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July 29, 2021 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 29 July 2021

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General Debate

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CJames

As I semi-predicted in the General Debate at the weekend, the woke academics (is that tautology?) have turned on the Auckland University professors’ rubbishing of “Maori Science” in a letter to the editor of the Listener. One professor has already resigned from his position because of the pressure. No doubt more will be cancelled.
The professionally offended mob are going on about the harm and racism and colonialism and next to nothing on the actual content, what Maori Science really is. The only real example given was predicting the rise of Pleiades star cluster. Not that hard and not science either. Stonehenge shows other stone age cultures could identify astronomical timings. I don’t think Maori could count to 365 – could be why Matariki isn’t a fixed date.
The real issue is why NZ is going backwards relative to rest of world in STEM subjects. Tests show only a minority of pupils are competent at the level they should be. One only has to compare a School Cert maths paper with a current one to see the decline. What is the bet that most of the top scorers are of Asian background? And how much will the scientific knowledge of students in NZ continue to decline with the politically correct education?
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July 29, 2021 8:00am
- kowtow
  
  There is an education emergency , but I won’t hold my breath waiting for a coaltion of “news” organisations to get together to push for what must be one of the most pressing priorities and issues facing this country .
  Fertile ground for the Opposition .
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:06am
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    I sometimes think there are way too many lotus eaters in the nation of aotearoa to care less
    
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    July 29, 2021 8:34am
  - Paulus
    
    Opposition will not be countenanced or reported.
    
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    July 29, 2021 1:10pm
- fernglas
  
  When an academic is deprived of their position because they hold views which the mainstream don’t accept, even though those views are reasonably held and based on their knowledge and belief, then it’s a pretty sad day for academic freedom, and for the society which permits this to happen.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:10am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    And for the universities which not only appear to be content to let it (cancelling of those with sincerely-held views that fall foul of the woke test) happen, but are actively promoting it.
    
    They should have their funding clipped as a first warning, and their charters revoked if they continue.
    
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    July 29, 2021 8:57am
    - tf78
      
      Loddenthinks, do what Trump did and de-fund them – easy.
      
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      July 29, 2021 9:03am
      - Loddenthinks
        
        When I rule the world, that will be on the list of 100 things to do in the first 100 days.
        
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        July 29, 2021 1:47pm
  - Paulus
    
    Who says anything about academic freedom if it does not fit the story ?
    
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    July 29, 2021 1:12pm
- Prince
  
  To be fair, he was asking for trouble trying to debate modern shibboleths in a University, of all places.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:18am
  - alex Masterley
    
    Isnt that the point of a University?
    To debate and challenge contemporary orthodoxy?
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:25am
    - alphabeatrium
      
      Well, it was.
      
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      July 29, 2021 4:43pm
- Master Mariner
  
  I personally think Matariki marked the turning of winter. IE shortest day being approx 2 weeks earlier.
  Kind of makes sense too me as most cultures had some way too mark it.
  Is this what Matariki symbolises to some tribes on the East Coast?
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:28am
- DeepBlue
  
  One of the signatories was Elizabeth Rata. Time wise she released her well read anti democracy piece a fortnight or so back. Signing this letter to The Listener must have happened shortly thereafter.
  
  She would know fullwell that the woke were after any excuse to cancel her. There must be something bigger in play happening here for her to put her academic career on the line like this. Are people waking up?
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:48am
- Pharmachick
  
  That a university would wrest a resignation over an opinion is beyond repugnant. I am grateful for my tenure.
  
  An old friend of mine did her MSc with one of the signatories a little over 20 years ago. He is one of NZs finest scientists.
  
  Oh, and sit back and enjoy the exodus if this doesn’t stop very soon. Our institution for one, is hiring and I hear the US is bouncing back…
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:26am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Academic hiring committees typically have to select between 10’s up to perhaps 100+ candidates. They will not touch anyone with any whiff of scandal in their past. This ensures absolute fealty and self policing of utterances to favour the whims of the Naked emperors in charge.
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:21pm
    - Pharmachick
      
      I have sat on 6 of those in the last 18 months. You’re not wrong.
      
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      July 29, 2021 1:20pm
Scott

Anyone heard of Harun Tash? No? Google is little help. Probably suppressed by Google. No coverage in the mainstream media.

Harun Tash is a former Muslim who converted to Christianity. She regularly speaks at speakers corner in Hyde Park urging people to convert to the Christian faith. She is very critical of her former religion Islam.

Unfortunately some people do not share the western liberal view of free speech and she was slashed with a knife by a man dressed in black. We don’t know if her attacker was a disgruntled Muslim but I can pretty well guarantee he was. (Moderators you know I’m right!)

Why no outrage in the media? Well she’s a Christian (bad) and she was criticising the wonderful religion of peace (criticising Islam – bad, evidence of a phobia in the criticiser). Sadly this persecuted Christian can not expect much in the way of outrage from the mainstream media. We can only hope the police will find the attacker and bring him to justice.

Spiked has great analysis of the incident –
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/07/26/you-can-be-stabbed-for-criticising-islam/
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July 29, 2021 8:00am
- mandk
  
  Clearly, the answer must be that Speakers Corner needs to be shut down /sarc
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:22am
- kowtow
  
  A long time prior to this shocking incident there’s been plenty of very disturbing footage on you tube , there for all to see , of Christian preachers being harassed by , ahem , certain men , who clearly have no respect for or understanding of what Speakers’ Corner is all about .
  
  I’ll leave it at that.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:30am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    you mean the police dontcha? They have been harassing people for wrongspeak in London for a few years now (Sadiq’s influence?)
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:24pm
- emmess
  
  Just shut up and put on your burkha, whore
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:39am
- Than
  
  Meh. So somebody switched from one Bronze Age superstition to another. Who cares, they’re all equivalent.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:47am
  - The Voice of Legions
    
    The Bronze Age predates Christianity by about 3.5 to 1.5 millennia, a religion which came about another 700 years before Islam. If you’re going to post arrogantly dismissive comments, please ensure you get it right.
    
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    July 29, 2021 11:49am
- Ruahine
  
  Sadiq Khan is the Mayor of London and is in charge of the Metropolitan Police. Nuff said.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:49am
- gorse
  
  Use “duck duck go” as your search engine, I get more hits on that search than I can cope with.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:57am
  - CherryCat
    
    Damn, that was meant to be an UPtick not downtick. Sorry.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:43am
- Lance
  
  The best and most consistent arguments against Islam are regularly published by “The Apostate Prophet” (on YouTube).
  He systematically and comprehensively exposes the lies and hypocrisy of Islam. He was once a devout Muslim but had his eyes open when his Uncle murdered his Aunt for some minor perceived slight.
  He is now a man with a mission who see’s the bullshit he was spoon feed and the mindlessness of the hate he was taught to project to non-Muslims and especially Jews.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:58am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Muslims do not accept conversion to the Christian faith.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:01am
  - tf78
    
    Kev, but they happily encourage Christian’s to Muslim.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:07am
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      Any religions that has survived this long has developed a workable set of tools to hold on to and grow their believers base – otherwise they are swept aside by other religions that are ‘fitter’ as is normal with evolutionary processes
      
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      July 29, 2021 12:27pm
  - Greg Ettridge
    
    I believe death is the only and just punishment.
    It is the punishment not just for Christianity, any faith.
    Maybe a person that understands the Koran can elaborate.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:38am
    - curry4me
      
      Greg Ettridge: When I was teaching English in Korea, I listened to a lecture from a Korean woman who had done mission work in Afghanistan. She got two converts. One was murdered, and the other shunned by her family. All that effort for nothing.
      
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      July 29, 2021 10:49am
  - Lance
    
    Or anybody leaving Islam at all, even to become an atheist.
    Turkey has issued an arrest warrant on AP for insulting Islam even though he doesn’t live in Turkey anymore.
    Oh what sad hollowed out shell Turkey is becoming under Erdogan, a complete and utter betrayal of Ataturk’s vision.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:32am
    - Harriet
      
      Yes — Muslims for the most part have only ever thrived under military rule and that would be the main reason why they are ‘heavily policed’ in the west — to stop the extremist minds from having influence over the rest. The 2% – 100% rule clearly spells out the harm islam does to muslims, and all others.
      It’s the western leaders who defend the welfare of muslim women and children, not islam’s leaders.
      
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      July 29, 2021 12:08pm
  - oldfella
    
    Kev, what happens to Mormons who leave the faith? Do they have any future? /s
    
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    July 29, 2021 11:25am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      Are you inquiring about our PM?
      
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      July 29, 2021 11:44am
- edhunter
  
  Well I did as you said and googled Tatun and immediately got hits from The Times, the Daily Mail & the Sun, not saying the story made the front page but it’s definitely there and not too hard to find.
  That it hasn’t made the news here or in Oz doesn’t, to me anyway, reveal a left wing/woke conspiracy to bury anti Islam news.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:11am
- oldfella
  
  Scott: Brendan O’Neill, ended his article with this…
  We have to get serious about freedom of speech. A country in which a teacher must go into hiding for displaying an image of Muhammad, and where an ex-Muslim can be stabbed for being ‘offensive’, and where all manner of supposedly bigoted speech can be punished with censure or censorship, is not a free country. ‘Free speech comes with consequences’ – that is the borderline threatening cry of today’s woke set. It was probably the belief of the man who attacked Ms Tash, too. Perhaps he was just visiting upon her the ‘consequences’ for her blasphemous comments. Enough. We must fully and firmly stand up for free speech, including for ex-Muslims, Christians, critics of Islam and literally everybody else.
  Free Speech? What’s that? /s
  
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  July 29, 2021 11:22am
  - oldfella
    
    “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”
    ― Benjamin Franklin,
    
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    July 29, 2021 1:05pm
Happychappy

Newshub has again showed their true colours by running a story and poll on ” do you think your being ripped off buy your Supermarket.
Well I probably won’t make any friends with my reply and will most likely earn plenty of down ticks, but this is really about Jacinda Ardern and her Government simply to take the pressure and bullshit away from their vaccine problems and Jacinda’s woeful performance, the Prime Minister says we have a plan and it’s ahead of schedule but really we are still at the bottom of the list when it comes to how many and which have received their vaccines.
While the supermarkets have high prices and are up on years before , they didn’t cause higher fuel prices increases on sick leave increases in the hourly rate and freight prices that are also through the roof .
While I agree it is not helpful with prices increasing look at everything else, petrol , electricity and tradesman they have all increased.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/shows/2021/07/question-of-the-day-do-you-think-you-re-being-ripped-off-by-your-supermarket.html
Jacinda Ardern and the Government are way behind in the vaccine roll out and that’s why we sit bottom in the figure and are last in the developed world of Countries.
So this is just another of the devious media creating interference to take the heat out of the argument that this Government and Jacinda Ardern are doing a piss poor job in our vaccine rollout.
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July 29, 2021 8:01am
- artemisia
  
  Consumers (and Consumer) will always think prices are too high. But when supermarkets negotiate lower pricing from suppliers, that’s bullying.
  
  Meantime renters will feel price rises more keenly as they have less income after paying rent, due almost entirely to this government’s policies.
  
  And suppliers also have increased costs and rotting produce, due almost entirely … You guessed it.
  
  I hope the review due out today will take account of ROI. No point in rarking up reporting of big profits without looking at the other numbers.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:18am
  - Happychappy
    
    Is this Labours call for New Zealand to embrace Communism and is this the start oppression.
    https://i.stuff.co.nz/business/125804490/countdown-and-foodstuffs-about-to-find-out-whats-in-the-regulators-trolley
    This is absolutely ridiculous especially with this Government being the cause of the supermarket price prices.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:20am
    - Happychappy
      
      https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2021/07/commerce-commission-supermarket-probe-suggests-creation-of-third-retailer-to-directly-stimulate-retail-competition.html
      
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      July 29, 2021 9:33am
    - oldfella
      
      Comrade Happy, I think the answer is a return to collective farms, selling their food through collective supermarkets, with smiling citizens singing the Red Flag as they stand in character-building bread lines.
      All together, comrades…
      Then raise the scarlet standard high.
      Beneath its shade we’ll live and die,
      Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,
      We’ll keep the red flag flying here.
      
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      July 29, 2021 11:33am
      - Ed Snack
        
        And the classic response:
        
        The working class can kiss my arse
        I got the foreman’s job at last….
        
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        July 29, 2021 12:08pm
  - 70andstilllearning
    
    “The commission said that the levels of profit being earned by both groups were “persistently high”. Both groups were earning a return on capital of more than 20 per cent.”
    
    https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/early-edition/audio/jon-duffy-supermarket-profits-persistently-high-kiwis-paying-too-much/
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:20am
  - Paulus
    
    What is the Maori for Aotearoa Supermarket, for which a broad Committee will be formed, to tell us how it is going to compete with the big two who control the markets.
    Will they undercut the existing markets by funding by taxpayers (not a tax) and controlled wages, hours and prices, by the Unions.
    Not exactly like Russia but similar with queues empty shelves and expectations as they try and close the existing two biggies.
    It will get votes and achieve sweet f.a.
    
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    July 29, 2021 1:06pm
- Bobba Fret
  
  Jacinda said we were paying too much (by at least 30 cents?) for petrol at the pump and arranged for the petrol companies to be investigated….look how that turned out!
  We are now paying more than ever for petrol.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:30am
  - Paulus Gnome
    
    Yes, they could rename this year as the ‘Year of Poo Fingers’
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:23am
  - david
    
    If you are looking for a classic example of perverse actions, take the case of the declaration of prompt payment discounts in the retail electricity sector being declared illegal because they disadvantage slow payers.
    I’m still shaking my head every time I pay my power account on time.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:13am
    - [email protected]
      
      I meant uptick you but missed – sorry!
      
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      July 29, 2021 12:24pm
- slijmbal
  
  Couple of decades back worked at couple of said Supermarkets as IT consultant. The overall margins are pretty easy to find out and essentially public knowledge.
  
  Before they were allowed to drop from 3 to 2 chains the margins were on a par with international norms. Since then they’ve increased to be quite high (but not enormous) by international standards.
  
  There are minimal pressures for efficiencies though with a cartel. We also suffer from some relatively high activity costs that are inherent e.g. distribution is a much larger component of cost in NZ than internationally with small locations widely distributed across a difficult to transport country.
  
  I would estimate we probably pay anywhere from 5-10% over the efficient ideal price. Such costs likely to be swamped by other inflationary pressures.
  
  In short, Newshub probably do have a point and we could reduce supermarket prices a bit if the commerce commission did their job properly and we introduced more competition but we’re being gently gouged rather than ripped off. A distraction.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:30am
- Nickc2
  
  Newshub and Spinoff appear to be competing for Govt administered Taxpayer handouts by running diversionary pieces in favour of St Cindy.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:37am
- KevO'Brien
  
  The supermarket prices are climbing. Excess money printing, union wage demands, lock downs, lack of supplies –> the way to Venezuela.
  
