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December 14, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 14 December 2025

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Steve Todd

This is a good history of the White House (built between 1792 and 1800), which also shows just how unrealistic the “Trump” ballroom will be, should it ever be completed. (Currently, there are no approved plans and the project is stalled.) (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32G68FveL0A [25:38].)

The “greatest ballroom ever built in American history”, the “greatest addition to the White House since the Oval Office”, is intended to be a three-story, 90,000 sq ft “gilded symbol of Presidential power and largesse”, that will dwarf the actual executive residence (55,000 sq ft), thereby violating a basic rule of architecture: “do not bolt an addition onto an historic building that visually overwhelms it.” (In this regard, and for one point of view as to what’s really going on here, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sABC0fZFE1M [24:17].)

In my opinion, this unfolding architectural, constructional, and financial disaster is Trump’s business history repeating itself, yet again. Once again, he will likely walk (or perhaps be carried) away from an incomplete project; this time leaving little more than a hole in the ground, and a national tragedy, in his wake.

Wow! What a legacy.
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December 14, 2025 8:00am
- Luke Piewalker
  
  Thanks for the CNN update//
  Maybe get your news from better sources.
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:05am
- Mike
  
  Perhaps he could fill the space with a mockup of how Mount Rushmore should look. https://assets.newsweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/2677161-trump-rushmore.jpg
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:06am
- Gravelroad
  
  And you care about this because?
  Are you an architect, accountant or builder?
  Or just a Trump hater.
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:19am
  - kowtow
    
    Proof that TDS is real , and more , becoming extremely tedious.
    
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    December 14, 2025 10:12am
    - Hard Cheese
      
      Hand waving away any criticism of Trump as “TDS” is extremely tedious, yes, I agree.
      
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      December 14, 2025 11:07am
      - kowtow
        
        Oh come on . As per GR’s reply , how the hell can a remodelled ballroom half a world away be in any way relevant or even of the mildest interest to anyone here .
        
        And for perspective do these TDS sufferers continually post about other major world leaders and their extremes of narcissism expressed in terms of monument building , private wealth building , military build ups with a view to current /future invasions ,crushing of domestic dissent , political assasinations on a huge scale , support for other malign dictatorships , etc
        
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        December 14, 2025 11:48am
      - Hard Cheese
        
        @kowtow
        
        It’s a little bit more than just a “remodelled ballroom half a world away”, it’s the official residence of the President of the United States, probably the most powerful political position in the world, head of the largest economy in the world and has 220 years of history behind it – that’s why the hell anyone would have the mildest interest in it. Or should we be selectively interested in things – ignore the ballroom but pay attention to the border wall with Mexico, or the ICE detention centre in Florida?
        
        Really, the lengths you go to to defend Trump from any sort of objective criticism seems like cult-like behaviour to me.
        
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        December 14, 2025 2:09pm
      - kowtow
        
        hard cheese
        
        Not so much defense of Trump.
        More commentary on the Trump obsessed here .
        
        As to cult like I have criticised him today and in the past .
        
        His treatment of Z in the Oval Office was unforgiveable . His potential abandoning Ukr for a peace “deal” is problematic , but also has to be seen in a context of wooing Russ in order to isloate China another huge problem , closeness to Qatar , and many other issues are potentially problematic .
        
        But for all that the man is trying to fix things ( including his ballroom) and for that he must be given credit , esp juxtaposed in terms of how the rest of the west has sat back and allowed themselves to hide behind US ‘security guarantees” and do nothing but slip into not mediocrity , but actual literal decline be it military, migration ,crime , industrial or cultural.
        
        In the context of the vast problems facing the west , I suspect a ballroom reno , really is the least of anyone’s concerns , esp here in lil ole NZ.
        
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        December 14, 2025 2:51pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      @kowtow @ 10:12AM
      
      kowtow: in the 305 previous comments I have posted so far this year, I have mentioned Trump, in a manner that clearly indicates I oppose him, in nine of them. That does not make me Trump obsessed; that is not TDS. As Hard Cheese says, criticising Trump, as I did this morning, does not constitute TDS.
      
      As it happens, like David Garrett, I agree with Oliver Hartwich’s definition of TDS (https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2025/03/oliver_hartwich_on_the_real_tds.html).
      
      Therefore, to my mind, Scott is by far the worst sufferer of TDS on Kiwiblog. With regard to yourself, I strongly suspect you suffer from Hartwich-defined real TDS far, far more than I “suffer” from your definition of TDS.
      
      And yes, the vandalisation of quite possibly the most historically significant building in the Western world, outside Europe, is a subject worthy of comment on Kiwiblog. In my view, it is another nail in Trump’s political coffin.
      
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      December 14, 2025 4:35pm
      - Ghost
        
        this is kiwiblog. People hold trump to a different standard than previous presidents. The cry’s of tds are simply to avoid any real conversation about what he is doing
        
        This is no different from the Biden presidency where people would cover up for Biden, now those who were outraged by Biden cover for trump.
        
