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May 12, 2020 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 12 May 2020

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krazykiwi

It’s been said that the face of Helen of Troy could launch a thousand ships. I’d like to suggest that the software of Neil Ferguson of Imperial College is responsible for dashing all one thousand ships against the rocks, with the loss of all souls, and of all cargo.

Neil Fergusson (aka The Pounding Professor) is the chap whose epidemiological threat model frightened the UK government into abandoning its herd immunity strategy in favour of a full lockdown, something they are still nowhere nearer to finishing. This software model is a 13 year old, monolithic, feted swamp of undocumented, bug-filled code. Imperial College refuse to release it. I’m not surprised.

I have been professionally involved with software for 40 years. From junior code cutter to co-founding a successful technology consultancy… and one or two less successful endeavours. In recent years I’ve had some consultancy work reviewing software product teams, their software disciplines, and the resulting product artifacts. These reviews have, sadly in the case of many NZ-based operations, shown up a range of deficiencies including code bloat, monolithic architectures, brittle code, and code with no automated testing – a cardinal sin. One or two product companies have shone, but probably not the ‘names’ you’d recognise.

So the Imperial College epidemic model interests me, and it has attracted quite a bit of scathing commentary from other professionals like Sue Denim. Matt Ridley also expressed dismay:

Details of the model his team built to predict the epidemic are emerging and they are not pretty. In the respective words of four experienced modellers, the code is “deeply riddled” with bugs, “a fairly arbitrary Heath Robinson machine”, has “huge blocks of code – bad practice” and is “quite possibly the worst production code I have ever seen”.

So, pretty bad. How has this model previously performed?
? BSE / Mad Cow Disease; predicted 150,000 deaths. Actual 177, over-predicted by 874x.
? Bird flu; predicted 150 million deaths word wide. Actual 282 over a 6 year period, over-predicted by 531,000x
? Swine Flu; predicted 65,000 British death. Actual 457, over-predicted by 142x.

Ridley continues:

When ministers make statements about coronavirus policy they invariably say that they are “following the science. But cutting-edge science is messy and unclear, a contest of ideas arbitrated by facts, a process of conjecture and refutation. This is not new. Almost two centuries ago Thomas Huxley described “The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

Indeed. The basis for wholesale economic and social destruction has been failed bunch of buggy guesswork taken at face value despite evidence of past failings. As bad as this was for the UK, our lockdown was inspired by the PM’s ‘friend’ telling her to ‘just go’ and ‘everyone is dying’. Give me strength. Royal Commission of Inquiry, anyone?
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May 12, 2020 8:00am
- Lee C
  
  We need a Royal Commission into how the modelling caused us to destroy the economy.
  
  How a small number of people were able to hijack the legal system
  
  How we were allowed to effectively become a ‘one party state’ at a time of apparent national emergency.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:25am
  - PhilBest
    
    James Delingpole says that sacking Prof Ferguson for personal breach of his own lockdown rules is like getting Al Capone for tax evasion…
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:06am
- kowtow
  
  Imperial modelling also said Sweden’s R number would be 3 or 4 without a lockdown. In fact it is under 1 , without a lockdown.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:33am
- alloytoo
  
  If you could apply a similar analysis to the predictive power of Climate models………
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:34am
  - The Proper Ghandi
    
    They don’t know what the weather will be in a month let a alone in 10, 20, 30 years. Yes, I know that weather and climate are not synonymous, but the point is that they both use modelling but can’t get it right on any time scale.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:33am
    - Nickc2
      
      Our Met people can’t even get the afternoon’s weather right in their midday forecast.
      
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      May 12, 2020 1:04pm
- JackRabbit
  
  Modelling is what pseudo scientists do, using maths and theories instead of actual measurement and specifics. Nikola Tesla had no time for such people in his time.
  
  “Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”
  
  – Nikola Tesla
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:39am
  - Lance
    
    Although I am a fan of Nicola Tesla, not all models are inaccurate.
    There was a model of the ‘electron volts’ where the Higgs Boson would be… and it was so.
    Many physics models are quite accurate, but as Tesla noted, you cannot build model upon model as this will introduce far too many variables.
    
    The problem seems to be on the large scale like population reaction or climate. There are just far too many variables with too many points of non linear influence. Then the authors announce a firm result from their unstable model, not a good look.
    As an academic exercise I see no problem, but if you are going to spill out into the real world… maybe a healthy dose of skepticism is called for.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:49am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Hi Lance, you may have misunderstood Tesla’s quote. He was NOT in favour of mathematical models.
      
      (1). The point at which you believe a theory or model is when you can build a working prototype or validate by actual testing.
      
      This was Tesla’s theme. He never came up with grandiose theories. He made it happen. Tesla invented radio years before Marconi, and had it patented. Is was only because of J P Morgans influence on Govt, and as payback for having lost out in the DC/AC battle, that Tesla’s patent’s were thrown out. Morgan backed both Edison and Marconi.
      
      AC power could be generated by dams and transmitted hundreds of mile. DC required coal power generating stations on very street corner.
      
      To give people an idea of the corruption, Marconi filed his patents about 3 years after Tesla, and used facets of Tesla’s work in his patent applications. At the time Marconi files his patents, Tesla was demonstrating to the public and US Navy, a remote multi frequency radio controlled submarine in a pool at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
      
      (2) If you understand something, you can explain it in layman’s terms, without all the scientific mumbo jumbo. If you can’t , then you don’t understand it. This was one of Richard Feynman’s principles.
      
      Modelling by experts that are divorced from reality is nothing more than grown men playing in an intellectual sandpit in an attempt to avoid real work.
      
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      May 12, 2020 10:39am
    - burt
      
      The problem seems to be on the large scale like population reaction or climate. There are just far too many variables with too many points of non linear influence.
      
      Climate only has one variable, atmospheric CO2 concentration. Stop being a denier saying there are other variables!
      
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      May 12, 2020 11:02am
      - JackRabbit
        
        Oh Burt. Climate has so many variables it is impossible to list all of them. Man has only just scratched the surface in his understanding.
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:07am
      - Crisplion
        
        Climate has only one variable!? Is this satire? If it’s for real, then that is an astonishingly ignorant assertion.
        
        Setting aside the myriad of other gases in the atmosphere, some of which react with, or are by-products of reactions involving, CO2, air pressure, ocean currents, sun activity and countless other variables affect climate. Not only that, climate is a classic case of a dynamical system, meaning that it’s highly recursive – i.e., is replete with feedback loops – and that its long-term behaviour is exquisitely sensitive to small changes in initial conditions.
        
        All of that adds up to making accurate modelling of long-term changes in climate little more than guesswork.
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:24am
      - PhilBest
        
        It’s satire. Unfortunately as Poe’s Law holds, sometimes there is such a prevalence of stupidity on a subject, that even satire will be mistaken for sincerity.
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:43am
      - rangitoto
        
        Burt, I’ll allow CH4 from cow farts to be added as a variable but no other dissension will be permitted.
        
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        May 12, 2020 1:13pm
      - burt
        
        rangitoto
        
        Fair enough CH4 is about 1,800 ppb (parts per billion) so why not make that significant.
        
        Hell if 0.04% of the atmosphere can overheat the other 99.96% but 0.03% can’t overheat the other 99.97% but nobody needs to explain how that works other than shouting “tipping point dummy” at me, then what not let 0.000018% of the atmosphere also be responsible for heating the other 99.999982%
        
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        May 12, 2020 3:01pm
      - north island kiwi
        
        sarc ?
        
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        May 12, 2020 6:28pm
  - bruceavon
    
    “Modelling is what pseudo scientists do, using maths and theories instead of actual measurement and specifics”
    Don’t tell Einstein that. And countless scientists who have used mathematics only to predict the existence of planets and countless examples in science too numerous to mention. In a local note. Weather forecasts used to be a joke. You could ask the local fisherman and get a better result. But these days the weather forecasts are incredibly accurate. Especially in the last two years. This is as a result of very good models and the collation of years of weather data and their new mega computer. So no. I don’t think modelling is useless. Their have been a number of issues with covid modelling. The first is the model that assumes the worst and no intervention by anyone and is therefore catastrophic. And completely useless. And is usually the model quoted by the media with no explanation.
    
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    May 12, 2020 1:49pm
- tf78
  
  What makes it worse is the Newflu involved a ridiculous lock down which prevents herd immunity which we gained during the Bird flu and Swine Flu. Fear makes people hapless followers.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:43am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    “Fear makes people hapless followers.”
    
    Which is why authoritarian goverments love it so.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:13am
    - Justitia
      
      “A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.’ Aldous Huxley.
      
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      May 12, 2020 10:28am
  - septic skeptic
    
    We never got herd immunity for bird flu. It is almost 100% fatal. Fortunately it is virtually impossible to catch it unless you are in very close contact with an infected bird.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:38am
- cmm
  
  kk: I am fairly sure these same models were used in NZ by the “centre of excellence” for their second round of modelling.
  
  The first round of modelling was the 80,000 deaths nonsense.
  
  The second round said we needed 90 days of Level 4. The inaccuracy of the modelling was already showing by the time they released their reports and they still kept the faith even when they were obviously very broken. That is negligence an is extremely irresponsible in my view.
  
  My rationale is that the “centre of excellence” put together a second set of models in about 6 weeks (including writing reports etc). This was a stochastic model (as this one is) and I really cannot see them putting together a model that quickly. Instead I am pretty sure that NZ used this model too.
  
  The code (recently made available on github for anyone to download) is appalling – even after teams of helpful programmers have helped to tidy it up and fix numerous bugs. Anyone writing ugly code like that in any place I manage would be fired. Unfortunately, the original code used by Uk government modelling is unavailable.
  
  But more important than the prettiness of the code is its accuracy. Clearly this has been a codebase that has launched a thousand panics. It serves power hungry people well – but nobody else.
  
  Our “centre of excellence” people seem to have chosen models based on how much drama they can cause.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:44am
  - PhilBest
    
    This is just as much of a “swamp” problem, unaccountable people with the right connections, as anything else is. The cleanout we need to do is massive. It would be a question which branches of expertise funded by government money, would be trustworthy with their advice. We are just seeing “epidemiology” right now but I am well aware of the utter nonsense that has been prevalent in urban planning and transport planning for decades now.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:10am
    - cmm
      
      Unfortunately so many of these models are not released for public scrutiny – only the reports of findings.
      
      In our case, the reports just show extreme arrogance and confidence in clearly broken models.
      
      Any model should be treated with some skepticism – especially by the person developing the model who understands its weaknesses.
      
      Unfortunately the reports we received are full of highly confident language of the form “we have shown” etc.
      
      Now to a mathematician/scientist, “showing” something is right up there with “proving”. It is a very high confidence statement.
      
      These models were used by PriNZess in her decision making – she even discounted what Otago virologists said in favour of choosing these models.
      
      When the models were shown to be wrong they kept just repeating what the model says. As Goebbels said: A lie repeated often enough becomes truth.
      
      In NZ nobody ever withdrew the models or reports and walked back the findings. In my view, this is gross negligence for someone who is an “expert”.
      
      That the government continue to be duped by these models, because they said what they wanted to hear, is just willful ignorance.
      
      That blind faith in these models has cost us billions of dollars and wrecked lives.
      
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      May 12, 2020 9:33am
      - The Proper Ghandi
        
        “Now to a mathematician/scientist, “showing” something is right up there with “proving”. It is a very high confidence statement”
        
        In mathematics, it is possible to produce a proof. You can know with deductive certainty that given values plugged into various relations, all founded and constructed on axioms, will give you a determinate result. Every time.
        
        In science, and in this specific case, they are doing nothing more than making a prediction about the future in terms of as-yet-unobserved empirical matters of fact. No purported observation is ever a ‘fact’ until it has been actually observed to be so.
        
        Of course, our daily lives are filled with having ‘faith’ in certain circumstances that have not yet transpired, but are based only on past experience. For instance, it is only a matter of faith that the Earth will not open up and devour me as I type this comment. It’s a matter of faith that I will not float off into space doing the same, etc. Of course, these are extreme examples, but they illustrate the point: no prediction as to a future, non-observed matter of fact is ever certain, therefore we should never take the pronouncements of scientific modelling as gospel, especially when the outcome of doing so could be the state of the world we live in today.
        
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        May 12, 2020 9:47am
      - cmm
        
        Prophet: To an extent, yes, I agree.
        
        However not all models, or all sciences for that matter, are equal.
        
        For example we have models that generate the tide tables and predict the movement of planets and comets decades in advance. Yet our weather models can’t predict the weather two weeks from now.
        
        We can predict, with almost perfect accuracy, when Haley’s Comet is going to show up again (in 2061), where it will be in the sky, how close it will come to earth and even a pretty good idea of how bright it will be. It’s all down to gravity.
        
        Equally, if you tip a thousand bricks out the back of a truck you’ll be fairly certain that they will form in a pile with a few rolling off to the side. You would be very surprised to see just one brick hovering in the air. In fact, it you saw that brick hovering and defying gravity, you’d need to rewrite the physics books. All this, because gravity is well characterised and very predictable.
        
        But when it comes to the social and biological sciences things get much more squishy. For example we accept that smoking reduces life expectancy (in many ways), even though some smokers reach 100.
        
        Different areas of science have different thresholds for “proof” and much of it is not reliable at all.
        
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        May 12, 2020 10:57am
  - JackRabbit
    
    cmm, I know you probably understand the scientific method. Modelling is pointless without accurate specifics, which is what these models are.
    
    There is no point writing even one line of code until accurate stats are gathered and mumbo jumbo and horse manure separated from the truth.
    
    Shipmate: “We are getting sick. People are vomiting and dying. Lets run up some modelling and who will be sick and dead when we reach the West Indies.”
    
    Captain: “Lets stop hugging each other, and at the next tropical island stock up on fresh fruit”
    
    NOWHER has WHO or Mx Ardern, or her health advisors EVER talked about health.
    
    Sunshine
    Fresh Air
    Aged Garlic Extract
    Raw Garlic
    Protein
    Vitamin C
    Vitamin D
    Air Cleaners that filter down to one micron or that use electrostatics or UV filtering.
    Any of the Remedies you can get that purge parasites from the Lungs.
    
    Who would have guessed that anti-parastical compounds would help boost immunity?
    
    Clearly NOT WHO, who said there was NO cure, and won’t be until we have a vaccine. Prevention is not something that puts dollars in the wallets of the drug companies.
    
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    May 12, 2020 11:04am
    - JackRabbit
      
      The Lone Ranger and Tonto are riding through the plains, doing heroic cowboy shit, when suddenly the Lone Ranger feels the call of nature. He dismounts and goes off behind a bush and squats.
      
      A few moments later he runs back screaming frantically pulling his pants up. “What happened?” asks Tonto. “A goddamned snake bit my old fella!”
      Yells the ranger in agony.
      
      Tonto, seeing that his companion cannot ride his horse in his condition, makes him comfortable next to a fire and rides to the closest town as fast as he can.
      
      When he gets there he rushes to the town doctor and describes the snake that bit the ranger. The doctor sadly tells him ” there is no cure for this bite, the only hope is to suck the venom out.”
      
      Tonto, thinks for a moment and makes his decision. He rides back to the Lone Ranger as fast as he can. When he arrives he sees his friend, weak and sick next to the fire as he left him. ” well, what did the doctor say old buddy?” Says the lone ranger.
      
      Tonto sits next to him, puts his hand on his shoulder and says ” doctor says you’re gonna die”
      
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      May 12, 2020 11:04am
    - krazykiwi
      
      “Aged Garlic Extract”
      
      My grandmother lived to become one of the oldest, if not the oldest person in New Zealand. When she eventually died it came as a surprise to everyone, herself included I suspect. At her funeral there was mention of her 100th birthday event, and that was a distant memory for me!
      
      She took a Kyolic garlic tablet every day for 25 years, and swore that this kept colds away. She seemed to never get colds. A few years ago I started taking these and have experienced the same thing. Few if any colds, and it’s been more than 15 years since I’ve had the flu .. and I’ve never had a flu jab.
      
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      May 12, 2020 11:38am
      - JackRabbit
        
        Yep, Kyolic Garlic. Laying waste to flu and parasites for decades.
        
        Same here. Suffered badly as a child, with respiratory diseases, and was very sickly, affected me into early adulthood. Same as you, Kyolic and raw garlic. No flu jabs, very few flus, and if I do get the flu, I recover much quicker than those who don’t take those remedies.
        
