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June 14, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 14 June 2025

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CJames

Overnight, Spiked posted an opinion piece by Brendan O’Neil on the Israeli response to Iran and how the Western elites will react to it. Here is a sample:
“ One envisions Starmer and the rest issuing their chickenshit cries at every crisis point in human history. To America after Pearl Harbour, or to the Free French army following the Nazi conquest of France: ‘Show restraint. Step back. Don’t do anything too risky.’ It is moral cowardice in the drag of diplomacy, spinelessness dolled up as peacemaking. It is even worse on the so-called left, which expressly calls on Israel and Israel alone to lay down arms. That these people now shed tears over Israel’s assassination of Islamist tyrants confirms that it was never the tragic death of Palestinian civilians that horrified them about the Gaza war – it was the temerity of the Jewish State in standing up for itself against its foes. Their ‘pacifism’ masks a disgustingly blasé attitude towards the murder of Jews by religious hysterics.”
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/13/iran-brendan/
All I can say is: Stop showing restraint Brendan. Tell us what you really think.
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June 14, 2025 8:00am
- CJames
  
  Today’s cartoon in “The Australian” sums up how many feel. They don’t normally do a Saturday cartoon so it is something their editorial board must feel strongly on. Here is the paper for those that don’t have it in their Favourites.
  https://www.theaustralian.com.au/
  A real contrast between that paper’s main webpage and The Herald.
  
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  June 14, 2025 8:11am
  - RichardF
    
    We are poorly served by media in this country. The Australian is an outstanding publication. I read it this morning and it had many pages of detailed analysis of the situation. Contrast that to the Herald which ran a small story from the Assocated Press, and who’s main ‘World’ section story was about the Valencia Floods a year ago. If you want serious news, analysis and non-left views, you have to look overseas, because you won’t find it in NZ.
    
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    June 14, 2025 8:44am
  - David Garrett
    
    CJ: Where is this cartoon you refer to?
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:53am
    - CJames
      
      about three quarters of the way down their main page at the link given, (Daily Cartoon by Spooner) but it may not be there if you look at the truncated version of that page on a phone or tablet
      
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      June 14, 2025 10:19am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        The Australian is good but many of the links therein are just bait and switch to paywall.
        
        Note: Probably worth paying for but I’m at my subscriptions budget limit.
        
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        June 14, 2025 7:50pm
    - G152
      
      Beehive, Wellington David
      
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      June 14, 2025 1:33pm
    - rouppe
      
      Hamburger menu->opinion->cartoons
      
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      June 14, 2025 3:33pm
- mike
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  What a load of nonsense.
  It’s alarmingly common to see these bogus comparisons from history. The historical examples chosen can almost always be used to support alternatives in the present day.
  As for the ‘so-called left, which expressly calls on Israel and Israel alone to lay down arms’, I’m amazed the people can swallow such rubbish.
  
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  June 14, 2025 8:32am
  - Cassandra
    
    Actually the left calls for Israel’s destruction. Sometimes directly. NZ Green MPs are not wearing their keffiyehs as fashion accessories.
    
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    June 14, 2025 8:38am
    - mike
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      Two problems:
      1. The ‘left’ seems a conveniently flexible label.
      2. You seem to equate sympathy for suffering Palestinians with a desire to destroy Israel.
      A moment’s self-reflection should make one aware of the less-than-sound basis for those opinions.
      
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      June 14, 2025 8:42am
      - Cassandra
        
        It’s a blog, mike. Repeating each time my full thoughts on this matter would be a tad tedious. You might consider adding your views on Israel’s right to exist each time you post. Blogs don’t work that way. Iran and much of the Arab world want to destroy Israel. Israel does not want to destroy anything outside of its historic borders. Sure it wants Judea and it’d really like the Arabs to move to Jordan but that’s a much smaller goal than the Iranian/Arab one of total annihilation.
        
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        June 14, 2025 8:51am
      - mike
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        You seem to assume I don’t support Israel’s right to exist. Encouraging Jewish colonization of Palestine was a stupid thing (immediately before a worldwide surge of decolonization) for the allied powers to do. It’s a big jump from that, though, to assume any critic of Israel wants the destruction of the Jewish state.
        
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        June 14, 2025 9:00am
      - Cassandra
        
        But according to your blog theory, mike, you should explain the details every time you post. Actually, the two state solution is in abeyance. It died ages ago and its resurrection will take a generation. For the present there is no solution. If the Arabs can be persuaded to stop attacks then the Israelis might be forced into stopping their expansion.
        
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        June 14, 2025 9:07am
      - mike
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        You really do seem to think it’s ‘the Jews’ versus ‘the Arabs’ (although by ‘Arabs’ you possibly mean Persians, Turks and any other Muslims). I used to be surprised by shallow thinking, before I discovered Kiwiblog.
        
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        June 14, 2025 9:12am
      - Cassandra
        
        Mike: by Arabs I meant Arabs ie the residents of Gaza and the West Bank. From an acorn might spring an oak.
        
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        June 14, 2025 9:38am
      - Culture War Criminal
        
        “From an acorn might spring an oak.”
        
        In the same way that a small Jewish settlement grew, fertilised by the resources extracted and pumped into it from the Western world, to became a bellicose pariah state?
        
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        June 14, 2025 11:18am
      - rouppe
        
        “Encouraging Jewish colonization of Palestine…”
        
        Maybe REcolonisation would be a better term, since Jews were living in that land thousands of years before Islam came into being and lived through occupations by the Babylonians, the Persians and the Romans before being dispersed.
        
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        June 14, 2025 3:38pm
    - MCōs
      
      The Greens no more represent all the left than any one Asian country for example, represent all of Asia.
      Plus the Greens, who are undoubtedly left, do not call for the destruction of Israel. They want a two state solution.
      
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      June 14, 2025 8:59am
      - Cassandra
        
        From the river to the sea doesn’t seem to be two states.
        
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        June 14, 2025 9:02am
      - mike
        
        Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
        From the River to the Sea is in Likud’s founding charter. Linking that slogan to antisemitism is bogus.
        
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        June 14, 2025 9:08am
      - David Garrett
        
        MCos: Plus the Greens, who are undoubtedly left, do not call for the destruction of Israel. They want a two state solution
        
        Ah, No. If “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is what the Greens support, where does the present state of Israel fit in that plan? Other than the occupied West Bank – which the Israelis shouldn’t be occupying IMO – all of the land between the Jordan river and the sea is currently the state of Israel.
        
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        June 14, 2025 9:58am
      - mike
        
        A ‘free Palestine’ can encompass a two-state solution. The enemies of peace: Hama and Likud (and its enablers) are united by their opposition to peace.
        
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        June 14, 2025 10:01am
      - CJames
        
        Yes Mike, from River to Sea was originally a Zionist slogan, but it was commandeered by the radical Palestinian and Arab causes and inverted. Now is a chant that has become a call for destruction of Israel, (the follow-on phrase gives it away) not a large Jewish country.
        Language changes. Just like woke was a term that came out of the radical left for themselves and is now used as terms of derision against them. Or coloured people becoming people of colour. Words should be understood in the context of when they are said and by whom.
        
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        June 14, 2025 10:04am
      - Culture War Criminal
        
        “…from River to Sea was originally a Zionist slogan”
        
        It still is, at the very least implicitly. The Jews aren’t dumb enough to condemn the Palestinians for using a phrase that represents their own beliefs, but with regard to Israel.
        
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        June 14, 2025 10:14am
      - Cassandra
        
        Actually Ben Gurion in 1948 claimed Judea and Samaria as “eventually”. These days that’s restricted to Likud’s right wing allies but I suspect most Israelis would be happy to the West Bank become the East Bank. Jordan was part of Palestine.
        
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        June 14, 2025 10:33am
      - Culture War Criminal
        
        “A ‘free Palestine’ can encompass a two-state solution.”
        
        That’s not the Zionist mindset, which tends to be very black and white: either Israel wipes out all opposition, or Israel will not exist. When you understand that “Israel has a right to exist” means that they must decimate or otherwise subjugate their neighbours, what Israel has been doing and saying for the last 80 years makes perfect sense, and is why they don’t want peace. What would peace mean in this context? That they must acknowledge their neighbours’ own right to exist, which the Israelis do not acknowledge.
        
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        June 14, 2025 11:21am
- Culture War Criminal
  
  Brendan O’Neill is completely unhinged when it comes to the Israel issue. As far as I can tell, he’s not even Jewish, but you’d think he was, given his hysterical outpourings. O’Neill is, or was, a radical Marxist and Trotskyist, so that may explain his affinity for the radical Jews, but otherwise, it’s a bit of a head scratcher.
  
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  June 14, 2025 11:49am
  - CJames
    
    Why does it matter what his ethnicity is to support Israel? He is actually working class Irish Catholic background. He just strongly believes in the Western liberal democracy, just like Doulas Murray does. Israel is the border outpost of that tradition. If Israel falls, it will be a harbinger and so will the west.
    
