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December 26, 2024 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 26 December 2024

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General Debate

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NeverMindTheBollocks

With the advent of gene testing technology, it’s mildly surprising that Maori have not gone looking for Hawaiki. Sure, we know that there’s a link to the indigenous people of Taiwan, but that’s 3,000 years ago. How about 800 years ago? Given their interest in whakapapa, surely Maori would love to know who their closest relatives are.
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December 26, 2024 8:01am
- Colville
  
  What? You have got to be joking. And raise awareness that they are just fresh off the canoe migrants rather than the blessed owners of this country?
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:30am
- mandk
  
  Great idea.
  
  We could send off all the TPM MPs into the Pacific on a paddle-powered waka and tell them not to come back until they find Hawaiki.
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:46am
- lifesgood
  
  But they’re indigenous aren’t they?//
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:47am
  - pdm
    
    To Hawaiki?
    
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    December 26, 2024 10:03am
  - PurplePen
    
    Not if they arrived by canoe. Can’t have it both ways.
    
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    December 26, 2024 12:21pm
    - lifesgood
      
      // means sarcasm or taking the mick.
      
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      December 26, 2024 1:05pm
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        PP was doubling down on the sarcasm!
        
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        December 26, 2024 2:53pm
  - Aquarius
    
    They’re apparently indigenous…..
    But the dogs and rats that were on the same canoes are introduced species…….
    Go figure
    
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    December 26, 2024 1:50pm
- crikey
  
  Maori’s oft-repeated history tells of arrival by canoe and of the departure of the soul to its origin, Hawaiki. That is, by their own admission they are not indigenous to this country. There is also some debate about who were the first arrivals.
  
  Genetic testing may not be desirable for Maori if it were to lay waste to their claim of indigeneity. Which do you think is their priority?
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:58am
  - G152
    
    It was the Polynesians who explored and settled the Pacific. The Maori were an end to the exploration
    
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    December 26, 2024 11:21am
  - Paulus
    
    DNA purports to Tribe still there in South East Taiwan.
    But there are no pure 100% Maori anyway.
    
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    December 26, 2024 2:56pm
- peterwn
  
  Do not give Donald Trump ideas. He might want to annex New Zealand as the 54th State (after Canada, Panama and Greenland). A possible Hawaii link might trigger him.
  
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  December 26, 2024 10:15am
  - Colville
    
    if The Don annexed us …do we automatically double our GDP per capita up to USA levels? do we get nuclear energy?
    
    Bring it on!!
    
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    December 26, 2024 10:21am
    - Ghost
      
      Do we get their debt, their shit politicians. The USA is long dead, it will never return to its glory days.
      
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      December 26, 2024 10:52am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Come and tell us in 4 years Ghost.
        The man is not even President yet and the negativity is there.
        
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        December 26, 2024 11:25am
      - Graeme Hall
        
        Their shit politicians? Open your eyes.
        
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        December 26, 2024 12:22pm
      - Ghost
        
        Perhaps it is you that needs to open your eyes if your are too blinded to see their shit politicians. Where do you want start? Congress, Senate? State politicians? Presidents? Do you want to start with the corruption amongst them? The payments from companies to them? How about the stupid old gits that are there far longer than they should be because they are protected by the parties and the media? How about the politicians protected by their parties with serious health conditions or legal issues. We may have some shit politicians here, but compared to the USA, they are amateurs.
        
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        December 26, 2024 12:49pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        The US constitution provides much better protection against 21st century left-wing repressive authoritarianism and their neo-racism than west minster system of govt that is so easily subverted by the neo-Marxist 5th column churned out of academia over last few generations.
        
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        December 26, 2024 3:00pm
      - Ghost
        
        And yet right now in the White House is a man who the White House have protected for the last 4 years hiding his mental decline. A man who the democrats and the media have protected, hid his mental decline. A mental decline that was obvious long before he ever ran for president. Or how about the covering up of Mitch McConnell‘s health issues so he can serve out his final two years. Then We have the politicians who are in the back pocket of corporate America. Shall we talk about the politicians who were getting kick backs from big pharma? Since 2015 46 billon dollars has been spent by lobbyists. $4.2 billion last year.
        
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        December 26, 2024 3:17pm
      - Ra Henare
        
        Ghost are their shit politicians any worse than our shit politicians???
        
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        December 26, 2024 4:09pm
      - Ghost
        
        As I said, ours are amateurs compared to the corruption in us politics.
        
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        December 26, 2024 4:17pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Ghost; but which country shows most signs of halting and reversing the OECD-wide slide into left wing authoritarianism/tyranny that the population generally oppose but far-left aligned govt blob push on us anyway?
        
        On current form it is the USA. Proof is in the pudding.
        
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        December 26, 2024 4:32pm
      - Ghost
        
        You mean everything Biden has gone overboard implementing and will again be implemented after trump? On current form the USA is fucked and the tinkering trump will do won’t fix it.
        
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        December 26, 2024 4:43pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Yep bring it on. Get that badly needed nuclear in NZ. Fuck the Greens!
      
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      December 26, 2024 11:26am
      - MCōs
        
        The Green Party has never been part of a government in NZ. They currently have by far the most seats they’ve ever had and they have no influence on the direction of the government.
        Nuclear may or may not be the way forward for NZ , but not before someone comes up with a viable business case for a starter.
        
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        December 26, 2024 4:51pm
      - Colville
        
        MCos
        That is pretty much but not quite a lie.
        Greens have been puppy dogs go Labour a few times now voting alongside them but have been to cowardly to accept the responsibility that goes with the seats.
        
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        December 26, 2024 5:20pm
  - rouppe
    
    Hawaiki, not Hawaii.
    
    It’s a mythical, possibly made up, place. Why, has always been a nagging question for me.
    
