About
Contact
Advertise

Facebook
Twitter

April 14, 2024 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 14 April 2024

Like this:

Like Loading...

Email
Facebook
Twitter
Comment267

Uncategorized
General Debate

Comments (267)

Login to comment or vote

CJames

I see all the usual leftwing commentators are blaming the council rates rises on 5 Waters being cancelled. The councils now need to find the money out of theitr own budgets – rather than cut the rainbow crossings, they need to hit the ratepayers harder. As is usual for people who have not enough reasoning power or maths skills to balance a chequebook, no word on how they think the infrastructure under the Mahuta scheme would be paid for. Borrowing is not the answer – it is repayment of that money which is the issue. Or do they still believe in MMT and the Ardern/ Robertson magic money fountain?

What I am unaware of in this debate is which communities are at risk and why? I haven’t found any definitive list in this. https://www.taumataarowai.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Governance-docs/Drinking-Water-Regulation-Report-2022.pdf though there is some extra detail in the ehinz document here. https://www.ehinz.ac.nz/indicators/water/drinking-water-quality/access-to-safe-drinking-water/ Note it is a university report so may not be “official”. From that second document, many are just farm/ small town supplies. Part of Timaru is far and away the biggest population. Has anyone seen a detailed complete list? My understanding was a lot of the problems were “risk” based ones that their water source wasn’t fully fenced. Of course climate change is the big risk – it would be for righton groups, wouldn’t it. Risks aren’t necessarily reality and protecting the source can do a better job than installing filters.

It seems that the offenders are treatment plants which didn’t have equipment which could take out everything which could possibly contaminate the water and then they put chloride and fluoride back in. I know there is the nitrate scare, but isn’t that because they have set the level well below what most of the rest of the world uses? According to ehinz report, the risk is mainly protozoal and in smaller centres. This was what hit Queenstown recently, but I am not aware of it affecting anywhere else.

Does it need the expenditure of squillions of dollars straight away to fix this? Would it not be more cost effective to supply the small isolated water supply regions (including many marae) with bottled water for drinking rather than spend millions on a reticulated water system that would be too expensive to maintain let alone pay off? How about councils prioritise the list of drinking water and sewage, doing the biggest (as in affecting the most people or where water is really unsafe) jobs first in an orderly plan? Or does that take too many braincells?
54 3
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:01am
- peterwn
  
  There are also claims that the local body funding model is ‘broken’ with an implication that another source of funding is needed – presumably from central Government. Put another way – ‘other people’ should be funding local body extravagance, presumably through wealth taxes etc.
  One possibility to encourage accountability would be to allow landlords to pass rates increases straight through to tenants. Tenants who make up a significant portion of voters may perhaps think more carefully who they vote for.
  
  16 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:10am
  - jkt
    
    When successive governments devolve responsibility to councils without providing councils with a means to gain addition sources of funding it was always going to end here.
    
    Labour and National like leveraging their policies off broad based taxes.
    
    Easiest way to find more taxes to fund their policies is to place more responsibilities on ratepayers, broad based on captured taxpayers!
    
    QED!
    
    9 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:11am
    - peterwn
      
      Additional sources of funding? What sources? The only ones I can think of are:
      1. The ratepayer.
      2. Other residents in the Council’s area (eg poll tax or increased charges – rubbish, congestion, parking, libraries, sports fields etc).
      3. The taxpayer – income tax, capital gains tax, wealth tax, death duties, GST, selective sales taxes etc.
      
      0 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 12:31pm
      - Taieri
        
        Additional sources of funding?
        ————
        
        Rationalization of expenditure.
        
        1 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 2:20pm
- Taieri
  
  Or does that take too many braincells?
  ———-
  
  You are spot on here…
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:27am
- Dougal10
  
  Tipa Mahuta’s water outfit that Luxon hasn’t thrown out the door yet, is throwing its weight around at council level threatening staff with prosecution if they don’t proceed with upgrades immediately. The big trouble with that is councils have spent all the immediate cash on crap and now have a funding issue. The solution is get rid of the regulator and let councils do the upgrade at a pace rates funding allows.
  
  19 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:31am
  - pdm
    
    Can anyone tell me why Taumata Arowai still exists.
    
    Emails to Seymour, Luxon and my electorate MP Caroline Wedd re this remain unanswered
    
    19 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 9:32am
    - jkt
      
      We need better water regulation.
      
      The term of the first appointees are ending soon enough and then hopefully this government will appoint people who understand the industry and how to mitigate and manage risk.
      
      A one size fits all approach was never going to do the heavy lifting, even labour understood that much, therefore, the four authority 3Waters initiative …… 🧐
      
      Now I remember, they just saw the opportunity that allowed them to implement their ideology of partnership by stealth off the back of the water quality and management failures of some local authorities. They then added in stormwater so that the funding required for implementing climate change adaptation can fall on a broad base of ratepayers!
      
      Pick a truth and build a big lie!
      
      9 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 10:25am
    - wsk12345
      
      It is only the water quality regulator. The ComCom will regulate the networks using price quality regulation as they do for electricity and gas.
      
      0 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 5:48pm
  - AgainstTheFlow
    
    But without the regulator, Councillors won’t maintain water infrastructure.
    That’s how we ended up with the situation in the first place.
    
    1 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 12:21pm
- John Loveridge
  
  Councils will use any convenient excuse to raise rates. Never is this accompanied by any expression of desire to manage or reduce costs. The 3 Waters debacle is a perfect excuse, but there is no accompanying indication of any reductions in superfluous headcount or rainbow crossings.
  
  14 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:44am
  - jkt
    
    Spot on. Three Waters! If you want to sell a big lie build it on a kernel of truth.
    
    And they included stormwater into the mix on purpose to:
    Demonstrate to councils how they are going to struggle to achieve them climate change adaptation that will be required to meet government set targets without additional sources of funding.
    They tightened up drinking water and wastewater regulations to demonstrate to councils that they cannot afford to supply these services at the higher mandated standards … without giving clear and well defined guidelines, mind you!!
    Increased the areas of responsibility for water authorities without providing new funding sources.
    
    Government created 3Waters as a vehicle to fund utilities off a broad capture tax base, represented by ratepayers.
    
    National leveraged off this idea and councils will find it increasingly difficult to divert funds that should be used to support utility assets to build stadiums and support social events …
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:40am
  - Paulus
    
    We need to look further as to uses what the rates provide and what their contribution might be.
    Not just properties, but those who use what they provide – yes, Poll tax covering all inhabitants over say 12 years of age.
    Look at number of properties relative to the number of people in the area and their use.
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:43am
  - Jack5
    
    Council tactics: decide what you want to do, then raise the money.
    
    It’s back to front.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:48am
- cmm
  
  Many of them were counting on a taxpayer bail out.
  
  This is how socialism progresses:
  * First it’s the widows and orphans.
  * Next it’s beneficiaries.
  * Next it’s corporate welfare.
  * Next it’s council welfare.
  …
  
  Pipes and potholes are boring. The councilors didn’t join to do boring stuff hidden in the ground. They want to virtue signal through things that can be seen.
  
  20 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 9:34am
  - jkt
    
    Correct.
    If you want to sell a big lie build your lie on kernels of truth.
    
    3Waters was only sunk as a result of linking it to ideological change.
    
    This now gives this government the opportunity to leverage off 3Water principles and transform the way in which councils leverage off their asset bases to deliver pet projects and nice to haves and to fund improvements to 3Water infrastructure off a broad base of captured customers.
    
    I would have preferred climate adaptation projects and other 3Water project improvements to be funded through our tax income so that trade offs can be considered at the level of those elected to manage this for us. Parliament!
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:52am
  - mandk
    
    Yes, like rainbow crossings that aren’t actually pedestrian crossings and drag queen events for kiddies at council libraries.
    
    2 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 12:48pm
- Loddenthinks
  
  Further examples, as if more were needed: in Hamilton, apparently now the fastest-growing city in NZ (which means more developer contributions and more rates to collect), they are proposing rate rises of 19.9% this year, rising to 81% over the next 5 years!
  
  In unrelated news, the Mayor has decided to fly herself and the “Maangai Maori” leader Olly Te Ua to Ypres in Belgium for ANZAC Day, to “honour the fallen on behalf of the city”. Not only does ANZAC Day traditionally honour those who fell at Gallipoli, a mere 2,700 km away from Ypres, but it’s perfectly fine to honour the fallen in your own city, you know – with dawn parades and wreaths, like everyone else does.
  
  The Hamilton Botanical Gardens, lovely though they are, have steadfastly refused to introduce a workable payment system, and the gardens run at a loss of many millions each year. Their incompetence and lack of fiscal understanding is breathtaking.
  
  17 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:52am
  - jkt
    
    It is about time government trims the sails of councils.
    
    Had they done a sterling job looking after our essential and utility services then one could consider forgiving them for spending (wasting) our money on their pet projects…..
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:59am
  - cmm
    
    In Africa this would be called corruption.
    
    Question: Did they need two rooms or one?
    
    7 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 12:41pm
  - julesnzuk
    
    The anniversary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli was chosen as the date for Anzac Day, but it is not constrained to specifically honouring the fallen at Gallipoli. It’s for the fallen in all conflicts.
    
    0 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:05pm
andrew davies

Watch and enjoy
https://twitter.com/i/status/1778797022360838494

[Mod – please include brief descriptions with links]
6 3
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:02am
- Loddenthinks
  
  Here’s a brief description: a group of performers, performing in the United States, were told to change their uniforms, which featured the flag of the country they were playing in, because it made citizens of the same country they were playing in, “feel unsafe”. They refused.
  
