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January 1, 2024 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 01 January 2024

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General Debate

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krazykiwi

Happy new year, all. I hope 2024 is filled with vitality, agency and the warmth of great relationships. Mrs kk and I are looking forward to a fourth grandchild and have already booked travel to the UK in June to meet her. Lots of other family and friend events planned, too.

Might need to allocate some time to income generation, KB commentary, and fine single malt.

Some global issues I’ll be watching:

— The WHO’s attempted annexation of our sovereignty.

— Big pharma’s continued crimes against humanity under the protection of CDC, NIH et al.

— The same people who are working to crash the global economy attempting to install CBDC’s to ‘fix’ things.

Oh, and I plan to openly mock the woke’s continued march towards their own hilarious, reality bereft oblivion.

Watching Luxon grapple with NZ Inc will also be interesting. His success or otherwise will be fed into our ‘where should we retire’ model.

It’s going to be quite a year. Buckle up.
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January 1, 2024 8:01am
- I remember when
  
  Interestlingly, I see Dr. John Campbell has referred to a BMJ article questioning big pharma’s oversight of approval of new medicines.
  Are we starting to understand the dangers that we have not realised existed until the covid vaccines?
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:16am
  - krazykiwi
    
    This BJM article? I have posed this one previously. It is a shocking documentation of the criminality compromised foxes guarding the hen house.
    
    My we-are-being-lied-to antenna first started twitching when Prozac was approved.
    
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    January 1, 2024 9:39am
  - Philview
    
    The Netflix drama Painkiller highlighted the lengths a pharmaceutical company will go to get their drug over the line.
    
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    January 1, 2024 2:26pm
  - ClanMcleod
    
    Never forget, not once during the early days of the ‘deadly pandemic’ did ANYONE in government or any of the ‘experts’ ever once tell people to improve their personal health as a means to fight disease.
    No advice re diet, exercise, vitamin D via sunshine, vitamin C as a supplement, zinc etc etc.
    
    The whole messaging was centered on locking down, masking and taking part in a medical experiment using mRNA technology which had never managed to get approval to market in 20 years of trying.
    Everything people were told to do did more harm than good.
    Face it, the pharmaceutical industrial complex can’t make money from healthy people. They much prefer us dependent on their products.
    
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    January 1, 2024 2:58pm
    - Lee C
      
      And of course the first retailers to get re-opened were fast-food outlets.
      
      Speaks volumes.
      
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      January 1, 2024 4:43pm
    - Che Guava
      
      They never gave public health advice because the 2 or 3 years of Covid was never about public health.
      
      As you point out, dissemination of sensible and practical advice that would have greatly assisted was an obvious omission, and we can infer a great deal indeed from the omission.
      
      It’s simple observable aspects like this, that make no sense if the narrative was truthful and sincere, that tell us that we were being deceived, aside from all the more technical arguments that can bog us down and make us miss the obvious.
      
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      January 1, 2024 4:55pm
    - ISeeRed
      
      This. Employers could FIRE employees supposedly at higher risk for refusing the jab but couldn’t ask overweight employees actually at higher risk to lose some weight because THAT would have been inappropriate and a violation of their privacy and body autonomy. WTF ever.
      
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      January 1, 2024 6:15pm
- hullkiwi
  
  Kk, Happy New Year.
  
  While I share your concern about Big Pharma, who (an unintended pun) have had the WHO in their pockets for a very long time now. To feed your cynicism, I recommend John Le Carrie’s “The Constant Gardner”. But I agree, the world of medicine and pharmaceuticals is indeed very unhealthy (pun intended).
  
  Finally, you may be surprised how different National may be this time round to the past.
  
  Like you, we have a trip to UK/Europe planned for May. Relatives & friends etc.
  
  Now to make your New Year. Headline in the Horrid, McKay has resigned TVNZ for a corporate govt media stakeholder role at ANZ, and to avoid making you ill, avoid the Horrid write up!
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:43am
  - krazykiwi
    
    Irony alert: One of the key objectives of banks is ‘balance’, which is an utterly foreign concept to Mutch McKay
    
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    January 1, 2024 12:16pm
  - goNZ1
    
    I guess after JM-M and Tovar OBs special relationship with Adern and Labour in the glory days of the 1pm covid edicts pressers ended, the fun went out of the job.The far-left cabal of LabourGreenies getting evicted from govt recently would have decided it. I mean watching John Campbell and MutchMcK gloomy faces on election night as the disaster for the far-left unfolded told the real story!
    
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    January 1, 2024 12:27pm
- ClanMcleod
  
  Happy New Year KK. It’s been a hell of a ride up to now!
  
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  January 1, 2024 2:53pm
Yvette

Treaty

Seymour’s pitch is simple yet powerful: New Zealand needs a discussion about Treaty principles and people should have a say on them alongside the courts, the Waitangi Tribunal and public servants. And rather than a “partnership between races”, his principles aim to give all people “equal rights and duties”.

As he told RNZ, Act thinks the principles “should be codified in legislation and New Zealanders should be allowed to vote on them, rather than allowing the courts to surreptitiously change our constitution… Act would promote the Treaty as it was actually signed, not the divisive version invented by judges and academics.”
https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/graham-adams-treaty-principles-debate-takes-off

Perhaps Seymour just needs to clearly show the Treaty as it was actually signed, and juxtapose it with what it has become, as it is now redefined –

Māori own the water because this country was settled by consent, not conquest, under the Treaty of Waitangi.
Article 1 gave the Crown custodianship, not ownership.
Article 2, for the avoidance of all doubt, retained, for Māori, absolute control of our waters, our land, and all domains.
Article 3 asserted the right that we would have equality of opportunity with white New Zealanders.
Those three undertakings by all New Zealand governments have been constantly breached.
– John Tamihere (President of the Maori Party)
https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/who-owns-the-water/

Say no more
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January 1, 2024 8:01am
- I remember when
  
  Maori ownership of water was always restricted to use, travel and fisheries.
  They didn’t have ownership of, they had tribal control of.
  The weather was the source of replenishment and they understood that today’s water would not be there tomorrow.
  Ownership would not be possible.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:21am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Tainui control the Waikato River water but the water comes from the Ngati Tuwharetoa area.
    Oh, the water flows across Tainui land….. right, got it.
    
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    January 1, 2024 10:59am
- Clyde
  
  Yvette, until the downright lies, disinformation, misinformation and concentrated BS is countered by sense, this programme, started and backed by racist political parties, tended by woke Universities and the entire education system and absorbed by a pile of largely national and local Govt employees will take hold.
  
  We now have at least a couple of political leaders in Govt that want to push back on this divisive crap and we ALL need to give them support to make sure it happens.
  
  It ain’t going to be easy, but it can and will happen if we want it to. So what we ALL need to do in 2024 is act and not simply fire off hopes to similar people. Show direct support to our new Government, take on education BS at every level when we come across it, refuse to accept woke policies from local Govt, refuse to accept letters from entities that push down Manglish down our throats, question anything that looks like it is maorification. Together, it can be done.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:38am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Seymour has my support.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:00am
- pdm
  
  Excellent post by Graham Adams over at Bassett, Brash and Hyde re David Seymour and his approach to the Referendum on Treaty Principles.
  
  As Adams says – underestimate the Political Skills and tenacity of Seymour at your peril if you are a Treaty Activist.
  https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/graham-adams-treaty-principles-debate-takes-off
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:40am
  - imalwaysright
    
    It is virtually impossible to have a referendum on the principles of anything.
    
    Who defines the term principle ?
    How many are there, if any?
    Do we vote for all, some, or none of them?
    
    This is a pointless exercise, a half hearted attempt at a constitution to be built on the foundation of a document that served its only purpose on the day it was signed.
    
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    January 1, 2024 10:15am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      It being a pointless exercise is just one reason it won’t be happening.
      
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      January 1, 2024 10:24am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Commies especially, hate direct democracy.
        
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        January 1, 2024 2:55pm
    - Che Guava
      
      Defining and enshrining the ToW’s principles only validates the thing. A politician with real courage would make the case for why it is an anachronism that no longer serves any purpose and that we should get rid of it and consign it to a museum. This would be very popular, but it is more important to most of these idiots to not get disinvited to drinks and nibbles than to do anything bold and popular.
      
      What we need to see is some sharp disagreement on the fundamentals that have become seen as self-evident, not a continual acceptance of the same with modifications around the edges.
      
      To use a metaphor, like a goldfish in a bowl, we seem unaware of the possibility of anything other than subsisting in a bowl of liberal liquid, constantly swimming around in increasing amounts of our own shit.
      
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      January 1, 2024 10:33am
    - David Garrett
      
      I’malways: You do not understand what Seymour is proposing.
      
      As with the assisting dying legislation, he proposes passing a very short and simple Bill through parliament which specifies exactly what the “principles” are – I believe there are only three clauses, just as there are only three articles in the “treaty” (it is and never was an actual treaty, but that’s a different argument)
      
      The Act so passed can only come into effect if a majority vote for it to come into force in a referendum. It’s actually a brilliantly simple strategy. And of course any such referendum which effectively defines the treaty principles and prevents new ones being added will receive huge support – 70% plus in my view.
      
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      January 1, 2024 11:14am
      - David Garrett
        
        ..And that 70+% approval is why people like Tamihere, Jackcon and the Maori Party are so desperate to stop the process from happening.
        
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        January 1, 2024 11:33am
      - imalwaysright
        
        D.G
        Thanks for the clarification, however it still looks like an endless circular argument is about to kick off.
        It may be an issue that we should address after the country is in a fit state.
        
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        January 1, 2024 11:41am
      - David Garrett
        
        Always: I don’t see any “circular argument”. The crucial question is whether the Nats will support and pass the Bill that Seymour is proposing…sadly I rather doubt they will; even Key probably wouldn’t have, and his balls are twice as big as Luxon’s.
        
        If the Bill is passed into law – dependent on the result of a referendum – the rest is pretty much routine…of course the usual suspects – two of whom I have named above – will make a huge noise about it, but they won’t stop the necessary referendum…in fact the more than squeal and moan, the more likely the thing is to pass.
        
