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January 8, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 08 January 2025

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Pineapple Lumps

Time for some gratitude today – thanks DPF for this blog! Thanks to all those that contribute, I appreciate getting my daily dose of information.
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January 8, 2025 12:53pm
Bridgenag

An Interview with MEP Cristian Terhes
A European/Romanian point of view concerning recent events including the COVIDcrisis

“I can smell Tyranny from afar because I used to live under one. And I don’t want to want that situation to be repeated.”

https://www.malone.news/p/an-interview-with-mep-cristian-terhes?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
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January 8, 2025 12:53pm
- Tauhei Notts
  
  Thank you Bridgenag for bringing that to our attention.
  I thought the best part was how Russian disinformation was able to promote Germany’s idiotic Green Party to pursue Green actions that were great for Russia but awful for Germany. The Green Party’s actions made Germany dependent upon Russian gas. Now the Krauts have to import electricity from the French. Green politicians, they are dreadful wherever they are.
  
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  January 8, 2025 1:41pm
  - kowtow
    
    Social Democrat Chancellor Schroder was donkey deep getting Germany hooked on Russian gas , even getting the pipes laid under the Baltic to by pass the pesky Poles.
    
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    January 8, 2025 4:59pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Woohoo! Here we go!
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January 8, 2025 1:15pm
Keith White

Seen elsewhere…

“It simply cannot be swept under the rug or sugar-coated any longer: the Western order is in literal crisis. The people have had enough, and the avalanche is picking up inertia because the process is a self-reinforcing feedback loop: the more wanton elites fall, the more that citizens are energized to rise up against them. And when that happens, the elites are forced to clamp and double down on their lies, hypocrisy, and repressions in a futile attempt to stem the flow; this leads to even more ill-will, resentment, and revolt against their destructive policies.”

NZ is in start-up mode in this.
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January 8, 2025 1:22pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

A pensioner commented that the old Dixon St flats “were literally controlled by druggies and criminals”. His current Housing NZ block of flats reeks of cannabis smoke; he sprays lavender to counter the odour.

Harry Brown took a different approach.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360541160/kainga-ora-tenant-says-his-wellington-flat-reeks-cannabis-smoke

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OVOSfHFNlcI
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January 8, 2025 1:28pm
Keith White

Had a really interesting, for some values of the word interesting, consultation here over the weekend, with someone from the southern hemisphere.

I heard an argument developing from the triage area so wandered out into the waiting room.

Second impression I got was why would you tattoo something so extremely silly along the lines of ‘Hakuna Matata’ on your forehead (it was not that exact expression, in the interests of patient confidentiality I shouldn’t tell you what it actually was — but it was equally vapid and movie-sourced). First impression I got was gimme sunglasses please, what a virulent shade of hair dye.

Anyway, before proceeding with any consultation the organism insisted to be assured by the triage nurse that everybody involved in its care would be using its preferred pronouns.

Well I’m not a biologist, but fortunately I’d studied biology, and even from an arm’s-length public view I could tell this organism was very most definitely gestated with 2 X chromosomes. But it refused! to be seen unless it could be guaranteed to have its preferred pronouns used at all times and by everybody.

Much as I would like to think from a Darwinian perspective that that was its choice, from a professional Hippocratic perspective one doesn’t really want to see somebody march out of an ER with an acute treatable illness which could cause big problems and potentially death – because we don’t start off by going along with their fantasy. So, let’s see if we can help by starting with indulging that particular aberration long enough to get history of the presenting complaint, relevant past medical and travel history, some symptoms, and the opportunity to take some signs; after all, and these examples did not apply in this case – sometimes a head injury or a diabetic hypoglycaemic crisis can present as drug or alcohol-based intoxication or an acute psychiatric condition quite convincingly; as can hypoxia (low oxygen levels)…

In medicine there has long been a saying “when you hear hoof beats, think horses not zebras, but every now and then, a zebra will come along so don’t miss it.” IOW, common things occur commonly, but don’t miss the uncommon.

Well.

No good deed goes unpunished is a maxim I have long subscribed to, and am tempted to say that the Ghost of Christmas Past set this one up for us for the start of the New Year…

Counting all the personnel involved in assessing that individual, not to mention the additional costs of imaging, lab work and so forth to chase down what turned out after very careful investigation and a lotta cogitation to be an inconsistent and finally self-admitted presentation; I doubt that it sulked/flounced out of the ER again without at least 20 K of that country’s taxpayers’ dollars having been expended on it.