  For context and the inevitable “that figures”, this happened in Seattle.
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:57am
peterwn

So a shopper was wrongly accused of trespassing after facial recognition failure. This incident does no credit to Foodstuffs or the owner-operator of the New World concerned. Facial recognition is being trialled in some supermarkets to detect trespassers (those who have been previously ‘trespassed’ by the supermarket). There have vocal concerns about privacy and it is known that current facial recognition technology may be unreliable with respect to dark skinned people. Foodstuffs would or should have been aware of this. Now one would think that Foodstuffs and Woolworths would have taken extreme care with this technology especially during the trial period when all eyes are on the trial. Instead there has been a high profile ‘fail’ where a loyal regular customer was mis-identified as a ‘trespasser’. Then to make matters worse, the front line staff (or contractors) completely mishandled the situation resulting in a furious shopper.
One would have thought that with a trial of this nature that there would be proper processes and appropriate staff/contractor training including:
1. What to do when there is a ‘positive’ identification.
2. What to do when a customer claims incorrect identification. For example escalation to the Duty Manager (there must always be a Duty Manager on the floor or the store is in breach of its liquor licence).
3. As this is a trial the customer needs to be given the benefit of the doubt. In particular the customer should be treated diplomatically to try and shed some light on what went wrong and efforts should be made to get the customer on the right side straight away. A grocery voucher would not go amiss.
None of this was done and Foodstuffs has egg all over its face over this incident. Also it is not going to help the Privacy Commissioner on side.
16 3
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:02am
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  I’d prefer not to have facial recognition. However, I am cynical that AI would exhibit racism. In this world where claims are often made without consideration of the underlying contributing factors, I would like to know why this technology is problematic for dark skinned people.
  
  Is it because the training of the AI has a smaller data set to learn from, or could it be that there are a much higher percentage of perpetrators of that race that it is searching for? In the later case the false flags may represent no greater percentage of fails than for other racial groups but numerically a higher number.
  
  Does anyone here have any expertise with this?
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:20am
  - NoFax
    
    The reason why AI has more difficulty with dark skinned people is because AI is confused with shadows or lack thereof for dark skinned people in 2D photos. The darker the skin the less defined the face can appear in a two dimensional photo. I remember I took a photo of some friends of mine from Bougainvillea, who are the darkest skin people in the world, and in the photo it look like their faces were completely flat as shadow and skin colour were the same. I think 3D scans this is less of an issue.
    
    5 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:29am
  - cmm
    
    I’ve been studying AI on and off for the last 40 years, so here goes:
    
    There are very different forms of AI. For the purpose of this discussion we can pretty much just look at two aspects:
    * Classifiers: These look at learned attributes to identify what group a person falls into. They learn to generalise from the training material.
    * Recognisers: These are trained to look for specific individuals.
    
    A classifier trained on cats and dogs, when given a picture it has never seen before, would say : “this is a picture of a cat” or “this is a picture of a dog”. It won’t tell you that one is Rex and the other is Snowy.
    
    A recogniser trained on cats and dogs will recognise individuals: it will say this is Snowy or this is Rex, or this is something I don’t know.
    
    Classifiers could end up being “racist” because they could recognise a pattern that criminals are overwhelmingly over-represented amongst darker skinned people. Therefore they generate a “rule” : darker person-> high likelihood of being a criminal.
    
    They are generalisers. Racism is a form of generalisation. So we could expect a classifier to learn racial stereotypes in the data.
    
    But they are not using classifiers for this function. They use individual recognisers. These do not ask the question: “Does this look like a dodgy person?”, but rather “Does it look like the person in this photo?”
    
    Could those be racist? Well maybe you could argue that from two sides:
    1) The person’s skin tone is part of their identifying features – and quite a strong one – so it could be that a dark skinned person is given a higher score of turning up on the “guilty” list, especially when the “guilty” list is predominantly dark skinned people and therefore are likely to look similar.
    2) Camera technology struggles with detecting features on darker skinned people. This is not “racism” per se, but rather the rules of physics: darker skinned people are reflectively challenged and cameras depend on reflected light. Thus, it is harder to tell two dark skinned people apart, therefore there is an increased chance of a mis-identification.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:50am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Facial tattoos have their uses after all
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 2:09pm
- peterwn
  
  The two downtickers – what is the problem with my contribution?
  
  2 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 12:34pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Probably individuals who can’t get over things I’m thinking. Had a run in with you over this or that and enjoy giving people a little stab in the back.
    
    0 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 6:40pm
Mike

Happy World Quantum Day!
3 9
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:03am
- cmm
  
  You’d only know it if you looked.
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:50am
F E Smith

Iranian attack on Israel is underway. Drones in the air, I think still in Iranian airspace for now. Jordan has closed its airspace, as has Iran for the area around Tehran.
16 3
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:04am
slightlyrighty

What I don’t understand is how the act of simply having more people of a particular ethnicity involved in water supply and sewage somehow made it more efficient and less expensive….
28 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:05am
- cmm
  
  Well it did.
  
  More boring old white guys made for far more efficient infrastructure, and more projects executed on time and on budget.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:51am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Oscar for Trump film?
Leftie heads already exploding.

https://pjnewsletter.com/trump-1-tremendous-honor/?
15 5
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:06am
- Mike
  
  Getting a screening at Cannes is nice, but doesn’t mean any Oscar nomination, let alone a win. You can’t even say whether the film will be a favorable depiction of Trump, or closer to the truth.
  
  6 9
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:25am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    Why don’t you email the author Mick Farthing and tell him that?
    
    3 6
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 9:42am
- slightlyrighty
  
  I’ll bet you that Trump won’t be happy about it….
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 9:34am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    Or is it a case of any publicity is good publicity?
    
    1 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:36am
Tomtoddy

The crazed killer in Sydney looks swarthy and bearded. MMmmm. Should we jump to conclusions or does the “no terrorism involved – nothing to see here” from police, suffice?
41 6
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:12am
- Chuck Bird
  
  No doubt the Jew hating PM will want the public to believe that even if he is a Muslim.
  
  27 7
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:20am
  - Keith White
    
    “Especially”. Oz PM needs their bloc vote.
    
    6 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 8:33am
  - MCōs
    
    Which PM is that?
    
    2 4
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 9:05am
- bartybart
  
  we need to start a tea towel march down Queen Street. this is all the jews fault
  
  8 5
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:22am
- Benedict Yu
  
  Judging people based on appearance is hard wired into us. That is how we evolved to first judge “friend or foe”. If I see a very large Maori man with facial tattoos walking towards me, I become apprehensive. Of course many Maori would tell me that I am racist.
  
  In this case the guy might be a member of a Muslim terrorist outfit. Or he may be an anesthetist schizophrenic who was off his anti psychotic medication.
  
  I am sure that we will find out.
  
  37 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:26am
  - Gravelroad
    
    Whoever he is or whatever he was won’t make much difference to the people who have lost their lives and the families who will never see or hear from them again.
    Seems that all the focus is once again on the murdering criminal.
    
    16 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 8:34am
  - sirknz
    
    I can think of nothing scarier than a schizophrenic anaesthetist…
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 8:50am
    - Mike
      
      A psychopathic psychiatric nurse?
      
      9 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 9:27am
    - JackRabbit
      
      Schizophrenic atheist?
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 11:06am
  - Chris Nisbet
    
    “very large Maori man with facial tattoos walking towards me, I become apprehensive”
    Which is probably a part of why he did it.
    
    9 4
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 8:51am
    - cmm
      
      Exactly right.
      
      People “dress for success”.
      
      If you want to be perceived as professional, then put on a jacket and tie.
      If you want to be perceived as an easy shag, then put on that skimpy black dress and flirt a lot in singles bars.
      
      If you want to be perceived as a scumbag gang member then tat your face and dress in black.
      
      It’s hardly racism if the people deliberately subscribe to all the stereotypes.
      
      9 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 11:55am
  - thirteenstars
    
    That might be true but as is often said in the US, if the killer was white we’d know about it by now.
    
    Woke media lies by omission. It’s amazing what you can get away with if you tell the truth but not the whole truth.
    
    18 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 8:55am
    - Steve Otto(North Shore)
      
      We had one of those but she ran away.
      
      3 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 10:48am
    - NothingLeft
      
      Coulter’s Law: “The longer we go without being told the race of the shooters, the less likely it is to be white men.”
      
      5 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 3:07pm
  - Loddenthinks
    
    I am not at all sure we will find out.
    
    2 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:01am
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Benedict Yu: “Or he may be an anesthetist schizophrenic who was off his anti psychotic medication.”
    
    Gotta watch out for those schizophrenic anesthetists! 😝
    
    Seriously though, it seems to be emerging from reports on the interwebs that (according to neighbours) he came from a “good family” (whatever that means) but did indeed suffer from schizophrenia.
    
    0 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 5:46pm
- G152
  
  My thoughts exactly. Time to reconsider refugee imports.
  
  14 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:31am
  - Paulus
    
    Too late !
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:45am
- Scooter
  
  They said the police know who he is, so no doubt has a criminal record plus drug and or mental illness (no sane person does what he did). That police woman is an absolute hero and the guy with the bollard.
  
  19 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:57am
  - pdm
    
    Said to be age 40 so obviously they know his name too. Probably cannot spell it or pronounce it.
    
    7 5
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 9:36am
    - Ghost
      
      His name is Joel Cauchi
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 11:11am
      - bennerg
        
        While is is still there:
        
        https://www.facebook.com/joel.cauchi.9
        
        “No friends to show”
        
        Either he had none, or they all quickly unfriended him. Seems the family name come from Malta.
        
        2 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 12:18pm
      - Paulus
        
        Has a mental problem – from Queensland !
        
        1 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 1:28pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Wait for the ABC and SBS to run crap implying the police are trigger happy thugs.
    
    0 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 6:49pm
- Scott
  
  Tomtoddy – what we can say is that he is not a white man. If he was that would have been announced very quickly.
  
  If he is from the Middle East, and a Muslim, which I suspect he is, that will drip out very slowly and reluctantly. Along with the words “lone wolf” and references to mental health issues.
  