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        May 12, 2020 12:39pm
    - PhilBest
      
      Hardly possibly to write a single comment that nails it as good as that, JackRabbit!
      
      I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is a problem with government paid experts all over the world, commanding people NOT to get fresh air and sunshine (correctly the two top items on your list) is just as bad a malfeasance as telling people NOT to wash their hands!!!
      
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      May 12, 2020 11:50am
      - JackRabbit
        
        Phil, we should also ponder the following old warnings that became children’s stories over time:
        
        The Trojan Horse – warning not to suddenly trust “a spontaneus change of heart” in a sworn enemy. Aka smiling assassin.
        
        Hansel and Gretel – Beware of bad people offering niceties. Look beyond the feeling, because it’s a trap. Hitler being the most obvious archetypal example.
        
        The Pied Piper of Hamelin – Beware those that demand ransoms. In this a pedophile gaily dressed up as a piper. Who pays the piper?
        
        The Emperor’s new cloths – Beware of fraudsters weaving complex tales that only people of fine breeding (experts) can understand.
        
        Rumpelstiltskin – Beware of ransom demanders and kidnappers who promise freedom so long as you obey, and cannot work out their secrets. Kidnappers often never intend to release you from the obligation or release their victims.
        
        Old Wives Tale: “Use raw garlic to ward off Vampires.” Corrected it is “use garlic to ward off vampire bats”, as raw garlic is not compatible with the bats physiology. I wonder why? Anti-Parasitical drugs are having a great time curing people from Covid-19. Raw garlic is anti-parasitical. That and Aged garlic extract which cuts recovery time from the flu by about 2/3.
        
        Covid-19 had all the hallmarks of a Ponzi scheme from the beginning.
        
        WHO: “There is NO cure, and will not be until vaccines ware created and that will not be for at last 18 months. In the meantime don’t use raw garlic, clean water or sunshine as they will no effect.”
        
        Which was an immediate Red Flag. When someone goes out of their way to warn you off something, that may, and all accounts by past history has a helpful effect, its because they have an ulterior motive.
        
        Br’er Rabbit: “Don’t throw me into the Briar Patch…
        
        …Sucker, I was born and bred in the Briar patch.”
        
        There is a simple principle in relation to events. And that is, if you do not understand something, it is impossible to be certain about it. If you have lost your house keys while out and about, you cannot be certain they have NOT been picked up or stolen since you don’t know where they are. So being “certain” they are safe is an assumption.
        
        WHO did not have a cure, so did not understand Covid-19, so had no business preaching certainties. Like the Emperor’s new clothes, they didn’t want anyone to say that WHO was butt naked and the two thieves were funded by the drug companies.
        
        It should be of note that Trump has stopped funding WHO.
        
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        May 12, 2020 12:26pm
    - artemisia
      
      There are other options that boost immunity, and that can’t be a bad thing. Some probiotics invented in Dunedin for example, big sales bump over the last few weeks. Oral and gut mainly. Initiated by Prof Tagg, developed by Blis Technologies and sold globally now.
      
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      May 12, 2020 12:19pm
- -D
  
  Matt Ridley Blog
  IS THE CHILLING TRUTH THAT THE DECISION TO IMPOSE LOCKDOWN WAS BASED ON CRUDE MATHEMATICAL GUESSWORK?
  http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/lockdown-and-mathematical-guesswork/
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:09am
  - chukar
    
    Mathematical soothsayers
    What about Black Swans?
    
    There is still no way to accurately predict the future
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:09am
- 103PapPap
  
  The essential problem in the software industry is that we have too many ‘plonkers’ in work.
  Back in the 1960’s and 70’s there was a thing called the ‘Programmers Aptitude Test’, which was a test of your logic and reasoning capabilities.
  Certainly at Burroughs, you couldn’t get a job in software without passing this test. I know IBM had a similar test.
  Today, IT education is all about bums on seats, so we are getting all sorts of intellectual riff-raff working in the IT sector.
  And it shows!
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:58am
  - JackRabbit
    
    True.
    
    “Six munths ago, I coodn’t spell computa enginear, now i is wun.”
    
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    May 12, 2020 11:39am
  - PhilBest
    
    That’s a really fascinating back story, thanks 103PapPap. I can believe it.
    
    You might enjoy reading a 2007 essay, “The Decline and Fall of the West” by Mike Adler.
    
    “…One of the serious problems we face as a result of the abandonment of Logic in the educational system, is the proliferation of hysteria in just about every area of politics. At one time, some of the political figures of the present day would have been unable to survive the scrutiny of a relatively intellectual press such as the “Times” in nineteenth-century London; the crudest analysis of the arguments presented would have been enough to dispose of some people who today have an enthusiastic following. While the unwashed mob have always been vulnerable to demagoguery, the vulnerability now extends to university graduates, who by traditional standards have a right to expect to have trained and acute minds, but have nothing of the kind…
    
    “…“…It takes some time for a civilisation to collapse completely. Out on the periphery, honourable people still attempt to maintain standards long abandoned at the centre. Meanwhile the stupid are busily sawing off the branch of the tree we are all sitting on, and we are powerless to stop them…
    “…We can, however, predict the results of sending out into the workforce people who have no capacity to reason. We can expect disasters at power stations and chemical plants as people with only an ability to press buttons are required to think in emergencies. We can expect to have to pay others for the technology because we will be unable to produce it and we will also have to hire engineers to maintain it because except in very simple cases we will be unable to do so. We shall, in fact, have become the poor white trash of the new Asian global economy…”
    
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    May 12, 2020 11:55am
  - Durden
    
    103pappap — Its worse when scientists learn to code, without all the disciplines that go with good coding, and write their own klutzy code with no testing, no peer review which is what Ferguson produced.
    
    The reviews which are happening once the code was released are proving this well known fact.
    
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    May 12, 2020 1:02pm
  - theoldbloke
    
    ICL as well.
    A number of ICL computers in Gvt, (I worked on MOD ICL)
    
    I applied and was sent to do tests before the “”interview””
    
    Before test results arrived. The Crusty old Colonel in Charge said no way you will get a job here, so buggar off.
    20 minutes later
    Results arrived.
    Crusty old Colonel, shook my hand and said you start in 2 months.
    Guess I must have passed 🙂
    
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    May 12, 2020 6:31pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Here is an analysis showing the Ferguson models assumed homeogenous populations:
  https://judithcurry.com/2020/05/10/why-herd-immunity-to-covid-19-is-reached-much-earlier-than-thought/
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:59am
- Durden
  
  KK. If an observable and measurable phenomenon like past pandemics cannot still be modelled properly, what hopes do they have of modelling an immensely more complex massively multi variable global warming over a long period of time? Unlike pandemics, that we have no sober empirical proof of man made global warming so far must be a clear indication of bullshit.
  
  The scientists’ hubris and feet of clay were made clearly visible by the Covid event. If anyone still trusts the global warming malarkey implicitly, they need to have their heads examined.
  
  And voting rights taken away.
  
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  May 12, 2020 12:52pm
mikenmildagain

Happy International Nurses Day!
I see it is also International Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Day, but that’s a bit tiring to shout out.
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May 12, 2020 8:01am
- emmess
  
  It will be a busy day on Tiktok, today then I am guessing.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:05am
  - cmm
    
    Amazing how there’s always enough PPE for a 15 second video.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:35am
  - old skool reactionary
    
    Pole dancing on a plasma bag stand. Female narcissism has no limits.
    
    #ItsHerTurn
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:38am
- PhilBest
  
  And that is another area of expert policy advice that is riddled with charlatanism. The millions of unfortunate sufferers of that condition should have been able to be cured by medical science long since. The right research simply struggles to get funding from the bureaucrats who are entirely captured by the wrong people.
  
  It is unfortunately just too convenient when healthcare already needs to be rationed, that certain conditions can be just left in the “too hard basket”. Actually finding a cure is the last thing that the people already struggling to ration resources for healthcare, want.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:15am
  - calendar girl
    
    Don’t ignore another important ingredient alongside product availability – namely, prices to be earned.
    
    If China is not a motivated buyer of NZ products, then inevitably this country’s international selling prices will weaken. China must be accommodated as a significant purchaser, but other countries also need to be kept interested for market pricing to work in NZ’s favour.
    
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    May 12, 2020 3:59pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  Why hold back? ME/CFS is not well known or understood. Pyschiatrists and neurologists argue over it producing a diagnosis: “That’s the way you are”.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:04am
  - JackRabbit
    
    A good natural doctor will usually order a body parasite purge before starting to diagnose. Along with insisting on 8 hours sleep at night, drink two litres of water per day, stop eating KFC, and stop smoking wacky baccy.
    
    Get the basics right first.
    “Have you tried re-starting it?” – IT
    “When is the laat time you had an oil change and oil filter/air filter/spark plug change?” – Cars
    “When is the last time you had 8 hours sleep?” – Doctor
    “Do you drink enough water? Note coffee and coke are not water!”
    “Are you eating fat in your diet? Not enough fat in the diet diminishes nerve insulation and causes shorts in the bodies electrical nervous system.”
    
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    May 12, 2020 12:50pm
  - Cassandra
    
    Psychiatrists diagnose it, neurologists not so sure it exists. Tiring just thinking about it.
    
    2 0
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    May 12, 2020 12:52pm
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Try having chorea like movements during sleep and see what a medical hornets nest is awoken.
      
      1 1
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      May 12, 2020 1:35pm
Manolo

The totalitarian Chinese regime, the creator of the Wuhan wirus, is not happy:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/416384/china-berates-new-zealand-over-support-for-taiwan-at-who

Speaking at a daily news conference in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said New Zealand’s comments were a severe violation of the “one China” principle, which states that Taiwan is part of China.

“We express our strong dissatisfaction with the statements and resolutely oppose it, and we have already made stern representations with New Zealand,” Zhao said.
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May 12, 2020 8:02am
- gorse
  
  Time to cut the rope, they need Our food more than we need them, with the looming world food shortages I am sure we can sell our food several time over elsewhere.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:14am
  - All_on_Red
    
    India
    
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    May 12, 2020 8:23am
    - tf78
      
      Will India take our beef or are they lamb only.
      
      14 1
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      May 12, 2020 8:45am
      - PhilBest
        
        I think they are sufficiently multi-cultural that not all of them think cows are sacred!
        
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        May 12, 2020 9:15am
      - Lance
        
        Well, in Israel I could buy bacon (labelled as desert chicken).
        I suspect India is no different. Also not all Indians are Hindu’s or religious.
        
        9 1
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        May 12, 2020 9:53am
      - JackRabbit
        
        @Lance
        
        When strict vegetarians and veges fall off the wagon 67% binge on bacon.!
        
        4 1
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        May 12, 2020 11:42am
      - david
        
        Lance @ 11:42am
        Sorry hit “report” without reading that it wasn’t “reply”. My bad.
        
        Was trying to say that the bacon at my hotel in Israel came from the Kibbutz across the road. The locals were very proud of its quality.
        
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        May 12, 2020 4:19pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    There is no looming world food shortage. It’s spoken of all the time, but the data shows quite the opposite.
    
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    May 12, 2020 8:26am
    - Jimbob
      
      Several wheat growing areas are in for extreme cold in years to come, especially Winter wheat. So this is a concern considering who will suffer, volatile regions.
      
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      May 12, 2020 9:26am
      - Suze Wainwright
        
        Is that because of climate change Jim, or is the world just going to get cooler?
        
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        May 12, 2020 10:15am
  - Liberty
    
    “I am sure we can sell our food several time over elsewhere”
    Amazing. There are still some Winston minions around.
    There is no other market.
    The reality is the world really doesn’t care a stuff about NZ
    We really are not that important.
    While we have a very large economy relatively close that buys very large quantities of goods.
    The only reason you disapprove is because they are Chinese.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:20am
    - pdm
      
      `“I am sure we can sell our food several time over elsewhere”’
      
      You overlook one important fact – David Parker is our Trade Minister and he will be very selective on which countries he talks to.
      
      Plus he is still very busy as Attorney General hiding the Solicitor Generals report on the Lockdown.
      
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      May 12, 2020 9:26am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Perhaps they have been told by their “technical experts” that if they have to stockpile the food in the short term, it could be stored in “the cloud”.
      
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      May 12, 2020 11:44am
  - Batman
    
    Gorse, you’re talking about five billion dollars worth of trade a month (I believe)
    
    Just keep that in mind when boldly suggesting drastic action.
    
    7 4
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    May 12, 2020 10:23am
  - calendar girl
    
    Don’t ignore another important ingredient alongside product availability – namely, prices to be earned.
    
    If China is not a motivated buyer of NZ products, this country’s selling prices will fall materially.
    
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    May 12, 2020 3:25pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  I thought Jacinda was controlling NZ, not China
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:18am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Her influence is widespread.
    
    6 0
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    May 12, 2020 10:05am
    - Suze Wainwright
      
      Yep, the overseas media can’t get enough of her…
      
      4 1
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      May 12, 2020 10:16am
    - projectman
      
      Attention and influence are quite separate.
      
      4 0
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      May 12, 2020 11:22am
  - Nickc2
    
    In her dreams – just ask Winston!
    
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    May 12, 2020 2:28pm
- Justitia
  
  Bullying is par for the course for the thuggish PRC regime. Taiwan should be granted observer status with the WHO. And the WHO itself needs to be reformed urgently. This pandemic is a major failure on its part.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:20am
  - PhilBest
    
    Taiwan should be given “China overseer” status INSTEAD OF the WHO! Imagine if the world had listened to Taiwan this time instead of the WHO.
    
    Even if governments haven’t got the courage to be this explicit, we should know to take our cues from what Taiwan is doing rather than what the WHO is saying, when anything is starting to go down in China.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:18am
  - oldfella
    
    Remember what they now like to say in Hong Kong. ‘Don’t trust China. China is asshole.’
    
    6 0
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    May 12, 2020 11:23am
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      ~~asshole~~ asshoe
      
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      May 12, 2020 5:40pm
- Rich Prick
  
  Hey China, we’re strongly dissatisfied with your virus. So GFY.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:27am
  - JackRabbit
    
    I like your sentiment, but the US involvement in the Wuhan Lab, on a joint venture, instigated by Obama some years ago, puts doubt on the virus solely originating from China. It came here in isolated cases, from Iran and the US in December.
    
    I think China is being made the scapegoat to some degree. This is modern warfare. Warfare by disease, warfare by weather control, warfare by media control.
    
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    May 12, 2020 1:08pm
    - north island kiwi
      
      bingo, tried to tell them here yesterday that that is whats going on, fort detrick, which has since had to close down
      because they had serious security breaches, ie they could,nt stop their “samples” walking out
      
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      May 12, 2020 6:58pm
- Ruahine
  
  A one Party State bullying another one Party State. How unfair.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:38am
  - david
    
    Yes Ruahine, but remember little butterfly that the old rule applies:
    “Big fish eat little fish”
    Ah so
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:01am
    - Justitia
      
      “The strong do what they will, the weak do what they must”. Thucydides.
      
      3 0
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      May 12, 2020 11:39am
  - Critical Thinker
    
    Taiwan is one of the most democratic countries in the world.
    
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:07am
    - WaveyDavey
      
      Whoooshh…
      
      2 1
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      May 12, 2020 11:26am
- Maggie Pie
  
  My partner was just saying that the MSM are reporting one of Nationals biggest donors, Chinese Billionare Lang Lin, has had his bid to buy a stud farm in the Waikato turned down.
  Could it be the worm is tuning?
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:40am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    He’s the Mongolian Horse Guy, isn’t he?
    Probably donating to Labour as well, in one way or another.
    
    21 4
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    May 12, 2020 8:49am
    - Maggie Pie
      
      I checked that with my partner, he said he’s definitely a Chinaman.
      
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      May 12, 2020 9:16am
  - david
    
    The answer lies in your comment. “… one of NATIONALS biggest donors ….”
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:03am
  - sooty
    
    Yep he does not have a labour party card and did not give money to labour!
    So heave ho!
    
    9 4
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    May 12, 2020 9:08am
- kowtow
  
  Cinders will get on the blower to them , apologise and tell ’em ,’ not to worry that’s just the old drunk ensuring his base of old deludeds vote for him again in Sept’ .
  
  Business as usual.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:41am
- Wangas Feral
  
  Mr Zhao – GFY. You and your disgusting totalitarian regime.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:15am
- Raphael
  
  Our response to China should be two words that involve sex and travel.
  
  The fact is that China and WHO have lied to the world throughout this whole thing.
  
