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August 29, 2021 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 29 August 2021

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CJames

There is an unpublicised statement put out by the new Israeli Prime Minister detailing his government’s policy towards Delta. They are prepared to accept deaths because the social cost of lockdown will be a lot more devastating. They will protect the vulnerable, introduce booster shots but not shut down the country. “ But the policy of lockdowns has a terrible price”
https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/spoke_post140821
Seems a lot more rational approach than the way NZ is going. Wonder why there is no mention of it in the MSM. I know which will be a lot more viable place in two years’ time.
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August 29, 2021 8:00am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Yep,
  
  here it is on BassettBrash&Hide:
  
  https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/israeli-pm-appeals-to-public-and-details-national-plan-to-fight-delta-wave
  
  Here’s the Israeli PM getting his 3rd Pfizer Jab.. trying to stem off a 4th Lockdown as the Delta variant sweeps through their country
  
  https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pm-has-third-covid-19-shot-israel-extends-booster-campaign-2021-08-20/
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:09am
  - kevn
    
    @Maggy… A PM with humility who understands numbers. I’m talking about the Israeli PM of course.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:21am
    - Nukuleka
      
      Please read the Israeli PM’s statement Judith and David. Get together and come up with a concerted National/ACT plan to put to the NZ public as an alternative to the sticking plaster lockdown madness that we are enduring and will continue to endure with this Fortress NZ elimination government madness.
      
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      August 29, 2021 8:40am
      - PhilBest
        
        Then there is good advice to the public about how to mitigate the real risk: buildup of aerosols indoors. The sheer incompetence and intransigence of the officials over the last year makes it look as though they are more interested in using the pandemic as a pretext for an agenda, than they are in actually mitigating it.
        
        If real science was focused on, we would know why masks don’t work, why lockdowns don’t work, and even why these vaccines don’t work.
        
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        August 29, 2021 9:40am
      - Brian McDonald
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        You’re trying to tame wild horses there – the battle between Act and the Nats is just hotting up. And despite what Brash, Hide, or Bassett say we know where public opinion lays and that is where the votes go.
        But please give me a reminder about the sheeple and how people are terrified and so on.
        It’s no time for the weak to be ready to surrender the aged or health compromised – as some Asians say “not the kiwi way.” Go ahead and find out.
        
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        August 29, 2021 10:09am
      - Mr_Blobby
        
        You seriously expect the government and the opposition parties to accept that they got it wrong.
        
        That they have spent 100 billion dollars and rising to save people, who died anyway.
        
        That they have created a economic and social disaster that will be felt for a generation.
        
        That the elimination strategy to save 80,000 people was wrong, and never ever going to work.
        
        That when it is looked at retrospectively that the world wide mortality statistics barely moved.
        
        But the great fake pandemic did achieve one thing, it accelerated our inevitable move towards becoming a socialist nirvana, the fact that that experiment will inevitably fail, is irrelevant, it is going to happen.
        
        How anybody thought that locking people down consuming goods and services while not helping to create those goods and services was a good idea is beyound me.
        
        I don’t think so.
        
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        August 29, 2021 10:17am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        The Israeli way will be THE way for all of us. The virus will become endemic globally. People will be vaccinated, or not if they choose, and some people will die.
        
        So Mr Mcdonald if you can explain how my statement is false by drawing on evidence and science, rather than invective and slogans, I would like to hear your views.
        
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        August 29, 2021 10:38am
      - PhilBest
        
        Brian McDonald: the experts have failed, failed, failed, to protect the vulnerable. They have not been following science at all, they have been following an agenda.
        
        Rest homes are airborne-virus petri dishes. We could have fixed this at any time – we could also have not made it worse over the last 20 years with “energy efficiency” policies that reduce air exchange in indoors environments.
        
        This issue is as big as ensuring clean water was a century ago. Covid won’t be the last virus that works havoc by building up indoors. Every time, do we wait for a vaccine to be developed (while banning existing off-label treatments) – or do we attend to the “first line” now – indoors air hygeine requirements?
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:01am
      - CJames
        
        To add grist to the mill, researchers have found that lockdowns in Australia (where they weren’t as severe as NZ) killed a lot more people than they saved.
        https://www.businessthink.unsw.edu.au/articles/covid-19-lockdowns-cost
        I bet the modellers never factored this into their equations.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:21pm
- YesMinister
  
  For some utterly bizarre reason, we’re fine with people dying in NZ from suicide. It’s our largest cause of death among several age groups. We’re fine with babies struggling to survive RSV. Want to slide off one of our many shitty roads where the camber was designed by an interpretative dancer on shrooms? No problem. Shovel takeaways into your mouth until you resemble a big bag of grease yourself? Go ahead! Want to pour alcohol down your throat until all your organs are pickled? Hell, we encourage that.
  
  But catch one specific strain of the flu called covid-19? No. That would simply be unacceptable. We’ll destroy every small business in the country if we have to in order to stop that from happening.
  
  The truth is we’re not fighting deaths. We’re all captives to Jacinda’s reprise of King Canut trying to command the tides. She staked her reputation on elimination. And we’re all paying for her ego. She believes she can turn back death itself. But she can’t.
  
  This country was already floundering in inflation masquerading as a strong economy before this. I shudder to think what this latest endless lockdown will do. Can you hear the money printers sing? Singing the songs of even higher house prices? It is the music of the people who will soon be wheelbarrowing cash to buy bread.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:17am
  - covfefe
    
    Comment of the day
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:44am
  - Nickc2
    
    IMO, it’s all about preparing our country for the GREAT WORLD RESET. Having said that, the reset may be delayed somewhat until a replacement for Joe Biden is found. I don’t think the US is ready for Kamala Harris at this time.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:48am
    - thirteenstars
      
      Oh, let her have a shot. Please.
      
      It’ll make a Trump/DeSantis win a certainty in 2024.
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:07am
      - Nickc2
        
        All the fuck-ups will be on you then thirteenstars.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:07pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    +10. Picture Ardern as King Canute in a hazmat suit. Her narcissistic saviour complex is killing people.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:52am
    - PhilBest
      
      This is the same mental weakness as “other people’s money” socialism, period. The same people are incapable of thinking through causes and effects into the future, on anything. The same people cannot imagine that lockdowns have consequences worse than almost any pandemic imaginable.
      
      One that is not even being thought through, is the consequences of monetary expansion to the moon. It has become assumed that because all the inflating nations, from the USA to NZ, have not become Zimbabwe yet, they are never going to?
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:43am
  - Cinematic
    
    Brilliant.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:53am
  - westernScientest
    
    I am really hopeful (although not expecting it) that Orr will refuse to turn the printer back on, forcing the government to either go into the market which will push interest rates up and piss a lot of people off, but really is the best monetary option at this point, or for the government to have to come out and say ‘no more reserve bank, give Robo the printer keys, we are going full on banana republic, we are not even trying to pretend to hide it any more’.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:55am
  - softail 1450
    
    Yes Minister, excellent post and it really is unfathomable why it is so, nobody has died from covid for over a year.
    We have hundreds of people infected now and nobody has died or even got close to dying, WTF is going on isn’t this disease “deadly” ??
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:08am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Whoa hold your horses. Nobody has died because we have not even started.
      
      NSW has 14,700 active cases. 800 people are in hospital. 120 in ICU. 50 on ventilators.
      
      https://www.covid19data.com.au/hospitalisations-icu
      
      Relative to case numbers, those hospitalisation rates look pretty high to me.
      
      Just as I deplore the Jacinda crazy on one hand, neither is it helpful to say there are not going to be deaths.
      
      I would give jacinda about a 50 percent chance of getting this thing back in the bottle. If she can’t, New Zealand will be Sydney in about 8 weeks from now.
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:54am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        A study that was published in the Lancet on Friday is interesting. And this might explain the relatively high hospitalisation rates we are now seeing in Sydney.
        
        There has been good data to show that Delta is about 5 times as transmissible as Alpha. However this is the first study from a large data set to show that it may be more virulent. Specifically, those with Delta are more than twice as likely to be admitted to hospital compared to those who got the Alpha varient early in the pandemic.
        
        https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/08/27/delta-variant-more-than-doubles-risk-of-covid-hospitalization-uk-study-finds/
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:04am
      - krazykiwi
        
        She won’t get this back in the bottle. Even if we reverted to no ‘cases’ it is an epidemiological certainty that this will move through our population.
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:14am
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        NZ doesn’t have hospitals to handle it, and Labour have been asleep at the wheel (as always) in growing that capacity over the last 18 months. Though they have managed to grow the civil service remarkably.
        
        The only way out of this now is for population to get natural immunity – by catching covid. Get their immune systems in tip-top condition with vaccines and the many prophylactic drugs that reduce risk, then give them a minimal dose and let their immune system learn to fight it off and create long term immunity better than any vaccine. NZ will still have a couple of thousand dead from this, and probably 10,000 in hospital. But there is no other solution in the offing and lockdowns quarantining can’t hold Delta at bay effectively due to screwups and an inevitable proportion of people ignoring rules.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:10pm
      - Batman
        
        We don’t have 10,000 hospital beds available.
        
        So either we leave those covid patients to die at home or in corridors, or people sick with other issues are left out.
        
        Either way, your casual acceptable death toll of 2,000 rapidly becomes higher and higher.
        
        This is the whole reason why there are public health measures in place in almost every country.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:41pm
      - Southtop2
        
        Interesting Benedict – I agree with your odds.
        Can someone tell me (I may have missed this) – where did the original Delta NZ case come from?
        We know we have been lucky to date with porous borders so where or how did this get out – frozen food box again?
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:08pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        @UrbanNC
        
        give them a minimal dose and let their immune system learn to fight it off and create long term immunity
        
        Did I get that right? Put a (minimal) squirt of covid in their arms? Has any other country tried this and did it work?
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:27pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Just to put those NSW hosp numbers into context, the case rate there is presently something a bit over 1000/day. It was 40-odd six weeks ago.
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:32pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        Another one to think about. People in NSW who go in to hospital today were probably infected something like two weeks ago when the daily new case count was something like 600. Now it’s something like 1200.
        
        Ugh.
        
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        August 29, 2021 5:02pm
  - Brian McDonald
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Actually you may need to rewrite that RSV has receded during lockdown as the flu did last year.
    At least, unlike others, you admit to shuddering.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:11am
    - Cinematic
      
      Do keep up Brian. It’s been a bad RSV season and continues to be. Due to last years lockdown.
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:22am
    - Paulus Gnome
      
      [pointless abuse, contribute something useful – Mod]
      
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      August 29, 2021 12:06pm
  - Tom Hunter
    
    A year ago I made this comment as part of a post, More Epidemiology Modelling Problems:
    
    One month ago the instant reaction to critics of the lockdown was the shroud-waving cry of “You care more for money than old people”, which has natually been very effective in public.
    
    But of course it was never about lives vs. money: it was always about weighing lives vs. lives.
    
    The economy is people’s lives and the next six months are going to be a terrible test of the theories that have paradoxically been pushed for years by groups such as Otago University healthcare experts; that economic decline and increases in poverty translate into more deaths as well as a miserable quality of life for those still living.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:36am
  - DenisPurdy
    
    The Canute story about trying to stop the tide is commonly presented as if he thought he could do it. Actually, the point of the original story was Canute was showing his courtiers the limitations of his powers. This is a lesson Jacinda and her worshippers would do well to learn.
    
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    August 29, 2021 11:44am
  - Durden
    
    YesMinister-Yes.
    
    We can’t keep having lockdowns. The money is running out despite Grant pretending that there is money left over in different buckets that he can recall.
    
    When Grant inevitably goes to get more debt from the markets, the rating agencies will downgrade NZ by one or two notches. Small economies like NZ cannot go much beyond debt of 50% of GDP. It is stupid to compare debt % with larger economies like UK, Japan China and US. They can go more than 100% and do. But not countries with economies of the size of NZ.
    
    When that happens, watch the currency fall, interest rates go up, and the economy goes to hell in a handcart. With Saint Jacinda pushing it downhill.
    
    The numbers will get them.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:30pm
  - CJames
    
    According to this morning’s SMH, 40 young persons a day are being hospitalised in just NSW from self-harm. That is a massive toll lockdowns are extracting.
    https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/more-than-40-nsw-children-and-teenagers-rushed-to-hospital-for-self-harm-every-day-20210827-p58mg7.html
    We are literally killing the young to save the very old.
    
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    August 29, 2021 1:03pm
    - krazykiwi
      
      The key data it missing. We need to know what the admission rate was 2 years ago, eg pre Covid
      
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      August 29, 2021 1:56pm
      - CJames
        
        Read the article, down the bottom it shows 8000 admissions, two years ago 6000.
        
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        August 29, 2021 3:06pm
      - krazykiwi
        
        Thanks. So an increase of approximately 6/day or +17.5%. Kindness, Oz style.
        
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        August 29, 2021 4:23pm
- Vory v zakone
  
  Dr Peter McCullough briefly mentions the Israel situation
  
  (“The failed mass Covid-19 vaccination programme will go down as one of the most deadly in history”)
  
  Israel was one of the first countries to mass vaccinate its population under an agreement with Pfizer.
  
  Eighty percent of adults are fully vaccinated there, yet Covid-19 cases and serious hospitalisations have risen 20-fold since early July with more than 80% of new cases reported by the Israeli Health Ministry among vaccinated individuals.
  
  In the United Kingdom, more than three-quarters of the adult population (76 percent) have received two doses of a Covid-19 injection and almost 90 percent of adults have received at least one dose. Yet, the number of Covid-19 patients hospitalised has soared sevenfold since early June this year.
  
  The most recent U.K. report on “variants of concern” published by Public Health England revealed that 58% of Covid-19 deaths are among the fully vaccinated, with that number rising to 67% when including those who had received a single dose of a Covid-19 injection.
  
  That data, McCullough said, “is basically showing that the vaccines are failing.”
  
  Covid-19, no matter what the variant, is easily treatable at home with simple, available drugs, according to McCullough, who has stated that “about 88 percent of hospitalisations and deaths can be avoided” with early treatment.
  
  https://dailyexpose.co.uk/2021/08/26/dr-peter-mccullough-covid-19-vaccination-programme-most-deadly-in-history/
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:18am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Treatment focus simply cures the small number who get sick.
    
    Vaccination focus allows every human to be terrorised and bullied into compliance.
    
    Which approach best suits the aspirations of trainee-totalitarians?
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:43am
    - PhilBest
      
      In all the debates about whether Covid is really more deadly than the normal flu, the following logical question is never asked:
      
      How deadly would the normal flu season be if we ordered all doctors to not provide any treatment at all and simply put people on ventilators in ICU’s as they get bad enough?
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:45am
      - Ian Boag
        
        For flu, there are some proven antivirals like TamiFlu. Nothing like that for covid.
        
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        August 29, 2021 6:54pm
  - surfing
    
    Fake news buddy.
    
    This guy is dodgy….
    https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/lawsuit-former-baylor-scott-white-doctor-used-title-spreading-covid-19-misinformation/287-314400fd-2489-44e2-acf1-da902e247ba4
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:02am
    - Brian McDonald
      
      Another Covid fraudster found out, at least he used his own name unlike the resident bird.
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:14am
    - bennerg
      
      Surfing, his statements aren’t dodgy. If you read the original article he is providing an interpretation of existing published data.
      
      The legal case is simply that a former employer is upset that his public stance is giving them grief.
      
      History is history. I understand he was not fired from the previous employer. I also did not read anything in his statements that indicate he said he was talking as an employee of there’s.
      
      So just another ad hominum attack on someone debating the issues, from an alternate perspective, and further indication that science is dead when professionals cannot speak out independently.
      
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      August 29, 2021 2:16pm
    - MrTips
      
      Sure he’s dodgy. What an idiot statement.
      Peter McCullough has 36 published papers on covid treatment
      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=mccullough+p+covid+treatment
      He is a practicing board certified cardiologist and internist. FAHA, FACC, Etc.
      How many publications and credentials do you have? None I bet.
      
      He is being sued by Baylor because they claim he indicated during a recent interview that he has a working association with Baylor, when none exists(he left in February I think). It’s got nothing to do with his competence. It has everything to do with Baylor being asses.
      
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      August 29, 2021 6:00pm
  - Sacha
    
    – and if the government spent a small portion of the COVID advertising budget on advising people how to protect themselves with readily available Vits C, D3, and Zinc supplements, it is very likely that there would be be fewer positive swab results, and even less actual symptomatic cases among both immunised and non-immunised.
    And if one can trust the ever-increasing numbers of reports of the effectiveness of Ivermectin, it should be readily available for anyone with symptoms.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:23am
    - Ian Boag
      
      Ivermectin. So we should ignore the FDA and CDC who say it is basically useless. Medsafe will of course never approve it because the trial data is not there. Yeah I know about the meta-study which said “it sort of looks like this stuff could be OK”.
      
      Even the drug company Merck, which manufactures ivermectin, has issued a statement saying there’s no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID.
      
      Go figure.
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:42am
      - Jack5
        
        Ian Boag’s Ivermectin …. it is basically useless …
        
        But useful in sheep dip and against head lice.
        
        If ivermectin was effective against Covid-19 surely this would have been established by now.
        
        The origins of the ivermectin-Covid story:
        
        https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/healthreport/coronavirus-ivermectin-drug/12125192
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:59am
      - John Pakes
        
        It works very well in the treatment of worms in horses and cattle though Ian. Oh, and headlice in humans.
        Indeed, those who promote the drug should go figure.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:01pm
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        Trying broadening your reading beyond propaganda outlets aligned with Big Pharma.
        Here’s an easy to read summary of the huge number of independent positive trials proving that ivermectin is effective against covid, (though unfortunately it doesn’t generate profits for Big Pharma)
        https://ivmmeta.com/
        
        Only a conspiracy nut-job could imagine there was some way that the 100’s of unrelated professional groups scattered around the world that have done this work would risk their careers in faking these results for no financial benefit.
        
        There is no justification for not using ivermectin (alongside vaccines) to reduce number and severity of Covid cases.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:18pm
      - Batman
        
        The alt-medicine community is pushing shit and claiming it’s caviar.
        
        “Ivermectin (Still) Lacks Scientific Support as a COVID-19 Drug | The Scientist Magazine®” https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/ivermectin-still-lacks-scientific-support-as-a-covid-19-drug-69049/amp
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:45pm
      - Surely Knott
        
        @Batman. Are the alt-medicine community the same conspiracy theorists who were spreading that stupid rumour about covid being leaked from the Wuhan lab when it was confirmed by multiple scientists and fact checkers that this was false and couldn’t be true. Until it wasn’t.
        
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        August 29, 2021 3:22pm
- Maxx
  
  And that’s what a real leader does. Makes the decisions on trade offs, that recognises that for some the decision may be terminal but it is for the betterment of all.
  
  Reminds me of the trolley paradox – it’s seems Ardern is happy to fore sake the many for benefit of the one.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:19am
  - oldfella
    
    Maxx: as long as the one who benefits most is Jacinda.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:50am
- krazykiwi
  
  Israeli PM has a ‘come to Jesus’ moment in respect of their Covid-19 strategy. Let’s hope that extends to completely scrapping vaccine passports.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:20am
  - Sede Vacante
    
    Not quite. He, along with many other world leaders, is advocating a third shot of a vaccine that doesn’t work (as the situation in his own country shows, as I have posted previously, and as also demonstrated in Vory v zakone’s post above). What will this achieve? The very claimed necessity of a third dose in-itself proves the inefficacy of the mRNA vaccines. If anything, it shows that vaccine passports are the goal, requiring vaccine top-ups as and when dictated to remain valid.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:37am
  - Vory v zakone
    
    kk this is similar to the interesting info you posted a few days ago.
    
    However Pfizer now has to come clean on the ‘ingredients’ and ‘harms’ (in/from its “APPROVED” vaccine) within 14 Days
    
    Pfizer has not updated its website or its marketing materials because it knows that if it does it opens up even more liability as the MARKETER of these deadly shots.
    
    The vaxx inserts are due two weeks from August 23, ie September 7.
    