        Those who support the president for what he does right, and critique him for what he does wrong actually care about the USA. Those who refuse to find fault in what he does wrong are the problem. They were the problem under Biden, they are the problem under trump.
        
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        December 14, 2025 5:01pm
      - kowtow
        
        “Vandalisation” ?
        
        I rest my case.
        
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        December 14, 2025 5:39pm
      - kowtow
        
        ‘The cry’s of tds are simply to avoid any real conversation about what he is doing’
        
        Oh rubbish .
        
        it’s because some people are literally obsessed with every little thing he does.( while so much of the world is at war or preparing for it)
        Today it’s remodelling a building that suddenly has a mythical / architectural significance bordering on the spiritual.
        
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        December 14, 2025 6:24pm
      - Ghost
        
        Actually your first comment in this thread is evidence you aren’t able to have a conversation around trump without moaning Proof that TDS is real , and more , becoming extremely tedious, unless it is a group reach around of trump.
        
        If you are too precious for Steve’s conversation then ignore it, you add nothing to it by whinging about tds. So what if Steve wants to talk about it, don’t see you whinging about Scott’s constant posts on trump. Before you claim some people are obsessed, look in the mirror.
        
        Your case is rested, what case, an inability to discuss what Steve raised without whinging tds. As I said, those who care can praise trump for what he does right, and critique him for what he doesn’t. Those of you who don’t are as bad as those who protected Biden, as damaging to the USA as those who protected Biden, as much as a danger to democracy as those who protected Biden
        
        Before you claim Steve has tds look in the mirror
        
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        December 14, 2025 6:53pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @kowtow @ 5:39PM
        
        Yes. As at right now, that’s exactly what it is. Clearly, you haven’t watched the links I gave, particularly the second one.
        
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        December 14, 2025 7:03pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        @kowtow @ 6:24PM
        
        Today it’s remodelling a building…
        
        Oh, dear. Further proof you have not watched my links. The residence is not being remodelled; the East Wing extension has been bowled, to be replaced with a huge building that is totally out of place with, and 1.64 times the size of, the original building.
        
        Oh, yes, you suffer from real TDS alright.
        
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        December 14, 2025 7:24pm
      - kowtow
        
        ST
        
        Do you really think it’s that important for people to watch your links ?
        
        The subject simply isn’t important ,or of any interest why bother.
        
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        December 14, 2025 8:11pm
  - David Garrett
    
    Gravel: Or he might just be something of a student of the prior dealings of the malignant narcissist who currently calls 1600 Pensylvania Avenue home – or one of them.
    
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    December 14, 2025 10:27am
- Scott
  
  Umm it won’t be a financial disaster. It’s funded entirely privately, no taxpayer funding is involved.
  It’s much needed. At present they have to erect a large tent to host state dinners along with portaloos. They need a large space to host state dinners and presumably a dance afterwards?
  
  Trump has a history of finishing projects on time and on budget.
  The building is very likely to be lavish and beautiful.
  
  If Obama was doing this there would be celebration all across the media and all across the world. But because it’s Trump, and only because it’s Trump, people are opposed to it. Well some people are. Others sensibly think it’s a great idea and much needed. 😊
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:19am
  - R
    
    Reading some of the comments on KB, I get the feeling that there are a lot of people with nothing to occupy their time except to criticize mindlessly.
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:24am
    - Mike
      
      That’s what Kiwiblog is for.
      
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      December 14, 2025 11:55am
      - R
        
        The purpose of the blog is to exchange mature dialogue on topical subjects. Not to score cheap shots political or otherwise.
        
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        December 14, 2025 12:53pm
      - Ian Boag
        
        blog is to exchange mature dialogue
        
        without ever getting remotely personal ?? wot?
        
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        December 14, 2025 1:25pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Only for you Mikey boy…and one or two others to be fair.
        
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        December 14, 2025 4:04pm
- Im Right
  
  I hope you can sleep at night Steve, must be terrible worrying so much about a building renovation half a world away.
  Thoughts and prayers Steve….
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:17am
  - Steve Todd
    
    Don’t worry about me, Im Right. I’m just fine.
    
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    December 14, 2025 4:43pm
- Pineapple Lumps
  
  Even if the White House fell into this hole, Trumps legacy would still be far in advance of Jacindas legacy here in NZ!
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:56am
- Wandering Star
  
  People (naively, in my opinion) voted for Trump expecting mass deportations, reducing foreign entanglements, reducing corruption, America First trade policies, and so on. They didn’t vote for an oversized ballroom. Extending the White House won’t do anything at all to as regards these pressing concerns or assist the American people in any way, but it is quite symbolic in that it is a complete irrelevancy held out by the dwindling Trump base as a “win” while none of the things that actually need to be done get done.
  