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  May 12, 2020 12:18pm
SmokerGuy

Right call yesterday but we are not even close to feeling the effects this overly hard lock down has caused. I just hope either this Government completely changes and becomes competent quickly (unlikely) or we get a change of government in September. Mistakes made over the next 6 months to a year could caused issues for generations.
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May 12, 2020 8:04am
- pdm
  
  ` I just hope either this Government completely changes and becomes competent quickly………..’
  
  A forlorn hope I feel.
  
  Now they are fighting among themselves as evidenced by the Louisa Wall re-election situation.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:28am
  - SmokerGuy
    
    I fear another 3 years of this government will be a complete disaster for New Zealand.
    
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    May 12, 2020 8:59am
    - PhilBest
      
      I upticked you, but I would rather have another 3 years of this government than a National government that acts like the John Key government and doesn’t actually change anything, thereby entrenching in the public perception, that everything Labour did already was actually acceptable.
      
      John Howard nailed it when he said that it is better to win the argument and win the election, later, than to win the election earlier by abandoning the argument.
      
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      May 12, 2020 9:21am
      - SmokerGuy
        
        Fair call! I think they did some good things but missed some opportunities. I hate that left governments come in and make changes and the right are too timid to roll any of those changes back. Yet the left have no problem dismantling anything right leaning governments put in place regardless of merit (social investment for example).
        
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        May 12, 2020 9:58am
      - PhilBest
        
        Yep, the Vichy National cringers don’t like this being pointed out, do they.
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:59am
Scott

This from the Hobsons pledge newsletter –
“Only Police may authorise Covid-19 checkpoints
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has confirmed what we have been trying to tell the Prime Minister, that roadblocks and checkpoints established by Maori groups without Police permission and supervision are unlawful.”

Groups of Maori stopping and questioning motorists and turning them away is found to be unlawful? Who would have thought it?

Can someone please inform our Prime Minister!?
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May 12, 2020 8:05am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  She won’t listen. She is in control, not us.
  See you September commie.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:13am
- kowtow
  
  And how could they be lawful even with police permission ?
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:35am
  - david
    
    I always thought it strange that the presence of a Policeman was sufficient to legitimise the act of stopping cars on a public road and interrogating the driver.
    Surely the person taking the action would need to hold a warrant unless there was some sort of other legal authorisation.
    It is akin to a bunch of gang members kicking down a door and searching your premises for drugs while plod sits outside in the car even though he might have good reason to suspect that you are a dealer and has a search warrant.
    That the Police seek to make this somehow OK is a travesty and totally destroys any respect I might have had for them and the institution they swear to protect and the laws they swear to uphold.
    
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    May 12, 2020 2:18pm
- alloytoo
  
  I think we are approaching this from the wrong way.
  
  When the Bro’s leave their check points Pākehā groups should take them over.
  
  Protecting Pākehā communities and all that….
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:38am
- Ruahine
  
  Can someone please inform the Police.
  
  24 1
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  May 12, 2020 8:39am
- JackRabbit
  
  Who would have thought that falsely claiming to have the powers of the constabulary, or falsely claiming to be acting on behalf of the constabulary was an offence under the crimes act?
  
  Perhaps Mx Ardern will have time to read the Crimes Act 1961 after the election, on her tea breaks at the Fish and Chip shop!
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:45am
- Bobba Fret
  
  Someone should set up a check point for cars going in to Remuera…..I wonder how long that would last.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:57am
I remember when

Perhaps it is going to be included as part of the budget. I understood it was going to be a question on the ballot paper at the election.
But no, it was clearly stated by Cinders at the 4 pm Level 2 announcement. Not once, but over and over so that you know it’s right, a fact, indisputable.
“You have to be spaced” and not only that but “You have to stay spaced”.
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May 12, 2020 8:06am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Spaced out is different for the druggies
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:15am
- Im Right
  
  I can’t watch her, not because she is Labour but because her *trade marked* head tilt and frowny face when she is trying to be serious, and the patsy questions from journalists (pre selected by her press secretary I’m sure) just isn’t worth the blood boiling that would occur in me….so just looked online about 4:15 for the headline I needed ‘Level 2 from Thursday’….done, sorted!
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:29am
  - G152
    
    And that took her nearly 10 minutes to get to..
    I was ‘cinders’ at that point but I feel better now
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:03am
  - alloytoo
    
    I thought Ben Stiller had trade marked the look for Zoolander?
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:48am
HemiT

well well , china uses bilateral agreement to threaten NZ
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/416384/china-berates-new-zealand-over-support-for-taiwan-at-who

fuckin wankers (ccp)

immediately stop making wrong statements – how about Zhao Lijian you stfu

no one’s starving here and last i heard it was the US calling for NZ’s primary industries . might throw in a few bags of free milk powder as well .
https://www.ruralnewsgroup.co.nz/rural-news/rural-general-news/meat-demand-soars

oh really , china short of pork also , so happens nz has some
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018745374/nz-meat-in-demand-in-the-us

at least when NZ have market days it consists of premium beef cuts , cheeses , things that are cooked not bats , dogs and live mice – weird bastards .
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May 12, 2020 8:07am
- artemisia
  
  Those ‘weird’ foods are protein sources and probably the difference between life and death even in recent times. No surprise that over time they become part of the food culture. Huhu grubs? Rotten corn?Crickets?
  
  The past is another country.
  
  In the last few decades 600 million people in China have been lifted out of extreme poverty. People in other cultures might disagree with methods, but those no longer starving might consider the end was worth the means.
  
  Different means, different ends here in New Zealand in the last few weeks.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:40am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Excusing a totalitarian regime on the grounds that people are better off economically ignores the obvious alternative – where would China be know if the people were politically free as well? The answer is actually all too clear – they would be in a similar position to wealthier East Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
    
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    May 12, 2020 8:53am
    - Odakyu-sen
      
      The day may yet come.
      
      We live in hope.
      If South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China could become better friends, the potential to help each other (and the world) would be great.
      
      At the moment, Chinese is big on Han nationalism. She is also socialist (with the State in total control of the means of production). National Socialism is considered good if you are Ghandi (“India for the Indians”) but not so good if you want to take over adjacent countries and convert their ethnicities to your own, like China in Tibet or some other Austrian fellow whose name escapes me…
      
      //
      
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      May 12, 2020 9:22am
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        Hope dies, machine learning technology is allowing the rise of an unstoppable totalitarian regime in PRC that makes the aristocratic political class rich and happy while holding everyone else in inescapable if generally comfortable servitude to the state. World should economically disengage and stop assisting the rise of their techno dystopia. We tried carrot, stick time.
        
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        May 12, 2020 5:48pm
    - PhilBest
      
      Who are you and what have you done with the real mikenmildagain??????
      
      22 1
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      May 12, 2020 9:23am
      - Classic Liberal
        
        LOL, my thoughts exactly 🙂
        
        7 1
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        May 12, 2020 12:19pm
    - Blackface Twin Reverb
      
      Sadly MMA, I have only one uptick to give.
      
      9 0
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      May 12, 2020 9:47am
  - HemiT
    
    eating huhu grubs didn’t give nz coronavirus
    
    yes i do disagree with their methods of throwing a live dog in boiling water
    
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/news/video-1385053/Shocking-footage-dog-boiled-alive-steamer.html
    
    this is no time to downplay their types of behaviour artemisia
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:15am
    - rouppe
      
      have you seen how crayfish are cooked?
      
      Have you seen chicken culling in the egg industry before the male chicks are fed live into a macerator? Or gassed?
      
      5 2
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      May 12, 2020 10:42am
  - Critical Thinker
    
    “People in other cultures might disagree with methods, but those no longer starving might consider the end was worth the means.”
    
    I think any civilised person would disagree with around 80 million people brutally murdered by the CCP ???
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:16am
  - [moderated]
    
    People in other cultures might disagree with methods, but those no longer starving might consider the end was worth the means.
    
    You conflate food deprivation with poverty. Poverty is a measure of income versus an international median. All you can claim with 600 million coming “out of extreme poverty” is that China has increased its international trading. And as mikenmild(!) points out, they would’ve done this a lot faster without an authoritarian regime. Take a look at the stark difference between the two Koreas.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:32am
    - PhilBest
      
      Mark Steyn constantly points out that the west assuming that China would “become more like us as we buy their stuff and make them richer” is proving to be a false assumption, all we’re doing is making a totalitarian regime stronger. And we’re becoming more like them, with our Big Tech increasingly imposing CCP-style censorship on us, often at the CCP’s actual bidding (eg COVID-19 information).
      
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      May 12, 2020 12:03pm
    - artemisia
      
      New Zealand seems to have an intractable poverty problem, based on income compared to the local median. And that is in a wealthy country with a welfare safety net (or hammock) that exceeds most of the world. And yet here it is often said that these families struggle to put food on the table.
      
      Food deprivation and extreme poverty might not be a perfect correlation, but I would not want to be the one telling it to a household watching their children eat grass.
      
      4 1
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      May 12, 2020 1:03pm
  - kowtow
    
    I was going to do a long post, but fuck it , just google China wild life farming.
    
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    May 12, 2020 11:00am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

L3 has been lifted so we are at L2.9.
All that has happened is shops can open and I can go boating/fishing. L2 my arse. PTPM is still in total control mode.
I did not think she would do it – just stay in L3 for 2 more weeks.
Anyone else feel like they are being treated like a naughty toddler?
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May 12, 2020 8:07am
- pdm
  
  Ardern will not give up the control she presently has easily or soon.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:31am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Wait till Thursday when they will want Climate Change Control as well. Cows will have to be put into nappies to contain their wind. Water is to be rationed to humans at 1.5L/person/day. (Part days excluded.)
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:14am
- JackRabbit
  
  None of the kindy rules are congruent. She cannot just end the lockdown, because that will be a dead giveaway it was false in the first place.
  
  Distancing and cleanliness are good rules, and that according to reports from health authorities overseas, is what had ring fenced Covid-19, not lockdown.
  
  If they had found out the real mortality rate, by conducting proper analytics rather than a 20 minute phone call from her globalist handler, life and the economy would be more like Australia.
  
  If you compare the way Australia handled Covid-19 vs how Jacinda did it, and say used a massive poisonous spider infection here is the analogy:
  
  Australia: “We have spiders, so you will have to stay out of your house (business) for a couple of few days. Fumigate, and wait 48 hours. Over the first 24 hours the spiders will leave the house to escape the Fumigant and head to the nearest river, but will die in transit. Give your house a good clean, get it spider proofed, and get on with your lives.”
  
  NZ: “We have spiders, so you will have to stay out of your house (business) for six weeks. Any house that has spiders will be burnt to the ground. If you resist we will imprison you. Life will not return to normal until every last spider has been eradicated. We are doing this to save you. If your house is burnt down, the party has a room in a dormitory for you and a shovel to provide work for you. Jacinda loves you.”
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:04am
  - PhilBest
    
    Loving your comments, Jackrabbit.
    
    Another analogy occurred to me this morning. Viruses are transferred overwhelmingly in indoors environments. Sunshine kills them and fresh air disperses them.
    
    Therefore instead of telling people to stay indoors, we should have banned people from going indoors at all for 4 weeks. Everybody should doss down on sidewalks, at the park, go bush, whatever. 4 weeks later, virus eliminated. Pity about the deaths from exposure but hey, mission accomplished….
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:28am
  - Komata
    
    JR@0904
    
    Aka; ‘We must destroy the village to save it’.
    
    (Some here will remember).
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:43am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    That should win the internet for today
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:28am
- gorse
  
  Why are we still in a State of Emergency?
  
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  May 12, 2020 11:12am
  - oldfella
    
    How about because the COL is a major threat to all of us and must be erradicated/ellimated/removed by any means necessary.
    Just a thought…
    
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    May 12, 2020 11:34am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Viruses: Micron size cellular parasites. Use cellular material to replicate.
      
      Worms: Insect size intestinal / body inhabiting parasites. Blood suckers, use host material to replicate.
      
      Socialists: Environmental / Economic parasites.
      
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      May 12, 2020 1:52pm
Im Right

NZ one of the lowest stats worldwide in deaths and Covid infections for a good couple of weeks now!
Why do I get the impression that Arden, on moving to level 2, is doing us a ‘favour’ in moving to lvl 2?
Rewarding us with a lolly type arrogance….should have been at Lvl 2 a week ago with the stats we have, jeeezzz she loves the attention and power doesn’t she!
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May 12, 2020 8:09am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Clayton’s Level 2.
  Level 2 when you are not really having a level 2
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:44am
  - Stephen Russell
    
    Really?
    Under Level 2, I will be able to:
    * Travel to Dunedin to visit my mother
    * Go shopping beyond just the supermarket
    * Eat out
    * Watch Super Rugby games
    These seem quite useful changes to me, though maybe not to others.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:08am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Just be careful of the fun Police. They have not finished with you yet.
      
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      May 12, 2020 9:17am
All_on_Red

Ministers taken a Pay Cut yet?
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May 12, 2020 8:13am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Year of delivery does not mean salary cuts.
  All talk and no do.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:16am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Look at that, a downtick. Must support Jacinda’s lies
    
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    May 12, 2020 8:20am
    - Captain Mainwaring
      
      Martin Williams has turned up early.
      
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      May 12, 2020 8:29am
- freethinker
  
  All On – Im hearing the music again – “You cant hide your lyin eyes” Thanks to the Eagles so prophetic.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:18am
greenfinger

To somehow think that reopening schools and exempt them from Ardern’s “rule of 10“ is straight up based on hope and a disaster waiting to happen. Bloomfield and Ardern clearly do not place much weight, if any, on official reports over the last few weeks of heightened children hospitalisation and fatality rates in New York as a result of the Kawasaki disease which many qualified experts suspect could be the effects from contracting COVID19 virus. Dr Scott Gotlieb, the former US FDA Commissioner was interviewed about this on at least three occasions over the last few weeks and overnight again. He has consistently expressed concerns over this development and said it is still inconclusive based on observations to date that COVID19 is less fatal in children and that children are less infectious.

So, after her 100-day crash course in epidemiology, will Dr Ardern, or her trusted advisor Dr Bloomfield release all the documented evidence they have personally reviewed to give teachers, parent and children cast iron assurance that it is safe to return to school? If she can’t, perhaps we should have someone else on the podium that tells NZ like it is, rather than a “doctor” that seems to sugarcoat everything with a cheesy smile.
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May 12, 2020 8:16am
- alloytoo
  
  Rule of 10 is due to the limits of contact tracing presumably schools can “trace” the kids better than a church…..
  
  Now if we had thrown some money at Google in February we would have 90% contract tracing covered…..
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:55am
- theoldbloke
  
  One swallow does not make a summer.
  
  A couple of reports of kids getting SOMETHING that is NOT Covid19 is no reason to not accept that
  ALL the research so far indicates kids are OK to be in school.
  
  Red Herrings any one?
  
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  May 12, 2020 6:45pm
Left Right and Centre

‘Level2licious’ by Winstony’s Child:

Jacinda, can they handle this?
Grant, can they handle this?
David Clark, can you handle this?
I don’t think they can handle this – woooo
I don’t think they’re ready for this jelly
cos my nanny state’s level2licious for ya babe
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May 12, 2020 8:21am
oldpark

Heard one of the far left bottom feeding councillors from the Wellington City Council boasting for doing something stupid once more . Seems that bunch of no hopers just dont see it . Once they got voted in they fast tracked a Salary income from circa $84k to circa $111k .Now after the business destroying Lockdown many now on their knees trying to recover . The dumbo Council decides to turn on theParking Meters and once more screw the Wellington Motorists and Businesses .
They say they will be able to gouge at least one and a half Million Dollars off the Motorists.
Now the dumbo logic . They will give the money to the poor unfortunates who seem to frequent the City .
Yes very noble for the Wellington Council bottomfeeders to do that . What they seem to ignore anyone coming into the city to shop will be put off in the interim because of the Parking Meter gouge . That will mean Business trying to get some financial oxygen will miss out again .
By all means of course help out the unfortunates in Wellington . In this instance where the fuck does the far left Wellington City Council clowns think where does the money come from for their wages and so called unfortunates. From Business and Ratepayers which they are so keen in completely ignoring them . Give business some traction Council Clowns not make their lives a whole lot worse than what was forced onto them in the Lockdown .
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May 12, 2020 8:21am
Maggie Pie

Honestly, when he just read this in the Herald, my partner very nearly spat his Froot Loops all over my laptop. He reckons with Dudges making decisions like this, it wont be long before we find ourselves reverting to Level 4 🙁

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12331137
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May 12, 2020 8:21am
- fernglas
  
  Very silly. Quite why they didn’t wait for the result is beyond me. For the person to be required to be tested in the first place must have meant they either reported symptoms or had contact with a known case, so to let the woman out on even the most stringent terms before the result was obtained is baffling. And I see the Police aren’t commenting on whether they opposed this. Good old New Zealand, great at theory, shit at execution.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:40am
  - septic skeptic
    
    Execution is probably a step too far in this case.
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:56am
- Philview
  
  There was a story last week that a young man was caught smuggling meth into the country. He flew to LA picked up the shipment, stayed there 24 hours and came back getting caught in Auckland. We are in lock down and that guy was flying to LA and back.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:26am
Observer of Life

Hmmm ..
Super Rugby Aotearoa.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa
Anyone else notice how quickly a name change for our country is happening around us? Do you think we are going to get a referendum on this or will it just change by government enforcement behind the scenes?
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May 12, 2020 8:22am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Better not look at your passport, then…
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:54am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    Or at a banknote…
    
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    May 12, 2020 8:55am
    - The Proper Ghandi
      
      Thanks for bolstering the argument. All good points. Nga mihi.
      