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        January 1, 2024 12:08pm
      - goNZ1
        
        DG, just to clarify you comments today and previously on Luxon,do you despise him because he is a Christian I assume?
        
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        January 1, 2024 12:32pm
      - Ghost
        
        I doubt David gives a toss about what religion the pm is. Why even turn this discussion into that, weird.
        
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        January 1, 2024 1:04pm
      - David Garrett
        
        goNZ: I couldn’t give two fucks if he is a Christian…neither do I “despise him”…I simply believe he is a (very) pale immitation of John Key and I have a great deal of respect for Mr Key… for reasons I have outlined here a number of times.
        
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        January 1, 2024 4:34pm
- R
  
  John! ….
  GO AND READ THE ORIGINAL TREATY DOCUMENT:
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:45am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    The Littlewood Draft, not the James Freeman rogue version used by the Waitangi Tribunal!
    
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    January 1, 2024 10:55am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  JT has Article 3 correct. He spouts rubbish in Articles 1 and 2.
  It is all here on pages 7 and 8:
  
  https://issuu.com/esisite/docs/3481_jb_-_go-governance_-_a5_booklet_-_online
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:53am
Lee C

Thank you KK I’ll be watching the USA with great interest.

Happy New you to you and all on KB.

Even the down-ticker.
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January 1, 2024 8:03am
- Lee C
  
  … sorry, ‘downtickers’….
  
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  January 1, 2024 4:45pm
Tomtoddy

Someone called Vernon Small, a journalist, (wasn’t he writing in the Holyoake era??) has described the economy as having “A few sniffles, certainly, but the patient is in reasonable health overall”. Crikey, what is he smoking? What does an “ill economy” look like to Vernon? Getting paid to make Labour look as smart as possible??? Checking a bit further and all is revealed – he was an adviser to David Parker. Yet another so called journalist prostituted among the dead-set useless.
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January 1, 2024 8:04am
- Swifty
  
  I’m tossing up as to whether Small is trying to polish Labour’s turd or is just displaying his low standards and economic complacency.
  
  On our current trajectory, over the next generation we will find it increasingly tough to pay our way in the world – and while we watch similar economies streak further away from us.
  
  I shudder to think about the wealth and income gaps between us and Aussie in the next 20-40+ years the way we’re going.
  
  Labour can’t and won’t do anything about it, their ideology prevents them making the necessary tough calls.
  
  It’s all down to National and friends. Have they got it in them?
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:29am
- cmm
  
  Yes, on the surface, the economy doesn’t look too awful yet because we’re still living on the coat tails of spending it up on the grand children’s future tax payments.
  
  When the credit card statement comes then that sniffle is going to change into pneumonia.
  
  But the impact is kicking in. NZ had a decrease in Boxing day spending while Australia had an increase. Clearly the writing is on the wall.
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:43am
  - Jack5
    
    CMM’s …on the surface, the economy doesn’t look too awful yet…
    
    Mmm …
    
    September 2023 quarter, NZ’s GDP fell 0.3 per cent, and the GDP per capita dropped 0.9 per cent.
    
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    January 1, 2024 1:00pm
    - cmm
      
      Jack, those are mere love bites compared to what is coming.
      We have been blowing about a billion a week of our grandkids’ money. That’s about $500 per week per household.
      That cash injection has softened the blow of the downturn, but, like living on your credit card, it turns to tears later on.
      
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      January 1, 2024 4:54pm
- krazykiwi
  
  Few sniffles… reminds me of a line from the movie The Princess Bride: “.. your friend here is only mostly dead”
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:44am
  - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
    
    Inconceivable!
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:00am
- kowtow
  
  ‘Getting paid to make Labour look as smart as possible?’
  
  yeah well today’s Whoreald cartoon ( party political ad on behalf of the Labour Party) is a self satisfied white guy in the shit filled surf , while his blond wife explains to their child “he’s reflecting on sticking it to the left Elite by voting against 3 waters”
  
  Talking of the economy , it’s on life support when we can’t educate and bring into the workforce much in the way of native labour .
  
  Instead bringing in a massive flock of albatrosses who lower gdp per head and be a vast burden on net taxpayers and the barely functioning physical and social infrastructure , just to drive a few busses or drop off a parcel or three.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:12am
  - Paulus
    
    Jessica Mutch McKay did all she could to polish the Labour turd, without sucess, and is now leaving TVNZ to go to ANZ Bank as sort of PR job despite probably totally disliking the Chairman Sir John Key, as we shall see.
    Some loud Maori woman is expected to take over her TVNZ job – others need not apply.
    
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    January 1, 2024 10:44am
    - 3-coil
      
      Paulus: “E2” Mutch was always seriously overrated
      
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      January 1, 2024 11:15am
    - Warren
      
      How can anyone have Faith in One News
      After this statement on Jessica Mutch McKay leaving TV One Political News after this Statement which would have to be in the running for “Joke of the Year” on Jessica Mutch McKay leaving TV One.
      She has led a world class team of reporters through a remarkable time in New Zealand Politics including skilfully helping our 2023 Election Coverage.
      https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/01/political-editor-jessica-mutch-mckay-leaving-1news-tvnz/
      With Tova O’Brien and Jenna Lynch they helped our Former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern con New Zealander’s with their lack of integrity and blind eyed disrepect of the lies that were told.
      And now TV One wants to praise someone that helped the former Prime Minister divide New Zealander’s.
      
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      January 1, 2024 12:02pm
    - goNZ1
      
      Mikey is another Adern apostle from the 1pm glory days,and will be a shoo-in for the ” Independent” news source TVNZ (ticks all boxes,female,Maori etc)
      I am intrigued by a blatantly political journalist such as JMM going to ANZ dealing with govt relations. I guess Sean Plunket could get a senior role at BNZ by that logic!
      
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      January 1, 2024 12:41pm
- Prince
  
  Samll was a leftie ‘journalist’ until Labour was elected. He then took a role in a minister’s office. Early 2023 he saw the writing on the wall, and returned to ‘journalism’.
  He will now try to undermine National until (he hopes) returning to a Govt position in 2026.
  
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  January 1, 2024 4:52pm
tknorriss

Happy new year everyone. Especially for those of you in the North Island. Hopefully some better weather this year. I don’t know how you all cope wiht it up there. Every time I look at the weather map it appears to be bucketing down with rain up there. I would find that so depressing.
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January 1, 2024 8:17am
- Cassandra
  
  Sunny in the BoP this morning. Spot of drizzle last night though………
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:27am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Yeah, saw that on the TV cricket
    
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    January 1, 2024 9:15am
  - emmess
    
    Yeah, drizzle my arse
    
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    January 1, 2024 10:23am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Has been lovely in the Hawkes Bay. Garden could do with a spot of rain.
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:31am
- Nickc2
  
  Every time I look at the weather map it appears to be bucketing down with rain up there. I would find that so depressing.
  Look no further tknorriss, it is depressing. It’s bloody depressing in fact. It’s so depressing that even my boat is complaining of lack of use.
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:38am
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  The weather predictions these days are a shocker, hopeless. Too much education?
  All I ask for is an isobar map, not an opinion. Don’t they realise that boatie’s lives may depend on a correct prediction?
  Best just look at Rangitoto. If you can see it, then it’s going to rain. If you can’t see it, thein it is raining.
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:38am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    And they reckon they can predict the climate in 2100.
    
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    January 1, 2024 8:54am
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      Here’s an offer. I will call heads on one coin toss. If I lose, you then have to bet that I can’t guess, within about five either way, how many times five hundred coin tosses will land heads-up.
      
      It’s been explained to you – again and again – that long term trends are more reliably predictable than short term occurrences. And yet you are still proposing, to the apparent delight of kiwibloggers, that occasionally getting tomorrow’s local weather forecast wrong means that NIWA can’t extrapolate a long term global climate trend. This is well beyond an honest and reasonably common misunderstanding, it’s wilful and determined ignorance
      
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      January 1, 2024 9:53am
      - mikenmildagain
        
        ‘willful ignorance’ could have replaced ‘fomenting happy mischief’ as the Kiwiblog tagline.
        
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        January 1, 2024 10:06am
      - Max Mansplain
        
        A coin toss is a fifty fifty coin toss….the weather isn’t.
        I assume you can predict the long term financial markets to a huge accuracy as well.
        
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        January 1, 2024 10:06am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        “NIWA can’t extrapolate a long term global climate trend. ”
        
        You think they can and I along with a number of climate scientists who are not alarmists believe they cannot. The two most notable ones are Dr Judith Curry and Dr Steven Koonin.
        
        You name one climate scientist in NZ who is willing to debate this issue.
        
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        January 1, 2024 10:57am
      - Chuck Bird
        
        The List Of 120 Years Of Climate Scares By Scientists
        
        https://710wor.iheart.com/featured/mark-simone/content/2019-10-08-the-list-of-120-years-of-climate-scares-by-scientists/
        
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        January 1, 2024 11:00am
      - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
        
        Still enjoying the “atypical El Nino”?
        
        Climate modelling is better than witchcraft, because you get to be all sanctimonious, and never having to admit to being wrong…
        
        “Snowfall will be a thing of the past…”
        “NSW dams will never be full again”
        
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        January 1, 2024 11:11am
      - mawm
        
        DQ – and yet NIWA persist with predicting what is in store for us over summer. Last year and this year it was predicted to be below average precipitation and warmer than normal. An obvious a failure!
        
        Do they audit their reports – especially the wildly inaccurate climate models? Perhaps they should and apologise to us for their failure to be even occasionally correct.
        
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        January 1, 2024 11:26am
      - Master Mariner
        
        NIWA is no more or less a “Cut & Paste” from NOAA. Nearly word perfect.
        And for this Cut and Paste we get a few Maori words.
        Gees, What a great business model.
        I’m in the wrong business.
        
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        January 1, 2024 12:35pm
      - JJ56
        
        First, just technical point. NIWA doesn’t do weather forecasting, that’s Metservice, and NIWA doesn’t extrapolate long-term global climate trends, it relies on international modelling for this but down scales to the NZ situation.
        
        As to the relationship between a single observation and a long-term trend, the former is always more reliable than the latter because it is an observation rather than a prediction.
        
        Over time if the observations are inconsistent with an assumed long-term trend then we start to doubt the assumed trend, and think again. It’s what science is all about.
        
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        January 1, 2024 1:01pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        DQQ making sht up about the long term future is easy. Nobody can call you on it for decades. Time and time again the world’s “top climate (alarmist narrative pushing) scientists” (hahaha) have gotten their long term climate predictions spectacularly WRONG.
        
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        January 1, 2024 5:50pm
    - Burtland
      
      you can make a lot of money predicting the future – ask any climate scientist
      
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      January 1, 2024 10:27am
  - Wayne Mapp
    
    The MetService forecasts are quite accurate. It is the weather itself that is the shocker. Mind you, that is often the norm for December. Typically we have to wait till late Jan and February to get settled weather. However, not so for the 2022/2023 summer.
    
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    January 1, 2024 9:39am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      No Wayne, they are not in the same ballpark as Phillip Duncan at Weatherwatch. Take a look at his youtube channel. And pay Weatherwatch if you want the real deal. Weatherwatch is light years ahead of Met Service. I’d almost guarantee you never go back to Met Service.
      
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      January 1, 2024 8:18pm
  - Master Mariner
    
    Who cares about the weather Steve when you cant get the climate wrong +30years //.
    I have a few ding dongs with Ben at Niwa FWIW too.
    
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    January 1, 2024 10:56am
  - alwyn.a
    
    I was told that the second sentence was “If you can’t see it it is erupting”
    The person who told me that didn’t like JAFAs though.
    
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    January 1, 2024 6:40pm
- MCōs
  
  When I lived in Wellington, where the weather is truly appalling, I used to think one really appreciated a good day when it came along and made it all worthwhile
  Don’t talk crap, said my wife, let’s get out of here.
  So we moved to Auckland which is a lot warmer, a lot less windy and maybe a bit wetter.
  We could have gone to Napier, for example, which has better weather or Blenheim, where the sun always shines, but who wants to live in a cemetery?
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:41am
  - newview
    
    Pretty good weather in HB over the holiday break and at least we don’t have to swim in our own poo or follow each other like lemmings to the local mall.
    
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    January 1, 2024 9:22am
  - Cassandra
    
    BoP is the better choice. Napier gets awful hot and dry over summer and v cold in Winter. Tauranga is paradise. And great health care and Simon Wright ex French Cafe cooks at the Clarence! Wonderful Christmas lunch of crayfish, duck, pav, Tattainger. $$$
    
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    January 1, 2024 9:59am
    - mikenmildagain
      
      Tattinger as no decent local vineyards in BoP?
      
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      January 1, 2024 10:03am
    - Inandout
      
      Cass, have those rows of empty shops been occupied yet?
      
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      January 1, 2024 10:16am
    - alwyn.a
      
      “Napier gets awful hot”.
      What on earth do you mean? Napier hardly ever gets to more than 35 C which is only pleasantly warm.
      Most of the time, even in mid-summer, it is down in the mid-twenties which is distinctly chilly in my opinion.
      
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      January 1, 2024 6:48pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    I’ve heard Invercargill takes the cake for crappy weather in NZ. Nelson seems pretty nice. I enjoyed the Auckland climate generally. Melbourne weather is typically chaotic and often extreme outside of winter (I’ve experienced 46C here and the place has gone from withering 40C+ to 15C and pissing down within 30 mins in summer while I’ve been here). This year so far spring and summer have been pretty mild.
    
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    January 1, 2024 5:58pm
  - In Vino Veritas
    
    Quite right MCos. I’ve said on here before, in Wellington (where I lived for 10 years) they remember the good summers – ahh, remember 1999! In Auckland they go, oh, 2023 was a shit year. That’s the difference.
    
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    January 1, 2024 8:22pm
  - Ra Henare
    
    We didnt have to worry about weather forecasts for Xmas, new year in Phnom Penh.
    
    Sunny and warm every day.
    Will stay this way until April.
    Altho I must admit a cold snap in early December overnight temperatures dropped to 17 degrees!
    
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    January 1, 2024 9:46pm
- hullkiwi
  
  Thank you for your wishes about the weather. Your ability to read a weather map and your perception are clearly better than Brandalino and his foreign forecaster friends at NIWA, because they are persistently wrong about the weather up here.
  
  Just to prove a point, one of the locals in Puhoi who keeps meticulous weather records with his weather station has just published stats for 2023 v 2022. In 2023, Puhoi had 2,414mm of rain, and December had 175mm of rain, with 107mm failing in the last week of the month. December 2023 was wetter than December 2022.
  
  My prediction for the weather, I’ve seen the current weather pattern before – in 1979/1980 (I checked my recollection yesterday). So, sorry to put a further dampener on matters, expect January to be wet. In 1980, with this same weather pattern Christchurch had the wettest January for 43 years. The pattern is based on ElNino warming the Tasman, with storms coming from the Torres Strait and heading south off the Queensland Coast.
  
  PS. Jan 1980 was wet in Auckland too.
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:12am
- tknorriss
  
  I live in Christchurch. Weather here is mostly good. The most annoying weather is the easterly (due to being near the sea) which is quite cold.
  
  We have hot days during summer but a lot colder during winter, but not intolerable. But much lower humidity than up north. My brother just shifted down from near Rotorua. The rainfall at his previous home was about 3x what we get here.
  
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  January 1, 2024 12:38pm
  - MCōs
    
    I think a lot of the character of Chch was lost when those earthquakes struck
    Cathedral, basilica, other old churches all gone, Lancaster Park gone. CBD decimated. Whole suburbs out east abandoned
    
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    January 1, 2024 2:47pm
Philview

I looked at some overseas media this morning and spotted an obituary for John Pilger. I am not sure how I missed that news. I must have been preoccupied with New Years Eve.
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January 1, 2024 8:21am
- mikenmildagain
  
  Covered many underreported stories and was always an interesting read.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:47am
- Cassandra
  
  As long as you appreciated the far left perspective he wrote from Pilger was worth reading.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:01am
- kowtow
  
  Max Hastings on Pilger .
  
  From Hastings’ book Going to the Wars. In the chapter The Fall of Saigon he recounts being on an American evacuation helicopter…
  
  “To my amazement however I saw John Pilger the Australian leftist. Pilger ,whose views I disagreed with as passionately as he despised mine,had heaped more scorn and contempt upon the South Vietnamese regime and the American engagement than almost any other journolist. Here was a delectable irony : instead of waiting to throw his arms around Hanoi’s liberators on their arrival, he was cadging a ride to safety with the capitalist running dogs and their Vietnamese stooges. At least I could offer the excuse that I never wanted Hanoi to win.”
  
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  January 1, 2024 1:52pm
Inandout

A lawless and seemingly rudderless UK has emerged from the pro Palestine demo season. This particular Eritrean clash with initially unarmed and unprepared London Police was appalling but apparently not surprising.

https://www.gbnews.com/news/london-news-police-confrontation-camberwell-road-protesters

We can now safely remove the ‘Great’ from Britain.
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January 1, 2024 8:26am
- imalwaysright
  
  Ex cop on GBnews said he thinks many mid level officers are reluctant to order counter attack against minorities because it could affect their chances at promotion.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:26am
NeverMindTheBollocks

The top oil producer in 2023 was …. the US of A.

Not only that, the US produced more oil in 2023 than any country in history. It is exporting near the total production of Saudi Arabia or Russia.

As a bonus, the US is on a growth trajectory that could see it become the world’s top LNG exporter in 2024.

Hence the limited effect of the Ukraine war on the price you pay at the pump; ditto the idleness of Saudi threats, the technological backwardness of Iraq’s extraction industry & the bar on Iranian oil exports.

So much for COP28.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Unpacking-the-Top-Energy-Stories-of-2023.html
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January 1, 2024 8:30am
- kowtow
  
  In other USA news their navy has taken out 3 of 4 Houthi boats attacking shipping .
  
  Huzzah!
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:41am
- mikenmildagain
  
  backwardness of Iraq’s extraction industry
  
  Surely it has recovered by now – they’ve had twenty years since liberation by the Americans.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:50am
- thirteenstars
  
  Frack, baby, frack. 13.3m barrels/day:
  
  https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/u-s-oil-production-reaches-new-record-high-refiners-churn-out-products
  
  About 80 cents a litre in Texas:
  
  https://www.gasbuddy.com/gasprices/texas
  
  Even Commie California is less that $1.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:10am
- Master Mariner
  
  Dont you just love Fracking, Great tech.
  Next COP29 is Ajabijian which 90% of its income is from Oil.
  Beats UAE which derives 66% income from Hydrocarbons.
  Got the left in a bit of a tail spin.
  I assume Baku will host.
  Can any one else see the hypocrisy in this ? I think even they are starting to feel decieved (finally).
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:03am
Tony Stuart

Happy New Year to all. There’ll be no resolutions for me, just a determination to give my best all the time. All going well I will have a new contract at work early in January which, although exciting in itself will limit my ability to comment here, but such is life!

Becoming a grandfather in 2023 has made a tangible difference to my outlook on life. My time on the planet is limited, but for my granddaughter, not yet one year old, the world is her oyster.
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January 1, 2024 8:32am
- Local Miller
  
  You could always comment under a pseudonym.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:39am
  - mikenmildagain
    
    As sensible folk do.
    
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    January 1, 2024 9:50am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    I could, but I made a decision a few years ago to be totally transparent. Because I think a lot more about what I’m going to say, I believe the quality of my offerings is better.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:16am
- pdm
  
  Inv I thought you worked for mrsInv in her child care business.
  
  Is she promoting you or putting the screws on you. lol.
  
  All the best to you and yours for 2024.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:47am
  - Tony Stuart
    
    Hi pdm – no, I pretty much stopped working for our family business when I had a breakdown six years ago. Since then I’ve done bits and pieces here and there, and I’m now a grateful superannuitant.
    
    I got an opportunity to take on a part-time role a couple of months ago, moving into a completely different work area. It wasn’t something I expected at 68 years old, but it’s something I’m really enjoying. Unfortunately, the nature of the job requires me to be judicious about what I say in the public domain, so I’m on something of a self-imposed blog exile!
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:20am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Outstanding Tony. Do what you love. Hope you have a great, great year.
      