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  December 14, 2025 10:42am
  - Gravelroad
    
    No mass deportations of illegals happened then?
    If not, what have all the ICE riots been about?
    Will acknowledge however, that the elite leftists and business owners seem to want to hold on to the illegal aliens.
    You know the ones – the pool guys, gardeners, laundry ladies, housekeepers, fast food workers and other low paid, no tax paying illegal immigrants.
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:11am
    - Wandering Star
      
      “If not, what have all the ICE riots been about?”
      
      They are a reaction to what is, in the scope of the problem, ineffectual activities by ICE. It’s performative more than anything, and the facts are there is not the political will nor the organisation nor the deportation infrastructure to even scratch the surface.
      
      And you’re right on the other point – illegal immigration is a key component of the US economy, mostly through the cheap wages it allows, and because the donors depend on it for their business model (as well as legal H1B immigration), nobody’s going to go hard on immigration. They’ll just talk about it.
      
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      December 14, 2025 11:18am
      - Scott
        
        Meanwhile in reality:
        
        “WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced historic progress in securing the homeland, highlighting a year of record-breaking achievement of more than 2.5 million illegal aliens leaving the U.S.
        
        Since January 20, 2025, DHS enforcement operations have resulted in more than 605,000 deportations. DHS has prioritized removing the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens as part of the Trump Administration’s efforts to return law and order to the United States.
        
        Additionally, thanks to the comprehensive efforts of DHS law enforcement, 1.9 million illegal aliens have voluntarily self-deported since January 2025. We encourage all illegal aliens to use the CBP Home app to get a free flight home for Christmas and $1,000.”
        
        https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/10/thanks-president-trump-and-secretary-noem-more-25-million-illegal-aliens-left-us
        
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        December 14, 2025 12:39pm
      - kowtow
        
        scott
        
        This is exactly why the “progressives” , domestic and international , be they media , politicians , etc hate Trump .
        
        He has shown that these things that electorates yearn for , can actually be done, in a democracy and he shows them all up.
        
        Yes he’s bombastic , unpredictable , rude , narcissistic ……but in many things he gets results and he stands for his own country and voters over all things .
        
        He does also have a Big Picture Vision of the threats coming from past super powers and the dangerous ascendant one .
        
        And he’s trying to do something about that .At least he’s trying , unlike his predecessor who didn’t even know he was in the White House ……..
        
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        December 14, 2025 1:26pm
Mike

So, what’s everyone up to for the third Sunday in Advent?
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December 14, 2025 8:00am
- Cassandra
  
  Debating. How about you?
  
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  December 14, 2025 11:45am
  - kowtow
    
    Why encourage what is clearly trolling.
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:50am
  - Mike
    
    I wouldn’t put Kiwiblog fun in the same category as debating.
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:57am
    - Don Beckett
      
      The Third Sunday of Advent, also know as Gaudete Sunday, that is, rejoicing in anticipation of the birth of Jesus Christ our redeemer.
      So I celebrated Holy Mass this morning Mike – how about you ?
      Oops – don’t worry. 🙂
      
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      December 14, 2025 12:49pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Don B: So you joined in a ritual where you consumed the actual flesh (because of substantiation) of Christ, and the priest drank his blood on your behalf? From the time I was able to reason, I found that cannabilistic ritual distinctly strange to say the least.
        
        Disclosure: I was raised a Catholic, and indoctrinated – sorry educated – at a Catholic boys school before I rejected it all at about age 12 or 13.
        
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        December 14, 2025 4:08pm
      - Don Beckett
        
        I understand your POV & your skepticism David – I have heard it innumerable time before, & you & your ilk are entitled to your opinion.
        To call Holy Mass a ‘ritual’ is debasing it’s spirituality, but I accept that there are those who cant or wont believe.
        Perhaps you could google ‘The Eucharistic Miracle of Lanciano’ , and that will link to many other miracles.
        We have God given Free Will. We can use that for our redemption or our condemnation – everyone’s individual choice.
        God bless. 🙂
        
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        December 14, 2025 7:55pm
- Kevin
  
  Considering how useful some are.
  
  Illustrating:
  Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which
  by nature are no gods.
  Butnow, after that ye haveknownGod, or ratherare knownofGod, how
  turn yeagain to theweakand beggarlyelements, whereunto yedesireagain
  to be in bondage?
  Yeobserve days, and months, and times, and years. (Galatians 4:8-10)
  
  The wise person learns more from the fool, than the fool can from the wise.
  
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  December 14, 2025 11:46am
Cassandra

Wouldn’t it be great if we had a rational debate about mankind’s impact on the climate? Instead we get “The science is settled”, doom (and an income of $300 million dollars) from Al Gore and hysteria from Greta and Chloe. And most damaging of all a herd reaction from otherwise sensible politicians at a string of expensive conferences where the pressure makes the Inquisition look benign.