    Meanwhile the former Pfizer Biotech Analyst in the video below, believes the company (and officials) will eventually be facing criminal charges… ?
    
    https://rumble.com/vlod4c-wow-former-pfizer-employee-checkmate.-game-over.-we-win.html
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:40am
    - krazykiwi
      
      Interesting. Much as I’d like to see criminal Big Pharma executives in the dock, I can’t see it happening. Even after the red-lining criminality on Wall St in the lead up to the GFC there was only one low-level executive convicted of felonies.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:54am
      - Vory v zakone
        
        This ⬆️was supposed to reply to your Pfizer post further down⬇️
        Did you watch the video? It looks like Pfizer could be backed into a corner ?
        
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        August 29, 2021 10:03am
    - Mr_Blobby
      
      Yeh nah, not here.
      
      The deal was for the government to give full immunity to the vaccine companies, changing laws if required.
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:48am
- Wayne Mapp
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  NZ would have to lift vaccination levels to those of Israel before their approach becomes a viable proposition.
  
  While we have low vaccination levels, Lockdowns are a necessity.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:46am
  - Sede Vacante
    
    “While we have low vaccination levels, Lockdowns are a necessity.”
    
    Then it should be very very easy for you to demonstrate this necessary proposition. Proceed when ready.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:48am
  - MrTips
    
    Wayne. There’s this thing called medicine that’s accompanies vaccinations. Treatments that work. Budesonide, sotrovimab. You should educate yourself sometime.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:54am
    - Wayne Mapp
      
      I have. Strangely enough, I have come to the same conclusions as just about every qualified expert in the field.
      
      I note that Kiwiblog has become the refuge of anti-vaxxers and contrarians. Well, I guess people have to have some outlet for these views.
      
      So even pointing out the obvious that the Israeli approach is based on extensive vaccination is a reason for a pile on.
      
      I often wonder if there is any point at all in me pointing out the reasons for the orthodox view. Of course, I know I won’t convince the likes of you, it is really intended to show the many thousands of people that read Kiwiblog, that not everyone on this site is a contrarian.
      
      But at some point it is not worth restating any of this. By now everyone knows the arguments. So maybe I should let the contrarians and antivaxxers monopolise Kiwiblog, and just leave it at that.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:58am
      - kevn
        
        @Wayne… I’m certain that most if not all, KBer’s have had their measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, tetanus etc vaccines.
        So hardly anti-vax are they?
        That ‘anti-vax’ is just a cheap label.
        
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        August 29, 2021 10:06am
      - MrTips
        
        Wayne. If you had read the data on the COMET, STOIC and PRINCIPLE trials, the EUA approval for sotrovimab the Aussie approval of it and the use of budesonide, you might be less inclined to rattle off ad hominems. You seemed to have missed the word vaccinations in my post. Maybe your memory is off again.
        https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.rnz.co.nz/article/ebaa1da8-4ef7-48e2-88bd-9ff95c26d358
        
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        August 29, 2021 10:23am
      - Monique Watson
        
        Yeah it’s fucking weird, the anti vax sentiment on this blog. Re the lockdowns: That’s quaint but in line with local policy in many parts of the world with sea borders (Hawaii) and some States or Countries without. What makes NZ unique is they blew all natural advantages to bits with the PR equivalent of a shotgun and fucked up procuring the vaccine. Passed it onto the Cooks if I remember rightly. You’re gonna have one hundred deaths in a month. That’s what the modeler’s are not telling you. That’s before the next shipment. I should probably shut my negative Cassandra ass up and leave the topic be too.
        
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        August 29, 2021 10:25am
      - Cinematic
        
        Sweden is an example of an alternative strategy. They never locked down as NZ did. They look a pretty good place to be living today. So, no lockdowns aren’t a necessity as you posit. They are an option.
        
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        August 29, 2021 10:27am
      - PhilBest
        
        Wayne Mapp:
        “just about every qualified expert in the field”
        
        The ones that the MSM and the cabal of public health officials choose to listen to.
        
        YOU are someone who willingly participates in the CENSORSHIP of contrarian voices – you refused to hear Dr Vincent Gray at Parliament years ago on climate change. The side of politics you are on, is a “Vichy” version of the real thing that would seek to stand on actual principles.
        
        The so called “fringe” of contrarians then and now can number in the thousands but you won’t acknowledge this, or that millions more are so coerced that they are afraid to even get involved. It is principles that matter, not seeming numbers. The behaviour of the monolith of officials, the MSM, Big Tech, and commercial vested interests, stinks to high heaven if you have a nose.
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:09am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        So maybe I should let the contrarians and antivaxxers monopolise Kiwiblog, and just leave it at that.
        
        No, no, Wayne. You should keep talking here on Kiwiblog and as many other blogs as you can. I reckon every time you open your mouth another 1000 votes heads away from the National Party to ACT.
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:13am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        I’m not anti-vax.
        
        But I don’t think many folks in NZ yet realise that vaccination doesn’t stop you catching Covid-19 and doesn’t stop you from spreading the virus.
        
        How do vaccinated people spread Delta? What the science says
        https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02187-1
        
        I’m sick of being treated like an idiot by this Government and so-called experts and lefty trolls.
        
        Folks need to realise that if they are health-compromised they will still have to proceed cautiously/sensibly whether they are vaccinated (double-shots, boosters, or not)
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:41am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        That’s quaint but in line with local policy in many parts of the world with sea borders (Hawaii)
        – Monique Watson
        
        Hmmm…
        
        In fact you probably didn’t know Hawaii just hit an all time high for covid hospitalisations – because the MSM can’t blame a lack of masks, lack of vaccines, lack of lockdown harshness, President Trump, Trump voters, or Republicans in general for this data. Hawaii is as solidly Democrat Party as California or Illinois.
        –
        Comparing Apples to Islands
        
        Hospitalisations up 854% in just two months, despite some of the harshest and longest mask mandates and lockdowns in the world, and a good vaccination rate.
        
        Perhaps I’m being unscientific here but… maybe there are other factors involved?
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:45am
      - Paulus Gnome
        
        Sorry MW, fat finger syndrome, feel free to down tick me somewhere or just carry on down ticking Brian . . .
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:13pm
      - thirteenstars
        
        “I reckon every time you open your mouth another 1000 votes heads away from the National Party to ACT.”
        
        Nailed it.
        
        Wayne is so much of a poster boy for the modern woke, middle management style National Party that I’m beginning to wonder if the account’s been hijacked by an ACT recruitment troll.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:50pm
  - kowtow
    
    Auckland and perhaps the rest of the country will be locked down and simultaneously we’ll have run out of vaccines .
    
    Lockdowns are only a necessity if you want to “save the health system”.
    
    But a whole country is not the “health system” and the health system is not the whole country .
    
    Sweden did not do these draconian lockdowns with police intimidation of walkers and they’ve already come out of this , while we’re going to be in even bigger shit than before .
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:56am
    - Ian Boag
      
      1000 cases yesterday. 15,000 cumulative deaths. But they are out of it …..
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:35am
      - kowtow
        
        The simple fact is there’s no escaping deaths from/with covid , be it Sweden or New Zealand .
        
        We’ve simply postponed the inevitable , at very great cost to society .
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:49am
      - virtualmark
        
        kowtow,
        
        Almost. There is/will be no escaping deaths from Covid. We’ve simply postponed an inevitable reckoning.
        
        But we’ve postponed it long enough that we now have vaccines and treatments that will make the deaths from Covid massively less than would have been the case if we’d just thrown the doors open in February 2020.
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:05pm
  - Nickc2
    
    Part of the reason for the slow uptake of vaccinations is because there is insufficient vaccine in the country.
    My local vax centre (Birkenhead) was shut down last week due to insifficient vaccine I’m informed by someone who should know.
    Never mind though Wayne it assists Cindy in keeping NZers in NZ. Helen Clark couldn’t do that.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:59am
  - Albert_Ross
    
    I don’t know why so many people have downticked this. If we had high vaccination levels, we would be in a much better position, one where we could sensibly consider getting back to normal. It is the Government’s fault and failure that we don’t have high vaccination levels, and therefore it is their fault that we’re having to resort to lockdown.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:59am
    - R
      
      Albert,
      
      We will continue to be in lockdown irrespective of how many people are vaccinated. You must know that we import cases of Covid and that some people who have been vaccinated have gotten the virus. So there will continue to be cases. We have cases of influenza each year despite the existence of a vaccine. But Jacinda Ardern is fixated on zero cases, which simply is not achievable. We can look forward to further lockdowns.
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:21am
    - PhilBest
      
      You are assuming too much. This will not end until the people demand it ends. There will always be some pretext – new variants, probably even new viruses. The people keen to get jabbed “to get their liberties back” are dupes.
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:11am
  - Maxx
    
    Surely you agree that if the work went in 18 months ago that matched the rhetoric we wouldn’t be in this position now?
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:00am
  - surfing
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Kiwibloggers are anti vaxxers.
    
    Not going to see much support here.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:04am
    - krazykiwi
      
      Here’s a test for you, surfing.
      
      I have been immunized for Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Diphtheria, Tetanus (child and adult), Pertussis, Polio, Heap A, Hep B, Typhoid, and Japanese encephalitis. My immediate family have had most of these.
      
      But having investigated the Pfizer therapy, I will not be taking it.
      
      Does this make me an “anti-vaxxer” ?
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:52am
      - virtualmark
        
        Yes
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:53am
      - Sede Vacante
        
        The term “anti-vaxxer” (like it’s popular rhetorical brethren “conspiracy theorist” or “racist”) is much more connotative and suggestive than it is descriptive and denotative, as you illustrate krazy. You are not “anti-vax” at all, you are specifically anti THIS vax, for the reasons you have posted many times. I agree with you and your reasoning. On the other, irrational hand, the slanderous language is meant to simply pigeonhole and dismiss its intended referent just by the fact of its utterance, with no argument required.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:04pm
    - PhilBest
      
      Anti vaxxers are people who oppose vaccines based on science going back to Louis Pasteur, and whose trial periods average 7 years.
      
      I don’t know any Kiwibloggers who fall into this category.
      
      Krazykiwi is right. I talk to numerous people who are religiously pro-Covid-vax, who scoff at “the ignorant anti vaxxers”, and they know nothing about mRNA or how it works, and they know nothing about PCR and how it works. The young PI guy who cuts my hair knows all this stuff. Who is “ignorant”?
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:14am
    - Liberal Cliche
      
      Given the “pro vax” crowd love to scream “racist” and “white supremacist” along with “anti-vax” quite often in the same breath that’s a hard …
      
      Yes. And what?
      
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      August 29, 2021 1:06pm
  - krazykiwi
    
    Lockdowns are not a necessity.
    
    They are a choice.
    
    A costly, net detrimental choice.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:13am
    - Clownworld
      
      Lockdowns are illogical, ineffective, destructive of small business, brainwashing, harmful to society in terms of groups and mentally harmful , a catalyst for mass psychosis and a totalatarian necessity. Brilliant to control people.
      
      As for something that we “just” need to do for the “greater good”, absolutely not.
      
      Lockdowns that go on and on are evil.
      
      Wake up.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:35am
    - virtualmark
      
      So what choice would you have make instead?
      
      Lots of armchair generalling going on here, by people who don’t have to make a decision and stick with it and own it.
      
      So put your balls on the line … what would you do?
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:54am
      - krazykiwi
        
        I’ve done that many times already, and as you have dismissed me as a (assumes shrieking voice) ANTI-VAXXER™ I fear I would be wasting keystrokes.
        
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        August 29, 2021 1:43pm
      - virtualmark
        
        So I take it you have no balls to put on the line then.
        
        The difficulty of being in government – for any political party – is that you have to make decisions and then own the results, good or bad. But at least they are the ones in the arena. I don’t like this Labour government but I do respect that in this pandemic they are having to make big decisions that affect us all, and I’ll understand if they only get 75% of those decisions right.
        
        Meanwhile most of the commenters here are just critics with no responsibility. Lots of whinging and complaining about how bad the Government is, how many mistakes they’ve made, etc etc. Lots of anger and hate, very little that’s reasoned and constructive.
        
        “Cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat”. Heroes in their own lunchbox who largely seem to open the drinks cabinet at 8am.
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:02pm
      - Clownworld
        
        Lots of better choices.
        Have a variety of vaccines to choose from for a start. Don’t rely on one supplier. Demand accountability for emergency use aurthorisation from pharma company.
        Provide treatments from 19months ago including not making it illegal to do cheap antibody tests at home. Protect vunerable and elderly, provide evidence if how many cycles pcr tests are done at. Keep people informed and make vaccines and other medicines available to those who want them.
        Give people freedom of movement except where people want to stay at home or in care facilities until those who want vaccines get them.
        
        Stop the propaganda.
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:15pm
      - krazykiwi
        
        You can ‘take’ whatever you like, virtualmark. Whatever respect I had for you, and I did have some despite us not agreeing on plenty, vanished when you decided to apply a grubby little anti-vaxx smear.
        
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        August 29, 2021 4:27pm
      - virtualmark
        
        Clownworld,
        
        I agree with some of that. Don’t rely on one vaccine supplier (we’re buying four vaccines, but only using one of them). Introduce things like saliva tests.
        
        We have to offer indemnities to have the vaccines when we have – no indemnity no vaccine. And vaccines are available to people that want them. And medicines, but that’s a hospital thing.
        
        Freedom of movement though is a problem. Let’s say 90% of your population are responsible. That still laeaves more than 500,000 people to f#*k up the public health of the 5.4 million. As with many laws these are measures required to keep a small minority under control so they don’t ruin it for all. Tis always the way.
        
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        August 29, 2021 5:52pm
      - virtualmark
        
        krazy, these vaccines have now been well proven in hundreds of millions of people around the world. They are safe, and effective at protecting people from hospitalisation and death. Choosing not to have them is a political statement not a scientific one.
        
        Stats today out of NSW:
        126 people in NSW intensive care units:
        113 not vaccinated
        12 single dosed
        1 double dosed … who is a 35yo ICU nurse who caught it at work
        
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        August 29, 2021 5:57pm
  - softail 1450
    
    Wayne Mapp, Once a politician always a politician I guess.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:23am
    - PhilBest
      
      Once a Vichy Tory, always a Vichy Tory
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:15am
      - kowtow
        
        One of the strengths of this blog is the fact that former MPs actually post here and by so doing provide an insight which perhaps the majority of us don’t have .
        
        Losing that would be a loss to all of us .
        
        Disagree with him ( as I often do) but let’s be gracious .
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:53am
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        Hearing Wayne opine explains a lot about the muddled messes he participated in in govt and why he left the Key govt in 2011.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:26pm
    - Observer of Life
      
      Clownworld: 1000 ✅
      
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      August 29, 2021 3:45pm
  - Salacious Crumb
    
    Yeah because only 99.98% will survive. Great reason to torch your economy and social fabric.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:36am
  - PhilBest
    
    How is something that demonstrably has no correlation with successful outcomes, be “a necessity”?
    
    Instead of assuming lockdowns work, why isn’t science getting off its backside and working out why they DON’T? Why isn’t science getting off its backside and identifying all the factors that really correspond with Covid transmissibility and deadlines?
    
    Environmental factors are foremost; many of them are outside our control; and with those of them that are within our control, we have been doing the wrong things for the last 30 years. For example, pursuing urban planning that has an “unintended coinsequence” of crowding. Or pursuing “energy saving” in building and HVAC standards that sacrifice ventilation and air quality.
    
    On May 16, 2020, I posted the below on Kiwiblog:
    
    William Briggs, famous statistician, crunches the numbers from around the world and concludes:
    
    There Is No Evidence Lockdowns Saved Lives.
    
    https://wmbriggs.com/post/30833/
    
    “…There IS a sort of trend of lower death rates in hotter countries, or in areas of larger countries with better weather, like the US. Population density also played a part. It easier to spread any bug in tightly packed quarters, than when people are spread far apart. South Dakota, which had no lockdown, did 7 times better than Chicago (or all Illinois), which did…”
    
    “…The only evidence for lockdowns is the desire that lockdowns worked. That, and the embarrassment (and worse) in admitting to error. What politician anywhere will cop to ruining their economy and the lives of millions of their citizens? Who can say “Ah, it was only a few trillion”? This will not happen. It just won’t. All politicians will go on repeating that their lockdowns “saved lives”…
    
    “…There is a distinct tendency, at least in the Western media, to ascribe merit and blame for every event to people. What egos we all have!
    
    In the US it went like this. The virus was caused or exacerbated by the political party I disfavor. If persons in the party I favored were listened to, this would not have been as big a crisis. The virus spread so rapidly because of the actions of the party I disfavor. The party I favor helped stem the tide and saved lives. The crisis would have ended sooner, and more lives would have been saved, if the people in the party I hate were ignored. Science saved us!
    
    Nature gets no credit. Not for the creation of the virus, not for its highly variable spread, not for its highly variable infection rate, and certainly not for its hugely variable deaths caused. All those things were believed to be the responsibility of people. Nature has no real power, we think. It can be controlled to any degree of precision desired, if only we can muster sufficient political will and suppress our enemies…”
    
    https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/05/general_debate_16_may_2020.html#comment-2716049
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:53am
  - R
    
    While we have low vaccination levels, Lockdowns are a necessity.
    
    Wayne,
    
    You’ve been told previously that that is false, so I don’t know why you’re repeating it. Jacinda Ardern is hoping for zero cases. She wants elimination and won’t accept anything else. We could have 100% of the population vaccinated, yet we will continue to have cases. The Israeli PM understands that. I think most people understand that.
    
    Professor David Skegg has said the elimination strategy might fail. So where’s plan B? Where are the alternatives?
    
    I note that Kiwiblog has become the refuge of anti-vaxxers and contrarians.
    
    That’s bullshit. Everyone must be fully informed before being vaccinated. You seem comfortable with people being denied their legal right.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:14am
    - John Pakes
      
      Professor David Skegg said as of yesterday that elimination is still the best option.
      Our Prime Minister is following the best advice that has been given to her. She would be negligent had she not done so.
      How much time do you need to become fully informed? A year, two or more?
      We have all the information that we need in order to get the vaccine with confidence. Our scientists and health experts have told us it is so. You do not need a year to study alternatives like Ivormectin before we, the rest, can be sure that you will join us all and get vaccinated.
      You are an anti vaxxer hiding behind a strange perception of human rights.
      
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      August 29, 2021 12:18pm
      - Durden
        
        That is bullshit about what Jacinda does. Captain’s call on oil and gas exploration ban was based on following sensible advice ? Nah..it was based on some kids recruited by Greens sending in some comments and her desire to be seen by the UN and others as the exemplar saviour of the world.
        
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        August 29, 2021 1:40pm
      - Observer of Life
        
        JohnPakes: Take some time and listen to Prof Des Gorman. I’m with him. Elimination is unrealistic.
        
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        August 29, 2021 3:49pm
  - Tom Hunter
    
    While we have low vaccination levels, Lockdowns are a necessity. – Former National MP, Wayne Mapp
    
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
    
    Ladies and gentlemen, the answer to DPF’s concern yesterday.
    
    Somewhat concerning that National has dropped 4% at a time when the Government has had so many problems and the net country direction has fallen 6%.”
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:46am
    - thirteenstars
      
      I too shook my head in wonder at that comment. It’s akin to saying, despite the woeful performance of this government, voters think National is a worse alternative, and worsening.
      
      I guess that’s what happens when a party stays in a bubble even though we didn’t have a lockdown for 18 months.
      
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      August 29, 2021 1:36pm
  - Mr_Blobby
    
    The tide is turning the vaccine is not performing as promised.
    
    So how is Sweden going now?
    
    Is our 100 billion plus spend up money well spent, I don’t think so.
    
    There are none so blind as those that won’t see.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:52am
    - PhilBest
      
      All the pro lockdowners I talk to assert that Sweden is wallowing in dead bodies of old people, a worst-case Covid outcomes country, an exemplar of harsh Ayn Randist utilitarian “let-em-die” ideals. It is impossible to reach them with stats based arguments.
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:18am
      - Ian Boag
        
        Only 15000 deaths to date and 1000 cases today.
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:36am
      - krazykiwi
        
        The age and population adjusted mortality in Sweden was lower in 2020 that it was in 2010.
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:40am
      - Jack5
        
        The latest figures reported on Sweden are 1,440 deaths per head of population, a ratio that would indicate 7200 deaths in NZ.
        