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      May 12, 2020 11:18am
      - Batman
        
        Maybe DPF can help you out
        
        https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2018/02/english_is_already_an_official_language.html
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:36am
      - The Proper Ghandi
        
        How is that relevant? No shit English is an official language. So is Maori and Sign Language.
        
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        May 12, 2020 3:59pm
- Simon Gotlieb
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Can’t say it worries me. What’s your problem with calling the country by the name it had before some Dutchman decided to change it’s name? It’s not like there’s a law saying anyone can’t call it New Zealand. Honestly, there’s bigger things to worry about.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:56am
  - Nukuleka
    
    Simon, check your facts. Our country was called New Zealand well before any Maori began referring to it as Aotearoa. The term Aotearoa to refer to the entire country is a post colonial conceit. You may be happy to be an Aotearoan but I am not.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:10am
    - Odakyu-sen
      
      “Our country was called New Zealand well before any Maori began referring to it as Aotearoa.”
      
      Were those Maori the educated elite who thought it would be cool to fabricate a Te Reo name for the imported concept of a united nation?
      
      When importing foreign terms into your language, the two main approaches are to transliterate or to create your own term from scratch.
      For example, the novel concept of “software” is transliterated into “sofuto-uea” in Japanese (Japanese vowels are pronounced the same way as vowels in Te Reo).
      If Te Reo followed suit, the result would be something similar-sounding.
      On the other approach, Google informs me that the Te Reo term for software is “taonga” (I have no idea if this is appropriate).
      
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      May 12, 2020 9:31am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      I shudder every time it I hear it–It is a recent invention/promotion. I believe it’s post 1980’s.
      
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      May 12, 2020 10:21am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Aotearoa-New Zealand is a 1980s construction to symbolise the dual (bi-) nature of our Society and Culture.
        
        The first written record of Aotearoa is 1855 in Grey’s Polynesian Myths
        
        The place being referred to is the North Island.
        
        p.13-14: The Dictionary of NZ English
        
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        May 12, 2020 6:35pm
  - greybeard
    
    Can you please provide us with proof that “Aotearoa” was ever used pre-European arrival as the name for NZ ?
    Or indeed that the country was ever known by a single collective name ?
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:11am
    - The Proper Ghandi
      
      Doubtful. They didn’t have any written language until we gave them one.
      
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      May 12, 2020 10:05am
      - mark15
        
        Convenient…
        
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        May 12, 2020 10:29am
      - rouppe
        
        Or the wheel.
        
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        May 12, 2020 10:55am
  - Jade Warrior
    
    Simon, the reason why we shouldn’t encourage the use of (let alone change our name to) Aotearoa is because the name looks too similar to Australia. Type the two names in a Word document, one above the other, and marvel at how similar they actually look.
    
    Many of us are concerned that the national flags of Australia and New Zealand look too alike. How would you like to further confuse the situation by adopting a similar looking name as well?
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:11am
    - Simon Gotlieb
      
      Strange, I’ve never confused Australia with Austria, and they look really similar to me. Specious argument.
      
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      May 12, 2020 5:17pm
      - Jade Warrior
        
        Australia and Austria are rather far apart on a map of the world. Australia and New Zealand … not so much.
        
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        May 13, 2020 9:15am
  - Swifty
    
    “What’s your problem with calling the country by the name it had before some Dutchman decided to change it’s name”
    
    You’re wrong about that. It’s a common misconception.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:17am
  - Debs
    
    My problem is that it has not been a formal decision made by the majority. Changing our country’s name shouldn’t be done by stealth.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:21am
  - Tall Man
    
    What absolute rubbish.
    
    There was no name for New Zealand. The inhabitants of the time had zero concept of a country beyond the borders of their own territory.
    
    The tribal rifts that continue to this day made the creation of a country without European intervention impossible let alone an “agreement” to use a silly made up name.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:34am
  - MrTips
    
    LOL. Maori oral history is replete with recollections of inter alia fighting, epic adventures, eating each other, revenge, making up, avoidance, slavery.
    
    They were not unified in any national sense of the word, any more than the North American Indians were before Europe turned up. Its not a criticism, just a fact.
    
    And besides Simon, the first European import consumed in NZ was a dead Dutchman! (James Belich)
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:42am
  - The Proper Ghandi
    
    You are so blind, but I’m unsure if it is willful. It’s under your nose but you fail to see it. This is not an innocuous name change, it is 100% political and the aim is subversion of New Zealand as a set of established institutions (the ubiquitous name changes kind of gives that away).
    
    New Zealand was labelled by a passing Dutchman, yes. But as a social and political entity, it was only established by the settlers. New Zealand is its institutions and its people, of which Maori are a significant minority. Aoteraroa (if it is anything) is three islands in the South Pacific. The translation “The land of the long white cloud” confirms this. Similarly, the United States was established by their settlers and the later Founding Fathers. The Indians may have been on the land mass, but they had nothing approaching a coherent system of institutions and values.
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:03am
  - Libertarians are right
    
    Death by a thousand cuts is still death.
    We have a Government that has been actively undermining our democracy from the day they came to power.
    Their lackeys are trying to change our name and language.
    They are actively taking away our rights and freedoms again and again.
    
    You may not care but that doesn’t give you the right to deem it ok for others to be stepped over.
    If we take your approach and let all these “little” things go (and they aren’t little at all), we would soon be under authoritarian rule (not that we aren’t already to be fair).
    
    We live in New Zealand. That is a fact. If they want to change it, do it honestly and democratically. But start with the truth – it was called New Zealand before Aotearoa. Stop spreading that lie.
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:10am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Pushing Maori lingo is going backwards. It is a darn poor substitute.
      
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      May 12, 2020 10:23am
      - Batman
        
        Wow Simon really managed to trigger all of you into multiple rants huh?
        
        As soon as I heard the name of the Super Rugby comp I chuckled to myself as I knew that the anti-Maori reactionaries here would not cope with it at all! Seems I was correct haha.
        
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        May 12, 2020 10:32am
      - The Proper Ghandi
        
        Correcting someone’s deluded misapprehensions is not being “triggered” nor does it involve “ranting.” Tell us why we are wrong then.
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:16am
      - Batman
        
        You’re hyperventilating over a non-issue. You’re seeing conspiracies and plots where there are none!
        
        Just because Aotearoa is being used in everyday language more, doesn’t mean it’s some nefarious plot to make us a Maori state (we’re a joint arrangement anyway). It’s the same sort of batshit paranoia which leads to the idiotic white replacement theory of multiple terrorists.
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:27am
      - Libertarians are right
        
        Batman – I don’t actually care about the Maori language one way or another. That doesn’t make me anti-Maori, just apathetic regarding something I have no interest in.
        My issue is antidemocratic behaviour and having my personal rights diminished that Simon seems to think is ok.
        Or do you think that there isn’t a major push for power going on?
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:17am
      - Batman
        
        You’re mixing up two different issues. The Maori name for NZ is Aotearoa and it is being used a bit more these days as we become more comfortable with using Te Reo.
        
        Not a big deal and not anti-democratic.
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:19am
      - JackRabbit
        
        Cherry picking is what Maori activists like. None actually want to embrace actual Maori justice which was brutal and swift. The activists are just common thieves. They don’t want to return to Maori justice, because under Maori justice their heads would be on a stick and their womenfolk passed around to whoever wanted to use them.
        
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        May 12, 2020 1:23pm
      - Libertarians are right
        
        Batman – in the context of a single action, sure.
        
        They aren’t saying Aotearoa is the Maori name for NZ. They’re saying it’s the real name, that it predates NZ. That is simply untrue.
        
        As for it not being anti-democratic to slowly force a name change, I disagree.
        The institutions are slowly changing, then, eventually they’ll seek to change the name of our country with it all but being done already. Many people will just go along with it as for all intents and purposes it’ll already be done. That method is an affront to democracy. You don’t change something then go to the people once it’s already done.
        
        I know a significant number of Lefties who want our name changed so I don’t believe for a second that this isn’t the plan. So yes – it is definitely anti-democratic. And again, it’s not the only anti-democratic thing the Government has been doing since they got in.
        
        Personally, I want our name to remain New Zealand. My grandparents fought for this country and I think it isn’t something to arbitrarily change without a fundamental reason for doing so (and the reason they’re using, that Aotearoa is the original name, is a lie). If the people of New Zealand decide on a name change I’ll be disappointed but it’s no different to any other lost vote. The people decided so that’s what it is.
        
        I will however be very angry if my right to a say is completely ignored by bureaucrats and politicians making the change without consulting the people of NZ.
        
        For me, it’s about democratic principles rather than the actual name change.
        
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        May 12, 2020 1:57pm
      - Batman
        
        Ok so you’re worried about a sidebar part of it. Ok that’s fine, I don’t think it’s really being pushed in the way you describe but agree that NZ didn’t have a formal name before colonisation purely because of the very nature of the country before then.
        
        Yeah a few people want a change but no government is going to do it without a vote. It would be highly contentious and thus doomed to fail without the legitimacy of a vote.
        
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        May 12, 2020 2:25pm
      - The Proper Ghandi
        
        Batman
        “It’s the same sort of batshit paranoia which leads to the idiotic white replacement theory of multiple terrorists.”
        
        So you still haven’t read the New York Times article I posted the other day entitled “We Can Replace Them”? It’s not an unevidenced, speculative theory – it’s an admitted fact.
        
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        May 12, 2020 4:03pm
    - Jack5
      
      The rational path is for New Zealand to be called just that when in the English language, and to be “Aotearoa” when using the Maori language.
      
      Then cheapskates like State TV and Red Radio (RNZ) would be forced to run dual streams: one in English, the other in Maori. At present they dodge this by creating NZ Pidgin or NZ Creole – a mixture of both tongues.
      
      English language has precedents for using an English word instead of the geographic names of an indigenous language. Examples: Rome for Roma, Moscow for Muskva (pronunciation of Москва), Warsaw for Warszawa, The Hague for Den Haag. In Chinese this country’s name sounds like “Shin-Sealand” – onomatopoeic, that is based on the sound of the English name “New Zealand”. In Hindi, “New Zealand” sounds like “New Zealand” …
      
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      May 12, 2020 5:36pm
- Critical Thinker
  
  Well its become sadly very apparent that we don’t live in what we once knew as “New Zealand” anymore… ?
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:20am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I’m not bothered…
    
    I’m a citizen of Xinxilan 新西兰
    
    and when I’m being culturally sensitive…Ao tai luo a
    奥泰罗阿
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:31am
    - Odakyu-sen
      
      The pre-war Japanese name (on old maps) for New Zealand was 新西欄 (pronounced “nyu-jii-rann-do”)
      
      新 = New
      西欄 = West Holland (Zealand)
      
      Nowdays, the old pre-war kanji characters have been replaced by phonetic katakana characters, thus ニュージーランド = New Zealand
      ニュー = nyu
      ジー = jii
      ラン = rann
      ド = do
      
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      May 12, 2020 10:19am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    A = Aotearoa = Activist
    
    If an organization’s name ends in “Aotearoa” it often has a progressive view of the world and how things should be run.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:37am
    - kowtow
      
      And/or depends on large chunks of tax payer largesse ( as dispensed by the broreaucrats)
      
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      May 12, 2020 11:11am
  - Nookin
    
    “Well its become sadly very apparent that we don’t live in what we once knew as “New Zealand” anymore…”
    Thank you for that. I was really getting rather worried that my propensity for getting lost was attributable to the onset of bewilderment. Now I know that some sneaky bugger has changed countries on me.
    
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    May 12, 2020 11:36am
- Ruawai
  
  Women’s refuge head on TV this week referred to NZ as Aotearoa New Zealand. Seems it is the new way to refer to NZ place names as the Maori name then the actual name eg White Island and Browns Island recently both referred to as the Maori name first in news items.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:37am
- Unity
  
  I’ve protested to TVNZ several times about the attempt to change our country’s name, the disrespect etc in using Aotearoa, but have just had wet replies. I’ve emphasised how proud I am of New Zealand and will resist any attempt to change that name. It would be helpful if more would protest, otherwise I can that other name gradually sliding in.
  
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  May 12, 2020 11:12am
Brian McDonald

Most semi-industrial, heavy industrial businesses open in Otahuhu, some with shortened hours. See some supply shops with a table at the door. The motorway is like a Sunday.
Got pages of ‘rules’ for 2 big businesses only to find them not in place, pretty disappointing. We are geared up with our own sanitiser, wipes etc. If the little guys play the game can’t see why the big guys don’t – that said the social distancing is clear to see – but not always between staff changing shifts which is poor. That’s the risks folks, lack of discipline.
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May 12, 2020 8:28am
- Brian McDonald
  
  Down ticked for going to work. Sad life for some folks, probably the ones that bleated about staying at home.
  
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  May 12, 2020 8:42am
  - Tall Man
    
    Probably downticked for running scared of the 90 odd people out there that are actually “sick” with the “covid con”.
    
    The rules are a joke, the person instituting those rules is a joke and the joke is on NZ.
    
    This virus is here forever, just like the rest of the influenza/common cold virus family.
    
    Just like Arnie, it will be back and do you really expect to have an annual 6 week lockdown every “flu season”.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:38am
all true

what do you guys expect from someone which is still pretty wet behind the ears and surrounded by fully grown idiotic experts.
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May 12, 2020 8:28am
- MCos
  
  Everyone knows the real experts, the people the know everything about any subject you care to name are right here on Kiwiblog.
  I know because I’m one of them.
  Any questions?
  
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  May 12, 2020 1:00pm
Happychappy

Could anyone see John Key saying , never saw it, never signed it off, PM says leaked email from her office had language she would not of used. For fucks sake she the CEO of New Zealand and should know what has been written
and all she can do is tell Mike Hosking it wasn’t her, what a absolute joke she is becoming and the sheep ignore the lies.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12331143
This is like what happened with the sex deviate out of office her blame someone else it’s never the boss.
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May 12, 2020 8:28am
- JibberJabber
  
  There is Plausible Deniability then there is Jacinda Deniability, “not me” she sez, it came out of her office FFS.
  You could hear her smirking over the radio.
  But of course, we`re not allowed to call her a liar.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:10am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  The Buck stops on her desk.
  
  Is she admitting she has surrounded herself with /appointed less-than-competent folk?
  
  Is she admitting she can’t train her staff properly?
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:35am
  - JackRabbit
    
    “The Buck stops on her desk.” 🙂
    
    Given that we are now cashless you must mean a real Buck. I have visions of a pissed off Impala demanding answers of Jacinda as to why his offspring are in lock down.
    
    https://www.istockphoto.com/nz/photo/male-business-man-with-deer-head-on-a-blue-background-in-the-office-at-the-desk-gm1086624492-291541149
    
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    May 12, 2020 1:30pm
- alloytoo
  
  If someone had sent it out without JK’s approval they would have been publicly on the dole queue by lunch time.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:00am
- Libertarians are right
  
  To be fair, no reasonable underling would have used the kinds of words she uses because they would sound insane and this demand simply wouldn’t have worked with her usual wishywashy noncommittal nonsense.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:01am
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Cindy’s Office seems to have developed a ‘pattern of behaviour’ in dealing with damaging PR news over the last 2.5 years…
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:26am
- mandk
  
  If Ardern didn’t send the email, why did it take 4 days for her to deny it?
  