The end result is a reduction in NZ sheep numbers and a consequently expensive Christmas lunch, (among other things //) One lesson for me is to ignore policies promoted by vegetarians. And as for those private jets and conferences. I suppose it’s good for retail and restaurants in Paris, Brazil etc but the hypocrisy is irritating. Just as well the media is all over it or are they too busy ignoring the Manukau Urban Maori Authority issue?
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December 14, 2025 8:02am
- Mike
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Science operates by consensus. As yet, no fresh consensus has emerged to upset the basic picture of a warming atmosphere changing the climate in a very rapid manner, posing great challenges for vulnerable human, animal and plant populations.
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:10am
  - artemisia
    
    Is the ‘consensus’ starting to fray at the edges? Just ask Nature mag. Maybe it remains robust but not a bad idea to keep in mind Schrödinger’s cat, just in case.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:12am
    - kowtow
      
      Fray ?
      
      I saw a lovely headline from the UK this week .
      
      The Krauts and Eyeties have got the nutter EU bureacrats to back off their loon EV mandates ,as it’s crushing their car industry .UK now being left behind by their Loon Labour regime.
      
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      December 14, 2025 11:53am
  - Cassandra
    
    The consensus is that man is the problem. I’m not sure that consensus is the way science should operate. Currently the way it operates seems to be by hysteria and bullying.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:13am
  - Spam
    
    No, it doesn’t.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:16am
  - imalwaysright
    
    “Science operates by consensus.”
    
    Great, lets all agree that gravity is immediately halved.
    
    End obesity now ! halve gravity…
    
    Ridiculous
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:17am
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    Mike, you are getting confused between science and a rigid belief in theories. Science does not operate by consensus, it operates by facts. There are however those that claim to be scientists who when presented with facts that oppose their view just disregard the facts. Usually it takes a new thinker to incorporate these facts into the next enhancement of scientific theory. Often the new thinkers theory will not be fully understood by the masses within their lifetime.
    
    This current theory of climate will be surpassed with a better one that explains more of the facts. But those that cling to it will be shown to be no different than the Catholic Church clinging to the earth as the centre of the solar system.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:24am
    - MarkF
      
      SNAP!
      
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      December 14, 2025 9:26am
  - Im Right
    
    Mike….if you disbelieved the climate warming ‘science’, and are in the scientific/climate field, would YOU risk your career/funding/reputation by speaking out?
    No, of course you wouldn’t, and this unfortunately is the case for thousands of scientists in this field, they are in fear of actually being true scientists and challenging the status quo.
    After all the sea rise forecasts since 1990-2020 was a metre or more, and what actually did it transpire to be, by 2025?
    4.2mm!
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:25am
    - keepcalmcarryon
      
      Yes it’s also worth remembering that the last ice age saw sea levels rise 120meters, at times at 2-4 x the rate of rise that’s happening now -even using more widely given figure of 9-12 cm in your time frame above
      So claims of unprecedented change are thus far rubbish with regards sea level. Al Gore had us all under water some time ago.
      
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      December 14, 2025 10:02pm
  - MarkF
    
    Science does NOT operate by consensus!
    Ask Copernicus, the consensus at the time (almost every scholar) said the Earth was the centre of the universe, they were WRONG, Copernicus was right. Science must be “validated” by demonstrable, measurable and repeatable experimentation. Without that it is purely supposition and guesswork. If you believe X causes Y then you need to design an experiment to test that theory and make sure that the expected or unexpected result occurs repeatedly.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:26am
    - kowtow
      
      Science is also about rationality .
      Climate catastrophism is pure emotionalism .
      
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      December 14, 2025 10:14am
    - keepcalmcarryon
      
      Agree, science operates by questioning then testing a hypothesis. Not by group think, that’s anthema.
      
      How many of the statistics spouted by doomers are valid at the 95% confidence interval?
      Most models used seem wildly inaccurate.
      
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      December 14, 2025 10:07pm
  - cmm
    
    “Science operates by consensus.”
    
    This is something that non-scientists say all the time – with utter conviction.
    
    No, science is not a popularity contest.
    
    Science happens when people swim against the tide. That is when real science happens.
    
    Consensus comes from people too shit scared to do science and, instead are focused on their careers and funding. This has driven scientists to becoming mute husks of their former selves.
    
    You can’t really blame the individual scientists either. They have egos. They have careers. They have mortgages and children with dental bills. Don’t put them on a pedestal.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:32am
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      But this does not prove that everybody who opposes mainstream scientific thinking is necessarily right.
      
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      December 14, 2025 10:15am
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    Science operates by consensus.
    
    In that case we’d be stuck in our steady-state universe, studying phlogiston, the (a)ether, miasmatic ills, treating the 4 humors, and spontaneously generating eggs from rocks and wet straw.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:39am
    - David Garrett
      
      Mags: Superb comment…and a very Merry Christmas to you and Mr W.
      
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      December 14, 2025 4:12pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    As a thought experiment, let’s just say the environment is headed to a man-made disaster ie global warming and then think about strategies for NZ to approach this:
    
    1. Reduce productivity, drive up inflation, pay international bodies billions, impoverish your citizens. Impact on global warming 0.019%. Poor position to be in to deal with future challenges.
    
    2. Increase productivity, reduce inflation, spend money on developing resiliency to climate change. Make NZ as economically robust as possible to face an uncertain future.
    
    Only consensus, needing to fit in, peer pressure, zealotry, hubris, arrogance or control over the plebs explain why you would choose option 1 over option 2.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:39am
  - JimBobJoe
    
    No Mike, Science operates on hypothesis that are tested for falsifiability that lead to generally accepted theories which are constantly reviewed, retested and contested. Science is an ongoing process
    
    Science is never completely settled….
    
    As for your consensus picture, in which you conveniently (some might say slippery) leave out the climate hysteria mongers key claim – that current changes in climate are driven by Human activity, no one contests climate changes but the human impact on current change is heavily contested…
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:53am
  - Handyman
    
    At the risk of invoking Godwin’s Law….
    One thousand scientists signed a letter to the German authorities (you know the ones) stating Einstein’s theory of relativity was false. (Note the parallel of asking political authorities to rule on scientific questions).
    Regarding the 1000 signatories, Einstein replied, “If my theory was wrong, it would only take one”.
    
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    December 14, 2025 10:23am
  - Michael Sommerville
    
    If you think science operates by consensus, you know nothing about science.
    
    Even Einstein said that if 1,000 scientists agree with me but one scientist can prove me wrong by observation, then I am wrong.
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:44am
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    Funny thing about consensus, it’s not always achieved by the facts or evidence but can be achieved by the strength of the proposers in being able to convince people of the rightness of their views compared to the other side.
    
    Once upon a time the end of the world people were the more extreme religious zealots, nowadays it’s environment religious zealots. Same fanaticism, different product. 20 or 30 years time there will be a new religion for these people to adhere to. Some people just love to be anxious about something.
    
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    December 14, 2025 12:44pm
  - Notsofast
    
    Definitely warming and definitely human CO2.
    Not clear how dangerous until some coastal inundation, but heat domes are increasing.
    The science seems settled to god
    
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    December 14, 2025 12:55pm
  - leoj
    
    Total tosh.
    
    As recently as 1978 scientists were alarmed that the earth was heading for the next ice age and used Mr Spock (Leonard Nimoy) as their spokeperson as a conduit for promoting the fact.
    
    So, we are to be taxed to death in the name of the global warming cause. Tell me, what will the money do?
    
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    December 14, 2025 1:33pm
    - kowtow
      
      ‘Tell me, what will the money do?’
      
      it’ll make some rent seekers very rich indeed.
      
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      December 14, 2025 2:15pm
- AitchW
  
  To be fair we could triple our national sheep flock and the price wouldn’t come down significantly.
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:12am
  - Cassandra
    
    But if 20 countries did so the price of mutton would come down. Capiche?
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:48am
- redeye
  
  Is ‘the science is settled‘ the most unscientific statement ever?
  Philosopher Karl Popper emphasized that scientific knowledge is always provisional, conjectural, and hypothetical – never conclusively proven or “settled.” Theories survive rigorous attempts to falsify them, but they remain open to revision with new evidence. Claiming absolute settlement contradicts this by implying dogmatism, akin to declaring a theory infallible.
  Historical examples illustrate this:
  – Geocentrism was once “settled” consensus.
  – Peptic ulcers were attributed to stress/acid until bacteria were proven as the cause.
  – Continental drift was mocked before plate tectonics prevailed.
  credit; AI
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:16am
- Chuck Bird
  
  This crap is on this morning!
  
  Earth Emergency (G)
  Sunday 14 December | 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM | Channel 1
  
  Leading scientists reveal how human activity is setting off dangerous warming loops that are pushing the climate to a point of no return – and what we need to do to stop them.
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:29am
  - Inandout
    
    CB, if I am an example of the average TV viewer then local media must be losing viewers. Since subscribing to You Tube (ad free) I rarely venture near One or Three news. Also YT has an extremely wide range of topics, almost mind boggling.
    
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    December 14, 2025 8:45am
    - Chuck Bird
      
      The problem is that TVNZ is funded by the taxpayer.
      
      I subscribe to Sky News Aust. I watched The Outsiders with Rowen Dean this morning.
      
      YouTube is good. I just watched conservative Liz Truss.
      
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      December 14, 2025 1:26pm
  - Jethrod
    
    Hopefully the MUMA story will be on at halftime during the chip break.
    