        If the mortality rate of Covid-19 were the same in New Zealand as the 1918 Spanish flu’s, the national toll would be about 38,500 deaths.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:43pm
      - PhilBest
        
        There is Covid deaths and there is excess mortality. Sweden’s Covid deaths are certainly NOT “on top of expected mortality”. If NZ had 7200 Covid deaths, neither would that be on top of expected mortality. Around 28,000 Kiwis per year do die. It is quite possible we could have no more than that, and still have a “Covid death toll” that makes some proportion of the population go into a frenzy.
        
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        August 29, 2021 1:33pm
  - Fletch
    
    Have you not seen that Israel is 80% vaccinated, opened up their country in June and now is close to 10,000 cases with hundreds in hospital? With the Pfizer vaccine, too. Which makes it pointless for us to have a solution based on how much of the country is vaccinated. It’s a strategy that won’t work.
    
    In June, there were several days with zero new COVID infections in Israel. The country launched its national vaccination campaign in December last year and has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, with 80 percent of citizens above the age of 12 fully inoculated. COVID, most Israelis thought, had been defeated. All restrictions were lifted and Israelis went back to crowded partying and praying in mask-free venues.
    
    Fast forward two months later: Israel reported 9,831 new diagnosed cases on Tuesday, a hairbreadth away from the worst daily figure ever recorded in the country—10,000—at the peak of the third wave. More than 350 people have died of the disease in the first three weeks of August. In a Sunday press conference, the directors of seven public hospitals announced that they could no longer admit any coronavirus patients. With 670 COVID-19 patients requiring critical care, their wards are overflowing and staff are at breaking point.
    
    “I don’t want to frighten you,” coronavirus czar Dr. Salman Zarka told the Israeli parliament this week. “But this is the data. Unfortunately, the numbers don’t lie.”
    
    What happened?
    
    The complex and sobering truth is that no single policy or event brought Israel to this crisis, Hagai Levine, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor of epidemiology, told The Daily Beast. A deadly set of circumstances came together to put Israel on the precipice, most of which can be summed up as: “We are still in the midst of a pandemic, and there is no silver bullet.”
    
    https://www.thedailybeast.com/ultra-vaccinated-israels-debacle-is-a-dire-warning-to-america
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:16pm
- Stephen Russell
  
  The New Zealand public is not yet ready to accept that calculation. But that will change. Possibly because we have an outbreak (this one, or the next, or the next) that we fail to contain and there will no longer be a choice. Or because the increasing cost of longer and more frequent lockdowns sends us into bankruptcy. Or because the stress of an unending spiral of outbreak-lockdown convinces people to accept the inevitable.
  * To be fair with regards to past (and maybe present) policy, widespread vaccination greatly reduces the harm the virus can do. Elimination DID make sense. At some point that will stop (or has stopped) making sense.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:48am
  - Albert_Ross
    
    I suspect the New Zealand public will get there long before the Prime Minister does, and that is currently the main problem for policymakers. Not what is the best course of action, but how to get the PM to understand it
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:01am
    - thirteenstars
      
      How do you get the PM to understand it when the National Party have the same policy, their criticisms amounting only to not going harder and faster, which is simply doing more of the same wrong things.
      
      The opposition parties need to start telling it like it is, but they too are cowards, or stupid.
      
      With everyone singing from the same hymn sheet, NZ is going to be driven off a cliff.
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:17am
      - curry4me
        
        thirteenstars: The opposition are doing just that. They’re called ACT.
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:54pm
      - Clownworld
        
        Well it is about coincidences. None of it could be planned. Surely sovereign nations make their own decisions not an international puppetmaster like the UN or WEF or Worldbank etc etc.
        
        All a coincidence that countries with a few exceptions are all pushing vaccines, lockdowns, masks at approx same time.
        
        Not like anyone else said recently pre pandemic we should ban cars, planes and go carbon neutral etc.
        
        All a coincidence probably.
        
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        August 29, 2021 3:10pm
    - Mr_Blobby
      
      The bottom line is that a government can never admit that it was wrong.
      
      Can you see jacinda standing up and apologizing to the New Zealand public, for getting it so wrong.
      
      Apologizing for the economic (zero understanding of economics ) and social ( every problem has gotten worse) crisis her government has created.
      
      The opposition parties are neck deep up shit creek as well.
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:59am
  - westernScientest
    
    Even this on is not going to be short, at a minimum, if new cases started halving today, it would still be at least another week at 4 from Tuesday, then at least 2 weeks at L3, thats still 5 weeks minimum.
    
    Elimination never made sense, the 2017 pandemic response plan made sense. That is why we do contingency planning, to follow it. If we had have followed it we would have got back to normal quite possibly with less excess deaths than what we will ultimately end up with. Remember flatten the curve, that is why we went into lock-down the first time, until about 2-3 weeks in when cindy made a captains call that she could be famous as the person who ‘eliminated’ covid, of course without realising what that was. We will now suffer the same fate that pretty much every other country has in the last 19 months.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:08am
- Unity
  
  I totally agree CJames. It sounds like a viable plan. At least they have a plan. There has to be a better option than lockdowns which cause so much devastastion everywhere, businesswise and also people-wise. Israel will be worth watching to see how it all pans out.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:53am
  - Tom Hunter
    
    You know what I’ve noticed? Nobody panics when things go “according to plan.” Even if the plan is horrifying!
    
    🙂
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:43am
- ecco
  
  Agreed CJames. There is a devastating mental and economic cost to the way Ardern is approaching this ie locking people up in their homes, not to mention all the business, big and small that are on the edge. All the while decimating the NZ economy. Who knows what she’ll take NZ’s debt to GDP ratio up to. If you take out the Auckland economy you will take out the NZ economy eventually.
  
  This platform of being able to borrow/print so much money was set by Key’s good management of the NZ economy (wasn’t debt to GDP about mid 20%s when he left, now at 50+% and will climb) and now all that work is being undone by Ardern and Robertson wrecklessly borrowing/printing money their way out of bad decisions and blaming it on covid. I have my doubts about Robertson even understanding the implications of what he’s doing. He hasn’t ever worked in the real world and does he have any finance background? Of course not.
  
  Just noticed that their spin machine seems to be leaking reports to NZH & Stuff about elimination strategy being not realistic. These are definitely coming from Ardern’s office and parading as news articles.
  
  When is the next approval rating poll being carried out? Or are Tova and Jack too scared to run another one of these at the moment? That would focus Ardern’s mind on what to do with her elimination strategy.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:01am
  - miltonF
    
    Robbo a week ago: “I am confident that the outbreak is under control and lockdown will not be extended”
    
    Grunter is guaranteed to get every prediction 100% backwards. The man is a nincompoop and a dangerous menace to society.
    
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    August 29, 2021 6:27pm
- Aunty
  
  Yes, of course, they can do this. And it’s the right thing to do. There’s no mystery here or great revelation in what they are doing. I mean, come on.
  
  So why can they do this but we can’t? Because Isreal is fully vaccinated and we are not.
  
  Whereas our Minister of Health issued soothing words of spin last year to New Zealanders about being at the head of the queue for vaccinations, the Israeli Prime Minister was on the phone to the CEO of Pfizer 44 times to ensure that they actually were. The Israelis were proactive whereas our lot were (and are) reactive.
  
  So if you are pissed off about being in lockdown again, you need to fully understand what the cause of that is, where the blame lies and where to correctly focus your energy. The fault is not in the policy of lockdowns, the fault is in the Labour Government’s inability to get this country vaccinated when it had the time to.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:36am
- Spoff
  
  Some numbers:
  The Government has signalled $62.1 billion of funding to support the COVID-19 response and recovery.
  
  According to the Canterbury DHB: The average daily cost of a patient in our ICU wards is $5,500
  
  Average Covid patient stay in ICU – 5-days (now declining with proper treatment).
  
  Hospitalization appears to be required in about 4% of infected cases (also declining with prophylactic treatment).
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:00am
  - Tom Hunter
    
    Now check out the un-noticed lives lost as a result of falls in GDP per capita caused by lockdowns.
    
    Such a thing – an increase in poverty – has been the mainstay argument behind numerous recommendations by the Otago Public Healthcare group over the years.
    
    What are the odds they’ll talk about that in this case? I’d say slim to none.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:52am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    18months into the pandemic the hospital ICU system is nearly overloaded even without Covid patients. What the hell have the govt been doing all that time?
    
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    August 29, 2021 4:02pm
Andrei

Day 12

https://youtu.be/z0rio3IPXXU
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August 29, 2021 8:01am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  “WHY?”
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:33am
  - Nickc2
    
    Only a minimum of 16 days to go Steve.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:03am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Watch the series and you will know why the question “Why” was asked. Not going to spoil it for you
      
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      August 29, 2021 2:27pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    I have the series on DVD
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:28am
- RockyJ
  
  Brilliant. Thank you. Brought back a lot of memories.
  How come Patrick MacGoohan became so young over the years?
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:23am
JibberJabber

Same Fear different year…
https://twitter.com/NZNana16/status/1431577791510634500
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August 29, 2021 8:01am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Mountain cyclists demonstrate their selfishness yet again. Police should throw the book at them.

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/126215290/police-extremely-disappointed-after-discovering-more-than-50-mountain-bikers-following-crash-at-bike-park
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August 29, 2021 8:02am
- krazykiwi
  
  What? 50 people exercising, improving their cardiovascular health and getting lots of Vitamin D3?
  
  I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked!
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:32am
  - westernScientest
    
    It is absolutely terrible, they should be under their beds being kind like good little peasants.
    
    Also, if its good enough for the health minister…
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:10am
  - softail 1450
    
    KrazyKiwi, as soon as I saw the pic of the feminine pansy Coster I lost interest.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:34am
- Sede Vacante
  
  If it wasn’t for lockdown, I’d shake their hands. We need more civil disobedience, not less.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:39am
- Ruawai
  
  They are just following David Clarkes example.
  
  You need to get this covid in perspective, mountain biking doesn’t spread covid, neither does fishing. The Government should just say no getting too close to others.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:42am
- kowtow
  
  Glad you mentioned that .
  
  Photo shows at least 4 police cars at scene .( for a hurt cyclist )
  
  Woke Commissioner says the hurt person may face charges , but the fifty others , and how long did it take for the 50 to pass the scene , hours probably will only be “educated”
  
  The lesson here is the police are being punitive and picking on the cyclist who had the temerity to be injured while if you can stay upright you’ll evade sanction .
  
  But according to Woker this time is different cos delta is deadly . So now state sanction is not based on the fair and equal application of the law to all without fear or prejudice it all depends on your cycling ability and what strain of a virus is circulating.
  
  Why don’t they go through the casualty wards and take out any DIYers who fell orf ladders during delta lockdown ? Climbing ladders during Delta lockdown is different , donncha know.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:03am
- Nickc2
  
  I’m informed they were exercising in their own local vicinity. This is permitted under Level 4. Morals and ethics don’t enter into it because these traits are not equal among all humans.
  Another open to interpretation law/constraint/dictate implemented by this Govt.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:10am
- Ford Prefect
  
  Can someone tell me what a mountain cyclist is?? I’ve never heard that term before, especially when linking to an article on mountain bikers at a bike park.
  Obviously outraged at something they have no idea about. Ignorant outrage
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:16am
- ecco
  
  What’s going to get really bad is not the 50 mountain bikers going for a ride, it’s going to be the revolt (from Ardern’s constituents) at not being able to get their KFC.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:16am
- Nookin
  
  The second part of the report reveals a perspective somewhat different to that of the Police.
  
  https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/queenstown/more-50-qtown-trail-when-woman-crashed-police
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:21am
- CJames
  
  Anyone with half a clue knows that mountain bikers are very rarely within 5m of each other, even when riding as a group. There is no recorded incidence of Covid being transmitted in the outdoor environment. The riding exercise does wonders for mental wellbeing. Almost everyone doing it doesn’t have comorbidities. In Queenstown, like at Rotorua where they have had similar issues, almost all those riders would have ridden there from home.
  The only thing wrong is it offends the Covid lockdown Nazis who want everyone cooped up. And then they wonder why suicides kill so many.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:27am
- Inandout
  
  NMTB, the Police throwing Das Kapital at the cyclists won’t make a huge difference.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:29am
- Tony
  
  Yeah… Just like they’re throwing the book at Labour people delivering pamphlets. (Not)
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:44am
- kevn
  
  @Never… Only shame was that one fell off. Might have a been a good time to ride slightly more conservatively.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:07am
- Bobba Fret
  
  Were you saying the same thing last year when David Clark went mountain biking (and moved house and went to the beach)?
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:14am
  - CJames
    
    Remember David drove to his mountainbiking. That was how he was outed. He should have riden there as per official advice.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:26pm
Vory v zakone

And more again from The Week That Was:

_“It’s not legal tender”: Bank of China WARNING as it urges citizens to ‘stay away’ from cryptocurrencies
_Microsoft cloud DATA BREACH warning to 1000s of users
_3 KILLED, 5 injured as Pakistani forces opened fire on Afghans who tried to illegally enter the country through a checkpoint at the border
_”We’re going to have to go back in”- Obama’s Defense Secretary Leon Panetta tells CNN after terror attacks in Kabul, the U.S. military might have to RETURN to Afghanistan
_Live Q&A: Moderna Vaccine Suspended in Japan!
_Orange County Board of Education Calls Out Critical Race Theory in Ethnic Studies
_44 Senators Issue Letter Demanding Durham Report Be Made Public; Grand Jury Pushing Forward ?
_Public, US Officials Respond to Deaths of US Troops in Kabul
_The Supreme Court has struck down the Biden CDC’s eviction moratorium.
“If a federally imposed eviction moratorium is to continue, Congress must specifically authorize it.”
_Dr Peter McCullough – “The failed mass Covid-19 vaccination programme will go down as one of the most deadly in history”
_US believes another terror attack will be carried out in Kabul in the coming days, stepping up airport security – White House
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August 29, 2021 8:03am
- Inandout
  
  Vory:
  ”We’re going to have to go back in” says a CNN/Obama chap. If that is the case then maybe they are going to have another election because Biden’s reputation is now completely shot. Yes I know the US system doesn’t work that way but in a Westminster democracy he would be gone by his next cocoa night cap.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:36am
  - oldfella
    
    Iandout: THE WEEK IN PICTURES: BIDEN BRAIN FREEZE EDITION
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/08/the-week-in-pictures-biden-brain-freeze-edition.php
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:59am
    - curry4me
      
      oldfella: Thanks, I stole quite a few of these already.
      
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      August 29, 2021 3:20pm
dcrane

We must oppose the push by governments and corporations to institute domestic vaccine mandates.

Not because of the vaccines, which even though incompletely tested may still make medical sense for those with high covid risk. The vaccines are not the main problem with the mandates.

If we allow these requirements to be instituted, they will multiply – they’re already multiplying, it will be booster shots regularly, and then more medical/compliance requirements for the next “threats”. Through these rules, governments and institutions will gain the ability to threaten ordinary citizens with loss of jobs, online speech/platforms, travel, access to business, parenting rights (see story linked below)…will bank accounts follow?

Temporary abridgement of liberty is needed when a critically important goal can be achieved together (as in time of war). But these vaccines cannot eliminate covid. The covid-vaccinated also easily catch and spread the disease. No great goal will be reached by forcing everyone to take them.

We are in an age of unprecedented institutional crisis, and as a result the elites running our countries are increasingly fearful of loss of status and power through the democratic action and protest of the disaffected general population. This is part of why vaccine mandates instinctively appeal to them. It is also why we see a push for greater government power to fight “domestic extremism”. These laws will combine in ways that we will regret, if we allow them to be imposed. This threatens to become the greatest crisis of social liberty that has happened in my lifetime.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/illinois-mom-judge-custody-child-vaccine
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August 29, 2021 8:03am
- Sede Vacante
  
  Exactly. Once the digital ID system is in place under the pretext of health and safety, you easily could have your access cut off for posting the wrong comment or for trying to form a dissident political party, or whatever “threat” is deemed a justification. All that is required to see the ease with which this sort of mission-creep could occur is foresight combined with a knowledge of history through hindsight.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:44am
- Nickc2
  
  Well put! TKS.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:21am
Tauhei Notts

I saw a headline that the police were arresting people breaching the Covid rules.
Then I read further that the miscreant was from Bader Street in Hamilton. That is the pits. The offender was also in possession of significant amounts of pseudoephedrine. Apparently the Covid bit was just an afterthought.
Then I thought of that old cliche;
Dog bites man- not newsworthy.
Man bites dog – front page stuff.
A person from Bader Street with P is about as common as a dog biting a man.
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August 29, 2021 8:07am
- Inandout
  
  TN, this brings us back to the drug dealers who for obvious reasons don’t want to be tracked. I guess the last person to care about spreading any virus is a spaced out drug user.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:40am
krazykiwi

Pfizer and FDA lying to the public.

Pfizer/FDA: 95% Deception?

How can the US FDA “fully approve” the Pfizer covid vaccine without requiring product liability? As US biosafety expert Dr. Meryl Nass revealed, they simply split the Pfizer vaccine into two products: a branded product (“Comirnaty”), which received a full market license but is currently unavailable in the US (due to “insufficient stocks”); and an unbranded product (“Pfizer/Biontech vaccine”), which is widely available in the US but remains under the existing Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).

The result: they use the unavailable branded product to justify politically motivated vaccination mandates, but they may then deliver the unbranded product to avoid any liability for vaccine injuries (there is no liability under EUA, but there is full liability under a market license).
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August 29, 2021 8:08am
- kevn
  
  @kk… I for one, appreciate your steady input and updates from all over. Thank you.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:13am
  - Charmaine Hawke
    
    Ditto for me KK, your efforts are appreciated.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:51am
- MrTips
  
  How do you get full FDA on a product you CLEARLY have no intention of selling ? And its obvious to everyone you can make it RiGHT NOW?
  
  Appalling but not surprising given the corruption in the FDA at the moment with the criminally insane Janet Woodcock as commissioner, and was appointed by BIDEN.
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2021/06/17/manchin-wants-biden-to-oust-fda-chief-over-controversial-alzheimers-drug-approval/amp/
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:36am
  - krazykiwi
    
    It is all optics, Mr_Tips.
    
    There is collusion between high-level players in this game – FDA/Big Pharma/CDC/WHO with Big Tech providing the conduit for lies and the handbrake against truth.
    
    NZers who don’t look beyond the Podium of Truth and the MSM are disposable pawns in a global power play.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:41am
- Greg Ettridge
  
  You are solid rock in the push back of this charade.
  I now firmly believe there are enough people waking up to what is going on here. Thank you for your endless hours of research, I have learnt much from your discussion on this blog and was really chuffed to hear you quoted on Peter Williams.
  The truth will win through , the world is now waking up, slowly, but it is waking up to what is going on.
  I will add this test result my son Shaun received on the Gold Coast this week, a legal document for him to present to the police on the border everyday. The fine for him presenting a false document is $12,000, the fine for the lab, Nil, Zero, Zilch!
  Who is Shalin may I ask how do you identify them? It is a total shambles.
  The really funny aspect is, police accepted it.
  Why would Shalin have a Flu shot going into summer in Queensland?
  “Dear SHALIN,
  Your COVID-19 test result for the sample collected on 25/08/2021 is NEGATIVE.
  Please consult your doctor for interpretation and advice in your particular circumstances. If you are in isolation, this result does not necessarily mean these measures can be ceased.
  HAVE YOU SEEN YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT A FLU SHOT?
  This message is from QML Pathology. (lab ref: 21-29823691)”
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:11am
- virtualmark
  
  Sigh. No they didn’t.
  
  The common practice is to give your drug/vaccine a “brand name” once it is fully approved. Comirnaty is just the (naff) brand name for the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine that we have been receiving and will continue to receive.
  
  Qu: If it were a different product, as you allege, then where was that different product tested? Where are it’s Phase I, II and III results? On what basis did it get approved?
  