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    June 14, 2025 1:06pm
    - Culture War Criminal
      
      “Why does it matter what his ethnicity is to support Israel? ”
      
      It’s of course not necessary to be Jewish to support Israel, but it certainly helps. It’s extremely odd, what’s more, for someone with no obvious reason to so strongly support a foreign country (O’Neill being English), and you’d have to ask why.
      
      Usually, when the Israel shilling by a gentile is so pronounced, its because they are being paid to have that position and they are just reading the same script as the other shills. Look at social media and you’ll see all of the same talking points coming from “conservative influencers” who are not Jewish (and many who are) but who are on the payroll. Many of these same “opinions” then make into the comments of blog sites, but it’s not that organic.
      
      Jews tend to be extremely ethnocentric and tribal, as we clearly saw post October 7 when Jews of all political persuasions rallied behind “their” people and “their” country. So-called leftist Jews and so-called conservative Jews all just became “Jews” with no further modification. Now, there’s nothing wrong with this in-group/out-group dynamic in itself (in fact, Whites should have their own and emulated the Jews), but it is very observable in this case.
      
      “He just strongly believes in the Western liberal democracy, just like Doulas Murray does. Israel is the border outpost of that tradition. If Israel falls, it will be a harbinger and so will the west.”
      
      Douglas Murray is married to a Jewish man, so he’s practically Jewish himself. I would also be amazed in he too was not materially benefitting from his Zionist positions.
      
      Moreover, I don’t think Israel is “an outpost” of the Western tradition, so, as a Westerner, I am indifferent to whether Israel stands or falls. I also don’t think Jews believe this idea either: if they are so “Western” then why do they need their own country where they can feel safe from us Westerners, in the event we collectivise against them? This is their own argument, not mine, and it seems to directly contradict the “Jews-as-intrinsically-Western” common-cause argument.
      
      Yes, Jews have always lived (as tiny minorities) in the West, but they have also self-segregated from the gentiles, and have never seen themselves as part of wider European civilisation. There is no common interest just, in this case, Jewish interest that the West can help advance. It obviously suits Israel to pretend the opposite it true, but it isn’t.
      
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      June 14, 2025 1:39pm
Chuck Bird

It looks like Israel will remove the Iranian nuclear threat. Hopefully, this might mean a regime change.
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June 14, 2025 8:03am
- mike
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  It is far more likely that the attacks will mobilize popular support for the Iranian government, whose logical next step is to accelerate its acquisition of nuclear weapons, which are the only credible deterrent to future Israeli attacks.
  
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  June 14, 2025 8:35am
  - Dougal10
    
    No one else in the muslim world like the iran regime behind the scenes they will be secretly happy .
    
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    June 14, 2025 8:42am
  - RichardF
    
    The Israelis took out Iranian scientists and generals in their beds while they slept. They have Iran’s number and can do whatever they want, whenever they want. Acquire nuclear weapons? From Ebay? Not if the Israelis take out their procurement team.
    
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    June 14, 2025 8:49am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Maybe. It will be interesting to see whether the younger Iranian generation, among which are many who loathe the Islamist regime, rally around the flag.
    
    The Mullahs should recall that it was a previous younger generation that overthrew the Shah.
    
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    June 14, 2025 8:52am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      ….the younger Iranian generation, among which are many who loathe the Islamist regime, rally around the flag.
      
      The revolution is dead and the young men who were its core in 1979 are now old men who know it.
      
      By contrast the following videos are of Iranian schoolgirls protesting in 2022, here, here and here, defying the veil.
      
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      June 14, 2025 11:49am
      - NothingLeft
        
        The islamic revolution was born from a pro-democracy movement, seeking to overturn aristocracy. It was taken over by sociopathic religious nutters (as is always the way with revolutions) with powerbase in poor uneducated rural men at a time when it was only about 50% urbanized. Now Iran is >80% urban with a far higher average level of education. The mullahs are massively unpopular and are living on borrowed time.
        
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        June 14, 2025 4:31pm
  - pdm
    
    `………………………..whose logical next step is to accelerate its acquisition of nuclear weapons, which are the only credible deterrent to future Israeli attacks.’
    
    Not quite Mike.
    
    Iran could stand down militarily and stop funding and supporting with arms terrorist outfits like Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthi and the sundry other groups creating mayhem in the middle east.
    
    Peace may then become possible in the medium to longer term.
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:20am
    - mike
      
      Unlikely. Very unlikely. About as likely as the US surrendering to Mexico because of the ‘invasion’.
      
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      June 14, 2025 9:26am
    - Culture War Criminal
      
      So, peace through complete capitulation to Israeli demands and the attendant loss of sovereignty? That sounds like a great deal, I wonder why they aren’t falling over themselves to sign up to it.
      
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      June 14, 2025 10:11am
      - emmess
        
        Yes, Iran has no choice but to
        They can do it the easy way or the hard way
        
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        June 14, 2025 12:50pm
      - Culture War Criminal
        
        “They can do it the easy way or the hard way”
        
        Let’s back it up a bit here: why do you believe Iran needs to capitulate to Israel? Are Israel just “defending themselves” as they claim, or are they the ones going around threatening others that get in their way?
        
        Giving other nations an ultimatum that they can capitulate “the easy way or the hard way” sounds singularly aggressive to me. Who do these people think they are? “Submit or die”? Such great people.
        
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        June 14, 2025 2:14pm
    - Jake Dee
      
      How does “Iran could stand down militarily” differ from disarmament?
      Since they were first developed by the Americans, nuclear weapons have been developed as a defence against another nuclear armed state and have achieved a balance of power between nuclear armed states, with one notable exception.
      The Soviets developed them to defend against the Americans. The British and French developed them to defend against the Soviets. The Chinese developed them to defend against the Soviets and Americans. The Indians developed them to defend against the Chinese and the Pakistanis developed them to defend against the Indians.
      The notable exception is Isreal that developed a clandestine nuclear weapons program without being threatened by a nuclear armed country and has never agreed to join the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which Iran has.
      Israel is not required to follow the rules, this is considered to be part of the “International Rules Based Order” that we are supposed to defend.
      
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      June 15, 2025 2:04am
  - CJames
    
    Really Mike. Do you really believe the average Iranian will rally round the flag to support the mad mullahs? All those decades of murderous suppression by the thugs of the IRG will be forgotten? Those multiple public hangings and attacks on uppity women are just rule by benevolent rulers? If you actually believe that, you live in rainbow dream utopia
    
    I work with a couple of ex-Iranians (they are ex because they are now NZ citizens and make a real positive contribution to our economy and society), both of whom were born after the Shah was deposed and who still have family living there. The tales they tell of the hardship and terror their relatives are suffering put a lie to all the puff pieces that the leftwing media publish.
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:53am
    - Culture War Criminal
      
      Which nations have the Judeo-Americans “regime-changed” into prosperity, freedom and liberation? Afghanistan? Iraq? Libya? Syria? I’m not seeing any.
      
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      June 14, 2025 10:08am
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Nazi Germany and WW2 Japan.
        
        Some cultures are just too infested with backward thugs.
        
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        June 14, 2025 6:54pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        Canada.
        USA.
        Australia.
        New Zealand.
        To a slightly lesser degree most of South America (relative to much more crappy and nasty shit-holes).
        
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        June 14, 2025 7:02pm
- Culture War Criminal
  
  “It looks like Israel will remove the Iranian nuclear threat. Hopefully, this might mean a regime change.”
  
  There is no Iranian nuclear threat; the point here, as always, is simply installing by force a regime that is compliant with Israel. Why else would a regime change be “needed”? Nothing to do at all with the Iranian people (who the Israelis seem happy to bomb if necessary), but everything to do with a regime that will do Israel’s bidding. The thing Israel hates the most is when others don’t kowtow to them and capitulate to their demands – “regime change” then is not about “freedom and democracy” and so on, it is ensuring another nation is nullified by compliant leadership.
  
  People have short memories or are wilfully ignorant on this issue: it’s just a re-run of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and all the others, none of whom seriously threatened Israel in actuality, but whom Israel regime-changed by force (using the US of course) under the pretext of “seff-defence” and it’s “right to exist” (which naturally entails other nations not existing instead).
  
  It’s fine if you genuinely want Israeli hegemony in the region (perhaps with the US dispensed with as their “closest ally” – having served their purpose?) and you are happy for the Jews to use as much force and violence as possible to achieve it. But stop telling me this is about morality and self-defence, because it is not about either.
  
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  June 14, 2025 9:20am
greybeard

I know that with so much dreadful stuff going on in the world at present that sports are not very important, but I hope South Africa polish them off tonight, and despite another 6 minutes of extra time from the ref this week the Blues still weren’t good enough.
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June 14, 2025 8:13am
- Colville
  
  Surprised me that the Blues backed up last week’s win as well as they did. Cracking game.
  Chiefs to smash Brumbies tonight.
  