  Sadly Muslim immigrants to the west have form with regard to attacks on innocent bystanders.
  
  I met a young woman working at a cafe at the airport a few years ago. She was from Iraq, a Christian refugee. There is very little chance of middle Eastern Christians becoming terrorists. Just saying. 🤔
  
  26 4
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 9:11am
  - crackle
    
    Looks more like a white manthan a recent arrival in the footage theyre playing on damn near continous loop on the news channels over here. That and his attire pretty confident he’s born and bred locally.
    
    5 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:06am
  - Ghost
    
    And yet, Joel Cauchi Is a white man. He went to school in Aussie.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:12am
    - crackle
      
      Hopefully all the idiots with the reckons yestesterday and this morning will stfu for a little while.
      
      5 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 11:50am
  - Conservatarian
    
    Joel Cauchi has a beard, and to me looks a bit swarthy but mostly white in this photo:
    
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13305643/Joel-Cauchi-New-details-emerge-Bondi-Junction-knifeman-killed-six.html
    
    My quick search (via DuckDuckGo browser) indicates the surname is Maltese in origin.
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 12:17pm
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  He may well be Moroccon or Syrian, nothing in the pic suggests he is not Muslim, it’s quite strange they are saying don’t jump yo conclusions about his religion. A rather strange thing too say
  
  6 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:14am
  - Ghost
    
    His name is Joel Cauchi, he isn’t Muslim. He grew up in Australia. He is white
    
    4 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:19am
    - Chuck Bird
      
      How do you know is not a Muslim?
      
      3 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 2:04pm
      - Ghost
        
        How d9 you know he is.
        
        He isn’t it. Stop making shit up. You are pathetic,you’ve attacked the police for saying it wasn’t terrorism, now you are just making shit up, stop it.
        
        3 2
        Report
        April 14, 2024 2:12pm
      - Chuck Bird
        
        Ghost, I did not say he was a Muslim. I said he could be or a Muslim sympathiser.
        
        You are making things up.
        
        3 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 2:45pm
      - Ghost
        
        Give it up, you are just digging yourself deeper in a hole of making crap up
        
        4 3
        Report
        April 14, 2024 2:55pm
    - Chuck Bird
      
      I am not a Jew but I support Israel. He may not be a Muslim but supports those in Gaza like many in the Greens.
      
      3 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 2:07pm
      - Ghost
        
        No you are in fact an idiot who made a lot of shit up since it happened and haven’t got the balls to admit it. You were wrong. He is a white guy, not the dark skin you claimed to of seen. He is not a Muslim. Give it up. There is no evidence he supports anyone you claim he does, stop making shit up
        
        5 3
        Report
        April 14, 2024 2:11pm
      - Ghost
        
        Let’s deal with facts and not the bullshit you want to make up
        
        “There is no information that we have received, no evidence we have recovered, no intelligence we have gathered that would suggest that this was driven by any particular motivation, ideology or otherwise,” Cooke said.
        
        “We know the offender in the matter suffers from mental health [problems].
        
        Article
        
        Joel Cauchi: Worrying posts of Sydney mass murderer
        
        3 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 2:21pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    FFS. His name is “Joel”. Not a typical Muslim name.
    
    His surname is Maltese.
    
    https://forebears.io/surnames/cauchi
    
    Maltese people have olive complexion – like folk from Sicily.
    
    So he is not Syrian and he is almost certainly not Muslim. Malta is not a hot bed of Muslim radicals.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:24am
- Benedict Yu
  
  His first name is “Joel”. His surname is Maltese. He is not a Muslim.
  
  1 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:25am
  - Conservatarian
    
    I should read ahead a bit. Re the Maltese surname, you beat me to it Benedict.
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 12:23pm
    - Jack5
      
      The Maltese language remotely comes from Arabic.
      
      That’s as close as you’ll get to nailing crazy Joel Cauchi to Islam.
      
      0 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 3:11pm
- Muttonbird
  
  Turns out it’s just another angry white cis male…
  
  1 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 7:13pm
- hullkiwi
  
  You were wrong on all counts. Hitting the keyboard with bias is not helpful in an era when what passes for news is actually misinformation.
  
  0 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:21pm
AgainstTheFlow

Question for debate:
will the medical transitioning of confused kids by Progressives become considered as this century’s equivalent of supporting eugenics?

It’s not a perfect parallel, but the overwhelming arrogance that the progressives knew best is identical.
16 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:16am
- Notsofast
  
  Jordan Petersen declared to Michael Shellenberger after the invisible here WPATH files that this is the greatest medical scandal in human history. Recall he was banned from Twitter for the totally sane proposition the surgeon who removed Ellen Page’s healthy breasts should be imprisoned.
  
  7 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:33am
  - Colville
    
    I don’t agree with Petersen on the Ellen Paige issue. If Paige wants to have her self altered its none of Petersen business. Someone can have a set of plastic tits installed no questions asked… So why not a reduction?
    If I want to have my arm chopped off.. It’s no business of Petersen either.
    
    3 5
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 12:00pm
- jedmo
  
  Another echoing, imperfect, comparison is the 90s child sex abuse / basement pedophile ring dungeons in every city, scare, with Peter Ellis as the sacrificial pinnacle of it’s victims. Again perpetrated on us by woke feminist radical true believers.
  
  4 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 12:56pm
Grunter

Iran attack on Israel has just started. This will become one huge fuster cluck for all involved. Many have predicted that this would be the outcome. Escalation will continue.
13 3
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:17am
- Che Guava
  
  The Israelis will get what they wanted, which is an excuse to use the US military to fight another war for them. “America’s greatest ally” my ass.
  
  The only surprise is that the Iranians have been so restrained for so many years, given the Israelis’ bellicose rhetoric and the number of Iranian personnel they have assassinated over the years despite not being at war with them.
  
  6 22
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:59am
  - imalwaysright
    
    The Iranian reprisal will probably help the Israeli government.
    Even a heavily damaged Brand Israel is more palateable to the western media than Brand Iran.
    
    9 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:45am
    - Che Guava
      
      Indeed. They need a few more victim points, given the losses of political capital they’ve experienced through invading Gaza. If the Israelis can provoke an Iranian response to Israel’s aggression against the Iranians in Damascus, then so much the better to justify expanding their aggression against the Muslim world.
      
      4 13
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 11:58am
      - imalwaysright
        
        Nine downticks for the same sentiment !
        Brand Che?
        
        1 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 2:52pm
  - cmm
    
    “The Israelis will get what they wanted”
    
    Bullshit. The Israelis didn’t want this.
    
    The Jihadists want this though.
    
    17 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:58am
    - Che Guava
      
      The Israelis have been using hostile rhetoric directed at Iran and have been, directly or by proxy, assassinating Iranians and/or attacking facilities, and they’ve been signalling that the US should bomb Iran, for decades.
      
      To pretend that provoking Iran into a response and acting on that response to further their geopolitical goals isn’t Israeli policy is to either deny or to not understand the dynamic.
      
      Blaming it principally on “Jihadists” or the “Mad Mullahs” is comic book stuff, but that’s the level of discourse we are encouraged to maintain on this and other issues.
      
      4 14
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 12:07pm
      - ISeeRed
        
        Yeah, poor, innocent, pacifist Iran is being deliberately provoked by those nasty, war-hungry, blood-thirsty Joos.
        
        8 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 1:55pm
    - hullkiwi
      
      cmm, the Israelis did!That is why they bombed the Iranian compound in Syria.
      
      Netanyahu is playing a dangerous game of chess in favour of the Zionists in his government, while attempting to regain the support of the US. Especially, given the US & the UK, both of which have been playing a hypothetical game of providing the weapons to conduct the war while condemning Israel for doing exactly what everybody knew Israel would do. Bomb the c**p out of a captive, starving population.
      
      0 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 10:28pm
- virtualmark
  
  I’d advise calmly breathing through our noses at the moment.
  
  At this time it seems this Iranian attack has been carefully calibrated to look worse than it actually is. Send an attack that you know will be easily intercepted, is mainly aimed at the Negev desert, but yet allows you to tell your domestic audience that you did something, man we showed those guys, etc etc.
  
  And now Iran has sent a message, via their UN mission, that “The matter can be deemed concluded.” https://twitter.com/Iran_UN/status/1779269993043022053
  Which is diplomatese for “We had to appear to do something, but we don’t want this to escalate further.”
  
  So now we need to wait to see whether Israel choreographs a similar response (say, a small token attack on a non-critical asset) or whether they choose to escalate.
  
  8 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 1:05pm
  - virtualmark
    
    IDF saying one child slightly injured, and a small amount of damage to a base in the Negev. https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/hamas-israel-war-24/briefings-by-idf-spokesperson-rear-admiral-daniel-hagari/april-24-press-briefings/operational-update-by-idf-spokesperson-rear-admiral-daniel-hagari-regarding-the-interception-of-iranian-surface-to-surface-missiles/
    
    As I outlined above, this seems to have been carefully choreographed to be good theatre for the Iranian domestic audience, but in no way severe enough to justify an escalation from Israel.
    
    6 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 1:50pm
    - Ghost
      
      I read an article a few days ago that Iran and the USA were communicating via back channels on what sort of response would be allowed from Iran.
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 1:57pm
  - virtualmark
    
    Media reporting that the US has told Israel that they won’t support any counter-attack against Iran.
    
    Reporting that Biden told Netanyahu “You got a win. Take the win.”
    
    Basically, Iran’s attack was a response to a successful Israeli attack that killed several high-level IRGC members. Iran’s response was mainly noise and bluster. Israel came out on top. Israel should leave it at that.
    
    3 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 4:59pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Dark thought;
  
  Could this just be a gambit by Iran to escalate conflict with Israel to the the point where they can justify a nuclear strike with the shiny new warheads that are burning a hole in their dish dash’s. Or perhaps exhaust Israel’s ballistic missile defenses to the point that they can slip a nuclear missile through and ‘final solution’ them.
  
