-based research in government, and how in translating this research it can be applied and used productively across government ministries.”
        
        http://www.corrections.govt.nz/resources/research_and_statistics/journal/volume_4_issue_1_august_2016/profile_ian_lambie%2C_chief_science_adviser_for_the_justice_sector.html
        
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        April 8, 2018 12:18am
      - mikewasmild
        
        Jack
        I suspect you are using the term ‘social scientists’ as an attempt to denigrate the work of psychologists like Lambie whose work might undermine what little factual basis there is for your own point of view.
        If you believe that the study of psychology has nothing to offer by way of informing our justice policies perhaps you should say that directly.
        
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        April 8, 2018 5:35am
- Swifty
  
  I had quite a bit to do with him at one point in time.
  
  He was not my cup of tea at all.
  
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  April 7, 2018 7:24pm
- Happychappy
  
  People commit suicide when large frauds are committed and families suffer so why should the media be supporting criminals that think that it is their right to steal other peoples money. If a media outlet was the victim of a large fraud it would be headlines for days and screaming for the inappropriate sentencing for the crime that was committed. Fraud is a type of murder as people take their own lives for putting trust in company’s that they invest there money with.
  
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  April 7, 2018 8:06pm
  - mikewasmild
    
    Defamation is a type of murder too.
    
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    April 7, 2018 8:13pm
    - Jack5
      
      What’s your point, Milky?
      
      The punishment for defamation is usually damages imposed by a court, while fraudsters frequently go to prison.
      
      Are you arguing that defamation is equivalent to fraud in its impact? Or in its transgression against society? Or what?
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:59pm
  - mikewasmild
    
    Vandalism is a type of murder too.
    
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    April 8, 2018 5:27am
- Jack5
  
  Kimbo, yep, “Swney” is an interesting name.
  
  The name begins with a Slavic-like stack of consonants, and in an order that we aren’t used to pronouncing.
  
  That happens in Scots names like McKenzie, but then we know there is an unseen “a” between the “M” and the “c”.
  
  I guess we’ll get some interesting names as Chinese merge into society. I like an approach of some Chinese by having an Anglicised version of their name for us Gweilo, but not for fellow Chinese, to use. The descendants of early Chinese settlers in NZ tend to have surnames that have evolved into being easy for Gweilo to get their tongues around.
  
  One question is how many generations will Islands Polynesian names containing apostrophes survive in English? Will they be like the O’Briens and O’Neills, or will the apostrophes gradually disappear?
  
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  April 7, 2018 9:32pm
  - Kimbo
    
    Like the joke about the Polish man who went to the optometrist, and was asked to read out the letters on the wall
    
    “K R S K Z L…hey, he’s my cousin!”
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:35pm
    - Jack5
      
      Polish shows why the Cyrillic alphabet is better for Slavic languages than the Latin alphabet, though I notice some former Soviet republics in Asia are changing to Latin again. (Kazakhstan’s Kazakh, a Turkic language, has officially used Arabic, then Latin, then Russian, now Latin again.)
      
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      April 7, 2018 9:47pm
  - Kimbo
    
    Yes, most Palagis struggle with the ‘, properly pronounced as a glottal stop (like the ‘h’ in “honest”) in Polynesian languages, so it will likely go as assimilation continues in succeeding generations.
    
    And also the “g” may be spelled in future as “ng”, and the correct pronunciation, more at the back of the throat like a guttral than as an alveolar nasal ‘n’ in English will go too.
    
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    April 7, 2018 9:43pm
Jack5

Have New Zealand’s foreign affairs people, MFAT, done a decent job in the case of the young autistic woman from Christchurch who seems to have been lured to India.

The Herald reports Additional Inspector General (AIG) Ranjit Singh of the Non Resident Indian Affairs Division of Punjab Police, telling the Times of India the woman Doody had spoken with New Zealand Embassy officials in New Delhi who were “completely satisfied with her statement”.

So the Punjab Police are speaking on behalf of our embassy in India.

This is a very sad case, and, though unrepresentative, won’t do anything for relations between NZ locals and young Indians who have been pouring into this country.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12028111
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April 7, 2018 11:09pm

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