    All this “rich oral history” that comes to a screeching halt at the arrival of the seven Waka. Where did they leave from? Why did they leave? Setting off from the middle of the warm, benign, fish filled pacific into stormy, colder southern regions doesn’t make sense if you couldn’t reliably find your way back.
    
    Anyhoo…
    
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    December 26, 2024 11:00am
    - Don Beckett
      
      I understand they have nailed ‘Hawaiki’ down to the island of Raiatea in the southern Tahitian group.
      
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      December 26, 2024 11:28am
    - PurplePen
      
      I read somewhere, can’t remember the source, they were the troublesome people in Hawaii or somewhere and got booted out. I suppose a version of British troublesome being sent to Australia.
      
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      December 26, 2024 12:24pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Actually PP, Howard Morrison did a doco back in the 70’s or 80’s from memory, and that is what he reckoned. Their particular iwi or whatever back in those days were theives & troublemankers, according to Howard, and he had a smile on his face while narrating.
        
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        December 26, 2024 1:19pm
    - AitchW
      
      At the risk of sounding cynical, a “rich oral history” really isn’t worth the paper it’s written.
      Written histories are routinely edited to suit a prevailing paradigm, imagine what happens to an oral one!
      The ability to recite a family tree is not especially impressive with no reliable evidence that it’s accurate.
      
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      December 26, 2024 1:22pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        I take your point, but going back few hundred years, Maori & other native people did not seek to deceive about their whakapapa – it was generally a religious leader, so truth was important.
        Allow me to quote an example. About 30 years ago, I had a small roof truss manufacturing business with my son who was 18. A mate of his was a young Maori bloke who was looking for work so I employed him – he was a fine young man & a very good & bright worker, & he & my son used to go to the gym together.
        He told me that his ancestors had arrived on the Takatimu canoe, which had left from Takatimu beach in Rarotanga. He & his father & mother had gone the previous year to Rarotonga to check out their relatives & descendants. He told me that an old man (kaumatua?) who had been taught the oral history of the families & the area, and this knowledge was handed down through each generation, and had to be learnt meticulously over many years.
        They found out from the oral history who their family was and stayed with them for a few weeks, learning the family history & how the family had developed over the intervening 12 – 1300 years. The Cook Island language is virtually the same as Maori – they even call themselves ‘Maori’.
        It was interesting hearing him tell me about it.
        
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        December 26, 2024 2:45pm
    - Paulus
      
      Sounds like to me a load of made up bullshit as they could not have done what they tell us they did.
      Not physically possible even for primative people not many years ago, from which there has been some movement away from early violence, including using captives for food not that far back.
      
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      December 26, 2024 3:08pm
- JackRabbit
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBFpGayPATs
  
  New Zealand Skeletons in the Cupboard Episode 1 The Red Heads
  
  This doco was actually on TVNZ on demand at one stage, but got removed because the prospect that Celts, based on skull DNA / carbon dating testing, arrived here several thousand years ago, did not fit the narrative.
  
  Maori would love to know who their closest relatives are.
  
  Most Maoris do, but the activists are only interested in Trains. Gravy Trains.
  
  Evidence of occupation of NZ date back tens of thousands of years.
  
  Gravy Trains are a recent invention.
  
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  December 26, 2024 10:18am
  - Don Beckett
    
    The Celts could not have been here several thousand years ago. It was only a little over 3,ooo years ago that they started their migration westward from their original territory in the Causases – that is why many of our ancestry is Caucasian.
    On their westward migration, they attacked & defeated the Greeks around 5 – 600 BC, then carried on. They encountered the Romans about 100 years later, & continued westward. They occupied now France – there were called Galls by the Romans, hence French Gallic ancestry. They continued through Spain – the Basques – then finally into the British Isles, then Ireland where the Celtic culture achieved its zenith.
    They were landlubbers and not a maritime people several thousand years ago.
    
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    December 26, 2024 11:22am
    - kowtow
      
      ‘Ireland where the Celtic culture achieved its zenith.’
      
      Guinness brewery , founded 1759.
      
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      December 26, 2024 2:56pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        :lol:.
        
        Indeed. But the Celtic Druids were like the Norse, & other pagan religions whose gods demanded human sacrifice, The main flowering was with the Christianisation of Ireland & the British Isles in the 3rd – 5th century.
        
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        December 26, 2024 3:26pm
      - kowtow
        
        DB
        
        All joking aside . Items such as the Ardagh and Derrynaflan ( hoard) chalices ,Book of Kells etc
        
        As to sacrifice ther’es speculation around the “bogbodies” and why they are there .
        
        Very mysterious and interesting.
        
        https://www.museum.ie/en-ie/collections-research/irish-antiquities-division-collections/collections-list-(1)/iron-age/bog-bodies-research-project
        
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        December 26, 2024 5:08pm
    - JackRabbit
      
      Don, that is all and well and an intellectual theory, but carbon dating of ancient skulls in NZ is superior fact to your theory.
      
      But it is comforting to know you own a time machine and have gone back in time and accounted for the movements of every single Celt and Celt vessel.
      
      Really impressive. ///
      
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      December 26, 2024 3:58pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Jack.
        My knowledge of the Celts comes from a couple of historical books I have read, and as much of my ancestry is Celtic, I am quite interested in their history. So my knowledge of the Celts is not my theory, but the writings and investigations of historians over the past several decades, so I don’t have a time machine, but depend on the knowledge of those much more intelligent than I.
        I don’t doubt the carbon dating is correct within certain time spans, but I’m not aware that it is able to provide proof of the owner of the skull being Celtic. Does carbon dating also provide & analyse DNA ? If not, there must be other evidence to prove or suggest that the skull is of Celtic origin. I would be pleased if you could provide a reference.
        Genuinely – I am interested, but with the evidence I have seen with regard to the Celts, they were not a maritime people 7000 years ago – like say the Phonaecions, who were a maritime people a few thousand or so BC.
        