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    December 14, 2025 8:56am
  - Im Right
    
    Lemme guess Chuck….it involves heaps of $$$ and added tax.
    But only to the richer countries of course (India/China exempt….almost a third of the world population)
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:27am
  - Chuck Bird
    
    This crap was on TVNZ but not a mention of Dr Will Happer. This was an old film that did not even mention nuclear power as a means to reduce CO2, if reducing CO2 was the goal. The same with NZME, not a mention of Dr Happer. I have complained to the Media Council about the lack of balance. We will see what their reply is.
    
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    December 14, 2025 10:28am
  - Handyman
    
    I’m not going to watch, but I bet the solution to stop “them” is to give “us” money.
    
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    December 14, 2025 10:30am
  - Paulus
    
    But did not the Maori invent the Climate Changes as their science is so far advanced than any others ?
    
    6 3
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    December 14, 2025 12:25pm
  - Dougal10
    
    And Australia is experiencing a record harvest when a couple of years ago it was all doom and gloom.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:10pm
- Michael Sommerville
  
  This morning I read an article in the Australian of an interview with Stephen Pinker, a non-woke professor at Harvard, who discussed freedom of speech and cancel culture especially in regard to the transgender debate. He looks at human responses to dogma.
  
  “I think there is a deplorable pattern where organisations that were set up to defend free speech, intellectual freedom, and reason behave (on certain issues) like the Catholic Church during the Inquisition,” he says.
  
  “That is, there are dogmas that simply may not be questioned.”
  
  This got me thinking about our present government led by a Christian (this is not a criticism) who is not prepared to listen to any argument or debate on the subject of Climate.
  
  While I support his leadership, I am critical of him for not having an open mind on this subject. Perhaps it is a lack of science in his education.
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:04am
  - R
    
    PM Luxon is very much a listener, and then thinks about the dialogue. What he isn’t, somewhat uunusually for a politician, is a Knee Jerk responder; but then he isn’t of the Marxist persuasion
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:39am
    - kowtow
      
      R
      
      His very public ,and factually ignorant, put down of Maureen Pugh says otherwise.
      
      In fact I get the very uneasy feeling that he came across as a bully making an example of a relatively weak MP , one the Nat top dogs seem to enjoy putting down ( the media for all their # hypocrisy seem to enjoy it too)
      
      And for all that she’s an electorate MP in what was red territory . Good going I’d say .
      
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      December 14, 2025 2:34pm
      - Mike
        
        To be fair to Luxon, Pugh is a genuine crackpot. In her defence though, she has been struck by lightning 3 times.
        
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        December 14, 2025 4:43pm
  - Cassandra
    
    No, it’s sound political instincts. Luxon does not need to provoke another carkoi just yet.
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:50am
- Paulus
  
  But remember that some 50,000 people went to the recent Climate Conference and the same if not larger are due at the next one.
  How the facilitators, airlines and charters, hotels, girls, and the other hangers on love it asw the costs for most people are taxpayer paid for – we sent some 20 people I beleive to the South American one.
  They could not get a full agreement at the last one as the US and China stayed away I believe.
  So roll on for the next one.
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:18am
  - pb
    
    Yes. Call me when there is a Physics Emergency. 40 years of nonsense talk. A wicker man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wicker_Man
    
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    December 14, 2025 10:33am
- David Garrett
  
  Cass: One lesson for me is to ignore policies promoted by vegetarians
  
  I love that! I myself can cope with vegetarians – so long as they don’t feel obliged to explain at great length why they eschew meat – but I genuinely regard vegans as suffering from a mental illness. And THEY invariably feel compelled to espouse at great and tedious length why they are – and everyone else should be – vegan.
  
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  December 14, 2025 10:31am
  - Mike
    
    It’s an old joke:
    How can you recognize vegans?
    Don’t worry, they’ll tell you.
    
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    December 14, 2025 6:06pm
grumpy

House Democrats exposed again but not before sucking in the New Zealand MSM with prime TDS. Will they never wake up?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/12/democrats-sneaky-attempt-defame-president-trump-as-pdophile/
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December 14, 2025 8:19am
- imalwaysright
  
  Tv1 engaged in the hit with Logan Church displaying numerous photos of Trump and women at social events, with the women’s faces blurred out for dramatic effect.
  
  Logan had the cheek to state the obvious that the photos do not indicate any wrongdoings and may be out of context.
  
  But lets show them anyway…
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:44am
  - R
    
    TV 1 were probably short of clickbait sensationalism material
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:42am
- Mike
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  I think pedophile adjacent, or pedophile tolerant would be the terms to describe Epstein’s friends like Trump, Clinton, etc.
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:46am
  - Paulus
    
    And why did the hundreds of young international “Escorts”get paid from – Epstein ?
    I doubt it, but where are they all – I would have expected after the couple US/Aussie ones we hear about in the media they would be screaming for big money, or their US Lawyers would as the want a share too.
    They did get large payouts it is suggested ?
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:25am
    - Dudley Quaffquaff
      
      Here are some of them. Happy to help
      
      https://share.google/iCyJ0ttQDiVPuw9ts
      
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      December 14, 2025 10:20am
  - David George
    
    A paedophile is attracted to pre pubescent children. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of powerful men bonking sixteen year old young women it’s not paedophilia.
    That label is being used as a political weapon.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:28am
    - kowtow
      
      That particular smear is being used across more and more media in the west , deliberately inaccurately as you quite rightly point out.
      