  The simple answer = it is the exact same product, but now it has a brand name.
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:58am
Pongo

According to a Cambridge University study the Astra Zeneca vaccine is better at reducing hospitalizations than Pfizer.
Another study tentatively is saying the AZ vaccine also lasts longer. Pfizer is down to 67% efffectiveness at 5 months…they both still are incredibly effective at preventing death and serious illness.
The governments spin that Pfizer is the gold standard is in tatters and I look forward to the media screaming and asking why Ardern is not sourcing any at the moment, do we have to have death and economic harm because ordering AZ means she might have to admit her strategy is wrong.
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August 29, 2021 8:10am
- redqueen
  
  This is where consumerism has gotten us. We actually have a PM talking about a vaccine as if it’s a pair of sports shoes. Government buys stuff now based on branding, which is actually how it’s structured (due to ‘approved panels’ of suppliers).
  
  It’s just another example of identity politics: I’m defined by my choice of…and then randomly apply something that has next to zero relevance.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:10am
alex Masterley

I do wish Hendy would just shut up and get back into his box.
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August 29, 2021 8:10am
- krazykiwi
  
  Agreed. 100% of clairvoyants are more accurate than this limelight seeking tool.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:13am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Well he shows clearly the quality of advice our Government is listening to.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:16am
  - slightlyrighty
    
    Maggy, the key to having your advice listened to by this government is making sure that advice agrees with what they already believe.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:19am
    - softail 1450
      
      slightlyrighty, it also helps if you are of Maori heritage,are a lesbian with a severe speech impediment and a limp.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:40am
  - CJames
    
    Cactus Kate has no compunctions about putting the boot into his incompetence. Not unexpected as he hasn’t got anything right yet still seen as an expert. And if his is the best quality advice Jacinda is getting, no wonder she is clueless.
    https://asianinvasion2019.blogspot.com/2021/08/hendy-wrong-yet-again-emperor-is.html
    Kate has more balls calling him out than any of the reporters that are just fanboys.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:21am
    - Ruahine
      
      Kate is Great. I sincerely mean that. The clarity and the succinctness of her writing puts the gov’t hacks to shame.
      
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      August 29, 2021 8:46am
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        I’d love to see her leading some (or all) branches of the public service. She wouldn’t tolerate bullshit.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:30pm
    - PhilBest
      
      Hendy is NZ’s Neil Ferguson. Both of them should be in jail. When someone is promoting hysteria and destruction with figures that EVERY TIME turn out to be absurdly wrong, it is time for accountability, and mere sacking wouldn’t go far enough. It is also impossible for it to be a genuine mistake, repeated again and again. It is malice and it is an agenda.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:58am
    - Bobba Fret
      
      Up to 80,000 deaths in NZ, that still amuses me. And they still call Hendy an “expert”!
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:30am
    - alex Masterley
      
      The Ken Moon analogy is brilliant. sums up Hendy completely.
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:58am
  - westernScientest
    
    I do which they had put Simon Thornley on the advisory panel right from the start (there is a bunch of other views missing to). Just from constructing a solid debate around the different options it would have been immensely useful. Instead they created their own echo chamber repeating cindys views back to her to feed the narcissism.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:28am
- Cinematic
  
  He’s so wrong so often. Can see why he’s popular with Labour.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:18am
  - sooty
    
    The twyford of academia!
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:53am
    - oldfella
      
      Sooty, the Twyford of Twatademia?
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:04am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Indeed Alex. Hendy’s track record of predictions is not that flash. I certainly wouldn’t let him pick my Lotto numbers!
  
  He seems to have the ear of the PM though, so the concern he expressed yesterday about numbers continuing to increase may indicate growing unease from Ardern and co. The most infections recorded in a day since the pandemic began is 89 in March last year. There were 82 new cases reported yesterday, so it’s touch and go today and tomorrow.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:20am
  - All_on_Red
    
    I suspect ANYONE who has Data which supports a Lockdown decision would have the ‘ear of the PM’…
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:39am
    - Clownworld
      
      Given the deliberate slowness , anyone else wonder if numbers being held back to show a supposed sudden surge? In other words peak has already been reached and on way down whereas the magicians sleight of hand is to release figures slower so it appears out of control.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:51am
  - westernScientest
    
    He is good at scaring the sh*t out of people, that seems to be the use they have for him, rather than anything to do with making predictions of how different scenarios might play out.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:23am
  - Sacha
    
    As long as the new ‘cases’ include asymptomatic ‘carriers’ of the virus, I won’t believe the statistics.
    We know that there will be many people moving around the country who unknowingly carry the virus, and maybe share it around – but very few get sick.
    Look at the Coromandel/North Shore chap. The Govt needed a lockdown – even foreshadowed it with warnings – and then, whaddya know? A week later we have LOCKDOWN! All over the place.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:53am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  This idiot starts with a desired result, then designs a working system to achieve that result
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:39am
- Durden
  
  Yep. Shameless Shaun misses his forecast by a mile. Gives no explanation or apology but says:
  
  “University of Auckland physics professor and Covid-19 modeller Shaun Hendy was “somewhat alarmed” by Saturday’s figures, as experts were expecting numbers to start to “flatten and drop off from about now”.
  “I had hoped to see them really plateau,” he said.
  
  Until we start to see case numbers coming down, and while the trend is not clear, “the end is not sight, unfortunately”.
  
  At this stage, a further two weeks at alert level 4 for Auckland is “not looking long enough”, he said.”
  
  it does not take a modeller to spew his useless obviousness .
  
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300393669/covid19-end-is-not-in-sight-as-delta-outbreak-case-numbers-continue-to-grow
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:42am
  - Wayne Mapp
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Hendy predicted the current outbreak would get to 1,000. Seems he won’t be far off in that regard.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:50am
    - Cinematic
      
      Wrong.
      
      17 2
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      August 29, 2021 9:06am
    - Stu2
      
      That was his second try
      
      Aug 19
      “Professor Shaun Hendy, who is a Covid-19 modeller at the University of Auckland, said the models suggest that there could be about 100 cases out in the community although there is still a lot of uncertainty and new information may change that outlook”
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:14am
    - Stu2
      
      Very soon after this began there were numerous sites that could have gone big :
      
      – Sky City
      – AUT
      – Auckland Uni
      – Herne Bay Church
      – 6 schools
      
      But in fact the worst site was yet to come – the AOG.
      
      Making predictions was fraught, but our experts are fond of their own voices
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:20am
    - All_on_Red
      
      Good guess!
      
      13 1
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      August 29, 2021 9:25am
      - cmm
        
        No, not a good guess – a lucky guess.
        
        A good guess is one that has a solid statistical basis (and might still not match reality).
        
        A bad guess is one that has a poor statistical basis (even if it matches reality).
        
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        August 29, 2021 9:39am
    - CJames
      
      The current just over 400 is still a long way off 1000. It also seems he made his prediction on the 24th and it was simple curve fitting that someone with School Cert maths could do.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:31am
    - cmm
      
      He also predicted it wouldn’t get past 100, before changing his numbers.
      
      What he really should have said then is “I don’t know. We don’t have enough data to work with yet.”
      
      That might not sit well with his “expert” persona, but a real expert knows (himself included) is still limited by the data available and should not be making predictions based on feelings and guesses.
      
      If he is “right” on the 1000 number (and quite likely he will be), then it will only be on the basis of a broken clock being right twice a day.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:35am
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        “I don’t know. We don’t have enough data to work with yet.”
        
        And that will still be the position if we get a low increase today or the next day… It won’t be until we get a consistent run of decreasing additions to the total infected that we will suspect that the virus has been contained (this time).
        
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        August 29, 2021 9:52am
      - PhilBest
        
        The problem is obvious. Hendy is STILL working to assumptions that were out of date more than a year ago.
        
        He is assuming that spread is by contact, droplets and surfaces, and accordingly, he is assuming that lockdowns work through restricting human proximity.
        
        It was obvious from the start that spread was via buildup in the air indoors; and the only difference now is that Delta is even more infectious. Fortunately it is far less deadly. Lockdowns will produce an immediate increase in “in the home” transmissions, and to some extent this will creep out via essential workers, into the worst environments of all – rest homes. The more crowded our housing is, the greater the risk of this.
        
        In March and April 2020 we got away with it, there was almost no “in the home” transmission because the original virus was not as transmissable, and our weather was so wonderful at the time. And by the time we locked down, most of the people who were infected at our spreader events had passed the “shedding” stage.
        
        We should have worked out more than a year ago that we need to tell people to ventilate their indoors well and spend as much time outdoors as possible. Delta may be so much more transmissable that it will still create “cases” but it would be perfectly possible for it to kill less people than a normal flu season, with no lockdown at all.
        
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        August 29, 2021 10:08am
    - Inandout
      
      Yep, a little under the normal winter flu figures of yesteryear.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:42am
    - Ra Henare
      
      Which version of his prediction Wayne?
      He changes his predictions more often than I go shopping!!
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:17am
    - Tony Stuart
      
      Hendy’s initial prediction, on the night L4 lockdown was announced, was 50-120 cases.
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:18am
    - Bobba Fret
      
      I think he originally said up to 100 or 120. I guess he decided to go low this time after the ridicule he should have received over his 80,000 deaths!
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:33am
  - Southern Raider
    
    So we had an economics professor that was pilloried by the left and “experts” for his views on COVID and our options
    
    But we have a physics professor modelling flu infection rates and he’s a god to the left?
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:54am
    - KevO'Brien
      
      What physics is he a professor of: GUT-CP or QM?
      I bet he’s stick in the mud QM.
      
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      August 29, 2021 9:53am
      - Northshoredoc
        
        https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/science/our-research/take-10-with/take-10-with-physics/take-10-with—-shaun-hendy.html
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:21am
    - ABS4EVA
      
      No KARL Marx is GOD to the Left
      and Politics is their Religion and they are Heathens when it comes to that but also lunatic Fanatics
      
      Some one needs to tell Brian What Marx wrote
      about Scottish Genocide
      
      <
      Karl Marx and the original Communists advocated the genocide of Basques, Scots, Bretons and Southern Slavs. These people were referred to as "ethnic trash" or "ruined people" ("Völkerabfall") by Friedrich Engels in an article entitled "Der magyarische Kampf", published in Marx's newspaper 'Neue Rheinische Zeitung' on 13 January 1849. According to the article, the destiny of such inferior people was extermination before the revolution.
      <
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:12am
      - ABS4EVA
        
        I provide accomodation to Scottish refugees in NZ
        who fled from British Marxist persecution
        
        7 1
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        August 29, 2021 1:20pm
- Hollyfield
  
  It’s reported Hendy suggests fewer supermarkets should open: “might be necessary to tighten up alert level 4 restrictions by shutting some supermarkets”
  
  Aside from the inconvenience factor of having more people trying to shop at each supermarket, longer queues and more stock shortages, surely it would also increase the number of people exposed to Covid.
  
  Cramming more people into one supermarket would result in more people exposed when a contagious person does their shopping, and then taking it home to their bubbles. There has already been so much demand on testing that people are waiting hours for a test, and then 6 days for the results. Increasing the number of people at locations of interest will put even more pressure on the testing system.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:53am
  - Ra Henare
    
    And why would we listen to his thoughts. Hes a ferkin physics professor.
    Almost as bad as the microbiologist with colorful hair giving advice on Kiwsaver. (Yes she did)
    
    Being on TV adles their brains and the media keep supping from the posioned chalice.
    
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    August 29, 2021 11:20am
    - WaveyDavey
      
      She also opined on the concept of Universal Basic Income (a political subject) then cried sexism, racism, bigotry when anyone dared attack her
      
      She’s been happy enough to tell others to “stay in their lane” (hilariously that person being the only NZ medical professional with experience of managing an epidemic btw) but woe betide anyone who dares to counter her arguments
      
      She’s a politicised and partisan **** (insert word to suit) who plays the victim card whenever she needs to
      
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      August 29, 2021 12:19pm
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      Screw credentialism in data analysis, it is bullshit in this age where a large fraction of the population have the basic research and analysis skills should they wish to focus it on any area.
      
      Instead judge ‘experts’ by the accuracy of their predictions. Hendy failed, Wiles is hopelessly political – parroting whatever narratives support her mates in govt. Find people who got it right and listen to them instead.
      
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      August 29, 2021 4:08pm
- oc35
  
  Did he pass School Cert maths?
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:46am
WaynelSexton

I’m telling you, ya gotta BOOST! If you aren’t BOOSTING, you aren’t serious about vaxxing:

https://nypost.com/2021/08/27/biden-and-fauci-discuss-covid-19-booster-shots-every-5-months/

Getting closer to reality…
https://babylonbee.com/news/white-house-unveils-new-15-boosters-to-stop-the-spread-slogan
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August 29, 2021 8:14am
G152

Auckland is the problem.
Leave them at 4 and let the rest of us get on with life.
There will come a time when in spite of Cindys podium palaver there will be a countrywide outbreak at some stage.
Get your shots and hang on it’s going to be an interesting ride
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August 29, 2021 8:16am
- Southern Raider
  
  Lockdown Auckland and the whole country suffers. If you don’t live in Auckland you may not like the place but reality is it has a massive impact on the NZ economy.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:55am
- kowtow
  
  MIQ is the problem .
  
  They had one job.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:04am
  - PhilBest
    
    Was that job, “run a high risk test of whether those advocates of the aerosol spread hypothesis are really right after all”?
    
    Because that is what they DID.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:10am
  - Ra Henare
    
    Having been thri MIQ twice and critcisied the SYSTEMS.
    
    The hotels did a great job.
    For those Dissing them.
    You have no idea what you are talking about.
    
    If you spent even a few minutes on google, you would see that MIQs around the world have problems.
    
    Sheesh, even prisons have breakouts.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:01pm
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      Why are they based in huge cities rather than isolated in rural locales like the quarantine facilities of old? Obvious point of failure that could have been fixed for ~$100million, to stave off the billions and billions this screwup is costing.
      
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      August 29, 2021 12:35pm
      - Maggy Wassilieff
        
        Northern Territory, Aus.. has it sorted..
        Place all incomers into Howard Springs for 14 days…
        
        https://aecom.com/projects/manigurr-ma-village/
        
        seems to be working well.
        
        5 0
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        August 29, 2021 3:41pm
- emmess
  
  Why should we suffer?
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:07am
- krazykiwi
  
  Auckland is not the problem.
  
  The problem is a belief held by a few low-intelligence, highly narcissistic leaders that they can outsmart a billion years of evolution.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:45am
artemisia

Opinion piece from Arthur Grimes in the Herald* today –

Government has caused housing crisis to become a catastrophe

In summary, in 4 years house prices up 50%, including annual 21.8 per cent since March 2020, rents up 20%, very low net migration. So why a catastrophe? He says –

Housing supply constraints and high migration – which traditionally push up house prices – have not been the culprits on this occasion …. The central culprit has been monetary policy that has flooded the economy with liquidity. This liquidity in turn has found its way into the housing market….. Monetary policy – driven by the change in the Reserve Bank Act – has boosted the wealth of the property-owning class

*While the Herald item is paywalled, it is also available in full in the current Listener. The Wellington library has the Listener, including this copy, on ‘always available’ free loan via Overdrive. Don’t know about other libraries. ‘Always available’ means there is never a waitlist, just borrow and read.
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August 29, 2021 8:16am
- PhilBest
  
  What has been remarkable about this monetary expansion to the moon this time, is that even the cities in the regular Demographia Reports that always managed to sustain a median multiple of around 3, have actually finally gone to 4 for the first time ever. This is probably because Covid has disrupted the ultra-elastic housing supply that kept the prices down. Monetary expansion that took LA, San Fran, Melbourne, Vancouver and Dorkland to 10 in the past already, couldn’t take Dallas, Atlanta, Indianapolis and Nashville much above 3. But the Covid era has finally done it.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:14am
Pongo

Ardern should be pivoting and accelerating first jabs and delaying second ones at this stage, 3 months between jabs is the optimal time according to Johns Hopkins. Lets get as many people with one jab so there is partial immunity.
Can we please also halt jabbing people under 20, if they dont have any underlying health conditions they are at near zero risk from Covid. I know 70 year olds booked for late September and there were a couple of teenagers jabbed in Christchurch yesterday, that is absurd and shows very weak and politically driven rollout.
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August 29, 2021 8:16am
- westernScientest
  
  or Janssen is a single shot, and medsafe have given it provisional approval, and we have an advance purchase agreement for 2 million doses. Not really advocating it, but its a single shot which works better than a single shot of Pfizer.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:20am
  - virtualmark
    
    The J&J/Janssen vaccine is turning out to provide poor protection. I doubt that we will ever use any of the J&J/Janssen vaccine that we have ordered.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:01pm
    - WaveyDavey
      
      It’s around 70% effective (at the moment) which is way more effective than a single Pfizer dose at 44%
      
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      August 29, 2021 12:23pm
      - virtualmark
        
        But has very poor results against Delta.
        
        It might perhaps be useful to us as a booster shot? Not saying it will be, but I think that would be interesting to see some research on whether the best booster for a Pfizer-led regime is:
        (a) Pfizer boosted with more Pfizer,
        (b) Pfizer boosted with Astra-Zeneca,
        (c) Pfizer boosted with J&J/Janssen,
        (d) Pfizer boosted with Novavax.
        
        We have all four of those options available to us from current contracts.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:56pm
- PhilBest
  
  Why don’t we survey what proportion of the people don’t want them? Maybe everyone over 70 not jabbed already, doesn’t want them.
  
  Then at least we could move to discussing the reality that what we are relying on is a jab rate that is going to require burly policemen to hold people down while they are jabbed.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:16am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    You won’t know that for months. But I predict that vaccinated elderly will exceed 95 percent by the first qyaterr of 2022. Not the 99 percent of the UK but close.
    
    5 3
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    August 29, 2021 11:47am
- Stu2
  
  The Canterbury DHB went for a low vaccination target
  
  You are probably seeing the consequence, as Canterbury would have had fewer vaccine deliveries per capita than other regions
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:01am
Happychappy

You have to laugh about the comments on the Roy Morgan Poll last night where most are condemning National and Judith Collins. Well many of these that continually blame Judith Collins for National’s woes were the same people that helpedWinston Peters and Jacinda Ardern get rid of Simon Bridges when polling in the 40% bracket and supported the Todd Muller quest for Leadership and all it has done is help the media continue its attack for Jacinda Ardern and the Government, whilst also increasing the vote of Act and the Green Party.
In 2017 many on this blog with many other former National Party Members voted NZ First or Labour because Jacinda was nice and caring without giving a dam about the National Party and look what happened. You all deserve the party you have for your own Stupidity and by the looks of things will get it again because of your selfishness and ability of not to recognize that you also are the problem.
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August 29, 2021 8:20am
- Andrei
  
  What is there to praise National for?
  
  For not being Labour?
  
  For not being Labour at a time when they a devoting what little energy they have into trying to outflank Labour on the left
  
  National are just are a tired old bunch of effete urban liberals
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:41am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    So what then are Labour?
    Incompetent shysters.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:55am
  - Sacha
    
    @ Andrei – well you would say that, wouldn’t you?
    I think I would keep my powder dry too, if I were in the National party.
    When an army threatens to overwhelm one, one makes a tactical retreat until the time for attack is more favourable.
    I guess the Taliban doesn’t have many overt critics right now –
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:02am
    - Ra Henare
      
      Nzs war on Covid
      War on Drugs
      
      “There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.”
      ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
      
      Its too early for National to mount a full offensive.
      Better they sit on the sidelines and snipe at errors of the gummint.
      
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      August 29, 2021 12:07pm
- lifesgood
  
  Absolutely agree, Happychappy. I am sick to death of hearing moaners on here going on and on about the National party while swearing they can’t stand Jacinda. What absolute rot. If you want Jacinda to remain in power just keep doing what you’re doing. It is very clear that the Judith haters have never bothered to listen to her speak, She is brilliant, considered, clear and able. If you think otherwise you are clearly highly influenced by the left wing media. I heard her being interviewed by Kerre McIver on Newstalk this morning, absolutely first class.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:00am
  - nathie
    
    Judith has also been astute with giving portfolios that suit her MP’s strengths (both recent reshuffle and the previous reshuffle etc), National has a great team behind Collins and it will be great for the country to see them back in power fixing this mess that Labour is foolishly creating.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:34am
- Isobar
  
  I understand getting angry at bad poll results but i don’t understand blaming other people for the party’s decisions.
  
  For whatever reason National in 2017, 2020 and even today have not done enough work to offer people something. This is not the voters fault it is the party’s fault. Those voters have chosen Act, Labour or NZ First and National should be looking into why that is and how to get them back. Blaming the voters is not a great strategy.
  