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        December 26, 2024 4:49pm
  - G152
    
    No….
    The evidence both archaeological and legend point to 1200AD
    
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    December 26, 2024 11:23am
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Great story. But I wonder what could have persuaded the Celts to acquire advanced sailing technology, up sticks, and sail to the other side of the world?
    
    There is zero evidence of human settlement of NZ prior to about 750 yrs ago. And the massive wave of extinctions that followed Polynesian settlement makes it very clear the NZ fauna had no prior exposure to the deadly predator known as Homo sapiens.
    
    Clinging to fantasies about pre-Maori “Celtic” arrivals makes it all too easy for activists and wokesters to depict all critics of the Maori ethnostate agenda as deluded racist nutjobs.
    
    [Mod – fixed post]
    
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    December 26, 2024 6:42pm
    - Pope Punctilious II
      
      Continuing after being rudely interrupted by technology …
      
      [Mod – I wondered what happened, have added it to your original post]
      
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      December 26, 2024 6:56pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Punc II.
        I believe there is evidence of occupation of Nz prior to Maori – even the old people talk of a people here when they arrived, so I wouldn’t write off prior occupation – but I don’t think it was the Celts.
        But I’m happy to be proved wrong.
        To think that some of my Celtic ancestors may have been among those that got here before the Maori would make me much more Indigenous than them. 😆
        
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        December 26, 2024 7:35pm
- Don Beckett
  
  David Rankin, a kaumatua of a Ngapuhi sub-tribe, states clearly that Maori are not indigenous to NZ, but to southern Taiwan a small group of islands just offshore.
  Scotty Morrison also did a doco investigating the history of Maori migration, and it ended up, again, originating in southern Taiwan.
  
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  December 26, 2024 10:48am
  - imalwaysright
    
    If their situation in NZ became so dire that they resorted to cannabilism, wouldn’t it have made sense to go somewhere else?
    
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    December 26, 2024 11:19am
    - [email protected]
      
      Since there were no edible mammals, they probably got tired of eating only fish and birds. Eating the captured enemy could have been a tasty treat.
      
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      December 26, 2024 1:55pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        They also caught & ate seals & dolphins and of course planted & ate kumara, and also harvested certain fern roots & buds and other bush tucker.
        Cannabilism was practised as much to make use of the protein flesh of defeated enemy, but also to offer them a final insult – which somehow didn’t affect them. 🙂
        
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        December 26, 2024 2:52pm
      - Colville
        
        Don.
        Evidently making fish hooks with the bones of your enemy was the ultimate insult.
        Lovely people 😁
        
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        December 26, 2024 5:23pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Maori had lost the knowledge of how to build large ocean-going waka and how to undertake long sea voyages by the 1600-1700s.
      
      https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03036758.2012.677456
      
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      December 26, 2024 2:35pm
  - JackRabbit
    
    Watch the video in the link, and the two others. You will find it interesting.
    
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    December 26, 2024 4:01pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  The truth would then come out that Maori are not indigenous.
  
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  December 26, 2024 11:21am
  - Don Beckett
    
    Doesn’t suit the narrative Steve, so the truth is banished, denied, obfuscated – so therefore must be racist.
    
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    December 26, 2024 11:30am
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      Exactly Don.
      
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      December 26, 2024 3:14pm
  - Allan
    
    Like many other already well defined and understood words, the UN has redefined the words to advance an agenda.
    
    Maori thereby qualify as ‘indigenous’.
    
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    December 26, 2024 12:26pm
    - MCōs
      
      According to dictionary.com
      DEFINITION FOR INDIGENOUS (1 OF 1)
      adjective
      1 – originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country; native (often followed by to):
      the plants indigenous to Canada.
      Indigenous.
      2 – relating to or being a people who are the original, earliest known inhabitants of a region, or are their descendants:
      the Indigenous Maori of New Zealand;
      the Indigenous languages of the Americas.
      
      According to Chambers English Dictionary, 1898
      (A copy of which I own)
      Indigenous adj
      native born or originating in : produced naturally in a country
      
      The Chambers describes native as the original inhabitant
      
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      December 26, 2024 4:09pm
      - KH
        
        Maori never inhabited Central Otago Queenstown Lakes. They only passed through occasionally on summer hunting trips.
        I inhabit COQL. So clearly I am indigenous. !!
        Who knew!!!
        Send cash.
        
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        December 26, 2024 4:43pm
      - MCōs
        
        You probably are!
        Wait ‘till all the law offices reopen in about a month and engage a KC forthwith to plead your case.
        An inexpensive one.
        
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        December 26, 2024 5:05pm
- Allan
  
  Wouldn’t DNA show that the major part of their geneology is British and assorted European nations.
  
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  December 26, 2024 12:25pm
  - Burtland
    
    also American Whalers – interesting program using DNA tracing
    
    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/my-family-mystery/episodes/s1-e3
    
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    December 26, 2024 2:07pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

A former public sector contractor is complaining. Previously she enjoyed the flexibility of contracting & the 20% higher rate, but after 8 years the roles have dried up.

Did it not occur to her that future roles were not guaranteed, and that the quid pro quo was those benefits?

I see that she became a beneficiary, which surprises me, as a prudent contractor should set aside funds against the rainy day. Sounds like she spent as if the good times would never end. Sounds like she’s happy to privatise the rewards of contracting but to socialise the negative consequences.

Not much sympathy from me.

http://www.1news.co.nz/2024/12/23/public-service-job-cuts-rough-months-ahead-for-those-out-of-work/
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December 26, 2024 8:06am
- rouppe
  
  Having spent the majority of my career on salary, having a “permanent” role provides no protection. I’ve been made redundant twice, after 15 and 13 years service respectively, and rarely saw contractor numbers trimmed unless it was accompanied by a wider restructure.
  
  Job Seeker is not asset tested, it is only income tested. Some of the other add-ons like accommodation supplement are asset tested. So having $50k in the bank doesn’t prevent the former, only the latter.
  
  I considered going on Job Seeker after I quit in August, since $10k would pay the rates and insurance, but the fact is I don’t want to work anymore, didn’t want the hassle of attending seminars, nor trying to explain I couldn’t attend an interview because I was in my caravan in Central Otago. I’m completely off the radar of winz and IRD. Two and a half years until I pop back on.
  
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  December 26, 2024 11:14am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Public Sector employees who got the DCM are finding out the the Private Sector doesn’t want people who don’t like work.
  
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  December 26, 2024 11:33am
- Ian Boag
  
  I see that she became a beneficiary …. set aside funds against the rainy day.
  
  Of course if the benefit was the (more generous than job seeker) one called “the pension” we would have no problems.
  
  Go figure
  
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  December 26, 2024 7:06pm
pdm

Is everyone queued at the doors of the Mega Retailers for the Boxing Day Sales?
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December 26, 2024 8:34am
- David Garrett
  
  Not Mrs Garrett’s boy
  
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  December 26, 2024 8:44am
  - John Loveridge
    
    Nor the late Mrs Loveridge’s little fellow.
    
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    December 26, 2024 9:13am
    - Don Beckett
      
      Nor this Kiwi.
      
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      December 26, 2024 2:53pm
  - backster
    
    Avoid it like the plague.
    
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    December 26, 2024 3:12pm
- sungsamning
  
  No.
  
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  December 26, 2024 8:54am
- GazzaW
  
  I have just delivered my wife and daughter to the front portal of Smith & Caughey and beaten a hasty retreat to the leafy suburbs for a peaceful morning and then an afternoon watching the Boxing Day Test from the MCG.
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:10am
  - trout
    
    My DIL told us how her father got the whole family up at 3am on Xmas Day to celebrate a family Christmas so that he could catch a flight to Melbourne later that morning to watch a Boxing Day ashes test.
    
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    December 26, 2024 10:27am
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    Who has the Credit Card? Did it accidently slip into that hidden compartment in your wallet?
    
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    December 26, 2024 3:17pm
- cmm
  
  Boxing Day is one of the days we barricade the front door and don’t venture out.
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:32am
  - John Loveridge
    
    Same. I’m determined to stay inside and spend the day reading.
    
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    December 26, 2024 10:22am
- MCōs
  
  Boxing Day sales started long before Boxing Day!
  For your interest we went to Rebel Sports a couple of days ago to buy a discount hiking pole aka walking stick and the locusts had already been and gone. A number of shelves were bare and there were not a lot of people.
  I talked to the mother of my daughter yesterday and she said she bought a lot stuff from Temu. I said I heard that stuff was crap. She said what she bought was fine.
  So there you are.
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:34am
  - fightingtemeraire
    
    The amount of stuff flying into the UK now from Temu and Shein has had two effects.
    
    1 You cannot get air freight space.
    
    3 It is affecting the sales in the already hard hit shops on the High Street.
    
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    December 26, 2024 9:45am
    - cmm
      
      Temu is really no different than Amazon, except cutting out Amazon as a middle man.
      
      The days of High Stree shopping are waning. Understandably so. High Street shops mainly exist because people lacked the access to manufacturers – meaning that the only way to access these goods was via such shops.
      
      Now anyone can access anything from anywhere using Aliexpress, Temu or whatever without even getting off your sofa. Why go through the hassles of driving and looking for a parking on High Street?
      
      I expect some of that is crap, but I buy a reasonable amount of electronic goods (electronic components, SDR equipment etc) off Aliexpress and all of that has been fine.
      
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      December 26, 2024 10:03am
      - Colville
        
        Temu is completely different to Amazon. It exists for one reason only and that is to sell Chinese made goods to the world. It is a portal invented so Chinese manufacturers can undercut anyone else in the world (after said manufacturers have stolen the IP to make the goods)
        
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        December 26, 2024 10:26am
      - PurplePen
        
        Same. Security cameras, phone, home automation stuff, lights. All good. Then larger stuff from Amazon in Oz or even direct from Oz retailers or even such from Europe. The variety of goods and quality is good.
        
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        December 26, 2024 12:32pm
      - KH
        
        I paid Temu. $5.56 for a piece of crap. Thing is, two years ago I paid a New Zealand retailer $55.00 for the same piece of crap.
        
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        December 26, 2024 4:50pm
- Michael Sommerville
  
  Nah! Too much tidying up to do.
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:41am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Waste of time and money. I am going to have a bet on a horse today, my once a year gamble. Someone dropped a tip yesterday so see how a ton each way goes.
  
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  December 26, 2024 11:38am
  - pdm
    
    How did that tip go SO – you can tell us its name now, win or lose.
    
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    December 26, 2024 7:35pm
    - Steve Otto N Shore
      
      El Vencedor. Came 3rd, paid $3.20 I think.
      Made a profit on my $$200.
      
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      December 27, 2024 11:59am
- Scott
  
  Yes. Just outside Rebel Sports. Been in the mall and it was packed! 😎
  
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  December 26, 2024 11:47am
kevn

UK COE stupidity…
https://dailysceptic.org/2024/12/24/church-of-england-tells-clergy-to-edit-christmas-carols-to-avoid-unnecessary-offence/
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December 26, 2024 8:42am
- pdm
  
  The question is:
  
  Were they stupid enough to do so?
  