In the end the most likely summary was fantastical multi-morbidity = reported co-occurrence of multiple diseases and conditions without basis in proven fact; but the diagnosis is more professionally expressed as somatisation (“tendency to experience psychological distress in the form of somatic symptoms and to seek medical help for these symptoms.”)

But think of all of the less dramatic people who had to wait / wait longer while we sorted this one out…
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January 8, 2025 1:39pm
Maggy Wassilieff

A socialist view of Tariana Turia and The Maori Party:

The chorus of praise for Turia, however, underscores the fact that TPM does not represent any real alternative to the political establishment. It is a right-wing party that for the past two decades has represented the interests of indigenous capitalists, who control tens of billions of dollars in business assets.

The oppression of the Māori working class will not be alleviated one iota by giving more wealth and power to the tribal capitalists who are every bit as ruthless and reactionary as their non-Māori counterparts.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/01/07/ackf-j07.html?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
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January 8, 2025 1:47pm
- pdm
  
  `The oppression of the Māori working class will not be alleviated one iota by giving more wealth and power to the tribal capitalists who are every bit as ruthless and reactionary as their non-Māori counterparts.’
  
  That is telling the `tattooed stetson wearer’ and the `irish lady’ something.
  
  Let me throw in a bonus issue from Labour – `wee willie’ Jackson, Peeni Henare and a few others who are of the same ilk.
  
  No help for oppressed Maori from Labour or the Maori Party then.
  
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  January 8, 2025 2:03pm
  - Suze Wainwright
    
    Don’t rule out Chloe and the Green Party of Aotearoa/New Zealand then.
    
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    January 8, 2025 2:11pm
  - Cassandra
    
    It’s written by a socialist but nevertheless it’s correct. Maoridom is an aristocracy, c/w titles.
    
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    January 8, 2025 2:13pm
    - greybeard
      
      This word “maoridom” has me worried: just as “femdom” is short for “female domination” could it be that all this time people have been happily talking about “maori domination” ?
      
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      January 8, 2025 3:25pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Maori Dominion maybe ?
        
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        January 8, 2025 3:46pm
      - ChristopherW2
        
        The ‘-dom’ is domain; a kingdom is domain ruled by a king; ‘linguistic variation by analogy’ means this suffix can now be applied to any group of people or in fact area of commonality.
        
        ‘-dom’ incidentally, is a ‘productive affix’ (like -ish and -ify), which means you can invent your own new words by using it, and other English speakers will understand you. In fact, anyone in Kiwiblogdom can!
        
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        January 8, 2025 4:47pm
- Toes on the nose
  
  Not just oppression of maori but also the foreign slaves on fishing boats when they tried to be exempt from minimum wage requirements for fishing boats…we’re sooo caring we want to oppress foreign taurekareka…
  
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  January 8, 2025 2:20pm
- Hugh Jarse
  
  Not much wrong with that statement.
  
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  January 8, 2025 2:58pm
Steve Otto N Shore

American Women Have Until January 20th To Find A Man To Get Them Pregnant.

https://babylonbee.com/news/reminder-american-women-have-until-january-20th-to-find-a-man-to-get-them-pregnant-or-one-will-be-selected-for-them?
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January 8, 2025 1:57pm
- slightlyrighty
  
  FFS, don’t give him ideas!!
  
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  January 8, 2025 2:01pm
- alwyn.a
  
  I realise that Trump is bonkers but I didn’t expect him, at his advanced age, to think that the powers of the President include the medieval “Droit du seigneur” and that he planned to exercise it. Surely it was bad enough that the old coot thinks he has the power to take over Canada and Greenland without having him adopt this idea as well?
  
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  January 8, 2025 2:14pm
  - peterwn
    
    Trump is being really arrogant in wanting to take over Canada as the 51st state, it should be the 51st to 60th states – the 10 provinces of Canada. And there are three Canadian territories should then be accorded similar status to US territories eg Puerto Rico. Presumably some Americans noses are out of joint as they have to drive through Canada to get to Alaska, especially those with criminal records who are not permitted to enter Canada.
    
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    January 8, 2025 8:59pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      […] it should be the 51st to 60th states – […].
      
      Quite right, peterwn.
      
      The same when people occasionally say that should New Zealand become the seventh state of Australia, I bristle. No! The North and South Islands should become the seventh and eighth states of Australia.
      
      Fortunately, there is no way, in my opinion, that either will ever happen.
      
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      January 8, 2025 9:46pm
- kevn
  
  SteveO… and an un-jabbed one to be certain.
  
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  January 8, 2025 4:04pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Joes schedule for his last two weeks.

https://babylonbee.com/news/the-babylon-bee-has-obtained-the-official-white-house-schedule-for-the-final-two-weeks-of-bidens-presidency?
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January 8, 2025 1:59pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Cameras have been following Meghan the whole time!

https://babylonbee.com/news/meghan-markle-horrified-to-learn-netflix-cameras-have-been-following-her-this-whole-time?
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January 8, 2025 2:01pm
- kevn
  
  SteveO… Off the record. That might make the best Netflix, ala The Truman Show movie.
  
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  January 8, 2025 4:06pm
Philview

The UK’s Conservativehome site gave the Justin/Jacinda combo some criticism today. The comments there indicate left wing activists are out in force.

https://conservativehome.com/2025/01/07/time-to-say-a-final-goodbye-to-that-worst-style-of-leadership-the-sanctimonious-political-preacher/
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January 8, 2025 2:02pm
cas

I see that the marae where Tariana was lying had a different set of standards from one day to another; one day not letting 3 former PMs speak in English, the next day Tariana’s Chief of Staff and a Private Secretary spoke in English.

I wonder what we are to make of this.
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January 8, 2025 2:23pm
cmm

Well the cops’ 105 reporting system seems to be doing well…

A bit earlier today I saw a suspicious looking individual parking a car opposite our house. I looked it up on the police stolen vehicle page and it had been stolen earlier today.

I reported it and the owners rocked up within 15 minutes.

No show from the cops though…
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January 8, 2025 2:26pm
- NothingLeft
  
  China cutting Taiwanese internet cables. Escalatory in days prior to Trump returning to oval office. Elon (with SpaceX’s Starlink being the more physically secure alternative) will be laughing.
  
  https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/taiwan-coast-guard-says-investigation-damaged-undersea-cable-stymied-by-weather-2025-01-07/
  
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  January 8, 2025 2:38pm
  - Jack5
    
    While we’re discussing cable sabotage, an update on the Baltic under-sea electricity and internet cables allegedly sabotaged by the Cook Islands-registered tanker Eagle S …
    
    The Helsinki Times reports the Finnish telecommunications company ELISA says that two of its three broken submarine data cables have been repaired after damage caused on Christmas Day by the Eagle S dragging its anchor on the sea floor.
    
    A Finnish cable-laying ship Telepaatti, was sent to repair the cables on January 2. The vessel has since moved on to start work on the third data cable damaged.
    
    Finland’s the National Bureau of Investigation (KRP) on 29 December seized the Eagle S as part of a pre-trial investigation.
    
    The newspaper reports ELISA and Fingrid, the Finnish power transmission grid operator, have now petitioned the District Court of Helsinki for seizure of the Eagle S. This relates to potential damages.
    
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    January 8, 2025 10:51pm
- cmm
  
  Well after another hour of waiting, this poor family might be lucky to get their car back but the vehicle is sufficiently damaged that they need a tow truck to recover it.
  
  A day of holiday wasted, drama they don’t need, tow truck costs, repairs….
  
  All so that some wee arse-wipe criminal scum can have an hour of joy-riding!
  
  This erosion of society is not enough for the cops to do anything constructive.
  
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  January 8, 2025 3:02pm
  - AitchW
    
    Hopefully they have insurance.
    
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    January 8, 2025 6:09pm
    - cmm
      
      Insurance only covers some of the cost. On top of that there’s also just all the plain hassle of losing a day of holiday and the feeling of violation that some swine has been through your stuff.
      
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      January 8, 2025 8:47pm
Steve Otto N Shore

Meta says Fact Checkers Were the Problem.
Fact Checkers rule that False.
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January 8, 2025 2:39pm
- Chris Nisbet
  
  One of the reasons given for getting rid of fact checkers was that they were too biased. How does that work? Can facts be biased? Is a little bit of extreme bias OK?
  
  And was it fact checkers who suspended Trump’s FB account?
  I think not. Their issues run deeper than fact checkers.
  