  I wouldn’t be unsympathetic to Israel nuking all of Iran’s military facilities.
  
  2 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 3:14pm
Keith White

The police will never conceal the facts to prevent a race or religion being identified, unless white and Christian. Just never. Inconceivable!
12 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:17am
softail 1450

Three Presidents quotes,
(1) “Speak softly and carry a big stick” ,#26
(2) “If that country threatens the USA it will be met with fire and destruction like the world has never seen” ,#45
(3) “Don’t ” <~~~~ This ferocious threatening quote from Old Joe will have the Mullahs shitting their pants ,if the reports by a number of MSM outlets that Iran are going to attack Israel with up to a hundred cruise missiles and drones are correct WW3 might be in our near future or was the 50/60 missiles launched into Northern Israel yesterday by Hezbollah the cowardly Iranian response??
9 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:29am
- Paulus
  
  Russia are trying to get Biden into a Middle East war in election year.
  Could go badly for Iran ultimately, if they formally attack Israel, as retaliation against Teheran could raise the already internal opposition the Imams.
  
  5 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:49am
  - Che Guava
    
    How much of a factor really is the “internal opposition to the Imams”? No doubt it exists, but it is likely that most of it is foreign NGOs, the CIA and Mossad.
    
    There’s this assumption in the West the Iranians don’t like living in an Islamic theocracy, but why would this be the case given that Iranians are Muslims?
    
    This assumption leads to Westerners assuming that Iranians and other Muslims desire to have a godless and degenerate secular society with all that comes with it – again, why should we assume that people who aren’t like us would want to be like us?
    
    Basically, propositions like “the Iranian women just want to wear miniskirts” is used as justification for the US-led world order imposing itself on places that reject that order.
    
    3 14
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:06am
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Guava: “Basically, propositions like “the Iranian women just want to wear miniskirts” is used as justification for the US-led world order imposing itself on places that reject that order.”
      
      Maybe they just don’t want to be bullied into dark ages conventions????
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 5:49pm
  - virtualmark
    
    The Iranian attack on Israel materially increases the pressure on the US Congress to pass military aid for Israel and Ukraine. So I doubt the Russians wanted this to happen.
    
    4 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 1:06pm
F E Smith

Second swarm underway, possibly cruise missile s also.
11 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:29am
Keith White

Police say: “The Sydney knifeman was a 40-year-old and his attack is not thought to be terror-related” (New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb).

Isn’t it awesome how they can be so sure so quickly.
15 2
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:32am
- Ghost
  
  They also said he was known to them, so no doubt they have a fair bit of information they are already going on
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 9:24am
  - Gravelroad
    
    Is it time to re-introduce tightly controlled residential psychiatric facilities for the insane?
    Some years ago, the fashionable response was to treat insane people to a nice group home “in the community” with all the trimmings. And the “community” was supposed to help look after them,
    This resulted in many being discharged from psychiatric lock-ups and left to roam round fully funded by the taxpayer.
    And when they might have a random “psychotic episode” the community just has to wear it.
    
    14 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 9:55am
    - NeverMindTheBollocks
      
      Chalk that one (in NZ) up to Helen Clark
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 2:15pm
      - julesnzuk
        
        De-institutionalisation in NZ (which happened through the 90s but was forecast before that) predated Helen Clark, and I’m pretty sure the criminally insane are still locked up. Not sure of the circumstances re the Australian guy or why he wasn’t under secure care.
        
        1 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 10:11pm
      - julesnzuk
        
        Edit: assuming you are referring to Helen Clark’s government. I’m not sure what role she had in earlier Labour governments pertaining to mental health.
        
        0 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 10:17pm
- alex Masterley
  
  If the Sydney attack isnt Terror then what is?
  
  11 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 9:59am
  - Jethrod
    
    Agree entirely, the people in the videos look very scared. How much is there from very scared to terror?
    
    9 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:24am
    - imalwaysright
      
      If you look up the nz terrorism act you will see that we are all subject to terrorists known as “the gangs”.
      Unfortunately we don’t have any police/justice ministers willing to declare them as such.
      NZ is the land of the Long Yellow Streak.
      
      2 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 2:58pm
- hullkiwi
  
  …and so wrong, given the police knew the details of the perp 24 hours ago. A terrorist he wasn’t. A nut job, yes!
  
  PS. Repeating biased stereotypes that a knife weilding idiot is a terrorist without a factual basis, is what it it is, misinformation!
  
  0 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:37pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Not looking encouraging for peace in the Middle East…

Iran has launched a drone attack on Israel.
https://www.aljazeera.com/
25 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:50am
- Benedict Yu
  
  The reports say that these drones will take “several hours” to reach Israel. If they are travelling so slowly, won’t the Israel airforce shoot most or all of them out of the sky? I guess we will find out.
  
  18 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:53am
  - Weetbix3ways
    
    That is precisely what they will / are trying to do.
    
    The Iranian scheme appears to be to launch enough of them to overwhelm the defenses. And most of the drones probably cost less than the missile that will be used to intercept them…
    
    The Iranians have had of opportunity to refine their drones too, these are used extensively in Ukraine for years now.
    
    14 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 9:27am
  - Burtland
    
    Syria, Jordan and Iraq will shoot them all down when they infringe their territorial airspace //
    
    10 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 9:42am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      Not Syria but Jordan will definitely shoot them down.
      
      https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/jordans-air-defense-ready-to-shoot-down-any-iranian-aircraft-that-violate-its-airspace-sources/
      
      13 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 10:10am
      - Mr Nobody NZ
        
        Reports are of at least 3 waves in bound made up of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
        
        It is also likely that launchs from Iranian proxy groups from Lebanon, Gaza will occur in and attempt to overwhelm Israeli air defences.
        
        It’s also worth noting that due to the difference travel times that the expected arrival time of all three waves will be timed to correspond.
        
        4 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 10:49am
  - G the giant from Dunedin
    
    They also have the air defence system there
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:18am
- Old.Mickey.Blue.Eyes
  
  Hamas refused ceasefire again.
  Why does media here nit call Hamas ls a terrorist group? they are designated a terrorist group, and continues to behave like a terrorist group. would that make it harder for Chloe to demand From the river to the swap?
  
  18 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 8:59am
  - Paulus
    
    Whatever, Hamas will never release the hostages or those left alive.
    
    4 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:51am
  - Che Guava
    
    “Hamas refused ceasefire again.”
    
    Why would they accept one, especially at this point? There’s an assumption that if Israel offers a “deal,” not matter how self-serving it is, then the Palestinians are obligated to accept it. Why? What an arrogant attitude. Deals aren’t unilaterally imposed by one party, they are accepted on the basis that all parties receive some benefit.
    
    Besides, why would Israel want a ceasefire, when the “war” is so one-sided that no Israelis are even affected by it, other than IDF soldiers.
    
    2 15
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:12am
    - Burtland
      
      your memory has turned to mush
      Oct 7 – 1139 Israelis slaughtered
      
      11 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 11:56am
      - Che Guava
        
        What does that have to do with the Palestinians accepting a ceasefire proposal by Israel in April?
        
        Besides, do we really want to get into the respective numbers of dead anyway, given that the number of dead Palestinians is many hundreds of % higher than dead Israelis? That’s a losing argument for Israel.
        
        2 14
        Report
        April 14, 2024 12:14pm
      - softail 1450
        
        Che, what number of dead Israelis would you like to see , would 6,000,000 be the number for you ??
        
        7 2
        Report
        April 14, 2024 12:49pm
      - Nobby2
        
        You are so right. The world should never be allowed to forget who started it. October 7 2023 – 1139 Israelis Women, Men and children of all ages slaughtered. Plus the hostages taken.
        
        5 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 5:09pm
- Stellaboxer
  
  The leadership in Iran are desperate to divert the growing dissatisfaction within their population so instigated the current conflict. Israel and the Palestinian situation is a dog whistle for Muslims blown whenever needed by various regimes in the region. This is why there hasn’t and won’t be a peace deal. The governments of the region need the common enemy. If the idiots on the left want to point the finger at those responsible for the current nightmare and those with blood on their hands than it should be pointed at the clerics running Iran.
  
  17 4
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 9:36am
  - Che Guava
    
    “This is why there hasn’t and won’t be a peace deal. The governments of the region need the common enemy.”
    
    This applies to Israel more than anyone else. Israel needs an Arabic resistance, because if they lived in peace with their neighbours, they’d have no excuse to expand Israel’s territory and neutralise and subjugate Muslim countries on the pretext of “keeping Israel safe.”
    
    Therefore, they have to make out that their military aggression and illegal expansion is about Israel fighting for survival, when its really the Muslims who are in peril.
    
    Any reasonable analysis of the last 80 years shows that Israel is the principal aggressor in the region, while they invert reality and claim that they are “defending” themselves. At best, Israel is “defending” itself only against the effects brought about by its own prior causes.
    
    2 18
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:20am
  - NoCash
    
    Did Israel missile strike the Iranian embassy in Syria a few days ago killing over a dozen Iranians? So please tell us who instigated the conflict?
    
    2 8
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 12:04pm
    - Paulus
      
      Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah !
      
      9 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 1:33pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Please expand?
        
        1 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 3:08pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        And the Iranian Quds operatives embedded within those anti-Israeli groups.
        
        Iran has never ceased funding and carrying out terrorist actions against western powers over the last 45 years:
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_state-sponsored_terrorism
        
        They need to have their fangs pulled, permanently.
        
        4 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 3:21pm
    - Stellaboxer
      
      NoCash Iran.
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 3:18pm
  - Scott
    
    Stella boxer – I think you’re right up to a point. But for Iran “death to Israel” is something they really believe in. It’s not just a diversion, it’s what they’re about.
    
    Iran has been heavily involved in the Middle East conflicts for some years. It seems they supplied Hamas in its attacks against Israel.
    