  And, if she isn’t lying, who did send it? It sounds like Helen Clark.
  
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  May 12, 2020 11:51am
- Classic Liberal
  
  Even Hosking didn’t really grill her about that pathetic ‘not my language’ excuse. And didn’t repeat the ‘dismiss’ statement at her. Very sad.
  
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  May 12, 2020 1:01pm
Manolo

One of many restaurants across NZ that will not reopen:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/food-wine/121475445/coronavirus-wellington-restaurant-the-bresolin-wont-reopen

The Covid-19 pandemic has claimed another restaurant casualty in Wellington’s The Bresolin, which has closed for good and will not reopen when the country enters alert level 2 on Thursday.

“We spent 14 years working towards building that project and had a series of small restaurants, and an incredible small group of partners and people that have worked with us, that helped recognise that dream”.
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May 12, 2020 8:31am
- Libertarians are right
  
  They aren’t a victim of the pandemic, they’re a victim (rightly or wrongly) of the Government’s handling of the pandemic. The Government can justify their decisions (in their own heads at least) but it is dishonest and a very great insult to those affected to pretend that they are victims of the virus.
  Politically, they’re trying to say that they saved lives and the virus killed jobs. Leftys are going quite hard at this online, pretending that the economy was going to be wrecked either way so the Government’s actions had no negative cost that weren’t going to happen anyway. It’s disgusting and just them playing politics yet again.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:59am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    It’s the lefty’s ignorance of how the world actually works. Pooh Bah is going to attempt a polar swap on Thursday: Climate change for Business. The Reserve Bank has the funds so anything is possible during our transition to West Venezuela.
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:31am
Lee C

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12331129&&ref=recommended

I listened carefully to this – I have to say Simon Bridges spot-on with his communicative power.

The way he slated the credentials of the existing situation and its originators without being ‘negative’. Spot-on.
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May 12, 2020 8:34am
- Tony Stuart
  
  I agree Lee. What Bridges says there makes an awful lot of sense. We must now put aside any anxiety about tens of thousands of people dying, because we know that was never going to happen.
  
  On the other hand, we know that benefit numbers up to a week ago HAD risen by 30,000, and that the pace of job losses will increase in the next few weeks as wage subsidies run out, and employers can no longer put off the inevitable.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:08am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

NZ Taxpayer’s Union may be allowed into the Budget lockup. May be.
Robertson and Mallard trying to fuck them over. Find out more today.
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May 12, 2020 8:37am
- Batman
  
  I’d personally rather have some of the more serious economists and econ journos than the Taxpayer chaps.
  
  They can do their political take on it from outside the lockup easy enough.
  
  The important thing is the hard economic analysis that the professionals will do.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:35am
cmm

Anyone know when we’ll see yeast back on the shelves?

I did a whole lot of sourdough baking last year – had to start a new starter. Nice bread, but yeast is easier.
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May 12, 2020 8:48am
- Benedict Yu
  
  If you can find a Binn Inn on Thursday they will have some as they have been shut for 7 weeks.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:05am
- Tall Man
  
  New World where we live has had 500g packets for a few weeks now.
  
  It’s instant yeast and worked a treat.
  
  5 1
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  May 12, 2020 9:43am
  - Sacha
    
    I need yeast too. For a horse that has hind gut problems.
    ‘Nuff said.
    
    2 0
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    May 12, 2020 10:49am
    - Tall Man
      
      Sounds like PPE may be more suitable ……..
      
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      May 12, 2020 3:57pm
- MCos
  
  Bought some yesterday at our local supermarket
  
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  May 12, 2020 1:05pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  Try a supermarket in a more socially deprived area. They will have it stocked but like sell little.
  
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  May 12, 2020 5:29pm
Tony Stuart

The Epidemic Response Committee is hearing from the Tourism sector this morning. Without doubt, the highlight will be the appearance before the committee at 11.45am of Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis 😀
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May 12, 2020 8:48am
- JibberJabber
  
  Will they quiz Davis about this Govts mixed messages?
  You know the one about getting New Zealanders to visit their own backyard first and then the issue of his own Iwi stopping New Zealanders going to the Beaches in his electorate
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:44am
  - wilderbeast
    
    ?
    
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    May 12, 2020 5:06pm
- Scooter
  
  Just watched it, NZ tourism is doomed. KD is an utter moron.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:44pm
mandk

A good example of how the ‘Justice’ system favours crims over victims:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/300008677/northland-woman-with-155-convictions-gets-home-detention-as-prison-ineffective

The woman has 155 convictions, but she has probably committed many, many more offences.

Nonetheless, the Court decides prison is not effective in her case. But for whom? Keeping her in prison indefinitely would undoubtedly save huge public and private costs, as well as preventing the psychological harms that victims of crime suffer.

In addition, keeping her in prison, away from meth, would stop her from providing what probably a good income stream for the gangs.
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May 12, 2020 8:49am
- Bobba Fret
  
  Be reasonable…she needs to be out and about so she can vote Labour in the September election!
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:24am
Liberty

“A woman whose criminal record stretches to 155 convictions has avoided her latest jail sentence after a judge determined prison does nothing to deter her from offending.”
stuff.co.nz

The whole point of prison is to protect Property rights from crims
Crims might now be Labours friend/ voter. It doesn’t mean Judge’s should pander to them.
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May 12, 2020 8:54am
- GoVege
  
  On the other hand, a young autistic man who has been left to care for his bipolar mother for 19 years, since he was 9 years old, gets convicted of murder when he finally cracks under the pressure and bashes her head in.
  (Last February.)
  Wonder why he didnt receive any compassion?
  Or any help for nearly 20 years?
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:02am
Happychappy

If the Attorney General David Parker was right in his definition of the Law in enforcing the Lockdown why are they needing to pass a.biil in Parliament allowing them to go to level two.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121478877/coronavirus-government-set-to-urgently-pass-new-law-for-alert-level-2
If they were that sure why are they now having a bob each way as the saying goes.
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May 12, 2020 8:57am
- alex Masterley
  
  So what Dear Leader says level 2 will look like may not in fact be what level 2 actually looks like.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:56am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Dear leader does not have the precision of speech of former Attorneys General.
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:37am
  - mark15
    
    What would happen if a couple of young ‘policemen’ descended on a pub full of truckers and loggers if it decided to open early?
    
    2 1
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    May 12, 2020 10:40am
    - Paulus
      
      Outside town in the pub they would be asked what they wanted to drink !
      
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      May 12, 2020 1:40pm
igm

Hopefully Ardern’s two main print media sycophants are on their last legs, no matter what amount of taxpayers’ money she squanders on them.
Without supporting advertisers, APN and Fairfax (NZ) are gone burgers; sooner than later.
Their only chance of survival would be a Murdoch takeover, total purge of all left-wing losers masquerading as senior journos, and dumping provincial dailies.
The commercial activities and survival of thousands of businesses, large and small, have been severely impacted by government’s inept handling of Covid-19, this creating a very small advertising revenue base, with many firms refusing to advertise in media that has maligned and abused them for years . . . suck it up journos, one reaps what one sows, and you have planted the wrong seeds
I feel for all the collateral damage journos have created, but the writing has been on the wall for a number of years,
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May 12, 2020 9:04am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Yeah, but…
  
  as the PM is no longer gracing the covers of the glossy magazines…she is taking up more of our TV news time…
  If she disappears off the front pages of Stuff ?The Herald, we’ll have her foist upon the magic box all day and night.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:40am
  - Sacha
    
    Maggy W. I am impressed that you are still watching the magic box. You seem to have so much knowledge which cannot all have been gathered from television.
    I gave up September 2017.
    But a friend did alert me to
    ‘Tea with the Dames’ last evening on Maori TV. I had to change the batteries in the remote . It was an enjoyable hour –
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:55am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      so much knowledge which cannot all have been gathered from television.
      
      I realised when I went to the races with all my cultured mates that they had no clue about the horses/Jockeys they were backing.
      I asked them why they hadn’t checked the horses’ form.
      They looked at me blankly even though they were holding a racebook in their hands.
      
      Seems I probably picked up a thing or two hanging out with my old man when he placed his bets.
      
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      May 12, 2020 7:54pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        There is little as funny as someone who knows little about racing consulting the form book before betting.
        
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        May 12, 2020 8:30pm
  - Jack5
    
    Yep, as private media are squeezed out, we face endless variations and repeats of the Jacindarella fairy tale on State TV. Princess Be-kind’s story will echo and re-echo on Red Radio.
    
    Even the State-supported tribal radio network will squeeze Her Highness between taniwha tales and learn-Maori lessons.
    
    En Zed will get relief only in the next chapter, when Jacindarella goes to the United Nations ball.
    
    The pumpkin that turned into a coach will morph into a Boeing 777. The mice who turned into coachmen will be Mickey air crew and Minnie hostesses.
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:59am
Durden

I noticed that while there was mention of tracking capacity — how many cases can be tracked per day i.e. 180, there was no mention or explanation of the target time taken to achieve tracking. i.e. from the time a case is confirmed to all contacts of the case being contacted and isolated, tested, quarantined.

Dr Ayesha Verral mentioned that target should be 4 days, and that 1-2 days before decision to go level 2 was being made, it was still 5 days. By the way comments from the PM suggest that Ayesha Verral is no longer independent, just a embedded expert (paid poodle) working for the government. As confirmed by her comments on TV appearances. A basic independent consulting no-no.

As posted before, this implies a potential delay of 8-12 days. Made up of say 2-5 days (asymptomatic but infecting) before symptoms show up which leads to testing, 1-2 days for test results to confirm, and then 5 days to finish contact tracing and isolation.

Imagine with a capacity of contact tracing of only 180 cases per day, what a huge problem it is with normal people going to school, restaurants, workplaces, hospitals, churches etc, or worse idiots/superspreaders (e.g. South Korean bar hopper that visited three bars and created a cluster of over 45).

A phone based tracing system like the Australian CovidSafe will help speed up the process. It will help more if more people take up-but it will help. And based on my reading of security/privacy assessment it is fine to use.

https://twitter.com/matthewrdev/status/1254336105203200000

Especially with the ultimate individual backstop of being able to turn off it unilaterally when you think the danger has passed.

That, and they need to have the ability to expand the tracing system and call centre to expand number of personnel rapidly far beyond the 300 operators capacity suggested by the PM.

The summary rejection of having a phone based tracking system by the PM is inexplicable.

Alternative is higher likelihood of out of control pandemic when swamped by numbers, or a return to Level 4 while they fight to get control of it.

Just like not taking the hard and most cost-effective decision to mandatorily quarantine all incoming arrivals instead at start of stage 2 lockdown versus putting 5 million healthy people in lockdown, the lack of capability for quick tracing, at volume, risks the possibility of the second wave and another economy killing flip-flop to severe lockdown.
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May 12, 2020 9:04am
- burt
  
  And based on my reading of security/privacy assessment it is fine to use.
  
  Well they would say that wouldn’t they.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:38am
  - Durden
    
    Who is “they” ?
    
    If you read the tweets you should have understood that it is done by an independent person, a member of the public but IT specialist, unscrambling the code and doing the review.
    
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    May 12, 2020 4:55pm
Benedict Yu

These antivaxxers are a public menace.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12330824&&ref=recommended

“Cartwright and his wife Shanelle have not vaccinated their children. Earlier in the week she said their kids were completely healthy and the “proof is in the pudding”.”
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May 12, 2020 9:11am
- burt
  
  So you think their kids being healthy demonstrates they are wrong?
  
  I’m not at all anti vaccines, but I do think it’s stupid to believe we’ll quickly develop a successful vaccine for any corona virus when to date we have failed at every attempt.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:29am
- chaos
  
  Cough cough must get vaccinated. Seriously we run off to get vaccinated to things that our own immune system can handle if we take care of ourselves. But the obese junk filled society we have become, must always use antibiotic hand wash, has lowered our immune systems. I can’t recall the last time I had the flu or a cold. And never been vaccinated for it.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:05am
  - Classic Liberal
    
    I don’t think we can go on anecdotal evidence but large stats. I could tell you that every winter a good friend of mine caught a cold and got a lung infection until he starting getting vaccinated.
    
    But as I say, that’s just one person’s experience.
    
    The great thing is that we can now choose to get vaccinated for flu if we and our GP think it would help us.
    
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    May 12, 2020 1:25pm
    - chaos
      
      Yeah and it is great having a very experienced gp who is completely against the flu vaccine for people who don’t need it
      
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      May 12, 2020 2:27pm
Maggie Pie

As i just said to my partner, we’re actually lucky not to have anything like 10 friends.
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May 12, 2020 9:11am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I’m fearing an onslaught from winter-bound folk who can’t escape to warmth in Greece/Thailand/California/Mexico.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:46am
burt

I guess the decision to go against MoH advice was a captains call – are we happy that such powers were taken when we are not allowed to know if they were legal or not ?

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121480361/you-could-have-had-level-4-takeaways-according-to-government-officials
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May 12, 2020 9:26am
- cmm
  
  We never met the criteria for Level 4. L4 was supposed to be for when the system was swamped with sick people requiring hospitals to repurpose all their facilities to deal with CV19 patients.
  
  That did not come anywhere near happening. Even in Christchurch – arguably the epicentre of CV19 in NZ – we never had more than 2 or 3 CV19 patients in hospital and for most days the number was zero. Still, the hospitals were basically shut down.
  
  But once there is a Level 4 Ring Of Power out there, you know the power hungry bureaucrats and “leaders” will grab for it and use it.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:41am
  - burt
    
    Agree, we got a pre-school level system where we bypassed the first step, jumped quickly from the second to the 4th all while being told there was a plan – and people believed the govt had it under control.
    
    So much chicanery to try and preserve the photo-op mid March – and we call this governance.
    
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    May 12, 2020 9:50am
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZXR87qFSoY
Fourth Reich v Germany.
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May 12, 2020 9:37am
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yfer_jXqCtI
#Obamagate.
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May 12, 2020 9:37am
- Batman
  
  Hahaha what a pile of absolute grifter nonsense. Next you’ll be posting links to QMap and talking about child sacrifice.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:37am
  - The Proper Ghandi
    
    You’re an MSM devotee, aren’t you? They are lying to you.
    
    https://twitter.com/GOPChairwoman/status/1259667860407943170
    
    3 2
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    May 12, 2020 11:08am
    - Batman
      
      A tweet from ‘ol mate Rhonda? Spare me.
      
      She’s sold her soul and drunk the koolaid with the rest of them.
      
      As for the shameless editing, it sounds very similar to what Trump’s team does to make him look even vaguely competent, or the GOPs editing of everyone from Fauci to Biden.
      
      Weak.
      
      2 13
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      May 12, 2020 11:16am
      - The Proper Ghandi
        
        Nice dodge and pivot. Stick to the substance, not who tweeted it. I’ve got the same thing tweeted by others if that helps you. Did you watch the uncut and the cut versions? No. It’s pretty objectively damning.
        
        4 2
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        May 12, 2020 11:26am
      - Batman
        
        Dodge and Pivot may as well be the slogan of the entire Republican party at this point, how ironic.
        
        The point is, the Barr/Trump/GOP theory is unfounded and based on a political need to create a reality in which it’s not the Trump team which did the crime. It’s merely a manifestation of years of alternative reality promoted by Fox, Sinclair, and other right wing outlets which have led to a groupthink situation.
        
        Bill Barr Twisted My Words in Dropping the Flynn Case. Here’s the Truth. https://nyti.ms/2Wol73H
        
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        May 12, 2020 11:33am
      - All_on_Red
        
        Hahahahaha
        McCords article has already been discredited.
        She’s a great one for deceit by omission.
        You’re so funny with your dumb sources.
        
        7 2
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        May 12, 2020 11:42am
      - Batman
        
        Discredited? You love that word, especially when you use it without any evidence whatsoever.
        
        It’s going to be so much fun watching Trump world come crashing down eventually.
        
        1 6
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        May 12, 2020 1:46pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        Hahahahah
        You blatantly deny actual written testimony to Congressional Hearings.
        