  In 2017 National were tired, asking for a 4th term is hard in NZ and the voters want a change. Luckily for National Labour started 2017 in all sorts of trouble and they looked set to cruise to a 4th term. But then Labour changed and all of a sudden National were up against a different beast. But they didn’t recognise it until it was too late. Do i like this about NZ politics, no. But it is what it is.
  
  Fast forward to now Collins is clearly not capable of taking National to victory. If she had any sense she would stand aside and let someone takeover that can at the right moment. But she is not capable of that, she will not go without a fight and the party will be worse off because of it.
  
  Some say lack of talent means that Collins is the default choice, that may be so but that is both a direct reflection of Collins dismal showing in the last election wiping out some good people and also Key and English’s failure to bring good new talent through the ranks and to give them good list rankings.
  
  National need to up their game and one year down into the next electoral cycle, somehow they are currently doing worse.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:16am
I remember when

RIP: Tom Scott – Cartoonist:
Once acclaimed and celebrated. Humourous and often critical. Now sadly reduced to Party Political endeavours.
His work now, like Saturday’s result, a ‘sick’ joke.
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August 29, 2021 8:20am
- Gravelroad
  
  Not a joke. Just sick.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:53am
- Captain Mainwaring
  
  I have a signed Tom Scott caricature of myself on my office wall, done about 20 years ago.
  If I knew where he lives I’d send it back to the bastard.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:54am
  - oldfella
    
    Captain, send it back c/o Jacinda. She’ll know where he lives. Probably has his number in her phone.
    
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    August 29, 2021 11:11am
- G152
  
  Tom Scott has always espoused the left in his scribbles.
  Anything else would have got him the sack
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:08am
  - lifesgood
    
    Muldoon was right.
    
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    August 29, 2021 1:09pm
Scooter

It’s becoming obvious the Govt is using more of these “experts” to sell their covid lockdown message. Trying to take the heat and responsibility off Cindy, Bloomfield and Hipkins. When it goes tits up there’s always someone else to blame.
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August 29, 2021 8:21am
- KevO'Brien
  
  Ardern & Co get the pay: they take the responsibility.
  If they want to pass the buck–resign.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:25am
- Liberal Cliche
  
  These “experts” were the same experts on Afghanistan for 20 years, they became “experts” on Epidemiology overnight. Much like 99% of the media.
  
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  August 29, 2021 1:11pm
JibberJabber

No matter your opinion of Bill Maher he is on point here and worth a watch,

https://twitter.com/billmaher/status/1431475940639395840
just a shame his idiot audience are too thick to get the point tho’ it did appear to be sinking in at the 7 minute mark.
As per usual this old clip from Chris Hitchens sums them up perfectly,
https://twitter.com/adrianstone/status/1431591103568908289
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August 29, 2021 8:22am
kowtow

Unf#ckingbelievable !

In the middle of this MIQ balls up the Herald On Sunday cartoon is a dig at Collins and Bishop , again.

The paper should be ashamed of itself . Any wonder the polls won’t move for the Gnats.

Talking of the media , HDPA has a dig at Ardern and Blofeld and lists their failings ; contact tracing , testing and vaccine rollout .

But she does not mention the cause of this latest outbreak .

It got out of MIQ , in a facilidy shared by the general public . How f@#king unbelievable is that , the general public wandering through the plague aisles.

Why aren’t the Media talking about that ?
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August 29, 2021 8:25am
- Tony Stuart
  
  Now an MIQ worker at a different hotel to the Crowne Plaza has tested positive. But here’s the interesting bit; they think it’s related to the current outbreak!
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-delta-outbreak-and-lockdown-miq-worker-tests-positive-experts-at-odds-over-rising-cases-level-4-is-working-says-professor/UFDPLCOMUTTO4ZD6FVQJJ62VUY/#Echobox=1630189340-1
  
  As I see it, there are two explanations. Either the Delta virus jumped from the Crowne Plaza to the Sheraton on the Park, or the MIQ worker has brought Delta INTO a different MIQ facility.
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:21am
kowtow

Maggy W

Al jazeera running a documentary made by Canadian Polish grandson of refugees who got to the west via Siberia and east Africa.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/witness/2021/8/26/memory-is-our-homeland-european-refugees-in-africa
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August 29, 2021 8:27am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Txs..
  I’ll check it out tonight..
  The ones I knew in Wellington came through Siberia to Iran and then to NZ.
  
  I’ll always remember one of them complaining that there were fewer rules to deal with in Siberia than there were when undertaking some house improvements in Wellington.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:11am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Got a bit damp here, so I watched it over lunchtime…
    Really interesting, txs
    
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    August 29, 2021 2:35pm
Southern Raider

Is Labour about to do a Chamberlain on COVID?

Surely running out of vaccine has to be the turning moment for the public against Labour
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August 29, 2021 8:29am
Tomtoddy

Middlemore in danger of being swamped with Covid patients. A lot of tension there and very worried staff.

After all the notice the Government has had to prepare Middlemore is not well equipped to handle more patients.
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August 29, 2021 8:36am
- Cinematic
  
  Relax. Labour has spent the last 18 months planning to make a plan for light rail, kind of sorted a bicycle bridge plan and looked after gangs. It’ll be ok.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:45am
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    I also hear they’ll be announcing another announcement next week
    
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    August 29, 2021 4:11pm
- Ruahine
  
  Was it not Middlemore where the Covid infected person from Fiji was taken. An associate of Helen Clark I believe.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:51am
- lifesgood
  
  The message need to be got out to these PI’s. Wasn’t a PI church service in Mt Roskill the centre of an earlier outbreak? It’s bloody annoying for the rest of us.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:02am
  - PhilBest
    
    It didn’t go anywhere though did it. I reckon it is possible to de-risk church services with ventilation and air treatment. Holding them outdoors with distancing would be completely acceptable low risk.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:19am
  - MCos
    
    Well it’s hardly likely to have been a church service in a sparsely attended Anglican or Catholic Church where everyone can’t wait to bugger off home again after the obligatory fifty minutes.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:33pm
- dcrane
  
  Too busy constructing a new parallel government based on race.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:13am
- Loddenthinks
  
  That entire DHB has been a basket case for the last 10 years at least.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:25am
All_on_Red

https://babylonbee.com/news/taliban-opens-chain-of-us-army-surplus-stores

Jacinda is mates with the Taliban, maybe she could score a dozen Blackhawks for us. 30 or so Humvees perhaps.
Maybe those 9 brand new MD530 gunships which were just delivered? (I see the Taliban were targeting and killing the pilots and technicians of these in the run up to their takeover- they must have been concerned)
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August 29, 2021 8:36am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  The Bee. I put that on Facebook yesterday. Fact checkers flagged it as ‘false’ Sad pricks
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:44am
  - All_on_Red
    
    https://babylonbee.com/news/in-response-to-afghanistan-disaster-pelosi-begins-impeachment-proceedings-against-president-trump
    
    Third time lucky? Lol
    The funny thing is if this Biden disaster continues to get worse (Spoiler; it will) then that may encourage Trump to actually run.
    Shame, as that would help most of the MSM from going bust- which they are now.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:53am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      He will run. Rallies coming up Sept 5th. Yuge
      
      12 3
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      August 29, 2021 9:16am
      - All_on_Red
        
        I hope he doesn’t
        He should do an Obama and support someone who will implement the America First agenda.
        
        4 5
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        August 29, 2021 9:21am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        He can do America First and POTUS, he has the support
        
        8 3
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        August 29, 2021 9:31am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  I’m sure the US Govt will have a view as to where these helicopters go, backed by its control of Afghanistan’s frozen assets.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:48am
  - KevO'Brien
    
    The spoils of war belong to those left after retreat.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:58am
  - PhilBest
    
    I must admit that one of my first thoughts was that if the Yanks had given a fraction of that stuff to NZ, it would have increased our military capacity several times over.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:20am
    - Jack5
      
      The fault lies not with Americans, but with ourselves.
      
      The rejected American offer to lease NZ 28 F16 jet fighters is an example.
      
      (The aircraft had been built to lease to Pakistan, but Congress blocked the deal.)
      
      Under Lend-Lease in World War 2, America supplied NZ with several hundred Kittyhawks and Corsairs, among other aircraft.
      
      https://www.beehive.govt.nz/feature/review-f16-aircraft-royal-new-zealand-airforce
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:17am
      - virtualmark
        
        Those F16s would have been a complete waste of time, on several levels.
        
        Tactically, they were F-16A so they were already a generation behind in technology when they were offered to us. Their useful military life was no more than 5-10 years.
        
        Strategically, what is the rationale for short-legged fighters in a country that is more than 1,000nm from its nearest neighbour (who is also our closest ally). Just where do you think the F-16s would have been used?
        
        Operationally, for fast jets to be effective you also need tankers, AWACs, jet trainers etc. That’s a huge and expensive commitment that would have drained money away from more relevant needs.
        
        There are strong arguments to be made for investing in our navy, our army, and in maritime patrol and perhaps close air support … but none for fast jets in NZ.
        
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        August 29, 2021 12:13pm
      - Jack5
        
        Virtualmark, that’s a reasonable and convincing defence of Clark’s rejection of the F-16s.
        
        Could you argue that New Zealand is so small that all our armed services count only as part of an international defensive group, with the minimum being with Australia?
        
        In that case, would the F16s have been useful for group defence?
        
        Is there any economic rationality in having separate defence forces from Australia? There is from a political viewpoint, but is there any case where we haven’t agreed on overseas deployment of soldiers?
        
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        August 29, 2021 1:07pm
      - Jack5
        
        Virtualmark, I’m just a layman, but someone’s just told me they reckon the Israel Air Force has (among other aircraft) F16’s.
        
        You might be able to clear that up.
        
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        August 29, 2021 1:20pm
      - PhilBest
        
        If there ever was a global war where the powers still standing were looking for untapped resources, NZ would be a rich target. In this case, the ONLY thing of any use would be fast jets armed with anti-ship missiles. We could easily stock up with a lot more than the Argies had in the Falklands war. Basically every Exocet got through.
        
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        August 29, 2021 1:37pm
      - virtualmark
        
        Jack5,
        
        Yes Israel has F-16s. But they are much later versions than the F-16As that we were offered, and then Israel further improves them with their own modifications. They might look roughly the same but there’s an immense difference in capability. And Israel pairs them with tankers, AWACS etc. And Israel doesn’t mind if they only have a 500-750nm combat radius because that’s all they need.
        
        Our defence equation is nuanced. We need our own independent defence forces, because sovereignty. Then you need to break out “How can we be attacked and so how should we protect ourselves?” and “What valuable contribution can we make to a multi-national expedition?”.
        
        But the answer to those two questions is too long for a Kiwiblog comment.
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:16pm
      - virtualmark
        
        Phil,
        
        Who is sending their ships here?
        
        What resource do they need that they can’t buy for a lot cheaper price than a war would cost?
        
        How do they plan to take control of a country of 5 million people?
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:17pm
    - Bob
      
      It would have required two to three years to transport them here. After all, it took a week to make a three minute decision to send a C130 to the middle East; how long would it take this motely lot to work out the logistics of shifting a heap of Military hardware to NZ
      
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      August 29, 2021 11:40am
      - Nickc2
        
        PhilBest @ 1:37PM
        The Exocet was an Anglo (France & Britain) missile which the French onsold to the Argentinians. As such, this missile was treated as Friendly by sensors employed on Task Force vessels.
        
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        August 29, 2021 2:00pm
Tricati

Well done Lisa Adams in winning the woman’s shot put last night – Great effort by a determined woman.
Not so the TV coverage of her event – bloody hopeless.
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August 29, 2021 8:37am
- Tony Stuart
  
  I was alerted to TVNZ running a dedicated live stream of the shot put on their website, so I watched that, rather than the TV coverage on Duke. Whilst better than nothing, the Duke coverage is pretty average.
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:23am
westernScientest

Didnt look at the media (or kiwiblog) yesterday, have a bit of a look on MSM this morning, Jeez there is some covid panic out there this morning.
From stuff and newshub:

“Covid among essential workers could spell end of elimination strategy”

“If there is Covid spreading undetected in the community, it will be very difficult to stamp it out again.”

“Covid-19: ‘End is not in sight’, as Delta outbreak case numbers continue to grow”

“Genome sequencing to find infection source of MIQ worker”

“Why aren’t Covid case numbers dropping”

“Coronavirus: Christmas in lockdown a real possibility if we move down alert levels too fast – Siouxsie Wiles”

Did I miss something important?
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August 29, 2021 8:40am
- PhilBest
  
  Yes, locking down immediately results in anyone with an infection, infecting everyone else they are locked down with. The more crowded housing is, the worse this effect is. Some people thus infected will be rest home workers.
  
  The EXX – SPURTS evidently don’t have the logic to think this through.
  
  Their failure to recognize aerosol spread is the other leg of this manslaughter. All that PPE and sanitizing and deep cleaning does not stop this virus from floating from one end of the rest home to the other, multiplying merrily in the process as the numbers of infected grow.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:24am
- DeepBlue
  
  You missed the ‘Day the Worm Turned’ taking over from ‘Groundhog Day’.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:24am
  - westernScientest
    
    I really hope so
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:09pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Had a positive Covid test? May have just been the flu, but the numbers got fucked with.
https://redrightvideos.com/cdc-quietly-revokes-covid-test-emergency-use-authorization-wait-until-you-see-why/
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August 29, 2021 8:43am
- dcrane
  
  PCR is an extremely sensitive method for distinguishing DNA of different species. Covid and the flu are not closely related viruses in those terms. I doubt that PCR is unable to distinguish them.
  
  There is another interpretation of the CDC decision to revoke the old PCR test for covid-only and replace it with a multiplex one that simultaneously checks for covid and flu – doctors were not bothering to call for a separate flu test. Now, with a multiplex method, we will also know if people have the flu. The linked source above doesn’t exclude this possibility. Note that what I’m saying is not intended to argue against the idea that the effects of the flu on mortality were being ignored last year.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:10am
Scooter

Protests planned against the Green Pass in Italy.

“” There are 54 cities in which a blockade of railway stations is announced on 1 September to demonstrate against the obligation of the green pass that will come into force on that date for those traveling on long-distance trains. “Won’t they make us leave by train without a slavery passport? Then no one will leave”, reads the Telegram chat entitled ‘Enough dictatorship’ where up to now the ‘no Green pass’ demonstrations have been organized.”
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August 29, 2021 8:46am
I remember when

Meanwhile in the other world.
Switzerland: 21-27 August, 2021.
Covid cases – 17,997 Covid deaths 27.
Tom Walsh was finished second, behind Tyan Crouser, at a packed Stade de la Pontaise in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Last week Tom competed in Eugene, Oregon and his next meeting is in Poland on 6 September.
Poland 21/8/21 – 27/8/21 Cases 1447 Deaths 20.
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August 29, 2021 8:46am
- PhilBest
  
  Normal flu season levels, then
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:25am
Loddenthinks

The evident cognitive dissonance, or possibly blind stupidity, of the MSM seemingly knows no bounds.

Last night on both One and 3 there were items intended to ridicule and mock people protesting that lockdowns don’t work, that vaccines aren’t effective and aren’t safe, and that our personal freedoms are important. They heaped scorn on what they called “conspiracist theories” and One even trotted out some young people in South Auckland who had reformed their ways and seen the light and were now getting vaccines, and helping those in their community to do likewise.

The VERY NEXT item on 3 was how the data and research showed that your immunity can drop by 40% after you get the first dose, and that 50% or more of people with compromised immune systems, serious illness or undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment get little or no benefit from the Pfizer vaccine – no antibodies are created, although some T-cells apparently are.

It’s as though they’re not paying any attention to the substance of what comes out of their mouths; the only thing that matters is the narrative. Compliance good; thinking for yourself bad.
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August 29, 2021 8:48am
- Sede Vacante
  
  What does this attempt to slander and dismiss the sceptics tell us? If we read between the lines, we can infer that there is very significant resistance and they know it. I suspect the “slow vaccine rollout” is, perhaps in concert with Labour’s disorganisation, largely a function of people exercising their autonomy. They would have us believe that it is a fringe minority who refuse, but their actions in promoting it so strongly tell us the opposite. Shouldn’t it sell itself, what with the deadly global pandemic? Then, according to your reports, they go on to justify one aspect of the resistance. Comical.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:56am
- Cinematic
  
  I’ve observed this too. An article in Stuff today by Luke Malpass highlighting Hendy is riddled with plain nonsense and contradictions.
  
  Delta’s steady march through Australasia regardless of lockdowns has shown the elimination strategy up for the dog it always was.
  
  The MSM etc are struggling desperately to make the elimination narrative fit with Delta. It can’t. Hence the keystone cops reporting.
  
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  August 29, 2021 9:14am
- PhilBest
  
  “…50% or more of people with compromised immune systems, serious illness or undergoing chemotherapy and radiation treatment get little or no benefit from the Pfizer vaccine – no antibodies are created…”
  
  I will keep saying this: the people who would have died of Covid – that tiny fraction – are those whose antibodies responses are weak or non existent. None of these vaccines were aimed at achieving the biological miracle of getting an antibodies response in people with no antibodies response. These people will die anyway in the not too distant future, of whatever illness gets to them first – IF the vaccine doesn’t kill them, which is indeed happening and being called “coincidental death”.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:28am
Yvette

Despite NeverMindTheBollocks “selfish mountain cyclist comment above being somewhat downticked, I will have a go.

Ex-Health Minister David Clark might be a little upset that no one much seems to have learnt from his reasonably well publicised mountain-biking experience, nor the current continual covid ad exhortations now, that we do nothing that may require rescue services, seem to work that well.

From a statement from Police Commissioner Andrew Coster –
“Queenstown Police were extremely disappointed yesterday when they were called to a crash at a mountain bike park in Fernhill. Upon arrival Police estimated there were 50 or more mountain bikers on this track.
Due to where the crash happened, it took two hours, a 4WD and several Police and ambulance staff to remove the injured woman from the site.
The woman then had to be transported to Dunedin Hospital via helicopter.
Police will be speaking to the biker at a later date and enforcement action for breaching restrictions will be considered.
The other mountain bikers on the track were educated on Alert Level Four rules.
… We would like to remind people that under Alert Level Four exercise should be in your neighbourhood only and any recreational activity that could lead to a rescue or emergency response is not permitted.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/08/coronavirus-latest-on-covid-19-community-outbreak-saturday-august-28.html

“Police will be speaking to the biker at a later date and enforcement action for breaching restrictions will be considered” – what can that mean, really?
If “the other mountain bikers on the track were educated on Alert Level Four rules”, can the woman be charged with anything more for actually being injured in her same non-compliance of the rules, when 49 – 50 others aren’t?

And Police Commissioner Andrew Coster’s enforcement action for breaching restrictions being “education”, probably lead to a certain amount of celebration (within the rules one hopes) in Queenstown last night, and now with the help of the media, Coster’s “wrist slap with a wet bus-ticket” education policy is spread nation-wide – faster than any covid infection, even delta.
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August 29, 2021 8:50am
- krazykiwi
  
  “Papers please! Papers”
  
  Junior-fascist training camp operating along Oriental Parade.
  
  Those evil, mostly recidivist people who are brazenly going about normal life instead of cowering at home twitching at the curtains.
  
  They must be stopped!
  
  They must answer questions!
  
  They must be re-educated!
  
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  August 29, 2021 4:19pm
freemark

Why are we tearing ourselves apart as a society?
This helped me yesterday.
It’s a good hour of yr time listening to some pretty well qualified people about the psychology of what’s happening in our world.
https://youtu.be/Qj5bo_KFqgo
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August 29, 2021 8:55am
- Stellaboxer
  
  @ freemark. Thanks for the great link. It’s confirmed what I am so concerned about. If New Zealand and Australian people just actually took stock of their current situation they would realise they are in a totalitarian state right now.
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:03am
rouppe

A piece on the suicide of Olivia Podmore and the responsibility of the sports bodies.

In it Raelene Castle says:

“Olivia’s death has focussed our attention once more on the complex issues surrounding athlete welfare and wellbeing, issues that the system has grappled with across a number of years,” said Castle in a statement announcing a fresh inquiry.

“Our priority is to ensure we understand what has happened and what more can be done.”

That’s the problem with Raelene Castle and professional sports bodies in general.

That was the most useless blob of management-speak that does absolutely nothing to give anyone confidence that coaches aren’t going to continue go around rooting team members and then side-lining those that speak up about it
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August 29, 2021 8:55am
- Taieri
  
  Balls, bollocks and balderdash!
  
  Look at the Paralympics and the athletes competing there, truly inspiring stories, all of them of the people overcoming greatest adversities and living their lives to the full despite real tragedies.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:42am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Yes, there are some amazing stories. The one I admire the most is the Egyptian table tennis player who lost both his arms in an accident, and holds the table tennis bat between his teeth. You have to see him play to believe it!
    
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    August 29, 2021 11:26am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    What on earth has that comment (with which I don’t disagree) got to do with the one it was replying to?
    
    Raelene Castle spouting management gibberish, and professional sports bodies condoning, or at least failing to address, coaches rooting athletes and sidelining those who speak up about it, has nothing to do with Paralympics overcoming adversity.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:40pm
    - Taieri
      
      Read this line:
      
      “That was the most useless blob of management-speak that does absolutely nothing to give anyone confidence that coaches aren’t going to continue go around rooting team members and then side-lining those that speak up about it”
      
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      August 29, 2021 1:27pm
      - Loddenthinks
        
        Read the one above it, that introduced it:
        
        “That’s the problem with Raelene Castle and professional sports bodies in general.”
        
        Without diminishing the wonderful efforts by all contestants, coaches, families and supporters to get competitors to the Paralympics, professional sport it is not.
        
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        August 29, 2021 5:12pm
Ra Henare

A subtle way to kill off oldies by the Government.

I emailed the appropriate department to ask for an appointment to apply for payment of pension overseas.
a) I am hearing impaired
b) it was per their website-but as usual say say phone—grrrr
c) I supplied relevant data including name, DOB, client #(I already get the pension)

After 11 days!!!

I get a standardized BS email reply which the author, one Jonty Wealleans tells me she has NOT read the effing email!!! Sent on a Saturday. I hope she is not claiming overtime.

So my heart rate and blood pressure went thru the roof. If I was less healthy. It might have sent me to my maker.

Another ferkin hopeless Government department
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August 29, 2021 8:56am
- rouppe
  
  You have to have an appointment?
  
  I thought it was pretty much your right, subject to sharing agreements with other countries (eg Australia)
  
  Where you looking to go. I qualify in a few more years, looking around…
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:54am
JibberJabber

The next step,
https://twitter.com/TheDailyLama__/status/1431411190727462914

Politicians of all stripes are fizzing at the bunghole in anticipation…
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August 29, 2021 9:03am
- Inandout
  
  JJ, I am surprised Twitter hasn’t blocked those anti vax passport protests. They seem huge.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:44am
- Sede Vacante
  
  So you can contract covid over wi-fi and broadband now?
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:33am
  - Loddenthinks
    
    Only if it’s 5G….
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:41pm
emmess

Another propaganda stream to downvote
https://youtu.be/IXuio19Ob-M
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August 29, 2021 9:04am
- curry4me
  
  emmess: Done.
  
  2 1
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  August 29, 2021 3:46pm
Vory v zakone

Liking this take on freedom and rights from ZUBY (Rapper, Author, Podcaster, Speaker and Coach)

https://twitter.com/ZubyMusic/status/1431424123557777411?s=19
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August 29, 2021 9:10am
Sede Vacante

It has come to my attention that we should be extremely concerned about the climate change issue, although perhaps not in the way we are told we should be.

https://twitter.com/jackhardwick93/status/1430492536066478080
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August 29, 2021 9:14am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Taxes, NZ style?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVDHSp_ql9o
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August 29, 2021 9:17am
crikey

https://youtu.be/_91RQCySddg

For your enlightenment:

Latest report from Dr John Campbell’s YouTube channel. Data from the UK but nevertheless highlights increased hospitalisation risk for countries with low vaccination rates. NZ, Australia and the US get specific mention.
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August 29, 2021 9:20am
Andrei

“My son is gone, and I just want all you Democrats who cheated in the election or who voted for him legitimately, you just killed me son with a dementia ridden piece of crap who doesn’t even know he’s in the WH.”

https://twitter.com/Peoples_Pundit/status/1431682739917443080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1431682739917443080%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftexags.com%2Fforums%2F16%2Ftopics%2F3220988
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August 29, 2021 9:26am
Philip Hart

The MSD wage subsidy scheme system doesn’t make it easy for advisors. As a chartered accountant I have done many of them for clients both last year and this.

Here’s how it works.
You fill in the information on an application page. At no point are you offered a printable copy of your submission

Then after a while you get an email confirming your application however there is no identifying reference on that email so you have no idea who it’s for.

If the claim is successful you eventually get an email that refers to an application number and lists the employees paid for and confirming deposit. This is the only time your dialog has a name

You also get a text saying funds are being deposited but the text doesn’t say who for

If your claim is rejected you get an email giving 4 vague reasons why it might have been and invited to fill in another form to reassess. But the email does not tell you who it’s for and you need a name and ird number to fill out the reassessment form.
Damn frustrating.
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August 29, 2021 9:42am
- marcw
  
  Probably something to do with the fact none of the current government has any SMB entity or experience and therefore no need to actually apply for this wage subsidy scheme? What would they know (or care), and how could they find out (as you have done).
  
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  August 29, 2021 2:58pm
I remember when

Back-to-school has caught some US schools napping:
Many are facing acute bus driver staff shortages, due to the closure of vehicle licensing offices, which has resulted in a scarcity of licences for new drivers.
Almost a thousand Pittsburgh students have been told they might have to walk to school.
In states like Vermont and Connecticut, bus drivers are being offered bonuses of $1000-3000 just for signing up.
Other school employees are urged to drive the routes in addition to their regular jobs.
One school in Delaware is offering parents $700 to chauffeur their children to class for a year.
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August 29, 2021 9:52am
cmm

“Jones warned that the growth in cases still looked to be “exponential” despite director general of health Ashley Bloomfield saying that it was not.

“It is not right to say it is not exponential. Anything with an R value above one is an exponential rise in cases,” Jones said.”

Jones is correct. Bloomfield is lying. So far it has been exponential.

We can ignore R and just make it far simpler: if the number of new cases is increasing each day then it is still exponential.

And we must also remember that one swallow does not make spring. If we had 82 yesterday, then get 81 today that is not a decrease.
A decrease needs to be:
* statistically significant.
* sustained.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-delta-outbreak-auckland-prepares-for-long-lockdown-as-cases-rise/UFDPLCOMUTTO4ZD6FVQJJ62VUY/
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August 29, 2021 9:55am
- Cinematic
  
  So why then is Bloomfield asserting it’s not exponential? Surely he is smart enough to know he is incorrect. Or is he??
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:10am
  - cmm
    
    Lying, maybe? Feelz?
    
    Exponential has a dangerous sound to it and colloquially (ie amongst the Great Unwashed), exponential sounds like it is out of control.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:59am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  I’m afraid my confidence in NZ scientists and mathematicians has well and truly hit rock bottom.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:21am
  - cmm
    
    Sorry Maggy, it’s going to get worse: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/432451/nz-students-record-worst-results-in-maths-and-science
    
    No doubt adding an extra few poi waving courses are supposed to fix everything.
    
    What is really shocking is looking at how basic the questions are and still NZ ranks 40th in the world.
    
    Here’s what is considered an advanced question:
    Maths: Year 4 students, advanced benchmark
    
    A teacher wants to put 30 students in groups so that each group has the same number of students AND each group has an odd number of students. Show two different ways the teacher could make the groups.
    
    Answer: Six groups of five students; 10 groups of three students.
    
    (21 percent of New Zealand students answered this question correctly. The international average was 24 percent.)
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:41am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Do you think a pupil would get an answer of 2 groups of 15 marked as wrong?
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:51am
      - cmm
        
        That would probably get you picked out as subversive.
        
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        August 29, 2021 11:07am
      - Paulus
        
        Depend which Opinion Pollster is doing the questioning and what answer is required by who is paying for the poll.
        
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        August 29, 2021 1:35pm
    - dcrane
      
      I wonder if they scored “30 groups of 1 each” as a wrong option.
      
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      August 29, 2021 12:10pm
- PhilBest
  
  Don’t forget R is not the most important variable.
  
  https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/
  
  This Overlooked Variable Is the Key to the Pandemic
  It’s not R.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:30am
  - cmm
    
    Remember when they started telling us about R? Once we know R we know what the virus will do. Naah, bullshit. After 20 months there is no meaningful measurement of R.
    
    Well all that has happened is people have seen through the R bullshit and so now they’re just doing the same sales job with k.
    
    This is just a desperate attempt to recover people’s confidence in modelling: forget about R, we’re now focusing on k – we’re on the ball now.
    
    Neither k nor R are really variables. Instead they are “fudge factors” applied to the model to make it fit observed reality.
    
    There is no such thing as an inherent R or k of a virus. This is really a fiction sold to us to make modelling look more real than they are.
    
    R and k are are linked in that if you tweak the R in a model you also need to to tweak the k to compensate. They are two of the knobs you can play with to make the model fit observed data.
    
    In many ways the R and k are OUTPUTS of a model, not the inputs(variables) going into the model.
    
    The underlying factors that influence R and k are numerous. There is of course the virus itself. Then there is the environment the virus lives in and how favourable it is for the virus (ie. the people, their living conditions, their immunity levels, sanitation, hand washing, summer/winter, dry/wet, Vit D, …). These change all the time due to weather, festivals, lock downs etc etc.
    
    Those impact on both R and k.
    
    Many of the models that work reasonably well for flu just don’t work for CV19 because we are behaving differently. Models work well in homogenous (or at least reasonably stable) conditions. Lockdowns and isolation etc break those. We don’t have lockdowns for the flu, but we do for CV19.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:15pm
- DeepBlue
  
  One thought about Bloomfield’s comment is that we don’t have the raw data.
  
  For example if we have growth of cases in large families, these are expected but could be contained in MIQ so don’t really contribute to exponential growth in the community.
  
  Other factors are the delay in processing testing, or positive cases at Day 12 test. Again these could skew the results to look like exponential growth.
  
  In other words, the data capture might just be another cluster**.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:31am
  - DeepBlue
    
    It seems the Porf was thinking similarly thismorning:
    
    Professor Des Gorman says the rise in numbers is predictable as “we’re seeing a lag in reporting cases and a lag and people getting tested.” Because of this lag, he suggests cases may have already peaked, but that there is a delay in reporting. However he says it’s important not to over interpret things.
    
    He also suggests a lag in people being tested could have contributed to more people in the house being infected.
    
    Newstalk ZB
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:50am
- dcrane
  
  They’re both not getting the whole truth out. Our plot of cases does not match a simple exponential curve, in which the number of cases added each day would itself increase by a constant exponent in the equation being constant). For example: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16…the number added each day is twice the previous value added. In recent days, the fraction by which the daily increment has increased has itself been decreasing. This is more like a logistic curve (S-shaped), although we haven’t reached the inflection point in that S yet since the number of new cases has been larger every day.
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:18pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    No it’s not a fixed exponent… that’s why we will have to wait for the curve to flatten out before we discover the actual exponent (or average % growth) during the period that the number of cases has been growing exponentially.
    
    and like any real-time data the numbers don’t determine the curve ahead of time…
    when the spread ceases, we will be able to put a best-fit curve through the data points and figure out the actual doubling time of this outbreak
    
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    August 29, 2021 2:25pm
I remember when

SWEDEN; 1st – 27th August, 2021.
Covid deaths 20.
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August 29, 2021 9:57am
cmm

Does anyone know how many of:
* the people going to get tested are asymptomatic?
* the number of people testing positive are asymptomatic?
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August 29, 2021 9:57am
- DeepBlue
  
  No way, that might cause the people to revolt from Lockdown.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:32am
- dcrane
  
  I remember hearing somewhere that we’ve had 1000+ cases in MIQ and just one death from the whole lot, but I can’t find the official stats on this again.
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:03pm
  - MCos
    
    1216
    https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-current-cases
    
    If you dig around you can find info on each case.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:49pm
- westernScientest
  
  I suspect they dont even record it, dont really imagine the drive in testing stations recording much past a name, phone and address.
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:16pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

There’s an interesting article in this week’s Listener, exposing Kate Sheppard’s role in the suffrage movement as being much lessor than received history would have us believe. Not only was leadership provided by women from other organisations, gathering signatures en masse (apparently Kate glued the various sheets together into one big roll, putting the page with her signature at the top), shock, horror many male parliamentarians prompted women to submit the petition in the first place. It will be amusing to watch those with vested interests scramble their way out of this expose.

Btw, you can read The Listener for free via the Press Reader app. Just enter your library card number. There is a world of newspapers & mags on tap, gratis.
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August 29, 2021 10:05am
- curry4me
  
  NeverMindTheBollocks: My great,great grandmother signed that petition. Came over free as a domestic, married a farmer, and did well for herself.
  
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  August 29, 2021 3:53pm
I remember when

Afghanistan: “Our lives are not safer here” : SST.
Would New Zealand have reacted faster and got more people out if we still had a Coalition Government.
Would Ron Marks have ensure a better result.
Peeni Henare: We have 400 people left behind.
US – Airlifted 14,000 still 1100 remain.
Germany – rescued 4000 out of identified 10,000.
Afghanistan spokesman – “”If the Germans were unable to evacuate us when their troups were here, how will they do it after.”
France – rescued 2500 still 1000 left behind.
“We have left behind people who trusted our country. They are at the top of the list of traitors of the Taliban because they have been working for a foreign army.”
Canada – rescued 3700 of an estimated 6000.
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August 29, 2021 10:13am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Dan Bongino.
https://rumble.com/vl6tzf-afghanistan-vet-describes-what-its-like-coming-home-in-heartbreaking-letter.html?
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August 29, 2021 10:22am
CAKE FACE1

Imagine we get a new Covid variant now. Assume that the vaccines have no effect on it. Further assume it has the same death rate as Delta.

What would you do?

Lockdown, close borders, and wait for circa two years for a new vaccine to hopefully be discovered and distributed? This is what we did last time, with the elimination strategy.

Or would we be better to go Swedish, and open up, taking the health hit upfront?

I suspect the latter would be the optimal sustainable policy.

Every time we get a new variant, we can’t spend the next couple of years hiding under our beds, in lockdown, with borders closed. We would go broke.

I would say that the elimination gamble is always a gamble too big. You are playing Texas Hold Em with the entire economy. The upside is that you are delaying the deaths, but at huge cost per year of life, and most of them will be lost anyway.

I believe that a logical analysis would say that the elimination strategy is irrational.

As such, all the pitches in favour of elimination are undertaken using emotion, or not using like for like data.

I do have the feeling that when this virus in endemic in NZ, it will kill a lot of people. New Zealanders baseline health is shocking compared to say the Swedes.

However, kicking the can down the road is slowly bankrupting us, and won’t save material numbers of people in the long term.

Maybe this outbreak gets out of control, then this all eventually becomes moot…
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August 29, 2021 10:32am
- Alex13
  
  One can “imagine” many scary things. We are better off dealing with the actual reality.
  
  The current vaccines appear rather effective at preventing severe disease caused by the current virus variants.
  
  Virus elimination, if achieved, is better for the economy too. It also buys us time while better treatment protocols, vaccines and medicines are being developed. And it buys us time to achieve higher vaccination rates.
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:29am
  - CAKE FACE1
    
    It’s pretty obvious to see what the government plan is.
    
    Elimination policy (Fortress NZ) until at least the next election.
    
    If Labour achieves this, a number of things will likely happen:
    
    1. Labour will win the 2023 election by a massive landslide victory, bigger possibly than the last one.
    
    2. NZ will be on the verge of financial collapse, which will happen in their next term of government.
    
    I presume that even after the election, they may continue with their elimination strategy.
    
    Bankruptcy looks very likely for NZ at this stage.
    
    Perhaps our best chance of avoiding bankruptcy is if this outbreak simply gets out of hand, forcing the government to abandon elimination
    
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    August 29, 2021 1:20pm
- Liberal Cliche
  
  Oh you haven’t heard of “covid -22” ? you will be hearing alot of it soon.
  
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  August 29, 2021 1:17pm
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    Sounds like a catch-22 situation.
    
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    August 29, 2021 1:56pm
thirteenstars

While waiting in line at the supermarket I overheard a rather loud conversation between three young women, and after some inane comments about inane things that hurt my brain, one of the women with that simpering, social worker voice the PM herself has, summed it up with:

“I’m just glad we’re getting it all out of the way now because it would really mess up summer for everyone, eh?”

The other two nodded so eagerly their masks almost fell off. I just felt sick.
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August 29, 2021 10:32am
lazza

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Wayne Mapp says:

“So maybe I should let the contrarians and antivaxxers monopolise Kiwiblog, and just leave it at that”.

Yep same for me with the earlier barrage of pro Trumper’s that infested the site.

If David F et al and the moderators really! wish for some balance to the opinions expressed on this site … then they should bloody well do something about it.

A good start would be, as suggested already, some form of heading/indexing system of contributions. We would soon be able to sift out the nutters, bigots, racists and single issue trolls from genuine principled debate.
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August 29, 2021 10:32am
- Nickc2
  
  If you did that Iazza there’d be no one left.
  Even the biggest fools are entitled to their opinions. We suffer such fools each day espousing their views from our Parliamentary Podium of Truth.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:57am
- krazykiwi
  
  My response?
  
  Diddums.
  
  Put up a topic for discussion and defend it with rationality, evidence and logic.
  
  If that’s too hard, then go for a walk.
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:06am
- Sede Vacante
  
  You’d think it would be easy to get some “balance” on KB by debunking all the nutters, bigots, racists and single issue trolls, rather than censoring them.
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:12am
- Cinematic
  
  The thought police have ridden into town.
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:24am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  If you hang around long enough, you learn who to ignore, who to read, who to respond to… and you can’t accuse this blog of being an echo chamber..although many folks like to label it as such.
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:14pm
  - Jack5
    
    Kiwiblog’s fairly tame since the loss of Kea, the departure of tetchy characters such as Griff, and the retirement of pesky Mikenmild and the Stephiestani team.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:25pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  If you don’t like something, ban it.
  Typical rabid left
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:20pm
- thirteenstars
  
  “…then they should bloody well do something about it.”
  
  Don’t worry, pal, soon enough the hate speech laws will be passed and you’ll get your wish.
  
  Nice to know the thought police are coming to rescue your offended sensibilities, isn’t it?
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:30pm
- Liberal Cliche
  
  Ah “i don’t like these opinions please ban them”
  
  Weird how i commented before i found this post about pro-vaxers using the terms racist and bigot etc etc in the same breath and here it is.
  
  If i take the vax will you stop calling me a racist?….lol (doubt).
  
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  August 29, 2021 1:20pm
- septic skeptic
  
  You need a online safe-space lazza? I recommend Stuff. You should get shielded from most of the arguments explored here.
  
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  August 29, 2021 1:41pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Nah, send him to the’Strandard’
    
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    August 29, 2021 2:29pm
kevn

Oh yes… Per the NZ Herald today: the MOH are ‘in the process of ordering syringes’ that will allow more shots per vial.
When did we first hear of that? Weeks ago?
MOH have never ordered meds before this rolling C19 event.
Why did they not get Pharmac to sort it all from the word go?
Why?
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August 29, 2021 10:39am
- cmm
  
  This is logistics 101 that would get a low-level storeman in the Army or a manufacturing company fired.
  
  By my calculations, the waste from not being able to get the last dose out of a vial has caused NZ to waste enough vaccines to jab all the people in the islands (or half if you also include Fiji).
  
  If Hipkins really believe it is morally wrong for NZ to use more than its fair share, then he should be falling on his own sword here.
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:30pm
Chuck Bird

The following is worth looking at. The is a 20 minute video of Judith being interviewed.

National Party reshuffle: Judith Collins strips Chris Bishop of key portfolio

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300393586/national-party-reshuffle-judith-collins-strips-chris-bishop-of-key-portfolio#comments
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August 29, 2021 10:42am
- peterwn
  
  Seems Chris was given a mild clip over the ear. He is far too valuable to be let go completely as Todd Muller was.
  