    Amd the sad thing is the US under Biden has allowed this to happen.
    
    1 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 1:06pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  Scroll down and there are live updates to the minute.
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:03am
  - Steve Otto(North Shore)
    
    4 min ago:
    “Over 100 drones intercepted outside Israeli territory: Report
    Israeli army radio reports that over 100 drones were intercepted outside Israeli territory with assistance from the US and UK.
    
    Reuters reported separately that the US military shot down Iranian drone aircraft headed toward Israel, citing three US officials, without disclosing how many drones were shot down or the precise locations.”
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:07am
Benedict Yu

So the “plant based meat” bubble seems to have burst.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/350239158/sunfed-plant-based-meat-business-shutting-down

I have occasionally tried some of these products, and, with a couple of exceptions, found them tasteless and poor value for money.

If you want an experience, try “vegan cheese”.

https://www.theveganshop.co.nz/vegan-food/dairy-free-cheese

I only did it once. 😅
19 2
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:50am
- Taieri
  
  So the “plant based meat” bubble seems to have burst
  —————-
  
  Most of meat is plant based. Beef, mutton and lamb can’t be produced without plants. Also, most of pig fodder is plant based, although it can be supplemented by the milk by-products. Funny how some people thought that they can do it better than grazing animals. Especially in NZ where fertile soils needed for growing raw materials are not exactly in a great abundance.
  
  8 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 9:06am
- alex Masterley
  
  Back in the ’70s we had a thing called TVP (textured vegetable protien) as a meat substitute on schooll tramps.
  After it was served up to some hungry teenagers there was a mutiny which lead to the substance being removed from the menu. It was horrible.
  I very much doubt that the current products are better in any way than TVP.
  
  11 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 9:11am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    People still buy TVP.
    
    https://www.countdown.co.nz/shop/productdetails?stockcode=686546&name=macro-textured-vegetable-protein
    
    It has zero taste. The trick is to mix it with tasty sauces. I would take TVP any day over vegan cheese.
    
    6 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 9:24am
    - alex Masterley
      
      I would rather eat meat that is nicely cooked and which doesnt need application of tasty sauce to make it taste like something.
      
      12 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 10:00am
      - Benedict Yu
        
        TVP is popular with folk on multi-day tramping trips. For reasons of practicality rather than its appeal over ribeye steak. 🙂
        
        7 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 10:33am
    - I remember when
      
      Dairy farmers argue that there is no such thing as ‘vegan cheese’ (unless you consider cows vegan).
      
      4 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 1:10pm
      - Taieri
        
        I make cheese at home. From milk. There’s no other way to make cheese.
        
        4 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 2:28pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Had some Malaysian food made with that goop. It was quite nice.
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 5:52pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  There are a number of people that have dairy allergies that appreciate the option of Angel Food cheese and being able to purchase a pizza with this on it – I think Hells and Dominoes both offer these options.
  
  Like you I wouldn’t want to eat it myself.
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:34am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Serious herbivores aren’t going to pay $30-40/kg for their main meal ingredient.
  
  Sunfed’s “meat” products were made from dried peas, which are readily available for $3/kg (and probably much less if you’re buying in bulk)
  
  Even ready prepared falafel mix (chickpeas, oil, tahini and flavourings ) can be located easily for $16/kg.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:38am
  - I remember when
    
    Just on the subject of cost.
    Has anyone else noticed continuing cost increases in restaurant and cafe food.
    A drop in the standard of said meals.
    Less variety in the options available.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 1:07pm
    - imalwaysright
      
      $16.50 at Raumati inn for a generic NZ made pilsner .
      Sat on a planter box to drink it.
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 3:17pm
Tomtoddy

NOAA fabricates temperature data for over 30% of the 1,218 stations it is using for its records. These stations do not exist. The numbers are manipulated and the result of computed data. This according to Lt Col John Shewchuk , a certified meteorologist.

NOAA admit the problem.
17 2
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:56am
- Chris Nisbet
  
  Tony Heller has been reporting on this for years. If I remember correctly, if the estimated values are removed from the record the US warming trend pretty much disappears.
  
  13 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 9:53am
Stellaboxer

The political establishment that championed the multicultural grand experiment and stifled any debate or dissent around its wisdom now find themselves holding a wolf by the ears and the wolf is growing more and more pissed off . If they continue to ignore what is plainly obvious to even the most casual observer they open the door to extremists willing to take the law into their own hands and find themselves eventually out on their backsides come election time. If they on the other hand admit the mistake and acknowledge what is happening then their policies of the last 20 odd years exposes them for what they are, incompetent managers who have put the realms they were entrusted with in deep peril and almost impossible to extract their respective countries from. Either way the outlook for their diversity mantra is looking bleak .
13 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 9:06am
softail 1450

Apparently there’s a full on attack against Israel going on as I send this comment, RT and not verified yet .
8 3
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 9:26am
JJ56

pleased to see NIWA has finally dropped the implausible SSP5-8.5 emissions scenario for their https://niwa.co.nz/climate/research-projects/updated-national-climate-projections-for-aotearoa-new-zealand.

I see the reason is lack of computing resources, so expect a bid for more money, but perhaps we are seeing a retreat from fearmongering extremism, although the SSP3-7.0 now used as the high scenario still has some problems.
12 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 9:32am
Rusty

Looks like the scum killer in Sydney was wearing a Kangaroo rugby league jersey.

Not that means anything.
6 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 9:45am
- Scooter
  
  It was actually quite good for a change to see the guy dead on the ground with all the blood and the cop standing over him. None of this pixelated stuff, just show the scum get what’s coming to them.
  
  22 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:00am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    That image is pixelated in New Zealand media.
    
    8 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:31am
    - Scooter
      
      That’s why NZ media is dying, too woke to show real life.
      
      9 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 10:57am
- Stellaboxer
  
  I’ve seen some footage where on several occasions men stood their ground and even invited him to dance. The filthy coward on every instance declined the invitation and changed direction looking for women and children. This should tell you all you need to know about these people.
  
  14 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:17am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Yes, and it’s a disguise
  
  2 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:21am
- NZer In Exile
  
  It appears that he was a schizophrenic. Should have been in secure care by the look of it.
  
  1 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 5:53pm
Hugh Jarse

Looks like the final days of the mad mullahs Islamic dictatorship have now started in Iran.
11 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 10:10am
- fightingtemeraire
  
  There will be a lot of bloodshed to end up with their removal.
  
  Also a shortage of lampposts as they are hung by the population.
  
  10 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:24am
- nathie
  
  Best photo eva of what repressed Iranian girls think of the mad mullahs!!
  
  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-news/2022/10/08/TELEMMGLPICT000311580057_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwVGtmp-S2mpFD-59S3IygKU.jpeg?imwidth=960
  
  16 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:29am
  - Benedict Yu
    
    I never understood why the left in the Anglosphere revere the hijab. Jacinda Ardern being a prime example. These poor women are flogged and jailed if they show their hair.
    
    In New Zealand, if asked, Muslim women say that they enjoy wearing it, and it is a free choice. I have yet to see a follow up question – “So if your teenage daughter decides she no longer wishes to cover her head in public, she will face no repercussions?”
    
    25 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 10:47am
    - Che Guava
      
      Muslim culture obviously isn’t that of the largely secularised West. Why would you, then, make assumptions about what Muslim women do want, desire or accept, or what they should want, desire or accept, based only on your particular expectations?
      
      It’s purely a matter of cultural distinction to think that women should ideally be encouraged to walk around with their boobs and their asses on public display, rather than, for instance, wearing a hijab or dressing modestly in general.
      
      3 16
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 11:27am
      - I remember when
        
        Che Guava:
        If you are prepared to accept the possibility of death to show your preferences …….
        
        6 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 12:55pm
  - Che Guava
    
    “Best photo eva of what repressed Iranian girls think of the mad mullahs!!”
    
    That’s what five girls think of them. Besides, are the opinions of teenage girls any indication of anything? Look at the kind of ludicrous political opinions many Western girls hold. If we accepted their views on climate crisis, for instance, we’d be in a world of trouble.
    
    Let’s bomb Iran because some 15 year old don’t like Muslim garb, shall we?
    
    2 16
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:48am
    - Lance
      
      Good grief..your arguments are becoming steadily more strawman and illogical every day.
      For someone championing far left causes, you seem to hate any freedom of expression and general left values, so what do you stand for?
      
      9 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 1:59pm
    - nathie
      
      Che: Not just “five girls” – the totalitarian mad mullahs are scared of Iran’s Gen Z. And this is in relation to the hijab protests – have you forgotten about them? If so shame on you!
      
      Young, online and undeterred by Iran’s ageing patriarchy, Iran’s “Generation Z” is known as Dahe Hashtadi in Persian, which translates to “the eighties” – referring to the years 1375-1389 in the Iranian calendar. In the West, Generation Z refers to those born between 1997 and 2012.
      
      Unlike previous generations, access to social media has given them a rallying point and a massive platform to speak out against the regime via Twitter and the video sharing app TikTok.
      
      “This is a generation who have never known a government other than the Islamic Republic, and have never known a leader other than [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei. The regime elites are overwhelmingly elderly … yet 60 per cent of Iran’s population is under 30,” explained Dr Moore-Gilbert.
      
      “This young generation, like youth the world over, yearns for the freedom to express themselves and live their lives how they see fit. Iran’s ageing theocracy is simply not relevant to their lives, and long ago lost all legitimacy,” she added.
      
      Iranian leaders have been deeply spooked by the mass uprising, which began in protest over the death in police custody of 22-year-old Masha Amini for incorrectly wearing a hijab, but quickly evolved into a campaign to topple the regime.
      
      At least 41 protesters have been killed according to Iranian state media, though a report by Amnesty International this week said that the death toll in the province of Sistan and Baluchestan alone had risen to 82 – including bystanders.
      