        Do you like this?
        https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/11/why-did-obama-tell-the-fbi-to-hide-its-activities-from-the-trump-administration/
        I’m looking forward to that $100
        
        4 1
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        May 12, 2020 2:54pm
      - All_on_Red
        
        Follow the thread here for more evidence
        https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/05/general_debate_10_may_2020.html#comment-2710739
        
        Batman is Kiwiblogs Dumbest Commentator
        
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        May 12, 2020 2:57pm
Left Right and Centre

And in other fake news . . .
Mike Tyson at age 53 said he wouldn’t fight Sonny Bill Williams because it would be an insult to boxing.
Also – he said blink and you’d miss it.
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May 12, 2020 9:43am
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300010118/live-major-government-budget-announcement
This is madness.
The correct action would be to pledge to reduce the number of DHBs to about 4 maximum and save billions in administration staff costs and duplication of assets.
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May 12, 2020 9:45am
- burt
  
  Comrade, you don’t build empires on efficiency, you build them on bureaucracy.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:57am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Pre school apprentice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDXkp93Kq-c
1 2
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May 12, 2020 9:46am
burt

A little music to stir your thoughts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX8szNPgrEs
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May 12, 2020 9:46am
JibberJabber

Irony Deficiency,
https://granitegrok.com/blog/2020/05/professor-suggests-islam-is-violent-muslim-students-threaten-to-kill-him
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May 12, 2020 9:53am
- burt
  
  That’s funny eh, the guy proves he’s right and the sky fairy worshipers are too dumb to see their reaction to him proves it.
  
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  May 12, 2020 11:08am
voltaire

Level 2 and Restaurants
I see one can go to a restaurant in upto groups of 10 but you can only stay at the restaurant for a maximum of 2 hours.
What is it with these control freaks?
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May 12, 2020 9:55am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Do as I say, not as I do
  
  11 1
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  May 12, 2020 10:13am
- ex-golfer
  
  To be fair to restaurant owners, its better for them to be able to move people through their service quicker, enabling them to serve more people.
  
  Restaurants are not going to survive if people spend hours upon hours over their meals.
  
  But they already know this, they don’t need to Govt to tell them how to run their business.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:16am
- RW Capitalist
  
  “for a maximum of 2 hours.”
  A meaningless statement.
  Restaurants already move people through at about this rate, by making sure they have as few delays before service of each course.
  They know how many covers they need to make money, per day per week and which seasons compensate for slow times.
  Leave them alone to get on with it.
  It is a balancing act between covering the costs and entertaining the client, so they will come back.
  Give them a good experience and they come back and bring their friends.
  Give them a less than optimum experience and they never come back.
  
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  May 12, 2020 11:21am
  - sooty
    
    Parking meter at each table?
    
    4 0
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    May 12, 2020 12:26pm
The Proper Ghandi

The guys and gals at Twitter must have bleeding fingers today from continually having to falsify the trending status of #ObamaGate. I was watching the numbers last night, and at close intervals over the course of about ten minutes the numbers were, in sequence:

1.35M
1.96M
2.52M
2.48M
2.56M
1.98M
2.62M
2.55M
2.63M
2.53M

https://twitter.com/KevinGeldermann/status/1259825865581608960
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May 12, 2020 10:16am
- Batman
  
  It’s hard to keep up with the massive idiots tweeting unfounded and baseless theories to justify the criminal actions of the people who pretend to be on their side.
  
  The Republican movement has been hollowed out and replaced with a deranged cult, sadly.
  
  2 24
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  May 12, 2020 10:39am
  - The Proper Ghandi
    
    “…unfounded and baseless theories…”
    
    That’s rich, considering your posted content regarding Trump for as long as I can recall.
    
    Why is Twitter censoring this? I can’t imagine why. Keep your head in the sand.
    
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    May 12, 2020 10:43am
    - All_on_Red
      
      Absolutely right
      Batman is so wrong here it’s almost embarrassing.
      
      9 2
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      May 12, 2020 12:34pm
      - Batman
        
        Chaps, Twitter isn’t censoring anything. All the dumbarse tweets about the political fairytale created for Trump to rage about during the campaign are still there!
        
        A lot of tweets are automatically bot-generated ones which use multiple hashtags to gain followers and take advantage of them to spread other messages. That’s what gets deleted.
        
        As for Ghandi’s Twitter link, that shows the low grade of engagement driving the tag. It’s basically random people sharing really stupid memes that don’t even make sense, just to try and drive the tag. It’s easy to do when you have a small and committed group of tweeters like the MAGA base.
        
        It’s the same reason why the equally stupid tag #NationalNotFitToGovern trends in NZ every day, because a group of moronic lefties add it to just about every tweet they send. It doesn’t represent any great trend or movement.
        
        None of this reflects real life, we’re talking about groups who represent maybe 5-7% of actual voters.
        
        You guys need to pull your heads out of your groupthink bubbles and reintroduce yourselves to facts and reality. Not that you will, I suspect.
        
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        May 12, 2020 1:53pm
      - Batman
        
        Case in point, this ‘person’ (or bot) who is manically attaching the obamagate tag to almost all their tweets along with a bunch of other crazy conspiracy shit.
        
        As I’ve said, it’s one short hop from obamagate to full-on satantic pedo child sacrifice QAnon nutters!
        
        https://twitter.com/AmberLiberty45/status/1260029492023574530?s=19
        
        “#obamagate #Pedogate #ChildTrafficking #ClintonCrimeFamily #DrainTheDeepStateSwamp”
        
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        May 12, 2020 3:18pm
      - Batman
        
        Ah, and here is the fake trending status laid out!
        
        It’s just idiot MAGA trolls, supported by bot farms, trying to “make fetch happen” as the Mean Girls saying goes.
        
        https://twitter.com/AmberLiberty45/status/1259983663929884673?s=19
        https://twitter.com/Inevitable_ET/status/1259909859366952960?s=19
        
        “Here’s the deal. We’re gonna add #ObamaGate to every single tweet for the next week.
        
        Good luck keeping up with us shills.
        
        Keep trying to censor us or complain and We’ll make it 2 weeks.
        
        Not enough ? 3 weeks.
        
        Wanna keep going ?
        Let’s make it the rest of 2020
        #ObaMAGAte”
        
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        May 12, 2020 3:24pm
  - burt
    
    Yes, totally baseless. Of course, no truth what-so-evah.
    
    I love Obama, since he’s purchased an expensive sea side mansion I’ve been taking a lot more notice of his strongly held beliefs about needing to reduce inequality and the dangers of sea level rise.
    
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    May 12, 2020 11:11am
    - Batman
      
      Burt, this is a surprising change of tune from you. Are you ok?
      
      I mean, you can’t be mocking me since that would be such a tragic attempt at putting words into someone else’s mouth. You seem to think I’m some sort of lefty ?
      
      2 5
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      May 12, 2020 1:56pm
      - burt
        
        Batman
        
        What’s not to like about a guy who claims we need to decrease inequality while he lives in a $50M mansion. What’s not to like about a guy who tells us that we are responsible for climate change and seas will rise when they buy seaside property and gets around in a private jet.
        
        These people deserve lots of respect and to be trusted 100%.
        
        Nothing personal about you mate, I’m just agreeing the guy walks the walk so he must be a jolly honest chap. Unlike that Trump eh…
        
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        May 12, 2020 3:07pm
      - Batman
        
        Burt, you’re really reaching with some of this stuff. It’s not as if Obama is out there witu Greenpeace and shouting to keep the coal in the ground.
        
        He had fairly middle of the road environmental legislation which has since been dumped in favour of making US cars more inefficient and expensive for consumers to run.
        
        So you’re cranky about climate change? Direct that at the Sunshine Movement and Greenpeace. The fact you’re so grumpy at the guy they say didn’t do enough for the environment is kinda hilarious, clearly you’re doing it because it’s cool to dunk on Obama for anything and everything.
        
        I’m not an Obama fan, sheesh he was pretty ineffective. It’s just funny that so many have an enormous hang up about the guy.
        
        2 3
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        May 12, 2020 3:14pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        And no one had more of a hang up about a black man being president than one Donald J Trump. And look what happened?
        Thanks Obama!
        
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        May 12, 2020 4:14pm
103PapPap

Simon Bridges needs a voice coach.
Watching Jacinda yesterday, she is a polished speaker – pronounces well, smiles and modulates her voice well.
By comparison, Simon never smiles, mangles his vowels to such a degree it is embarrassing, and his voice is a bit monotonic.
A good voice coach would solve this – can someone who knows Simon tell him this.
Otherwise he hasn’t a chance in any public debate.
How now brown cow!
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May 12, 2020 10:27am
- chaos
  
  Who really gives a toss how someone speaks, it is what the message is that is important.
  
  10 2
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  May 12, 2020 10:55am
  - WaveyDavey
    
    The floating voters I’m afraid.
    
    The medium is the message now.
    
    11 1
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    May 12, 2020 11:57am
  - Komata
    
    Chaos@1055
    
    The problem is, what message?
    
    So far, the Nat’s don’t seem to have much of a message, have released only two policies, have no ‘Set in stone’ ‘Foundation Documents’ and no ‘Statement of Principles’, absolutely nothing, and if that’s the basis of the message, then they are in deep deep trouble, as are those who would like to believe in them as an alternative to Cindy and her mates.
    
    If you haven’t got any foundations to work on, what exactly do you have left?
    
    1 3
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    May 12, 2020 1:41pm
    - Tony Stuart
      
      Komata – back in March, National made the decision to cease campaigning for a period. Bridges has said this morning that campaigning will resume at Level 2, and you’ll very soon start to see the benefit of all the work that’s been going on behind the scenes.
      
      5 1
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      May 12, 2020 1:48pm
      - Tall Man
        
        I really hope so Tony.
        
        4 1
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        May 12, 2020 2:41pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Posadive?
  
  12 3
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  May 12, 2020 10:58am
- septic skeptic
  
  Yes, Cindy is definidly bedder at at speaking.
  
  18 1
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  May 12, 2020 11:17am
- The Proper Ghandi
  
  Another Labour acolyte sent to dazzle us with irrelevant ‘insights.’ They really aren’t sending their best are they. Actually, perhaps they are.
  
  9 2
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  May 12, 2020 11:29am
- lifesgood
  
  He will completely demolish her in debates. That’s if she has the guts to front up. I suggest all those who deride Simon’s debating ability watch him in parliament. He is brilliant, kiwi accent and all.
  
  13 1
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  May 12, 2020 11:49am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    I doubt any televised debates will be determine much. I expect supporters of each to claim victory, as is the norm for all such debates.
    
    3 10
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    May 12, 2020 12:15pm
    - calendar girl
      
      Simply ignore those proclaiming “victory” in televised debates.
      
      Let voters who watch such debates reach their own conclusions for use on voting day – most of us don’t need so-called television experts to decide for us how to cast our votes.
      
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      May 12, 2020 6:58pm
- Classic Liberal
  
  Don’t shoot the messenger. Every serious politician can benefit from grooming, coaching and training to learn the best way to get messages across.
  
  Listening to the unbearable Taxinda this morning I could hear her smile and laugh at Hosking (and thus at Kiwis) as she denied being responsible for the disgusting ‘dismiss’ message she allowed to emanate from her office.
  
  It was truly revolting.
  
  But the sheeple are so enamoured with this woman that Bridges can do with every bit of help he can get, including some voice training.
  
  3 1
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  May 12, 2020 1:40pm
- Kiwi Dave
  
  I agree that in some ways JA spoke well yesterday – haven’t watched her previous Covid performances – but by the end felt I was a 7 year old kid in the slow learners classroom – all that head movement, smiling face, waving hands hid neither the
  repetition nor the porkies while I waited to hear if we were going to level 2.
  
  5 1
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  May 12, 2020 2:45pm
- Tall Man
  
  He speaks like a QC delivering a message to a judge, who also spoke like a QC.
  
  David G may be able to elaborate as to the why but many years ago in a Youth Court I saw a magistrate lose patience with a witness that just babbled at full speed. He just stopped her evidence mid stream and said thanks, move on please.
  
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  May 12, 2020 2:46pm
Batman

Another day, another hole in Bill Barr’s weak and ridiculous argument around the disgraced former General, Michael Flynn. As written by the former DOJ lawyer involved in the case.

Bill Barr Twisted My Words in Dropping the Flynn Case. Here’s the Truth. https://nyti.ms/2Wol73H

I look forward to the flimsy excuses and parallel universe explanations from the cultists
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May 12, 2020 10:41am
- Tall Man
  
  “I look forward to the flimsy excuses and parallel universe explanations from the cultists”
  
  Why, is there nothing else going on in your life?
  
  What is your motivation, decrying Trump and his associates or just trying to prove his supporters are idiots?
  
  12 2
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  May 12, 2020 10:51am
  - chaos
    
    Just normal troll behaviour
    
    9 2
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    May 12, 2020 11:32am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      1. Batman is not a troll.
      2. Even if he were, what is bad about trolling?
      
      2 13
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      May 12, 2020 12:10pm
      - Classic Liberal
        
        Ah, Milky is back. Whoever briefly used his log on for a sensible post about China has gone to lunch.
        
        5 1
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        May 12, 2020 1:42pm
      - Komata
        
        MM@1210
        
        Your defence would seem to indicate otherwise; personally acquainted are we?
        
        Thank you.
        
        2 1
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        May 12, 2020 1:44pm
      - chaos
        
        Aww how sweet, one of this sites biggest trolls about from stephietwit is sticking up for his fellow troll
        
        3 1
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        May 12, 2020 2:26pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Only a troll would ask that.
        
        As you have stated before, you are only here to annoy and wind up others. What a sad life.
        
        3 1
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        May 12, 2020 2:48pm
- All_on_Red
  
  Some facts for poor old Batty
  Clapper and others said in Testimony to Congress that Flynn didn’t lie
  They knew this because his call with Kisyliak was recorded.
  Guess who told them all it was recorded?
  Obama
  Biden Rice, Clapper and others were there when he did.
  Go back an read Susan Rices ‘note’
  This was around 5 or 7 January 2017.
  
  It’s amusing watching you though.
  Batman is Kiwiblogs Dumbest Commentator
  
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  May 12, 2020 12:10pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    What is amusing is your desperate need to attach childish labels to anyone who disagrees with you. Very Trumpian.
    LOL
    
    3 11
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    May 12, 2020 12:12pm
    - All_on_Red
      
      Meh
      If I made nasty comments then I would be ‘mikenmildian’ eh 6 Strikes boy
      LOL
      Ps, I’m right with what I say though
      
      8 4
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      May 12, 2020 12:31pm
      - Batman
        
        AoR you are no more right than Trump’s theory about UV light inside the body as a treatment for the virus.
        
        Your claims and evidence are so silly that frankly I feel sorry for you.
        
        PS nice to see that producing facts from people involved first hand is now trolling. What an upgrade!
        
        2 4
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        May 12, 2020 1:59pm
      - Tall Man
        
        Jeez Batman, maybe you need to get out a bit more.
        
        “This therapy enables the application of laser light directly into the bloodstream by using a special fiber optic IV catheter technology. The laser light used in this procedure stimulates circulating of blood cells and stem cells.”
        
        https://imnva.com/Services/iv-uv-light-therapy/
        
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        May 12, 2020 2:51pm
      - Batman
        
        I knew one of you would pluck this treatment bout, as they did in defence of him before he said he was being sarcastic.
        
        It’s a stem cell treatment and not a treatment for corona viruses.
        
        Let us know when it works for COVID… I’ll gladly pay attention then!
        
        1 4
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        May 12, 2020 2:58pm
      - Tall Man
        
        You know Batman, you seem to have a closed mind. Remember the “Hair growth” drug, Viagra. What a sad world we’d have if that was restricted to bald guys only 😉
        
        https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bronsonstocking/2020/04/24/potential-wuhan-coronavirus-treatment-uses-uv-light-to-disinfect-lungs-n2567591
        
        Plus
        
        “A media representative at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said the hospital could not accommodate a USA TODAY request for an interview but pointed to a statement on the hospital’s website that said the company is in the preclinical stages of developing the technology, which could eventually be used to treat viruses and bacteria.
        
        “The technology has not been tested or used on patients,” the statement said. “Cedars-Sinai has filed for patents related to the technology and has signed a licensing agreement with Aytu Bioscience with the aim of potentially enabling near-term use as a COVID-19 intervention for critically ill, intubated patients.””
        
        Now, maybe, maybe not but why not give it a crack and research the potential or are we all too scared to be made to look silly?
        
        2 1
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        May 12, 2020 4:06pm
- RightNow
  
  I’ll be enjoying the last laugh
  
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  May 12, 2020 2:54pm
Jack5

More dividends of diversity.

Will these corrupt people be kicked out? Of course not.