  Inflation may take out this govt. They don’t know what they are doing so cannot control an economy. (Can they manage a kindy sandpit?)
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:05am
- tf78
  
  Happy, the government are more than happy to take $50/week GST on my groceries though – maybe they could have an enquiry into that.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:10am
  - krazykiwi
    
    This is an important point around consumption taxes. They incentivise government to promote consumer spending, no matter how low quality. Can’t feed your kids, but want that 55” TV thanks to the loan shark? Government says “all good. Spend away”
    
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    July 29, 2021 1:32pm
- hullkiwi
  
  Happychappy,
  
  I understand where you are coming from about Jacinda, and you are correct. This report is a distraction and the sheet will believe she is doing something about it. When she isn’t.
  
  The truth & answers about the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) industry though is more complex than “Yes” we are being ripped off. The honest answer is, yes NZ consumers are being ripped off, but there are multiple reasons for the over pricing of products bought by Kiwis at the supermarket.
  
  There are multiple reasons for the rip off at the tills, which I can guarantee you this report will not even scratch the surface of. This is largely because none of the parties involved in the review truly understand how the FMGC market works. I can guarantee you, the report will say there is a lack of competition – but at what level? The supermarket chains, the producers/manufactures/suppliers most are overseas owned), the b******t about overseas commodity pricing, the brand merchandisers, the logistics companies, the companies that own the land and buildings etc.
  Then there are the sharp & poor practises of the supermarkets.
  
  All of the above add layers of cost and margin to what we pay at the till.
  
  And it is with this, I can guarantee you, that the said report will say….”there is a lack of competition, meaning we pay too much at the till”..
  
  This is all the sheeple, the petitions and the sheeple can cope with….
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:23am
  - hullkiwi
    
    Last sentence should read…
    
    “This is all the sheeple, the politicians, and NZ’s poor/lazy MSM can understand in bite size chunks”….
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:25am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    There is little understanding of retail pricing. The PM and others cannot blame the supermarkets for ripping anyone off. Some suppliers may feel that their wholesale selling prices are low but the supermarkets appear to reasonably compete.
    
    The problem facing this amateur govt is lack of know how about finance. The Minister of Finance’s duties are way beyond uni cafe standard. He is expected to steer NZ. Not to look like a dumbfounded flat fish when his actions result in price rises. We cannot borrow our way to prosperity, we can unwisely spend like the 1972 Labour Govt who were soundly rejected for their incompetence.
    
    Retail prices are a combination of factory production costs, transport, intermediate distribution and financing, retail and GST. None of these can be omitted. Even in my small business each has to be provided for. Each segment has to be profitable on its own or it cannot be sustained. That means prices can be 5-6 times the initial factory inputs without being excessive.
    
    The PM and her acolytes are going to have to learn how the world functions.
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:14pm
- doggone7
  
  Occasionally we get media stories about how dear things are in our supermarkets compared to places overseas.
  
  We ask why that is, say it’s not fair and so on. It gets looked at to get a perspective and maybe, as a consequence, effect some change.
  
  And we moan that it’s just Ardern on a distraction mission?
  
  Maybe she could come on the news tonight and say “The Commerce Commission has found that supermarkets are making high profits, face little competition and charge high prices. Shoppers are forced to pay too much for not enough selection because of a lack of competition and we have high grocery prices compared to other countries.
  
  We won’t do anything or say anything about this again, we are parking the subject and let things go as they are. I hope you will all be happy chappies about that.”
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:37am
- MCos
  
  One could also suggest you are taking the heat off the high supermarket prices by going on about vaccines.
  If freight prices are the issue why are fruit and vegetables at the Avondale Market, which are trucked in from down at Pukekohe somewhere so much cheaper than the supermarkets. A lot cheaper.
  There are some obvious reasons, but one of them is the two companies who own/control the major supermarket lines clip the tickets twice by way of wholesale companies that they also own.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:38am
Maggy Wassilieff

An ancient astronomical site gets UNESCO Recognition

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/chankillo-oldest-solar-observatory-in-the-americas-awarded-unesco-world-heritage-status
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July 29, 2021 8:02am
- Master Mariner
  
  Yeah read about this. Going back to my comment above.
  Is Matariki ( Raising of Pleides at our Sthn Latitude)
  actually marks the turning of Winter. ie Shortest day?
  Every other culture has a means of measuring it. The above measure the Sun, Summer/Winter solstaces and equinoxes ( equal day/night) etc.
  Wishy washy explanation regarding Matariki makes no sense and as stated previously it would only make sense to East coast tribes with a clear horizon.
  I guess who wins the war writes the history, Springs to mind.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:36am
- rangitoto
  
  It’s interesting because it tracks the Sun’s position throughout the year, whereas most such ancient monuments just align with one or two points such as the solsitices.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:44am
Jade Warrior

A group of Auckland academics write a letter to the Listener pointing out some obvious truths about the importance of western knowledge and scientific thought and what do they get for their trouble?

The Vice Chancellor of the very university where the concepts of western knowledge are applied on a daily basis publicly denounces the letter and the academics, one of whom has already resigned. The media publish articles about the “controversy” generated by the letter, and this morning, there is this embarrassing opinion piece from Stuff’s Glenn McConnell, who sneers at western science despite the fact he is also currently studying at an institution where its concepts are applied on a daily basis:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/300367713/western-science-isnt-keeping-you-safe-from-the-poo-in-porirua

What staggers me about all of this recent emphasis on indigenous knowledge is that a painfully obvious fact is being overlooked – western science and western knowledge is indomitable. Those who denigrate it and suggest that alternative systems of knowledge like Matauranga Maori have any real value are like King Canute standing before an incoming tidal wave.

Stop and think about how much western knowledge has given us. The computer that you are reading this post on, the keyboard you will use to type a response, the jug that heated the water for the tea or coffee you had for breakfast this morning. Even the electricity that makes it all possible. In fact, all of the comforts of modern life we take for granted – all of these things exist thanks to western science and knowledge.

I will be the first to admit that western knowledge is not perfect – no system of knowledge ever could be. But no other system of knowledge is remotely effective as the system of thought that emerged in Europe in the eighteenth century. There is nothing racist in saying this. Yes, western knowledge emerged in Europe but it is colourblind – its benefits are not restricted to Europeans. All humanity has and will continue to benefit from it. Maori are no exception to this fact.

I am very concerned that by turning our back on the western scientific method we will effectively be undermining the progress of humanity, and all for some woefully misguided woke belief that somehow all systems of knowledge are equally valid. I am even more dismayed that our universities also appear to subscribe to this way of thinking.

Given how well western knowledge and science works, I am astonished at how many supposedly educated people are prepared to entertain the idea that indigenous knowledge systems are just as valid, if not more preferable to western thought. Seriously – I fear for the future of this country and the entire world.
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July 29, 2021 8:02am
- cmm
  
  “I am very concerned that by turning our back on the western scientific method we will effectively be undermining the progress of humanity”
  
  Perhaps that is the point. There are many who say we have progressed too far.
  
  I too fear for the future of science. I am glad I’m approaching 60 and not in my 20s. If I had a career of this woke bullshit ahead of me I doubt I doubt I would cope.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:12am
  - tf78
    
    cmm, yay – bring back the long drop I say.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:15am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    1st move would be: go somewhere less afflicted. Asia or Australia.
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:29pm
- kowtow
  
  It wasn’t that long ago that the Establishment were very proud of our indigenous being “early adopters” which by implication made them so superior to other indigenous peoples.
  
  I suspect being an “adopter” means you embraced the thingys that whitey brought but that’s now evil.
  
  The danger here is the academics are preaching a new form of racial purity without thinking through where that can lead.
  
  We’re all mixed race and the better for it.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:13am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    We’re all mixed race? YES
    We have indigenous people? NO
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:05am
    - oldfella
      
      Lodden, check out Garrick Tremain’s latest cartoon.
      https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/cartoon-of-the-day-40
      From a political cartoonist who’s actually funny. And on the money.
      
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      July 29, 2021 12:59pm
      - oldfella
        
        “We can have a democratic form of government or we can have indigenous sovereignty. They can’t coexist and we can’t have them both.” (Former Labour Prime Minister David Lange.)
        
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        July 29, 2021 1:03pm
      - Loddenthinks
        
        I get email updates whenever a new post is up on BB&H, I guess like you do 🙂
        
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        July 29, 2021 1:48pm
- graham
  
  Pfft.
  
  Glenn McConnell – say no more. I’m surprised he doesn’t constantly fall over sideways due to the weight of the massive chip on his shoulder.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:17am
  - 3-coil
    
    And right beside this morning’s puerile rant by cub “reporter” McConnell in the DomPost is another idiotic dribbling – this time from a privileged/white middle-class middle-aged columnist Virginia Fallon.
    
    She’s always on some pathetic crusade, and today her hysterical tirade is directed at the Taxpayers Union (ironic as she’s sucking off the Taxpayers’ tit via Jacinda’s $55million media bribes). Virginia is the latest self-appointed spokesperson for the baby orca “Toa” (now dead, in spite of all the efforts of the misguided human interventionists).
    
    According to Fallon, the Taxpayers Union had no right to question the futile effort to save the orca calf. The TU members allegedly have no sense of “humanity, environmentalism and duty” (which implies she and her ilk have in spades). What have the Taxpayers Union done to her to get her t**s in such a tangle? I suspect not much in reality. Fallon is one of these entitled pakeha princesses perpetually aggrieved on behalf of some other party – whether they request it or not. Your classic “social justice warrior”.
    
    But angry middle-aged white wimmin have no more rights than the Taxpayers’ Union to ask questions and voice their opinions. Virginia Fallon is the intolerant hothead who admitted to her charming habit of walking down the footpath kicking people’s rubbish bins onto the road or into their gateways, because she’s too angry and lazy to step around them. If that’s the “humanity, environmentalism and duty” shown by those (ie bitter and twisted complainers of her ilk) who claim the moral high ground, give me the Taxpayers’ Union any time.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:01am
- Yabster
  
  McConnell is a complete racist little brat with no credence at all.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:21am
  - amospicton
    
    Just an absurd argument – there isn’t sewerage in the water due to a failing of science, but a failing of politics.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:30am
- Master Mariner
  
  The thing with Science it that it is Science, regardless were you come from, There is no thing as “western science”.
  Some of the greatest mathmaticians / astronomers and Navigators were Arabic and where most Star names come from.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:41am
  - Jack5
    
    Master Mariner …. “some of the greatest mathematicians were Arabic.”
    
    As posted a day or two ago, only about half a dozen of the world’s 200 greatest mathematicians were Islamic.
    
    Of these, Aal-Biruni and was an Uzbek, not an Arab; Omar al-Khayya was Persian.
    
    The Ancient Greeks and the ancient Hindu people were the early kings of maths.
    
    The ancient Sumerians were the first to come up with something equivalent to zero. Were they Arabs? In that age, “Arab” probably still meant someone from Saudi Arabia.
    
    Not surprisingly for a sailor, you are, however, right about star names:
    
    https://stepfeed.com/7-star-names-with-arabic-origins-2929
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:38am
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      Persians are a very clever and lot, held back by awful government.
      
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      July 29, 2021 12:30pm
- RiP NZ
  
  … actual science
  
  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9835851/amp/Scientists-observe-light-coming-black-hole-time.html?__twitter_impression=true
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:46am
- bennerg
  
  I don’t believe that science and the knowledge so gained is the problem. The problem is with those who control and manipulate scientists, to get a result or outcome they desire. Whether they be politicians (who got rid of our formerly independent DSIR, creating nothing but a lapdog), large corporations (eg the cigarette companies did the science but hid it) or advertising companies (remember the ads with the lady dressed in white lab coat and glasses, with the clipboard), they all prey on us consumers to believe because “their message is backed by science”.
  
  Wrongly designed science can produce any outcome you wish. Wrongly interpreted and reported science can say anything they want.
  
  Scientists whose careers are managed by those who allocate their funding, will only focus on and report an outcome that suits their paymasters.
  
  Science sadly has become as corrupt as the people who manipulate and control them. With the collaboration of the media (hey, who paid them too) then any dissenting views (normally a valid part of scientific debate) are left out, or demonised.
  
  And now the whole validity of the scientific method itself is being challenged.
  
  Whoa, are we in for a ride.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:49am
  - tf78
    
    bennerg, manipulated, just like the polls.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:30am
  - artemisia
    
    Well said bennerg. You put into words my nascent suspicions.
    
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    July 29, 2021 11:27am
  - westernScientest
    
    Sadly I have to agree. Except that believing the DSIR would be independent now days is about as wishful as thinking that DoC is independent now.
    Thats not to say the CRIs are, some are better than others but they all rely on tax payer money as a major source of revenue. The balance of some requiring industry to front up a substantial portion of some of their budgets creates a tension which does help reduce the influence of politics on some of them. As a consequence the more industry put in the less political leverage exists over the orgs.
    I was going to paste a link to the review MBIE did on future governance structure, but surprise surprise it is now a 404 error. I probably still have a copy some where though. In short they are recommending less CRIs, and more control from government and less/get rid of the CRI boards. In the next couple of months a full report is due out, so knows, maybe back to the DSIR/MAF etc. days we go.
    
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    July 29, 2021 11:39am
- Bob
  
  If ‘western scientific method’ is so inferior to indigenous knowledge and ideology, why did the Soviet Union spend so much time and money trying to steal scientific knowledge from the FREE western countries; and CHINA still does. Maybe also Russia to a significant degree.?
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:05am
- DeepBlue
  
  ‘Western’ Science doesn’t exist. It is just Science based on the Scientific Method. Asian and Eastern European scientists contribute to Science too.
  
  Labeling Science ‘Western’ just perpetuates racism.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:15am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    The Nazis were very keen to label some research as “Jewish Science” and identified scientists as “Jewish scientists”.
    They also recognised ‘German Physics” – Deutsche Physik – also known as Aryan Physics – Arischke Physik
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deutsche_Physik
    
    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-2-pro-nazi-nobelists-attacked-einstein-s-jewish-science-excerpt1/
    
    We all know how that ended.
    