      This week, panicked Iranian intelligence officials sent a text message to millions of citizens asking them to reveal the identities of those taking part in the protests.
      
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/08/iran-hijab-protests-how-gen-z-became-iranian-regimes-fearful/
      (paywalled – but usually readable for about 30 seconds before the paywall kicks in, or clear cache/cookies to re-read).
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 4:13pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      I’ve heard many many Iranians in the west state that life under the Shah was better than under the top-down forced Mullah theocracy.
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 6:58pm
Handyman

Voters with no long term commitment to a city behave differently from those with eg a mortgage, family and career in the same city.
Wellington is a good example. Renters (esp students), have voted for immediate projects and highly visible signs of council spending. They support candidates promising rent reduction, rainbow paintings and cycle lanes. They have no interest in increasing rates/rent to pay for future water infrastructure they will never use.

Solution:
1. Make rates like electricity charges payable directly by the tenants. Landlord to collect similar to PAYE. Tenants experience the costs of what they vote for.

2. Separate water to a CCO eg Watercare. This entity can borrow to amortise costs to a weekly water per litre rate. Water bills will increase but should be softened by the social welfare system, not by making the water company political.
5 2
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 10:16am
- Benedict Yu
  
  “Renters (esp students), have voted for immediate projects and highly visible signs of council spending.
  
  You do not know that. It would require a poll on how renters/home owners vote. You cannot assume that all renters are woke fools and all homeowners are sensible. Over the last 6 years, renters have faced higher increases to housing costs than have had homeowners (at least until very recently when interest rates spiked).
  
  I would contend that many renters are smart enough to understand the impact of central and local government decisions on their housing costs.
  
  Also “electricity charges” are almost always paid directly by tenants.
  
  5 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:04am
  - Handyman
    
    @Benedict.
    Exactly.
    Renters, and other short term residents of Wellington are as rational as any other group. Their rational choice is to favour short term solutions. As is happens the party emphasising short term solutions got more votes than those parties proposing austerity in the short term to pay for long term solutions. As Muldoon said, “voters vote with one hand on their wallets”.
    
    Yes I am proposing water be paid exactly like electricity is today. It already happens in Auckland.
    I am also proposing rates be treated as a utility directly by the tenant, which is unworkable unless the landlord can collect on behalf and forward to the council.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:36am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      ” am also proposing rates be treated as a utility directly by the tenant..”
      
      No you are asking for a poll tax. Rates are a property tax.
      
      3 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 11:42am
      - Handyman
        
        No just a method to convert the rates on the rental to an amount to be identified in the rent (weekly, monthly as is the case). Rents would be advertised as eg rent $400 plus rates (currently $100 per week).
        At all times the landlord is the only party the council deals with so not exactly like electricity.
        
        0 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 12:35pm
      - Colville
        
        Tenants pay for their own electricity…so why not rates??
        
        0 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 5:44pm
      - Benedict Yu
        
        “No just a method to convert the rates on the rental to an amount to be identified in the rent..”
        
        Why? Rates are a property tax.
        
        What are you trying to achieve here? You inferring that folk who rent properties are morons. People who rent property understand that rates increases impact on their rents.
        
        You can’t have some moronic hybrid. We either have a property tax or a poll tax. Pick one.
        
        The bigger issue is the role of local government.
        
        Stop beating up folk who rent their homes.
        
        0 0
        Report
        April 14, 2024 6:53pm
Benedict Yu

I wonder how that mass murder in Sydney would have played out in identical circumstances in New Zealand where the police officer was only armed with pepper spray or a taser?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-68806806
14 3
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 10:37am
- Mike
  
  Impossible to know.
  
  3 13
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:39am
- Ghost
  
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/auckland-terrorist-attack-at-countdown-supermarket-chilling-video-captures-shoppers-fleeing/Q2ELHHBCIFACRS52L636VV7WHM/
  
  5 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:42am
- rouppe
  
  He probably wouldn’t be dead.
  
  A taser would put them down pretty quickly, and given the Australian officer fired only once, she would have been close enough to use a taser.
  
  Having said that, no criticism of the actions of the Australian police officer is intended or implied.
  
  A nz judge would have found some reason the killer was actually a victim in order to give them home detention. The Australian avoided all that.
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 1:19pm
- Colville
  
  It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there are cop cars in the major cities with a handgun or two in a bockbox.
  
  0 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 5:09pm
  - Benedict Yu
    
    No kidding?
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 6:18pm
Maggie Pie

Checking…
Anyone else having problems posting on KB this morning?
I just referenced a story from an international news site and it suddeny disappeared 🙁
3 8
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 10:44am
- Benedict Yu
  
  You may be posting things that annoy the moderators who are deleting your comments?
  
  10 5
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:57am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    I would very much doubt that Bene. Every one of my posts on KB is always relevant to matters of the day and of interest to everyone….from both sides of the politcal spectrum.
    I still hold the record for the most ‘upticks’ on any single comment, and have even had Sir Robert Jones dedicate an entire article to me on GD.
    
    9 9
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 11:33am
    - Benedict Yu
      
      That is not what I am hearing. 🙂
      
      13 6
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 11:43am
      - Maggie Pie
        
        You been talking to milkey?
        
        6 2
        Report
        April 14, 2024 12:00pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Sunday modding is usually slow I find. Skeleton volunteer staff on Sun is the reason I believe.
  
  1 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 7:01pm
Paulus

Whilst waiting for my Sunday coffee this morning I looked at the Stuff base Star Sunday Times.
I don’t think I have ever seen such a disgusting left wing Pravda based paper that I can remember.
Many articles run buy ex Labour politicians and then there is Vance.
I will never buy it, so for one, that the sooner it collapses. the better along with rest of Stuff.
Maybe they should get Tova along to help.
19 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 10:58am
- CAKE FACE1
  
  “I will never buy it, so for one, that the sooner it collapses. the better along with rest of Stuff.”
  
  Maybe this won’t happen soon. The rumour is that an Iwi bailed Stuff out…
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:17am
  - sungsamning
    
    I hope there is no basis to the romour.
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 5:51pm
herb1

Isn’t it about time to end the hypocracy around the banning of Mein Kampf but not the Koran.
There are to many similarities in both these war plans to treat them differently
10 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 11:23am
- Geri Sjovik
  
  That statement is a lot closer than you might know.
  
  In 1941 the muslim mufti of Jerusalem had a meeting with Adolf Hitler.
  
  They proudly announced they had similar values.
  
  And when the Reich joined the border of the middle east at the Caucasus the muslims were going to export all the jews to Germany.
  
  9 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 1:41pm
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    The Mufti was an Uncle I think of Yasser Arafat.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 2:44pm
    - sungsamning
      
      Yes, he was.
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 5:49pm
bennerg

RNZ reports on “facial recognition gone wrong”.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/514155/supermarket-facial-recognition-trial-rotorua-mother-s-discrimination-ordeal

A Māori mum misidentified as a trespassed “thief” at a Rotorua supermarket trialling facial recognition technology says she felt “racially discriminated” against and embarrassed during the “horrible” birthday incident.

Some issues:

1. Firstly this was not about facial recognition being racially “discriminatory” – all automated systems fail at some point. That’s why pilots can turn of the autopilot and fly the aircraft manually. More it was about lack of training and process. The staff dealing with the situation obviously had no idea about how to handle the situation properly. A Trespass Order must have a name, and when provided with appropriate identification , they should have immediately pulled back, apologised to the lady, and let her continue shopping. Maybe even a “gift card” to smooth over their mistake.

2. RNZ have cast this as targeting “maori”. Why was there a need to identify her as being Maori? Being in Rotorua I presume also the staff most likely were also Maori of some degree, but that was not mentioned.

3. The lady herself said:

She said she felt “racially discriminated” against by the men and described their conduct as “unconscionable”.

I agree their behaviour was “unconscionable”, but this was not about a fault with a facial recognition system. Race does not come into that. Skin colour is just one factor of many it uses to identify people. In poor light conditions even “white” people can appear “dark skinned”. It has more to do with face structure as described here:

https://www.innovatrics.com/facial-recognition-technology/

Modern facial recognition systems employ sophisticated algorithms that can assess and log more than 80 such nodal points from the face template. The information from this face template is converted into a mathematical formula, resulting in what is termed a facial signature. This signature is a distinctive numerical code that encapsulates the facial features stored in the database.

4. It also appears that the lady herself was playing a race card (she called herself a “black” – when Maori are mostly light brown – so conflating this as an American “black issue” that is different to anything going on in NZ) when that was not the case. She also she felt “racially discriminated”. Perhaps the staff said something in a way that made her feel that way, but that was not reported.

Facial recognition will have great benefits, and I fully support it’s use to help identity repeat offenders – they contribute a lot to higher food and other product prices. As do all thieves.

But it is a technology that can be abused. I remember in the early days of calculators my son was convinced I was wrong in a mental calculation (we got taught that at school many decades ago, not so much these days) because his calculator said otherwise. Not until I went through the process with him, did he realise he had pressed a wrong key on the calculator. The same can occur with facial recognition, and any other surveillance technology. It must be used purely as advice to a human, and not be the ultimate decider. And just like the autopilot on an aircraft, it must be able to be switched off when a real human can see something is wrong.
4 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 11:32am
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Facial recognition technology seems to be working OK in countries like China and S.Korea and Japan where many folks are of a similar skin tone to Maori.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 11:48am
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Yes, I was reading an article in the South-China-Post about all the facial recognition cameras in Beijing. A guy was captured on CCTV robbing a Pork Bun Takeaway shop. By the end of the day police had rounded up more than 600 suspects for questioning.
    
    13 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 12:21pm
- I remember when
  
  Facial recognition will have great benefits, and I fully support its use to help identify repeat offenders –
  
  Don’t have enough data on that but isn’t it great the way the media always support the approach that best suits the offenders.
  They are Maori, poor, supermarkets are ripping them off.
  Never, that they are criminals and how can these systems be improved to prevent this happening.
  