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      January 1, 2024 8:24pm
- R
  
  the world is her oyster………..
  Tony I wish your granddaughter well for the future, as I do my own grandchildren. BUT; unless a far greater percentage of the NZ electorate inhabitants become financially, politically and economically literate, the oyster may not be fit for consumption., only leading to severe heartache.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:53am
- ecco
  
  Happy New Year Tony.
  I always look out for your posts. They are always informed and dignified. You always play the ball and not the man, unlike some others who post on here.
  
  Make sure you check in here every so often even if you get busy. All the best for 2024 Cheers ecco.
  
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  January 1, 2024 4:20pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

The hypocritical Norwegians are at it again.

‘Norway’s wealth fund is the largest in the world, with ~$1.4 trillion in assets. It’s also a major backer of oil and gas with $37 billion, or 5.9 percent of its total equity investments, invested in fossil fuel interests. The fund owns the sixth-largest stake in Exxon. However, earlier in the year, the wealth fund took large chunks of profits in oil and gas after a big runup in energy prices’.

https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Norways-70B-Pension-Fund-Blacklists-Dozens-of-Gulf-Companies.html
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January 1, 2024 8:38am
- hullkiwi
  
  Remember that fund was created by North Sea oil and gas extraction & sales. Which is the one of the primary reasons Norway never joined the EEC/EU, they just have an Economic Treaty with the EU like Switzerland.
  
  That fund also funds Norway’s social welfare lifestyle.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:21am
  - Master Mariner
    
    Thats what an educated cohesive society accomplishes,
    What are we going to squander our Super on ? Blackrock and @#$$Windmills.
    There lies the difference.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:07am
- alwyn.a
  
  What is hypocritical in selling some shares at a profit if you think that they have got too expensive? It is precisely what you should do.
  In October 2020 I sold all our FPH shares. They had got to a ridiculous price of over $35 and had then stalled. I bought them all back in 2022 when they had dropped to about $21 which I thought was about their fair value. There was nothing hypocritical about it. I still thought it was a good company.
  
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  January 1, 2024 6:59pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Happy New year you guys, even the negative downtickers.
2024 is going to be a cracker. Was thinking of going to Hawaii/Alaska this year but the state of the dollar is useless. NZ$1 = US$0.63.
Any guesses on when that may improve?
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January 1, 2024 8:44am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Personally, I cannot understand why the NZD is so high. We’ve had a booming economy in the last six years, in the same way that maxxing the credit card produces good times. Now that we have a mega mountain of debt, not to mention an incoming tsunami of carbon credit liabilities just over the horizon, we’re well on our way to penury.
  
  If it were me, Steve, & if you can afford it, I’d take the trip. As a friend of mine says, it’s always later than you think.
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:56am
  - Paulus
    
    What we pay at the pump is TAX.
    The temporary rate of petrol excise duty is 45.02 cents per litre of petrol, down from the ordinary rate of 70.024 cents per litre.
    
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    January 1, 2024 10:49am
    - Master Mariner
      
      There you go Steve O, Drive the mighty Alcan and you will make the savings in Petrol/Gas costs alone.
      Pick up the odd Indian hitch hiker and stay on the reservations.
      Money problems solved,
      
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      January 1, 2024 11:10am
  - mawm
    
    A strong currency does not necessarily reflect a strong economy. Our exporters will be hardest hit, but it is great for overseas travel and purchasing TV sets.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:36am
- Ian Boag
  
  I recall going to India in 2001 when NZD was 0.48 NZD. Seize the day and all that … 🙂
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:13am
  - Cassandra
    
    Misprint?
    
    6 1
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    January 1, 2024 10:03am
    - the deity formerly known as nigel6888
      
      US 48. Got to 40 at one point in the early 2000s.
      
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      January 1, 2024 11:15am
      - Jack5
        
        A useful graph of the NZ dollar v. US dollar is at the link below. If you click on “all years” at the top, you can see the exchange rate back to early 1991.
        
        The NZ dollar was floated on 4 March 1985 at US44.44 cents.
        
        https://www.macrotrends.net/2557/new-zealand-us-dollar-exchange-rate-historical-chart
        
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        January 1, 2024 1:22pm
      - MCōs
        
        We went to the US in 1972 when $NZ1 was about $US1.20
        Didn’t even think about whether we were lucky or whatever. It’s just the way it was
        
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        January 1, 2024 3:02pm
  - Paulus
    
    In my youf, in UK, petrol was one quid for four gallons.
    
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    January 1, 2024 10:50am
- Charmaine Hawke
  
  I have Alaska and a few of the lower 48 on the itinerary this year. 2020 should have taught you that you travel when you can in case events prevent those plans in the future.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:04am
  - Master Mariner
    
    Yep indeed Charmaine, No MIQ.
    Off too Singapore in 4 weeks once we load Oil Rig on Heavy lift ship in Tasman Bay , Today , Wx permitting.
    The last Hoorah for Oil and Gas in NZ with Rig departing. I have been in NZ 2 years now and time too go back too Work overseas .
    I cant bloody wait.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:13am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Alaska. Use the train, it is a real train. The tourist train runs daily from May to Sept.
    In the winter it runs up to Fairbanks weekly. It is a flagstop train meaning it can pick up or drop people anywhere.
    If driving the driver misses a lot of sights, and they drive on the other side of the road. Most is OK but going anti-clockwise around a roundabout is just so wrong!
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:28am
  - MCōs
    
    When decimal currency came in in 1967 three jugs of beer cost $1
    None of us had a car so I don’t know what petrol cost, but my take home pay was $39.95/fortnight
    
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    January 1, 2024 3:14pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      That’s about right for 1967. My after Tax money in 1968 was $17 something, for a week.
      Who knows what petrol costed or a simple eggburger?
      
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      January 1, 2024 3:47pm
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      MCos, in 1978 a jug was around 50c. I could take a fiver, drink 5 jugs and get two pieces of fish and chips on the way home. And still have plenty of change!!
      
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      January 1, 2024 8:27pm
- Ra Henare
  
  I think you might like to check back.
  
  NZD today almost identical to NZD 12 months ago.
  The last month or so it has improved from 58+
  All this due to falling USD.
  Nothing really to do with NZ.
  
  So the question is, will the USD fall more
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:53pm
Swifty

A question please.

We all know about Google serving you ads based on your browsing history – but what about your location history?

The other day I went to Kings Garden Centre after a good two years I would guess. Left my phone on and in the car and paid for my purchases by eftpos.

That same day and for the next 48-72 hours I got slammed with Kings ads.

Any connection?
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January 1, 2024 8:53am
- Local Miller
  
  Never enable apps to use your location, except for the “when in use” option.
  
  Did you possibly do a search for Kings Garden at some time? Looking for opening hours?
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:44am
  - Swifty
    
    Yes, I should have mentioned the Kings search question.
    
    No, I don’t believe I had done any recent searches for Kings.
    
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    January 1, 2024 12:11pm
- JimBobJoe
  
  Yes
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:16am
- imalwaysright
  
  I’ve had ads appear relating to recent conversations within range of my phone.
  Its too frequent and specific to be coincidence .
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:31am
- Che Guava
  
  Your phone is a surveillance device. You are a node in an network, accessible at any time. If the powers that be want to reach into your psyche and introduce information, they can simply access your phone. If they want to know what you’re thinking, your phone will tell them.
  
  We live in a world where the people who don’t spend $1000 plus on a “phone” every few years and never let it out of their sight, often panicking when they do misplace it, are the vast minority and are considered the weird ones.
  
  Of course, I have one, but I am fully aware of what’s what. It’s very pernicious when you stop to think about it.
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:07am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    You are onto it on this subject. If you are hiding from govt agencies, and they are chasing you, good luck. Best to go stone age comms (no devices, whispering in the park etc etc). If you want to hide from big tech and advertising based tracking it appears that is largely possible. You will have to get yourself off the big tech platforms though (for starters). GrapheneOS appears to be quite good for mobile phones in terms of a private OS (works on late model Pixels). You can get a new Google Pixel 6a for about $400 on special. There are a few little quirks with the OS but largely it works very well and the privacy makes the small quirks easily worth tolerating. There are many articles available on how to “go dark” on the internet.
    
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    January 1, 2024 3:12pm
- hullkiwi
  
  It is not only google search and location options you have to be careful with. On tablets you also have to be careful of the microphone. My wife had it this morning on her tablet. Within 10 minutes of discussing something with me, she had ads for the products appearing.
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:21am
  - Swifty
    
    I’ve often wondered that. I’ve had that too.
    
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    January 1, 2024 12:11pm
- H. Upmann
  
  Never use Google. It is an insidious tracking, censoring and advertising spy system.
  DDG or Brave only for me and am never tracked and get uncensored search results.
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:43am
  - Ghost
    
    Doesn’t really have anything to do with it. The tracking is at a phone level and it doesn’t matter what phone you use, apart from a degoogled phone. If you are using a smart phone, a smart tv, a tablet, etc then you are being tracked. Using ad blockers etc just stop the ads, not the tracking.
    
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    January 1, 2024 12:25pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      While phones ARE packed with all sorts of sensors and software to track you it’s not just phones. Big tech tracks you across the internet (including mobile internet) by many many ways. Browser/device fingerprinting, AI powered observations (including typing idiosyncrasies). Many of these big tech orgs are woke infected and work hand in hand with woke govt agencies. So they are profiling you for your political views. Keep that in mind next time there is a woke/lunatic govt that has a “disinformation project” or the like working with govt, police and security agencies.
      
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      January 1, 2024 4:01pm
Ipanema69

Happy New Year All,

The clean car discount scheme ended yesterday at 11.59pm.

So off I go this month to buy a new land cruiser Prado.

Suffer in your jocks JAG!
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January 1, 2024 8:59am
- dubya
  
  There’s a new Prado due this year (and it looks rather good in my eyes!). Make sure they give you a run out discount on that Prado if you’re not ordering the new model.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:30am
  - Ipanema69
    
    Hi Dubya, Thanks for the tip. Will do. I have always wanted one and managed to get approval from the household ceo last year. However did not want to pay the additional penalty for having one. All the best to you and yours for the new year.
    