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  January 8, 2025 5:43pm
- cmm
  
  Of course they will say Fact Checkers are the problem.
  It’s always nice to find a scapegoat to throw under the bus.
  
  We got rid of the fact checkers so we’re all sweet now? Right?
  
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  January 8, 2025 8:49pm
MCōs

Yesterday we drove down to a nearby strawberry farm farm for an ice cream. On the way there we passed a big crowd at the Mangere Cemetery including six police cars
No gang patches, a lot of people wearing black tee shirts with a big photograph of the deceased
There were a few grunty motorbikes on trailers. I think they’d taken them there to do burnouts going by the state of the road.
We must have just missed that, which was a shame.
On the way back home they were starting to leave and there were even more police cars with indifferent occupants.
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January 8, 2025 3:01pm
- cmm
  
  I’ll guarantee there was at least some level of criminal offending at the event.
  
  A gang member does not deserve a heroes’ send off. He’s a scum criminal and deserves no dignity.
  
  Cops need to be harrassing the gangs all the time. Even at funerals. If they send a cop car out there should be some arrests. Cops need quotas.
  
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  January 8, 2025 4:05pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  I gather no gun salutes were to be had, must be the rival gangs kept away.
  
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  January 8, 2025 4:48pm
- MCōs
  
  Across town at St Luke’s Mall at about the same time yet another Michael Hill was being visited by less than discerning robbers
  Maybe the coppers have their priorities wrong
  
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  January 8, 2025 4:54pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    Well the Police caught the St Luke’s mall theives – so seems like they can do more than one thing at a time.
    
    Well done to the Police!
    
    Now any guesses as to what the judiciary will do with the 17-19 year old trio?
    
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    January 8, 2025 5:03pm
Jack5

Mass immigration is one of the issues that brought down Pierre Trudeau as Canadian Prime Minister. Specifically, immigration outrunning housing supply.

How do NZ and Canada compare in immigration?

Here’s a very rough comparison.

Canadian 2024 migration inflow divided by population gives the year’s migrants being the equivalent of 1.19 per cent of the national population.

New Zealand provisional estimates of net immigration gain for the January 2024 year divided by estimates of total current NZ population gives 2.46 per cent.

Surely not? NZ immigration flow in the last year of Labour, running at twice the rate that has brought down the Canadian Prime Minister.

The figures:

First, from Statistics Canada, the population of Canada reached an estimated 41,288,599 on July 1, 2024. And, from Immigration Canada on June 24:
“Projecting out from the first four months of this year to the rest of the year would result in 492,795 new permanent residents to Canada this year, up 4.4 per cent from last year’s record-breaking level of 471,810.

Second, from Statistics NZ’s population clock, NZ population 5,447,546. And from Stats NZ provisional estimates for the January 2024 year compared with January 2023 year:

– NZ migrant arrivals: 257,200, up 91 per cent
– Migrant departures: 123,300, up 30 per cent
– NZ annual net migration: gain 133,800, compared with a net gain of 39,100.
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January 8, 2025 3:05pm
Swifty

Oh look, more taxpayer money squandered by gambling on the private sector:

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/538459/first-large-scale-vertical-farm-greenleaf-fresh-failed-owes-millions

Which politician will now retire from public life?
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January 8, 2025 3:50pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  It’ll have to be a Labour MP….as the $3.5 Million hand-out was granted in March 2023.
  
  Things got brighter still when in March 2023 they received a $3.5 million government grant, as part of the Ministry of Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food and Fibres Futures programme, to support ongoing research and development into sustainability in food and fibre production.
  
  https://www.techinthetron.com/hamiltons-greengrower-leads-nzs-vertical-farming-revolution/
  
  Damien O’Connor must be ready for retirement…
  
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  January 8, 2025 7:10pm
- cmm
  
  A vertical farm is a completely stupid idea in a country with small cities and large tracts of market garden land near all our towns and cities.
  
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  January 8, 2025 8:51pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Yep…and not understanding which green veggies are bought in quantity.
    
    No-where on the company’s website does it indicate a sales channel through which retailers might have placed orders. Greengrower prioritised research and development into new crops and varietal innovations rather than focusing on commercial production of staple greens like lettuce or spinach, which could have generated short-term revenue.
    
    https://www.planetfood.news/post/why-did-kiwi-greenleaf-fresh-s-vertical-farm-fail-cash-flow-market-realities-and-strategic-misste
    
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    January 8, 2025 9:26pm

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