  3 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 12:44pm
- Hollyfield
  
  I do not often go into supermarkets, but in the last few months every time I have gone in there has been some kind of incident between security and a customer which has resulted in security politely and calmly (but firmly) escorting the customer outside, and the customer ranting incoherently at their top of their lungs, screaming repeated profanity.
  
  On one occasion, I went in to pick up my click and collect order – I received a text saying my order was ready, I was at the supermarket within 5 minutes, and by then half my order was missing from the trolley at the customer service desk. Luckily I checked my order before I left, and the supermarket replaced all the missing items. The supermarket staff told me this happens “all the time”. I think it is a failing on the layout of that particular supermarket’s design where there is no space to place an order except where customer are constantly walking past, but the staff have no control over the size of the store and the limited areas they can put the trolleys with completed orders. And they should be able to place a trolley by the customer service desk without bag loads of items being stolen.
  
  This is what the supermarket staff and security are dealing with every day.
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 3:45pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  There is facial recognition, then there is the runaway underground cowboy industry of data brokers. Put the two together and you have zero privacy and zero protection from corporate scumbaggery and exploitation. There is also greatly reduced personal security due to your most sensitive personal data being sprayed all over the planet in an uncontrolled manner.
  
  2 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 5:56pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Manufactured Crisis? All of a Sudden, Unfortunate ‘Coincidences’ Are Affecting Food Supplies.

https://rumble.com/v1365ts-manufactured-crisis-all-of-a-sudden-unfortunate-coincidences-are-affecting-.html?mref=22lbp&mrefc=2
3 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 11:47am
Steve Otto(North Shore)

The United Spot.
Game show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g071TUoBlKo
1 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 11:56am
greybeard

I have been trying to relicence my car since yesterday but there is some problem with the NZTA website: apparently it is “down for maintenance”.
Maybe they are trying to remove the maori bits as directed, and someone has cocked it up.
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/online-services/online-services-outage
https://www.nzta.govt.nz/online-services/online-services-maintenance
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 12:03pm
- cmm
  
  Obviously computers based on Maori Computer Science are much more reliable.
  
  11 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 12:38pm
- Jethrod
  
  I had a scam email recently trying tosuck me in on the NZTA website.
  
  2 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 7:12pm
bennerg

Another UK Post Office scandal. Now their automated scanners of stamps on envelopes are mistakenly calling a genuine stamp “counterfeit”.

https://www.gbnews.com/money/royal-mail-counterfeit-stamp-genuine-mistake-machine

Royal Mail introduced barcoded stamps in February 2022 and non-barcoded stamps are no longer valid for postage.

…

Another affected customer, Natasha, 49, was shocked to find her loved one was hit with the “counterfeit” surcharge after sending a letter with a stamp bought at Post Office.

She told GB News: “Given that I know the stamp I used was purchased from Post Office itself and was a book of multiple stamps, I find it quite strange to wonder how one counterfeit stamp found its way into a book of authentic stamps. The others all got used and delivered completely ok.”

When we contacted Royal Mail, the firm said Natasha’s stamp had been checked and confirmed as counterfeit.

Another case where overzealous reliance on technology is causing grief. First the Horizon scandal re the Subpostmasters, now this. When will they, and others ( like Rotorua New World ) realise that these technologies are not our overlords, they are assistants only.
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 12:03pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Computer says no
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:23pm
I remember when

The next meeting is on the 23rd April the ads say.
Nominations for committee, 300 attendees and another meeting in nine days.
Perhaps the people are having their say and many (should that be most?) are not happy with the new Rangitikei Street /Featherston Street road markings, or their potential repetition on the Northern side.

The voice of the people!!
4 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 12:30pm
cmm

Did you know that, per capita, NZ launches 15x as many rockets into space than USA does?

NZ: One rocket every second week. 5.2 rockets per year per million people.

USA: 117 rockets a year. 0.33 rockets per year per million people.
11 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 12:37pm
- Jack5
  
  Presumably all the rockets from NZ mentioned by CMM were launched by Rocket Lab USA Inc, as Peter Beck’s pioneer enterprise is now known.
  
  It’s been a brilliant performance by an NZ entrepreneur, but if these graphs are near-accurate we still have a long way to go (have they included Rocket Lab’s NZ launches as American?):
  
  https://spacestatsonline.com/launches/country
  
  2 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:44pm
Yvette

pdm (above) – Can anyone tell me why Taumata Arowai still exists?

Taumata Arowai is of course the Water Regulator, which sets a standard for water.
What is not needed is any specific religious view of water, so reference to te Mana o te Wai and the Maori Advisory Council presiding over the Water Regulator should go.

Besides setting up further Maori exceptionalism, a promotion not of ‘co-management’ of Maori settlement natural resources, but ‘co-governance’, and a reasoning that ‘courts and law’ supposedly recognise Maori somehow have greater affinity for water than non-Maori, the “3 Waters” thing was to unite councils to give them greater borrowing power in infrastructure work, but no one ever seemed to mention that loans need be repaid, usually with interest, which is why loans are ever made in the first place.

And as Labour’s concept of Auckland/Northland being one entity (Entity A), which was the one left unchanged in the compromise of ten entities instead of the earlier concept of 4, so without Northland tagged on, Auckland was presumably big enough to borrow enough without “3 Waters” being fostered on them at all?

So would it have been needed really to compel Muslims (because they are us and have a life dependent affiliation of it) to drink water blessed and advised on in a Maori world (religious) view so probably not halal, or Christians might not appreciate having another God to the one who says He is a jealous God – Commandments 1: Thou shalt not have strange Gods before me set in stone – bless their water?
6 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 12:53pm
Maggie Pie

This is interesting….

A girl who tried to warn readers on Reddit about a Pedophile within the community,
had her post DELETED by moderators…. then sometime later, the pedo was arrested for sexually abusing multiple children 🙁

https://youtu.be/R3_RbVnLwp8
11 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 12:54pm
- cmm
  
  Fair enough.
  
  Until something is proven, the platform would be open to being sued if they did not.
  
  I hope she went to the cops rather than social media.
  
  3 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:06pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    Should also be about treading exceedingly carefully about potentially falsely accusing people of a heinous crime. Calling someone a pedo is a death sentence, even if the target is totally innocent.
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 7:08pm
Maggy Wassilieff

Melbourne Age has some background on the Bondi Jn Mall murderer…

https://www.theage.com.au/national/nsw/joel-cauchi-wasn-t-right-reservations-raised-about-killer-before-bondi-junction-attack-20240414-p5fjnh.html
4 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 1:32pm
- Muttonbird
  
  No, no, no. He looked like a Muslim and so this is probably a terrorist attack…
  
  0 5
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 7:15pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH4FYcWApy4
When a country’s president is a real narco anything is possible.
Get ready for mind-blowing corruption. Juan Orlando Hernández, the two-term president of Honduras, was the darling of Washington, supported by Donald Trump and Joe Biden, all while he was the most invasive and treacherous narco in the region. A real drug kingpin. Let me tell you about it.
The Mob Reporter here with news of a country’s president who helped build and protect a key cocaine route using all the power of the state — it’s military, police, politicians, and prisons — and how he was finally convicted in March 2024, not in his own country, but in New York City, for paving a cocaine superhighway to the United States.
3 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 1:53pm
- greybeard
  
  And Biden couldn’t have been happier !
  
  0 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 5:39pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIpPwfMLE-Q
How Mexico Will Save The West.
With dramatic shifts in geopolitical alignments, Mexico is poised to be a key player in the future economy of The West. Mexicans of all economic classes are likely to benefit from these new realities.
3 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 1:53pm
- Colville
  
  Yip Mexico wins China loses.
  
  Massive transport infrastructure required tho.
  
  0 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 5:55pm
Maggie Pie

My partner was just saying ’98’ will be over $5 a liter by June. Iran has just attacked an Israeli freighter in the Straight of Hormuz and taken it captive.
In the meantime, he has seen reports that Pres Biden has cut his weekend at Marthas short and returned to the Whitehouse. Isreal has told America “that their response to Iran’s missle launch is inevitable and are preparing for airstikes on Iran’s military bases and nuclear installations”.

They reckon this could well put Chris to the test as a ‘Wartime Prime Minister”
6 3
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 2:00pm
- cmm
  
  Is he really a wartime PM if NZ is not really involved?
  
  I doubt very much that NZ will be seriously involved in this. After all we’re already maxed out by our commitments of:
  * 1 company (~100 people) doing logistics in Europe for Ukraine (playing storeman and driving trucks).
  * 6 people in Middle East making tea for the people engaged with the Huthis.
  
  9 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:33pm
- Jack5
  
  The Muslims are big on taking captives to use as hostages.
  
  I expect that Israeli freighters, like those of most countries, are now crewed largely by Third World sailors such as Filipinos.
  
  Israeli tactics tend to be to kill rather than capture: I doubt if an Iranian nuclear engineer can get life insurance.
  
  Mossad also stole a whole truck load of Iran’s nuclear plans. Using dissident minorities in Iran, the Israelis must be a spooky presence to the people of Teheran.
  
  5 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:52pm
  - Mike
    
    #notallmuslimsareterrorists
    
    2 9
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 3:01pm
    - Jack5
      
      Space bar stuck again, Mike?
      
      FFS don’t pour oil into the keyboard. ⌨️
      
      6 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 3:56pm
      - Taieri
        
        It’s not oil, it’s dribble…
        
        5 1
        Report
        April 14, 2024 5:18pm
      - Mike
        
        How did you know that I was oiled up?
        
        1 3
        Report
        April 14, 2024 5:46pm
    - Colville
      
      #but99.99%ofterroristsaremuslims
      
      3 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 5:57pm
      - Mike
        
        Citation required.
        