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  August 29, 2021 11:16am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    I posted the link mainly for the video where Judith did a excellent interveiw.
    
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    August 29, 2021 12:24pm
- thirteenstars
  
  She looks tired and tetchy. I suggest it’s because when your party takes positions that are essentially the same as the party you’re supposed to be in opposition to, you get kinda pissed off, which is especially galling when you know it’s all your own doing.
  
  Collins looks a lot like a frustrated follower, consigned to the periphery, unable to do much but talk about mere implementation details.
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:35pm
  - lifesgood
    
    How she manages to perform as well as she does is amazing especially since day after day she suffers relentless attacks from the left, the msm and even people who claim (but I don’t believe them) to be National supporters. Just imagine how quickly Cindy would cave under a similar barrage.
    
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    August 29, 2021 1:24pm
Thought Criminal

OMG Labour still don’t have enough vaccines or a plan to get them yet. Least capable government in living memory.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-coronavirus-delta-borrowing-vaccines-moving-away-from-pfizer-on-table-in-government-jabs-plan/JMBJ4GJ5DAISV2M7KBWRHFZYXE/
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August 29, 2021 10:45am
Tauhei Notts

And you wonder why you are locked up with this Delta variant on the rampage.
I have been reading that New Zealand deaths from the Delta variant are the same, now, as the deaths from that genocidal massacre at Parihaka in Taranaki, circa 1881.
Well, I have read some comments that have referred to that massacre. And guess which group those comments came from.
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August 29, 2021 10:47am
Maggie Pie

No wonder everyone we know says Auckland’s Public Transport stinks!

1EWES reports…

‘Police seek help in identifying couple after they were pictured on a North Shore bus not wearing face masks. Commissar Andy Coster says…. this type of behaviour will not be tolerated’

https://twitter.com/1NewsNZ/status/1430772983593791491
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August 29, 2021 10:53am
KevO'Brien

Let’s have something more cheerful.
I previously pointed out brilliantlightpower.com as worth watching. Their website has just reported on a presentation in 15 May with a lot more background.
They have spent $USD120M over 30 years in bringing their research to fruition.

Big breakthrough: the Suncell has now got an option to convert the light to electricity using photovoltaic technology. A new array and sensors have been developed. The units targeted are 5Kw-150Kw and can be patched into the regular pv array controls and become your own off the grid power supply.

The magnetohydrodynamic converter with an efficiency in the high 90%+ range is on show too.

The business plans are on full-steam-ahead mode covering everything from industrial heat (and refrigeration) to home supply, apartment blocks, motor transport and machinery and the big movers like trains, ships etc. Desalination another use.

Fuel: a litre of water would drive a car 3540km. (The Suncell splits water to use both the hydrogen and a small quantity of oxygen). External fuel is not required.

There is a video presentation hosted by Randall Mills which is a delight. You know this is historic and a genius is presenting the work of his team.
It’s apparent there is significant commercial backing over the whole range of the products under development. They are much further on than I was aware of.

The hydrino is fully explained and it simply turns out to be the electron in a hydrogen atom positions itself closer to the proton. The Suncell provides the coaxing conditions. That releases considerable energy. There is nothing peculiar in that as other chemical processes utilise the swapping and changing positions of electrons–that’s how compounds are created.

https://brilliantlightpower.com/pdf/Overview_Presentation.pdf
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August 29, 2021 10:53am
- Taieri
  
  Fuel: a litre of water would drive a car 3540km. (The Suncell splits water to use both the hydrogen and a small quantity of oxygen). External fuel is not required.
  —————-
  
  Are you for real?
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:01pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Yep.
    
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    August 29, 2021 2:53pm
  - peterwn
    
    A bit of Googling comes up with something different.
    1. It takes 9kg of water to produce 1kg hydrogen.
    2. It requires 50 to 55kWh of electricity to produce this 1kg hydrogen. This would produce about 30kWh energy on the vehicle driveshaft.
    3. This would run the vehicle for about 100 to 150km.
    4. This 1kg hydrogen occupies 11 cubic metres at atmospheric pressure. So it would have to be compressed a hell of a lot and/or liquified for storage and transport. Since a hydrogen molecule is very small, if would easily leak.
    
    There to claim that the Suncell process would run a car 3540km per kg of hydrogen is just a pipe dream.
    
    The Second Law of Thermodynamics needs no direct enforcement because it enforces itself. Enforcement is however needed against the spivs who try and empty other peoples pockets with such nonsense.
    
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    August 29, 2021 3:37pm
- WaveyDavey
  
  *Cuckoo*
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brilliant_Light_Power
  
  *Cuckoo*
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:14pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    Time will prove the bonafides.
    This last year has really got the cold fusion buzzing.
    The combo required has been found by world wide experiments and swapping info.
    
    If it doesn’t work it will be trashed.
    
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    August 29, 2021 2:56pm
    - Adroit
      
      The best thing you could do would be to sink ALL your money into this. Then, when you become richer than Bezos off this, you’ll be able to laugh at us doubting, poor plebs.
      
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      August 29, 2021 6:22pm
- cmm
  
  Kev, I have previously given you all the information you need to see what a scam this is. I will not waste my time further.
  
  I will, however reiterate something I said: please don’t invest a penny in this.
  
  You seem to be a reasonably bright chap. Why not invest that grey matter somewhere more productive?
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:34pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    I’ve been around long enough, including in business, to also sense the development of products. I am no way invested in anything to do with this.
    I find the reported progress very agreeable. This is the provision of energy for the future. People in remote parts of the world will be able to use electricity. That’s a lot better than lock down.
    
    There is nothing strange here either. The prospective products are up for public scrutiny and will be tested to the full or else dumped in the failure bin. I do not sense any dishonesty or skullduggery by these people. I spent years as a fraud investigator and can probably sniff a rat at 50 paces. Incomprehensible does not itself make something fraudulent. Thirty years of work by capable people needs to be driven by hope of reward or the thrill of success.
    
    Their work goes back to the early cold fusion research which the US govt has only last year re-affirmed. It also lines up with the other reports and potential competitors. It has the plasma, hydrogen, a low pulsed pumped voltage, a metal catalyst–all the elements which have in the last 12 months coalesced into bringing cold fusion into a reality.
    
    It’s real novelty is the work by Mills in developing an insight into the “How” of the process. The spectroscopic signatures of the hydrino state of hydrogen are shown on the website and various universities have validated these. Free samples are available for institutional testing. If the hydrino was phony that would be highly unlikely. I’m not going to argue Mills GUT-CP but it is affirmed by others as providing an elegant way of predicting states of matter, the basis of all our chemistry. Other commercial interests are planning on producing some elements and remediating nuclear wastes as a result of that new knowledge. That may prove to be another major blessing for us all.
    
    What doesn’t need further proof is that more energy is being output than put in. The fury is obvious. The amount has however been established by independent parties. Even without the “How” the devices would have to be taken on their merits. It’s early days yet but well ordered business plans are set out on their website. They do invite commercial inquiries on a trial basis. Plainly they don’t expect to do it all themselves and that is part of the reason for my affirmation.
    
    Already there many parties involved in pre-production and distribution. Related industry chains will be involved at the user level. It is expected, for example, that the solar panel system vendors will provide the household power unit, inverter and installation and service if needed. (No battery needed). Mill’s team are demonstrating nous and practicality–many are engineers.
    
    Their vision for transport is well stated and they full expect the domestic motor car to be powered by their device. The 3540km was my translation of their measurement of the amount of energy to be derived from a litre of water. The original was a comparison to a heavy battery powered Tesla being driven for 2200 miles. The process implicitly breaks water into its components but not by simple uneconomic hydrolysis. The presence of the plasma and catalysts make a serious difference.
    
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    August 29, 2021 2:50pm
    - surfing
      
      This tech has been previously discovered, but, big oil had the original inventors ‘disappeared’.
      
      If I were this new lot, I’d be in hiding in a deep underground cave.
      
      They’d also better avoid the covid vaccine otherwise they can be tracked and controlled. Even inside a deep cave.
      
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      August 29, 2021 6:23pm
  - KevO'Brien
    
    P.S.
    I am sorry if I have given the impression that I am promoting this product. That was never my intention. I wanted to let you all know about surprising new developments.
    My early engineering training and wannabe chemist keeps me on the alert.
    
    This particular development by brilliantlightpower is of a photovoltaic cell unit to translate their light into electricity efficiently. (That could power you car.)
    
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    August 29, 2021 3:18pm
    - cmm
      
      They are not “surprising new developments”. Most of these are recycled bullshit ideas.
      
      “This particular development by brilliantlightpower is of a photovoltaic cell unit to translate their light into electricity efficiently. ” Even if 100% of the power in light was translated into electricity that is not enough to power a car straight up.
      
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      August 29, 2021 3:38pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  If this were for real it would be super simple to demonstrate to any well trained skeptic with excess power, or using the excess in an off the shelf ORC, steam or stirling cycle engine to produce a self sustaining unit that could run for extended periods without connection to any power source.
  
  That could be set up in a month, and if successful would be worth $100’s of billions. The fact that they haven’t and are fumbling around touting 3rd party demo runs of a couple of a few seconds or minutes with the collosal error bounds that implies, while claiming much better internal testing results tells you all you need to know. There are numerous means of fudging steam calorimetry as Andrea Rossi’s scams proved a decade back.
  
  Maybe there is something here, watch it for it’s entertainment value if you choose, but Mills has been scamming people through myriad companies/vehicles for 30 years. Caveat emptor.
  
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  August 29, 2021 3:56pm
ABS4EVA

CAR BOGANs

Auto Expert John Cadogan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os4r-xpvmmw

Does an ANAL Analysis of the COVID
Situations of the Pandemic of BS

His Maths Numbers approach is good

But he always ignores the FACT
that Labour are responsible for 90% of
COVID deaths
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August 29, 2021 11:18am
Stu2

Victoria had 92 cases yesterday (up from the 50s then the 80s) in a lockdown tighter than ours.

Elimination isn’t looking likely
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August 29, 2021 11:27am
- Cinematic
  
  As the covid became more infectious (inevitable) it was inevitable lockdowns would need to become stricter. We’re now at a stage where experts are suggesting starvation as a cure.
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:18pm
  - PhilBest
    
    Actually all the evidence about lockdowns shows that we need to get the science of spread up to speed. Because clearly, the way we think we can stop it spreading, according to the way we think it spreads, is not working. So spread must be happening some other way. Quite possibly unavoidable.
    
    And no, I don’t believe the ChiComs lockdowns worked. They just wanted the rest of the world to THINK they worked. They have the tyrannical powers to completely hide if there are in fact any Covid cases ongoing. In fact merely not PCR testing would do it.
    
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    August 29, 2021 1:43pm
  - [email protected]
    
    Very true. If everyone died of starvation, the Covid19 virus would have difficulty surviving. Maybe have to switch to our dog or moggie to survive.
    
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    August 29, 2021 7:08pm
dcrane

Many are probably thinking something along these lines:

Just eliminate covid over the next few weeks, and we will have another year or so of mostly-no-lockdowns, mostly normal life. Well, if you believe the news about the extreme contagiousness of Delta, consider that it may be more difficult to exclude it from now on. And the next strains may be even more transmissible. It may be impossible to keep covid out for any lengths of time as long as there is any international travel, MIQ-mediated or not. Or with any international trade…think how many stories we heard about possible quarantine breaches we had with sailors, and seemingly got lucky.

Someone should ask the government why they believe they can keep this strain out enough to justify a promise of “mostly normal life”. Or, is that not what they have in mind?
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August 29, 2021 11:40am
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKoMHJ0IzK0

President Biden Press Conference .

Pickled press man, Bubba J and a disguised and disgruntled Wonald Grump have questions for the Biden Administration! These guys don’t relent until they get answers… sort of. Check out this Presidential presser that’s sure to get both sides talking! [11:10]
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August 29, 2021 11:56am
curry4me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvwGMDY9S4

Biden administration didn’t botch up the Afghanistan evacuation program, they purposely planned it.

According to an explosive report by the Wall Street Journal, President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken were warned of a collapse of the civilian government in Afghanistan and a Taliban takeover of Kabul as early as July 13. [6:28]
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August 29, 2021 11:56am
- MCos
  
  I could have told him myself, if asked and I expect he knew himself.
  Donald Trump would have known, even though he put on a show of negotiating with the Teliban.
  
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  August 29, 2021 3:03pm
MrTips

Michael Baker sure went quiet since covid numbers rose and Hendy publicly advocated Chinese door welding and supermarket communism.

Maybe he’s busy doing damage control in Jacinda’s inner circle of panic right now.
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August 29, 2021 12:00pm
- PhilBest
  
  These people are getting STICK from the unsung doctors who were saying for more than a year, this is about aerosols – at least one of them warned them that Crown Plaza was a risk. These people know they have been proved incompetent and they are frozen in fear about what could be “coming for” them. And the MSM knows who the aerosol alarm bells people are. They are still running cover for the guilty officials but that could change any moment.
  
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  August 29, 2021 1:47pm
Jack5

State-owned Kiwibank’s going to get a lot of PR credits for its 2021 “New Zealander of the Year” award – to Siouxsie Wiles.

As she received her award, Wiles said she guessed she was the “public face of the pandemic for New Zealand”.

She said she was used to being called the “Covid lady”.

The Stuff report at the time said Wiles was presented with the “Kiwibank kaitaka huaki cloak, Pouhine,” by 2020 New Zealander of the Year Jennifer Te Atamira Ward-Lealand.

Who is Ward-Lealand? An actress and stage director, who may be best known for her roles in Shortland Street, though this is on her web site:

” … the award-winning actress has amassed a list of stage and screen performance credits that would make the Encyclopaedia Britannica seem short. “
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August 29, 2021 12:16pm
- lifesgood
  
  Bwahahahaha!
  
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  August 29, 2021 1:26pm
Durden

Jacinda better take note and re-examine her Captain’s call on Oil & Gas exploration. California backtracks.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/california-wises-up-and-chooses-natural-gas

“Eventually, reality catches up with you — even in California.

The Golden State has been trying for years to get rid of all of its fossil fuel generation capacity. Spreading a mythological doom-and-gloom narrative about catastrophic, world-ending climate change, California’s government has nonetheless moved toward shuttering all of its carbon-free nuclear power plants in favor of creating a grid based almost entirely on wind and solar power.

There is just one problem with this: It cannot be done, at least not with existing technology.

Not only has this forced upon Californians electricity prices 80% higher than the national average, but it has also saddled them with a power grid that relies far too heavily on intermittent (that is, unreliable) sources of electricity. Wind power only works when the wind blows. Solar cannot generate electricity at night.

And so temporarily, or so they say, the state has been forced to set up five natural gas power plants in order to avoid rolling blackouts. This move is the result of an emergency order signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month.

We hate to be cynical, but we wonder whether the sudden adoption of gas power is an effort to spare Newsom additional political damage in the last weeks leading up to the Sept. 14 recall election being held against him.

Even so, it is doing the right thing. “
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August 29, 2021 12:21pm
- cmm
  
  To sabotage The Iron Lady’s fine words:
  
  “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s energy.”
  
  Plentiful energy supply is one of the most important things to keep people out of the gutter.
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:37pm
- Nickc2
  
  Unfortunately, even if someone put the article in words of two or less syllables and read it to her, she wouldn’t understand it and insist wind and solar are the only way ahead for NZ.
  How come we (but not me) elect such dumb arse people?
  
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  August 29, 2021 12:46pm
- Paulus
  
  The Captain can never be wrong so !~
  
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  August 29, 2021 1:40pm
Nookin

Poto looking after her electorate again? Refer “water based activities”

https://sportnz.org.nz/media/4164/play-active-recreation-and-sport-at-level-4-26-august-2021.pdf
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August 29, 2021 12:25pm
- SilverSurfer
  
  I’m stoked about this iv recently renounced my 100% Irish/Scots ancestry to identify as a Maori, can anyone tell me where to get my customary fishing quota?
  
  Bollocks and Ass to te lot of them in the ivory tower!
  
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  August 29, 2021 3:05pm
dcrane

A fairly sensible view from the scientist quoted deep in the article below:

“I am confident we can get the vaccination level up to the sorts of numbers we need… but do I think elimination is a long term strategy? No I don’t. I don’t think it’s possible to maintain an elimination strategy if no one else in the world is. That means you have to rely on a very hard border which is not compatible with our society, and means you have to rely on frequent lockdowns which means you run out of money and goodwill. Lockdowns now, while we are getting vaccinated, are the right thing to do – long term, they are not.”

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-delta-outbreak-and-lockdown-miq-worker-tests-positive-experts-at-odds-over-rising-cases-level-4-is-working-says-professor/UFDPLCOMUTTO4ZD6FVQJJ62VUY/
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August 29, 2021 12:25pm
Fletch

Eric Clapton rails against it all in a new music video…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNt4NIQ7FTA
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August 29, 2021 12:37pm
- PhilBest
  
  Good for Clapton; and Van Morrison (and isn’t Morrissey a bit staunch too?)
  
  Rockers are mostly acting like a bunch of pussies over all this, what ever happened to the rebellion image?
  
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  August 29, 2021 1:49pm
Southern Raider

How is it for the last few days the Herald seems to have gained access to official information around case numbers before it’s actually made public?

Once again today an hour before the 1pm standup “over 80 new cases today, the Herald understands”

Jacinda PR team providing back door info to the media to try and play down the severity of their fuckups?
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August 29, 2021 12:46pm
- dcrane
  
  And to keep them on-side with access to scoops.
  
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  August 29, 2021 3:04pm
RW Capitalist

Musings on the situation in Afghanistan.
A suicide bomber got past the Taliban check points
incompetence? or deliberate?

Drone strike on a marginal target, that may not have been involved.
Just for optics?
Ability of “over the horizon” operations?
Considering that Pakistan hid Bin Laden and many fighters for years.
Can we trust them to leave the over flight corridor open. Which is the only path for such a response, to “hunt them down”, once troops have left?
I have no doubt, that we can collect info. and possibly even know what they are up to.
But without that access corridor, we can’t DO anything about it.
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August 29, 2021 1:15pm
- dcrane
  
  The bombing was intended, by one group or another (CIA?), to help give MIC types like McMaster a case for convincing Americans they need to stay.
  
  The US semi-directly and indirectly created ISIS in Syria. I’ll bet their hands are dirty with ISIS-K as well.
  
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  August 29, 2021 3:07pm
  - Liberal Cliche
    
    “ISIS – K” Doing alot of this variant type stuff lately.
    
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    August 29, 2021 4:13pm
  - RW Capitalist
    
    That’s got to be the dumbest double bluff conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard.
    You only commit to this double bluff sacrifice play, if there is a possibility of winning the outcome.
    Biden has sacrificed any winning position by
    1. Leaving Bagram and allowing the prisoners there (likely the ones who bombed the airport), to be set free.
    2. Allowing the Taliban to, by force of arms, take control of the country.
    
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    August 29, 2021 4:33pm
    - dcrane
      
      I didn’t say that Biden is part of this plan; he seems to have been insisting on withdrawal on a timeline that didn’t suit some in the MIC.
      
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      August 29, 2021 5:37pm
Deadly pony

What actually happens after you get carted off following a positive test? The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons has produced this guide to reduce hospitalisations: https://aapsonline.org/CovidPatientTreatmentGuide.pdf
What are the early treatment protocols in NZ?
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August 29, 2021 1:24pm
- [email protected]
  
  Do you get carted off if you get Covid19?
  
  If so, that might be a reason not to let anyone know.
  
  Suffer in silence and get over it or if your health deteriorates badly, give yourself in and get hospitalized (assuming there is still space in the hospital).
  
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  August 29, 2021 6:46pm
  - Deadly pony
    
    I think they take you and lock you down in an MIQ facility? I don’t think it’s a choice? It would be good to hear from someone who knows the answer.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:58pm
Captain Mainwaring

Spindy’s lecturing is getting very tiresome.
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August 29, 2021 1:26pm
- Manu-Rau
  
  D-2 days.
  
  Has Kabul Kris, the comatose Minister of Immigration, resigned yet for his role in condemning 200 Afghanis to death at the hands of the Taliban?
  