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    July 29, 2021 11:22am
- Swifty
  
  The cub reporter’s article is incomplete, it would have been better if he had included information about the manner Maori organised potable water, plumbing, water reticulation and sanitation in their cities.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:37am
- Fuzzysnuggleduck
  
  My God, that article by Glenn is stupid.
  He claims that ; “Indigenous people have lived in India for an incredibly long time – way longer than places such as the UK.”
  I don’t see what this has to do with anything around ‘science’, when we are talking the movement of early modern humans and the paleolithic in both cases. He is trying to say that whitey is a johnny-come-lately, but even poorly expressed, this has no bearing on the argument around science.
  He calls the letter-writing scientists confused, and then puts the sum of Maori science as ‘Poo is gross’ and ‘don’t put it in the ocean’.
  
  Consider this: Maori had no sanitation. They threw rubbish into midden heaps and they had no true wharepaku – they basically crapped off the edge of the pa site. It was much like the heads on a boat. A seat was the limit of the technology to manage ablutions (I actually did make enquiries into this with a NZ archaeologist, when I was taking part in pa surveying for the NZAA).
  So to compare the challenges of modern mass-populations, and plumbing (plumbing, being around since Roman times, and flush toilets invented in ancient China) with the idea that ‘poo is nasty’. It fails to recognise that the pre-European population was so low, that they perhaps had no impact in terms of needing to manage poos beyond the offensive smells near their own dwellings. No management strategy was needed beyond “Dont Shit Where You Eat”.
  Even base animals tend to know this.
  He is basically implying that the challenges of managing sewerage networks in modern time mean that ‘western science’ (the term is problematic in itself) is inferior/worthless compared to Maori understanding that poo is stinky, and you don’t want lots of it in the ocean where you gather shellfish.
  Yep – that’s some top notch science, almost as good as Glenn’s ability to frame a coherent argument or understand what the letter to the Listener was actually about.
  Where do they get these friggin retards?
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:51pm
cmm

According to Auckland University my cat is a scientist.

In the latest development at Auckland Uni that has seen people being hounded into resignation, Auckland university science faculty members have said that Moari did practice science.

This has been achieved by completely dumbing down the definition of science: “Make an observation, then you make a prediction, and that prediction comes true – so cool, then you embed that knowledge.”

I feed my cat at the back door every morning and evening. Morning and evening, the cat turns up for food. It does not bother to do so in the middle of the day.
The cat:
* observed the pattern (that I turn up with food morning and evening)
* made a prediction (that I would turn up with food at morning and evening)
* the prediction came true (cool for the cat)
* has embodied this in its knowledge system (as demonstrated by not turning up at noon).

“We [Maori] did not live successfully in balance with the environment without science. Māori were the first scientists in Aotearoa.”

Where does one start with that? How did balance go for the Moa eh? Just like how hippos open up channels in swamps, moa occupied a critical niche in the ecosystem – opening up the dense scrub so that other birds could move around. Once the moa were eliminated, some bush became much more difficult for smaller birds to traverse so there was a ripple effect through the ecology. And let’s not forget the Haast’s eagle losing its food source.

By the definition they have used here, birds and bats are scientists so were here long before Maori.

No. Real science is far more rigorous than what was described here. I would go as far as to say that it is not possible to create a rigorous science without being able to read, write and do mathematics.

Anyway, Auckland have shown their true colours as an anti-science organisation. If they truly believe this, then they should do away with tests and exams and start teaching “Maori science”.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/auckland-university-professor-resigns-over-letter-claiming-maori-knowledge-isnt-science/NF4CMOCYRJZGI5Y4DXACKKJU54/
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July 29, 2021 8:02am
- Tall Man
  
  “they should do away with tests and exams and start teaching “Maori science”.”
  
  Pretty sure that’s on the agenda.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:05am
  - tf78
    
    Tall Man, it is, starting next term I think.
    My DIL is a True Science/Chemistry teacher – she’s not too happy about her years of study including a Masters being wasted.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:35am
  - Bob
    
    ‘do away with tests and exams’
    Appears to me Tall Man that the education system has already effectively done away with exams.
    ‘In class assessment’ by the teacher who supervised, is not the same as an exam which tests retained knowledge and learning.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:11am
- Adroit
  
  I will keep this brief as I could go on about it for a while.
  
  I have a fundamental fear that we are near the peak of whatever this iteration of civilisation is.
  
  We are seeing the destruction of the West as homogenous peoples unified in values and expectations. We are going thru a primitivism revival that is placing the taniwha on equal footing to the Higgs-Boson.
  
  Our universities are being overrun with diversity (re: Otago Medical School) diluting credible science based leadership.
  
  The rate of scientific discoveries is dropping calamitously. No real surprises in physics for example since the early 90s.
  
  By 2100, 40% of the world will be African including 7 of the 10 most populous nations of the world. The West, and East Asia, are on the precipice of a demographic collapse.
  
  Who will be left to develop and employ the advanced modern technological practices upon which our world depends? Will we even value it?
  
  I’ve still got 30 years of working life ahead, let alone my young children. Dark(er) days are coming.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:39am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    AI is coming in next couple of decades, unstoppable given cold war between China and US (whoever gets it first probably gains an unassailable technological lead). It renders all concerns about every long term socio political trend moot – If we survive it (big if) things we imagine to be long term problems won’t be. That doesn’t mean it will necessarily usher in a utopia – but cost of material goods and energy (and food) will likely plummet and majority of population will become unemployable.
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:54pm
- surfing
  
  Ha, well put!
  
  Very racist to disagree with the maori perspective though.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:09am
- Kiwi Dave
  
  Well said cmm.
  
  Once indigenous knowledge was real science, deriving conclusions from detailed observation – eat those berries, you get sick – so the pro-indigenous critics of the letter are slightly right, but they fail to observe that science in the West made huge steps beyond this in the seventeenth century and since then through the use of systematic hypothesis testing, mathematics, abandoning supernatural explanations, and developing instruments capable of much more precise observation and measurement than the unaided eyeball.
  
  The academic critics of the letter claim that Mātauranga Maori is another way of viewing the world; sure, but it’s not remotely competitive with modern, international science as a way of reliably furthering our knowledge of the world.
  
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  July 29, 2021 1:53pm
Tony Stuart

Jacinda Ardern, 28 July 2021:

Ardern said the rollout was “exactly where we intended to be”.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-pm-jacinda-ardern-has-second-jab-700000-kiwis-now-fully-vaccinated/6KWWUZ2HWTOM5S26HWP5V5LUXU/

So the PM “intended” New Zealand to have the lowest vaccination rate in the OECD, and be 125th in the world overall, for the third straight week? Perhaps, in the interests of all New Zealanders, she needs to set her sights a little higher!
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July 29, 2021 8:03am
- Tall Man
  
  “she needs to set her sights a little higher!”
  
  Trust me Tony, her sights are set way higher, unfortunately they are not set for the betterment of New Zealand.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:06am
  - cmm
    
    #CinD4UN!
    
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    July 29, 2021 8:33am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      ~~#CinD4UN!~~ Morrinsville tea rooms.
      
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      July 29, 2021 9:09am
      - Paulus Gnome
        
        Do you not like the Morrinsville tea rooms?
        
        Did they not replenish the paper towels in the toilets fast enough, the muffin was off centre on the plate, did not fawn over you like all good labour sycophants are prone to do?
        
        Why would you want our Prime Minister (chuckle chuckle) to close down the Morrinsville tea rooms when she becomes involved as the owner, manager or kitchen hand?
        
        I am off to set up a go fund me page to save the Morrinsville tea rooms before the apocalypse arrives at their front door . . .
        
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        July 29, 2021 9:36am
      - KevO'Brien
        
        I thought the PM was raised there.
        Apologies to anyone I have caused concern too. Your nominations for a retirement occupation for Cinders is welcome.
        
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        July 29, 2021 12:30pm
      - Paulus Gnome
        
        She did Kev, I am taking the piss . . .
        
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        July 29, 2021 8:20pm
- Simon
  
  “Perhaps, in the interests of all New Zealanders, she needs to set her sights a little higher!”
  
  Cindy speaks to her audience, they are cattle.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:17am
- Benedict Yu
  
  I heard Bloomfield on the radio this morning speaking in riddles. I guess he gets lots of practice. He was whether opening vaccines up to Group 4 would cause some Group 3 folk to wait longer than they otherwise would have. If the constraint is supply of vaccines the only logical answer is “yes”.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:19am
  - marcw
    
    Apparently only about one third of Group 3 (elderly and high risk) have been fully vaccinated. I fail to see how opening bookings for Group 4 people will increase the rate at which the Group 3 are protected.
    
    I wanted to change the date my second vaccination was scheduled, so went onto the online booking system to make the change. I thought it was broken – there were no spare times in all of August or September. In the end I rang the 0800 number to (wastefully) engage a human person. They helpfully pointed out if I had moved forward to October there were some spaces available then. That was more than 12 weeks since my first dose!
    
    So if the system is already committed for 3 months, what on earth is the point of trying to add more to the waiting list. Madness, or just another “announcement” which we know they are using for distraction from their incompetence.
    
    By the way that reminds me, how is Robertson’s ‘Implementation Department’ progressing? Has it got past the announcement headline yet I wonder.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:28am
  - Paulus
    
    In any private job he would have been canned DCM a long time ago.
    Would have expected him to have resigned as his conscience and Cindy’s lies, would have had an honest moral conscience on his lies too.
    Though he might have been decent Wellington Private Scots College educated person.
    
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    July 29, 2021 1:29pm
- alloytoo
  
  Planning to Fail is the only thing worse than Failing to Plan.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:37am
- KevO'Brien
  
  NZ is intended to be under permanent lockdown to comply with the WEF plans.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:08am
- Bob
  
  Such AN ASPIRATION FOR THE NATION BY OUR SO CALLED pm
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:12am
Luke Piewalker

17 ships currently waiting at anchor to get into the Port of Tauranga.

That’s 17 ships at $500,000 plus demurrage each. This will all be passed onto the end user. You.

Welcome to inflation New Zealand.

Cindy will have no idea the damage she is wrecking upon this economy.
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July 29, 2021 8:05am
- CJames
  
  How many of those are log ships? They won’t load until they have a space booked in a destination port and a bank order. With the congestion at Chinese ports, the ships don’t load. This is because they have to pay for the logs when they leave the wharfside, and don’t get paid until the have unloaded.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:31am
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Sure you’ve got that right? Congestion at Chinese Ports – how did the PM organise that, especially after clogging up the Panama Canal. It must have been a miracle for her to also cleverly insist that boats only loaded when they had a port of destination booked and after being paid.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:28am
    - Fuzzysnuggleduck
      
      The only person who suggested the PM clogged up Chinese ports was you.
      Poor Adult Reading Comprehension, or shit posting?
      
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      July 29, 2021 12:59pm
    - Paulus
      
      Did not think that our Loggers to China go anywhere near the Panama Canal, but direct dumbo.
      
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      July 29, 2021 1:31pm
- Master Mariner
  
  An arrived ship is an arrived ship and Demurrage starts.
  Its startling how costs of shipping is ignored in price inflation.
  One good example for us is the average cost per crew member to crew change pre Covid was 3K US, Now its 30K plus during times of Covid.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:47am
- Ehlana
  
  Luke, it’s winter. The government have socks on their feet. That only leaves 8 fingers and 2 thumbs for counting. Your numbers are too big.
  
  They have also not yet worked out that island nations need shipping to get goods in and out, ships need mariners and mariners need to come home at the end of their voyages. So no, there is no chance that they will understand that there are costs involved in delayed unloading of ships or why that will change prices in the shops.
  
  It can be added to the long list of their no ideas. I’d tell you the number, but it takes too long to count that high, even in summer with toes available.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:51am
- hullkiwi
  
  Didn’t you know the fault is all Ports of Auckland……
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:59am
Maggie Pie

“The ACT leader plays an insidious, sophisticated, covert form of race-based politics”

– John Tamihere (Stuffed)

Here’s the response from David Seymour that Stuffed refused to publish….because ‘they didn’t like the tone’!

https://twitter.com/dbseymour/status/1420236414122295297
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July 29, 2021 8:07am
- Simon
  
  White supremist systemic racist New Zealand where the Maori are downtrodden. NZ the country where Indian & Chinese want live in knowing full well they will be ethnic minorities.
  
  Something is wrong with the narrative.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:26am
- Harriet
  
  The politics in Aussie now has a book for schools that says Aboriginals were not hunter gatherers but farmers – with fences for animals – as Mark Latham said “I don’t know what animals they think they had but every 5yld knows that you can’t keep kangaroos contained that way.” 😎
  
  Jacinta Price is the Dep Mayor in Alice Springs and will probably get the NT Senate seat “I’m a Wijirri and Celtic woman and my family was massacred[true] but we held a meeting with their descendants and forgave them. It’s totally wrong that whites are now expected to hate themselves.”
  – She would go out of her way to kick Tamaheri’s arse – she despises people like that. You may catch her on sky News from time to time.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:34am
  - Greg Ettridge
    
    The author is a complete and utter hoax.
    Claimed to be an aboriginal, turns out his aboriginal Granny was a aboriginal anglo saxon from the motherland.
    The disturbing thing is they are actually teaching this dross in schools.
    Not all states have drunk the cool aid, but most have.
    Even the ABC have started to call it out.
    https://spectator.com.au/2021/06/dark-emu-the-turkeys-fight-back/
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:49am
- Colville
  
  A perfect example of the problem facing any party to the right of Labour.
  You are either with us or against us and if you are against us we will block you or if we cant block you we will arrange a counter article.
  Just look at the tripe published speaking against the very reasonable position the Auckland Uni lecturers have taken.
  
  At least ACT have a decent comms team to try to get around this shit. Not so much National.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:42am
- Loddenthinks
  
  What a beautifully written slap-down of a hypocritical race-baiter that was. Seymour called out his lies and hypocrisy, highlighted his many failures at the ballot box and articulated clearly how Tamihere’s political posturing directly harms those he professes to go into bat for. Delicious.
  
  There was never a snowball’s chance in hell of it being published by the bought-and-paid-for $1uffed.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:14am
Tricati

I find it interesting that Suhayra Aden, the ISIS bride, who is coming back to NZ due to her NZ citizenship is the child of a Somali refugee family that came to NZ, obtained NZ citizenship, then buggered off to Melbourne when she was 6 years old. The family took advantage of our weak refugee standards to obtain NZ citizenship, to then get a free-pass into Australia.
I suspect the Morrison Government sent Ardern a very clear message about NZ accepting refugees (e.g., Manus Island), giving them citizenship, only for them to migrate to OZ; so cancelled Aden’s Australian citizenship.
Ardern can huff & puff all she wants, but Morrison has shot a very clear shot across NZ bow that they will not tolerate refugees using NZ as a stepping stone to OZ, and now we, NZ tax payers, have to pick up the costs associated with hosting this ISIS bride in our country.
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July 29, 2021 8:10am
- MCos
  
  I once worked with a Jewish guy, Alex, back in the seventies who was a refugee from the USSR.
  He came into our office sponsored by one of the partners who belonged to an organization that helped refugees.
  He was an engineer, but couldn’t speak a word of English nor write the language. He had no money because the Soviets had taken it all. His wife and her Dad also had jobs and Mum stayed home to look after the baby.
  The Mum became desperately lonely and killed herself.
  To put it bluntly Alex was hopeless to start with, but after a couple of years he’d learned the lingo and was an asset to the office.
  One day they all became NZ citizens and promptly left for Oz.
  There was no Russian community in Wellington he said they could trust, being Jewish, as there was in Sydney.
  Good luck to them, I say.
  I hope they found what they were looking for.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:04am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I have a similar story..
    Yuri was an electrical engineer and had had a senior position helping to run a Nuclear Power Plant.
    