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    January 1, 2024 10:43am
- Master Mariner
  
  Yep, I always wanted a Silverado V8. Maybe next year if it pans out.
  I see there is a new Chinese EV ute on NZ market, Steve O good for towing a boat //
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:16am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Nope. I am happy with my 2001 V6 petrol. Runs like a dream, so no need for a brand new one. Plus I maintain it myself – just did a timing belt.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:36am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Are super sized and super annoying/dangerous urban assault vehicles any better at towing than a 4WD station wagon with a decent engine?
      
      I heard Elon talking to Rogan about his new “truck” being bullet proof (the panels anyway. Bullet proof glass costs extra). I guess all the narcissistic plonkers who think they are Steven Seagal will rush out to buy one.
      
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      January 1, 2024 6:21pm
      - rouppe
        
        My understanding is that it comes down to the weight of the tow vehicle.
        
        You can’t tow a 3000kg boat ensemble with a 1500kg station wagon because the weight of the load overpowers the weight of the wagon. The engine being able to pull the load is only one part of it.
        
        I have a 2018 Passat Alltrack bitdi diesel with 500Nm torque but the rated load limit is still only 2200kg because it’s a relatively light vehicle.
        
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        January 1, 2024 10:21pm
I remember when

Covid 2024:
A covid variant, JN.1 emerged from BA.2.86 and was first detected in the US in September.
It accounted for 44% of all US cases by mid-December, up about 7% from late November.
“Variants take some time to get going,” said Dr William Schaffner, infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
“Then they speed up, spread widely, and just when they are doing that, after several months, a new variant crops up.”

On 20 December Medsafe approved Pfizer’s application for the updated shot for the XBB.1.5 strain.
It will be available to help reduce Winter 2024’s impact on our hospitals.

So what percentage of covid cases will it be effective against?
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January 1, 2024 9:05am
- krazykiwi
  
  Anyone taking another mRNA shot is certifiable.
  
  Anyone recommending people take one is a criminal.
  
  Just my humble opinion.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:50am
  - Master Mariner
    
    There seems to be some justifiable concerns regarding new Strain JN1.
    Worth keeping an eye on all the same.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:18am
    - Che Guava
      
      Have you learned nothing in the last 4 years?
      
      7 7
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      January 1, 2024 1:14pm
      - Master Mariner
        
        You don’t survive at sea for 40 years and not continue to learn, Move on.
        Have a suck on O2 gas torch and clear your head.
        
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        January 1, 2024 2:29pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        Master Mariner,
        O2 gas torch works fine for Monday morning hangovers! LOL.
        That was when I was young and stupid. Oh, but it’s not medical grade oxy. Who cares?
        
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        January 1, 2024 4:01pm
      - Che Guava
        
        “Move on”? You’re the guy still talking about strains of Covid in 2024 as if the whole affair wasn’t the biggest fraud perpetrated on the public.
        
        “You don’t survive at sea for 40 years …” Oh, please. You’re not James Cook, buddy. I’m reliably told that the hardest aspect of life as a modern seaman is boredom and, relatedly, finding enough penicillin.
        
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        January 1, 2024 5:18pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Note that they don’t mention all the other bacteria and viruses we are exposed to on a regular basis that haven’t yet annihilated humanity.
  Big pharma are bloody vultures
  
  20 2
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  January 1, 2024 9:59am
- the deity formerly known as nigel6888
  
  none of course. But pay up and get the jab, don’t want to be one of those vaxx deniers do you?
  
  Try not to die of “suddenly” while you are at it….
  
  11 1
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  January 1, 2024 11:16am
iMP

Well, in lieu of noBody else doing it already…
”a pinch and a punch for the first of the month and no returns.”

Te Wai Pounamu oops, South Island, is glorious currently, weather wise. I see the Antarctic ice shelf increased significantly. dang, iso much un-winning.

But as all us historians know, it’s politics and human interaction that will end the world long before ‘climate change,’ melting ice, sea level rise or the pollution of fossil fuels.
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January 1, 2024 9:15am
- R
  
  Antarctic ice shelf increased significantly…….
  the Antarctic underwater volcanic activity has been very quiet these last few years.
  
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  January 1, 2024 9:58am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Wasn’t BY telling us the other day Antarctica has warmed by 3C in the last 20 years? Looks highly unlikely on it’s face. Net gaining ice but warming massively??? How would that work?
    
    6 2
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    January 1, 2024 3:23pm
    - Master Mariner
      
      Its the Peninsular, Not Antarctica so much. It definately is not conclusive however.
      
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      January 1, 2024 5:38pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Oh I see. The area is volcanic. The whole Co2 alarmist hypothesis is also “not conclusive” for many many reasons that have been explained in thorough detail by highly experienced earth scientists (atmospheric physicists, geologists, statisticians etc etc). The alarmist answer to all that is to set up activist run slander sites like wikipedia, desmogblog and the like to run Maoist style struggle sessions against those scientists pointing out holes in the narrative.
        
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        January 1, 2024 6:14pm
- MCōs
  
  The world isn’t going to end
  Various species become extinct all the times because their natural habitat is destroyed. One day it could be ours
  
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  January 1, 2024 8:55pm
Ghost

Project ‘grandpa on a leash’ | Biden gets Russian software update
12 1
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January 1, 2024 9:27am
- sungsamning
  
  The ‘Russian’ Biden looks far too switched on to be the real thing. Nice send up though.
  
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  January 1, 2024 4:55pm
I remember when

If everyone starts to generate their own electricity -solar, wind, battery, where is the government’s revenue going to come from?
It’s the same as road user charges, the future is not going to be the same as the present.
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January 1, 2024 9:36am
- [email protected]
  
  Solar keeps getting cheaper so that will put a limit on how much the power companies can raise prices.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:13am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Solar is still a waste of money when the panels and batteries need replacing every 20 to 30 years.
    Just forget the green shit and go nuclear.
    
    11 3
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    January 1, 2024 11:44am
    - [email protected]
      
      Steve,
      
      Our 5.3Kw roof mounted solar array and inverter, including installation, cost NZ$13,500 a little more than five years ago. No batteries. We are heavy users of electricity. So far it has saved us $12,600 off our electric bill.
      
      36.07 MwHr created, average of 19.75 KwHr per day.
      
      Looking forward to the next 15 to 25 years.
      
      Agree with you about nuclear energy.
      
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      January 1, 2024 1:22pm
      - MCōs
        
        The advantage of solar, wind, hydro is that unlike nuclear, oil, and coal the raw energy isn’t imported on a continuous basis
        I’m guessing they all require machinery components that are not manufactured domestically
        Nuclear power also generates nasty waste that needs to be disposed
        I’d be interested to know how much a meaningful nuclear power plant would cost and in whose backyard it would be located. It certainly won’t be anywhere near someone with the money/clout to employ the appropriate legal firepower
        In the old days the government would just pick a spot by a river, acquire the land and the MOW would start building
        
        6 2
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        January 1, 2024 2:16pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        MCos wind and solar also generate nasty waste in both the manufacture and disposal. There will be no utopia. Only trade offs.
        
        NZ doesn’t need nukes. Just create another Manapouri and a few more geothermals.
        
        8 2
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        January 1, 2024 3:27pm
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        MCos. Some days there is no wind, some nights there is no sun.
        Let me know when you have a cold winter night and want the bed electric blanket on – yet you are rationed because of the trendsetters all charging their EVs,
        
        5 2
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        January 1, 2024 4:33pm
      - [email protected]
        
        Steve,
        
        I couldn’t reply to your comment above, for some reason only the “report” option was available so am responding to my own post.
        
        I look forward to the day when Kiwis can power their home at night using their EV battery that got charged during the day with solar panels, either at home or place of employment.
        
        I contacted Northpower to volunteer to be the first person in Whangarei to use their upcoming VTG/VTH capability (Vehicle to Grid/Vehicle to Home).
        
        As the number of electric vehicles in New Zealand increase it makes sense for power companies to consider using those EV batteries to smooth out New Zealand’s peak load requirements.
        
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        January 1, 2024 6:16pm
      - Taieri
        
        I look forward to the day when Kiwis can power their home at night using their EV battery that got charged during the day with solar panels, either at home or place of employment.
        ————
        
        Use EV battery charged with solar panels to power a house at night…so that in the morning it will be sufficiently depleted to be charged again. With solar panels of course. Wouldn’t it be simpler and cheaper just to buy a battery?
        
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        January 1, 2024 8:42pm
    - Ian Boag
      
      go nuclear
      
      The plants only need replacing every 30-40 years. And it’s not a simple process …
      
      1 3
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      January 1, 2024 8:26pm
      - Ghost
        
        The good news too is the waste won’t be our problem either……
        
        1 1
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        January 1, 2024 8:45pm
  - CJames
    
    Stop being a shill – info.
    Solar power is useless for reducing power bills in NZ – it’s very good at producing power when you don’t need it. Useless for those peaks in July when you need the grid. And peak loading prices are what set a lot of the prices.
    In Oz with all its solar, spot prices irregularly hit market max $15 a unit (yes the numbers are correct). On the 30th, QLD hit the max price six times for their 5 minute intervals.
    The reckoning is that about 20% of the annual power price now goes to paying for the dozen or so peaks a year. SA with all it solar is most expensive State.
    So for such cheap power, it sure seems really expensive.
    
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    January 1, 2024 1:02pm
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      Run that past BMW Jimmy please.
      
      3 0
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      January 1, 2024 4:34pm
    - CJames
      
      The generation industry has been pointing out the cliff edge for a number of years but the last Energy Minister gave a very good impression of being a lump of 4 by 2. Because of our hydro and thermal plant, we are further back from the cliff edge than most other countries in the West. They are now having serious problems – demand response is a euphemism for power cuts. And legislation doesn’t overrule the laws of physics, no matter what they think.
      Fortunately, they are getting by because of the reserves, but they are being depleted. Australia has had several LOR2s but they haven’t had to cut yet. Sooner or later, the luck runs out. Expect to see severe shortages in Europe, UK and US this winter.
      