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  December 26, 2024 8:51am
  - Matt Long
    
    Apparently to be C of E you have to have stupidity rivalling pope Francis.
    https://x.com/BearGrylls/status/1871999514816692530
    
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    December 26, 2024 9:09am
    - imalwaysright
      
      He’s got the IQ of a bear.
      
      1)There was no such place as “first century Palestine”.
      2)Mary and Joseph were Jewish.
      3)They belonged to the House of David so how could they be refugees?
      
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      December 26, 2024 9:17am
      - Don Beckett
        
        Also, they were not impoverished – Joseph was a carpenter, & even in those days, carpenters’ skills were sought after.
        And Mary was not a poor terrified peasant girl – she was the daughter of a synogogue official, so she was what we would call middle class and well versed in the Jewish scriptures.
        
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        December 26, 2024 10:59am
      - PurplePen
        
        I wonder how the church gets around Mary’s pregnancy as a surrogacy since the church says it’s a sin.
        
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        December 26, 2024 12:35pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        PP @ 12.35
        If you read the scriptures, you will see that Mary was betrothed to Joseph. Betrothal in the Jewish Law was actually marriage – not ‘being engaged’ which is a modern construct. Marriage consisted of two parts – the betrothal where contracts & dowry were exchanged & vows made. Then there was a period of up to a year where the husband would prepare a home, & the second stage was the wedding feast, when they lived together.
        But in Mary’s case – as a dedicated virgin – she had vowed to not have relations with man, and Joseph knew this. At the Annunciation, Mary accepted the words of the angel Gabriel – “you will conceive by the power of the Holy Spirit – etc.”
        So Jesus’ conception was by the power of God, and being a married woman was not an issue.
        
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        December 26, 2024 1:28pm
      - kowtow
        
        They were refugees in the sense that they had to flee into Egypt to avoid Herod’s massacre of the innocents .
        
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        December 26, 2024 3:06pm
    - pdm
      
      Now you have me worried ML.
      
      I was baptised CofE about 78 years ago.
      
      Never Confirmed though so perhaps I will be ok.
      
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      December 26, 2024 9:21am
    - cmm
      
      Bear Grylls is an entertainer. Anyone taking his his “survival advice” would die a very unpleasant death. I wouldn’t take his religious/historical advice any more seriously.
      
      I watched a few of his shows for a lark once. The one that really rolled my eyeballs was when he squeezed water out of some elephant dung.
      
      Anyone with any knowledge of animals in Africa will know that, with a few exceptions such as hippo, their digestion systems are optimised to extract as much water out of dung as possible. If an elephant really did has a wet poo it would be due to having severe diarrhea and probably being dead pretty soon.
      
      It apparently came out later that his camera crew had saturated the poo with water from a water bottle to make the scene work.
      
      I would expect the same level of journalistic integrity has gone into his Mary comment.
      
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      December 26, 2024 9:41am
      - lifesgood
        
        I’ve held elephant poo in Africa…dry as a bone and, believe it or not, sweet smelling, like fresh cut grass. This is due to elephants’ poor digestive system. They eat all day and food just passes straight through. Their droppings look like garden weeds.
        
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        December 26, 2024 9:50am
      - Steve Otto N Shore
        
        Stupid prick Grylls climbs waterfalls when all he had to do was walk around them. Same with rock faces.
        
        9 2
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        December 26, 2024 11:41am
      - cmm
        
        Elephant poo is pretty variable depending on what they have to eat.
        
        When I was in the Army in South West Africa (now Namibia) I was driving a HiAce van around Etosha Game Reserve. (tough job coming from Army HQ). Lots of elephants there.
        
        We were told to drive around elephant shit, but troopies will be troopies… It was like driving over a rock. Lots of swearing from the drunk people in the back…
        
        Very different to the stuff I hit in Natal or Kruger Park.
        
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        December 26, 2024 3:28pm
- peterwn
  
  Many, many years ago, the third verse of ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ (written 1848) was deleted from hymn books (starting 1906). The verse was:
  “The rich man in his castle,
  The poor man at his gate,
  God made them, high or lowly,
  And ordered their estate.”
  It may have been OK when children and lower socio-economic people knew their place, but not now!
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:06am
  - Inandout
    
    peter, the poor will always be with us, socialism is pie in the sky. If a person can’t or won’t strive to better themselves then they remain at the poorer end of the scale.
    
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    December 26, 2024 10:18am
    - MCōs
      
      The “poor will always be with us” because that’s the way society is structured
      
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      December 26, 2024 12:27pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        No, it demonstrates the difference between us – some higher IQ, some lower – some/many understand the importance of independence & self reliance & hard work. Even some with moderate or lower IQ recognise the importance & benefit of work & the sense of achievement & work satisfaction.
        Then there are those who are disinclined to put in effort, to want or expect others to provide for them, who wish to control & manipulate others so they can benefit off their efforts.
        It’s called human Nature – if you are Christian, its what we call ‘our fallen nature – the result of original sin – which darkens our intellect & causes us to chose what is easy, to chose evil over good. Concupiscence is the term used. 🙂
        
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        December 26, 2024 12:38pm
      - PurplePen
        
        “For you always have the poor with you; but you do not always have me.” from Matthew from the bible.
        
        Maybe their God requires the poor to always exist as they have an easier path to sit with their God in her heaven. But I think it’s more that there never will be a time when everyone will be equally wealthy. It’s just not the way of the universe.
        
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        December 26, 2024 12:40pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  The Bishop of Newcastle, Helen Ann Hartley, was at one time co Bishop of Waikato. She has been vociferous in her words against Welby and now Cotterill A/B of York,
  
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  December 26, 2024 9:43am
  - Jethrod
    
    Welby is fortunately on the way out:-
    The Most Reverend Justin Welby announced he is stepping down after an independent review found he “could and should” have reported decades-long abuse of men and young boys by his former friend, the barrister John Smyth QC.
    It hasn’t pleased the COE at all
    
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    December 26, 2024 12:15pm
- kiwi_chileno
  
  (Hola! from Valparaíso de Chile. Its late on Christmas Day here).
  
  William Ralph Inge, Dean of St Paul’s, London: “There are many spirits of the age, most of them evil…If the Church marries the spirit of this age, she will be a widow in the next”.
  
  Anglosphere Anglicans – the CofE, the NZ Anglican Church, the American Episcopal Church, etc – have elected to follow the evil spirits of the age. They have sacrificed themselves on the pyre of secular, progressive, lunatic identity politics – DEI, the alphabet people, trans rights, Palestinian victim-hood, critical race theory, etc.
  
  I’m a a church-going Anglican – in Chile but not in NZ. I usually worship at St Peter’s, Viña del Mar. (It’s for English-speaking Anglochilenos, descendants of the big British colony in Valpo). The vicar is the Bishop of Valparaíso, Iglesia Anglicana de Chile (low-church, evangelical, and conservative). He helped write GAFCON’s Jerusalem Statement and Declaration (2008), which is a confession of orthodox, authentic Anglican faith and doctrine. GAFCON is the Global Anglican Future Conference / Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans. It represents 80% of all Anglicans, mainly in Africa, but also Sth and Nth America, the UK, APAC. (The ‘other’ Anglican Church in NZ, the Church of Confessing Anglicans, is affiliated with GAFCON.) In 2023, GAFCON repudiated the primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury as the primus inter pares of the Anglican Communion – “The chair of St Augustine is now empty” – because of his severe doctrinal errors and the promotion of practices contrary to Scripture, including, but not limited to, same-sex marriage and gay clergy.
  
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  December 26, 2024 3:26pm
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFktAw3qUjw
Elon Musk Exposes Elizabeth Warren’s Corruption.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has taken aim at Elon Musk, Tesla, and his influence on the U.S. government, branding his leadership a “conflict of interest.” Musk counters her claims as misguided attacks. From Tesla stock’s rollercoaster ride to Elizabeth Warren’s scrutiny over Musk’s role in the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), this battle impacts innovation, regulation, and the American economy. Is Warren safeguarding transparency, or is this a political agenda disguised as shareholder advocacy? The future of technology and government hangs in the balance.
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December 26, 2024 8:54am
sungsamning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqAAw5hJGkU
Argentina’s Poverty Rate Plummets from 54.8% to 38.5%: Here’s How.
In this video, we explore the significant decline in Argentina’s poverty rate, which has fallen from 54.8% to 38.5%. Join us as we delve into the factors behind this impressive improvement, the policies implemented, and the real-life impacts on the people of Argentina. From governmental strategies to community responses, find out what has driven this change and what it means for the future of the country. Don’t forget to subscribe for more insights and updates on global economic trends.
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December 26, 2024 8:54am
- Matt Long
  
  From your lips to God’s ears Javier.
  Our economic model will soon be adapted in the US 🇺🇲, Japan 🇯🇵, Italy 🇮🇹, and more countries. Deregulation is spreading, and there’s a lot more to come.
  https://x.com/DrEliDavid/status/1871644430861820175
  
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  December 26, 2024 4:01pm
  - sungsamning
    
    Oh, that’s good news.
    
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    December 26, 2024 6:49pm
cmm

This talk of shark attacks reminds me of my childhood in Natal, South Africa.

Every year South African civil service etc would largely shut down from mid December to mid January and a large % of the Transvaalers would travel to Durban and its surrounding area. Us English speakers often called the Afrikaners “rock spiders”, or just “rocks”, therefore this annual migration was called the “rock slide”.

Although they loved the beach, they were petrified of sharks. At the first shark attack they’d all load up and speed home to the Transvaal as fast as possible as if the sharks were able to chase them on land.

And then they’d all be back the next year…
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December 26, 2024 9:51am
- zulumonster
  
  My favourite was the grafitti on one of the cross bridges over the freeway out of Durban that read something like “OK Vaalies, you’ve seen the beach, now F### Off”
  
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  December 26, 2024 10:55am
  - cmm
    
    The funny thing was when they had to go out and face an obligatory curry. They’d order hot curry (main manne eat hot) but the Indians would only serve them medium and they would still bitch about how hot it was.
    
    If you were a local and wanted hot you’d have to say you were local otherwise you got “vaaalie hot”.
    
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    December 26, 2024 3:32pm
- fightingtemeraire
  
  Ag plees Daddy won’t you takes down to Durban
  All six seven of us Ach nine ten
  It’s only 6 hours in the Chevrolet
  
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  December 26, 2024 1:35pm
surfing

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/companies/aged-care/why-so-many-kiwis-are-leaving-for-australia-and-why-its-economy-is-stronger-liam-dann/GKIOX5UF2BDR7LODXQI5LDNOGI/

You what an ignorant article. In fact , Liam Dan is a woke wonk as he does not address the major issue of why the young adults are leaving NZ.

Selling ones journalistic principles so your employer does not lose access to the nz on air funding – guilty as charged methinks.
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December 26, 2024 9:58am
- NZer In Exile
  
  Pay-walled. Please stop giving these jerks money.
  
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  December 27, 2024 4:13pm
imalwaysright

Here’s a lesson for our judiciary on how to sentence.
Gay couple who molested and raped their two adopted sons get 100 years jail.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/zulock-couple-sentenced-to-100-years-for-molesting-adopted-sons-in-georgia/I4FOWNB4VNENPKAF24W674GLNE/
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December 26, 2024 10:19am
kevn

cmm… kultures eh?
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December 26, 2024 10:39am
- cmm
  
  No love lost…
  
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  December 26, 2024 3:34pm
Souvlaki

Can anyone refute the logic in Bryce Edwards analysis of Luxon in this article below ?
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2024/12/dr-bryce-edwards-national-decline-in.html

For my 2 cents worth, I’d go for a Brown/ Stanford combination, and contemporaneously reverse National’s refusal to countenance The Treaty Principles Bill.
This is more likely to slow the brain drain than their current trajectory…..
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December 26, 2024 10:51am
- G the giant from Dunedin
  
  Oh do let’s go back to dropping leaders for the sake of it, I give. Nats lost a huge amount of support changing leader all the time, Lsbour the same when Key was pm, snd you want to go back there.
  