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  June 14, 2025 8:21am
  - pdm
    
    Colville having watched last night as well as all last weeks games tactical leadership seems to be lacking in most if not all all of our NZ teams.
    
    The Chiefs without Luke Jacobson last week, as well as the Hurricanes and the Blues last night all struggled.
    
    Havilli was a step up from Tuipolotu last night so will be interesting to see the Chiefs with Jacobson back tonight.
    
    Scott Barrett will presumably continue as All Black Captain – I am not a fan of Savea’s leadership and it seems the only other option is Taylor who may not be a certain selection to start.
    
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    June 14, 2025 3:28pm
    - greybeard
      
      AB’s captain should be picked because of (a) IQ level and (b) ability to speak in the most articulate manner.
      
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      June 14, 2025 6:03pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Superpower Russia getting a bloody nose in Ukraine. Nuclear power Israel striking at maybe / wannabe nuclear power Iran. Land grabs in the South China Sea by you-know-who.

Benign strategic environment, Helen?

Your comments haven’t aged well.
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June 14, 2025 8:14am
- Tom Hunter
  
  TBF to Helen Clarke (and I can’t believe I’m writing this), her comment circa 2000 made sense back then:
  
  – Cold War over less than a decade earlier. The lifting of the pall of global thermonuclear war, especially seen in the massive, ongoing cuts in the numbers of nuclear weapons.
  
  – Massive “peace dividends” from cutting military expenditure.
  
  – Former Euro-communist nations hell-bent on economics.
  
  – Other commie nations like Cuba and North Korea regarded as a joke and ignored.
  
  – The biggest of all, China, only just joining the WTO, with every expectation that free trade would make the Chinese Communist Party even more amenable to other Western notions. No rapidly growing military or pushing the neighbours around (aside from the forever issue of Taiwan).
  
  – Western economies doing well, actually booming in the USA.
  
  – Islamic terrorism merely an occasional annoyance, harvesting a few souls here and there.
  
  – No mass immigration to Western nations, especially of the Islamic variety. Not even thought about really, aside from a few Lefties in love with “diversity”.
  
  Clarke’s mistake was in implying that the whole thing would remain a benign strategic environment.
  
  ** NOTE: I did vote for her in 1999. My bad.
  
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  June 14, 2025 12:03pm
Cassandra

The cheery news: today is World Gin Day and since the home of it is still on Friday, we can be the first to celebrate.
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June 14, 2025 8:20am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Cin cin!
  
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  June 14, 2025 8:35am
- Jethrod
  
  Now that is the first note of sense here today!!
  
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  June 14, 2025 8:59am
- sungsamning
  
  Must have one at the driving range if the bar is open.
  
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  June 14, 2025 11:19am
  - Jethrod
    
    No drinking and driving!
    
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    June 14, 2025 3:27pm
Yvette

Surely with-held from te Pati Maori, and others …

While some argue whether ‘tikanga’ has a place in New Zealand law (Supreme Court activist’s Trojan Horse in the non-Maori Ellis case) or in Parliamentary proceedings (performing spontaneous haka, in your Cowboy hat, and with gun gestures, and a lynch noose later), the Parliamentary Service and the Office of the Clerk are busy ensuring people feel comfortable engaging with te reo Māori and tikanga Māori and have a solid understanding of te Tiriti o Waitangi (written by white men, translated by white men, without any Maori input)

HE AO TAKITAKI – The stars that guide us
Te Ao Māori Strategy 2022 – 2025
… Establishing an ao Māori strategy has been a priority for us as agencies. Our people have been telling us they want this. We acknowledge that it is the right thing to do and that it will help us grow as agencies and in how we support Parliament.
https://www.parliament.nz/media/9285/te-ao-ma-ori-strategy-2022-2025.pdf

But apparently this guide can not have been shown yet to te Pati Maori, for them to have any knowledge of how to properly conduct themselves – that “the principles of partnership, protection, and participation are foundational to this kaupapa. Like the guiding stars (he ao takitaki), te Tiriti and the principles are incorporated into our guiding principles and our focus areas of people, places, and relationships,” that “together we are aboard our waka, and our guiding stars assist us in navigating our way through our mahi and the shared journey ahead.”

Political “Upstairs, Downstairs”?
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June 14, 2025 8:24am
Cassandra

Less cheery. Israel attacked Iran, targeting top commanders and nuclear facilities. Iran responded, targeting an apartment building (or more likely a suburb).
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June 14, 2025 8:33am
- mike
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Hamas attacks Israel; kills civilians – bad
  Israel attacks Gaza; kills civilians – good
  Israel attacks Iran; kills civilians – good
  Iran attacks Israel; kills civilians – bad
  Have I got that right?
  
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  June 14, 2025 8:38am
  - Cassandra
    
    No. Only twisted people would applaud civilian deaths. The key word is targeting. Israel is making an effort to limit collateral damage. Iran not so much.
    
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    June 14, 2025 8:41am
    - imalwaysright
      
      The word targeting is redundant if there is an expectation that civilians will die.
      Then it becomes a choice, no point saying later that it was unintentional.
      
      Killing the bad guys is fair enough, but how do they tell which ones are the bad guys?
      
      I’ve asked this question a few times here, but no answer.
      
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      June 14, 2025 9:47am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        No answer? Really? I put the following up here on KB back in late 2023, Bombing your way to proportionality.
        
        In a 1947 war crimes trial the chief defendant was one SS-Gruppenführer Otto Ohlendorf, commander of Einsatzgruppe D, operating in southern Ukraine, and the Caucasus. An economist and father of five, he had supervised the killing of 90,000 Jews. He imagined that he had a moral conscience and so made the following argument:
        
        I am not in a position to isolate this occurrence from the occurrences of 1943, 1944, and 1945 where with my own hands I took children and women out of the burning asphalt myself, and with my own hands I took big blocks of stone from the stomachs of pregnant women; and with my own eyes I saw 60,000 people die within 24 hours.
        …
        The fact that individual men killed civilians face to face is looked upon as terrible and is pictured as specially gruesome because the order was clearly given to kill these people; but I cannot morally evaluate a deed any better, a deed which makes it possible, by pushing a button, to kill a much larger number of civilians, men, women, and children.
        
        You’ll recognise the argument, we’ve been hearing from the pro-Palestinian side for years, and especially since 10/7/2023.
        
        It didn’t save him but the judges made a point of specifically responding to his argument:
        
        A city is bombed for tactical purposes… it inevitably happens that nonmilitary persons are killed. This is an incident, a grave incident to be sure, but an unavoidable corollary of battle action. The civilians are not individualized. The bomb falls, it is aimed at the railroad yards, houses along the tracks are hit and many of their occupants killed.
        
        But that is entirely different, both in fact and in law, from an armed force marching up to these same railroad tracks, entering those houses abutting thereon, dragging out the men, women and children and shooting them.
        
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        June 14, 2025 12:16pm
      - imalwaysright
        
        Thanks for taking the time to reply Tom, that’s a very interesting insight into the mindsets involved in such brutality. The judges were right.
        My point was how do they distinguish guerrilla combatants from the general population since the whole purpose is to look alike.
        I doubt it is possible, but giving the impression that it is possible is deceptive and seems designed to imply that targets are selected to kill as many Hamas and as few civilians as possible.
        The two are indistinguishable.
        
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        June 14, 2025 1:55pm
      - AitchW
        
        Thank you Tom. A beautifully eloquent response to the pro Palestine keffiyeh wearers.
        
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        June 14, 2025 5:38pm
  - Dougal10
    
    It was always going to go here , iran have been doing all the funding of the current war from a distance and now they find that they are actually donkey deep in it .
    
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    June 14, 2025 8:47am
  - pdm
    
    `Have I got that right?’
    
    Not within a `bulls roar’.
    
    Hamas, Hezbollah etc all have a history of hiding among civilians as well as at schools, hospitals etc thereby endangering civilians.
    
    Also they target random Israeli civilian’s eg ied’s on buses, missiles aimed into apartment blocks etc. Not to mention raping, pillaging and taking hostage innocents attending a concert which started the latest flare up and retaliation by Israel.
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:26am
    - Culture War Criminal
      
      “Hamas, Hezbollah etc all have a history of hiding among civilians as well as at schools, hospitals etc thereby endangering civilians.”
      
      Let’s assume this oft-asserted claim by Israel is true, which is very debatable, because “hiding among” civilian targets seems to have completely failed to achieve its ostensive purposes.
      
      If Israel knows this “human shield” activity to be true, then it necessarily follows that the Israelis are knowingly and willingly killing civilians regardless, which is a war crime. This is by their own admission, not some external source.
      
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      June 14, 2025 9:35am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        I see everybody else sensibly just down-ticking you rather than responding to a simple, old-fashioned Jew hater of the Right, but I’ll bite this time…
        
        …the Israelis are knowingly and willingly killing civilians regardless, which is a war crime.
        