        1 5
        Report
        April 14, 2024 6:26pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Most terrorists are ……… ?
      
      1 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 7:10pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

So here’s my favourite story of the day:

The difficult hunt for an impartial Trump jury in Manhattan – “… those in New York have been exposed to Donald Trump and his father and children for literally generations, from every tabloid to the internet to Home Alone.”

Lol!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68671730
5 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 2:28pm
- Mike
  
  Perhaps he should have confined his criming to locations where lots of people are stupid enough to believe his bullshit.
  
  2 11
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:47pm
  - herb1
    
    The right to a day in court before judgement not a thing with you Mike?
    
    4 4
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 3:23pm
    - Mike
      
      Not at all. He even has the right to whine that any jury must be biased coz so many people hate him.
      
      2 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 5:32pm
cmm

Does anyone know what drones the Iranians have launched?

Iran seems to have a very large variety of drones from: small, cheap, nuisance with 20kg warheads (sure, that could cause damage, but not much) to large, long range jobbies that can carry hundreds of kgs of bombs.

I suspect they’re using a variety – lots of the cheap ones to saturate the defence systems and some of the large ones to cause the damage.
6 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 2:38pm
- emmess
  
  I guess they are the Shaheed drones that they sell a lot of to Russia
  
  3 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:54pm
- Jack5
  
  From the article linked to below, those hitting Israel may include the Shahed-136, which is slow (185 km/h), and has a carbon-fibre frame, push-propellor engine, and a range of 2500 km.
  
  Others launched will include the jet-powered Shahed-238, whose speed is estimated at 400km/h to 600 km/h.
  
  The Iranian drones Israel faces have been used by Russia against Ukraine for 18 months. Russia has bought thousands from Teheran but also makes its own.
  
  Iranians have been developing drones since their war with Iraq in the 1980s.
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/02/deadly-cheap-and-widespread-how-iran-supplied-drones-are-changing-the-nature-of-warfare
  
  A more comprehensive description of Iran’s drones – the following article includes:
  
  ” Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., former head of U.S. Central Command, wrote in a paper for the Washington Institute. The technology has produced ‘an inflection point in aerial warfare—comparable to the introduction of manned flight more than a century ago—that has ended the guarantee of U.S. air superiority over its forces and bases,’ he warned in February 2023.”
  
  https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2024/feb/02/roster-iran%E2%80%99s-drones
  
  6 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:58pm
- NothingLeft
  
  Israel has to treat all the IRanian drones like they are nuclear tipped, because that is a real possibility now, and even one or two nuclear strikes could be the end of Israel.
  
  Guessing they will send up fighters to shoot them down far from the border (and maybe Iran is anticipating that with man portable air defense deployed along the drone flight path)
  
  5 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:58pm
  - Colville
    
    A nuclear strike on Israel would certainly be the end of Iran!
    
    1 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 5:59pm
lifesgood

Who were the morons that closed down mental asylums and hence allowed lunatics to roam free? I wonder how many lives have been lost because of this? Also what about the increasing number of homeless on our streets, many of whom should be in a sheltered place like a mental asylum. Seems to me the powers that be have no concern for the general public. This guy in Bondi is a clear case of a lunatic roaming free.
11 2
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 2:39pm
- Jack5
  
  Our psychiatric hospitals are jammed to over-full, and we are short of nurses and psychiatrists.
  
  The $2 billion Labour assigned to help just disappeared.
  
  7 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 2:47pm
- julesnzuk
  
  I think it was Jim Bolger’s National government following on from the 4th Labour government and Rogernomics. The problem with the asylum system is that it was very open to abuse but I agree – they haven’t got it right now, either.
  
  2 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:24pm
Maggie Pie

A phenominal life-saving achivement.

Some individuals here probably wont want to believe this, but the REAL numbers show Israel has killed thousands more HAMAS terrorists in Palestine, as opposed to civilians!

https://twitter.com/IsraelInstNZ/status/1779298564411138244

Will all the HAMAS huggers in the likes of the Green Pardy accept the revised casualty figures…. or just keep trotting out lies every day?
9 4
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 3:11pm
- fernglas
  
  What’s the source of the figures they are quoting? I can’t find any reference to it.
  
  4 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 3:46pm
  - Maggie Pie
    
    Normally you can never believe a word they say anyway, but these adjusted figures are directly from ‘HAMAS-MINISTRY-OF-HEALTH’ in Gaza.
    
    4 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    April 14, 2024 4:18pm
    - fernglas
      
      Do you have a source for that other than a post on Z?
      
      2 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      April 14, 2024 6:12pm
Jack5

Maori Party MPs off to Australia to stir up resentments there.

Do they get free Tasman air fares or do NZ MPs fly free only within NZ?

Rawiri Waititi, and Takutai Tarsh Kemp are off to the Gold Coast.

They want also to meet Lydia Thorpe, the senator who is partly descended from Aborigines.

Thorpe pulled out of the Aussie Green movement last year.

She’s perhaps best known for getting a life-time ban from a Melbourne strip club after a tirade that included remarks about men’s small genitals.

Maori Party out to colonise Australian Maori:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/kahu/te-pati-maori-visits-queensland-to-strengthen-ties-with-maori-in-australia/5SJQ73DXVJFXTDGND4W6EPFLTU/

(Ex-Green) Senator Lidia Thorpe’s flare-up at strip club:

https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/law-expert-reveals-whether-senator-lidia-thorpe-can-be-kicked-out-of-parliament-following-viral-strip-club-controversy/news-story/84f301e0f72ee2b2d2d90f20ca83db47
6 1
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 3:25pm
- nathie
  
  Bet The Maori Parody will be too chicken to meet with Aboriginal MP Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (as she will put those clowns in their place).
  
  From wiki:
  
  Price’s activism and views focus primarily on issues faced by Aboriginal communities, and she is a vocal advocate for conservative Aboriginal politics in Australia. She has highlighted the high rates of domestic and other violence in Aboriginal communities, and advocates for a law and order approach. She is critical of welfare dependency and “opportunistic collectivism”. She opposed the proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament, and thinks that calls to change Australia Day and the Australian Flag are counterproductive to Aboriginal advancement.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacinta_Nampijinpa_Price
  
  Or from her website:
  
  I’m Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Senator for the Northern Territory. I’ve been turning the tables on the left for years.
  
  🙂
  https://www.jacintaprice.com/
  
  6 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 4:09pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Read the NZH article and another name for Akl.
  
  Wonder if the Aus based Maori will tell Waititi and co to take a hike.
  
  4 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 4:56pm
- julesnzuk
  
  Maori in Australia have good jobs and are doing well. They don’t see themselves as victims and I don’t imagine they have any interest in these communists or any left wing BS about “de-colonisation”.
  
  1 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 10:38pm
Steve Otto(North Shore)

Stop Co-Governance. Julian Batchelor.

The blog is now being posted around 12 to 1pm.
Time to be a person of action. Time to stop the Coup nonsense.

https://stopcogovernance.kiwi/blog/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-person-of-action/?
4 4
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 3:49pm
- Steve Otto(North Shore)
  
  “Claiming back this country from extremist groups will not happen without the so-called silent majority realizing that their lack of any action – apart from persistent grumbling – is one of the reasons why things have got so bad.”
  Amy Brooke.
  
  6 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  April 14, 2024 3:55pm
NZer In Exile

“Claiming back this country from extremist groups will not happen without the so-called silent majority realizing that their lack of any action – apart from persistent grumbling – is one of the reasons why things have got so bad.” Amy Brooke.

Yes we’ve had it so good for so long we think we can get away with just cruising along with “she’ll be right” attitude. Well sadly the ship has hit the fan.
5 2
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 7:12pm
Hugh Jarse

Who do the peace loving, secular democracy supporting, human rights supporting left support religious single party states that abuse human rights and throw non believers such as homosexuals off tall buildings ?
7 0
Log in to Reply
Report
April 14, 2024 8:32pm

Add a Comment Cancel reply

Login to comment or vote

« Two more strikes for the nasty party

Don’t flee the country with kids »

Donations

You can now donate to Kiwiblog

Exclusive content from DPF on Patreon

Become a Patron!

Highlights

The Kiwis are fleeing
Inflation by term
Houston we have a problem
Our immunisation disaster

Never miss a post

Email Address

Links

Less than 72 hours later, and The Democracy Project’s narrative of Action Man Luxon in ruins as Seymour once again undermines PM
The Daily Blog
Justice for Gaza?
No Right Turn
A fast track to cronyism
Not PC
Alvin Bragg and The Art of Not Taking Law Too Seriously
Utopia
Right wing plunges in latest poll
The Standard
Word of the day
Hompaddock
If there has been any fiddling with Pharmac’s funding, we can count on Paula to figure out the fiscal facts – can’t we?”
Point of Order
The Simon Abundance Index
No Minister
The public’s view of ‘transing’ children that the media won’t share
Bob McCoskrie's McBlog
Mana or Money
NZCPR
Policing protests.
Kiwipolitico
THE WAY THINGS WERE
No Punches Pulled (Bob Jones)
United Rugby Championship Predictions for Week 15
Stats Chat
Despair - construction consenting edition
Offsetting Behaviour
Tougher than that
Croaking Cassandra
ABs stripped of 2011 title after try disallowed
Imperator Fish
Legal Beagle: Election '23: The Special Votes
Public Address
Making this movie might have been a mistake
Liam Hehir
Why I am retiring from political blogging
Kiwi FireWalker
Angie Warren-Clark: Meet the Newbies
Dan Moskovitz

editor@kiwiblog.co.nz

PO Box 12270, Thorndon, Wellington 6144

Facebook
Twitter
FourSquare
Instagram
LinkedIn
Google+

Archives
Disclosure Statement
Editorial Policy
Privacy Policy
Complaints Policy
Comments Policy

Design by cre8d

%d

Share this:

Like this: