General Debate 2 January 2020

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Lee C

Great day yesterday in Otago under the surreal haze of the Australian fires.

We are a lucky, fortunate people.

Let’s remember that and reject those who’s life-mission appears to be to shit-can all the good, in favour of a ‘suck-it-and-see’ mentality about embracing ‘the new’ regardless of whether it is toxic or dangerous to our great way of life.

And to the silent down-tickers who to me seem a bit like people who ring up sex-chat lines but are too frightened to speak…… Get a life, you numpties.

Or at least have the balls to use your words.

Oh, and I put out an album for those who like a bit of music: https://clark2.bandcamp.com/album/2020-visions
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January 2, 2020 8:25am
- hookerphil
  
  The way the down voters are going we wont be able to tell at a glance which postings are Stephieboys.
  
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  January 2, 2020 8:39am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Are you gifting us your album for free to download?
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:00am
  - Fletch
    
    You can listen for free, but it costs $7 to buy. Is how Bandcamp works.
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:10am
  - Lee C
    
    There you go, Maggie it’s 0.00 dollars to ‘purchase’!
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:13am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Thanks Lee.
      
      The site looks good.. but I’m no music aficionado, so I’ll leave someone else to pick up my “purchase”.
      
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      January 2, 2020 10:17am
      - Lee C
        
        All I ask is yo recommend it to anyone who might like to listen. Thanks for your interest.
        
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        January 2, 2020 10:29am
      - Lee C
        
        ps A bit ironic being asked for freebies on a right-wing blog.
        
        I could understand it if it was the Standard…
        
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        January 2, 2020 10:43am
      - Tall Man
        
        I think Lee that this blog has morphed into something that is no longer viewed as a right wing blog.
        
        Also, political opinions are not necessarily linked to income or assets.
        
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        January 2, 2020 10:49am
- Scott
  
  Lee C – some interesting comments –
  “Let’s remember that and reject those who’s life-mission appears to be to shit-can all the good, in favour of a ‘suck-it-and-see’ mentality about embracing ‘the new’ regardless of whether it is toxic or dangerous to our great way of life.”
  
  I would say that at present in New Zealand we are run by by a group of elite globalists who constantly embrace change in a secular, materialist direction.
  
  As a counterpoint we have the rise around the world of nationalist movements, some deeply religious, all rejecting globalism in favour of a nationalist populism.
  
  At the core of the question is what it means to be human? Are we secular global people enjoying material wealth but never lot belonging to anything? With no allegiance to country? And substituting for true religion a fake secular religion usually involving saving the planet from global warming or whatever is the crisis of the decade.
  
  Interestingly enough that vision doesn’t seem to satisfy at a soul level. Some people are going back to the best of the past. People rediscovering their history and their culture and in some cases their religion.
  
  Are we people grounded in a particular place? With responsibilities to our local community? I think we are.
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:14am
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Scott, I agree that connection to country and the tide of national populism is real. Religiosity less so, apart from cultural traditions people value.
    
    But why can’t religious people understand this: one can’t force oneself to believe. It just can’t be done.
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:24am
  - JackRabbit
    
    >>>Some people are going back to the best of the past. People rediscovering their history and their culture and in some cases their religion.
    
    Disconnecting people from their heritage, history, and roots, is a method for isolating and dividing people. People who do not know their history or culture, feel detached and a sense of not belonging, and easily manipulated.
    
    Which is why re-writing history is such an important part of globalist plans. It does not suit their plans, for NZ’ers to understand the dozen or so cultures that have lived here for tens of thousands of years. Creating a revised history and dividing Maori and Pakeha, makes globalization that much easier.
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:16am
    - Classic Liberal
      
      “dividing Maori and Pakeha” – a very fake division, since probably all Maori are part European now. Also: can we all just decide what ‘race’ we want to be? If there are to be fiscal advantages to being a certain race, how are we supposed to prove it? DNA tests? Some kind of label worn as we walk about?
      
      Can’t the idiot politicians see where identitarianism will lead the world?
      
      That is not to say people shouldn’t enjoy their culture, but we’re getting into dangerous waters when there are financial and educational advantages to being a certain ‘race’.
      
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      January 2, 2020 11:37am
      - JackRabbit
        
        >>> since probably all Maori are part European now
        
        We are all New Zealanders, with equal rights and equal responsibilities.
        
        If you choose to associate, not associate, be friends with, or not befriend, or enter into or not enter into relationship with someone else based on their race, sexuality, height, weight, good or bad looks, or habits, that is your choice as an individual to do what is best for you.
        
        Racism, by definition, is the forced segregation or integration, and/or forced differential treatment based on race. Whether that be handouts or trying to maintain some fantasy diverse quota instead of capability, or out of just plain stupidity, it is racist.
        
        By definition, only a government, (or a government managed entity), that has a monopoly on force, can be racist.
        
        It is time to end the continual payouts, and specialist treatments, and treat everyone as New Zealanders.
        
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        January 2, 2020 12:21pm
      - Brian McDonald
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        Generous of you to say people shouldn’t enjoy their culture, perhaps you need a DNA test to prove your 1000% European.
        
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        January 2, 2020 1:53pm
      - rouppe
        
        “since all Maori are part European now”
        
        I stumbled upon this article from 2017 where reporter had a dna test done, and the results showed that she was 100% Maori, despite having non Maori ancestors along the way.
        
        Apparently only the Maori genes were passed along. Not sure that is even possible since genes from both sources need to combine to form the new zygote, but I’m no biologist so…
        
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        January 2, 2020 4:04pm
      - Jack5
        
        The DNA tests by genealogy organisations such as Ancestry.com are suspect when it comes to alleged racial origin.
        
        A relevant Scientific American article includes this:
        
        “… these tests do not really tell you where your ancestors came from. They say where DNA like yours can be found on Earth today. By inference, we are to assume that significant proportions of our deep family came from those places. But to say that you are 20 per cent Irish, 4 per cent Native American or 12 percent Scandinavian is fun, trivial and has very little scientific meaning …
        
        https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-accurate-are-online-dna-tests/
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:38pm
    - Odakyu-sen
      
      An American and a Soviet were having lunch.
      
      “In our free nation of the United States of America,” the American said, “The past is known, but the future is unknown.”
      “Bah!” replied the Soviet. “In Soviet Russia, the past is unknown, but we know exactly what the future will be.”
      
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      January 2, 2020 11:49am
      - JackRabbit
        
        And the Liberal Historian who joined the group chipped in, “We know the present, but to achieve that future, we have to change peoples view of the past.”
        
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        January 2, 2020 12:32pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      And the down tickers, having been brainwashed by the media, don’t bother to do research because NZ history is “set in stone”.
      
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      January 2, 2020 12:26pm
  - Swifty
    
    ‘…true religion…’
    
    There’s no such thing.
    
    And the fact that no ‘god’ has in the entire history of the earth ever made a serious attempt, let alone recently, to unequivocally make the evidence clear proves it.
    
    Sorry Scott, but you’re holding an empty sack.
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:17am
    - Scott
      
      Swifty – au contraire –
      John 12:9-11 (NIV)
      9 Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 10 So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus as well, 11 for on account of him many of the Jews were going over to Jesus and believing in him.
      
      Notice that the chief priests knew that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. This is recounted earlier in John. They didn’t dispute that. They knew that Lazarus’s relatives had mourned him for three days. And then Jesus arrived and called him out of the tomb (John 11). This miracle was not done in a corner. It was done in full view of everyone.
      
      The chief priests did not doubt that Lazarus was alive. Because he was present in the company of Jesus at meals where the chief priests also were.
      
      But they did not believe in Jesus because he threatened their own position and their own power. So it was not lack of evidence my dear Swifty. It was lack of will to believe. They didn’t want to believe because on the account of Jesus people were following him and not them.
      
      As the saying goes, “there is none so blind as he who will not see”. Let’s make 2020 the year of revelation for us. Let’s not be a blind person. Let’s get 2020 vision in 2020. Let’s get our spiritual glasses on.:)
      
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      January 2, 2020 12:08pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        That proves nothing, Scott.
        
        It’s time you read Bryan Bruce’s excellent 2010 book, Jesus: The Cold Case, Random House New Zealand. It would not turn you away from the pointless path you are on – you are too far gone for that – and it would not stop you from being a “bible pest”, but it would at least shake your faith!
        
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        January 2, 2020 12:53pm
      - Swifty
        
        Happy New Year Scott.
        
        So, let’s summarise.
        
        You have a book containing some stories, written by men during the late iron-age, which is translations of copies of copies of translations, which claims all sorts of supernatural things and which you assert provides evidence of the existence of a god.
        
        Well I’m sorry but I do not accept your evidence. It falls dramatically short of anything which we would accept today as sufficient. Dramatically.
        
        And I restate: ‘And the fact that no ‘god’ has in the entire history of the earth ever made a serious attempt, let alone recently, to unequivocally make the evidence clear proves it.’
        
        As we all know, faith is not a reliable path to the truth so, rather than spiritual versions, I think I’ll keep my skeptical glasses on just a tad longer thanks Scott. At least until some better evidence comes along.
        
        Oh and here’s a more recent resurrection:
        
        https://youtu.be/GJ12y3pY7Gk?t=225
        
        Should I believe that this is for real too?
        
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        January 2, 2020 1:26pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Sorry Scott, 1 job at a time.
        
        MAGA 2020
        
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        January 2, 2020 2:23pm
      - Stephieboy2
        
        Scott,
        
        “there is none so blind as he who will not see”
        
        Struck a rich vein of irony for a Trump supporter!
        
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        January 2, 2020 3:10pm
      - Scott
        
        Well no the bible is well attested to. This idea about copies of copies is just false. We have far more knowledge of Jesus than we do about Julius caesar for instance. The manuscript evidence for the bible is far above anything else in the ancient world.
        
        So it’s not a lack of evidence. It’s a lack of faith. I gave you evidence. Written down from eye witnesses. Jesus is God came down to earth to save us from our sins. Including even yours.
        
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        January 2, 2020 4:22pm
      - Swifty
        
        Sorry Scott – I’ve missed your point there.
        
        If the evidence is so clear and compelling – then why do we need faith?
        
        I think faith is needed because religious folk have known for eons that their evidence is flimsy at best and so easily fabricated.
        
        Mussies claim their bloke was a prophet of their god and is all well attested to – so should I believe them as well?
        
        Why doesn’t god or gods just do something extraordinary for all of us and remove all doubt? Why did your god supposedly chose revelation to certain individuals as the means to reveal him/herself? Quite convenient isn’t it? Revelation – the only method that can’t be independently verified. I strongly suspect that’s why Mo and Joseph Smith among many, many others chose the same method when setting up their cons. No-one can prove it didn’t happen.
        
        Sorry mate. If your god does exist, then he needs to try a lot, lot harder to make it plainly known.
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:32pm
      - chiz
        
        scott:Well no the bible is well attested to. This idea about copies of copies is just false. We have far more knowledge of Jesus than we do about Julius caesar for instance. The manuscript evidence for the bible is far above anything else in the ancient world.
        
        This is just the usual christian mythology. We have more evidence for Julius Caesar than we do for Jesus. We have independent evidence for many of the things that Julius Caeser is supposed to have done. We have no independent evidence that Jesus even existed apart, perhaps, from a vague reference in Josephus to a conman known as The Egyptian who had thousands of followers. The independent evidence for Jesus that Christians often cite, like the testamonium of Josephus or a passage in Tacitus, all turn out to be christian in origin.
        
        The manuscript evidence is quite clear that the text of the bible has been modified. We know, for example, from Justin Martyr, that the earliest versions of the Gospels had no resurrection story in them and that it was taken from another document. But Christians are never told about any of this sort of stuff and are instead told lies about how there are supposedly no variations, or, sometimes, no significant variations, even though one churchfather complained about the significant variations.
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:32pm
      - MrTips
        
        Steve Todd: I’m sorry, I can’t stop laughing. Bryan Bruce on Jesus is like Stephieboy on internet etiquette.
        
        Swifty: I like you, you’re a smart guy. But you’ve missed the bit in the Bible where Jesus said “I AM” and got killed for it. And then the first Christians would rather go to the Lions than deny this, unlike the Moslems (led by a man) who said, “you will yield or die”. This means a) the Jews believed Him when he said I AM and hated Him for it. It doesn’t mean they believed IN Him, rather that he meant what he said and b) the first Christians believed in HIM enough to die for it.
        
        And there’s been nothing but trouble ever since, started by a supposed nobody in a tinpot town in the backwaters of the vast Roman Empire; so much so that scholarship over the millennia outweighs all others, even we’re writing about him.
        
        Happy New year to you too.
        
        Chiz: lol. Even Wikipedia admits Christ existed. Keep up the delusion by all means but it won’t help you.
        
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        January 2, 2020 6:02pm
      - Swifty
        
        chiz – well, we’ve got these for a start:
        
        https://www.vcoins.com/en/coins/ancient/julius_caesar-163.aspx
        
        🙂
        
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        January 2, 2020 6:40pm
      - Swifty
        
        Happy New Year MrTips.
        
        ‘…Jesus said “I AM” and got killed for it. And then the first Christians would rather go to the Lions than deny this.
        
        This means a) the Jews believed Him when he said I AM and hated Him for it. It doesn’t mean they believed IN Him, rather that he meant what he said and b) the first Christians believed in HIM enough to die for it….’
        
        None of this proves divinity.
        
        At best it proves that a man made a religious claim, some people believed it (strongly) and others subsequently killed him and them for it.
        
        There has been numerous examples of this same thing happening throughout history and none of which you’d believe were divinely inspired.
        
        Again, I’m sorry, but this just doesn’t cut the mustard. These claims are just that; claims. They are assertions not evidence.
        
        Your god could make me a believer in an instant, but no evidence is yet forthcoming. I strongly suspect it will never come.
        
        If you choose to believe, then that’s entirely up to you. I wish you nothing but a happy fulfilled life. I do however think you have been misled – along with the billions of other believers of other and varying god claims around the world and all who claim that their god is the real one.
        
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        January 2, 2020 7:26pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        Mr Tips: I take it you haven’t read the book, then?
        
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        January 2, 2020 7:40pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        chiz: after decades of scoffing at the idea that Jesus Christ existed, I have latterly come round to the notion that someone called Jesus Christ did indeed exist – just that he wasn’t the “Son of God”, if only because an omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient entity capable of creating the universe and everything in it, simply does not exist. The very idea is a nonsense, one that could only have been put forward in “ignorant” times.
        
        For the record, my position is – those who say such an entity does exist, must prove it. (After all, they’re the ones making the fantastical claim.) But, of course, they can’t.
        
        At the time of Christ, the Jews were expecting a messiah to appear (and had been for sometime), and there were many preachers, charlatans, whatever, operating in the vicinity of Judea who sought to fulfil that role.
        
        I have been reading this blogsite: http://historyforatheists.com/ (and earlier, its predecessor blogsite: http://armariummagnus.blogspot.com/), for several years now.
        
        In his article, Did Jesus Exist? The Jesus Myth Theory Again., dated 31 May, 2017, Tim O’Neill states—
        
        “The existence of a historical Jewish preacher and the existence of the “Jesus of the gospels”, are not the same thing.
        
        The History for Atheists blogsite is full of good, meaty reading. I commend it to everyone interested in the origins of Christianity and related subjects.
        
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        January 2, 2020 8:23pm
      - MrTips
        
        Swifty: God could make you believe, but then you’d just be a Labour supporter. Just like you freely choose to love your wife, you must be free to choose to believe in God. Reasonably and in your time. Otherwise it’s coercion or worse, Islam and you won’t really believe otherwise. And not many, if any in history claimed to BE God (A god maybe, but not THE God).
        
        Steve Todd: I read it just after the earthquakes. Pages a bit thin for use in the dunny in my bach, but it lit the fire well enough. It’s hardly a compelling read.
        
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        January 2, 2020 9:00pm
    - Odakyu-sen
      
      When you say ‘…true religion…’ do you mean something that is truly a religion (and not an over-arching political system like Islam), or do you mean a religion whose teachings can be proven to be true and not false?
      
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      January 2, 2020 1:42pm
      - Scott
        
        Odakyu – Sen. Christianity can be falsified. Certainly in the ancient world people were very keen to find the body of Jesus. But the tomb was empty.
        
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        January 2, 2020 4:24pm
- namron
  
  Just had a bit of a google to get more of an idea of
  how much Aust territory has been burned.
  Burned area 5,900,ooo hectares
  This doesn’t mean much until you can consider a comparison.
  So, area of North Island
  11,372,000 hectares
  This makes the burnt are roughly half the size of half of the North Island !!
  That’s a bit of a shock.
  
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  January 2, 2020 2:30pm
  - Tall Man
    
    I wonder if albert thinks many greenhouse gases were released in the fires and if so, were there more than the fire engines that were used to fight the fires?
    
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    January 2, 2020 4:27pm
- V
  
  https://www.facebook.com/ABCGippsland/photos/a.134011209824/10157073715149825/?type=3
  
  Greenies might be in a spot of bother now the whole area has burnt out of control.
  
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  January 3, 2020 1:29am
Odakyu-sen

Carlos Ghosn has skipped Japan.
I suspect that he was travelling on Lebanese diplomatic documents (he’s so celebrated and loved in Lebanon that his image is on one of their postage stamps) Ref: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50952335

I also think that the Japanese government is secretly glad to be rid of him.
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January 2, 2020 8:26am
- info@cruzpro.com
  
  An interesting read. Ghosn saved Nissan and Renault. Apparently he didn’t think he was going to get a fair trial in Japan with their 99% conviction rate and apparent dislike of foreigners. I would be tempted to flee too.
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:34am
- Jack5
  
  Ghosn slipped through the border hidden inside a double-bass case.
  
  Talk about pulling strings. This must be one of the biggest fiddles of recent time in the business world. ?
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:45am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpaOy8b8X6A
    
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    January 2, 2020 11:44am
- Maggie Pie
  
  My partner was saying that according to Aljaz, he was smuggled out of the country ‘hidden in a musical instrument case,’ after a Band of musicians had been allowed into Japan to perform at his birthday party.
  THE OLDEST TRICK IN THE BOOK ….[no wonder youse guys lost the war] LOL!!
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:53am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    It is possible that the Japanese authorities let him slip out (because he was such a pain in the arse for their justice system).
    
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    January 2, 2020 11:45am
    - Odakyu-sen
      
      The Japanese courts have confiscated the millions of dollars in bail that Ghosn posted.
      His (in Japanese eyes) dishonorable behavior of fleeing his responsibilities fits nicely into the narrative of the “untrustworthy and dishonorable Westerner” and will give some meaner-spirited Japanese a nice, warm feeling in their small, wrinkled hearts.
      What’s not to like? Everybody wins.
      
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      January 2, 2020 1:54pm
    - Maggie Pie
      
      My partner was just telling me that the Japs still have capiital punishment and hang offenders for crimes like murder and rape etc. No wonder they have little in the way of ‘serious’ crime like we have in the West.
      [Tommy used to go up there quite regularly in the late 90’s on car buying trips. He commented what a wonderful orderly and safe society it is compared to here.]
      
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      January 2, 2020 2:28pm
      - Odakyu-sen
        
        Here’s an informative video showing the Japanese execution facilities that are in use to this day.
        The “cute girlish-sounding” narration only adds a chill to what is a deadly serious operation, if you pardon the pun. (Which is about the only pardon that any prisoner will get.)
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLkSGacEtJA
        
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        January 2, 2020 6:19pm
      - Maggie Pie
        
        Chilling indeed Sensei – and certainly a very sterile operation these days.
        My partner was wondering whether Hari-Kiri is still a thing these days? [And he said to say, “Glasshopper sends his thanks for the vid”]
        
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        January 2, 2020 8:05pm
      - Odakyu-sen
        
        Maggie Pie,
        
        Hara-kiri, or seppuku, is a ritualized form of suicide that is almost a kind of performance designed to make a political statement. It is a form of protest.
        
        Seppuku is very rare nowadays, but it does occaisionally make the news.
        
        Throwing oneself in front of a train is a more common form of suicide, but is rather selfish and most unfeeling towards the poor train driver.
        
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        January 2, 2020 9:08pm
Stephieboy2

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
A see yesterday a climate change denial crock was rooted out as it has done on occasions in the past.

Namely Volcanic eruptions emit more CO2 and other greenhouse gases than made emissions

Well, it is bunkum as shown by scientists who know,

Do the Earth’s volcanoes emit more CO2 than human activities? No.
“..Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas and is the primary gas blamed for climate change. While sulfur dioxide released in contemporary volcanic eruptions has occasionally caused detectable global cooling of the lower atmosphere, the carbon dioxide released in contemporary volcanic eruptions has never caused detectable global warming of the atmosphere. In 2015, human activities were responsible for a projected 32.3 billion metric tons (gigatons) of CO2 emissions. All studies to date of global volcanic carbon dioxide emissions indicate that present-day subaerial and submarine volcanoes release less than a percent of the carbon dioxide released currently by human activities. While it has been proposed that intense volcanic release of carbon dioxide in the deep geologic past did cause global warming, and possibly some mass extinctions, this is a topic of scientific debate at present….”

https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/vhp/gas_climate.html
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January 2, 2020 8:30am
- Sydney Alvarado
  
  I see you still have not responded to my question that I put to you yesterday. Let’s try again.
  
  In the last 20 years, name three instances of specific climate change mitigation policies that have materially reduced a country’s greenhouse emissions. Let’s say by 10 percent or more.
  
  Market driven changes don’t count. I’m talking about these “climate change plans “ you screech about. Tell me three climate change plans anywhere in the world that have been successful. Good luck.
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:26am
  - Albert_Ross
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    I see you have not addressed Stephie’s actual post, in which he does not screech about climate change plans.
    
    Nevertheless, here is a response for you. It’s true that there are few, if any, examples of Government action making a material difference to any country’s greenhouse gas emissions.
    
    So? What exactly do you think that proves?
    
    Does it prove that climate change is not real? How? Walk us through the logic.
    
    Does it prove that Government action is not often as effective as market action? Quite possibly, but that provides pointers as to how to address climate change (and other public policy problems), not whether.
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:51am
    - Sydney Alvarado
      
      I worked full-time for four years analysing and advising on ways to reduce greenhouse emissions. After that experience I became convinced that the only viable government intervention was an international emissions trading scheme with no barriers to trade and high participation. But that proved to be a pipe dream.
      
      Results matter. Not cries for “climate change action“. Attempts to “do something “ impoverish the country and achieve nothing. At all. We would not tolerate that in any other area of public policy.
      
      And yes Stephie has done plenty of screeching.
      
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      January 2, 2020 12:31pm
      - Albert_Ross
        
        If you want a conversation about how best to reduce greenhouse emissions I’m very happy to participate in that.
        
        But why would you do that by picking a fight with somebody who is trying, however ineffectually, to establish that there is a problem which requires the reduction of greenhouse emissions?
        
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        January 2, 2020 3:39pm
      - krazykiwi
        
        What problem requires a reduction in GHGs?
        
        Not what theoretical problem, but rather the problem verified with empirical evidence.
        
        Based on my research, and I was once firmly in the warmist/we-gotta-do-something camp, there is no problem to solve. Certainly nothing that requires jeopardizing energy and agricultural certainly on which modern civilization has been established.
        
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        January 2, 2020 6:29pm
      - ronsegal
        
        Completely agree that trying to stop climate change will achieve nothing but undermine our economy, hence the ability to take whatever defensive measures are required should the need arise.
        The worlds best bet in my view, irrespective of whether catastrophic AGW is reality or not, is to speed up the development of viable thermonuclear fusion generation (which is probably 15 to 50 years away, depending on investment). As virtually unlimited, low cost energy will enable mankind to achieve almost anything.
        
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        January 2, 2020 10:09pm
    - rangitoto
      
      If you think paying tax to the government will change the weather then there is no help for you.
      
      20 1
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      January 2, 2020 12:48pm
      - Sydney Alvarado
        
        Weather does not equal climate. I suspect you know that.
        
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        January 2, 2020 9:46pm
  - Swifty
    
    You must be new here.
    
    He almost never answers questions – and absolutely never the ones which show him to have erred.
    
    When he does find himself cornered and has to answer a question – he generally answers to a different question (one more convenient to him) and then runs away claiming victory.
    
    Those here of longstanding have seen this hundreds of times.
    
    He has the integrity of a sewer rat – and never admits when he’s wrong.
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:07am
    - Stephieboy2
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      “Those here of longstanding have seen this hundreds of times.”
      
      Examples?
      
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      January 2, 2020 12:19pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        After several weeks, of requests, you have failed to answer, from your own understanding, or otherwise, why the glacial ice on Mt Kilimanjaro is only 11,500 years old.
        
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        January 2, 2020 12:46pm
      - Swifty
        
        Yes, there are many hundreds.
        
        We’ve all seen you do it and for years.
        
        It is one of the many reasons why you are so mocked here. It is this behaviour which has resulted in no-one taking you seriously.
        
        As well as your denials of matters which are plain for all to see. As though we have imagined it. You fool no-one.
        
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        January 2, 2020 1:32pm
      - Shaun the Sheep
        
        See your doctor
        Trumpeter
        Alt-right
        Snooze button alert
        Examples?
        References please.
        According to Vanity Fair
        Stormy Daniels
        Source please
        LOL
        
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        January 3, 2020 12:11am
    - Nostradamus
      
      Why Stephieboy is a troll and Kiwiblog’s dumbest commenter:
      
      Swifty: When [Stephieboy] does find himself cornered and has to answer a question – he generally answers to a different question (one more convenient to him) and then runs away claiming victory. Those here of longstanding have seen this hundreds of times.
      
      Stephieboy: Examples?
      
      There’s an example just below (half a scroll wheel as the mouse flies):
      
      Sydney Alvarado: You posted quotes from alleged Australian farmers demanding that the Australian government “do something “. You frequently comment on the need for action. I am asking you to nominate some examples of such successful actions anywhere that have made a material difference to emissions. After all that is the entire point.
      
      Stephieboy2: Snooze button alert!
      
      I don’t know why people bother trying to have an intelligent conversation with the resident pervert. Mind you, he’s better off here. We don’t want him at YSB, and if he’s stupid enough to turn up there, there’s no moderation system to protect him.
      
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      January 2, 2020 4:28pm
    - Sydney Alvarado
      
      No I have been commenting here for seven years.
      
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      January 2, 2020 9:47pm
  - Stephieboy2
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    “climate change plans “ you screech about.
    
    ???
    
    When did I say that?
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:11am
    - Sydney Alvarado
      
      You posted quotes from alleged Australian farmers demanding that the Australian government “do something “. You frequently comment on the need for action. I am asking you to nominate some examples of such successful actions anywhere that have made a material difference to emissions. After all that is the entire point.
      
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      January 2, 2020 12:36pm
      - Stephieboy2
        
        Snooze button alert!
        
        1 23
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        January 2, 2020 3:11pm
      - Swifty
        
        See what I mean Sydney?
        
        He behaves like a sleazy little scumbag – time after time after time.
        
        After leaving a steaming turd of ‘whatever’, ‘snooze button alert’, or ‘go see your doctor’ he scurries off when bested and then pops up again somewhere else like nothing has happened. And then denies that anyone ever got the better of him.
        
        Stiffy always begins a new pattern of denial by asking for examples of previous bad behaviour (as he has done again today) as if he’s all innocent and then when presented with them changes the subject or scurries off to his little sewer again.
        
        ztev, Morrissey, Stiffy – they’re all the same. They think they’re morally superior to us but day after day behave like deceitful nasty scumbags. The biggest joke of all though is that Stiffy calls himself a Christian.
        
        Scott, KevOB and others run rings around him in the honesty and integrity stakes.
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:47pm
  - mark15
    
    You be careful with those reasoned factual questions mr A,they don’t like them!
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:31am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    You’re not seriously expecting this idiot to respond are you?
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:44am
- JackRabbit
  
  Stephieboy2
  
  Understanding does result from copying and pasting some else’s viewpoint that supports your bias. Understanding comes from knowing.
  
  Greta is a case in point. She can blurt out with all the haughtiness and arrogance of Rumpelstiltskin, evils of CO2 and the failure of the Western World, all according to a script, however when put into an interview that that requires her to answer simple questions that rely upon her understanding, she is continually unable to answer.
  
  In same conditions, you can copy and paste out ad infinitum, but anything that requires your understanding, result in no response.
  
  Case in point:After several weeks, of requests, you have failed to answer, from your own understanding, or otherwise, why the glacial ice on Mt Kilimanjaro is only 11,500 years old.
  
  You can’t answer because you don’t understand, that “now” is not the hottest it has ever been, and that fact, along with hundreds of others, destroys the Global Man Made Climate Change thesis.
  
  So again, Stephieboy2, why is the glacial ice on Mt Kilimanjaro only 11,500 years old?
  
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  January 2, 2020 10:06am
  - JackRabbit
    
    typo: – should be:
    Understanding doesn’t result from copying and pasting some else’s viewpoint that supports your bias.
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:16am
    - Stephieboy2
      
      The tell us how to do it?
      
      Beside refute the facts on my link.
      
      Compared to man made emissions Volcanic acitvity contribution to C02 and other gases is minimal!
      
      There fixed!
      
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      January 2, 2020 12:35pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        You just can’t state facts and assume that others should believe them. They have to be rooted in science and principles.
        
        11,500 years ago, there were no made made emissions. Explain how, 11,500 years ago, the earth was hotter than it is today, without man-made emissions, resulting in no glacier on Mt Kilimanjaro?
        
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        January 2, 2020 2:01pm
  - Stephieboy2
    
    Glacial ice Mt Kilamanjar?,
    
    All I know is this,
    
    Mt Kilimanjaro Glacier. Glaciers on Mt Kilimanjaro are a key geographic feature. It is very likely that at one stage the whole whole mountain summit was covered by an ice cap. … Since 1912 Mt Kilimanjaro has lost 82% of its ice cap and since 1962 it has lost 55% of its remaining glaciers.
    
    Aweome Picture Of A Mt Kilimanjaro Glacier From The Summit …
    
    https://www.climbkilimanjaroguide.com › mt-kilimanjaro-glacier
    
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    January 2, 2020 12:40pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      So again, Stephieboy2, why is the glacial ice on Mt Kilimanjaro only 11,500 years old?
      
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      January 2, 2020 1:55pm
      - gump
        
        I’m not Stephieboy2, but 11,500 years ago was the tail-end of the exceptionally cold period known as the Younger Dryas.
        
        During that period the area surrounding Mount Kilimanjaro was exceptionally dry due to the cessation of the African monsoon and there was no precipitation or moisture which could contribute towards the formation of glacial ice.
        
        At the risk of pointing out the obvious, ice cannot form without water.
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:22pm
      - JackRabbit
        
        @gump
        
        Thank you.
        
        This was a cool period, and this period, which was far cooler than it is now, was followed by the Holocene period that was much warmer than it is now. It was colder than today by about 15°C, and increased in the Holocene period by a few degrees.
        At its coldest, CO2 was as high as it is today. The increase in temperature from the Dryas period to the Holocene period happened without modern man.
        
        My point being that the earth has its own cycles, of temperature, weather, and ice accumulation or loss on glaciers. Which man has no control over. Yet receding glaciers, or some glaciers growing while others recede, are taken as signs of man made climate change. The climate is continually changing. Glaciers can recede as temperature drops, and the glacier base is less fluid.
        
        Total ice mass can drop as precipitation input drops. All of which can be altered by planetary inclination as part of those cycles.
        
        The earth’s cycles have particularly long periods, so jumping to conclusions about things is crazy.
        
        We need to look after the planet, but jumping to conclusions and stating as fact, things that are not what they appear to be, is the proverbial Chicken Little story.
        
        Mother nature has her own cycles and energies. Dry timber or tinder will be ignited by lightening and burned, to make way for new growth. It happens all around the world.
        
        Climate Change advocates are claiming the Australian bush fires, and the Californian bush fires are caused by climate change.
        
        In both Australia and California, arrests have been made over deliberate starting of fires. The spreading of the bush fires has been been made worse by Greenies campaigning and stopping clear felling of bush, to create fire breaks, in both countries.
        
        Our biggest concern, is not the illusory CO2 problem, but actions taken or enforced in order to combat the illusory CO2 problem, and in the process creating the very unwanted outcomes that the “climate change provisions” were hoping to avoid. The spreading of bush fires due to a lack of clear felling, is a prime and very real example.
        
        No amount of carbon tax, Jacinda type petitions, or Extinction Rebellion activists, will stop Mother Nature doing what she has always done. Any action is simple pissing in the wind.
        
        The only thing Extinction Rebellion is likely to achieve is increasing the odds of mankind making itself extinct.
        
        The only thing climate change provisions and carbon tax will do, is to wreck the environment.
        
        Mankind’s biggest threat is stupidity, and failing to learn from history, including being gullible.
        
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        January 2, 2020 7:16pm
  - Liberty
    
    “Case in point:After several weeks, of requests, you have failed to answer, from your own understanding, or otherwise, why the glacial ice on Mt Kilimanjaro is only 11,500 years old.”
    
    Earth tilt is highly likely to be a factor.
    But the warmist wont talk about earth tilt as it doesn’t fit there theory.
    
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    January 2, 2020 4:58pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Mt Kilimanjaro has different causes, but earth tilt may be an underlying contributory cause.
      
      Earth tilt is shifting the relative location of hot and cold regions, as it has been doing for a very long time. Which is why magnetic north and true north are in different planes, and magnetic north is continually shifting, as it has always done. It shifts both on a transient daily basis, and an average yearly basis.
      
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      January 2, 2020 7:37pm
      - ronsegal
        
        Case in point re magnetic dipole shifts:
        http://www.vukcevic.co.uk/SST-GMF-CO2.htm
        
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        January 2, 2020 10:31pm
- Andrei
  
  “Well, it is bunkum as shown by scientists who know,”
  
  Science doesn’t work the way you think it does Stephieboy. Scientists are not priests and their pronouncements are not carved in tablets of stone.
  
  And scientists disputing the findings of other scientists is part and parcel of the deal.
  
  What you have produced with a flourish of “I am right and you are wrong” is a claim without any supporting references or data to back it up.
  
  I bet you don’t know what a limnic eruption is
  
  one occured in Camaroon 36 or so years ago and so much CO2 was released that every living thing within miles was suffocated including 1700 people
  
  Makes anything we can do pale into insignificance
  
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  January 2, 2020 10:25am
  - Stephieboy2
    
    Cameroon eruption ?
    
    Comparing carrots to mangoes!
    
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    January 2, 2020 12:37pm
- RoboRob
  
  I take it you will be pushing for an extensive increase in Nuclear power generation? This is one easy step that could almost immediately reduce co2 emissions to near pre industrialisation levels.
  
  Seems strange to me that all the greenies and climate change pushers neglect to mention Nuclear power. Could it be that is because
  
  a) They don’t like the concept of Nuclear power and that the ‘climate emergency’ is not important enough for them to make changes that are unpalatable to them? They would rather others sacrifice on their behalf?
  
  b) The real goal of the climate changers is to reduce the gap between the haves and have nots, by reducing the what the haves have. They would also like to significantly reduce the world population, which is in part behind the push to not eat meat.
  
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  January 2, 2020 10:31am
  - Notsofast
    
    Unfortunately that means commissioning a new nuclear plant every 2 days globally, predicated by the lifetime of a plant.
    Everyone knows that there is no constraining carbon emissions, so the only question is whether it increases global temperatures, and if so, where should people live.
    Should New Zealand, with secure borders, freeze permanent population and create an eco sanctuary which people can visit on sail boats?
    Are we truly godzone?
    
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    January 2, 2020 11:27am
    - mark15
      
      No.
      
      6 0
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      January 2, 2020 12:03pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      So far, all the observed evidence shows, that the modest increase in Temps we’ve had has actually been beneficial.
      Positive Feedbacks, once thought to being going to cause huge warming, just isn’t occurring.
      The BAU RCP8.5, once thought the standard, is now thoroughly debunked. (3000 Peer Reviewed Research Papers)
      
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      January 2, 2020 1:24pm
      - Stephieboy2
        
        Beneficial ? Like Dengue and Roos River virus etc?
        
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        January 2, 2020 3:12pm
  - ronsegal
    
    The greenies should be pushing for thermonuclear fusion generation, ‘fusion emergency’, or something. Then I might even support them. (… did you really say that!)
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:37pm
- Notsofast
  
  Good work Stephieboy.
  However equalising opportunities for the 6 billion yet to vomit the carbon does suggest that the apocalypse is a sure thing.
  
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  January 2, 2020 11:17am
  - All_on_Red
    
    “Vomit the carbon”
    Moronic comment
    Carbon is an Element
    
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    January 2, 2020 1:26pm
- Simon Arnold
  
  Actually the ongoing science in this area appears quite interesting. I had been vaguely interested in this and seeing the comment thought I’d have a look at what the USGA was saying in the linked article. It turns out they are making claims for all emissions from volcanos, and reference American Geophysical Union’s Eos article “Volcanic Versus Anthropogenic Carbon Dioxide” written by USGS scientist Terrence M. Gerlach. 2011. This in turn relies pretty much on his 1999 work. These estimates are based on small samples of active volcanos.
  
  I thought I’d read recently that subglacial volcanos had been found to emit too, and turned up Ilyinskaya et al “Globally Significant CO2 Emissions From Katla, a Subglacial Volcano in Iceland” Geophysical Research Letters vol 45 no 19, 2018. From its abstract:
  
  “Volcanoes are a key natural source of CO2, but global estimates of volcanic CO2 flux are predominantly based on measurements from a fraction of world’s actively degassing volcanoes. We … quantify CO2 emissions from Katla, a major subglacial volcanic caldera in Iceland that last erupted 100 years ago … . Katla’s sustained CO2 flux, 12–24 kt/d, is up to an order of magnitude greater than previous estimates of total CO2 release from Iceland’s natural sources. Katla is one of the largest volcanic sources of CO2 on the planet, contributing up to 4% of global emissions from nonerupting volcanoes. Further measurements on subglacial volcanoes worldwide are urgently required to establish if Katla is exceptional, or if there is a significant previously unrecognized contribution to global CO2 emissions from natural sources.”
  
  So volcanic contribution seems still somewhat uncertain.
  
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  January 2, 2020 11:27am
  - Stephieboy2
    
    Source please!
    
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    January 2, 2020 12:38pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      He states it in his Post
      Lol- what a dummy.
      
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      January 2, 2020 1:29pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        I think stephieboy has clearly established he has a problem with understanding written material.
        
        https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2019/12/general_debate_30_december_2019.html#comment-2615532
        
        I do wonder who is furnishing him with some of the material he is posting here…
        
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        January 2, 2020 1:49pm
      - Swifty
        
        Good grief – what a dummy he is.
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:56pm
    - Maggie Pie
      
      Here ya’ go Steph – fill ya’ booties 😀
      
      https://i.imgflip.com/3kyznl.jpg
      
      12 0
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      January 2, 2020 1:38pm
      - Tall Man
        
        I can’t believe you let the “ass” comment pass you by yesterday.
        
        8 1
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        January 2, 2020 4:22pm
      - Maggie Pie
        
        C’mon TM – I do like to show a bit of cl ass 😛
        
        9 0
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        January 2, 2020 5:18pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Much better. The balance is restored in the “force”.
        
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        January 2, 2020 6:12pm
- Liberty
  
  “Well, it is bunkum as shown by scientists who know”
  Once again the warmist gravy train are pissing in the wind.
  Volcanos have been emitting CO2 into the air for millions of years. Long before
  any plants. The CO2 level has at times been a lot higher than now. Even before
  recently arrived man walked the planet.
  Volcanoes simply don’t fit in their debunked warming theory.
  
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  January 2, 2020 4:40pm
  - ronsegal
    
    Just to say that it’s not the total of CO2 over time that’s the issue but the significantly increased rate of (what is essentially stored) CO2 being released, largely by burning fossil fuels. This is held to be overwhelming the natural balancing mechanisms (that can cope with lower rates) causing continuously increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Even so, to have any significant effect on global temperatures requires positive feedback mechanisms that are at the root of alarmist models.
    
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    January 3, 2020 9:45am
Classic Liberal

I hadn’t heard the October Randy Newman interview until re-played today on National Radio. Total TDS: actually, on air, he wished Trump would die of a fatal disease. And Red Radio chose to re-play that!

Sorry, Randy fans, but he is part of an elite that ignores real people in small and large businesses who are benefiting from sensible tariffs and higher rate of employment.
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January 2, 2020 8:38am
- Jack5
  
  Trump is 6ft 2in: doesn’t fit the “short people” pilloried by Newman in one of his better known songs.
  
  “Short people got no reason to live,” sings Newman.
  
  The song goes on:
  
  They got little hands
  And little eyes
  And they walk around
  Tellin’ great big lies
  They got little noses
  And tiny little teeth
  They wear platform shoes
  On their nasty little feet
  
  Newman fans will probably argue that only the really smart (the Woke?) will know the real meaning of the words.
  
  https://youtu.be/mrjStSqu_w4
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:36am
- MarkF
  
  @CL. “that ignores real people in small and large businesses who are benefiting from sensible tariffs and higher rate of employment.”
  Whilst that metric may hold some validity with “Real People” I wonder how the crop farmers of the US mid west (not Real People) feel about China’s “retaliatory” tariffs and the fact that they now are having major difficulty, or even impossibility, of selling their product.
  As Newton postulated “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:51am
  - All_on_Red
    
    One door closes, another opens
    https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/14583-united-states-japan-partner-in-new-trade-deal
    
    NZ should be looking to alternative markets to China also.
    Like India.
    
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    January 2, 2020 11:25am
    - rockape
      
      And the UK.
      
      19 0
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      January 2, 2020 12:23pm
    - Stephieboy2
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      One door closes another opens?
      
      Like reopening the Toyota plant or Pye TV factory?
      
      LOL!
      
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      January 2, 2020 12:27pm
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Markets do have to be flexible. My business is flexible and has continuously changed with consumer needs.
    
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    January 2, 2020 11:42am
    - All_on_Red
      
      China is going to have some problems this year.
      It’s got a lot of debt to both service and retire.
      It’s income is down and that means less of the USD income it needs to service that debt and pay it back.
      Europe has similar issues.
      
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      January 2, 2020 1:17pm
      - freethinker
        
        What I hear coming out of Europe is crash bang wallop as the edifice collapses like a slow moving train wreck.
        
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        January 2, 2020 2:34pm
      - curry4me
        
        It’ll have more problems if people try a bit of forward planning by way of ordering stuff they’d normally buy from the Warehouse, or Walmart from non Chinese drop shippers instead.
        
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        January 2, 2020 8:58pm
Luke Piewalker

Fixes for 2020:

1. #turnArdern turns into #removeArdern
2. Winston First corruption outed (and prosecuted) and they are wiped from NZ history
3. Ian Foster figures out how to be a better coach than when he was with the Chiefs
4. Labour figures out we actually need new roads
5. Herald and Suff finally go bankrupt
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January 2, 2020 8:42am
- Humble Capitalist
  
  #turnArdern becomes #onetermArdern
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:21am
  - adamsmith1922
    
    My preference #ByeByeArdern
    
    26 0
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    January 2, 2020 11:26am
Gravelroad

I have never been a smoker of anything (not even fish) but can someone tell me why smoking cannabis is good but smoking tobacco is bad?
Users of “traditional” nicotine based products are increasingly vilified and taxed, while the users of cannabis need to be nurtured and legally condoned.
Supporters of the meth industry make excuses for the excesses of meth users/smokers – they need increasingly sophisticated treatment opportunities for their choice of addiction and so on. But cigarette smokers can go hang- just pay on your way out.
The few nicotine tax payers I know look after their kids and don’t choose criminal activity to support their habit.
I guess the underground world of the cannabis society is just way more cool.
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January 2, 2020 8:42am
- Tall Man
  
  I smoked 11 kgs of salmon for the freezer and Christmas with a few gifts to family.
  
  They’re not too bad but are a real bastard to light 😉
  
  You really don’t know what you’re missing without cold smoked NZ salmon in your life.
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:47am
  - GoVege
    
    Good one, TM.
    Definitely far preferable to dragging fellow mammals off to the horrors of “the works”.
    And salmon is the only animal flesh on Time’s list of the ten healthiest foods. 🙂
    
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    January 14, 2020 11:51am
- projectman
  
  Indeed. You know how to vote.
  
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  January 2, 2020 10:22am
- The King
  
  You know the first country to ban smoking in public was Nazi Germany, it was German scientists who first found the link between smoking and lung cancer.
  
  The underground cannabis will get more wealthy with it being legal. By the time a legitimate company has planted, used fertilizer, power and paid taxes/other costs of running a business etc etc that 1 ounce will cost probably about $600 in the shop. In turn illegal weed will raise from 250-300 to 400-450 per ounce.
  
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  January 2, 2020 10:24am
  - JackRabbit
    
    >>>You know the first country to ban smoking in public was Nazi Germany.
    
    Virtue signalling of the highest order.
    
    The German military and leadership were banned from smoking in uniform, under threat of harsh penalties. Raping, torturing, or killing of Jews was OK in uniform, however just don’t get caught smoking.
    
    And removing the gold from the teeth of Jews without anesthetic while they were alive was also OK for the military. But get caught smoking you were in trouble.
    
    Run the gas chambers 24/7 – all OK. But get caught smoking you were in trouble.
    
    It has more to do with Hitler himself an ex smoker and didn’t want to be reminded in case it caused him to start smoking again.
    
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    January 2, 2020 12:52pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    >>>German scientists who first found the link between smoking and lung cancer.
    
    I cannot believe that Germany was all that worried about people dying from Lung Cancer because of the ever increasing death toll of Jews dying from Gas, and the ever increasing toll of Germans dying from “Lead Poisoning” on the battlefield.
    
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    January 2, 2020 1:02pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    It will be much cheaper to just import medicinal cannabis from Queensland or Israel where production & markets are on a much larger scale than small NZ operations.
    
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    January 2, 2020 1:33pm
  - Jack5
    
    Hmm, dig and you find the derogatory term “health Nazis” may be a little too accurate for comfort.
    
    This is from an American medical database:
    
    Smoking was only one of the health related behaviours that received attention in Nazi Germany. The consumption of alcohol was also strongly campaigned against. Fruit and vegetable consumption was encouraged, as was the use of wholemeal bread and the avoidance of fat. A key figure in Nazi medicine, Erwin Liek, predicted that cancer would come to be seen as a product of diet.
    
    And…
    
    The consumption of whipped cream seems to have been a particular target of disapproval. The official newspaper of the SS, Das Schwarzes Korps, reported on German tourists in Austrian coffee houses and said that anyone would “think Greater Germany was only created so that this raving Philistine rabble can wolf whipped cream.” A prominent promilitarist slogan read, “Fighting power or whipped cream?”
    
    Source:
    
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535959/
    
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    January 2, 2020 5:51pm
sooty

What ever happened to the medical cannabis, which has morphed into all stoners getting wasted!
If you can’t test drivers, don’t even think about it!
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January 2, 2020 8:45am
Humble Capitalist

In April 2020 The National Living Wage will increase in the UK to:
£8.72 for over 25s (about $17.18 on current fx rates)
£8.20 for 21-24 (about $16.15)
£6.45 for 18-20 (about $12.71)
£4.55 Under 18s (about $8.96)
The 6.2% increase will be a record increase.
In NZ, business will need to pay a school leaver or someone with a short checkered career (eg. 9 jobs in 3 years) that you take a punt on $20 as of April next year. There is mounting pressure to pay a living wage which will be $22-$23 for those that interview well but turn out to be complete losers on the job. Those staff that have worked hard for 5 years expectation will be to be close to $30 for unskilled low margin work.
Now before the armchair experts that have never run a business comment with the usual lines – this is going to cost a lot of jobs in NZ. As a food business owner I know how tough this will be on local businesses that compete against imported proteins. We are having to whack prices up substantially to cover cost increases (wages being easily the biggest cost) to maintain a small margin and a viable business that provides employment. With these price increases comes inevitable decreases in volumes sold and definitely no guaranteed increase to productivity.
Once again those that argued that NZ is a low wage economy are completely WRONG. NZ is a high cost economy thanks to ridiculous costs associated with business especially compliance costs. Having to pay $20 for staff that turn out to be useless and hard to get rid of is not going to help either.
Id love to pay all staff $25 as a minimum if there was still a viable business (which there wouldnt be in my case). Higher wages would also be easier to pay if you could get rid of shit stirrers and hopeless Monday-itis staff easily.
A lot of uneducated people see the high prices and think businesses are making a killing. Well I’ll tell you that often margins are very small or non existent just to get a sale.
If there is a promotion to increase minimum wage by a record for 3 consecutive years there also needs to be a push from the top that this only comes with increased productivity. The problem is that performance doesnt go up just due to an increase, the hand just goes out asking for more as it is handed out so easily every year.
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January 2, 2020 9:03am
- Humble Capitalist
  
  Ps when volumes continue to drop back due to sales price increases vs. imported goods (and exporting isnt as competitive) do you think I will be looking to hire more or less staff? DUH Jacinda, Grant and Winston and co. you wouldnt know a single thing about running a small business in NZ. While everything looks rosy on your ‘unemployment figures’ as you bask like frogs in a simmering pot, just wait until reality bites you (and us sadly)
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:18am
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Thanks HC, and if Shamubeel Eaqub gets his ‘land tax’ or the watermelons a ‘wealth tax’, bringing up your business costs, I wonder if consumer prices will go up or down and you’ll hire more or less staff???
    
    I wonder, I wonder, must get a big committee to work it out…
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:35am
  - Captain Mainwaring
    
    By way of an example, occasionally I treat myself to a pie for lunch. The local pie shop (run by hard working Vietnamese) has increased the price of their pies by 29% in two increments over the last year. I know exactly why they had to do this but the result will be that my pie-buying will be much more infrequent. I’m sure there are many others like me and as the pie shop’s revenue goes down how much longer will they be able to pay the rent?
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:41am
    - Tall Man
      
      But what were the original prices and how long have they owned the business and are they also doing a short term push to increase turnover before selling?
      
      There are numerous factors involved in price increases but that doesn’t detract from you observation that part of the increase in prices on most commodities is as a direct result of coalition policies.
      
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      January 2, 2020 9:52am
    - MCos
      
      Exactly why did they have to put their prices up?
      
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      January 2, 2020 10:03am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Because of the lie ‘no more new taxes’
        
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        January 2, 2020 12:06pm
      - Humble Capitalist
        
        You obviously dont know how much cost of raw materials, packaging, compliance, rent etc. have increased Mcos. Those of us in the food business do.
        
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        January 2, 2020 3:18pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Probably so they can afford to eat.
        
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        January 2, 2020 4:20pm
    - kevn
      
      @Captn… If they weren’t sucking all the cash out, I’m sure the business would be more viable. Check their till ring up display when you pay cash next time. Same with all the dairies.
      
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      January 2, 2020 10:08am
      - igm
        
        Bet you are either unemployable, a public servant, or just another envious lazy Labourite with a very poor credit rating to boot.
        
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        January 2, 2020 3:56pm
      - Paulus Gnome
        
        I want to down tick that however, the local Indian dairy in Northcross has two tills, one that receipts all the card payments with a lovely white receipt and the other a cash draw for when you pay with cash with a handle and no receipt.
        
        I complained to Inland Revenue and guess what?
        
        Nothing. The same result when I was charged, but did not pay, the ‘tax’ on an invoice from a furniture staging company in Auckland without a GST number, and refused to give me one when asked.
        
        Complaint to Customs, not interested
        
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        January 2, 2020 6:14pm
    - Stephieboy2
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      Could you give us the name of the Pie Shop for a fact check?
      
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      January 2, 2020 10:12am
    - igm
      
      Not just rent (outgoings), outrageous compliance costs are now beyond a joke.
      
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      January 2, 2020 10:29am
    - Humble Capitalist
      
      The ‘minister of finance’ pie eating is unlikely to go down by much. Not with his salary and benefits package. Must be a huge carbon gut print to that waistband.
      
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      January 2, 2020 10:40am
      - freethinker
        
        HC Absolute requirement to keep his pie eating up to balance the weight on the other side and keep our finance minister balanced so he doesn’t fall flat on his face, but should sweet cheeks manage to reduce he will probably fall on his arse instead.
        
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        January 2, 2020 2:42pm
    - Maggie Pie
      
      So, your pie has increased by ’87 cents’ over the last year then Capt’n, and your thinking about giving up? And yet they say its having no effect on smokers!
      [ My partner reckons he can see Vietnamese Pie Shops in South Auckland being the next target of armed robberies – wot area you in Mainwaring?]
      
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      January 2, 2020 10:43am
  - GJM
    
    Many of those in the employment figures are public servants so are a double drain on the productive and the economy. There needs to be wholesale pruning of the Wellington wooden heads, with some departments and Quangos removed completely. It will never happen however, as Labour and Labour Lite use the taxpayer as a means of soaking up no hopes and gender studies graduates. At least when NZRail had 20000 staff, we got some skilled tradesmen out of it.
    It will be interesting when the next recession comes, which cant be far away and Greece of the south pacific is forced to tighten the belt. It wont happen unless circumstances force it and even then it will be kicked down the road.
    
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    January 2, 2020 11:27am
    - mark15
      
      Greece of the South Pacific…I don’t like the sound of that.
      
      6 0
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      January 2, 2020 1:30pm
      - Captain Mainwaring
        
        Would you prefer Venezuela of the South Pacific?
        
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        January 2, 2020 4:13pm
- BullyHayes
  
  sold out of hospo last year because of the rising wage environment
  
  and am putting my capital into an industry that has lower proportional labour costs
  
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  January 2, 2020 3:39pm
Classic Liberal

Re the possible push for a wealth tax: Shamubeel Eaqub leading the charge by proposing a land charge. Including this false claim: “Contrary to popular belief, local authority rates are not a land tax and have nothing to do with the price of land and housing.”

Of course it’s a bloody land tax already – why else does the rates bill include land valuation and charge accordingly? Instead of just billing each household the same for services?
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January 2, 2020 9:04am
- AndyW
  
  What irks me about Shamubeel is although he’s a talented and successful economist, he has no clue about the issues facing mainstream New Zealanders. A clear example is a column he penned last year about work/life balance. He used his personal situation- taking a paycut to spend more time with his family. That’s admirable but he didn’t disclose how much he was earning before and after his cut…and it’s a hell-of-a-lot more than the average Kiwi.
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:19am
  - Jack5
    
    Eaqub is a “he’s a talented and successful economist”?
    
    Can you give us some examples of this, Andy?
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:41am
    - AndyW
      
      Partner in a boutique economic consultancy…earning more than enough to not have to worry about any financial issues…that could mean either he’s successful or his clients are stupid.
      
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      January 2, 2020 11:48am
      - Prince
        
        Or his clients are well-connected and throw a lot of taxpayer-funded business his way.
        
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        January 2, 2020 2:33pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      Has Shambles ever been right?
      
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      January 2, 2020 1:57pm
  - sooty
    
    Andy, what on earth makes you think he is talented and successful economist?
    I allways thought he was away with the fairies?
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:58am
  - kevn
    
    @Andy.. The same Auckland based Sham E who advocated many years ago to NOT buy a house but to rent instead. Like he did. On a 300k + salary I’m guessing.
    You can bet he owns a home but chooses to rent a smaller place whilst renting his own (prob a big
    place) out.
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:13am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      He bought a house a couple of years ago
      
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/94966044/shamubeel-eaqub-ive-bought-a-house-at-last
      
      Now, who would have thought that having kiddiewinkles and a wife could possibly result in a change of lifestyle?
      
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      January 2, 2020 11:53am
      - Captain Mainwaring
        
        Can’t be much of an economist if he bought a house at the top of the market while not having another one to sell.
        
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        January 2, 2020 12:11pm
  - Humble Capitalist
    
    Reminds me of an out of touch manager we used to have at work. He nearly put us out of business with his thick as a brick ideas that were supposed to be ‘innovative’. In our business the busiest time is 5am-10am. His idea to improve work/life balance was to tell supervisors to start coming into work at 8.30am. This wasnt what nearly capsized our business but was indicative of what was to come but thats another story
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:48am
  - Humble Capitalist
    
    Or dont take a pay cut and just take an 8 week holiday to improve ‘work/life balance’ like 36% (barely more than Corbyn) PM select Ardern
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:51am
    - yossarian
      
      Is that true? Is Jacinda really taking 8 weeks off?
      
      Honest question…
      
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      January 2, 2020 2:35pm
      - Tall Man
        
        She basically takes 52 weeks off based on the output she has generated.
        
        That… is a genuine comment.
        
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        January 2, 2020 4:16pm
- BassilFawlty
  
  I didn’t read the article, the picture of his smug self satisfied face is enough to turn me off.
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:58am
- Jules99
  
  This from someone who said renting is better than buying. Rates is a tax and the amount you pay varies depending on the value of your property. Then you pay GST on top, i.e. a tax on a tax. Always irked me that one.
  
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  January 2, 2020 10:05am
- tf78
  
  I love the way the council increases your value of improvements each year – well we’ve done no improvements for over 20 years.
  
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  January 2, 2020 12:44pm
- rockape
  
  I was one of the few who liked Maggie Thatchers poll tax, I just cant tell my wife who was a student protester at the time!
  
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  January 2, 2020 4:08pm
Humble Capitalist

2020 onetermArdern
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January 2, 2020 9:13am
- Stephieboy2
  
  Humble Capitalist,
  
  Shall we archive that prediction and see?
  
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  January 2, 2020 10:14am
  - Humble Capitalist
    
    Gladly archive it Stephie. I was going to archive some of your comments but thought Id better not in case I get a knock on the door from the Police
    
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    January 2, 2020 3:32pm
    - Tall Man
      
      steffy’s comments are more likely to become useful if they were printed on dunny paper.
      
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      January 2, 2020 4:15pm
Fletch

Trump passes the test. Successfully defends the U.S embassy in Iraq.

Unlike the Obama Administration, President Trump did not dither and wait for the situation to spin out of control. A week prior the event, the Administration ordered the evacuation of all nonessential personnel from Iraq. At the time this was portrayed as a result of the deteriorating security situation for US personnel but, in retrospect, it seems like there must have been intelligence that the Iranian-directed militias were considering targeting the US embassy. Just hours after the rent-a-mob appeared, President Trump ordered a quick reaction force of about 100 Marines and a pair of AH-64 Apache gunships to Baghdad.