        No, actually it’s not. See above
        
        In fact soldiers are held to have committed war crimes if they deliberately use civilians in their fighting, whether on attack or defence, while those fighting against them are not held to have done so even as they killed those civilians along with the enemy – or at least they were not in the past.
        
        Applying your rule, which is what Hamas wants, would mean the rules of war could be just thrown away, and while they don’t necessarily prevent bad things happening to civilians in war, not having them would mean open slather, like ancient tribal conflicts but with modern weapons.
        
        In this instance it would mean the Jews would be defenceless, unable to wage war even while being attacked by an enemy using civilians as cover.
        
        Which is what you also want of course.
        
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        June 14, 2025 12:32pm
  - Culture War Criminal
    
    Mike, you’ve got it 100% right, and the downticks will confirm this. The entire basis of Zionism is a gigantic double-standard that excuses anything Israel does, while condemning Israel’s adversaries for exactly the same behaviour. This is the truth. I don’t care if someone is a Zionist, but by being a Zionist, they have to be a hypocrite who twists language and bends logic to suit their worldview.
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:29am
    - Tom Hunter
      
      I’m sure you’ve just made Mike’s day. 😉
      
      Send him your links to Darryl Cooper, Nick Fuentes and Dan Bilzerian. 🤗🤗
      
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      June 14, 2025 12:36pm
      - Culture War Criminal
        
        “….Darryl Cooper, Nick Fuentes and Dan Bilzerian”
        
        What is it, in particular, about what any of these people say that you disagree with? Or indeed, what I say? It’s not enough to be annoyed by disagreement, you’ve got to articulate why you disagree.
        
        I disagree with Mike quite frequently, but when he’s right, he’s right. Down ticking a commenter you disagree with is one thing, but it’s not a counter argument.
        
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        June 14, 2025 12:40pm
- CJames
  
  This seems to be a textbook definition of a surgical strike.
  “At least 20 senior Iranian commanders were killed in Israel’s strikes on Iran on Friday, sources said. Six nuclear scientists have also been confirmed killed in the strikes.” ” Iranian state media were reported to have given an unofficial total of at least 78 people killed and more than 300 injured in Tehran. Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said most of the damage from strikes targeting its Natanz facility was at ground level and there had been “no casualties” there.”
  Maybe Iran needs to get its Hamas puppets to do its casualty figures
  
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  June 14, 2025 1:18pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Housing NZ cleans up after meth smoking tenants. No tenant is charged costs as HNZ considers meth use to be a health problem. There’s no bond, of course. Perhaps worst of all, such tenants are not referred to the Tenancy Tribunal, depriving landlords of the chance to see their renting history.

At a minimum, a policy change is required such that tenants reported to the Police by HNZ for meth use must also be taken to the Tribunal. It’s a forlorn hope that costs would be recovered from their former tenant, but recording the decision serves the public interest.

Minister for public housing Chris Bishop – take note.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/home-property/360719535/kainga-ora-spending-millions-meth-damage-not-making-tenants-pay
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June 14, 2025 8:34am
- Notsofast
  
  If meth contamination is so harmful to health, why aren’t the users all dead?
  
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  June 14, 2025 12:47pm
artemisia

Some significant Jewish communities in South America. Plan B?
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June 14, 2025 8:45am
mike

Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
You might actually believe that 40,000 civilian deaths (probably many more) are just ‘collateral damage’.
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June 14, 2025 8:45am
- Dougal10
  
  Its war , there are no such things as civilian deaths
  
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  June 14, 2025 8:49am
- Cassandra
  
  They are. And regrettable but the residents of Gaza voted Hamas in. What would you do? Now I think that the IDF should have been less aggressive but I also know what it’s like to be shot at and to see dozens of war dead. It does change your perspective.
  
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  June 14, 2025 8:55am
  - mike
    
    Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
    Israel’s response to a terrorist atrocity has been grossly disproportionate, weakens Israel’s security, guarantees further conflict, and has been pursued to assist Netanyahu’s desire to avoid prison for his corruption.
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:03am
    - Cassandra
      
      The demolition of Hamas has widespread support. Again, you can’t treat this like an isolated incident. And it’s not all about Bibi. He’ll have his day in court if he lives long enough. What do you think might have been proportionate? 10,000 rockets over 10 years finally makes the recipient lose patience.
      
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      June 14, 2025 9:12am
    - John Loveridge
      
      What would a proportionate response have been, Mike?
      
      Bibi’s trial is ongoing. Have you already judged him guilty?
      
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      June 14, 2025 9:35am
      - Tom Hunter
        
        Back in late 2023 one Lord Verdirame KC (Kings Counsel) gave a speech in the House of Lords specifically on the legal aspects of proportionality. More at the link but here’s a key part:
        
        “It does not mean that the defensive force has to be equal to the force used in the armed attack. Proportionality means that you can use force that is proportionate to the defensive objective, which is to stop, to repel and to prevent further attacks.
        
        Israel has described its war aims as the destruction of Hamas’s capability. From a legal perspective, these war aims are consistent with proportionality in the law of self-defence, given what Hamas says it does and what Hamas has done and continues to do.
        
        Asking a state that is acting in self-defence to agree to a ceasefire before its lawful defensive objectives have been met is, in effect, asking that state to stop defending itself.“
        
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        June 14, 2025 12:40pm
      - Culture War Criminal
        
        “Proportionality means that you can use force that is proportionate to the defensive objective, which is to stop, to repel and to prevent further attacks.”
        
        I think most people wouldn’t disagree with this. But also by this definition, we can conclude that Israel’s response has been grossly disproportionate. On the pretext of Oct 7th, Israel have flattened Gaza and look set to annex it; they have killed much of Hezbollah, overthrown the Syrian government, and now, have gone to war with Iran, which could easily escalate into a region-wide conflict.
        
        By any measure, this is radically disproportionate, yet some are still calling this geostrategic realignment (which was always the intention) “self-defence,” when it is nothing of the kind.
        
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        June 14, 2025 12:51pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        No, Israel’s objectives have not been met.
        1. The destruction of Hamas.
        2. The return of ALL the hostages.
        Hamas have persistently refused to return all the hostages, despite Israel saying it will institute a ceasefire, so Israel persists in it’s objectives.
        So Hamas are directly responsible for the continuing carnage, despite knowing the consequences of that refusal -if they returned the hostages, the hostilities would cease with a ceasefire.
        But Hamas don’t care about civilian deaths – it’s a part of their strategy.
        
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        June 14, 2025 3:55pm
    - Local Miller
      
      If Hamas had returned the hostages, many of which they still hold, Netanyahu would have stoped the response. Hamas chose to not do this and in so doing forced Israels hand.
      
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      June 14, 2025 10:30am
      - mike
        
        That assumes Netanyahu wants to stop.
        
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        June 14, 2025 2:10pm
  - Jake Dee
    
    And the democratic government of Israel paid for HAMAS.
    Why doesn’t that make them supporters of terrorism?
    Yet again Israel is held to a different set of rules.
    
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    June 15, 2025 2:15am
- AitchW
  
  Then perhaps Hamas might reconsider hiding weapons in schools and hospitals?
  They might reconsider firing missiles into Israel indiscriminately from schools and hospitals?
  They might reconsider building kilometres of tunnels to hide combatants and weapons under schools, hospitals, and houses?
  Hamas controls the media in Gaza, perhaps they might reconsider routinely lying about massive civilian casualties?
  Perhaps they might reconsider disguising combatants as civilians?
  Support for Hamas/Palestine is support for a genocidal regime bent only on the destruction of Israel and the death of every Jew in the world.
  
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  June 14, 2025 9:15am
- CJames
  
  “You might actually believe that 40,000 civilian deaths ” and you actually parrot Hamas or their proxies’ figures Mike. Proof of your gullibility to continue to believe proven liars. Wasn’t that the definition of the useful idiots?
  
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  June 14, 2025 9:16am
  - mike
    
    Does it make you feel better to imagine only 30,000 deaths. Anyway:
    
    In January 2025, a peer-reviewed analysis of deaths in the Gaza war between October 2023 and 30 June 2024 was published in The Lancet. The paper estimated 64,260 deaths from traumatic injury during this period, and likely exceeding 70,000 by October 2024, with 59.1% of them being women, children and the elderly. It concluded that the GHM undercounted trauma-related deaths by 41% in its report, and also noted that its findings “underestimate the full impact of the military operation in Gaza, as they do not account for non-trauma-related deaths resulting from health service disruption, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation.
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:21am
    - CJames
      
      And how many died in the Syrian civil war without a tear being shed? Or the breakup of Yugoslavia? How about South Sudan? Or many other conflicts.
      Waris brutal. It kills a lot of innocents. Regrettable but true. When there is a less selective morality by the left over that fact, then maybe I will pay attention.
      With regards the Lancet article by Khalib et al, I gather you also read the followup by Beyar ” Even if we accept the unverified numbers of direct civilian deaths provided by the Gaza Health Ministry, Khatib and colleagues deliver forecasts of indirect deaths using multipliers based on unsubstantiated assumptions, and then add some more tens of thousands to achieve a thought massacre, undermining credibility”
      Peer review means nothing, certainly not veracity, except some other peers thought it was worthwhile. Climate Science and Covid proved that.
      