    After requesting to leave the USSR and outing himself as a Jew, he and his wife lost their jobs.
    When he finally got to NZ, he could only get employment as an electrician’s assistant at Wellington City Council. Admittedly his English wasn’t great.
    
    His wife had been a Piano teacher and got a job as an office assistant in a Government Department, where I met her.
    Her English was fairly good and one day she spoke to me in Russian. I said I couldn’t understand Russian but my husband could… so she asked me if she could speak to him as she needed to understand an Insurance scheme that had been “offered” to her by a member of the Wellington Jewish Community when she first arrived in the country.
    
    Long story-short… Hubby sorted things, folks were able to get most of their money back and fled to Brisbane as soon as they could.
    
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    July 29, 2021 11:43am
- tf78
  
  Tricati, bacon sandwiches all round then.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:58am
- Paulus
  
  Expect Visas for Australia in advance soon – the Aussies have been waiting for years to do it.
  
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  July 29, 2021 1:34pm
Benedict Yu

This was totally predictable. Scientist states the obvious and is forced out.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/300368560/university-of-auckland-professor-relinquishes-role-after-claiming-mtauranga-mori-is-not-science

“Several other academics, including Shaun Hendy, Siouxsie Wiles, Andrew Sporle and Tara McAllister, published an open response to the letter, stating they categorically disagreed with the views.”

I am not catastrophising when I say that this is what happens in totalitarian states. People are not free to state the blindingly obvious because it does not suit the narrative of the state. Then the children are brainwashed. In this case we will have children being taught at school that there are two types of “science”. And so scientists will flee the country where they can actually practice science.

The only people who might be able to stop this is parents. To his credit Paul Goldsmith has spoken out but he will be labelled racist and his efforts will lose momentum.

Hopefully David Seymour will come out and call this new science curriculum the rubbish it is.
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July 29, 2021 8:10am
- I remember when
  
  The good news is that Shaun Hendy doesn’t have a great track record for be accurate.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:32am
- Loddenthinks
  
  Seymour is called racist every single day, and (as reported elsewhere in GD) platforms given to his detractors whilst denying him the right of reply, for the wonderfully convenient reason that they don’t like his tone.
  
  I give daily thanks that I’ll never have to set foot in any of these woke institutions, and that my two young adult children have not only both completed their uni studies more or less intellectually intact, but also that Mrs Lodden and I didn’t have to attend any of the graduation ceremonies. I accept this is a somewhat selfish view (mind you, which views aren’t?) particularly in the case of my daughter who worked bloody hard for her two law degrees and felt ripped off that the government’s hysterical response to COVID meant her grad ceremony was cancelled three times.
  
  But I also remember attending the graduation ceremony of a close friend, who’d chosen to receive her degree at a “marae” at the university. Well, if we had to sit through one haka, we had to sit through 100 of them. Admittedly the first few were powerful and moving, but I promise you after the tenth one you just want them to STFU and let us get on with it. But I’m probably like David Seymour and Paul Goldsmith, just another racist.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:40am
Tomtoddy

The debate over “Maori science” is revealing. It seems some people have a strange view of science that includes history and folk lore. Traditionally science has shunned religion, superstition, mythology etc as unknown, unable to be proven, replicated or experimentally tested. If you expand the definition of science to include elements that are not able to meet the criteria there is no end to what can be considered “scientific” and the vital robustness and boundaries around the discipline are lost in a morass of truths, partial truths and untruths. The great benefits that science has been to mankind in the past is threatened.

There is no such thing as “Maori science”. Science is science from wherever it originates. It can be shown easily enough that many developments in science have come out of Europe but postulating that somehow science is Euro-centric is undignified claptrap.

It is interesting to consider some of the points made by those proposing this illogical notion of “Maori science”. Putting aside the folk lore parts – whether the North Island was pulled up from the sea for example – there are various claims made about how Maori used the stars for navigation and what capable environmentalists they were. By the way, we should not despise folklore. It has a place in our lives. Their ability to use the stars shows great seamanship and ability. However posing the claim that Maori took great care of the environment seems at odds with what is known. It appears likely they burned vast areas, aided the demise of the moa and overfished many estuaries – all negative environmental factors.

The problem is having made these few observations I am now deemed a “racist”. I apparently “hate” Maori. I will have “outraged” some. We are so pathetically juvenile and politically correct, even in our universities, that we cannot have a reasoned and quiet debate any more on a range of issues.

We are becoming a poverty of thought stricken nation, where division is fostered from the Prime Minster down. Its an ugly development that must be repelled.
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July 29, 2021 8:18am
- graham
  
  The Bible – Matthew chapter 16:
  
  But He replied, “When evening comes, you say, ‘The weather will be fair, for the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’
  
  When do we start teaching Biblical Science in schools?
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:36am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    For goodness’ sake, don’t give them ideas!!!
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:41am
  - Master Mariner
    
    Thats what Intelligent Design is and wildly taught in The States amongst others.
    Trying to tie in Religion with science.
    So not a new thing at all.
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:36pm
- Master Mariner
  
  “there are various claims made about how Maori used the stars for navigation ”
  The question is what did they “reference” this too.
  an example of this is what Maggie posted above.
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/chankillo-oldest-solar-observatory-in-the-americas-awarded-unesco-world-heritage-status
  See above, they worked out the most Nth/Stn Declination of the Sun when rising and “accurately” predicted Longest, Shortest, and equinoxes. ie Seasons.
  Out of Interest , Whilst working in Kiribas Islands , They had some sort of Shell Chart on sticks of which the knowledge was lost.
  Another thing of interest is the compass was originally used for picking up typhoons in China sea, Not for finding North/South etc but by the direction the wind blows.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:56am
  - Graeme Hall
    
    Ancient Greeks developed an analogue computer (~100BCE) to predict astronomical positions and eclipses decades in advance.
    
    https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56377567
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:33pm
- Brian McDonald
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Equally, the even greater scientists still burnt off the bush in the 19th and 20th centuries introduced the box, flu, and other illnesses, built prisons and asylums, installed lead pipes for drinking water, and stole land which they will be paying off for another 2 centuries.
  As for Maori science, I don’t believe I know anything about it, but clearly, you do.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:04am
  - Adroit
    
    You might have a particular problem with prisons, but the rest of us think they are eminently suitable for the detritus that end up in them.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:11am
  - cmm
    
    “Equally, the even greater scientists still burnt off the bush in the 19th and 20th centuries introduced the box, flu, and other illnesses, built prisons and asylums, installed lead pipes for drinking water”
    
    No, scientists did none of those things.
    
    Just because “white people” might have done some of those things does not mean it was scientists.
    
    As for building prisons, you seem to think that is a bad thing. Perhaps you’d rather have been punished by the Maori judicial system which would have given you a swift, brutal execution. At least then recidivism would not have been an option for you. Perhaps Ms Bell would now be a grandmother.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:43am
  - rangitoto
    
    Agree the prisons were a dumb idea. Cooking and eating the baddies was much more efficient.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:47am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    As for Maori science, I don’t believe I know anything about it, but clearly, you do.
    
    I’ve spent nearly 50 years reading what the first scientists, European explorers, ethnologists, archaeologists have written about Maori and their knowledge of the the Natural World.
    
    I recognize when information is repeated from the first volumes of the Transactions of the Royal Society of NZ, or the Journal of the Polynesia Society, or the writings of Elsdon Best or Sir George Grey or Sir Peter Buck.
    
    I’ve met very few modern Maori folk who have any knowledge of native plants… either how to recognise them in the bush, let alone know if /how they were used by their ancestors.
    
    I’ve met quite a few Maori folk who do know a lot about fishing and boats… to date I haven’t met one who operates on the ancient Maori Lunar calendar system.
    
    In 1994 My father-in-law published the first CCD Atlas of the Southern Skies (now available as combined Northern & Southern Hemisphere Atlas).
    That was new astronomical work by a NZ astronomer … not a repeat of visible star maps known for centuries.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:54am
    - tf78
      
      Maggy, I’m European and know not to eat karaka berries, even though they smell delicious. I also know that putting a Manuka berry on your tongue stops you being thirsty whilst out walking in the bush. My parents taught me those things.
      
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      July 29, 2021 11:04am
  - Greg Ettridge
    
    Aboriginals in Australia burnt off the bush for thousands of years, just a pity they don’t do it now and leave it to nature to back burn the disastrous mess the environmentalists have decided is better to burn all and sundry out than back burn.
    I guess you can now add the the dreaded yellow man introduced the beastly WU FLU.
    China are not stealing land, they are stealing entire seas by creating land.
    So the colonization continues today.
    Not just the whities that are aggressors, take a look at history.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:00am
    - Loddenthinks
      
      Aboriginals still burn bush on their own lands, and haven’t had an uncontrolled bushfire for centuries. I don’t know if I’d call it science, more like common sense based on observations that if there’s no scrub or bush below branch level, trees tend not to catch fire in the first place.
      
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      July 29, 2021 10:45am
I remember when

Newshub: “Very distressing : Firefighters shaken after 11 cats killed in Auckland blaze”:
The good news for cat lovers was that 12 were rescued.
Perhaps more of a worry is the the article says the SPCA is going to support them.
Might a visit by mental health personnel be more appropriate.
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July 29, 2021 8:26am
- Greg Ettridge
  
  So a cat doesn’t have nine lives after all.
  23 cats domiciled in one location seems a tad over the top.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:02am
  - Bobba Fret
    
    Maybe they had used up 8 lives already?
    
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    July 29, 2021 11:54am
Happychappy

Our Finance Minister Grant Robertson pounds his chest and insinuates how his prudence saved our economy over the COVID-19 lockdowns but really if he was that competent at his job you would have though he would have had a secure system in place to make sure money that was owed for the stay in MIQ by many people would be paid before they left New Zealand.
If this had been followed we surely would have the $38 million owing now still unpaid and the $ 8 million that is classed as overdue.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-38-million-in-unpaid-managed-isolation-fees-despite-government-calling-in-debt-collectors/DBPOULRJ2HDWZSWSCFJ76Z2MJ4/
This is just another issue of incompetence just like the $ 27 million given to the Mongrel Mob and the payments of millions to Motel owners to house our homeless.
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July 29, 2021 8:26am
- alloytoo
  
  “he would have had a secure system in place to make sure money that was owed for the stay in MIQ by many people would be paid before they left New Zealand.”
  
  It’s really very simple, ask for their IRD numbers, allocate numbers for those that don’t have.
  
  Moment they work in NZ IRD sends a nice letter to their payroll officer.
  
  Airlines can then query with IRD as to any outstanding balance before issuing a new ticket offshore.
  
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  July 29, 2021 2:38pm
WaveyDavey

Brace yourselves…

“More taxes, subsidies needed to meet electric vehicle goals – economist”

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/07/more-taxes-subsidies-needed-to-meet-electric-vehicle-goals-economist.html

Trans: we’re going to punish people who won’t do what we want and won’t buy what they don’t want/can’t afford

AND

Softening us up for government grabbing private business

“The government could sweep in here and say ‘this is an essential industry, food prices are too high and the supermarkets margins are contributing and we want to legislate to control prices’ ”

The government may also consider forcing Foodstuffs and Countdown to give up some of their stores or warehouses…”

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2021/07/commerce-commission-to-reveal-findings-on-supermarket-chains-prices.html

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

This govt’s hammer? Tax & state control. Went so well in eastern Europe after all
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July 29, 2021 8:28am
- Master Mariner
  
  I was wondering the other day how did EV’s Fair during the Westport floods.?
  Serious question.
  I’m not too sure I strap my Family in one if flooded to the floor boards .
  Personally I think great technology but understand how Energy intensive to make. But also realise they should be kept to the rest homes and supermarkets and Off the open roads.
  Unless you can afford bigger/expensive brand.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:53am
- tf78
  
  Wavey, coal is very expensive to import don’t you know.
  
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  July 29, 2021 11:06am
lifesgood

I am so pleased I got my degree from the University of Auckland when it was a proud, competent, University with well educated, well researched, knowledgeable staff. I would be embarrassed to be attending it now. Not only has it gone completely woke but it is turning it’s back on thousands of years of knowledge, yes thousands, think the Greeks. Who in the hell will know a university even exists in Auckland now it goes by a ridiculous Maori name. Good luck with attracting overseas students. Poor students already attending is all I can say. What a sad state of affairs.
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July 29, 2021 8:34am
- rangitoto
  
  Things started to go downhill when they stopped using Euclid’s elements as a textbook.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:54am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  But in twenty years time who will remember that Auckland University was once the Country’s leading University?
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:07am
- Pharmachick
  
  Me too.
  
  The thousands of years is spot on. My discipline arose separately in China, India, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, but the last 200 years have seen unprecedented innovation and eliminated disease on a grand scale (and treated symptoms). I simply do not want to ego backwards.
  
  When I got my PhD AKL Uni was in the top 100 according to the rankings, somewhere mid-80s.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:35am
  - Pharmachick
    
    Oh sigh, spell check again. *to go backwards (but bring on the “ego” comments, prolly deserve it).
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:36am
    - oldfella
      
      Pharma, your ego/self esteem is obviously well-earned so… Go, girl!
      Hope that’s brightened your day! 😉 🙂
      
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      July 29, 2021 12:24pm
      - Pharmachick
        
        Awww, thank you. ?
        
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        July 29, 2021 3:14pm
kowtow

I see the Media Pardy pushing a very strong pro Capitol Police agenda at the moment.

Funny that , only a short while ago the cops in the US were all racist murdering bastards.

The hypocrisy is astounding.
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July 29, 2021 8:34am
- MCos
  
  The start of the Jan 6 inquiry was interesting
  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/us/jan-6-inquiry.html?referringSource=articleShare
  
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  July 29, 2021 11:30am
  - Ed Snack
    
    Pure orchestrated theatre, the Dems are worried about the upcoming mid term elections (2022) as their internal polling is dire, so are using this as propaganda.
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:27pm
    - MCos
      
      Ed, mate.
      