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      January 1, 2024 7:07pm
- marcw
  
  It’s simple, electricity consumers that don’t have solar or alternate sources get an increased daily charge. The increases allowed by legislation introduced by Labour. Mine have gone from 0.33c/day to 0.66, and last month to 0.90. So each month, before I even start plugging in, $27.00 of my power bill is taken by daily charges. I believe the legislation allows the charge to go over $2.00/day by next year.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:17am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    So that means those who don’t invest is alternate sources get to subsidise those who do.
    Best to get away from socialism, not create it.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:46am
    - mawm
      
      EV ‘s and renewables are only viable when subsidised.
      
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      January 1, 2024 5:54pm
- hullkiwi
  
  Not quite right. The solar is there to save the government & Transport from potential brown outs. They sucked the power out of battery in 2021 & didn’t change the settings back.
  
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  January 1, 2024 12:22pm
I remember when

Bloody Climate Change:
Sunday rainfall.
Palmerston North Airport: 33.5 mm
Palmerston North City: 13.6 mm

Palmerston North Airport December Average, 86mm, last month, 97.3mm.
Palmerston North City December Average, 90mm, last month 57.8mm.
La Nina at the Airport while it was El Nino in the City!
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January 1, 2024 9:47am
Burtland

TVNZ mutch less – one down more will go …

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/political-editor-jessica-mutch-mckay-quits-tvnz-for-top-anz-bank-corporate-role-media-insider/GUOWYFRQIRGYDMARNGFXD2S4WA/
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January 1, 2024 9:58am
- Inandout
  
  Mutch to do about nothing, well except ANZ customers perhaps.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:09am
- ecco
  
  Totally woke move by Anz hiring Mutch McKay, the Labour Party/Ardern shill, to meet their diversity quotas. Almost feel like moving my account away from Anz after hearing that news.
  
  28 2
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  January 1, 2024 10:14am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    If Labour was still in power then hiring JMM would be a canny move by the ANZ. Since the Nat/ Act/ NZF coalition is the govt, ANZ’s appointment is incomprehensible.
    
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    January 1, 2024 7:23pm
- JimBobJoe
  
  ANZ? Isnt that where Key is Chairman?
  
  Why would anyone hire her? Rubbish journalist!
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:18am
- cas
  
  OMG now we will get Maiki Sherman and we know how objective she is.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:26am
- Vinicius
  
  That NZ Herald article has some interesting statements including:
  
  “The landscape has changed since Covid,” TVNZ’s news and current affairs executive editor Phil O’Sullivan told Media Insider at the time.
  
  “Globally we’ve seen an increase in anti-media sentiment.”
  
  Well if media outfits like TVNZ, RNZ, Newshub et al made a genuine effort to present more balanced coverage of political content then people might not be so anti.
  
  Then the article tries to blame Peters!
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:29am
  - Master Mariner
    
    Wait till you read this,
    Not sure if you can post it, It popped up in my news feed.
    Author Paula Penfold.
    “I’m wary even posting this will trigger more such abuse (even on LinkedIn, where you’d think people would be mindful of their professional reputations).
    
    Much of the critical commentary usually stems from the “but you brought this on yourselves” school of thought. Yes, journalists and media don’t always get it right. But we’re not bribed. We’re not propagandists. Or any of the other cliches doing the rounds these past couple of years. We’re doing a straightforward but important job: putting information into the public domain (that otherwise wouldn’t be there) in order to help people make decisions about their community and their society.
    
    The fact that journalists experience this level of threat in response is worrying, and wrong. People are welcome, of course, to disagree with what we write. But violence, threats of sexual abuse, threats of death — no, that’s not a healthy or reasonable response.
    
    Journalism should not be a dangerous occupation.”
    Unquote.
    Speechless //
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:24am
    - Blog-aholic
      
      The very same Paula Penfold that made a doco that was devoid of real truth funded by taxpayer money….
      
      Enough said.
      
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      January 1, 2024 12:22pm
      - Jack5
        
        Penfold was the lead in the TV team that went to Afghan over allegations against NZ soldiers.
        
        Anyone heard if she’s been back to see how Afghan folk are getting on now since the Western troops went home.,
        
        https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/384392/defence-force-s-response-to-documentary-confirms-many-accusations-penfold
        
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        January 1, 2024 1:28pm
    - Philview
      
      The ODT also put out an editorial yesterday blaming Trump aligned Far Right activists for cranking up criticism of NZ Journalists. It is certainly a sign that criticism is getting noticed if editors are pulling out the Trump card. It is obviously lost on the ODT editor that many NZ political journalists are demonstrating the same behaviour they have always accused Trump of in not accepting the demise of Jacinda Ardern’s political career and Labour’s electoral defeat.
      
      16 1
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      January 1, 2024 2:52pm
  - Master Mariner
    
    Here’s the link too the article.
    Note Newshub come out with there story. Why is this not considered Plagarism too ?
    https://theconversation.com/new-zealand-newsrooms-saw-the-rise-of-mob-censorship-in-2023-as-journalists-faced-a-barrage-of-abuse-219583
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:26am
  - Local Miller
    
    I’ve been scratching my head over the recent prevalence by some Kiwi Bloggers to use “et al” as a list continuer where I would have expected “etc”. The former seemed wrong in context and my experience showed that “et al” applied to people specifically, rather than to lists in general. I eventually looked it up (https://www.clearvoice.com/resources/et-al-vs-etc-grammar/) and it seems the general use of “et al” as in “ Well if media outfits like TVNZ, RNZ, Newshub et al made…” is actually incorrect.
    The Grammar police strike again.
    
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    January 1, 2024 12:44pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    A new study from Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Public Communications found that just 3.4% of American journalists are Republicans. The study is based “on an online survey with 1,600 U.S. journalists conducted in early 2022”
    
    With nearly half the US population supporting republicans this is clearly a massive problem. Journalism has swung so far to the left that they can’t even see the centre any more.
    
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    January 1, 2024 7:48pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  That will be interesting. The left are hopeless with numbers.
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:48am
Bridgenag

Indication, Labeling and Fraud
Effective for what?

……….But in the case of the COVIDcrisis, it is now clear that the US Government, working in cooperation with the CCP/PLA and other State and non-State actors (specifically including EcoHealth Alliance), created their own market, cooperated with its subcontractors (Pfizer and Moderna) to create and sell a product to address the unmet medical need to other countries across the world, and then aggressively controlled that market to create a monopoly through censorship and propaganda methods. Only allowing market entry of their engineered and endorsed product – the COVID gene therapy-based “vaccines”.

Both the US HHS (FDA and CDC) and the US DoD, together with WHO and the Gates Foundation, have been at the center of this monopolistic, illegal and immoral racketeering. This global crime against humanity. These agencies and NGO were actively supported in this crime by the Five Eyes Intelligence alliance and a wide range of “Mockingbird media” partners who profited enormously from their collusion…….

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/indication-labeling-and-fraud?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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January 1, 2024 9:59am
- Master Mariner
  
  This stuck out in my mind.
  
  “These agencies and NGO were actively supported in this crime by the Five Eyes Intelligence alliance and a wide range of “Mockingbird media” partners who profited enormously from their collusion.”
  
  Yep, Watch this Interview. Covers the sheer lunacy and actors in play of the last 3 years.
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us4N4KL7VkI&t=3448s
  Professor Angus Dalgleish, physician, oncologist, pathologist, medical researcher and author. Get your copy of The Death of Science,
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:32am
  - mawm
    
    With reference to the 5Eyes – why do we have “retired” CIA agents in NZ working there?
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:45am
Fisiani2

Treaty Parties are not the same as Treaty Partners
Partners are not always equal
It does not matter how often it is said. Those two sentences above are true.
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January 1, 2024 10:13am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Stop Co-Governance. Julian Batchelor.

Maori sold 90% of their land. It was not stolen, it was not taken.
The interviewer is yet another airbrain.
If only more people would read Julian Batchelor’s booklet. But no, they think they know everything and believe the post 1975 Waitangi Tribunal rogue version of the Treaty.

https://stopcogovernance.kiwi/blog/a-graphic-example-of-how-the-main-stream-media-do-not-understand-the-treaty/
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January 1, 2024 10:29am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Road safety campaigner calls for new strategy.
Somehow it’s the Govts fault. Well the lower speed restrictions have clearly not worker, just made drivers impatient.
The roads can be made safer by repairing them properly, and that includes pot holes – not road cones.
Eg the road from Albany to Dairy Flat is a shocker. Bandaid repair patches all over the place and 80K restrictions. It’s a mess.

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/waste-of-time-road-safety-campaigner-calls-for-new-strategy-as-holiday-road-toll-spikes/ar-AA1mgkqv?
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January 1, 2024 10:41am
- Ghost
  
  Government hold some responsibility. There need to be tougher punishments for people who are breaking law. There is also the condition of the roads, some of which councils need to take blame for as well.
  
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  January 1, 2024 10:52am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    It is not just one thing. The roads are a problem but New Zealand will never have roads of Australian standard unless we have Australian level GDP per capita.
    
    Australian road and injury deaths are lower than New Zealand. Why?
    
    -Better roads.
    
    -Younger car fleet.
    
    -Higher standards of driving
    
    Much more stringent licencing. It takes five years to obtain a full driver’s licence in Victoria. You need a documented 12 months of training on a learners permit followed by two graduated periods of provisional licences over a period of four years.
    
    https://www.ezlicence.com.au/blog/how-do-i-get-a-victorian-driver-s-licence
    
    -Much higher penalties for infringements.
    
    I have driven many thousands of kilometres in Australia. In my experience the standard of driving is markedly higher than what I see in New Zealand. Of course I saw stupid behavior but much less often than what I see in New Zealand.
    
    If we are serious about reducing road crashes we need to look at the fundamentals that I have just listed. The Police are dreaming if they think that ‘lower speed limits’ are going to fix things.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:07am
    - cmm
      
      NZ is small with low traffic densities. You can somewhat get away with poor driving skills. In bigger cities with higher traffic densities you just can’t get away with crappy driving.
      
      I disagree that worse roads directly lead to worse outcomes. The real problem is not driving to conditions. Worse roads exacerbate the problems when people drive poorly.
      
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      January 1, 2024 11:14am
  - cmm
    
    ” There need to be tougher punishments for people who are breaking law.”
    