  Show me how the average of the last 5 polls have Nat at 32% One news and Curia had Nats ahead of election night, and we do not count labours leaked but not reported internals, and one poll had Nats at 28% but no one has heard of the polling company
  
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  December 26, 2024 11:14am
- Jack5
  
  The Bryce Edwards tripe drawing heavily on ravings of the idiot Matthew Hooten was thrashed flat in the General Debate column two days ago.
  
  About 20 posts down this thread:
  
  https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2024/12/general_debate_24_december_2024.html
  
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  December 26, 2024 11:43am
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    Yes I would definitely take notice of an opinion writer who seeks inspiration from the man who gave us the Todd Muller cock-up, well worth listening too.
    
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    December 26, 2024 4:58pm
- Scott
  
  Or we could stick with Chris Luxon who is holding the coalition together and that coalition is actually doing what they said they’d do.
  
  Labour’s agenda is almost entirely gone. There have been massive reforms in just 1 year.
  
  Luxon is not as good a communicator as John Key. But Luxon is getting a lot done. He’s reversing the damage of the last govt.
  
  Those who wish for a change of leader are wishing for a one term govt.
  
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  December 26, 2024 3:14pm
  - KH
    
    I think Luxon is doing great. Even if he sometimes disagrees with my view.
    
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    December 26, 2024 5:02pm
Steve Otto N Shore

‘Ok, Who Got Me The MAGA Hat?’

https://babylonbee.com/news/ok-who-got-me-the-maga-hat-asks-kamala-harris-as-jill-biden-stifles-laughter?
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December 26, 2024 11:03am
- Michael Sommerville
  
  Reading the article it looks like Jill Biden was p*ssed off with her for running against Joe. The claws are out.
  
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  December 26, 2024 11:28am
  - cmm
    
    Babylon Bee. It is satire. It isn’t really an article.
    
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    December 26, 2024 3:36pm
    - mandk
      
      There’s a clue in the strapline at the bottom of the piece: “Fake news you can trust, delivered straight to your inbox!”
      
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      December 26, 2024 5:32pm
Jack5

A New Zealand company on the quest for the energy Holy Grail, nuclear fusion, has caught the eye of German physicist and Internet science commentator Sabine Hossenfelder.

It’s Open Star Technologies, of Wellington.

A 7-minute video:

https://youtu.be/w9Ne3LjjrIQ?si=l2m5JvRP0w_RbPY2
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December 26, 2024 11:26am
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Nautilus sounds good. Might mess my head up even more!
  
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  December 26, 2024 12:17pm
- NothingLeft
  
  It’s a promising approach pioneered by the MIT LDX experiment a few decades back that I followed with interest at the time, and has advantage of needing far less mass of magnets and higher ‘Beta’ (ratio of plasma energy to magnetic energy). But a big issue is how to cool the floating toroidal magnet – has to be frequently turned off and re-charged with coolant.
  
  Overall the latest field reversed configuration machine Polaris from Helion is far more likely to be economic – most recent updates had them finishing construction by now and expecting to be producing net electricity in 2025 (ie the long awaited ‘break-even’). Their technology will work – this is last in series of 7 machines that have progressively proven tech, and perhaps be economic. Really makes other fusion development projects fairly pointless.
  
  The decades long boon-doggle that is the ITER has been a terrifying lesson on the insanity and irrationality of bureaucratic and political inertia, surviving decades and $10’s of billions of dollars beyond the point where it was clear that it could never be economically viable. It is nothing more than a money-pit jobs program.
  
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  December 26, 2024 3:17pm
  - Steve Otto N Shore
    
    All I think is the technology is improving.
    Cheaper electricity (in the long run) is going to happen. But oil will always be needed.
    Look around your house. How much is plastic or forms of plastic? Phone, TV, even my spa pool is made from rotational molded plastic. Wait, the pool pimp is alloy and plastic, so are the pvc tubes to the jets!
    Imagine there is no plastic because there is no oil.
    Man the Greens are so dumb!
    
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    December 26, 2024 3:51pm
    - cmm
      
      It is challenging to make electricity production cheaper except by reducing the cost of inputs and building plants.
      
      The efficiency of production is right up near the theoretical maximum for thermal, solar, wind and hydro.
      
      Improving a technology from, say, 20% to 50% of maximum efficiency is relatively easy, but when you’re well over 90% of maximum efficiency then squeezing out another 1% is bloody difficult.
      
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      December 26, 2024 4:08pm
- cmm
  
  It isn’t really trying to achieve nuclear fusion, but rather develop what one might call some pre-cursor technologies.
  
  Like most things in this space, I am extremely skeptical. Lots of hype etc etc.
  
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  December 26, 2024 3:38pm
- Burtland
  
  maori wonderfulness verses hard nuclear physics
  
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  December 26, 2024 5:16pm
MCōs

Mr Trump’s Christmas message makes for fun reading & riles up some people who were expecting something more mature
https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1872024447554929028?s=46&t=XZLqGbhN-xeYzprhTaktsg
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December 26, 2024 12:07pm
AitchW

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/karanga-plaza-pool-safeswim-declares-new-auckland-pool-unsafe-days-after-opening/PA34HJPCGRFJPBGFYYPU7WTQ3Y/
Auckland’s new saltwater pool unsafe due to fecal contamination.
Bloody dairy farmers.///
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December 26, 2024 1:28pm
rouppe

Looking at Stuff, and there’s an item there about the work of Masterton District Council and their 2024 annual report.