[…]

Supporters of the Kataib Hezbollah militia who had spent the night camped outside the embassy began dismantling their tents and leaving the area, saying they had won a victory and would now seek the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq through the nation’s parliament.

Their retreat signaled a potential end to a crisis that had seen thousands of angry militia supporters attempt to storm the embassy on Monday, prompting the United States to send additional troop reinforcements to Iraq.

See Obama? See Hillary? That’s how it’s done. Not leaving four men to die in Benghazi because it was election year and you were too afraid to go defend them.

https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2020/01/01/president-trumps-benghazi-has-ended-much-better-than-hillary-clintons-did/
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January 2, 2020 9:14am
- Scott
  
  Great post Fletch –
  it is interesting to me that the media and the Democrats were quick to blame Trump. But as you say Trump did the right thing and acted. He sent in the Marines. Apparently the angry “protesters” have now withdrawn back across the river.
  
  In contrast on learning about the attack on Benghazi Hillary Clinton did nothing. Obama left to go on a fundraiser that night. The media could have had a field day. But no, their president could do no wrong.
  
  The other thing that Trump does is tell the truth about these things. Obama and Clinton on the other hand put out a story that the attacks on Benghazi were spontaneous protests fuelled by a vicious anti-Islam video. This anti-Islam video was actually put out by an ex-Muslim, now Christian Middle Eastern man living in the United States. For this he was arrested.
  
  But the facts are that Clinton and Obama knew in real time that these were preplanned attacks, occurring on the anniversary of 9/11. Also we note that these attacks included people armed with rocket launchers. Like who brings a rocket launcher to a spontaneous protest??
  
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  January 2, 2020 9:28am
  - Fletch
    
    Yup, Hillary admitted in a phone call to the Egyptian president that “we know the attack in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack, not a protest”
    
    https://archives-benghazi-republicans-oversight.house.gov/sites/republicans.benghazi.house.gov/files/documents/Tab%2079.pdf
    
    Hillary emailed her daughter Chelsea (Chelsea using the pseudonym Diane Reynolds) that it was an attack by an Al Qaeda type group –
    
    https://archives-benghazi-republicans-oversight.house.gov/sites/republicans.benghazi.house.gov/files/documents/Tab%2050.pdf
    
    Her emails (uncovered by Judicial Watch) showed the talking points they wanted to put forward, that it was a spontaneous protest. Susan Rice dutifully parroted the points when she went on various TV talk shows.
    
    https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-releases/judicial-watch-new-benghazi-documents-confirm-clinton-email-cover-up/
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:37am
    - Stephieboy2
      
      Fletch , once again,
      
      In Final Report, Benghazi Committee Finds No New Evidence of Clinton Wrongdoing
      
      https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/06/28/in-final-report-benghazi-committee-finds-no-new-evidence-of-clinton-wrongdoing/
      
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      January 2, 2020 12:56pm
      - rouppe
        
        Fletch didn’t suggest that she performed an illegal act.
        
        Just that she left four Americans to die when she had to power to defend them.
        
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        January 2, 2020 4:12pm
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Interesting how Breitbart calls them what they are – ‘attacks’, while the leftard papers call them ‘protests’. Aaawww, just handing out flowers and singing a protest song….
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:40am
    - Stephieboy2
      
      Classical Liberal,
      
      Interesting how Breitbart calls them what they are.
      
      Like Dortmund and Pizzagate?
      
      LOL
      
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      January 2, 2020 12:58pm
  - Stephieboy2
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Scott,
    
    Even the Trey Gowdy led investigation could not find any evidence of wrong going by Hillary Clinton
    
    WASHINGTON — Ending one of the longest, costliest and most bitterly partisan congressional investigations in history, the House Select Committee on Benghazi issued its final report on Tuesday, finding no new evidence of culpability or wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton in the 2012 attacks in Libya that left four Americans dead.
    …
    The 800-page report delivered a broad rebuke of the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department — and the officials who led them — for failing to grasp the acute security risks in Benghazi, and especially for maintaining outposts there that they could not protect….”
    
    https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/us/politics/hillary-clinton-benghazi.html
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:26am
  - mark15
    
    Good question. Must be white supremacists that do that.
    
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    January 2, 2020 10:35am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Maybe Congress should investigate that Benghazi business. That Hilary Clinton character sounds a bit dodgy.
    
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    January 2, 2020 11:11am
- Stephieboy2
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  What a load of rubbish. False equivalence that’s out of touch with the facts regarding Benghazi,
  
  https://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/pac-attack-on-clintons-benghazi-record/
  
  BTW which subsequent House and investigations cleared the Obama administration of any wrong doing
  
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  January 2, 2020 10:16am
Sydney Alvarado

Yesterday and again today I have challenged Stephieboy to identify some actions by governments that have materially reduced greenhouse emissions. You see lots of Gretas demanding “action“ but it begs the question of whether “action“ has made any material difference at any time anywhere.

I am not talking about market driven changes. For example the collapse of dirty industry in the former East Germany or the switch from coal to gas in the UK. I’m talking about, for example, massive subsidies for solar.

So I looked at Norway which has spent billions on renewables subsidies and EVs. Over the last five years Norway emissions have declined by two percent, hardly enough to make any difference to temperature rises. But incredibly despite such mind boggling expenditure, last year Norway emissions started rising again!

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-03/norway-greenhouse-gas-emissions-rise-despite-renewable-push

So Stephie instead of wasting today behaving like a bit of a dick, please provide us with some examples of CO2e mitigation policies that have been successful.
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January 2, 2020 9:39am
- KevO'Brien
  
  You’re asking an ideological parrot to change its feathers. The tape has only a limited number of scripts. ‘Ardone is the same–no script, no response.
  
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  January 2, 2020 11:57am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Stephieboy trolls, abuses and runs.
  
  There is a vast archive on KB of his behaviour.
  
  However, by responding to his comments we are often able to extend and amplify our own posts.
  
  It’s a tactic I often employ, as you have, to good effect, with the Norway information.
  
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  January 2, 2020 12:01pm
- Albert_Ross
  
  And I’ve asked you to explain what is the relevance of this point to the issue of whether climate change is happening and whether efforts should be made to address it.
  
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  January 2, 2020 12:19pm
  - Sydney Alvarado
    
    I replied above. There should be no efforts to address climate change that are either or both futile and absurdly cost ineffective.
    
    See this for a good explanation.
    
    http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2019/12/strengthening-ets.html?m=1
    
    And here
    
    http://offsettingbehaviour.blogspot.com/2019/10/ruling-out-doing-anything-about-9983-of.html?m=1
    
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    January 2, 2020 12:46pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Read Sydney Alvarado’s post above
    https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/01/general_debate_2_january_2020.html/comment-page-1#comment-2616834
    
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    January 2, 2020 1:36pm
    - Albert_Ross
      
      Thank you. However, I am still not following Sydney’s logic.
      
      If Sydney wants a conversation about what’s the best way to address climate change, that’s great, I’m delighted to participate in it, and I agree with him(?) about international carbon trading.
      
      But surely a prerequisite for such a conversation is that we accept that climate change due to human activities is happening and that we want to tackle it. Why would you start such a conversation by attacking somebody who has consistently tried, albeit ineptly, to argue precisely that?
      
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      January 2, 2020 3:16pm
      - Sydney Alvarado
        
        “But surely a prerequisite for such a conversation is that we accept that climate change due to human activities is happening and that we want to tackle it.“
        
        Who is this “we“? People don’t want to tackle it. Thats why New Zealand emissions have gone in one direction since we signed the Kyoto protocol. Here is a simple example. Folk can offset all their flights on Air New Zealand by ticking a box on the booking form. So you would think that lots of folk would do so. But less than two percent do so.
        
        There is only one objective of climate change policy and that is to limit global temperature rises in coming decades. There is no prospect of that under any scenario, including in New Zealand.
        
        Greenhouse emissions are likely to peak and decline due to factors outside of the control of Government’s but it will be too late to contain temperature rises.
        
        As for New Zealand our emissions in 2030 may be higher or lower than today’s. But it will have nothing to do with the government. Ironically, the best thing the New Zealand Government could do would be to discourage international tourists from coming here, burning vast amounts of fossil fuels on the way here and back and while here. Of course the government does the exact opposite.
        
        I stopped working on climate change and advising governments because realised that government does not want to address climate change. They just want to be seen to “do something“. Whether the something is effective or affordable does not matter. What matters is that they don’t lose government. And if any New Zealand government took actions to materially reduce New Zealand domestic emissions over any reasonable time frame, that government would lose office.
        
        So after 4 years I decided to do something better with my life. But if you and Stephie have any ideas fill your boots.
        
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        January 2, 2020 4:24pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Well put Sydney.
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:52pm
  - Tall Man
    
    Albert you seem to have taken a position up of resident climate change attacker.
    
    I do not profess to be a scientist capable of deep and meaningful analysis but I do possess more than my share of brain cells and the logic of the zealot’s argument is way short of winning a debate in my opinion.
    
    You referenced something the other day stating that volcanic eruptions have little real impact on climate change and from memory you stated it is 1% ish. Isn’t that about 6 times the impact of 100% of NZ’s emissions which pretty much means that we are doing a big nothing either way?
    
    Also a distant memory tells me that Krakatoa’s eruption changed the weather of the whole earth for quite a period of time so you may well be right that volcanoes, meteors and other natural occurrences pale into insignificance compared to the world’s SUVs, but I don’t think so.
    
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    January 2, 2020 2:08pm
    - Sydney Alvarado
      
      He is kind of right. Volcanos emit ash and droplets of sulfuric acid and water. The effect is opposite to SUVs. Such events cause global cooling. Mount Tambora in 1815 was the last instance.. It literally negated the Northern Hemisphere summer killing tens of thousands due to famine. Taupo did the same thing in about 200 AD.
      
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      January 2, 2020 4:30pm
      - Albert_Ross
        
        Hopefully this replies to Sydney’s comment.
        
        Again I violently agree with you. On the evidence of their own (non) actions Governments neither really believe in nor actually want to address climate change, calculating that there’s no political gain in it.
        
        Why then are they continually paying, threatening or otherwise manipulating scientists to keep insisting that climate change is real and that action needs to be taken to address it?
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:07pm
      - Tall Man
        
        So they have more of an impact on climate than global warming?
        
        I still back nature to dwarf SUVs and aircon.
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:51pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        @Albert Ross,
        
        Why then are they continually paying, threatening or otherwise manipulating scientists to keep insisting that climate change is real and that action needs to be taken to address it?
        
        I’m willing to acknowledge that you are a serious commenter on this topic, and I trust that I have always replied respectfully to your questions.
        
        However, I feel we have covered this ground before.
        
        Those of us who attract the abuse of the Climate-change alarmists on this blog do not deny that there has been some warming in the last century, but we do question whether the science is settled as to the cause(s).
        
        Why have some scientists taken a stance against natural factors being involved in the warming is because :
        (1) Vast amounts of money/influence have been devoted to researching man-made aspect of climate warming
        (2) Group think
        (3) pressure has been applied against scientists researching other hypotheses for global warming
        (4) Powerful International political/financial groupings who want to shift influence from fossil fuels to renewables.
        
        These topics are well-covered in some of the writings, blogs of the so-called deniers.
        
        I don’t know your background.. but any student of science history will be aware that similar “group-think” or paradigm capture have occurred many times…
        
        In my lifetime:
        .continental drift/or fixed land-masses
        . cholesterol bad
        . stress cause of ulcers
        . race and IQ
        
        and in earlier times last century:
        Eugenics
        Lysenkoism
        
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        January 2, 2020 6:25pm
    - Albert_Ross
      
      Maggy (sorry, we’re now too far into debate to use the reply function, hope this comes out in the right place) – Why would Governments – every Government in the world, no matter what ideology or domestic political priorities – channel vast amounts of money and political influence into forcing scientists to make statements which both the politicians and the scientists themselves know to be untenable, and whose most likely political impact is to make those selfsame Governments look bad because – as Sydney points out – they’re not willing or able to do anything effective to address the issue? What is the benefit to Governments in using resources and political capital, which they could be using to buy votes by providing stuff that voters actually like, in this way? Why is this the only issue on which Governments are able to force scientists into line? Why are opposition parties going along with the deception instead of targeting the votes to be had by revealing it?
      