    Maybe start by catching them.
    Here in Chch the driving is getting worse and worse. People take the traffic lights as suggestions. Cellphone usage is rife. Lots of aggressive driving, dangerous lane changing, etc etc.
    
    I doubt I see one person pulled over per week.
    
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    January 1, 2024 11:09am
    - Ghost
      
      I agree but they also need tougher punishments, they slap the drunk drivers with a wet ticket, and then catch then catch them again. Or we have the guy that got community detention for destroying an elderly couples life.
      
      Here’s a recent case. He will get home detention. His car should be taken off him, sold or destroyed. License revoked and made to start from learners license when he is allowed to drive again. We don’t take traffic crimes serious in NZ
      
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/133419105/repeat-drinkdriver-claims-he-drove-because-passenger-more-intoxicated
      
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      January 1, 2024 11:14am
      - cmm
        
        100% agree Ghost. All the law changes in the world mean nothing if you don’t enforce them properly.
        
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        January 1, 2024 11:16am
      - peterwn
        
        If you are disqualified for more than one year you have to re-do your theory and practical tests, but it does seem you get your full licence back without having to go via learners etc. Judges frequently disqualify for a year and a day so the offender has to do the re-sits which is arguably judicial activism.
        
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        January 1, 2024 7:26pm
    - Benedict Yu
      
      “Here in Chch the driving is getting worse and worse.”
      
      A timely comment. Yesterday in Christchurch I had a guy go through a stop sign. In New Brighton. I managed to avoid him, barely. He apologised. “I didn’t see you”. Which means he is on drugs or he is distracted. Only a matter of time before he crashes.
      
      Then on the way home from the beach I saw someone go straight through a red light.
      
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      January 1, 2024 11:36am
      - MCōs
        
        Yesterday I read an article on X about a guy in the UK who should have stopped at an intersection and clobbered a cyclist causing serious head damage.
        He was jailed for 12mths
        From the clip it was an open and shut case, but it was amazing the number of replies from people who thought the cyclist was at fault
        
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        January 1, 2024 1:11pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    NZTA are the problem. Too many chiefs, not enough indians.
    
    13 3
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    January 1, 2024 11:51am
    - Local Miller
      
      Too many robbers not enough cops 🙂
      
      9 1
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      January 1, 2024 12:53pm
- newview
  
  I agree with SO, this Government isn’t raising the speed limit’s they are returning them to where they were before this last labour government decided they didn’t want to maintain what we had and lowered them.
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:05am
  - MCōs
    
    I heard on the midday news that the 2023 road toll was 9% lower than 2022
    This could be due to any number of factors, but we still have a very poor record compared to similar countries elsewhere
    
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    January 1, 2024 1:00pm
    - cmm
      
      There have been so many variables changing that it would be foolish to try to attribute it to any one cause, especially government action.
      
      There have been massive changes in motor vehicle designs (crumple zones protecting passengers and pedestrians). Then of course air bags. These have lead to improvements in crash survival.
      
      Traction and braking control have reduced the occurrence of loss of control incidents.
      
      Percentage is not a useful was to track variable numbers like road deaths. A far better way is to look at statistical significance. The quick rule of thumb method is to take the square root.
      We had 340 deaths in 2023 and 374 in 2022. The difference is 34. The square root of 374 is 19, so 34 is a significant decrease.
      
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      January 1, 2024 5:15pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        Accidents per million?? kms driven is a better comparison.
        Road deaths down during covid and recessionary times. due to low amount of travel
        
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        January 2, 2024 3:26am
imalwaysright

The rats are jumping ship:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/political-editor-jessica-mutch-mckay-quits-tvnz-for-top-anz-bank-corporate-role-media-insider/GUOWYFRQIRGYDMARNGFXD2S4WA/
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January 1, 2024 10:43am
- cmm
  
  WTF could she possibly bring to the table at a bank?
  
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  January 1, 2024 11:06am
  - Matt Long
    
    Wokeness and a cosy relationship with government insiders.
    
    24 0
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    January 1, 2024 11:08am
    - Nickc2
      
      WOT, not enough Indians?
      When was the last time you took a walk through the Glenfield Mall Steve?
      
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      January 1, 2024 11:58am
      - Steve Otto(North Shore)
        
        More Asians actually. I like them.
        
        11 1
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        January 1, 2024 12:20pm
  - Master Mariner
    
    Woke marketing adds.
    
    10 0
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    January 1, 2024 11:35am
  - Ghost
    
    Local customer support.
    
    Thank you for calling anz, this is Jessica speaking how may I assist you today
    
    Ahhh, Jesica McKay?
    
    Yes
    
    I’d like to transfer my account to asb please.
    
    21 0
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    January 1, 2024 12:09pm
  - gravedodger
    
    Hair colour, water jug and glasses, bout it I’m afraid.
    
    6 0
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    January 1, 2024 1:24pm
    - Close Hen Counters
      
      And vagina … sorry to be blunt
      
      2 0
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      January 1, 2024 7:37pm
  - Close Hen Counters
    
    Exactly – unless the folks at the top are as left leaning and incompetent as her
    
    3 0
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    January 1, 2024 7:37pm
oldpark

Would be great to know who was the mad dog clown in Tawa /Wellington area letting off massive firework explosions at 3.45 AM on New Years Morning .01 01 2024 .
Seems the noise and explosions woke up a lot of wee babies, cats, dogs and Humans as well .
Who or what type of Authority refuses to ban fireworks for Private Domestic use .
Wonder will or could the new recently elected Coalition solve a long suffering problem against animals and humans which seems to be getting worse rather that diminishing .
Its called Discriminate use of Fireworks used to Terrorise NZs for the sicko type of so called loosely controlled fun .
7 11
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January 1, 2024 11:24am
- cmm
  
  Ban, ban, ban because a few dickheads are irresponsible?
  Can we add gambling, cars, food, alcohol,… to your list?
  
  7 4
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  January 1, 2024 5:18pm
  - oldpark
    
    Tell that to the NZ Fire Service . When their members see the blatant unneccessary damage and mayhem caused by Fireworks .
    What part of that don’t you understand .
    Seems a lot reading your comments .
    
    0 4
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    January 1, 2024 10:03pm
    - Ghost
      
      What else do you want to ban that cause damage and even loss of life? Cars? Bikes? Anything with a battery in it?
      
      1 1
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      January 1, 2024 10:41pm
- rouppe
  
  I’m in Amsterdam at the moment.
  
  Fireworks were being let off from 6pm right through to 6am.
  
  Not the pissy little things we have in new zealand. Big fireworks. That set off car alarms.
  
  Seems to be quite normal here
  
  1 1
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  January 1, 2024 10:32pm
- Ra Henare
  
  Report them to the Fun Police(or should I say no Fun police)
  
  0 1
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  January 2, 2024 4:38am
Clown

Happy new year friends.
14 1
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January 1, 2024 11:42am
JimBobJoe

The Americans are starting to sink Houthi small boats in the Red Sea – 3 taken out by Seahawk choppers 31 Dec, as per this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgHloespf_I&ab_channel=WardCarroll

It wont be long till we hear reports of Special Ops destroying Houthi munitions and killing Houthi militia in Yemen (I would think they have already been in action just not acknowledged or reported yet)

Hopefully the Americans identify the embedded IRG members with the Houthis and take them out to send a message to Iran to stop messing about with shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea
21 0
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January 1, 2024 11:45am
- Drone
  
  This is precursor action to destroy opposition to the Saudi Sportswashing organisation.. To ensure the Houthis never get strong enough to disrupt any number of sporting events from motor racing, golf, football, the list goes on..
  
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  January 1, 2024 12:52pm
jonno1

And to 25p UK. Travel became very expensive for a while.
6 0
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January 1, 2024 12:05pm
Matt Long

David Schwimmer adds his voice to those calling out the hypocrisy of women’s rights groups who refuse the believe women who were abused by terrorists.
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/friends-star-david-schwimmer-calls-out-skeptics-of-hamas-sexual-assaults-where-outrage
22 1
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January 1, 2024 12:08pm
- kevn
  
  Matt… Just waiting for ‘justice warrior’ Bono to arise now. Didn’t think so.
  
  12 0
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  January 1, 2024 12:38pm
- Local Miller
  
  Horrified that Sunny Bill Williams is adding his voice to the pro-HAMAS propaganda.
  
  23 1
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  January 1, 2024 12:59pm
  - cmm
    
    Why are you horrified? It was bloody obvious that he was going to do that.
    
    10 0
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    January 1, 2024 5:20pm
- All_on_Red
  
  Apparently the NYT investigation was quite thorough.
  ‘The two-month investigation included interviews with more than 150 witnesses, medical personnel, first responders, soldiers, rape counselors, and government officials, along with the scanning of video footage, photographs and GPS data from cell phones.’
  Also viewed was footage from Hamas phones and from what they posted on Social Media.
  ‘The New York Times said it identified at least seven locations across southern Israel where women and girls were apparently sexually abused or mutilated.’
  Also; “We have multiple witnesses for several cases” of sexual abuse, said David Katz, who heads cyber crime at Lahav 433, the Israel Police’s criminal investigation division.
  
  In addition to witness testimony, Katz and police spokespeople said Tuesday, the police have video evidence, testimony from terrorists, and photographs of victims’ bodies that all point toward sexual assault.’
  ‘The Israel Police screened short clips Tuesday of footage gathered from Hamas bodycams, victim dashboard cameras, social media, and cell phones, showing partially clothed, dead women and charred remains of victims who had been bound before they were burned alive.’
  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/in-harrowing-detail-nyt-reports-on-weaponization-of-rape-sexual-violence-on-oct-7/ar-AA1mbafw
  https://www.timesofisrael.com/police-start-building-oct-7-rape-cases-focusing-on-footage-and-testimonies/
  
  20 3
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  January 1, 2024 1:15pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Chevy non-woke Christmas ad.
Get ya tissues out.
https://rumble.com/v3z3tls-chevy-releases-first-epic-non-woke-christmas-ad-of-the-season.html?
9 3
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January 1, 2024 12:47pm
- Local Miller
  
  Then they spoil it by ending with “Happy Holidays”. For goodness sake, Merry Christmas!
  