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  August 29, 2021 1:46pm
- septic skeptic
  
  Yes,tiresome indeed. It looks like they know that the TV channels have only allocated 30 minutes so they can fill that with a mix of propaganda and Cindy providing phone numbers for help lines. That just leaves time for a couple of scripted questions before most of the audience goes back to Netflix.
  
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  August 29, 2021 3:01pm
- barnacle bill
  
  Don’t worry Captain, it ain’t good for your health.
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3HQMbQAWRc
  
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  August 29, 2021 3:04pm
  - barnacle bill
    
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-diB65scQU
    
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    August 29, 2021 3:16pm
Manu-Rau

D-2 days.

Has Kabul Kris, the comatose Minister of Immigration, resigned yet for his role in condemning 200 Afghanis to death at the hands of the Taliban?
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August 29, 2021 1:51pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  I see you asked twice. I think Kabul Kris needs to be asked 20 times, he may not understand
  
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  August 29, 2021 2:32pm
  - Manu-Rau
    
    Ha ha. Sorry everyone. I realized my first post had appeared as a reply to Capt Mainwaring, so tried to delete it before reposting as an opening comment.
    
    I suspect that Kabul Kris, the Polynesian Pontius Pilate from Porirua, would need to have this read to him at least 200 times before he got the message.
    
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    August 29, 2021 2:58pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Does not matter – ask him 20 times, maybe 2000 times – see the email inbox?
      
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      August 29, 2021 3:48pm
Maggie Pie

This ‘Level4’ shit is sooo boring!!
Just been sorting thru stuff in the Pantry.
Found an open box of Cornflakes well past their Expiry Date.
My partner suggested I should make another batch of Afghans.
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August 29, 2021 2:35pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Naughty, naughty..
  
  You know you have to call them Roughs now.
  https://www.kiwishoponline.com.au/eshop/Griffin-s-Milk-Chocolate-Roughs-200g.html
  
  However, you can still crochet an Afghan.
  https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/ripple-crochet-afghan-patterns-977981
  
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  August 29, 2021 2:43pm
  - oldfella
    
    If they’re Afghans Roughs you could call them ‘Taliban biscuits’.
    
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    August 29, 2021 5:14pm
CAKE FACE1

I think that there are two very distinct paths that New Zealand could now go down:

Path One – Covid outbreak is crushed. Elimination strategy continued until 2023 election. Borders tightened. Massive landslide for Labour at the 2023 election. Country goes bankrupt circa 2026. All is lost.

Path Two – Covid outbreak cannot be stopped. Elimination strategy abandoned. Many deaths – above most forecasts. Massive landslide for National at the 2023 election. Country opens up. Country recovers.

Personally, I suspect that Labour will crush this outbreak, so “Path One” is my base line prediction.
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August 29, 2021 2:42pm
- septic skeptic
  
  Well, it looks like level 4 isn’t enough to crush this outbreak. We are being prepped for level 5 sometime next week. Once they work out what level 5 is.
  
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  August 29, 2021 2:56pm
Nickc2

Believe it or not, there was a time when the US Military loved their President.
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2021/08/compare-contrast-the-mood-and-maths-behind-the-biden-catastrophe.html
Not so much these days.
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August 29, 2021 2:44pm
Maggie Pie

BREAKING

Just how BAD are things really getting during Alert Level4?

Police Commissioner Andrew Coster is warning people to:

“LOOK OUT FOR YOURSELVES…….”

https://twitter.com/NZPoliceMedia/status/1431806194029453316
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August 29, 2021 2:59pm
- kevn
  
  @Maggie… ‘They’ are just throwing some ‘bait’ out, hoping to get negative comments which ‘they’ can then add to the other tracked disinformation commenters.
  
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  August 29, 2021 3:05pm
ABS4EVA

COVID CRAZY

New Term for people who have lost the Plot
over various issues

Seeing quite a lot of signs of it from Lock down
in my travels

Attempted Suicides
Woman throwing 3 month old babies under trains

etc etc

I do not think flaming the fires of fear and hysteria is responsible

in AUS I think people are now too scared to
cooperate and comply

So the Harsh Approach is failing

i.e not getting tested out of fear
of how they may be treated fined etc

Honestly the Hysterical Approach is Irresponsible

“Be Kind to one another”

Then Dob in your neighbour
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August 29, 2021 3:00pm
Benedict Yu

This is Joe Biden saying that if you get vaccinated you cannot get COVID. ?

https://youtube.com/shorts/toa3n5AtiII?feature=share
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August 29, 2021 3:01pm
- ABS4EVA
  
  I am very cautious about trusting the Testimony
  of Senile incontinent Communists.
  
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  August 29, 2021 5:24pm
CAKE FACE1

Another irony is that because NZ stamped the Alpha variant of Covid out so mercilessly, nobody in NZ got the natural antibodies mass infection would have given.

This Alpha variant was less infectious, and some say less deadly, than the Delta variant. It apparently offers reasonable immunity against catching Delta.

The Swedes let Alpha run through their population slowly – their hospitals could still keep up. Most importantly, the Swedes got at least some immunity from Alpha.

Most scientists are now saying that immunity from catching and recovering from the virus is more effective than that given by the vaccines.

This leaves NZ in a uniquely sad situation, with Delta potentially sweeping super fast through the population, and little resistance to call on.

Kicking the can down the road is not as optimal a policy as everyone thinks…
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August 29, 2021 3:06pm
- krazykiwi
  
  It depends what you are optimising for. It is VERY optimum if one plans to be living high on the UN hog while your successors deal with the fallout from one’s incompetence.
  
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  August 29, 2021 4:50pm
- MCos
  
  Lloyd Burr, of NewsHub, recently returned from the UK where he contracted Covid-19 twice.
  https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/300391716/covid19-you-dont-know-how-lucky-you-are-new-zealand
  
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  August 29, 2021 6:04pm
  - Manu-Rau
    
    It’s a pity he came back. He, and we, would have been better off if he had stayed there.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:59pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Are the NZ Herald Journalists all mathematically inept?

Their online site has the Headline…Is this a plateau? 83 new cases

It is not a plateau.. it is an INCREASE….. The Total is still increasing… still going UP… perhaps the start of a LINEAR increase (as opposed to an exponential increase) but NOT a levelling off.
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August 29, 2021 3:11pm
- 70andstilllearning
  
  Maggy – you could send this to the above described inept, link provided. 🙂 They are grammatically inept as well,
  
  exponential
  /ˌɛkspəˈnɛnʃ(ə)l/
  Learn to pronounce
  adjective
  1.
  (of an increase) becoming more and more rapid.
  “the social security budget was rising at an exponential rate”
  2.
  MATHEMATICS
  of or expressed by a mathematical exponent.
  “an exponential curve”
  
  https://www.google.com/search?q=exponential+meaning&oq=exponential&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i131i433i512j0i433i512l2j0i512l6.8555j1j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
  
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  August 29, 2021 4:26pm
  - ABS4EVA
    
    The Formulae for for Covid
    
    is
    
    BS to the Power of 9
    
    Comrade
    
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    August 29, 2021 5:25pm
- [email protected]
  
  Dear Maggie,
  
  Wiki: “In geology and physical geography, a plateau, also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain, that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side.”
  
  You are smart enough to know that an increase from 40 new cases on the 24th to 63 on the 25th to 68 and 70 on the 26th/27th was an exponential increase but going to 83/84 on the 28th/29th in not an exponential increase and represents a leveling out or plateau. Let’s hope that these numbers are real, not fudged and indicates that the spread is under control.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:54pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    I’m well aware that going from 429 to 511 is still an increase in total numbers..
    
    Now if todays additions had been around 2 or 3 positives then a change from 429 to 431 would have looked a bit like a levelling off…
    
    but plot the total numbers…and the graph is still climbing… so we are still on an upward gradient – or in geographical jargon a steep slope.
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:09pm
70andstilllearning

From the Herald:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-delta-outbreak-and-lockdown-83-new-cases-on-sunday-pm-jacinda-ardern-and-dr-ashley-bloomfield-provide-update/MAMHCSPTEMSRZA4IFQRJ3SWU64/

“Cabinet will meet again tomorrow to decide on Auckland’s alert level, but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has already said it was almost certain that Auckland and Northland would have level 4 extended for at least another week, and Auckland for at least at another two weeks.

Northland was expected to stay at level 4 as a precaution because of concerns about a positive case in a worker at a rest home near Warkworth.

That person had worked for two days while infectious, but was fully vaccinated and was wearing the PPE required for level 4.”

Also today PM & DGH advised that:

1) Tests from those at the Rest Home had come back negative
2) That there were no places of (public) interest in Warkworth as the three locations of concern were private places with all contacts identified.
Question 1:
Why then, should Northland be held at L4 with no cases and no potential public contacts from Warkworth that could have been of concern, particularly when compared to Wellington which will move to L3 Tuesday night where new cases are still occurring.

If there is now no valid health imperative for maintaining Northland at L4 this leads to
Question 2:
What is not being declared concerning the risk to Northland as “as a precaution” rings hollow compared with Wellington;
or
Is this a message to Northland that Cabinet is not happy with Northland at the moment.
or
Is this a means of testing just how far lock downs can be stretched before there is major push back.

Interesting times really!
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August 29, 2021 3:13pm
- Stu2
  
  What was said during the level 3/level 4 announcement was that there are rest home staff working at both the site in Warkworth and another one further north.
  
  But there has been no subsequent mention of testing at the other site
  
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  August 29, 2021 5:14pm
  - 70andstilllearning
    
    CHT don’t actually have one further north. Check their site.
    
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    August 29, 2021 7:25pm
- MCos
  
  It’s obvious that a large number of people travelled from Auckland up north when it became clear Lev 4 was on the cards.
  I don’t know why the Coromandel escapes the dragnet. Maybe too hard to control the roads in and out.
  
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  August 29, 2021 5:54pm
  - 70andstilllearning
    
    As set up presently 3 roadblocks? or even if they went back to the CDEMG boundaries as previously used its only 5 max.
    
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    August 29, 2021 7:28pm
Maggie Pie

TRENDING…

This is the very reason I always carry my Rosary when I’m out.

If I ever fall asleep at someone’s place, they will just assume I’m deep in prayer.

https://twitter.com/cartagotv/status/1431697091697553409

(klik google translate 😀 )
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August 29, 2021 3:44pm
- ABS4EVA
  
  The Advantage of that if anyone near you happens to be Demonically Possessed you should get a reaction
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6YTz-B24FA&t=1060s
  
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  August 29, 2021 5:29pm
kowtow

The two of them on the Podium of Truth were sombre and down beat .

She also talked at length , I believe to run the clock down on the open TV broadcast question time.

Me thinks the shit’s about to hit the fan.
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August 29, 2021 3:53pm
- kevn
  
  @kowtow… Any roving camera on the handpicked paid for msm press lot? No?
  
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  August 29, 2021 5:11pm
kevn

@Maggie… ZZZZZZZZZZZ
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August 29, 2021 3:55pm
Durden

Follow the science ? Yeah right. Glenn Reynolds suggests caution.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the InstaPundit.com blog. Instapundit was one of the earliest blogs that DPF would have followed during the early stages of Internet.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/26/were-told-to-follow-the-science-yet-some-of-it-is-just-plain-wrong/
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August 29, 2021 4:02pm
- westernScientest
  
  the ‘Science’ is nothing more than political propaganda.
  
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  August 29, 2021 6:59pm
Nickc2

They’re at it again. A scribbler for the Guardian is advocating for a change in NZ’s name. Well, that’s what is intimated, or is it just a diversion to take the heat of the PM and her merry band of f_wits masquerading as a Govt attempting to manage our way through Covid-19?
https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/a-neat-trick-critics-aim-to-shift-aotearoa-debate-but-historical-fidelity-no-longer-matters/ar-AANQQDz?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531
9 1
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August 29, 2021 4:27pm
- 70andstilllearning
  
  They can’t help themselves N2. Any distraction: eg. Tame with a Super rerun which had to be god knows how old.
  
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  August 29, 2021 4:47pm
- ABS4EVA
  
  Apartheid Aotearoa
  
  is just fine thank you
  
  7 1
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  August 29, 2021 5:31pm
- graham
  
  You have to laugh … the author describes talks about Judith Collins criticising the He Puapua report, an obscure policy document.
  
  “Obscure”? Well, some might call a report that was commissioned by a sitting MP “obscure” – others might refer to it as “concealed”, as in a ticking time bomb that has been deliberately concealed and down-played.
  
  By the way, the author just happens to be one Morgan Godfery. I wouldn’t exactly describe Mr Godfery as a neutral observer …
  
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  August 29, 2021 5:54pm
- Jack5
  
  The “scribbler”, Morgan Godfery, describes himself as a ” political writer specialising in Maori politics.”
  
  He has been on the staff of two Maori MPs.
  
  Godfery often writes on blogs, and the Guardian piece appears only in the faux NZ edition of the English newspaper.
  
  “Faux edition” because there is no official New Zealand edition, but its computers pick up log-ins for New Zealand and display a page containing a strip of New Zealand articles.
  
  But go to the Guardian web site through VPN, so that it doesn’t know you are viewing from New Zealand, and you won’t find Godfery’s piece in the English, American, Australian, or international editions of the newspaper’s web site.
  
  For those logging on from New Zealand, the Guardian is a small silo.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:37pm
lifesgood

Rowan Dean on Sky News mocked hell out of “Aotearoa” asking where it was etc. Then he said “Well a yachtie a rower, I guess that is appropriate seeing as NZ is a nation of boaties” Lol.
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August 29, 2021 5:33pm
CAKE FACE1

ACT released a statement on Sunday morning alleging the Government was on track to run out of Pfizer doses on September 2.

Ms Ardern replied:

“It’s not a matter of whether we are running out, it’s a matter of whether or not, if we are in a position, where we need to have a little less demand than what we are seeing at the moment. But we are not at that point yet and I will give you some information early next week.”

Hahaha. She doesn’t even make any sense.

Cindy is the worst Messiah ever! Worse than David Koresh! Worse than Jim Jones!

Meanwhile, Mr Grant says economic catastrophe is looming.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/300392364/an-economic-catastrophe-is-looming

CAKE concurs.
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August 29, 2021 5:41pm
- Cinematic
  
  The anxiety levels are popping with our PM. It’s affecting her ability to form sentences. That, frankly, was gibberish.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:18pm
CAKE FACE1

Listening to the news, it sounds like Cindy is offending the Pasifika people again.

It sounds like she should undergo “The Blanket” ceremonial covering again. Perhaps the big Samoan signing dude could tent her next press conference.

This time, perhaps she should continue to wear the blanket over her head for longer, so as to show that she’s finally learnt her lesson. This would also be an aesthetic improvement, in these difficult times…
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August 29, 2021 6:12pm
Scooter

From the Herald

Our Deputy Prime Minister says “Covid is part of our future” but expects vaccination rates to overtake other OECD countries by the end of the year.”

No shit Sherlock, that’s because most of those countries will have vaccinated the majority by then. And probably on their 3rd dose.
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August 29, 2021 6:37pm
- Cinematic
  
  I don’t think Jacinda knows what she’s talking about. It’s the only explanation for these word salads delivered by her when the going gets a little tense.
  
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  August 29, 2021 10:14pm
westernScientest

FFS, when is this going to end, it is getting way out of hand

https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/126217065/police-checkpoint-set-up-to-stop-people-going-to-see-orca-pod
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August 29, 2021 6:38pm
Muttonbird

Does anyone know why the fucking Sistema factory is still operating, and spreading coronavirus, under Level 4?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/covid-19-coronavirus-delta-outbreak-sistema-factory-closed-after-employee-tests-positive/E3NGYJYF6XVUCNORKY7RIVVQ6M/
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August 29, 2021 7:01pm
- Muttonbird
  
  Perhaps one of these much vaunted government critic journalists could ask why the sistema factory was still operating under L4?
  
  It is not essential.
  
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  August 29, 2021 7:42pm
  - Muttonbird
    
    I’ll ask again. Perhaps a great journalist who reads Kiwiblog might like to ask the question of MoH, MBIE, government, why the hell sistema was still allowed to operate under L4?
    
    Could be the scoop which brings down the Labour government?
    
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    August 29, 2021 7:56pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  No idea..
  
  Maybe our Government has done a deal with the Yankee owners.
  https://sistemaplastics.com/news/entry/usa-giant-newell-brands-buy-sistema-plastics-and-commits-to-manufacturing-i
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:09pm
  - Muttonbird
    
    While they are known as a poor employer, that is not the issue here. I would like to know why they were able to continue manufacturing under NZ L4 restrictions.
    
    None of the rest of us have been able to.
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:27pm
    - Cinematic
      
      Have you tried asking, oh I dunno, Sistema?
      
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      August 29, 2021 10:11pm
Stu2

Anyone seen what vaccine deliveries we are expecting in Sept?

Looks like we got 1.5 million doses in Aug, about 50,000 a day. We’ve been injecting around 90,000 a day recently, so unless deliveries step up things will slow.

We are opening bookings up to everyone on Sept 1st. I’m curious how that lines up with what will be arriving.

Looks more like political threatre to me than an operational reality.
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August 29, 2021 7:29pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Well that’s probably why our Dear PM delivered the following word slosh earlier today:
  
  t’s a very dynamic situation. It’s not a matter of running out, it’s a matter of whether or not we are in a position where we need to have a little less demand.”
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/29/new-zealand-covid-update-83-new-cases-with-all-but-one-in-auckland
  
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  August 29, 2021 7:57pm
  - Stu2
    
    Just found this article written today – more details on the current stock and deliveries, but in the dark on what we expect in Sept
    
    http://www.voxy.co.nz/politics/5/391859
    
    I wonder if there are any numeric journos at the press events. Some very obvious questions to ask
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:22pm
  - [email protected]
    
    After spending heaps to tell everyone to get jabbed Jacinda Ardern is now suggesting that the vaccine supply would last longer if there was less demand.
    
    It is now our fault that there is not enough supply because we are following orders to get jabbed?
    
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    August 29, 2021 8:34pm
  - Cinematic
    
    ‘Need to have a little less demand’. Wow, this politician has no morals or ethics to speak of. What an embarrassment. A disgrace to our country.
    
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    August 29, 2021 10:09pm
Kiwi_in_Paris

Apparently the big talking point in the UK is the increasing number of “died with a short illness” on death notices. Not for Covid, mmm, I wonder what it could be?

Meanwhile Covid jab harmed Eric Clapton has made a new song:

https://twitter.com/ZinzanBrooke8/status/1431867831759474695
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August 29, 2021 7:33pm
- Muttonbird
  
  That’s anti-vax stuff.
  
  Reported.
  
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  August 29, 2021 8:03pm
  - graham
    
    Good work Muttonbird! And necessary too. After all, the Police, or whoever you reported it to, very probably haven’t heard about Eric Clapton … let’s face it, he’s been careful to fly under the radar on this, having barely made the headlines in Rolling Stone, NME, MSN, Vanity Fair, USA Today, the BBC, the Guardian …
    
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    August 29, 2021 9:31pm
ABS4EVA

The Communists in Australia have toned down the Rhetoric and gone all Kumbaya

The sheep will fall for it

Works every time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFC54U6ux9A
[Victoria records 92 new cases of COVID-19 in the state | ABC News]

Victoria the Communist Police State of Australia

Extends lock down with some peanuts thrown to the poor casual workers

Be Kind to one another

Dob in your neighbours

Fund the Mongrel Mob

We Need more better highly paid government
like this and

Parliament shut

Same BS both sides of the Tasman
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August 29, 2021 8:23pm
ABS4EVA

Good Night Kiwi

Team of 5 million

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UTvtimVDGE
[Goodnight Kiwi (1976)]

Good Night Freedom

Good Night Democracy

In the informations age

NZ is run by a Bunch of
who can’t Run a Virtual Parliament

Be Kind to one another

NZ Parliament will now by decree of Comrade cindy be replaced by

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq4SGw_L-c4&t=10s
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August 29, 2021 9:13pm
lazza

My plea forsome3balance and moderation was as expected greeted with a storm of … unbalanced and immoderate invective.

Oh well such is life.

KB is the loser in its inexorable journey to a deserved reputation for U and I Invective.
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August 30, 2021 6:29am

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