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      June 14, 2025 10:16am
      - Don Beckett
        
        Mike.
        Does you statement include the innocent Gazans who were killed by Hamas for not going along with their hopeful genocide ? Thought not.
        
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        June 14, 2025 10:34am
      - CJames
        
        As well as that one Don, how about the 500 killed in a hospital carpark early on in the war? No-one seems to mention that mass killing nowadays. I wonder why that is?
        
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        June 14, 2025 11:32am
      - Culture War Criminal
        
        “…how about the 500 killed in a hospital carpark early on in the war? No-one seems to mention that mass killing nowadays.”
        
        It’s probably because, despite Israeli claims that Hamas had bombed their own people (why? this was never explained), it was later determined through video analysis that the kind of munitions used were not the generally more primitive kind Hamas would have access to, but were of the far more advanced kind typically used by the IDF.
        
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        June 14, 2025 11:42am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Good news for those lamenting the inability of the Government to reduce the public sector headcount. Plucky little Ministry for Culture and Heritage is leading the way!

The ministry had a staff headcount of 140 in 2019-20, 192 soon after Covid-19, and 151 at the latest count. It’s now proposing to shed a further 15 staff.

Chief executive Laulu Mac Leauanae is wielding the axe. A shame he couldn’t do the same in his previous CEO role at the Ministry of Pacific Peoples, but let’s be charitable and assume he’s learned something from the bruising experience arising from his MPP departure party.

In that case, next stop MinEd? We can but hope.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/564045/more-cuts-proposed-at-ministry-for-culture-and-heritage
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June 14, 2025 8:48am
Master Mariner

And here we go again,
FWIW the Iranians can Blockade the Straights of Hormuz at a moments notice.

What would that mean to Oil prices?
And how would it likely effect NZ and SE Asian refinery prices?
How does it effect NZ energy security?

“What Does an Israel-Iran War Mean for Shipping? | Trade Through The Strait of Hormuz | History”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfSw4KZXC7M

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Oil-Prices-Soar-After-Israel-Targets-Irans-Nuclear-Program.html
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June 14, 2025 8:52am
artemisia

Deputations this week asked Taranaki Regional Council (TRC) and New Plymouth District Council to declare against Trans-Tasman Resources’ proposed mine off the Patea coast

Quite possible there will be a rep on the fast-track panel. or at very least called to make comprehensive submissions. The submissions will have to balance the interests of ratepayers overall with the interests of opponents to the seabed mining application. The hearing will be one of several in the mining sector, and will indicate direction for others.

Chatham Rise phosphate seabed mining is not on Phase 1 fast-track, but likely to be in next phase. Noted that the local iwi gave it a tick in exchange for a free carry.

https://www.teaonews.co.nz/2025/06/13/caution-as-councils-called-to-declare-on-seabed-mine/
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June 14, 2025 8:52am
- Sir Henry Morgan
  
  Seems extraordinarily generous for a Maori tribe to be getting a free stake in a seabed mine. Doubt I’ll ever get a free stake in a new mine. Really makes you wonder what is up with the endless racial grievance mongering.
  
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  June 14, 2025 10:18am
  - artemisia
    
    Cheaper than lawfare?
    
    6 0
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    June 14, 2025 11:06am
    - CJames
      
      You have got it there in one artemisia. Buying off objectors is cheaper, faster and gives more certainty to developers than risking the courts. All that would change if objectors were liable for costs if unsuccessful, but the courts won’t go that way.
      
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      June 14, 2025 11:36am
- Inandout
  
  art, and we wonder why National is tanking in the polls, well here is part of the reason. There has never been more Maori influence in just about every aspect of our lives than now.
  
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  June 14, 2025 11:04am
sirknz

Not sure who they’ve invested with but my Kiwisaver is back up to roughly where it was at the beginning of 2025. It dropped about 10% and is now less than 1% lower of where it was in January.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/360722427/why-havent-we-noticed-our-kiwisaver-recovering

They’re saying that their Kiwisaver is back to where it was at the start of 2024. That is about a 20% drop from the start of the year. I would suggest looking for a new fund if I were in their boat.
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June 14, 2025 8:53am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  Does your KS balance movement take account of your contributions this year?
  
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  June 14, 2025 12:05pm
- slijmbal
  
  @sirknz – similar here.
  
  As 65+ I don’t have Kiwisaver but do have a number of share based investments and they’re about 2.5% down from what I think was their peak at begining of february. They were down a LOT more though when Trump started his lottery politics and have rebounded fine.
  
  Still looking a bit overvalued so would not be surprised by a correction over the next year especially as indications are all the ‘do the hokey pokey’ approach to tariffs will cause some slowing in growth.
  
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  June 14, 2025 4:02pm
Cassandra

For balance, the Guardian has a prominent op-ed criticising Israel’s genocide and war mongering. It’s all Israel’s fault apparently. Iran is simply defending itself against the Jews. Quite why Israel would want to attack a peaceful Iran is not explained.
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June 14, 2025 9:00am
- mike
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Israel wants to attack Iran mainly to shore up wavering domestic support for an endless war. Israel is incapable of halting the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, and this latest attack will only accelerate that acquisition.
  
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  June 14, 2025 9:06am
  - Cassandra
    
    Do you really think Israel can tolerate a nuclear Iran? We seem to be at the agree to disagree point.
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:15am
    - mike
      
      We probably are. I don’t see any realistic prospect of preventing Iran, or any other nation for that matter, from acquiring nuclear weapons. The latest Israeli attack will only confirm for the Iranians that they need a credible threat of nuclear retaliation.
      
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      June 14, 2025 9:18am
      - Culture War Criminal
        
        “The latest Israeli attack will only confirm for the Iranians that they need a credible threat of nuclear retaliation.”
        
        Astute comment, and one I have been reiterating for some time. The only way to guarantee safety against the Judeo-Americans is having a nuclear deterrent. Have the Judeo-Americans every attacked a nuclear armed nation? No.
        
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        June 14, 2025 10:06am
      - David Garrett
        
        How about? [Mod – just debate the topics and leave the personal rubbish out of it] You nominate a time within which Iran obtains nuclear weapons and I’ll put up – say – $500 which says it won’t happen.
        
        Course we’d have some problems with the logistics given your anonymity…
        
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        June 14, 2025 10:15am
  - mandk
    
    Your first sentence is utterly stupid.
    
    It’s only Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and other Iranian puppet armies that don’t care about endless suffering.
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:53am
- Culture War Criminal
  
  “Quite why Israel would want to attack a peaceful Iran is not explained.”
  
  Because Iran is a very large, relatively resource rich nation, with a large population, while Israel is none of these things. Israel is very well-armed, led by characteristically hysterical and even paranoid leaders, is backed militarily and diplomatically by a world superpower, and its has always had grand ambitions for expansion, however.
  
  Now do you understand why Israel wants to take out all of the region’s potential competitors to its hegemony? It’s been putting into practice the scheme outlined in the 1996 “Clean Break Report” for the last three decades, which involved taking out Iraq, Syria, and now, Iran, the last peace of the puzzle.
  
  You probably don’t, or won’t, understand this, and instead think Israel is fighting in self-defence against “an evil regime of Mad Mullah’s” or some other such nonsense.
  
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  June 14, 2025 9:41am
  - goNZ1
    
    so are you fine with the lovely Mullah regime hanging protestors from a crane in public like they do?
    
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    June 14, 2025 3:36pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      And doctrinally raping girls arrested for protesting prior to executing them.
      
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      June 14, 2025 4:17pm
Bridgenag

Friday Funnies: Over-Whelming
Time compression

https://open.substack.com/pub/rwmalonemd/p/friday-funnies-over-whelming?r=1aj1bv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
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June 14, 2025 9:04am
- sungsamning
  
  Thanks for this.
  
  4 2
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  June 14, 2025 11:29am
  - Bridgenag
    
    Worry about the lack of humour here….
    
    3 4
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    June 14, 2025 12:38pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

From GETS, the Teaching Council is seeking tenders for fixed price legal services to operate the NZ Teachers’ Disciplinary Tribunal.

So, they want a fixed price for flexible services. If that doesn’t sum up the naïveté of public sector workers who never have to worry about making sales in order to meet payroll, then nothing will.

Tell ‘em they’re dreaming!
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June 14, 2025 9:06am
Cassandra

See if you can track down an article published today – Israel’s Operation Rising Lion in Context by H R McMaster. On Substack.
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June 14, 2025 9:20am
- mike
  
  I gave up after this gem:
  
  In 2020 it was clear that Supreme Leader Khamenei, after realizing that the regime could no longer enjoy the benefits of foreign investment and international trade while continuing wars of terror and subversion, chose to intensify Iran’s proxy wars and violate portions of the JCPOA in an effort to extort concessions.
  
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  June 14, 2025 9:57am
  - mandk
    
    Not sure about that Mike.
    
    Sounds about right to me.
    
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    June 14, 2025 10:02am
  - Cassandra
    
    Persist. He’s knowledgeable and shrewd.
    
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    June 14, 2025 10:26am
- Culture War Criminal
  
  “Herbert Raymond McMaster (born July 24, 1962) is a retired United States Army lieutenant general who served as the 25th United States National Security Advisor from 2017 to 2018. He is also known for his roles in the Gulf War, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
  
  The guy has devoted his career to fighting on Israel’s behalf. It is laughable to cite someone like this as if they are a neutral and objective observer on the “Iran question.” You may as well cite Netanyahu.
  
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  June 14, 2025 10:03am
  - Cassandra
    
    Nonsense. He is not a war monger. A thoughtful intellectual (and a graduate of my alma mater). His Trump book is fascinating and his other works are seminal.
    
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    June 14, 2025 11:11am
Cassandra

Operation Rising Lion is part of what will be a sustained campaign to block the Islamist dictatorship’s path to a nuclear weapon. The operation was inevitable given Tehran’s stated intention to destroy Israel and Israel’s Begin Doctrine (created after Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered strikes against Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 and aimed at preventing any enemy state from obtaining nuclear weapons). The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander killed in one of the strikes, General Hossein Salami, once described on television Iran’s long-term strategy to “erase Israel from the global political map.”
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June 14, 2025 9:23am
- mike
  
  No doubt Iran would like to see the Israeli state destroyed. Not a realistic goal, more of a rhetorical exercise. Similarly, Israel cannot realistically prevent Iran acquiring its own nuclear deterrent. Eventually a modus vivendi will emerge.
  
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  June 14, 2025 9:33am
  - Cassandra
    
    No. That would require regime change. Read McMaster.
    
    9 4
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    June 14, 2025 9:40am
  - Jigsaw
    
    ‘Not a realistic goal’ – so somehow according to you Israel is supposed to believe that an attack by Iran with nuclear weapons wouldn’t really be too bad. That inspite of Iran proclaiming that Israel has no right to even exist. BS
    
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    June 14, 2025 9:54am
  - Culture War Criminal
    
    Israel has about 200 nukes. Nobody is destroying Israel anytime soon, despite the rhetoric the Israelis use to justify their aggression against anyone who could conceivably, in theory, ever challenge them.
    
    There’s a very big basic premise here, which is that “Israel should never be challenged.” All flows from this. If you accept this premise, then you accept Israel destroying other nations in the Middle East; if you don’t accept it, then you don’t accept how Israel conducts itself.
    
    This is just how logic works – the acceptance or denial of the basic premises (which are taken as being axiomatic, and therefore are not amenable to justification by argument) leads to disparate conclusions.
    
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    June 14, 2025 10:00am
    - Cassandra
      
      If Iran gets nuclear weapons Saudi Arabia will too. Then Turkey then etc. and Israel also loses its ultimate deterrent. Israel is not calling for the eradication of Islam.
      
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      June 14, 2025 11:06am
      - Culture War Criminal
        
        “If Iran gets nuclear weapons Saudi Arabia will too. Then Turkey then etc. and Israel also loses its ultimate deterrent.”
        
        If Israel has nukes, it has a nuclear deterrent. If Iran, Saudi, Turkey etc. do too, then they have their own nuclear deterrent. That is, everyone has the same deterrent as against one another, so none of them will attack each other on pain of a retaliatory nuclear strike.
        
        As it stands, Israel can attack any non-nuclear armed state – which includes Iran, and we are seeing the truth of what I am saying playing out right now. The instability in the region is because Israel has the armaments advantage, and acts accordingly. However, if the US stopped unconditionally supporting Israel, Israel would be forced to be less aggressive – which is why it is crucial that Israel has access to US resources and seemingly has the ability to extract them at will, with little opposition (except for the “antisemites” who notice this dynamic).
        
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        June 14, 2025 11:30am
      - Taieri
        
        The instability in the region is because Israel has the armaments advantage, and acts accordingly.
        ———-
        
        The instability in the region is because the majority of the countries there do not accept the presence and continuing existence of the Jewish state. Add to it the interference by the super powers and the result is 80 years of war.
        
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        June 14, 2025 12:52pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Iran landed a ballistic missile in the middle of Tel Aviv last night.
      
      Intelligence reports claim they have enough enriched Uranium for something like 25 bombs nearly ready. Building warheads is pretty easy given their decades of prep and high precision machine tools available.
      
      So if the Iranians want to they will soon be able to end Israel. Unless Israel ploughs every scrap of their weapons program into the dirt.
      
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      June 14, 2025 4:16pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        video of ballistic missile hitting central Tel Aviv https://bsky.app/profile/maks23.bsky.social/post/3lrj5a3njck2p
        
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        June 14, 2025 5:46pm
kowtow

An excellent piece on BB and Hide by Garrick Tremaine.
Well worth the read.

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/garrick-tremain-reminiscing
11 2
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June 14, 2025 9:30am
- H. Upmann
  
  “Looking back it seems that politics is the art of announcing what is going to work, then never explaining why it didn’t.”
  
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  June 14, 2025 1:10pm
Jack5

India, with its 1.46 million mouths, is a big potential market for NZ growers, provided NZ ever gets around India’s import duties.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0l05762elpo
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June 14, 2025 9:30am
- JackRabbit
  
  India, with its 1.46 million mouths…
  
  So only 1 in 1000 people have a mouth?
  
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  June 14, 2025 12:14pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

Brent crude up to US$75 per barrel, up from mid $60s last week.

If Israel – Iran doesn’t blow over soon then we (and the world) will see the return of inflation.
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June 14, 2025 9:56am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Of 53 Brits killed in the Air India crash, all but two of them are actually Indian.

It just goes to show that a shiny new passport does not change fundamental loyalties.

http://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdd28legnzvo
6 6
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June 14, 2025 10:00am
- Culture War Criminal
  
  When nationality is ascribed solely on the basis of a passport or some other piece of citizenship paper, then is there really a nation any longer? It’s the old saying, “just being born in a stable (or turning up in a stable later) doesn’t make you a horse.”
  
  4 6
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  June 14, 2025 12:04pm
  - RdM
    
    CWC – “just being born in a stable … ”
    
    You might appreciate and even enjoy reading through this and forward & back… So might others.
    
    https://www.karenlyster.com/body_bookish2.html
    
    ” We have all learned to go along with what we are taught about the Gospels in schoolrooms and churches. But is the teaching correctly related? Does it always conform with the written scriptures? It is actually quite surprising how much we learn from pulpits or picture-books without checking the biblical text. The Nativity story itself provides a good example.
    
    It is widely accepted (as the Christmas cards keep reminding us) that Jesus was born in a stable – but the Gospels do not say that. In fact, there is no ‘stable’ mentioned in any authorised Gospel. The Nativity is not mentioned at all in Mark or John, and Matthew makes it quite plain that Jesus was born ‘in a house’.
    
    So where did the stable idea come from? It came from a misinterpretation of the Gospel of Luke which relates that Jesus was ‘laid in a manger’ (not ‘born’, as often misquoted, but ‘laid’) and a manger was, and still is, nothing more than an animal feeding-box. In practice, it was perfectly common for mangers to be used as emergency cradles and they were often brought indoors for that very purpose.
    
    So why has it been presumed that this particular manger was in a stable? Because the English translations of Luke tell us that there was ‘no room in the inn’. But the old manuscript of Luke did not say that. In fact, there were no inns in the region – travellers lodged in private houses and family hospitality was a normal way of life in those days.
    
    In fact, if we are really going to be precise, there were no stables in the region either. ‘Stable’ is an English word that specifically defines a place for keeping horses. But few (apart from some Roman officers) ever used horses in 1st-century Judaea – they mainly used mules and oxen which, if kept under cover at all, would have been in some type of outhouse – certainly not a stable.
    
    As for the mythical inn, the original Greek text of Luke does not relate that there was ‘no room in the inn’. By the best translation it actually states that there was ‘no provision in the room’ (i.e. ‘no topos in the kataluma’). As previously mentioned, Matthew states that Jesus was born in a house and, when correctly translated, Luke reveals that Jesus was laid in a manger (an animal feeding box) because there was no cradle provided in the room. “
    _
    
    RdM
    
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    June 14, 2025 5:35pm
- MCōs
  
  When I worked in London in the ‘70’s the people in the office told me I wasn’t a foreigner even though I had an NZ passport, but the two Nigerians with UK passports were
  
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  June 14, 2025 12:34pm
  - Culture War Criminal
    
    “When I worked in London in the ‘70’s the people in the office told me I wasn’t a foreigner even though I had an NZ passport, but the two Nigerians with UK passports were.”
    