      Where are all of the people who were previously in on the scam, but who no longer have any skin in the game – eg politicians who’ve been ejected from office with no hope of return, climate scientists who’ve retired and no longer depend on Government or academic goodwill, disgruntled ex-partners of climate scientists – seizing the opportunity to grab headlines, and oil company money, by revealing the con?
      
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      January 2, 2020 7:43pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Because as far as I can work out an elite group of folk want to take control of the Global economic system.
        
        Scientists are just the dumb/willing agents of larger forces.
        
        Where are all of the people who were previously in on the scam, but who no longer have any skin in the game – eg politicians
        
        Trying to get their voice heard/ papers published..
        
        Try this puzzle:
        https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgxwGCbFjlRjNwdfFPHZkQxNlQnfp
        
        why does every know Greta & not Judith?
        
        Tell me Albert, Why have I been subject to 5 years of filthy defamatory abuse on this blog (and I do have a record of all the posts that follow or are associated with my abusers)?
        
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        January 2, 2020 8:36pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        @Albert Ross
        
        I can’t explain why the MSM wants to close down sceptical voices…
        
        But read Matt Ridley’s take on recent events when interviewed on BBC
        
        https://reaction.life/the-bbc-bob-ward-and-the-climate-catastrophists-attack-on-dissent/
        
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        January 2, 2020 9:27pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Ahh, that clears it up. A gigantic hoax by sinister ‘elites’ seeking global domination. I suppose faking the moon landings was just practice for an even more ambitious conspiracy.
        
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        January 2, 2020 10:54pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Smearing me with moon-landing conspiracies, eh mikenmild?
        
        A topic I’ve never mentioned here… but just like Griff & stephieboy you try to associate me with anti-science stuff .
        
        Unable to debate a topic, I see, without a slimy putdown.
        
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        January 2, 2020 11:17pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        Boo hoo. Tell me more about the elites controlling the world.
        
        4 17
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        January 2, 2020 11:23pm
Maggie Pie

And a big SHOUT OUT to all my deaf followers!!
24 4
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January 2, 2020 9:55am
Tall Man

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12270771

I predict that the word “triggered” will get over used this year.

I would say that “if” older males are the only ones being “triggered” by greta then all that demonstrates is that the rest of the world are fucking nuts 🙂
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January 2, 2020 10:21am
Classic Liberal

FFS Tarrant! You have ruined this site. My comments are in someone’s after lunch maybe folder!

Come on, why can’t long-term contributors who have never been ‘told off’ just post?!?
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January 2, 2020 10:25am
- Tall Man
  
  Because we may offend someone whose name cannot be linked to “liar” without consequences.
  
  I agree with you but as one who has had plenty of deletions visited upon him I do believe that the bar has been raised far too high and there is a little bit of inconsistency.
  
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  January 2, 2020 11:24am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Tall Man, remember the Labour Party Blog when Trev and Clare were shafting each other and running the blog when they had time?
    I lasted 3 days. That is what the left do with free speech – they can not debate, therefore BAN!!!!
    
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    January 2, 2020 4:45pm
    - Tall Man
      
      I don’t go back that far to be honest but I am proud to say that stuff banned me fairly quickly.
      
      When castigated for calling someone an “idiot”, the response was probably not the best I could have come back with but it was satisfying…..
      
      For me I do think that the moderation is a bit on the conservative side but it ain’t my blog and I guess my opinion isn’t really a consideration 🙂
      
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      January 2, 2020 5:45pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Send a personal email to DPF requesting permission to comment here without moderation.
  
  or follow his instructions here on how to get auto-approve status if you wish to use an alias.
  
  https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2019/03/moderation_changes.html
  
  11 2
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  January 2, 2020 12:05pm
  - Classic Liberal
    
    Thanks Maggy, but that’s not the point. My point is that Tarrant has successfully neutered political debate online. Stuff used to be worth checking out for the comments section.
    
    And see what Germany is proposing: password grabbing if someone is deemed guilty of wrongthink.
    
    Leftard authoritarianism (the CDU is not conservative anymore) is the new fascism. All under the guise of protecting us against ‘hate speech’.
    
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    January 2, 2020 12:14pm
    - The King
      
      They were shutting down speech and wrong think long before Tarrant. All Tarrant did was hasten the inevitable.
      
      9 0
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      January 2, 2020 3:59pm
      - Tall Man
        
        And give them some justification.
        
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        January 2, 2020 5:42pm
Jack5

Can anyone please point to where the GDP per capita figures were in the statistics release on the Thursday before Christmas (December 19)?

Grant Robertson in his statement quoted only GDP figures: up 0.7 per cent over the September quarter, and 2.7 per cent over the September year.

They’re not on the highlights page of the Statistics NZ web site, and finding GDP per capita in the Statistics NZ site eludes me. The Statistics NZ is all shiny first page, and thereafter search shambles. The design is high in PR and low in search-tool quality.

Politicians seem to hide GDP per capita from us. My guess is this because the GDP growth figures they trumpet are the result of the blow-out in immigration rather than any true growth in citizens’ wealth.

As for the straight, ordinary, brown-paper GDP, at BNZ Economy Watch, Stephen Toplis comments:

“While the 0.7% reading was above the market’s 0.5% pick and even further above the RBNZ’s 0.3% expectation, it’s not as great a surprise as first appearances might suggest. Thanks largely to a significant downward revision to the previous quarter’s outturn (to 0.1% from 0.5%), annual growth was simply on-market at 2.3%.”

Grant Robertson said in his December 19 release: ” New Zealand is growing faster than the countries we compare ourselves to, including Australia, the UK, Canada, the EU, Japan, the OECD average and the US.”

Perhaps that’s only because, thanks to the immigration blow-out, we are outpacing them in population growth.

Our GDP per capita figures would clarify this.

For anyone who still isn’t convinced of the importance of GDP per capita consider India: third in the world in GDP, 156th in the world in GDP per capita.
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January 2, 2020 10:37am
- mikenmildagain
  
  No political parties wish to point out NZ’s 50-year economic decline.
  
  6 22
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  January 2, 2020 11:35am
- KevO'Brien
  
  I don’t trust a single figure coming out of this COL.
  It’s all wishful thinking.
  “Surpluses” are being created by writing back depreciation charges. Tricks any auditor is aware of. Illegal in commercial accounts but not for Poohbah.
  ☑️☑️Rout2020☑️☑️
  
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  January 2, 2020 11:54am
kiwiracer

The left. . . . .Islam huggers
24 2
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January 2, 2020 10:53am
Mobile Michael

5 radical ideas for 2020, by Glenn McConnell.

1. More days off.
2. Lower voting age to 10.
3. Pay vocational professions more.
4. Give everyone a home.
5. Stop sharing corporate memes.

Under idea two, McConnell says, “Even then, the fact is many 16, 14 and 9-year-olds are more insightful and knowledgeable than many 30-year olds.” Given the total lack of understanding of economics McConnell has I take it he is less insightful and knowledgable than the average 9 year old. They’ve generally given up on Father Christmas by then.
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January 2, 2020 11:35am
- Classic Liberal
  
  Who TF is paying this moron to produce such bullshit?
  
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  January 2, 2020 12:21pm
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    We will be, somewhere in there, it will the taxpayer, as always,
    
    3 0
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    January 2, 2020 6:28pm
MCos

This sounds rather quaint in a creepy sort of way.
https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/archives/2019/12/30/mansplaining-convention-coming-to-orlando-promises-to-make-women-great-again?media=AMP%20HTML&__twitter_impression=true
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January 2, 2020 11:49am
- MCos
  
  One of the presenter is Stefan Molyneax.
  That should bring in the crowds.
  
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  January 2, 2020 11:58am
Yvette

How is Andrew Little getting on with his new “hate korero” laws?
I was just wondering about this morning’s newshub’s “Bushfires smoke heads north, create ‘Trumpian orange’ Auckland sunrise”.
Nothing of course to do with Trump.

“Thick haze”, “stunning images”, “The Auckland sky is a very trumpian orange this morning thanks to NSW bush fires,” said one person on Twitter.
So it was just some aerosol on Twitter. But newshub saw something in it.
Like, just another opportunity.

They would do better spending a little time dating item photographs in, say, the bottom left corner, with a little coloured panel containing the items’s date.
So at a glance you can see “red” today or this week so read, “yellow’ – yep, it’s two weeks old, and you’ve already read it several times, or yikes!: “red” – it’s fucking dead, but has been hanging around the website for three weeks “because it somehow matters”?
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January 2, 2020 12:21pm
- Classic Liberal
  
  Yvette, it’s only ‘hate speech’ if the moderate or right say it. If it’s a jab at Trump or even a religious text that tells men to beat their wives if they suspect them of disobedience, then it’s a-OK.
  
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  January 2, 2020 12:50pm
- Rodney Randall
  
  A ‘submission’ to the UNHRC was made under a National Government signed off by former Race Relations Commissioner Susan Devoy.
  
  That ‘submission’ canvassed the possibility of augmenting exisiting NZ laws with the addition of “disharmonious speech” laws aimed at protecting minority religions.
  
  It was lovely example of Orwellian doublespeak
  
  Stephen Franks (Free Speech Coaltion) and Prof. Paul Moon were most helpful in clarifying these particular subsections as nothing more than a veiled attempt at the introduction of blasphemy laws into New Zealand.
  
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  January 2, 2020 1:02pm
Stephieboy2

“Bushfires smoke heads north, create ‘Trumpian orange’ Auckland sunrise”.

I would of thought a most useful and timely piece of imagery!
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January 2, 2020 12:49pm
- Nostradamus
  
  So the resident pervert thinks that the bushfires (and the resulting displacement of Australians from their homes and towns) is hilarious. How unsurprising.
  
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  January 2, 2020 5:29pm
Chuck Bird

Comrade Ardern would like this banned.

The Unholy Alliance attacking Free Speech in New Zealand.

https://youtu.be/Xb5iu6PhHdk
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January 2, 2020 12:52pm
- Stephieboy2
  
  Why ?
  
  174M
  
  2 subscribers
  
  Hmmm..
  
  0 19
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  January 2, 2020 1:01pm
  - sooty
    
    You and who?
    
    6 0
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    January 2, 2020 6:17pm
    - Tall Man
      
      Clever sod.
      
      2 0
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      January 2, 2020 6:36pm
Brian McDonald

What non-moaning Kiwis have been up to:
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/from-red-seaweed-to-climate-smart-cows-new-zealand-leads-the-fight-against-methane/ar-BBYwHLa?ocid=spartandhp
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January 2, 2020 1:59pm
- ronsegal
  
  What a joke.
  
  3 1
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  January 2, 2020 7:44pm
Maggy Wassilieff

The red seaweed (Asparagopsis) research has been going on in California and Australia for a few years.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/cows-burp-out-tons-of-methane-feeding-them-seaweed-could-help

Major problem for NZ will be how to produce (farm) tonnes of Asparagopsis year-round.

and there’s a wee problem of bromoform production….

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/88009884/nz-scientists-say-seaweed-cure-for-methane-emissions-comes-up-short
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January 2, 2020 2:15pm
- skyblue
  
  Bromoform is the bromine version of chloroform. Also a sedative. I have used this in my R&D days in the UK in drug synthesis.
  