Talks about a focus on the “basics”. Specifically there is mention that

council renewed 3.74km of water mains, replaced or relined 4.3km of sewer mains, resealed 31km of roads, and applied 12,000 tonnes of gravel to unsealed roads.

Even though it’s a smaller council, I thought “that’s not much”.

Since they mentioned their annual report, I wondered what I could find in Wellington city councils annual report.

Well once you got past all the verbiage, there was only one reference to actual work on the three waters system, being the new Taranaki Street Rising Main Project (page 58). They have laid 861m of pipe.

Masterton has renewed replaced or relined 8000m of pipes, and Wellington has only managed 861m.

What a disgrace.
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December 26, 2024 3:04pm
- AitchW
  
  Wellington has more pressing matters like demolishing and rebuilding the city to sea bridge when engineering report are quite clear that it’s not necessary.
  Other peoples’ money.
  
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  December 26, 2024 3:46pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  WCC is always working as hard as they can to get shit done.//
  
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  December 26, 2024 4:00pm
- greybeard
  
  Masterton is dead flat.
  You may not have noticed that bugger-all of Wellington is flat. It has twisty roads, banks, heaps more traffic, older infrastructure, do I need to carry on ?
  
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  December 26, 2024 7:05pm
  - rouppe
    
    You may not have noticed that the Taranaki Street Rising Main Project is on Taranaki Street, which is dead straight, and pretty damn flat.
    
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    December 26, 2024 7:14pm
Allan

There are a number of YouTube videos purporting that the latest airline disaster is the result of another Russian missile shootdown.
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December 26, 2024 3:16pm
- KH
  
  And the Americans shot down their own F18 fighter plane over the Red Sea a few days ago.
  Complete screwup.
  Best not to go anywhere near.
  
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  December 26, 2024 5:11pm
AitchW

Why, in cricket, does Australia report the batting side’s score backwards ie 1 for 120 rather than 120 for 1?
Surely the number of runs is the critical number?
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December 26, 2024 3:45pm
- Steve Otto N Shore
  
  Common core math? Try it. It is shit!!
  
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  December 26, 2024 4:02pm
- MCōs
  
  I put your question to Google because I wanted to know too.
  Next question, why does America use so many odd units and date arrangements?
  
  When the first scoreboard was built in Australia about 1890 it had wickets before runs, therefore it become customary to say the score the same as it read on the scoreboard, like 2-78 instead of 78-2, since all scoreboards built after that were probably built with the same design its difficult to change a tradition that has lasted for generations.
  
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  December 26, 2024 4:20pm
  - AitchW
    
    Thanks, I thought it was just the Aussies being contrary. Like when they had 8 ball overs!
    
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    December 26, 2024 8:26pm
- Allan
  
  It is supposed to be when talking about the batting side put runs first. When talking about the fielding effort wickets taken are more important so they go first.
  
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  December 26, 2024 6:49pm
cmm

The cops are giving advice to people who turn up first at a crash. Generally useful, but I think they miss one very important factor.

Always keep some tough gloves in the car. Something I learned the hard way.

In 2000, we were driving home at about 3am having just flown in from Australia. As we drove through Kirwee we saw a bizarre sight of a car rolled onto its side and roof on fire – right outside the front of the Kirwee fire station.

We stopped to give assistance – as did someone else – and dragged the driver out of the car.

Although we had a first aid kit in the car – with disposable rubber gloves, I didn’t put them on (not that those would have helped).

I ended up cutting my hands and getting this guy’s blood all over my bands too. Being a father of a young family I was crapping myself I’d picked up some disease (especially since a family member in South Africa was going through the last few months of his life with AIDS).

It was a very nervous few days before I got the information that he was clean (through some illegal, but I feel morally justified, methods).

So new rule: carry tough, waterproof, gloves in your car and use them. Chances are you won’t need them as I did, but they’ll still be handy if you need to change a tyre.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/never-a-time-to-be-a-hero-hawkes-bay-police-officers-tips-for-being-first-on-crash-scene/HX3JHH3C45EUJMY5HYQKKVDRDY/
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December 26, 2024 4:02pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Who is this Governor Justin Trudeau of Canada?

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/other/donald-trump-s-offer-to-people-of-canada-in-bid-to-take-over/ar-AA1wtYgD?
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December 26, 2024 4:48pm
Steve Otto N Shore

America.
On January 20th we’re doing the Hokey Pokey.
Put the right ones in, take the left ones out!
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December 26, 2024 5:05pm
- imalwaysright
  
  Very good
  
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  December 26, 2024 6:23pm
cmm

“The boxer, once seen as an inspiration to millions of young athletes,…”

Ummm, on the flip side, I wonder how many more millions of real female athletes just threw in the towel realising their chance at competing is being wrecked by trans people.

I have nothing against trans people. I have a trans family member. I think people should do whatever makes them feel comfortable and fulfilled. However demanding that others allow them to compete in the category of their choosing is ridiculous.

You may as well just do away with sporting categories.
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December 26, 2024 6:07pm
greybeard

New coach in July.
New super-tall player with doubtful pedigree.
Repulsive pink pansy uniforms.
Why would the Breakers think they could do well this season !
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December 26, 2024 7:00pm
- MCōs
  
  What’s your problem with Tacko Fall?
  Senegalese people tend to be on the tall side and in his particular case he’s very intelligent and he sings well too!
  The Penrith Panthers NRL team have a pink jersey and they’ve won the championship the last four years. Go and tell them they’re soft or whatever.
  
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  December 26, 2024 7:40pm

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