If the Israelis had found Otto Adolf Eichmann in New Zealand, our Immigration & Protection Tribunal would surely have protected him for permanent NZ citizenship.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12331232
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May 12, 2020 10:44am
- mikenmildagain
  
  I seem to recall that there were some investigation in the 80s or 90s of possible Nazi criminals living in NZ. There were one or two possibilities, but no one against whom unequivocal evidence was available.
  
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  May 12, 2020 12:09pm
  - Jack5
    
    Milky, there were rumours about a few of the people from Scandinavia and the Baltic countries who came to NZ after World War 2.
    
    The Baltic folk had been under the heel of the Soviet Union, and joined Germany’s Waffen SS.
    
    A couple of Scandinavian entrepreneurs who were successful in business and one of whom became fairly well known in NZ, were alleged, fairly or not, to have come to this country to bury an (alleged) past in the Waffen SS.
    
    The alleged war criminals in NZ were, however, from one Baltic country. Given they fought against the Soviet Union, which most Balts regarded as the main enemy, conviction for war crimes might have been difficult unless the Soviet Union came up with evidence acceptable to a Western court.
    
    If the UK had been invaded by Germany, one or two folk would have joined the SS in addition to the hapless handful who did volunteer from P.O.W. camps.
    
    3 0
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    May 12, 2020 1:28pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      This guy:
      https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/5c41/courlander-roy-nicolas
      Interesting that his surname was Courlander, from one of the names for Latvia.
      
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      May 12, 2020 4:20pm
Critical Thinker

#Obamagate

Trump Accuses Obama Of “Biggest Political Crime” In US History

New information has come to light showing that the Obama administration spied on and sabotaged the incoming Trump administration.

Declassified evidence show that many Democrats such as Adam Schiff lied about evidence of Russian collusion from the Trump administration. Now we are learning that Obama actually knew about it and that former Obama administration officials may have lied under oath.

Republicans are now calling for criminal charges against many of these Deep State traitors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8QoR6kVRQI
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May 12, 2020 10:47am
- Batman
  
  Oh noooo, the deep state!!
  
  This is just the latest fever dream being pushed to work up the MAGA base.
  
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  May 12, 2020 2:00pm
  - burt
    
    Can you tell us why you think Obama is innocent – or is it just that you can’t bring yourself to believe anything Trump says ?
    
    4 1
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    May 12, 2020 3:09pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Ah, the reverse burden of proof. Should we start with Obama having to prove he wasn’t born in Kenya?
      
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      May 12, 2020 4:53pm
brett68

From reddit

We received an unexpected package this morning addressed to my son and to my surprise, inside is some toys and lots of books, along with a guide from the Ministry of Education on how to help young children learn at home. I have no idea if they just took lists of kids who were registered for daycare or every child care under a certain age gets one but it’s really nice and thoughtful. So thanks Jacinda.

https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/ghy370/thanks_nz_government_for_the_toys_and_books/

looks like a straight out election bribe to me.
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May 12, 2020 10:48am
- chaos
  
  Sounds creepy.
  
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  May 12, 2020 11:04am
- lifesgood
  
  WTF!!! They go back on Monday! More of our taxes wasted.
  
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  May 12, 2020 11:42am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Despite what you think it might look like Brett, it’s not. While schools and ECE centres have been locked down, the Ministry of Education has been sending these packs out to certain families.
  
  Our ECE service allocated ours on the basis of need, as we operate in some areas that are less wealthy than others. It’s one move from the Government and MoE I wholeheartedly support.
  
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  May 12, 2020 11:50am
  - chaos
    
    That sounds much better
    
    1 1
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    May 12, 2020 12:09pm
  - cmm
    
    Why not make it an opt-in service?
    
    Blindly sending these out to Random Person seems like a huge waste.
    
    3 2
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    May 12, 2020 12:21pm
    - Batman
      
      They will have been identified by schools and local services as kids that haven’t been able to access learning services like others because they’re rural, have no internet, or have other challenges in their way.
      
      Seems quite a good idea, especially for the really young ones where learning is really crucial at this stage of their development.
      
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      May 12, 2020 2:15pm
- Tall Man
  
  “thanks jacinda” ……. We paid, not her.
  
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  May 12, 2020 2:56pm
DRHILL

Sydney Morning Herald has story “Veteran Broadcaster Alan Jones announces retirement due to health”
New Zealand Herald has story “Australian Radio Shock Jock Alan Jones – who verbally attacked Jacinda Ardern – resigns”
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May 12, 2020 11:05am
- cmm
  
  Filthy scummy media.
  
  19 2
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  May 12, 2020 11:41am
RW Capitalist

I heard the most fun thing and slightly rebellious thing on TV.
A bar owner said
I used to call myself a “Bar and Restaurant”
Now I will call myself a “Restaurant and Bar”
B & R to R & B
So I can open this Thursday instead of next Thursday.
14 1
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May 12, 2020 11:08am
- Tony Stuart
  
  I saw a bloke comment on Twitter last night that he would go to his local restaurant, and order six beers and a bowl of fires 😀
  
  8 1
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  May 12, 2020 11:51am
  - Batman
    
    “ah hello there, could I please order a main size dish of pomme frites and six pints please?”
    
    2 3
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    May 12, 2020 2:16pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      “I’d like to dine in, please. One poppadom and six bottles of Kingfisher Strong.”
      
      2 1
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      May 12, 2020 5:31pm
RW Capitalist

My thought, if I had a Bar.
Talk to the fish and chip shop down the road.
Get them to be my kitchen, all patrons will only be admitted if they have their packet of fish and chips from his shop. To be eaten in my bar.
BYO…..food.
After all, there are BYO…bottle, restaurants.
7 2
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May 12, 2020 11:11am
MH

remind me again why my hallway is full of toilet paper.
8 0
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May 12, 2020 11:51am
- Tall Man
  
  Watching ardern gives you the shits 😉
  
  5 1
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  May 12, 2020 2:58pm
  - Cod Weyne
    
    Sorry TM I downticked you by mistake.
    
    I was too busy laughing and not paying attention to the wee electronic button. ?
    
    3 0
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    May 12, 2020 8:34pm
arkhad

Duncan Grieve is writing in the Herald about the masterful covid-marketing campaign but says no-one would tell him who was behind it. I thought we all knew it was Topham Guerin? Maybe Labour just don’t want to admit to using a couple of young Nats who were also behind the ScoMo and Boris wins? https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=12331043
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May 12, 2020 11:55am
Bobba Fret

Perhaps not everyone happy in the Labour camp?

https://www.newsroom.co.nz/politics/2020/05/11/1167589/legal-action-looms-over-labours-manurewa-selection
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May 12, 2020 12:04pm
I remember when

Just drove past a local Greengrocer I often use and it got me thinking.
Has any segment of the business community had it worse than the Fruit and Vegetable shops.
Firstly, they had to dispose of their perishable stock by either giving it away or destroying it. If it was destroy then, in lockdown, how much ability was there to do that?
Then it was stay at home during the lockdown with no income but continuing expenses.
Finally, the big moment arrives and you have to find a way to replace all the perishables you had to destroy, before you have an income.
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May 12, 2020 12:10pm
cmm

Just got the IRD email offering me a business loan showing the government’s kindness.

Also just got told by IRD that they were fining me for being 2 days late with my GST returns…
8 1
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May 12, 2020 12:17pm
- All_on_Red
  
  I thought they had waived Penalties for this year.
  No one told the Computer yet huh
  
  7 1
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  May 12, 2020 12:28pm
  - cmm
    
    In that case I’m paying all my tax on 31 Dec.
    
    But they better tell the cumpuda.
    
    4 2
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    May 12, 2020 12:45pm
  - Libertarians are right
    
    The Government gave the IRD the ability to wave interest. It’s up to their discretion.
    Basically, ask nicely and have reasons.
    
    2 1
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    May 12, 2020 1:27pm
I remember when

Need to organize a wedding breakfast?
Find a local restaurant with seating for at least one hundred.
Then get nine people amongst your guests to order a table for ten at the appropriate time and date.
Order one in your own name, and bingo, a one hundred person wedding breakfast.
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May 12, 2020 12:19pm
I remember when

cmm at 12.17pm
Posted it did you.
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May 12, 2020 12:20pm
- cmm
  
  No, I like it when they beg.
  
  1 1
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  May 12, 2020 12:55pm
oldfella

Is the current Covid crisis a dress rehearsal for the climate agenda? Spiked Online thinks so.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/05/12/covid-19-is-a-frightening-dress-rehearsal-of-the-climate-agenda/
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May 12, 2020 12:26pm
SmokerGuy

Bugger me has there been a bigger waste of space in parliament than Kelvin Davis? His performance on the Epidemic Response Committee just now has been shameful. WTF is he doing at parliament? He is so clearly out of his depth it’s embarrassing.
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May 12, 2020 12:27pm
- Libertarians are right
  
  Only if you compare him to someone competent. He’s probably only in the bottom third of this Government’s MPs.
  Twyford is worse for stupidity.
  Little is so viciously ideological.
  Genter is a bigot.
  Honestly, the list of utter wastes of space is quite long.
  
  Then there’s Mahuta who’s literally just there for lunch and a paycheque.
  
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  May 12, 2020 1:25pm
  - MJHNZ
    
    I think Megan Woods is also there for lunch, second helpings and leftovers. Plus the odd pie.
    
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    May 12, 2020 3:23pm
Suze Wainwright

So Winnie’s just said the hongi might die and may never come back! What if Simon Bridges said that?!?
How will Peters’ sickly sweet white liberals cope with such a pronouncement? The fact that he installed their prinzess must surely be put to the test now
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May 12, 2020 12:51pm
- Simon Gotlieb
  
  If there was any difference in response then it’s predominantly in the delivery of the information. That’s where Bridges is going wrong. His delivery is terrible.
  
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  May 12, 2020 3:25pm
mike45

I note in today’s news a report of a 38 Year old Whangarei woman having served 99 prison sentences and having 155 convictions.
At her latest sentecing the judge decided that prison is not a deterrent therefore he sentenced her to home detention.
If she breaks the home detention requirements and gets the same judge perhaps he will decide that as home detention doesn’t deter her he could just ask nicely if she would not reoffend.
A benefit of not having concurrent sentences is that there would be at least 100 less victims and our insurance policies would not have been increased to compensate some of her victims.
One is left wondering how many more victims there are for the crimes she carried out but was not caught and/or prosecuted for.
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May 12, 2020 1:03pm
- Simon Gotlieb
  
  Yes, this one is an extreme outlier, and obviously the product of a completely awful upbringing. Can anyone explain to me how you can serve 99 prison terms between the ages of 18 and 38? That’s nearly five a year? Obviously a lot of petty crime going on here. Personally, I wonder if the judge would not have been better off sentencing her to a stay at a mental health facility.
  
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  May 12, 2020 3:24pm
  - artemisia
    
    She now says she is a meth addict. Not necessarily anything to do with upbringing. May have had different options if she said so earlier.
    
    4 1
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    May 12, 2020 3:38pm
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Check your bigoted assumptions there Simon, addicts come from every sort of background.
    
    2 1
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    May 12, 2020 6:02pm
Maggie Pie

Let me just say that my partner is feeling a little bit ‘peed-off’ (my word – not his). He just got the latest mailer from Gun City, advertising the very same remote control Mallard decoys that he paid 350 bucks for, but today, they’re only $199 !! Considering he blew one out of the water by mistake, that’s one heck of a price difference.
You can watch it here…..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hHGDfHkV4M
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May 12, 2020 1:06pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Our Parie took off this morning with a couple of Flybys…
  she hasn’t come home and I fear she’s off for good this time.
  
  If your partner spots a female answering to Duckduck, can he tell to get home immediately and sort out the Mallards.
  
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  May 12, 2020 1:20pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    They mate for life. I just tried calling out “Duckduck” and my partner came running in from outside 😛
    
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    May 12, 2020 1:42pm
    - chaos
      
      With his gun?
      
      6 0
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      May 12, 2020 2:13pm
- Tall Man
  
  Looks like a “jacinda duck” to me.
  
  5 2
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  May 12, 2020 3:02pm
herb1

Is it just me or is sick for the PM to or her partner to make up a statement by an infant that says “My mum can fix anything” and then feed it to her media contacts.
As a parent I see this as child abuse , especially from a Woman who loudly told everyone that her baby was off limits.
It shows an incredible arrogance by Ardern.
How many mega stars have we produced who would be embarrassed if people told them how wonderful they are , yet Ardern latterly seems keen to do so
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May 12, 2020 1:10pm
- chaos
  
  Na, to claim that is child abuse is to insult those who suffer true child abuse. So daddy made mummy a card to try and support her, big deal. Don’t try to twist that into something serious like child abuse
  
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  May 12, 2020 2:12pm
  - Tall Man
    
    It’s public abuse and from a source that we are told is off limits.
    
    6 3
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    May 12, 2020 3:04pm
    - chaos
      
      When she parades her child to the media that’s abuse, but a card her partner made for her pretending to be from the kid is a nothing story.
      
      5 2
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      May 12, 2020 4:24pm
      - Batman
        
        Agree, it’s just one parent trying to make a funny with the other parent. Everyone should pour a drink and chill the fuck out!
        
        3 8
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        May 12, 2020 4:27pm
      - mikenmildagain
        
        There’s no winning on this one, chaos. If we don’t hear about Neve Ardern, she is being neglected; if we do hear about her, she’s being abused for publicity purposes…
        
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        May 12, 2020 5:12pm
  - herb1
    
    I once met the daughter of Bill Rowling who spent the weekend at our house. She wasn’t pushed into the lime light like Neve and had articles in the international media about her throwing up , soiling her nappies etc. Yet the poor Rowling girl took her own life.
    its hard being the child of a celebrity, and harder when you aren’t given , or are too young to have the choice of participating.
    Most people with children understand the little things that can lead to bullying.
    Ardern either dosent or couldn’t give a stuff
    
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    May 12, 2020 4:29pm
    - Tony Stuart
      
      Kim Rowling, I believe her name was. Her death by suicide was a tragedy, as was the death a few years later of Jim Anderton’s daughter.
      
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      May 12, 2020 4:45pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Whew.. Gizzy is spared another bit of Jacinda’s kindness
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/121484712/bunnings-proposing-closure-of-seven-stores

I’ll be down at Bunnings first thing on Thursday morning.
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May 12, 2020 1:13pm
- Suze Wainwright
  
  Yeah I read the first comments to the article on Stuff – seemed to be trying to minimize impact of Bunnings closures as they were Aussie anyway and we should buy local…
  
  Social media commenters following the dictum of go hard, go early I guess
  
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  May 12, 2020 1:22pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Bunnings have now got severe trade competition too.
    
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    May 12, 2020 1:39pm
    - Inandout
      
      KO, from whom? Bunnings are needed for competition as I can remember before they set up in NZ we had a cozy cartel of builder’s suppliers.
      
      5 1
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      May 12, 2020 2:03pm
      - Simon Gotlieb
        
        If you ask me, it’s still a cozy cartel. They seem to have divided up all the products – some brands at Bunning, some brands at Placemakers, some brands at Mitre10, and some brands at the other players, and because everyone has their own brands to deal with there is no effective competition.
        
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        May 12, 2020 3:21pm
  - MCos
    
    Personally I couldn’t care less that Bunnings are Australian, Bauer Publishing are German and Starbucks was owned by Restaurant Brands (NZ) when they closed multiple shops, magazines and cafes.
    They were all getting rid of businesses that weren’t performing regardless of the lockdown. In the case of Starbucks, years before and the writing was already on the wall for the others.
    
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    May 12, 2020 4:24pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      I did hear a while ago that Bunnings was racking up very heavy losses in New Zealand to take market share from Mitre 10. Perhaps Westfarmers has run out of money for propping up that strategy.
      
      5 1
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      May 12, 2020 5:07pm
      - MCos
        
        I bought a set of drill attachments from Bunnings for $25. There were about eight in the set plus a clip to hold them together and packaging.
        How can they possibly be making a buck on stuff on that?
        Not that I’m grizzling!
        (Saving all my grizzles for the worst government since time began)
        
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        May 12, 2020 6:30pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

So only 10 at funerals. Does that include the deceased and the director?
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May 12, 2020 1:36pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Doesn’t appear that the Maori MPs have been very effective in convincing Jacinda and her Cabinet that Maori folk are capable of organising a Tangi safely.
  
  “We could have put the distancing in place. We’re not stupid. We’ve done it, we’ve supported the government. But next time, for Māori, we can do it better.”
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300006025/coronavirus-five-mori-leaders-on-what-covid19-has-changed
  
  Doesn’t appear that Jacinda or her Cabinet consulted with Funeral Directors as to whether they could organise a Funeral service or Tangi safely.
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/416422/level-2-cold-comfort-for-wedding-planners-funeral-directors
  
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  May 12, 2020 2:59pm
wilderbeast

Has anyone caught up on the latest in the Bloomfield / Bridges stoush? Honestly I’m finding it chilling how far an unelected officials powers have gone with him, and now he seeks to silence the leader of the opposition simply for holding him to account.
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May 12, 2020 1:37pm
- krazykiwi
  
  What happened?
  
  4 1
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  May 12, 2020 1:57pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  I’m guessing he is being guided by the PTPM. Watch her throw him under the bus soon – blame him for every mistake she made
  
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  May 12, 2020 2:37pm
- Nickc2
  
  Do you have a link?
  
  1 1
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  May 12, 2020 2:58pm
- Simon Gotlieb
  
  Bloomfield has released the following letter publicly:
  
  ——————————-
  
  On 6 May 2020, following your questions at the Epidemic Response Committee (ERC), I undertook to check the timeliness of responses provided by the Ministry of Health to questions from the Committee.
  
  Requests come to both the Ministry and the Minister. In both situations the Ministry endeavours to provide timely, factual and accurate responses. Sometimes the turnaround time expected by the committee is very tight.
  
  I have been advised that when I most recently appeared in front of the Epidemic Response Committee there were no outstanding responses.
  
  During the hearing, it was suggested that the government has suspended the Official Information Act and the ERC has made multiple requests for information from the Ministry that it is waiting for.
  
  I can assure the Committee that the Ministry of Health has not received any direction that the Official Information Act 1982 has been suspended and we continue to respond to OIA requests based on the Official Information Act 1982.
  
  Every effort is being made to ensure people receive information as soon as it can be reasonably provided, which includes the large amount of information that the Ministry is proactively placing online.
  
  If any Committee Member has a concern about a specific request made to the Ministry, please let me know.
  
  Please note that given the importance of, and public interest in, this matter, I will make this response available on the Ministry of Health website.
  ——————————-
  
  So, Bridges has been caught in a lie. So there’s really not a lot he can do because he’s been shown to be completely wrong about this. So, I guess it’s back to square one.
  
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  May 12, 2020 3:17pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    I don’t see any lie. Odd. By I do see weasel words:
    
    ERC has made multiple requests for information from the Ministry that it is waiting for
    
    Point me to the bit, where he then confirms that these [information] requests have been satisfied.
    
    In your own time, Simon.
    
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    May 12, 2020 3:40pm
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Did you not read his statement?
      
      3 3
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      May 12, 2020 5:00pm
    - Simon Gotlieb
      
      Sigh… that would be this bit KK.
      
      “I have been advised that when I most recently appeared in front of the Epidemic Response Committee there were no outstanding responses.”
      
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      May 12, 2020 5:20pm
  - mikenmildagain
    
    That’s very unusual. A public servant’s usual response is to stay silent when attacked like that.
    
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    May 12, 2020 4:07pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Uptick for you Mike!
      Stay silent, dead pan face, resting bitch face.
      Oh there are more than one of you sonny
      
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      May 12, 2020 4:41pm
    - wilderbeast
      
      Exactly.
      
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      May 12, 2020 6:26pm
  - Hard Cheese
    
    Simon Bridges complaint was that they were taking two to two and a half weeks to respond to simple health questions. There’s plenty of ducking and weaving in that statement:
    
    “The ministry *endeavours* to provide timely, factual and accurate responses” – which doesn’t mean they do. Straight from JA’s “aspirational” playbook.
    
    “…there were no outstanding responses” – which may have been true, but that says nothing about how quickly they are turning the requests around
    
    “we continue to respond to OIA requests” – which says nothing about how quickly they do it
    
    “as soon as it can be reasonably provided” – again, is 2 – 2.5 weeks a reasonable time for a “simple health question”?
    
    I tend to believe Simon Bridges, based on the MOH track record of not being able to answer simple questions about PPE distribution, time to complete contact tracing, and the numbers of flu vaccines.
    
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    May 12, 2020 5:58pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Yep,
      and the DG is changing how he reports numbers…
      
      https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/coronavirus-ministry-of-health-denies-it-misled-kiwis-after-covid-19-hospital-case-numbers-higher-than-reported.html
      
      Seems Journos have been trying to get straight answers for a few days:
      https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/05/12/1167990/ministry-of-healths-elusive-numbers
      
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      May 12, 2020 9:01pm
  - wilderbeast
    
    What lie? He question the DG, didn’t get a satisfactory answer in the hearing and then the DG, decided to try and discredit him in the name of the “public interest”. I’m calling BS. Bloomfield has too much control and is treading a political line.
    
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    May 12, 2020 6:26pm
Happychappy

So what most people have said about Winston Peters and his NZ First Foundation is is coming to fruition with the payment of 72 .5 Million dollars to help the Racing Industry survive. So what will be next policy for payment to the Fishing Industry like many are suggesting so they NZ First can survive to be part of the next Government.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/video.cfm?c_id=280&gal_cid=280&gallery_id=219972
Winston can do what he likes in NZ Politics as no one has the balls to say enough is enough.
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May 12, 2020 1:44pm
- Libertarians are right
  
  Compare this + the media payout to what they’re spending on all other businesses (excluding the wage subsidies which are for workers). $120m vs about $300-400m. I know the Government has lied its butt off about the amount they’ve given businesses but it’s all short term, to be paid back. Every cent. So the only cost to the government for their help to non-government aligned businesses is the Government’s interest cost (about 1% pa). They’re even planning to actually make money off businesses through their loan plan.
  
  It’s not corruption when the Left do it apparently.
  
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  May 12, 2020 3:11pm
- Simon Gotlieb
  
  So, if I understand this correctly, the government should only be giving money to organisations you personally approve of?
  
  Or is it that you are a true free marketeer, and you believe government should not interfere with any business, and they should all be left to stand on their own two feet post lockdown?
  
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  May 12, 2020 3:19pm
  - Classic Liberal
    
    The government has already interfered with almost all businesses. That’s what lockdown did: interfered, in the name of the public good.
    
    And so the public (govt., taxpayer) needs to support the businesses that have suffered due to this decision.
    
    A far lighter lockdown closer to Level 3 throughout would have been preferable. But this is the government we’ve ended up with and it’s the burden we have to bear.
    
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    May 12, 2020 3:31pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    No Simon. You mis-understand. It’s a special gift you have. A well cultivated one.
    
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    May 12, 2020 3:35pm
Alex13

Peter Piot is the director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Piot, 71, was one of the discoverers of the Ebola virus in 1976, headed up the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS between 1995 and 2008, and is currently a coronavirus adviser to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. He got COVID-19 in mid-March, spent a week in hospital, and has been recovering at home in London since. He wrote:

“I was concerned I would be put on a ventilator immediately because I had seen publications showing it increases your chance of dying. I was pretty scared, but fortunately, they just gave me an oxygen mask first and that turned out to work. So, I ended up in an isolation room in the antechamber of the intensive care department. You’re tired, so you’re resigned to your fate. You completely surrender to the nursing staff. You live in a routine from syringe to infusion and you hope you make it. I am usually quite proactive in the way I operate, but here I was 100% patient.
I shared a room with a homeless person, a Colombian cleaner, and a man from Bangladesh—all three diabetics, incidentally, which is consistent with the known picture of the disease. The days and nights were lonely because no one had the energy to talk. I could only whisper for weeks; even now, my voice loses power in the evening. But I always had that question going around in my head: How will I be when I get out of this?”

And

“Many people think COVID-19 kills 1% of patients, and the rest get away with some flulike symptoms. But the story gets more complicated. Many people will be left with chronic kidney and heart problems. Even their neural system is disrupted. There will be hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, possibly more, who will need treatments such as renal dialysis for the rest of their lives. The more we learn about the coronavirus, the more questions arise. We are learning while we are sailing. That’s why I get so annoyed by the many commentators on the sidelines who, without much insight, criticize the scientists and policymakers trying hard to get the epidemic under control. That’s very unfair”.
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May 12, 2020 1:49pm
- Tall Man
  
  Gosh, who’d a thought, you get seriously ill, get hospitalised and have ongoing medical issues at age 71.
  
  Anyone got a plan for the next round of this virus in 2021 or 2022? Full world lockdown again or should we maybe act like adults or even better, Swedes and not the vege kind?
  
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  May 12, 2020 3:56pm
  - cmm
    
    “Anyone got a plan for the next round of this virus”
    
    Dude, the first round is still coming in flu season: July-September 2020.
    
    We just had a few out of season coughs…
    
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    May 12, 2020 4:24pm
    - Tall Man
      
      I believe you may be right but please let’s not have a repeat panic.
      
      3 2
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      May 12, 2020 4:50pm
chaos

* Labour’s Manurewa MP Louisa Wall is pursuing legal action against her own party over a nomination that was accepted to contest her seat.

The Labour Party sought advice from a Queen’s Counsel about a nomination from Waitematā DHB board member Arena Williams that came in after the party deadline in early February.*

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/labour-mp-louisa-wall-pursuing-legal-action-against-own-party.html
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May 12, 2020 3:24pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  9 years in parliament, not a minister, time to give up her place at the trough.
  
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  May 12, 2020 4:23pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Never. She is unenployable
    
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    May 12, 2020 4:43pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  She did a very good job getting same-sex marriage passed.
  
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  May 12, 2020 4:57pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Louisa Wall, ex-Silver Fern, ex-Black Fern is described as not being a “Team member” by other folks!!!!!!
  
  The five-term MP does not hold a ministerial portfolio and is understood to be a polarising figure within the Labour Party caucus, some of whom do not regard her as a team player.
  https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2020/05/11/1167589/legal-action-looms-over-labours-manurewa-selection
  
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  May 12, 2020 7:17pm
krazykiwi

I would run out of fingers and toes, including all those of family members, counting the number of times I’ve disagreed with Brian Tamaki.

However this time he’s on the money. There is no justification for allowing 11 people in a shop, while denying the same 11 people the right to meet in a church. None. Nada. Zinch
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May 12, 2020 3:31pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  And how many folks are allowed to fill a movie theatre under Lockdown 2?
  
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  May 12, 2020 7:08pm
mikenmildagain

commentators on the sidelines who, without much insight, criticize the scientists and policymakers trying hard to get the epidemic under control.

I’m sure that doesn’t apply to Kiwiblog’s amateur epidemiologists.
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May 12, 2020 4:11pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Mike, don’t praise yourself. Epidemiologists? Study germs like troll germs???
  
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  May 12, 2020 4:47pm
[email protected]

So we’ve gone from being imprisoned to being jailed and on Thursday we get bailed with conditions.
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May 12, 2020 4:13pm
- MCos
  
  “If you take a look at any social media platform, you’ll see thousands of posts comparing coronavirus self-quarantine to a prison sentence, as if it’s even remotely comparable.”
  https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ellen-degeneres-prison-covid-19_n_5ea31d83c5b6f963981456d1
  
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  May 12, 2020 4:33pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  You are still in the ‘hinaki’
  Make no mistake about the kisses from the PTPM
  
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  May 12, 2020 4:49pm
- [email protected]
  
  I’m 73 years old and have been “locked down/ imprisoned” for 7 weeks with no ability to do anything that a normal “free” human living in a democratic society should be entitled to do. The MOH should be allowed to quarantine “some” people but not the entire country! No way was that rule ever put in place to give anyone that much power.
  
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  May 12, 2020 6:36pm
greybeard

Peters has really started his election campaign: pro-Racing industry, pro-Taiwan/anti-one China stance.
What will he do next ?
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May 12, 2020 4:23pm
- MrTips
  
  LoL. That’s precisely the question Cindy’s asking. He’s already contradicted her on 10 v 100 gatherings today so she’s got her hands full for the next 3 months!!!
  
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  May 12, 2020 4:46pm
- mikenmildagain
  
  Have a whisky?
  
  4 2
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  May 12, 2020 4:54pm
- Prince
  
  Look for Fisheries grants.
  
  4 1
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  May 12, 2020 5:02pm
- RF
  
  More fucking lies.
  
  During the 1pm Labour Party political broadcast Cindy was questioned about Peters getting offside with China concerning supporting Taiwan.
  
  She claimed to have no knowledge of this in spite of being questioned the previous week and giving a half arsed answer.
  
  A number of lies uttered today.
  
  Has she no shame !!!!
  
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  May 12, 2020 5:33pm
- Happychappy
  
  Well as many of the public have been saying Winston has to produce what he promised for all those large donation that thats he knows nothing about.
  
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  May 12, 2020 5:34pm
- [email protected]
  
  Peter’s doesn’t want labour to be able to win without him so is doing what he can to cause labour to need him. I fear that labour will offer him a choice job after the elections to get rid of his opposition now. That’s likely his angle.
  
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  May 12, 2020 6:43pm
MrTips

Bit o’thinkin.

All National have to do is put forward reasonable policy that is properly costed and jobs/people focussed. If they do this, and DON’T get drawn into shit fights over personality or process, then the election is theirs.

The CoL is at the point of implosion. And the winter of discontent is upon us. It will do half of Nationals job for them.

It shouldn’t be that hard should it?
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May 12, 2020 4:53pm
- chaos
  
  It’s nationals to lose. I’ve heard from a few people now that some of their clients that are hard core labour are saying they cannot and will not vote for labour this election.
  
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  May 12, 2020 7:46pm
Prince

Peters announces $70M for his Racing buddies.

In other news, TAB (aka RITA) announces 30% staff to be redundant. Includes deliberate degradation of help desk and call centre to lower standard of call answering and problem resolution. Hardest hit will be elderly struggling to keep up with on line betting, racing data etc.

Thanks Peters. Looking after your followers, or rather donors, again.
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May 12, 2020 5:01pm
RW Capitalist

So much for our front line heroic hospital staff.
My wife had an appointment with the respiratory specialist.
She is on Oxygen 24/7, but when we leave home to go to the hospital, she is without Oxygen for 25 min.
This makes her breathless.
On arrival, I asked for Oxygen as she was getting in a bad way.
They said”fill out these forms first” I said please (the last time I used the word) get Oxygen then I’ll fill out the forms”They said you (me) have to fill out the forms first” I said, rather loadly get her Oxygen, they said “We aren’t nurses” I said “then do your job and get one”.
Obviously, by the look on their faces, they had never had anyone since lock down DEMAND, they do their jobs and help a patient in obvious distress.
HERO’s ……….I don’t think so.
Eventually she got the Oxygen and I filled out their forms.
Q: When did the paperwork, become more important than the patients?
PS
4 weeks ago, under lock down 4 we noted
More security guards than Nurses
Asked for Oxygen, an orderly brought it within 2 minutes
No paperwork was asked for or filled in
The orderly escorted us to the appointment
All was polite and prompt
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May 12, 2020 5:09pm
chaos

* Each day at 1pm, we’re told how many people are in hospital with COVID-19 – but Newshub has discovered that often there are more people in hospital with the virus than we’re told.

The Ministry of Health has now changed the way it publicly reports the number of positive patients in hospital, after Newshub identified the actual number was higher than official figures.

It’s led to claims the data has been presented in a misleading way, although the Director-General of Health says he’s been “very open” with the numbers. *

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/05/coronavirus-ministry-of-health-denies-it-misled-kiwis-after-covid-19-hospital-case-numbers-higher-than-reported.html
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May 12, 2020 7:44pm
- MrTips
  
  If it’s any consolation chaos, I can tell you the CDHB numbers reported by the MOH are accurate.
  I know – I see them.
  
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  May 12, 2020 9:11pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  Truth-lite, just like the truth but with half the calories.
  
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  May 12, 2020 10:43pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Winston understands what going early means:
“Taiwan has been a standout society.” He observed that Taiwan has only 440 cases and seven deaths, and unlike China and South Korea, “they are not going into relapse.”

The foreign minister said that “From the word go, when they got a whiff of what was happening,” Taiwan quickly implemented measures to keep the disease at bay.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3932407
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May 12, 2020 8:30pm
Jack5

The big rush and Level 2 hasn’t begun!

Chaos at NZ Post from the online shopping surge because of Wuhan flu …

A notice sent out to customers says its receiving parcels at an average of more than 200 a minute.

NZ Post says its sites are processing parcels around the clock, 200 extra vehicles have been brought in to help with deliveries, and more than 3000 extra containers are being used.
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May 12, 2020 8:45pm

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