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  January 2, 2020 3:28pm
All_on_Red

BREAKING NEWS: Multiple Ukrainian agencies have raided the party offices and entities of former president Petro Poroshenko (He’s the corrupt one)
Authorities announced the searches involved tax evasion, money laundering, and the theft of servers with classified information from the president’s office
In addition, a gym owned by Poroshenko and Ihor Kononenko was raided and cameras and recording devices were found inside smoke detectors and security alarms

Authorities alleged that the gym, which is visited by politicians and businessmen, was recording and filming its clients’

Hey, maybe Rudi Colludi is onto something.
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January 2, 2020 2:28pm
Rodney Randall

Why are the mods drip feeding the comments?

You state you execute batch releases.

I call BS.

Way to kill a blog and stifle free exchange of ideas.

Do your job (RELEASE COMMENTS) as a mod or resign and go work for STUFF.
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January 2, 2020 2:35pm
- Swifty
  
  You do realise our mods are volunteers don’t you?
  
  Unpaid volunteers and who may well be on holiday with their families.
  
  Please be reasonable Rodney.
  
  13 3
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  January 2, 2020 4:36pm
  - Rodney Randall
    
    Here’s a New Year poem for you Swifty:
    
    I don’t care if you’re a volunteer,
    If you’re a Mod, do ‘ya’ job!
    
    Love Rodney.
    
    (Mod comment. You’re starting to annoy me now so back off)
    
    3 3
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    January 2, 2020 5:04pm
    - Tall Man
      
      Uptick for the mod.
      
      They wack me far more than you… Harden up!
      
      2 1
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      January 2, 2020 7:40pm
  - Tall Man
    
    Come on Swifty, they’re all sitting around waiting with baited breath for our comments 😉
    
    I do battle with them but respectfully, for me, as without them we’d have no blog at all and while it might be but a shadow of it’s former self, it is still vastly superior to the “pretenders” out there.
    
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    January 2, 2020 5:40pm
- Rodney Randall
  
  Correction:
  
  Batch release, post stringent moderation, is the mechanism that had crippled the natural flow of this once lively blog, as others have pointed out.
  
  Debate is non-existent.
  Kiwiblog under choke hold
  
  (Mod comment. I seem to be the only one on here today and it is actually a public holiday. As someone else pointed out, we do this purely voluntarily – no time and a half here)
  
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  January 2, 2020 4:48pm
  - Tall Man
    
    Yeah but you do get a day in lieu don’tcha 🙂 You know, another crack at my comments 😉
    
    That was humour…………
    
    5 2
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    January 2, 2020 6:03pm
  - Tall Man
    
    You may want to try YSB, named in steffy’s honour.
    
    It wasn’t for me but it may suit you.
    
    9 1
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    January 2, 2020 6:20pm
Prince

This would be hard to beat as the laziest, cheapest shot on Stuff this year.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/cricket/118554528/australian-prime-minister-scott-morrison-criticised-for-hosting-backyard-cricket-while-nation-burns

The basis of the story – A couple of unknown tweeters who apparently think the Aussie PM should have hose in hand.
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January 2, 2020 2:39pm
- Engelbert Humperdink
  
  Yes, Prince, agreed. After all, if this is the threshold, then why is St Cindy not emptying bedpans in a NZ burns unit?
  
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  January 2, 2020 4:53pm
  - Sacha
    
    She’ll probably turn up hugging some poor Aussies who have lost their houses.
    But they LOVE her over there so why not? And it would give a human touch to the fires aftermath.
    There will be more mags to turn in the supermarket.
    
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    January 2, 2020 9:15pm
Maggy Wassilieff

A good night out at the office for Peter Wright.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUPMUINkghw
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January 2, 2020 3:37pm
- Tall Man
  
  Contrasting hairdos………………
  
  1 1
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  January 2, 2020 4:11pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    and both have wives who are (were) hairdressers.
    
    7 0
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    January 2, 2020 4:53pm
    - Tall Man
      
      Hmmmmmm. Not a lot to say there really.
      
      Did anyone see the Aussie guy at the MCG. They zeroed in on him and Shane Warne asked him if he’d lost a bet to end up with his haircut.
      
      The guy took it well.
      
      4 1
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      January 2, 2020 5:19pm
rouppe

I was talking to a mate the other day who is a shooter. He participates in 3 gun shooting competitions. The three guns are hand gun, shot gun, and rifle. As expected, success requires both accuracy and speed. With the rifle, the auto load is obviously preferred for speed, but Jacinda instantly made him a criminal for having an MSSA. Incidentally he got his when they were all required to be Category E and before Tippel opened the floodgates with the thumb hole exemption letting in loads of cheap Category A compliant modified AR15’s.

Anyway, times have moved on. Now 3 gun competitors in nz are buying pump action .223 rifles. I asked him whether it slowed him down any. He looked at me and said he can fire almost as fast as an auto load. Since Jacinda eliminated Category E, these are all Category A, available to anyone with a licence.

The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
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January 2, 2020 4:33pm
- Tall Man
  
  The pump does have a vastly smaller capacity though.
  
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  January 2, 2020 5:17pm
  - mark15
    
    Depends what magazines you stick in it.
    
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    January 2, 2020 8:33pm
- Tall Man
  
  (Took too long on edit)
  
  The pump does have a vastly smaller capacity though.
  
  I am also a shooter, but only of vermin like rabbits and magpies mostly.
  
  Not wanting start an argument but you generally choose your weapon for the type of shooting you intend to do.
  
  For example, when I’m removing magpies on our property I use a .22 for ground shots and a shotgun for tree or flying shots. The reason being that aerial shots with the .22 would be both dangerous and inefficient.
  
  If I was goat hunting in an open area I would select a different firearm. For long range I’d have the .243 or .270 out and for the bush I’d use the .308.
  
  I hope those comments make sense and my belief is that it’s never the weapon that is the problem, it’s the person.
  
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  January 2, 2020 5:36pm
  - rouppe
    
    The magazine is smaller only because the high capacity is magazines are a prohibited part.
    
    For the comps, if you havent scored with the smaller mag, you’ve already lost.
    
    For other purposes, I don’t know whether it is a significance disadvantage or not
    
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    January 3, 2020 7:34am
- Jack5
  
  Rouppe, what have the firearm regulation changes done to pistol competitions?
  
  If revolvers are still allowed, beware if any fanatic terrorist can use one like Jerry Miculek here:
  
  https://youtu.be/WzHG-ibZaKM
  
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  January 2, 2020 6:02pm
  - Tall Man
    
    Got a couple of mates that do own and use pistols.
    
    The regs are very restrictive and the penalties are swift.
    
    I truly think a “tarrant” is more likely that a legal owner going rogue.
    
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    January 2, 2020 6:17pm
  - rouppe
    
    As tall man said, handguns are another Category. Much more vetting, higher security expectations, and you have to shoot at a club at least once a month (I think) to retain the licence endorsement.
    
    Much of this was also required of owners of mssa”s when they were all category e. Tipple stuffed things up with the thumb hole exemption, meaning Tarrant’s gun was cat A.
    
    The real solution was to reclassify the cat a mssa’s as cat e
    
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    January 3, 2020 7:42am
- GJM
  
  Sop408, sneaked in without comment at the end of the farcical select committee hearings, added pump action guns to be banned on the whim of the cops without further consideration. I predict the Troy PAR and Remington 7615 will be banned shortly.
  
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  January 3, 2020 10:51am
Bobba Fret

Good example of Housing NZ tenants. Are you allowed to do drugs in a state house now?
They should be kicked out and banned from going on the state housing list for say, 5 years.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/118556177/unwell-people-hospitalised-from-scene-of-unexplained-death-in-hamilton
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January 2, 2020 5:27pm
- Ruahine
  
  Yes you ARE allowed to do drugs now thanks to the idiot in charge .
  
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  January 2, 2020 7:31pm
- ronsegal
  
  It’s their funeral surely, providing they keep to themselves, don’t damage the property, and don’t turn it into a P lab.
  
  6 1
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  January 2, 2020 7:38pm
- andydownhere
  
  And she says, ” There was something wrong with what I took “. Really? Its an illegal drug. Buyer beware. Or better still dont buy
  
  10 0
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  January 2, 2020 7:52pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    There had been warnings all over that a triple-dosage MDMA/Ecstasy was doing the rounds
    
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/118515654/party-drug-mdma-in-new-zealand-at-tripledose-levels
    
    https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/news/Pages/20191228_00.aspx
    
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    January 2, 2020 8:50pm
freemark

Happy NY Kiwibloggers! (Well, most of you ?)
Freemark & lovely lady went away (Wgtn – Tga) on the 23rd & came back yesterday. I was amazed by the smooth and fast moving traffic on the drives, and can only put it down to the almost complete lack of Plods (Police) on the roads. As usual however, the fuckwits that can only drive at 80 until miraculously turbo boost cuts in at the passing lanes then they’re off at 110 are the real danger. Was semi hoping to argue the point with a cop why then my “safer speed” had to be 140 to get past them, but no bait taken.
The state of the State Highways is dropping however even as fuel taxes rise. No doubt that lunatic legislation & ideology by the COL will make this worse if we don’t kick them to touch this year. Happily there are far fewer woke idiots out of Wgtn than in I discovered..
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January 2, 2020 5:37pm
- Tall Man
  
  Those 80/110 drivers are a real joy aren’t they.
  
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  January 2, 2020 6:33pm
Inandout

I called into the Tangiwai memorial site and am amazed the government doesn’t fully fund this dedication to 151 lives lost. I have family members who vividly recall that fateful day in 1953, it was a bloody sad event. You can guarantee March 15 will have copious amounts of our money spread around for the anniversary.
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January 2, 2020 6:22pm
- Tall Man
  
  Been there as well but will the Christchurch massacre be remembered in 67 years.
  
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  January 2, 2020 6:32pm
  - Ruahine
    
    Oh yes.
    
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    January 2, 2020 7:29pm
    - Jack5
      
      If New Zealand has an Islamic majority by then, Friday, March 15, will likely be a national mourning-day holiday.
      
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      January 2, 2020 8:30pm
  - GoVege
    
    There’s a big difference between the two, TM.
    One was nature doing what it does, with no malice intended.
    The other was a sadistic little sh*t trying to make himself feel significant.
    
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    January 14, 2020 11:22am
Jack5

The British High Commissioner to NZ, Laura Clarke, goes full bore on “Aotearoa” ….

Here she is in the New Zealand edition of the Guardian:

” … what I hope is clear is the genuine intent of the UK, its government and people, to build an enduring partnership with iwi and hapu Maori, and with all the people of Aotearoa.

What about the majority of us who still live in New Zealand? As High Commissioner, Clarke surely expresses the official views of Britain. Do the British now regard the name of this country to be “Aotearoa”?

If Clarke does accurately reflect the official views of Britain, perhaps we could consider what we call Britain. By what name does the ethnic-Pakistani minority know England? And should we start referring to “England and Scotland” rather than the “United Kingdom”?

If she doesn’t express the official views of Britain, perhaps BoJo can send Clarke to South Africa, where views on most suitable new country names might be more welcome.

However, as Clarke is writing for the Guardian, perhaps BoJo will have little interest in her.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/02/heres-why-the-uk-wants-to-strengthen-its-relationship-with-new-zealand-maori
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January 2, 2020 8:25pm
igm

Come on advertisers and subscribers, time to give “Fairfax Filth” the arse card. This irresponsible rubbish hits at everyone in business, owning homes, or basically paying tax and rates.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/columnists/118545469/five-radical-ideas-to-make-new-zealand-fairer-better-and-less-annoying
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118373157/should-new-zealand-just-tax-land
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January 3, 2020 12:54am
ronsegal

So what to do. These are patently left leaning mainstream publications espousing exactly what one would expect. Indeed they couldn’t do the current Government more proud as an unofficial instrument of propaganda. The sad but unsurprising part is the buy-in from so many Kiwis. We stopped taking the Dominion Post quite some time ago, not only because of its increasingly lefty views but also because of the increasing dominance of he said, she said, mum and dad trivia, which perhaps appeals to the same audience.
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January 3, 2020 7:44pm

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