  I’m a real softy, I can’t watch something that emotional without crying.
  
  And where did they find an 8 track player and tapes?
  
  12 2
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  January 1, 2024 1:07pm
  - lifesgood
    
    It is CHRISTMAS. At least they have a really nice ordinary American family, no token LBGTs or other token people for the sake of wokeness. Shame about the Happy holidays, though.
    
    11 2
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    January 1, 2024 1:49pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    I missed that ‘happy holidays bit.’
    Well that 8 track player tape was probably always in Grandma’s car.
    
    Yes it is emotional especially if you have seen someone go downhill so fast.
    
    3 2
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    January 1, 2024 5:01pm
Jack5

Banksters recruit prominent Wokie …

TVNZ’s Jessica Mutch – Ardern’s “Yes, Jessica, then …” – is joining the New Zealand branch of the ANZ Bank as its head of “government relations and corporate responsibility”.

Hope this isn’t a sign NZ’s Aussie big banks are drifting into Leftist Wokeness, which overseas has led to “de-banking” of those with politics contrary to those of the Woke.

John Key is the big kahuna in this banking outfit in NZ. This appointment would be with his approval.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/political-editor-jessica-mutch-mckay-quits-tvnz-for-top-anz-bank-corporate-role-media-insider/GUOWYFRQIRGYDMARNGFXD2S4WA/
16 0
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January 1, 2024 12:48pm
Bridgenag

Have to say after being let down by Kiwibank we moved money to Heartland and left the bill paying stuff with Kiwi. Heartland have been amazing. Old fashioned service. Talking to a human. Kiwi had to wait 5 – 7 days for a reply to email and days for a phone call to an adult.
15 1
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January 1, 2024 1:18pm
- Local Miller
  
  I must say I’ve generally had really good service from Kiwi Bank. I moved there from ASB (for whom I used to work). When I was first applying for a mortgage Kiwi Bank were rally bad, I’m still waiting for a response, but when I left ASB I was very happy with Kiwi Bank. Their service does seem to have dropped off a bit however. My new debit card was sent by snail male and didn’t arrive. I arranged another one which was to be couriered because my current one was expiring, and now has expired, but the new one still isn’t here. So I don’t have a Kiwi Bank card to transact! BUT, after arranging the replacement card, I arranged a WISE (Visa Debit) Card for a trip I’m doing to South Africa, and it arrived in 3 days. Amazing since I sat on Christmas Day (25th) and arranged the card and it was delivered on the 28th. The Kiwi Bank equivalent was arranged on the 23rd and I’m still waiting.
  
  9 0
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  January 1, 2024 2:59pm
- Close Hen Counters
  
  We are toiling with a vast amount of Indians at westpac – and the ‘service’ is sooooooo shit
  
  2 0
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  January 1, 2024 7:41pm
Ghost

One less empty bus replacement on the road

https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/133517243/public-transport-vehicle-involved-in-timaru-crash-no-injuries
5 0
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January 1, 2024 1:31pm
Ghost

Large sunspot soon will be earth facing already shooting off the largest flare in 6 years

Mere hours after emerging over the sun’s eastern limb on Dec. 31st, big sunspot AR3536 erupted, producing a major X5-class solar flare. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash:

Space weather
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January 1, 2024 1:35pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Looks like a lot of the Pacific getting interference (HAM and shortwave radio).
  
  https://spaceweather.com/images2023/31dec23/blackoutmap.jpg
  
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  January 1, 2024 3:42pm
Chuck Bird

This should create some debate.

Watch Neil DeGrasse Tyson Unleash Annihilation on Religion for an Hour!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANZTjzcaoVc
1 6
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January 1, 2024 3:43pm
- NothingLeft
  
  DeGrasse is a boring, and politicised lightweight. OK for his mass-market niche, but not generally worth the time.
  
  7 3
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  January 1, 2024 4:09pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Noth,
    Agree.
    He’s a dim wannabe who seems to know only slightly more than his target audience.
    
    4 5
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    January 1, 2024 4:44pm
- Che Guava
  
  For supposedly intelligent people, clowns like DeGrasse Tyson, Dawkins and Hitchens and all the other militant materialists are/were incredibly stupid.
  
  What’s their basic argument? That all there is is matter in motion, therefore the objects of science are all there is to know, therefore the scientific method can in principle tell us everything about reality.
  
  But there’s a huge problem with the argument. I’d like to ask them how, using the methods of science, can they show that there is no aspect of total reality that transcends scientific investigation, thereby proving their materialism?
  
  They can’t show that, because to do so, they would have to make that judgment from somewhere outside the spatio-temporal realm, which they can’t do because they deny the existence of anything outside of time and space.
  
  So their core proposition is unprovable by science, and, by their own empirical standard, they have no right to believe the truth of their core proposition, because it is unfalsifiable. They are presupposing the truth of a claim they cannot prove on their own terms. Materialism and “scientism” is as much a matter of faith as any religious claim.
  
  On the other hand, a immaterialist (i.e. someone who believes that space, time and matter are only one aspect of the totality, and that aspects of it transcend sensory experience) doesn’t have to prove his proposition through the empiricism and the scientific method of his materialist opponent, because his assertion is that science, while obviously very useful, cannot tell us anything at all about ultimate reality and its purview doesn’t, and cannot, extend beyond causal relations between energy/matter.
  
  By definition, for the reasons I have given, immaterialism is also an unscientific claim, but that is not an issue at all when you hold that science itself, inherently, isn’t up to the task of proving claims of immaterialism and/or the transcendent anyway.
  
  One of the consequences of the cancerous nihilism that has become so prevalent since the 19th century is that it values nothing at all beyond material objects as measurable quantities, while downgrading, denying or rejecting the qualifiable aspects of reality that are not the purview of empirical science but that anyone who has experience as a human being, who isn’t deceived or self-deceiving, recognises are just as real as any magnitude they can measure, perhaps more so.
  
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  January 1, 2024 5:59pm
  - imalwaysright
    
    Yes, science has become a tool to make money and, therefore, the investigation of that which we can’t measure , manufacture, and sell is curtailed.
    Their latest products seem to be the most powerful, and also the most intrinsically detrimental , The Truth and The Science.
    There is the possibility that there is knowledge of the immaterial that would get us out of our rapid decent to self annihilation, but it just isn’t profitable for us to be made aware of it.
    This is what happens when knowledge is monetised and weaponised.
    
    1 4
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    January 1, 2024 7:36pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Looks like Mike has the lead in runners.
Is this what America wants?

https://www.newvisionnews.net/speculation-rises-on-democratic-succession-as-voters-eye-harris-and-obama-for-2024/?
1 3
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January 1, 2024 5:56pm
- Inandout
  
  SO, Mike would be a brave person to expose itself to very strong evidence of gender fraud. The social media would have a field day and the Arabs would not be happy chappies.
  
  0 3
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  January 1, 2024 6:22pm
  - RichardX
    
    What “very strong evidence of gender fraud?
    
    From what I have seen, there is as much evidence for Otto’s vagina as there is of Michelle Obama’s cock.
    
    7 1
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    January 1, 2024 6:33pm
    - Keith White
      
      Your search history must be… unusual.
      
      1 0
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      January 2, 2024 8:12am
kevn

SteveO… No sign of Robert Kennedy.
2 1
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January 1, 2024 6:01pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  American media would post JFK Jr?
  
  2 1
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  January 1, 2024 6:16pm
- Ghost
  
  Robert is an independent
  
  2 0
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  January 1, 2024 6:16pm
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Of course he is, like Winston Peters! LOL.
    
    1 2
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    January 1, 2024 6:28pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Censorship in the US has nothing to do with NZ right?
It will never affect NZ right?

https://unmuzzlednews.com/joe-bidens-latest-demand-has-internet-users-feeling-outraged-and-betrayed/?
1 1
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January 1, 2024 6:18pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Here is something dumb.
If the Democrat Dudges declare (at the last moment) that Trump did win in 2020, then he would not be eligible to run in 2024?
Never ever trust a Democrat!

https://unmuzzlednews.com/trump-filed-one-motion-that-had-jack-smith-pulling-out-his-hair/?
2 4
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January 1, 2024 6:25pm
Jack5

This has been on the Net for around 11 months, but for anyone who hasn’t seen it …

North Koreans, including an Army chorus, singing Queen’s “I Want to Break Free” for Kim Jong-Un.

https://youtu.be/jYvcdhCbzJw?si=VjVqZTI7NdHgPYcj
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January 1, 2024 9:04pm
rouppe

Stuffs 2024 predictions
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/133492564/the-year-that-could-be-stuffs-political-predictions-for-2024

1. An opposition leader will resign. As the new order settles in, someone – be that Chris Hipkins, Marama Davidson or James Shaw – will resign.
9. When the Green Party holds its AGM and the co-leadership positions fall vacant, there will be a serious challenge or call from members for a new co-leader to take the (shared) reins.

The general feeling is that Shaw will be rolled, but I don’t see him resigning. Marama will never resign. Hipkins might.

2. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon will hit the sky, leading diplomatic and trade delegations to India, the US, and Pacific islands.

That’s not a prediction, that’s his job.

4. Leaning into life on the Opposition benches, Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick will become increasingly outspoken in the House. The Speaker will kick out Auckland Central’s MP at least once in 2024.

Outspoken? Or strident and shrill, as she realises just how inconsequential she now is.

6. Following the January 20 hui with the Kīngitanga, sizeable protests will arrive at Parliament and at Waitangi as Parliament resumes and as Christopher Luxon heads north for his first Waitangi Day as prime minister.

Which hopefully will fuel David Seymour’s bill.

7. The Government will deliver tax cuts in July, but the scale of those cuts will not be as large as was promised at the election. National will point to its coalition deal with NZ First, kyboshing the foreign buyers’ tax, and Labour’s so-called “fiscal cliffs” for the more modest tax relief.

Yeah, so? Hardly a prediction unless you expect them to borrow billions like labour do.
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January 1, 2024 10:50pm
Ghost

Japan says 5-metre tsunami expected after 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Ishikawa
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January 1, 2024 11:06pm

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