    Because NZer’s (at least, NZer’s in the 1970s) share common ancestral, historical and cultural ties to the UK of the 1970s. This proves my point, in that the Nigerians you reference were in most respects “alien” to Britain (despite having UK passports), whereas you (despite not having a UK passport) where much more akin to the native Brits.
    
    The inverse would be just as true in Nigeria, what’s more.
    
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    June 14, 2025 1:04pm
Pope Punctilious II

English teachers (some of them, at least) not happy that the new English curriculum “fails to mention the Treaty of Waitangi”: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/563995/english-teachers-voice-concern-about-proposed-curriculum-as-consultation-closes

Which suggests to me the Education Minister has done a good job on this occasion. Can somebody please explain why the Treaty of Waitangi should be mentioned in a school English curriculum? The three smug-looking progs in the photo evidently think woke indoctrination is a core duty of our education system, and must be shoe-horned into every subject.

A lot of KBers seem to hate school teachers, and I’ve defended teachers on more than one occasion as I know their job isn’t easy in the 21st century. But articles like the one linked above show that at least some of the kicking they get on this site is well deserved.
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June 14, 2025 10:04am
- sungsamning
  
  ‘Teachers’ have been the author of their own misfortune by pushing every woke idea under the sun. Now, the kids are in charge. And the adults have made a few rule changes.
  
  12 1
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  June 14, 2025 11:33am
  - Don Beckett
    
    Don’t send your kids to Hutt Valley High.
    
    7 1
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    June 14, 2025 12:38pm
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  I liked this little gem:
  
  “We like some of it. The explicit teaching of grammar we think is really useful, but we are concerned that we don’t have time to upskill our teachers in that space,” he said.
  
  So, English teachers are incapable of teaching grammar. Hmmm.
  
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  June 14, 2025 12:11pm
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Yes, well-spotted! We want to teach the kids about the treaty of Waitangi but we don’t have time to actually become competent as English teachers. It beggars belief. Sackable.
    
    15 0
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    June 14, 2025 12:40pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Imagine the problems ahead as our primary school teachers “upskill” to teach 1 hour maths/day.
    
    13 1
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    June 14, 2025 12:48pm
  - Jack5
    
    The view of the Hut Valley High’s head of English: the absence of any reference to the Treaty of Waitangi is odd.
    
    What has the Treaty of Waitangi to do with English literature and English grammar?
    
    It should be covered in the NZ section of history classes, shouldn’t it?
    
    10 0
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    June 14, 2025 2:39pm
- mandk
  
  “(some of them at least)”
  
  That’s a key point. Hutt Valley High School is big. It has nearly 2,000 pupils, and around 20 teachers there have full or part time responsibility for teaching English.
  
  Yet, RNZ only reports on what three of them think.
  
  They teach History at HVHS, so Te Tiriti could be covered under that subject.
  
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  June 14, 2025 1:02pm
  - Pope Punctilious II
    
    Exactly, the treaty belongs in the History curriculum, and nowhere else. How is that even a controversial opinion?
    
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    June 14, 2025 2:23pm
- pdm
  
  PP – bang on.
  
  The Treaty sits in Social Studies and NZ History.
  
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  June 14, 2025 3:49pm
Sparrow

The tragedy unfolding in the Middle East got me doing some research. There are so many intertwining strings in this tragedy. We should not assume all Jews are Zionists. In the late 19th century there was a push for Jewish communities to be assimilated into the country where they lived “Hitboletlut”. This was partially successful in Western Europe but not Eastern Europe where Zionism sprung from due to the horrific pogroms. At the same time there was a strong Christian Zionist group in the UK and later the USA. I have always been puzzled by the strong support for Israel in many liberal democracies. I had put this down somewhat naively to a guilt about the holocaust and Jewish influence in finance and Hollywood. Never realised the huge influence of this Christian Zionist group predominantly through evangelical churches in the USA. They had pushed for the creation of Israel and ongoing support as it was part of their belief in the second coming. As a confirmed atheist it was all baffling to me. I apologise to those far more knowledgeable than me if my facts are incorrect. Its all an unmitigated tragedy.
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June 14, 2025 10:18am
- Culture War Criminal
  
  “I have always been puzzled by the strong support for Israel in many liberal democracies.”
  
  It has a great deal to do with the intense lobbying for Jewish and Israeli interests by the Jewish communities in all liberal democracies. These groups are ubiquitous, at the national level (like AIPAC and the AJC in the US) as well as under the umbrella of global entities like the World Jewish Congress and the like. In fact, it is arguable based on empirical observation that organised communities of diaspora Jews lobbying strongly for Jewish interests is one of the defining characteristics of any “liberal democracy.”
  
  Your “puzzlement” over the phenomenon you have observed is best resolved by this explanation, which is that decidedly demographically non-Jewish nations are all so deeply supportive of the Jewish nation.
  
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  June 14, 2025 10:50am
  - vand
    
    “I have always been puzzled by the strong support for Israel in many liberal democracies.”
    
    With 57 official Muslim states one Jewish liberal democratic state seems OK to support especially as they had a state there b4 and the Arabs didn’t
    
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    June 14, 2025 2:16pm
- sungsamning
  
  Behind a lot of Christian support for Israel is the fact that they’re God’s chosen people. Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity is grafted onto the Old Testament. Add some underdog sympathy; and events since 9/11, and the picture is clearer.
  
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  June 14, 2025 11:36am
- MCōs
  
  “There are so many intertwining strings in this tragedy.”
  You got that right
  
  3 1
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  June 14, 2025 12:23pm
- Tom Hunter
  
  @ “Sparrow”
  
  You might appreciate reading about the rather surprising history of Jews and Zionism in the West in the 19th century. A lot of Jews were very much opposed to Zionism:
  
  In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as the possible extension of civic rights to Jews was first being raised in central European nations, among the objections of those opposed to such rights was that the Jews were a separate nation. Some Jews sought to assuage the anti-Semites behind this objection by arguing that Jews had now become an exclusively religious community, foregoing their earlier national consciousness. They even formed reformist Jewish congregations that stripped the liturgy of references to longing for Zion and for Jerusalem. They argued further that this divesting themselves of the accoutrements of national identity was somehow an ethically superior course.
  
  The concept of Zionism threatened all of that; a reversal to the bad old days of “Next Year in Jerusalem” . As I pointed out here in looking at the relationship of Jews and the Democrat Party, the Jewish immigrants to America bought that with them and actually thought that such a rejection of Zionism would prevent potential anti-Jewish responses in their new home, and as Zionism developed further, that denouncing it would counter the new accusations of “dual loyalty” that many saw as the inevitable outcome of the Zionist project.
  
  It also led to rather extraordinary hookups, like that of two prominent American Jews in the 1920’s, American Reform Rabbi Judah Magnes and a member of the German Jewish elite in America, Felix Warburg:
  
  Both, for example, perceived the 1929 Arab assault on and massacre of Jews in the Mandate, including the murder of 67 Jews in Hebron, as an opportunity to cast the Jewish quest for a state as the source of Arab enmity and to undermine that quest. In October 1929, Magnes met with a confidant of the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who had instigated the massacre. He formulated with the Mufti’s representative a proposal for the establishment of an Arab-controlled government in the Mandate and the abandonment of Jewish aspirations to a state.
  
  Naturally they opposed the 1937 Peel Commission plan to create Arab and Jewish states and even as news of the Holocaust began to spread in 1943-44, pushed back against the idea of a Jewish state (often via the New York Times), seemingly overwhelmed by the fear of dire consequences for American Jews.
  
  Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Needless to say these arguments vanished in Jewish communities after the 1940’s but they have slowly revived – until October 7, 2023.
  
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  June 14, 2025 2:32pm
sungsamning

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/06/11/the-duo-strike-again-rubio-fires-all-overseas-usaid-staff-gabbard-appears-to-have-nabbed-another-one/
The New Tag Team.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Marco Rubio ordered U.S. embassies around the world Tuesday to move ahead with a directive to fire all remaining staffers with the U.S. Agency for International Development. He said the State Department will take over USAID’s foreign assistance programs by Monday.

A federal judge had temporarily blocked an executive order by President Donald Trump for mass firings at multiple federal agencies, including the State Department, and plaintiffs say Rubio’s reorganization plan appears to violate that court injunction.

The Trump administration says the plan was already underway when the president issued the order, so there’s no possible violation. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston has yet to make a determination. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Tuesday that Rubio’s directive “wasn’t a surprise.”
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June 14, 2025 11:01am
sungsamning

https://www.local10.com/news/2025/06/13/graveyard-dead-florida-sheriff-warns-no-kings-protesters-what-will-happen-if-they-violently-attack-deputies/
‘GRAVEYARD DEAD’: Florida Sheriff warns ‘No Kings’ protesters what will happen if they violently attack deputies.
“If you try to mob rule a car in Brevard County, gathering around it, refusing to let the driver leave in our county, you are most likely going to get runover and dragged across the street,” Ivey said.

Ivey went on to say, “If you spit on us, you are going to the hospital and jail. If you hit one of us, you are going to the hospital and jail, and most likely get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs that we have here.” [Works for me.]
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June 14, 2025 11:02am
Cassandra

News report: Hamas has killed five staff belonging to a US aid delivery company in Gaza and may also have taken hostages, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) team said. The terror group attacked a bus carrying more than two-dozen aid workers.
18 2
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June 14, 2025 11:03am
- Culture War Criminal
  
  “US-Israel logistics group claims workers were attacked by Hamas, while Israeli forces kill 22 people across the territory”
  
  You missed quite a lot out, didn’t you?
  
  “Israeli forces killed at least 60 Palestinians in Gaza on Wednesday, nearly two-thirds of them as they were seeking food from GHF food points, according to local health authorities.
  
  There were more mass casualties reported on Thursday morning. The Palestinian civil defence agency told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Israeli forces had killed 22 people across Gaza, of whom 16 had been waiting to collect food.”
  
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/12/more-mass-casualties-gaza-food-points-ghf-staff-killed
  
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  June 14, 2025 11:08am
  - vand
    
    “US-Israel logistics group claims workers were attacked by Hamas, while Israeli forces kill 22 people across the territory”
    And where is the reliable info from cwc? The Guardian relies on Hamas info so is not news but speculation/propaganda- doesn’t Hamas shoot Gazan martyrs to get food for its underground dwellers -0therwise how can the “brave” Hamas fighters get to eat.
    
    9 1
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    June 14, 2025 12:33pm
    - Culture War Criminal
      
      “And where is the reliable info from cwc?”
      
      You prefer Israeli propaganda to Palestinian propaganda? Why? I’m intelligent enough to know that influencing perception is a principle and crucial aspect of waging war, and so I doubt both sides of a conflict, yet, for some naive reason, you unquestioningly accept whatever the Israelis tell you? Again, why? Because the Israelis assure you that they are the Good Guys?
      
      There’s a tendency to believe the notion that “we always tell the truth, while our adversaries lie” when in fact, convincing people that this proposition is true is half the battle in the war for peoples’ minds.
      
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      June 14, 2025 12:56pm
NeverMindTheBollocks

This is an absolute shocker. A 15 year old school is being completely rebuilt at a cost in the millions, because the damned place has leaked since day one.

No word on who was responsible for the design or construction. I don’t usually encourage the Govt to sue, since they have the might of the taxpayers’ wallet behind them and can easily lapse into bullying, but this is egregious.

http://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/564087/after-years-of-leaks-and-delays-taihape-area-school-gets-rebuild-green-light
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June 14, 2025 12:16pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  Heck… the school even won an architectural award back in 2009
  
  https://www.nzia.co.nz/awards/national/award-detail/753#!
  
  Min of Education entered into a private settlement over the school construction
  
  The board commissioned the build in 2007, but were only able to use construction companies okayed by the ministry.
  
  The ministry took over in 2013 and then sued the builder, project manager, architect and the engineers, reaching confidential settlements in 2015.
  
  https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/437204/taihape-area-school-gets-rebuild-a-decade-after-flaw-identified
  
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  June 14, 2025 1:15pm
vand

“I don’t care if someone is a Zionist, but..”
Heh heh cwc- and some of my best friends are Maoris
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June 14, 2025 12:28pm
- Culture War Criminal
  
  But I don’t care. People can believe what they like, even if they are wrong. That doesn’t mean I should believe the same thing.
  
  It’s not the nationalism of Zionists that I reject, because I am a nationalist too. The crux is that I’m not Jewish, so why would I be a Jewish nationalist? This makes about as much sense as me being a Chinese nationalist or a Botswanan nationalist – why would I be either?
  
  Tell me: why should I be a Zionist, or like Zionists for what they believe? This seems to be the expectation, so I’d like to know why.
  
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  June 14, 2025 1:46pm
  - vand
    
    Well OK t-you will have np problem with a Jewish homeland then
    
    3 3
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    June 14, 2025 2:19pm
    - Culture War Criminal
      
      I don’t have a problem with a Jewish homeland, actually, I just recognise that trying to establish one in someone else’s home was never going to end in anything other than a lot of bloodshed. I’ve never critiqued the idea of a Jewish homeland, but I have certainly critiqued the ins and outs of how they have established Israel, and their subsequent behavior.
      
      Don’t tell me you’re one of those “they just hate the Jews for being Jews” types are you?
      
      Just give the Jews Madagascar or somewhere as their Jewish homeland, then they can all move there and leave the rest of us alone.
      
      2 12
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      June 14, 2025 2:35pm
      - marleybob
        
        You must remind me where Israel and it’s people lived 3000yrs ago.
        Just because they were murdered, forced into slavery and ejected from their homeland more than once or twice gives them every right to return and exist in their own country.
        Why do want them gone.
        
        6 1
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        June 14, 2025 4:05pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        Check your history – not the history of the last 500 years – go back to 1200 BC when the Jews owned all the land – even where Jordan is now.
        
        5 2
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        June 14, 2025 4:07pm
      - rouppe
        
        Someone else’s home?
        
        Jews had lived in the area for 2 thousand years before the Muslim conquest of the Levant
        
        6 1
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        June 14, 2025 4:31pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        Claims on ancestral land that go back beyond people currently living should be treated as legally ludicrous.
        
        You can’t sensibly redress harms done to people long dead by punishing/rewarding people in the present. And gifting privileges to people on the basis of ancestry is anathema to the egalitarian underpinnings of modern liberal democracy.
        
        T.O.W and other various ancestral grievance industries around the world are all equally horseshit.
        
        1 1
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        June 14, 2025 5:52pm
      - Tom Hunter
        
        Just give the Jews Madagascar…
        
        Chuckle. As I’m sure you well know (and are trolling with), somebody else suggested that long ago….
        
        The Madagascar Plan was a plan proposed by the Nazi German government to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar. Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office, proposed the idea in June 1940, shortly before the Fall of France. The proposal called for the handing over of control of Madagascar, then a French colony, to Germany as part of the eventual peace terms.
        
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        June 14, 2025 6:38pm
    - mike
      
      No one has a problem with a Jewish ‘homeland’, unless it is recognized that creating such a homeland involves removing the existing inhabitants. It’s ironic that Israel was established just at the time when European colonization was running out of steam.
      
      2 11
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      June 14, 2025 2:53pm
      - marleybob
        
        It’s always been Jewish land,
        
        [Mod – debate the topic and leave the personal rubbish out of it]
        
        2 2
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        June 14, 2025 4:09pm
      - mike
        
        That’s a bit like saying Aotearoa is Māori land therefore everyone else should leave.
        
        3 7
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        June 14, 2025 5:34pm
      - fightingtemeraire
        
        There ideas floated to give the Jews a homeland in either Uruguay or Paraguay and NW Aus.
        
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        June 14, 2025 7:00pm
rangitoto

I did an experiment getting Grok to write a program in the Rust programming language to compute pi to 100 decimal places. It spat out a programme which had a couple of minor errors easily corrected. It used Leibniz formula which is correct but slow. It spat out the correct answer in a few seconds on my laptop. I then asked it to rewrite the program using the Chudnovsky brothers formula (a development of Ramanujan’s second formula for pi). Although the formula looks much more complicated than the above it converges at such an astonishing rate that it is the favoured algorithm for computing pi. The interesting thing is that the program compiled and ran ok but spat out a completely wrong result. Moral is don’t trust AI.
9 2
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June 14, 2025 2:23pm
- NZer In Exile
  
  Apparently as of a few days ago Claude was somewhat ahead of Grok.
  
  2 1
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  June 14, 2025 6:48pm
vand

You prefer Israeli propaganda to Palestinian propaganda?
I have said that- I look at the statements/s video of what gazans are saying and they often contradict the media such as the Guardian eg alleged killing of Gazans seeking aid, and Gazans actually complaining of having to pay for free Western aid from Hamas henchmen etc
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June 14, 2025 2:30pm
NothingLeft

Politicians the world over will be looking at the highly specific drone targeting of recent months, particularly Israel’s assassination drones of last yesterdays attack with great alarm.

Protection details for politicians with significant enemies will soon have a hopeless task unless the people they are protecting stay permanently indoors.
3 3
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June 14, 2025 4:35pm
greybeard

[Mod – give the racism a break]
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June 14, 2025 5:59pm
- Pope Punctilious II
  
  And the evidence for that claim is?
  
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  June 14, 2025 6:18pm

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