      What exactly was orchestrated?
      Are you one of these people who think the whole assault was organised by agent provocateurs?
      
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      July 29, 2021 1:18pm
      - Cassandra
        
        The committee investigation is the theatre. Mid-terms Will almost certainly result in both chambers going Red (ie Republican, before anyone has a stroke).
        
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        July 29, 2021 2:14pm
      - MCos
        
        Are you suggesting there shouldn’t have been an inquiry?
        Is it the nature of the inquiry that concerns you?
        As I recall the Republicans stymied an independent inquiry.
        If a mob had assailed our parliament, burst into MPs offices and all the rest, too bloody right there would be an inquiry.
        Of course there was another player in the American version who has no counterpart in NZ both in status and willingness to encourage this sort of mayhem.
        
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        July 29, 2021 5:20pm
ABS4EVA

Anyone interested in Crowd Funding a professional investigation of Adhern?

imho SHE SHOULD FACE CRIMINAL CHARGES

From the Beehive to the Slammer

Time for her to spend some time with the people
she loves

CRIMINALS
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July 29, 2021 8:38am
Maggie Pie

Talking with friends over dinner last night about the millions-of dollars in taxpayer funds that Labor saw fit to splash on the ‘Mighty Mongrel Mob’ to secure the gang vote.

One of them brought up the case of Gisborne cop Nigel Hendrikse….. paralysed for life after being stabbed in the neck with a screwdriver thing by Mob member John Wharemako Gillies.

Wonder how Nigel feels today about Cindy’s largesse? 🙁

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3257498/Shattered-ex-cop-opposes-release-of-attacker
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July 29, 2021 8:42am
- surfing
  
  Mongrel mob have been destroying lives since they existed.
  
  It really shouldn’t need explanation.
  
  Shows the power of this government though, they can do the most odious things and still poll high.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:12am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Wasn’t it Cindy that said something like….
    “I could stand in the middle of Victoria Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any votes” ?
    
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    July 29, 2021 11:12am
alloytoo

Why are we so eager to abandon the principles of the Enlightenment, principles which have given us most of our science and technology,
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July 29, 2021 8:42am
- Ehlana
  
  I looked up traditional Western virtues recently, and got Prudence (reason), Temperance (self-restraint), Justice (fair dealing with others) and Courage (taking on and persevering through difficulty), as well as Faith, Hope and (the greatest of these) Love.
  
  It strikes me that they are all calls to conquer ourselves, to do the right thing rather than the easy thing, to think of others besides (and perhaps even before) ourselves.
  
  The fact I had to look up traditional Western values to find out what they are perhaps explains our current situation. At some point, we stopped passing these on and now the majority don’t know them. Perhaps when you lose touch with your own culture you become susceptible to anything someone else offers you?
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:38am
G152

Looks like the American public crowd used police crowd control tactics against them when they entered the Congress.
Videos are on line showing how force and intimidation are used by police to control crowds.
And it looks like some-one was watching and learning
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July 29, 2021 8:45am
I remember when

Interesting suggestion on Newshub this morning that the Commerce Commission Grocery sector study could open way for Government to enter market industry.
Tongue in cheek but was the seed planted.
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July 29, 2021 8:51am
- 70andstilllearning
  
  From the CC release:
  
  ““We consider the best options for improving competition are those that enable an increase in the number of retailers directly competing against Foodstuffs and Woolworths NZ for a consumer’s main shop.”
  
  These draft options for recommendations include:
  
  – Making it easier for new competitors to enter or existing independent retailers to expand by increasing wholesale access to a wide range of groceries at competitive prices. A spectrum of potential options for achieving this is discussed in the draft report.
  – Making land more available through changes to planning laws and restrictions on the use of covenants.
  
  If these options were not feasible, had proved ineffective, or did not appear likely to improve retail competition within the desired timeframe, another potential option is to directly stimulate retail competition by creating a further major grocery retailer.”
  
  KiwiMarket maybe? Cinder’s could run the wet fish dept and Robbo the till. Rest of their mob might make it as stackers!
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:50am
  - 70andstilllearning
    
    Soz – forgot ref:
    
    https://comcom.govt.nz/about-us/our-role/competition-studies/market-study-into-retail-grocery-sector/media-releases/commission-releases-draft-report-on-competition-in-the-retail-grocery-sector
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:53am
  - Bob
    
    This is the soft template for the introduction of ‘The Peoples Stores” -(Soviet Union style)- concept as a policy platform for the 2023 election.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:49am
    - Ed Snack
      
      So next we will have “Kiwistore”, the proudly NZ owned not so super market !
      
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      July 29, 2021 12:29pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Throughout history we have had countries and groups who tried to dictate the course of scientific endeavour.

Science advances knowledge because of the methodology it employs: Ideas – hypotheses- are offered for testing, criticism, refinement and rejection.

Ideas or views of how the Natural World operates which are not open for debate or testing belong to the realm of Belief/Religion or Pseudoscience.

During the 1930s folks in Nazi Germany became enamoured of placing their folk history on a “scientific” basis to prove the origins of the superior Aryan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahnenerbe
…Along the way, they decried “Jewish Science”.

More recently, powerful folks in USSR tried to dictate what were acceptable theories in Physics and structural chemistry

The peril of politicizing science
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475

The above account written by an American chemist, born and trained in Soviet Ukraine, shows parallels with today’s attempts by western Nations to mould science and education into a political strait-jacket of correct thought.

When leading institutions in NZ (universities, RSNZ,NZAssociation of Scientists) confuse and try to conflate indigenous folk-lore with Science , then we are in trouble.
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July 29, 2021 8:52am
- cmm
  
  Thanks Maggy those make an interesting read.
  
  Unfortunately the second link is marred by claims of airbrushing a photo. They are clearly not the same photo and are not taken from the same angle or at exactly the same time. While it is indeed possible that airbrushing occurred (and is known to have been done elsewhere), it is also plausible that the two people just moved in the period between these two photos being taken (as other people in the crowd have also moved). This comparison of two different, but similar, photos is a bit unfortunate.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:19am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    You’re right.. but the author has sourced where the images come from..and if you look carefully, there seems to just be a few moments’ difference between events in the 2 images….some folks have turned heads slightly…..nothing to suggest a major rearrangement in the locations of Trotsky & Kamenev.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:17am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      The Trotsky- Kamenev removal is well documented
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union
      
      Lenin’s speech
      On May 5, 1920, Lenin gave a famous speech to a crowd of Soviet troops in Sverdlov Square, Moscow. In the foreground were Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev. The photo was later altered and both were removed by censors.
      
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      July 29, 2021 10:21am
    - cmm
      
      Yup, as I said, it could very well be that this was doctored, but there are far more open and shut examples where exactly the same photo was doctored.
      
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      July 29, 2021 10:32am
      - tf78
        
        cmm, like the cigarette being removed from the Beatles Abbey Road cover.
        
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        July 29, 2021 11:32am
      - Fuzzysnuggleduck
        
        Yes, Stalin also got rid of Yezhov (head of secret police) from pictures after he was ‘purged’.
        https://www.history.com/news/josef-stalin-great-purge-photo-retouching
        
        Even excess watches air brushed off soviet soldiers (because means looting by troops).
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union
        
        The Soviets manipulated images even more than the Coca-cola drinkers and their faked moon-landing!/sarc.
        
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        July 29, 2021 4:00pm
- Jack5
  
  Fine post, Maggy.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:14am
- Pharmachick
  
  “Along the way, they decried “Jewish Science”.”
  
  And how did that work out for them? Something, something Manhattan Project.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:40am
  - Jack5
    
    Pharmachick, but did Jewish people regard Jewish scientists’ work as “Jewish science”?
    
    Yes, Hungarian Jews – Szilard, Teller, Wigner, von Neumann – especially contributed much to the development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs, though the Manhattan project employed 125,000 people at its peak.
    
    A web site says Szislard, Wigner, and possibly Teller went to the same high school in Budapest, “leading a friend to joke about the atomic bomb being basically a Hungarian high school science fair project.”
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:49am
    - Pharmachick
      
      Excellent point Jack5 – they did not. I was trying (poorly as it happens) to point out what an absolute nonsense everything the Nazis espoused was. And Nazis aside, that if you try to skew science in these ridiculous ways, it will come back and bite you on the, well, somewhere.
      
      Here’s a recent example – if sloganeering and propagandizing replaces a proper co-ordinated public health and medical response, what happens to your vaccine rollout? (rhetorical)
      
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      July 29, 2021 11:37am
      - Fuzzysnuggleduck
        
        To my ears, “Maori science’ reminded me of ‘Jewish science’ as in a tool of political aims.
        
        The difference is, “Maori science” is a term for expected slavish and dogmatic praise for something pretty illusory.
        Emperors New Clothes sort of folly.
        
        Jewish science was a word to denounce.
        What they both have in common as falsehoods, is the idea that science has any sort of race-basis, or racial ownership. Just a way to flattering and pander to Maori, a sort of racism of low-expectations taken to extremes.
        A step backwards IMO.
        
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        July 29, 2021 4:19pm
Brian McDonald

Barry belts it out for the the whuhu fluers:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-barry-soper-official-fiji-numbers-clearly-disguise-whats-really-happening/X2FRYXOXJ4YC6IH2TZHBKZHM6I/
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July 29, 2021 8:54am
- WaveyDavey
  
  Massively corrupt third world country is third world
  
  What a shock to us all
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:06am
- Opie
  
  Someone get the Fijians some ivermectin asap…
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:15am
- Greg Ettridge
  
  I know this is a very controversial question.
  What is the average BMI of Fijians?
  The highest I have come across is a little town back of Brisbane, doctor told me years ago average was 42.5.
  The beast is very brutal to the obese.
  30 plus and and it has a good chance of you succumbing if you are infected.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:08am
  - Jack5
    
    BMI is a weird measure when it comes to health.
    
    Some GPs hammer it, but when you take up regular gym exercise – and improve your health – BMI can increase.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:40am
    - Pharmachick
      
      Agreed. Its massively biased towards people of white European ancestry as well because that’s where the original population-based parameterizations were developed. A much better measure is hip-to-waist ratio. BMI seems to have captured the imagination of a bunch of medical and nutrition researchers, but seems to be the tide is turning. We also have trouble with modelling “average” humans b/c the standardized weight parameterizations are so old (68kg for women, 70 kg for men) –> relevance: is used occasionally for individualizing doses, except our massively awesome oncologists that tend to use body surface area b/c the drugs are so toxic, they don’t have as much wiggle room on the toxicity front.
      
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      July 29, 2021 11:46am
      - KevO'Brien
        
        I thought sprague dawley rats were used for modelling. They pop up in lots of papers.
        
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        July 29, 2021 12:47pm
      - Pharmachick
        
        The SD rats can be allometrically scaled (3/4 power) but that’s a very blunt instrument (heh, we still do it though). They are also nasty and get smarter with age, I hate rat bites – don’t work with them much anymore.
        
        The BMI estimation came from the original NHANES study and then collated data from the National Center for Health Statistics in the US.
        
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        July 29, 2021 12:53pm
      - Fuzzysnuggleduck
        
        I think BMI is a poor measure even for Whitey.
        I am deemed just the wrong side of overweight, but I dare say it is muscle. I am heavier than I once was, but train several times a week and probably in the best shape of my life physique wise.
        I lost a few kgs a while back, and was just inside ‘normal’ and I was too bloody thin. Back to mid-90s now, and 6 foot tall.
        Need a proper body fat test to really tell how much flab you are carrying. Not just weight & height.
        
        But I wont take the excuse too far; around BMI being unfair to Polynesians at the same time – the truly morbidly obese are clearly that.
        Polynesians, as a society (and only themselves) need to eat better and take more care of themselves.
        
        At the supermarket last night I saw a Maori lady with belly flab literally down to near her knees, picking out 6 large cans of energy drink with her shopping.
        Death in a can.
        I was thinking, when you are drunk the retailer can’t sell you booze.
        Perhaps some of these people digging graves with their teeth need to be told “sorry sir/ma’am, you are too fat. I can’t serve you”.
        So BMI is not accurate, but some races REALLY do have issues with obesity out of proportion to others.
        And it sure ain’t the spectre of colonisation loading up those shopping trolleys.
        
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        July 29, 2021 4:26pm
      - KevO'Brien
        
        Could the Polynesian body fat inclination be hereditary? In the islands it serves a useful purpose during hurricane season. The visible chiefly classes survived those awful lean times before the next seasons crops are available. Chiefs daughters were purposely fattened up and beauty was recognised accordingly.
        Transpose those people to NZ and they seem to continue on a larger scale than the others. The hurricanes have been with them for seemingly ever so those needs are well ingrained. Maori arrived here from 7 distinct origins but the area of Hawaiiki is not small and whole mid pacific region is a hurricane playground.
        
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        July 29, 2021 8:18pm
    - cmm
      
      Yes, BMI is oversimplified, but it is only really inaccurate when:
      * dealing with very short or very tall people (short get too low a score and tall too high a score).
      * trying to use extremely precise cut off points (eg. 29.9 being overweight, but 30.0 being obese).
      
      If used as a broad brush indicator then it is far more useful.
      
      Some point out that some All Blacks have a BMI around 32 or so. That BMI is an imprecise indicator in that way does not mean it is flawed for the massively obese.
      
      What needs to be done away with is having a single crisp number for BMI obesity levels. It is broken to say everyone that has a BMI of over 30 is obese abd lump them together when, clearly, people with a BMI of 31 are nowhere near the same risk profile as people with a BMI of 45.
      
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      July 29, 2021 12:35pm
      - Pharmachick
        
        Maybe a good approach to have bands rather than cutoffs.
        
        I’d rather re-work the data set using an ethnically diverse set of millions of international individuals. The derived equation would likely change. The thing about BMI is it uses simple algebra – easy to use. We could easily run up some sort of exponential, but (and yes I know exponentials are also algebra) my Uni students can barely cope with exponents so… And Dog forbid it would be a differential (Although that would be more accurate, and everybody uses their iPad these days anyway, including for the dosage adjustments I referenced above) 😉
        
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        July 29, 2021 12:45pm
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        BMI was made mass÷height² because long ago it was hard to calculate a fractional exponent. It assumes (obviously badly) that regardless of height we should all be exactly the same cross sectional area when cut through on a horizontal plane – no proportionality. But many researchers have identified that the exponent should be higher – more like 2.5. BMI makes tall look unfairly bad and short look unfairly good.
        
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        July 29, 2021 1:13pm
      - Pharmachick
        
        @Urban, I can neither confirm nor deny there may possibly;y be a guest post on IVIVE and PBPK contributing to “first human” trials scaling from pre clinical models, among another few (ir)regular guest posts as each one is approved or dismissed by our dear host.
        
        FYI: https://caat.jhsph.edu/programs/awards/AWE/index.html
        
        scroll down about 10/11 paragraphs…
        
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        July 29, 2021 2:53pm
  - WaveyDavey
    
    Who knew that being massively obese, living on an incredibly unhealthy diet and high levels of humidity would worsen your chances with a potentially fatal respiratory infection?
    
    But enough about South Auckland
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:26pm
- tf78
  
  Brian, a few years ago we had reason to take a friend to a Fiji Hospital. Honestly the humid air was so thick with germs I had to leave. Two guys were busy building a maternity wing using a concrete mixer. I don’t think they would have had a chance to start with.
  
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  July 29, 2021 11:38am
Frank the tank

Anyone else notice that the 2 Maori guests (Osborne and Gear) for OneWokeSports’ coverage of the sevens final spoke less Maori (actually none) than the presenter.

As for the “Journalist” at the games that they crossed to. He made Stacey Morrison’s missus sound like Phillip Sherry given the lack of his command of English.

As for the team – beaten by a better team lads. Next time don’t pray to a stick and focus more on your one-on-one tackles.
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July 29, 2021 9:07am
- Cinematic
  
  7’s appears to be the most religious sport in NZ by some way. Baffling.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:24am
- MCos
  
  “Anyone else notice . . blah blah”
  
  Just you.
  
  Everyone else was distracted by all those aerial shots.
  
  Apart from that the Fijian team was obviously the better team.
  
  I was pleased to see the UK not presented with minor medals and refuse to wear them as their counterparts did in Tokyo a couple of years ago at the RWC.
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:06pm
Maggie Pie

TRENDING…

“Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London”

https://twitter.com/CrimeLdn/status/1420420190978945030

What a s.h.i.t.h.o.l.e. 😀
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July 29, 2021 9:09am
- kevn
  
  @Maggie… Khans London. Knife crime capital.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:27am
- The Voice of Legions
  
  London now looks like a failed African state. But diversity is strength, so I guess that makes it a good thing.
  
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  July 29, 2021 11:54am
KevO'Brien

a real scientist Dr Willie Soon speaks on climate issues.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/28/dr-willie-soon-predicts-global-cooling-slams-politicised-science/

Two items in that reference. The second one is his observations about global cooling ahead. There are many others in agreement with his findings. Our silly politicians may get caught with their heads in the sands.

The Sun does not march to Greta Thunberg’s orders.
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July 29, 2021 9:17am
- In Vino Veritas
  
  C’mon Kev, the science is settled. Everyone knows that global cooling is a symptom of global warming and proves warming.
  
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  July 29, 2021 9:41am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Prove it.
    There are a group out there who have detected the sun has influence on the Earth. When it withdrew its spots previously there was ice skating and fairs on the Thames. (Probably a few frozen Chiefs here too.)
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:51pm
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      It’s easy to prove Kev. An ice age would be the perfect proof. Everyone knows that warming is really freezing. Logically, if it freezes, then there’s only one way to go. The science is settled. By all scientists. Except of course, by those that don’t get it.
      
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      July 29, 2021 2:03pm
Cinematic

Distressingly low number of new Delta infections in the UK. Statistically paltry number of daily deaths and we all know those are overstated anyway.

Imagine the anxiety amongst the Covid Crew.
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July 29, 2021 9:22am
- Ed Snack
  
  I do see where over half of those identified as having Covid in recent admissions to UK hospitals were admitted as a result of other issues first with the Covid test being carried out at admission. So Covid was NOT the reason for over half the admissions; though it may of course have contributed to that admission, we don’t have any information on the causes of the admission to know that.
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:35pm
I remember when

Why don’t farmers just accept that they have largely been farming the wrong way.
Can’t they see that Organic or Regenerative farming is the way they should be operating.
It’s hard to see why farmers the world over are using nitrates when they clearly aren’t needed.
Are they unable to see that officials, who have lived in the city their whole life, know more about how to farm than they do.
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July 29, 2021 9:25am
Maggie Pie

My partner dropped a couple of K with his bookie last night on the 7’s final. Got good odds on NZ @12 and over.
Reckons he should have known better…given the state of Fiji at present, now thinks the team were probably got to with the ‘Be Kind’ message.
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July 29, 2021 9:49am
lazza

Quote: “Clearly, the answer must be that Speakers Corner needs to be shut down /sarc”

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!

No really.

It is only a matter of time, what with Woke views in the ascendency … that Speakers Corner is banned …

While here in Godzone, our current useless government can be guaranteed to suppress free thinking/speech under the veil/guise of hate speech or some-such … using some other implausible political double talk.
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July 29, 2021 9:56am
Short Shriveled and Slightly to the Left

Glenn McConnell has to be the worst journalist in NZ…. Quite a high honour really. Do his articles ever have relevant points? Today’s argument… Maori science is better than “Western Science” (not a real thing) because sewage……
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July 29, 2021 9:57am
- Jack5
  
  McConnell tries to define science as “Western science”, then cites the ancient Indian civilisations. He could have cited China as well.
  
  But there is only “science”, not “Western science”.
  
  Greece, India, China all contributed to science. The Mayans, with their own writing and maths systems, contributed to science. They could calculate solar eclipses, for example, and that’s miles ahead of celebrating Matariki or Pleiades, as so many indigenous peoples did.
  
  Tell us please, Glenn McConnell, what Maori have contributed to science.
  
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  July 29, 2021 11:30am
  - Paulus
    
    KFC !
    
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    July 29, 2021 1:45pm
- Swifty
  
  It was utterly pathetic today, even for him.
  
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  July 29, 2021 11:33am
- Yabster
  
  what do you mean Journalist…?
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:06pm
- WaveyDavey
  
  Poor wee Glenn was never a journalist
  
  He went from intern to opinion-writer without passing go, or indeed any real-world knowledge or experience
  
  TBF, it must suck to know that you’re only in the position that you are because of the oppression points
  
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  July 29, 2021 2:16pm
lazza

Thank You Maggy … for this quite brilliant post.

Wow!

Quote: “Maggy Wassilieff
Throughout history we have had countries and groups who tried to dictate the course of scientific endeavour”.
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July 29, 2021 10:00am
westernScientest

A random rant in defence of science and knowledge

Science in and of itself is not about finding ‘truth’ its about showing something is false, at lest this is the Karl Popper view.

I think we need to make a clear distinction between Knowledge – a conceptual model of how something is, which works well enough to be useful – and science – the method by which we evaluate the performance of those conceptional models about the universe.

How we come up with knowledge is kind of irrelevant if it works (if we dont care about efficiency), how we test the model is very important, something that ‘feels’ is not a good way of doing so, and leads to all sorts of rubbish. Of course we have limited resources, so we should try to make the best use of them for the maximum gain.

The ‘western’ way of gaining knowledge/creating conceptual models are somewhat intertwined with the concept of falsification and how we test the performance of those models (science), this leads to a feedback loop creating fairly rapid development of more useful models. What commonly gets called the scientific method.

The trial and error method or some observation of a pattern with the assumption that the pattern will repeat (eg. cmm’s cat) is a pretty naive and inefficient way of generating knowledge.

Science (falsification) is a completely culturally independent method for testing the validity of ideas and is logically provable to be, at worst, the best equal method with any other potential method for evaluating a falsifiable statement.

Knowledge is a cultural construct, a societies generally agreed apron models of the world. Western culture does – or used to – have good methods and accepted norms for how to develop this knowledge which is loosely called the scientific method, creating falsifiable hypothesis for testing etc. which performed well at generating models of the universe which were useful for things which improved our quality of life.

Lots of ancient cultures got by fine, and kept reproducing, didnt die out while using simple naive cmm’s cat like methods. Lots did die out as well of course. And a number did some pretty horrible things to each other, even quite recently.

Whats most saddening is looking at what happened during/after the fall of Rome, as humans we lost near on 1000 years of knowledge progression because of a reversion to these sub par, naive methods which provide all sorts of poor models, think of the ridicule of Galileo and countless faceless people who never managed to get their better models of the universe out to other thinkers of their leaders aversion to ideas which did not suite their narrative. And at a more human level, the witch trials, and similar which still occur in parts of the world today. As a species we could have advanced so much more if the we hadn’t been plunged back into the dark ages.
I fear this is where the world is heading once again.
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July 29, 2021 10:01am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I fear this is where the world is heading once again.
  
  No, not the World.
  
  Some politicians in India and China may jump on nationalist bandwagons and push aspects of pseudoscience, but the intelligent masses can see that the knowledge and inventions of modern science have pulled Millions of their people out of wretched poverty.
  
  They won’t want to revert to life as it was for their grandparents.
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:04pm
  - cmm
    
    It only takes a generation to lose that context.
    
    Starvation was the norm for the world until about the 1970s or so. For Europeans it was the norm until well into the 1800s, but few of us have ever seen hungry/starving people so can’t make the connection.
    
    The people that want to turn back the clock (because Westerners are Evil) probably do not realise that it will wipe out the poor people first. If Westernism is defeated then the first people back into poverty are going to be the last out: mainly black and brown people.
    
    One just needs to look at how Southern Africa has gone: once a productive area exporting abundant food, now not a single country there can feed itself (except South Africa during a good year). Any stress on the world food supply and those people will be dying like flies.
    
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    July 29, 2021 12:50pm
lifesgood

Very interesting piece on the Bolt Report last night about the US gymnast Simone Biels(?) who has opted out of the olympics. Bolt, while not for one moment dismissing people’s mental health problems, suggested that she just couldn’t take losing so chose to opt. After all she has called herself the GOAT, ,i.e. greatest Olympian of all time and even has a jewel studded goat on her leotard. Bolt then had a psychologist on who said that it was surprising that any evidence of mental problems did not show up before she entered the competition and had a bad performance. She thought that Simone just threw an almighty tantrum because she stuffed up. Simone was just too full of herself and as the saying goes – pride comes before a fall.
Naomi Osaka claimed mental health problems too and said she needed to escape publicity – next minute she is posing for fashion mags and doing interviews all over the show. I would always support someone with genuine health problems but I suspect Simone looked at what Naomi did and said “Me too”. Claiming mental health problems looks to be becoming fashionable. The danger is that people will start to ignore genuine ones.
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July 29, 2021 10:04am
- Fletch
  
  Paul Joseph Watson rightfully gives her the treatment.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33eCt8nR2xw
  
  But you know, she just didn’t “feel it” after making a mistake. I think she thinks too highly of herself and is making excuses.
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:45pm
  - lifesgood
    
    Yes, he nails it. Re: opting out of elite sport “Mental health is a refuge for failure” and “It isn’t mental illness, it’s an excuse.” She will no longer be know as, in her own words, The Greatest Of All Time. Bad thing to believe your own publicity.
    
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    July 29, 2021 4:14pm
- Paulus
  
  But are they not now extremely rich as well ?
  
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  July 29, 2021 1:47pm
Jack5

The Medieval-scale push to define Maori lore into science is shaping up to be tiny New Zealand’s mini-version of the Church going after Galileo.

Of course Maori knowledge isn’t science as the word is generally accepted and used in the world.

Maori knowledge is the lore of an indigenous people without a written knowledge, isolated from the rest of the world for centuries, and who had forgotten their ocean-sailing skills. Their tools were Stone Age, their technology hadn’t reached the stage of the wheel.

The NZ Association of Scientists was reported yesterday as saying it was dismayed at see Maori knowledge’s value to science being questioned so publicly by prominent academics.

(The Herald headline over this report said: “Scientists rubbish Auckland University professors’ letter claiming Maori knowledge is not science.”)

Shame! Attacking scientists – perhaps its own members – for expressing views on the question of what is science?

Meanwhile, last night I posted, too late to appear, a background of Professor Joanna Kidman, the Victoria University of Wellington sociologist who attacked scientists who challenged whether there was such a thing as Maori science.

Kidman described the scientists as “shuffling zombies”.

To read Kidman’s background have a look at yesterday’s General Debate a few posts up from the bottom.

[ https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2021/07/general_debate_28_july_2021.html#comment-2983023 ]
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July 29, 2021 10:07am
- Odakyu-sen
  
  If Maori knowledge was science, some overseas power would have stolen it by now.
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:46pm
MrTips

Ah, the paradise of the Ardern-led Labour New Zealand:

Cops are leaving the force and money promised to them for new recruits has not been forthcoming.

Hospital EDs are crying out for money and staff as they are overloaded and overworked.

Qualified, highly skilled immigrants are being ignored and giving up to go home.

The govt can’t even collect money from MIQ “clients” who are held “captive” for two weeks!

Our COVID vaccine rollout is a shambles .

Rural NZ, tradies and anyone whose livelihood depends on the primary sector or small business have had protested enough!

Despite a so-called “climate emergency” we are importing record amounts of coal!

We have mental health crisis, the likes of which we have never seen before. Even the Guardian admits it.

Despite Jacinda’s promise, we have RECORD numbers of children in poverty .

The housing crisis just gets worse .

Jacinda and team have had 4 years now. Whatever problems were there when they took over, they’ve got worse. And they’ve created MAJOR new ones.
They can’t blame COVID – can’t blame the weather, or a nutter gunman, or a volcano……..

They are the most dangerously incompetent Govt in living memory (maybe of all time) and need to go.
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July 29, 2021 10:19am
- MrTips
  
  Apologies, the link to the Guardian mental health article should be this:
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/01/new-zealand-mental-health-crisis-has-worsened-under-labour-data-shows
  
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  July 29, 2021 11:37am
- surfing
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-young-regional-gp-with-1300-patients-leaves-new-zealand-following-residency-limbo/PB7I2SWONUF6ZHOJUZF7HYQLKQ/
  
  This Otaki GP was caring for 1300 rural patients and now they have no doctor due to government incompetence!
  
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  July 29, 2021 1:59pm
Ehlana

Hmm, I am observing a similarity here Tomtoddy. A word is redefined by a minority without any input from the majority to suit their purposes and then anyone who objects that their redefinition makes the word meaningless is pilloried. “Science” follows “woman” in this regard.
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July 29, 2021 10:20am
curry4me

ASTERISK PRESIDENCY: Episode 28.
Direct from Harveywood, here is this week’s episode of Asterisk Presidency. Brought to you by the CCP, MSM, Wall Street, $oros, ANTIFA, BLM, CDC, Nordstream, globalists, ‘academia’, FBI, CIA, NSA, and Cuba.

Will people go to jail over the Durham report? Will Sleepy Joe remember what his job is? Will Quemala, or ‘Dr Jill’ have to remind him? Who will underestimate Sleepy Joe’s ability to f— things up this week? Is Brian Stelter the only reason people hate the MSM? Will Dr Fauci and Rand exchange Christmas cards? Will he get a subpoena instead? Will people become nostalgic for Carterflation? Will the polls keep falling as Bidenflation rises? Would a ‘president Quemala’ stop the fall, and reverse Bisenflation? Will lava lamps make a comeback? Does Quemala have the CCP virus? Will Sleepy Joe get it? Can ‘Dr Jill’ keep him healthy? Can Hunter do an ‘artwork’ featuring blue vein cheese? Will Sleepy Joe let Cubans in if they register as Democrats? Is Raoul Castro getting fan mail from BLM supporters? Would that make the presitator jealous? Do more Americans want BLM investigated than Jan 6th? Will the Floyd riots be investigated next? Will optimism about the future plunge another 20 points? Will it match the performance of the Olympic teams? Which woke Olympic sport will be humiliated next? Is the soccer team really avoiding goals to support BLM? Will BLM avoid ‘peaceful riots’ to reciprocate? Will Seattle get the cops the mayor begged for? Will they wear BLM badges? Is abortion a tool of modern day eugenics? Will there be fake vaccination cards? Are there fake IDs? Will they become a staple of sitcoms too? Have Ben & Jerrys Joined the Squad? Will the eviction moratorium be lifted? Will a Trump Republican replace Joy Behar? Will the jab be mandatory for federal employees? Will CRT be re-branded as ‘School Equity’? Will anyone believe that? Who will the NSA unmask next? Stay tuned folks!
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July 29, 2021 10:42am
I remember when

NZ Herald 8/7/21: Labour shifts the goal posts on forestry goals, it’s first policy of 2020:
“Last July, Labour’s Rural Communities spokesman Kieran McAnulty and Forestry spokesman Stuart Nash promised that within 6 months of becoming Government they would amend the National Environmental Standards for Plantation Forestry to allow councils to decide what classes of land can be used for plantation and carbon forests.
Resource Consent would have been required for plantation forests forests to be grown on land known as ‘elite soils.’
That original policy has been canned, as has the 6-month deadline, which expired 2 months ago.
The Government’s response will have an impact on demand for trees to sequester carbon.”
Apparently there is some concern about the need to balance pine and native plantings amongst other reasons.
Are the Government considering the use of pine forestry for electricity to replace coal fired generation needs.
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July 29, 2021 11:03am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Plant only in natives and sequester carbon over 300 years.
  Our pinus radiata is ready for felling in less than 30 years.
  Stupidity bears many heads.
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:51pm
[email protected]

“High prices, high profits could mean supermarkets forced to sell stores”.

Anyone care to bet that this will actually result in higher prices rather than lower prices?
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July 29, 2021 11:29am
- Tall Man
  
  Exactly.
  
  Price gouging at the till is only one side of the coin, screwing the supplier down is the other and three players will increase competition for the goods therefore will increase prices.
  
  If a chain like Aldi doesn’t want to come here there must be a reason and I doubt excessive profits would count …..
  
  Simplifying the supply chain would have an impact, reducing fuel/road uder charges would also make a difference.
  
  Legislating changes will be like all ardern’s effort and simply make things worse.
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:10pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Belting the supply chain around will just increase prices. Both suppliers, wholesale stockists, financiers and end sellers all have to have to live. That means a surplus for all parties or there will be no product on the shelves anyway.
    
    Warning Commie Cinders on prowl to take over all supply.
    
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    July 29, 2021 3:47pm
Loddenthinks

An Auckland woman contracts some really nasty skin infections after swimming in the sea off Devonport after shaving her legs – https://digichat.info/2021/07/28/bad-womens-skin-infection-likely-caused-by-swimming-in-the-sea-after-shaving-legs/

But it’s the farmers who’re getting punished and beaten up by this useless government, and us taxpayers funding the propaganda and misinformation program called Three Waters.

Yeah, that’s really stink, aye?
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July 29, 2021 11:38am
Maggie Pie

CNN reporting the guitar player from ‘ZZ Top’ has died.
One of my faves tbh. Like to play this at full noise when I pull up at tennis. Everyone always looks over to see who it is 😀

https://youtu.be/RG49m_2oNMQ
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July 29, 2021 11:38am
- Fletch
  
  It’s the bass player….
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:43pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Tres Hombres
    
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    July 29, 2021 3:56pm
Maggie Pie

TRENDING….

Just like our 7’s team, Barry Sopher [Soper] reporting the ‘BE KIND’ message has also gone out to the DHB.

The indigenous Fijian WHO worker with the Delta virus is now on his way here to Middlemore after initially being refused entry.
Barry was saying the Beehive has stepped in at the UN’s request.

Doctors here are spewing Baz reckons.
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July 29, 2021 12:30pm
- Nickc2
  
  [Deleted – not a topic for speculation here. Mod.]
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:36pm
- cmm
  
  Remember #CinD4UN!
  Got to look after the UN.
  
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  July 29, 2021 12:53pm
- kris
  
  Hmmm so the PM can “be kind” to a foreign national for political reasons, but not to a citizen – remember the case of Abby Hartley in 2018?
  https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/09/duncan-garner-blasts-government-for-abandoning-abby-hartley.html
  
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  July 29, 2021 1:46pm
- cmm
  
  Here’s a doc that’s given up due to not getting residency: Going home to Wales! Geez – leaving NZ for Wales must be desperation.
  
  Now there are 1300 patients more on the market searching for a doc. Maybe some Magic Maori Medical Science can come to the rescue?
  
  When I was in hospital around April last year I was attended by a highly capable, friendly Canadian nurse who was also battling to get residence.
  
  What the hell is wrong with these people? Keeping the high quality, high value people out of NZ is not going to be good long term.
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-young-regional-gp-with-1300-patients-leaves-new-zealand-following-residency-limbo/PB7I2SWONUF6ZHOJUZF7HYQLKQ/
  
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  July 29, 2021 2:02pm
- Surely Knott
  
  If she works for WHO then surely she’s fully vaccinated? So why is she so sick with the COVID?
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:18pm
  - DeepBlue
    
    Maybe she is seriously sick with something else, and has Covid.
    
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    July 29, 2021 10:12pm
kris

So the Fijian national who was previously refused entry to NZ for hospital treatment of the ‘rona is now arriving here this afternoon and being sent to Middlemore (ironically whose catchment demographic is possibly the most at-risk in NZ).
The change of heart would appear to be because this person works for the UNDP, and Helen Clark (ex UNDP head) would “neither confirm nor deny” she helped make it happen (according to Stuff https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300368893/covid19-helen-clark-says-united-nations-involved-in-nzs-uturn-to-accept-positive-fiji-case ).
So if Helen isn’t denying it, she almost certainly was involved, plus we know how the PM likes to curry favour with the UN. Clearly the PM cares more about the wellbeing of a single foreign diplomat, than the residents of south Auckland.
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July 29, 2021 12:34pm
- MrTips
  
  Lets get real – we all know how this played out:
  
  cell phone rings
  Ardern: “Helen darling, how are y…..”
  Clark: “no time for groveling Jacinda. This UNDP worker with the rona in Fiji. It seems the MoH barred them, but Immigration let the ISIS bride in. Don’t you know how bad that looks?”
  Adern: “wot?”
  ClarK: “here’s what you’re going to do. Let me handle it and tell that smelly mob you call a Cabinet to go along with it. Capiche?”
  Ardern: “of course, all part of the plan for a 2023 UN gig right?”
  Clark: “just do it…..” click
  
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  July 29, 2021 1:17pm
- krazykiwi
  
  Helen Clark definitely has ‘form’ when it comes to getting favoured people out of extremely tight spots.
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:22pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGNsZHYsxaY

When will the Canada-US border open?

At 5,525 miles the Canada-US border is the longest in the world. And for the last 16 months it has been shut. Unprecedented in modern times, the closure, and eventual re-opening has been an ongoing question for citizens on both sides since it shut. With citizens, business leaders and now even high level politicians advocating for it’s reopening, are we any closer to getting a definitive answer? [5:04]
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July 29, 2021 1:07pm
- I remember when
  
  As Joe said “Where’s Canada again?”
  
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  July 29, 2021 2:29pm
  - curry4me
    
    I remember when: Q: What do you get when you take the USA, and remove all the interesting stuff?
    A: Canada.
    
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    July 29, 2021 9:56pm
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP_aFsG299w

Even PBS News Hour Host Is Skeptical of Fauci’s Latest Rule Change.

Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks about Dr. Fauci making it official that the mask mandate is reinstated for vaccinated people indoors if they live in a COVID hot spot. The Delta variant has caused this new wave of fear. Dave also shares a highlight reel of all of Fauci’s disinformation and confusing messages on face masks. [6:43]
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July 29, 2021 1:08pm
- cmm
  
  Is Facci [Fauci] back to his two masks makes sense nonsense again?
  
  You’d think with the Dreaded Delta they’d be up to at least 4 masks by now.
  
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  July 29, 2021 2:05pm
- kowtow
  
  ‘The Delta variant has caused this new wave of fear.’
  
  Could I suggest that it’s the Media Pardy that has caused this new wave of fear …….as they have done all along.
  
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  July 29, 2021 2:41pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  The Delta Wave is a new bogeyman. It’s existence is highly dubious. Some state that it is the manifestation of the after affects of the COVID jabbing. So safe and comforting; compassionate population reduction?
  
  This all fits well with the WEF planned Great Reset.
  
  Where is a little truth when a big lie is lurking?
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:39pm
Nickc2

An excellent summary of where we are today and how we got where we are WRT apartheid in lil-olde-NZ.
https://thebfd.co.nz/2021/07/29/ross-meurant-apartheid-in-new-zealand-if-i-must-go-to-jail-for-saying-this-then-so-it-be/
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July 29, 2021 1:13pm
Maggie Pie

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MONEY.

Pfizer has been extremely aggressive in trying to protect their international COVID19 VACCINE agreements….

A twitter bestie has managed to get his hands on one.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1419653002818990085.html
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July 29, 2021 1:16pm
- Inandout
  
  Maggie, Pfizer won’t get my dose so the taxpayer will save $17.
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:43pm
- virtualmark
  
  Note that this is a contract that would have been signed before any results were available from the Phase III trials and before Pfizer had any large-scale manufacturing of a brand new type of vaccine up and running. So the contract quite rationally includes a lot of provisions that cover the uncertainties of whether the vaccine would work, and whether Pfizer would ever be able to manufacture it in volume.
  
  Read section 3.2 carefully. The US$12 per dose is partial consideration … basically it’s the deposit you have to pay to Pfizer before they will despatch the product to you. Then there will be a further payment on delivery.
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:41pm
I remember when

William H Ukers, Historian:
“Everywhere coffee is introduced, revolutions have happened.
It is a radical drink and its function was always to make people think.
And when people think, it is dangerous for tyranny and those who oppose liberty.”
Does this explain the obedience shown during the lockdown.
And perhaps some of the actions once cafes were open again.
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July 29, 2021 1:33pm
Surely Knott

University of Auckland is holding an open day.

To sign up for the open day you have to state your race and your gender. There is no option to not state your gender – you must chose between male, female and gender diverse. You cannot opt out of stating your race by answering “other”. But you cannot register without stating your gender.

openday.ac.nz

I do not want to. My race or gender is none of their business. And it’s a state funded university. I should be able to attend and apply without prejudice.
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July 29, 2021 1:42pm
- septic skeptic
  
  It does seem that race is the single most important thing in our current society. Closely followed by any other segmentation along the lines of gender, sex or religion.
  
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  July 29, 2021 2:26pm
- Pharmachick
  
  Thank you, as an alumna I will be sending a response to this.
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:08pm
- alloytoo
  
  Choose Gender Diverse then.
  
  If all of us do that then it becomes as good as meaningless……especially when they come to do diversity charts.
  
  Do the same with race, choose one arbitrarily, or the option which you think is least represented.
  
  (This advice obviously does not apply to genuine personal healthcare information collection.)
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:25pm
- KevO'Brien
  
  What has race or gender have to do with an open day?
  Are the Uni concerned about how many black people turn up? Possible riots?
  Are they recruiting for Gay Pride?
  
  Their conduct seems unlawful as it goes against citizenship rights.
  
  Nothing worse than a pigheaded academia. I’m pleased I escaped that fate. I expect institutions like universities to set an example of lawful behaviour, not corrupt it Jacinda style. One lot of rot does not authorise another.
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:34pm
  - cmm
    
    Targeted advertising.
    
    Remember the “free fees” thing was not a gift to students. It was a gift to the people who work at the universities.
    
    That is why they are pecking each other to death over the Maori science bollocks. It is all about protecting their little trough.
    
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    July 29, 2021 3:42pm
    - alloytoo
      
      Gosh the Arts trough is deep enough, can’t they leave the sciences alone?
      
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      July 29, 2021 4:58pm
- Loddenthinks
  
  I went there to have a look. I kid you not, the very first words are “Open Day. Your way.”
  
  Apparently “Your way” really means “our way or the highway.”
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:41pm
- Loddenthinks
  
  That’s not correct, Surely. I just went and registered without going near that question. I simply clicked on Next to see what would happen, and it went to the next page with no problems at all.
  
  Just leave it as Please select or better still don’t even click on it, and you’ll be fine.
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:47pm
- tf78
  
  Surely, does Human Race and gender fluid cut the mustard?
  
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  July 30, 2021 7:16am
Maggie Pie

UPDATE.

Just checked under our stairs cupboard and see we still have 31 packs (8s) of the ‘Sorbent King’ toilet rolls left.
In light of Barry Soper’s midday report, to be on the safe-side, my partner has suggested I should shoot up to NW and grab another 20 outers.

May pay for others in the group to do the same…?
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July 29, 2021 2:33pm
- Tall Man
  
  So a question that springs to mind, in your house, who gives who the shits?
  
  Asking for McCos ……..
  
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  July 29, 2021 2:39pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Just in case you are caught short…
  I would like to mention some other solutions:
  
  1. The leaves of rangiora
  https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/13866/rangiora-leaves
  
  2. Three stones
  3. A sponge on a stick
  4. A stick
  https://religionunplugged.com/news/2020/5/6/islamic-and-hindu-toilet-customs-wipe-out-need-for-toilet-papernbsp
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:25pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Thnx Maggs!
    We do have a ‘Hello Tushy’ installed on 3 of the toilets…..but not the one out in the Pool House.
    I don’t think we’ve got a Rangiora tree growing anywhere, although we do have a big Rubber Plant in the billiard room.
    
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    July 29, 2021 4:03pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      I think the billiard balls would be a better option than the Rubber (Ficus) plant..
      You wouldn’t want to get any of that white oozy latex or the dried crystals on your delicate lady bits.
      
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      July 29, 2021 4:59pm
      - Maggie Pie
        
        Funnily enuff my partner was saying he saw billiard balls being used for something similar in Bangkok once.
        Maybe Cossie could expand on that for us?
        
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        July 29, 2021 6:34pm
krazykiwi

Latest Office for National Statistics figures suggest that nearly 92% of UK adults now carry antibodies to coronavirus.

Thanks to the spectacularly stupid Zero-Covid fantasy, I expect any serological study here in NZ would show only a tiny percentage.

An isolationist response to an endemic disease is like building sandcastles to stop the tide.
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July 29, 2021 3:01pm
- Libertarians are right
  
  I’m not so sure that’s true. The Government made it illegal very early on for people to import anti-body tests so we can’t find out.
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:35pm
Maggie Pie

TRENDING…

Elon Musk calls Bill Gates a ‘knucklehead’…..says he or his family wont be getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
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July 29, 2021 3:10pm
Swifty

Behold! The stinking, steaming, nauseous hypocrisy from David Clark and the NZ Labour Party!

On one hand they say:

“I asked the Commerce Commission to look at whether this sector is as competitive as it could be and today it has released its draft report for consultation,” he said.

“The draft findings indicate that there are problems in the market and that New Zealanders would get better prices, ranges and quality if there was increased competition in the grocery sector.

“Consumers deserve to know if they are getting a fair deal at the supermarket checkout, and the draft findings indicate they may not.

“The average Kiwi household spends a large amount of its weekly expenses on food, and this has been increasing year-on-year.”

Now, when have you ever heard them say something even approaching this?

“I asked the Commerce Commission to look at whether the education sector is as competitive as it could be and today it has released its draft report for consultation,” he said.

“The draft findings indicate that there are problems in the market and that New Zealanders would get better prices, ranges and quality if there was increased competition in the education sector.

“Consumers deserve to know if they are getting a fair deal from our current education government monopoly, and the draft findings indicate they may not.

“The average Kiwi household spends a large amount of its weekly expenses on education, and this has been increasing year-on-year.”

On one hand they strongly encourage and support the benefits of the free market, and when it suits them, but on the other hand insist the education of our young remains under the total and never-ending control of the state and Big Labour, in the form of the education unions.

This government makes me puke with their double-talk.

(By the way David Clark we haven’t forgotten your abdication of responsibility, repeated bungles, total lack of leadership and cowardice last year when you were notionally in control of our largest health crisis in 100 years. And never will we.)
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July 29, 2021 3:13pm
- Swifty
  
  Sorry, link:
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/300368780/high-prices-high-profits-could-mean-supermarkets-forced-to-sell-stores
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:14pm
kiwikidsnz

Sir Bob Jones on why Labour will lose the next election

https://nopunchespulled.com/2021/07/29/why-the-government-will-fall-in-1993/#more-2731
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July 29, 2021 3:30pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  Funny how Bobby says he vividly remembers every election since 1949…..but reckons he doesn’t recall meeting my partner’s mum in the 70’s.
  
  Just saying.
  
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  July 29, 2021 4:37pm
  - MCos
    
    He probably met more than 27 women in the seventies.
    
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    July 29, 2021 4:47pm
cmm

Herald is carrying an article saying that a study has shown NZ is among 5 countries to best survive a global societal collapse.

Others are: Iceland, UK, Tasmania and Ireland.

Well I suppose it depends on what criteria you’re measuring.

First up must surely be water and food security. I would have thought UK and Iceland would not have done well. Neither can feed themselves. Iceland suffered food shortages in 2008 (GFC) and 2010 (volcano gummed up transport) – during a very bad event they’d probably starve. NZ, Ireland, and I assume Tassy, are net food producers. There are many other countries doing much better than that.

Next: Energy. We have hydro, but we need to import coal and oil. So probably not that good. Tassy has better hydro than we do. Iceland has more renewables than we do, but UK and Ireland are basket cases.

If there was an energy crunch during winter then Tassy would probably do best with us (as we don’t need heating – we like it sure, but we can survive fine without it). Iceland has geothermal heating in 85% of houses so that would keep them warm. UK and Ireland would be screwed if they could not import energy.

Being able to protect your borders ranks highly to keep out unwanted mass migration. We’re good at that (keeping trained doctors out – less so with terrorists). Iceland and Tassy are good there too since we all have remoteness. Ireland and UK are already awash with undesirables and are only a two hour trip from Europe to UK with a small boat – a bit longer to Ireland. Not secure at all, but still more secure than mainland Europe, Africa etc.

A huge factor must also be political stability.. Would a stressed population start looting & rioting etc? We’d probably be OK along with Iceland and Tassy. UK and Ireland – probably not – with much higher population densities and demonstrated racial rioting most summers.

So, based on those factors, I really can’t see any reason why UK and Ireland would make it into the top 5.

You’d think Aussie would do better having better food security than us, better energy security than us and better remoteness than UK and Ireland. On top of that, they have a larger economy and are less prone to ups and downs so are less dependent on international trade than we are.

The study was, apparently, done by some unspecified scientists and trots out the usual BS about climate change etc so much more about activism than reality.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/new-zealand-named-best-country-to-survive-a-global-collapse/HGERPOHJNXOWIPCZSUUJS67SNM/
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July 29, 2021 3:38pm
- Odakyu-sen
  
  “Would a stressed population start looting & rioting etc?”
  
  We are always only ever 3 square meals away from looting & rioting…
  
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  July 29, 2021 3:41pm
  - MCos
    
    If NZ was cut off from the world, and that’s a big ‘if’, there is no doubt there is vast quantities of food.
    The problem will be distribution when all the transport grinds to a halt, I’d have thought.
    In our case we still have stuff left over from last year’s lockdown. We could stagger on for at least a fortnight!
    
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    July 29, 2021 4:40pm
    - Maggie Pie
      
      Don’t know that we could do Pad Thai for 2 weeks!
      Pretty unhealthy i would have thought?
      
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      July 29, 2021 7:11pm
Odakyu-sen

Olympics and COVID. Nothing much else in the news either here or in Japan.

From the Herald: “New South Wales has recorded 239 new community cases of Covid-19, another new record, with at least 66 of those cases infectious while in the community. … NSW Health has also confirmed two additional Covid-related deaths – a woman in her 90s and man in his 80s – taking the total number of deaths in the latest outbreak to 13.”

…a woman in her 90s and man in his 80s…
Did they actually find evidence of functional coronavirus in these two, or is did the PCR “test” (overclocked, no doubt) simply throw up a positive?

Meanwhile, back in Japan….
Here’s the updated Toyo Keizei data: https://toyokeizai.net/sp/visual/tko/covid19/en.html
The Ro value is well over 1, so the virus is on the rampage (again).
See the graph “Tested Positive By Age” (right side, third down). These are all “positives”.

Look at how few deaths there are among the productive age groups in the under-60s! (But then you knew that already.) Note that people who have had the virus but showed no symptoms and so didn’t get tested are not included in this graph.

See the “Deaths” graph in the middle. Looks like Japan is getting a handle on this virus.

I wonder what proportion of the population were unaffected by the bug (who didn’t even know that they had it)?
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July 29, 2021 3:39pm
- WaveyDavey
  
  Same in the UK
  
  TV3 last night shocked, shocked I tell you by 27k cases yesterday. No actual mention of the context; falling infection rates, falling icu admissions and falling deaths and don’t forget the UK has opened up
  
  It’s the same with the NZ reporting on Aus. Fear, terror, run, hide… meanwhile SFA cases in most states
  
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  July 29, 2021 4:21pm
  - fernglas
    
    Are you yet to work out that all media will give people what they think they want to hear, in order to collect advertising revenue?
    
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    July 29, 2021 5:25pm
    - WaveyDavey
      
      Mate, I worked in media for almost 40 years
      
      Of course they give people what they want, t’was ever thus
      
      However in grown-up countries there’s this concept of context. Something that seem in short supply in kindergarten Aotearoa
      
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      July 29, 2021 5:49pm
    - WaveyDavey
      
      In fact I recently spent a month in Australia and by the magic of a VPN I saw the NZ media reporting the apparent Covid hysteria in QL
      
      Meanwhile I went shopping, bought furniture, went to restaurants, didn’t queue to get into supermarkets…
      
      NZ media is intensely hyperbolic and does love its “front page of doom” interspersed with inconsequential sporting achievements
      
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      July 29, 2021 5:52pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

And the Labour Govt goes ‘We can beat that, hold my Fanta’
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/san-fran-the-city-littered-with-feces-and-needles-approves-20k-trash-cans-to-be-placed-around-city/?
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July 29, 2021 4:24pm
MCos

With regards to Simone Biles
Here is an article that mentions some instances of female gymnasts who were forced to execute maneuvers beyond their ability.
The Biles case is slightly different in that she certainly has the ability. She’s recognized as the greatest ever female gymnast. For reasons known to herself, now, she’s not a robot and stuff going on in her head made leaping miles in the air with all sorts of somersaults, suddenly intimidating & dangerous.
Of course the likes of Piers Morgan, A Bolt & others who make a living thriving on controversy wouldn’t know how it feels to be intimidated.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/sports/olympics/simone-biles-tweet.html?referringSource=articleShare
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July 29, 2021 4:28pm
- Ra Henare
  
  self promoted greatest ever female gymnast..
  
  i guess media repeaters werent born when greatest ever female gymnast too stage at 14 years old.
  Nadia Comăneci
  
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  July 29, 2021 10:16pm
CAKE FACE1

A quick warning about talkback radio.

I listen to Magic Talk when I drive my car. Peter Williams in morning is excellent. Sean Plunkett used to be great in the afternoon.

However, if you tune in after lunch, watch out! There is a melon named Danny Watson, who is an annoying clown.

I needed to ponder for a few minutes as to why this character is so irritating.

Firstly, he shouts complete and utter drivel in a loud and confident voice. Secondly, he is a hard core lefty. Thirdly, he is obviously completely uneducated.

Recently, he was babbling about how NZ should bring back the Ministry of Works (Jerks). I kid you not. This Department was beyond atrocious back in the day.

As I say, it is the obnoxious blend of lefty socialist thought, mixed with God given stupidity, and topped off with loud but completely misplaced confidence, that makes this honking goose so annoying…

CAKE used to have huge tolerance, but now, I’m done with the socialists.

Up against the wall…
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July 29, 2021 4:32pm
- Maggie Pie
  
  Couldn’t agree more Cakey!
  Mt partner’s mum calls him ….”The Plastic Maori”.
  Reckons Leah Panapa can’t stand him either!
  Sez she was sooo much better on her own.
  
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  July 29, 2021 5:37pm
  - WaveyDavey
    
    Really? Awful radio presenting skills and always incredibly indecisive
    
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    July 29, 2021 5:56pm
- greybeard
  
  Not to mention the relentless insertion of maori words every so often, to presumably demonstrate some sort of connection with a particular section of the audience.
  Without realising that such behaviour probably alienates a far bigger section of the audience.
  I just turn him off when he starts his “te reo” bits.
  
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  July 29, 2021 6:44pm
  - graham
    
    I’m doing pretty much the same with the NZ Herald. If the headline or the byline has a Maori word in it I won’t click on it.
    
    Like the vast majority of the population I don’t understand Maori; I’m sure the people at the Herald are smart enough to realise that very few people actually understand Maori, and so I can only presume that if they use Maori in the headline it’s aimed at people who do understand Maori – ie not me.
    
    So why bother clicking on it?
    
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    July 29, 2021 8:21pm
- Observer of Life
  
  Cake: Totally agree. And Watson’s side kick Panapa makes you want to fall asleep. Bring back Plunket!!!
  
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  July 30, 2021 5:30pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Why Pelosi hates Trump. Hey lefties, go get the basement key and hide for a while.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNLXaFcGL6Q
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July 29, 2021 5:08pm
Maggie Pie

WATCH LIVE LAUNCH @ 6:00 pm

‘Rocket Lab’ due to launch 20th sky rocket before IPO next month….

https://rocketlabusa.com/live-stream
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July 29, 2021 5:11pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Rich land-owner in Scotland lobbies for exemption against C -emissions rules

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/queen-secretly-lobbied-scottish-ministers-climate-law-exemption
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July 29, 2021 5:29pm
- WaveyDavey
  
  Rich land-owner’s lawyers lobbied…
  
  Brenda, more than likely, was probably entirely unaware
  
  But the Guardian’s gonna Guardian eh?
  
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  July 29, 2021 5:54pm
Swifty

Some interesting vids of great New Zealanders going about their lives, for your perusal:

https://www.facebook.com/danny.paige.9638

I’ll just leave it there.

NSFW.
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July 29, 2021 5:37pm
Fletch

Just been watching 1 News, and the terrible news that our Rugby Sevens only won silver in the Tokyo Olympics. Wait, what? Silver is good, isn’t it? Not the way everyone was acting. They tried interviewing one of the players who broke down in tears and had a walk a distance off to recover. They showed the family of one of the pacific island players, sitting around their TV watching the game. They couldn’t have looked more somber if they’d been given the news that their son had gotten Covid.

I mean, really…? Is gold that big of a deal?
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July 29, 2021 6:56pm
greybeard

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/ins-magen-israels-newest-ship-changes-how-the-idf-combats-naval-threats-675166
This is what we need here.
And we also need these people here, with their no-nonsense practicality and determination.
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July 29, 2021 7:01pm
Jack5

Are Labour and the bought news media running a diversion with the noise about supermarkets and their prices?

A good way to divert attention from the inflation that’s taking off thanks to the Government printing money and to Covid-19 chaos in the international transport industry.
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July 29, 2021 7:11pm
- kevn
  
  @Jack5… Add to the diversion, another (pending) tsunmai. Should give them/her a 24 hour breather.
  
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  July 29, 2021 8:48pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  As usual, Labour will blame everyone and everything except themselves
  
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  July 30, 2021 8:00am
Jack5

Our politicians are reaping in wealth from the property bubble, Bryce Edwards says in the Herald.

With house prices now at 10.5 times median annual disposable income, members of Parliament, who in total are heavily into property, are reaping the benefit of the bubble.

No wonder none of them wanted a capital gains tax.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/bryce-edwards-political-roundup-how-the-government-has-fuelled-rampant-increases-in-wealth/54BIW3QJPCOCBZ2JO2ZYSMJ2WE/
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July 29, 2021 7:58pm
KevO'Brien

They have trapped themselves.
I have been expecting this. Cinders will be tearing her hair out within a few months and prices will keep on keeping on. Another little global financial shake may even leave Grant dismayed and hoping to be relieved.
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July 29, 2021 8:23pm

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