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      December 14, 2025 10:19am
    - Wandering Star
      
      Notice how the paedophilia aspect (however defined) is the thing we are “allowed” to talk quite openly about (because we have to talk about something, given how the cat is at least partially out of the bag) rather the far more damning and consequential aspect surrounding Epstein’s and Maxwell’s well-established connections to the Israeli government and intelligence organs, as well as to other Israel-linked billionaires and their similar connections. There’s now even suggestions that Epstein had global reach and frequently helped to broker deals between nations. This from a guy who started out as a teacher at a prestigious New York girls school and somehow became a multibillionaire “financier.”
      
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      December 14, 2025 10:55am
      - Paulus
        
        Ghislaine Maxwell’s father is buried in Israel.
        He died when he fell 0ff his Yacht one night, remember.
        
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        December 14, 2025 3:14pm
    - NothingLeft
      
      Ephebophilia is the correct term – primary sexual attraction to mid to late stage adolescents. Which is probably true of a high proportion of males – because that is what evolution has (sensibly) programmed into us as being the most fertile potential mates.
      
      Of course (as with pedophilia) men with those interests are at least 99.9% able to control themselves and not act on inappropriate desires. Just as in the before times with autogynophiles etc .
      
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      December 14, 2025 1:12pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    In similar framing, the NZ age of consent (16years) legislation makes us a peadophile nation.
    
    So how does it feel being a citizen of the peadophile nation?
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:31am
    - grumpy
      
      If the breathless media and their politician mates were serious they would push to raise the age of consent. Oh, and they would also have come down hard on their “Bussy” Greens MP and his excusers and enablers.
      
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      December 14, 2025 10:30am
      - Quail
        
        Grumpy,
        If the media and politicians were serious they would raise the age of consent.
        Demographic studies tell us NZ citizens birth rates have declined to the stage where negative growth is real.
        Immigration is filling the gap!
        Government interfering with a previously successful law is not going to help this country.
        Just a thought!
        
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        December 14, 2025 5:30pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    I would love to hear what the uptickers opinion is on Mikes comment.
    
    Are you anti-Trump?
    Amused by Mikes cleverness?
    Or from an account like Milkenmild?
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:51am
  - Inandout
    
    Mike, your CNN like TDS now includes Clinton, as per the latest Dem ‘expose’. I watched PBD and he had a guest John Morgan, an attorney who had known Clinton for decades. He described Bill as a thoroughly likeable guy but didn’t have an opinion on Hillary. We know of course Bill was trotted out to attempt to give the plethora of b&w photos credence.
    
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    December 14, 2025 10:08am
- Gravelroad
  
  It’s not about waking up.
  It is about never giving up the desperate fixation to smear this man by any means.
  The man millions of US citizens voted for in their last election. But, of course, we know better here, don’t we.
  
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  December 14, 2025 8:52am
  - R
    
    we know better here? But not if you read, and think about, the activist drivel served up to us daily by the MSM.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:04am
  - AitchW
    
    To be fair the alternative was pretty dreadful.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:11am
  - grumpy
    
    Due to the time delay, by the time their desperate anti Trump articles appears here, they have already been exposed as false in the US. They never learn, never correct pure lefty politics.
    
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    December 14, 2025 10:35am
O C Smith

Jacinda Ardern revealed on the recent Graham Norton show that she learnt of her pregnancy in 2017 a few days prior to the completion of coalition negotiations. One wonders if this may have had an impact on the formation of that Government.
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December 14, 2025 8:23am
- NothingLeft
  
  Certainly for ” I love baubles” narcissist Peters who wanted to bag a claim to having been prime minister at least pro-tem.
  
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  December 14, 2025 1:19pm
Yvette

Capital Gains Tax
Speaking to RNZ for an end of year sit-down interview, Hipkins was keen to cast some distance between the government he led to defeat, and the party he will take to the next election.
Labour’s challenge is to convince voters it is a different Labour to the one they voted out, and Hipkins believed the public was seeing that.

17 April 2019 Government will not implement a Capital Gains Tax
“I genuinely believe there are inequities in our tax system that a capital gains tax in some form could have helped to resolve. That’s an argument Labour has made as a party since 2011.
“However after almost a decade campaigning on it, and after forming a government that represented the majority of New Zealanders, we have been unable to build a mandate for a capital gains tax. While I have believed in a CGT, it’s clear many New Zealanders do not. That is why I am also ruling out a capital gains tax under my leadership in the future – Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern – Beehive release
https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/government-will-not-implement-capital-gains-tax

After a “public conversation” in which Labour never defined its side of the discussion so anyone knew what was been talked of, Ardern said “While I have believed in a CGT, it’s clear many New Zealanders do not”

It is not the Labour Party which needs to change – it is New Zealand
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December 14, 2025 8:30am
- R
  
  The Labour Party needs to change their criteria for selecting financial advisers, and recruit a competent real world experienced economist. It would also help if Labour adherents and MPs, took a course in basic economics during the coming Summer break.
  
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  December 14, 2025 11:50am
- plc
  
  Is “genuinely believe” different from normal “believe”?
  
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  December 14, 2025 12:31pm
  - Don Beckett
    
    Depends who says it.
    
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    December 14, 2025 12:55pm
peterwn

“Medicinal cannabis doctor’s note can’t be used to avoid a roadside drug test, police say”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360913920/medicinal-cannabis-doctors-note-cant-be-used-avoid-roadside-drug-test-police-say

This is no different from any other drug that may affect your driving. You can be booked for DUI even if the drug was taken for genuine therapeutic purposes. Indeed doctors will warn you not to drive for 24 hours or so after surgery etc because the drugs involved can impair driving ability.
Any doctor who claims or implies that taking a particular drug does not affect driving ability when it can is being professionally irresponsible. The Police could well initiate professional disciplinary action against any such doctor.
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December 14, 2025 8:47am
- Ian Boag
  
  The thing about roadside drug tests – aside from the fact that a result takes about 10 minutes – is that there is no accepted relationship between concentration and impairment as there is with alcohol. It is not disputed that a couple of hours after a toke, you are really not a danger – aside from the fact that doped drivers tend to drive slower and more carefully. To be consistent, the drink driving limit should be set to zero just like the cannabis one. Never happen of course.
  
  Also made more complicated because dope+booze is far worse than either alone.
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:17am
  - David George
    
    Instead of drug and alcohol testing we should test impairment – reaction time, awareness and physical coordination. Added bonus is that reactions to prescription drugs and debilitating health conditions would also be detected.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:33am
    - imalwaysright
      
      DG
      That’s the right way to test for impairment, otherwise its just a drug test.
      The only downside to physical impairment tests is that there are a fair number of people who would struggle to pass sober and drug free…
      
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      December 14, 2025 9:42am
    - peterwn
      
      There used to be an impairment test. The big problem was it was unreliable and a skilled drink drive lawyer could drive a bus through it.
      
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      December 14, 2025 9:45am
  - cmm
    
    I don’t think there is any precise relationship between concentration and impairment for alcohol either. Different people have varied tolerance levels and are impacted differently.
    
    Speed is the same, the relationship between speed and danger varies too dependent on many factors.
    
    So what we end up with are arbitrary levels used for prosecution (eg. speed limits and alcohol limits).
    
    It is easy to set the THC level to zero in NZ because cannabis consumption is illegal.
    
    At some stage cannabis will be legalised in NZ and then some sort of level will likely be enforced. eg. Colorado applies 5 ng per ml of THC which seems to give roughly the same impairment as 0.08% BA.
    
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    December 14, 2025 9:43am
rouppe

I’m quite surprised by this ruling.

If the roles were reversed, there no way the woman would be granted only 15% of the value of the house. It wouldn’t matter that she paid all the outgoings if it had been his house and him paying.

There’s hundreds of cases where a woman who spent the relationship raising the children gets half the relationship property when they break up. How is it different (notwithstanding he seems to be a bit of a loser) when it’s the bloke?
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December 14, 2025 8:49am
- ISeeRed
  
  Because it’s a bloke. Taa-daa! Welcome to male privilege.
  
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  December 14, 2025 1:52pm
artemisia

Silence after the Scoop Peter Williams considers why some excellent investigative reporting results in tumbleweeds. Like the ODT’s long and serious article on Te Kaika, and Cam Slater’s reporting on MUMA.

Eric Hoffer comes to mind – Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket

Could there be a good reason to do whatever it takes to avoid sunlight?

https://www.bassettbrashandhide.com/post/peter-williams-silence-after-the-scoop
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December 14, 2025 8:56am
- Positan
  
  The failings, the bias and the distortions of our “mainstream” media grow more obvious each day.
  
  My automatic reaction now to the presentations of newspapers and TV is to disbelieve almost everything I read or view, and to question the stance of the writer or presenter.
  
  By and large, the editors are an utter disgrace – and as for the positions pushed by the publishers – and here I would name Stuff – no sort of remotely complimentary comment is possible. The Stuff group has ruined so many once highly-respected newspapers.
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:19am
  - kowtow
    
    Quite right .
    
    Today’s Herald’s main “international news” is that photo of Trump with the models ( faces blacked out to imply some nefariousness)
    
    Yet there’s another story in the Israeli media today , again pictorial , of video footage captured by the IDF of six young Israeli hostages who were held in those Hamas terror tunnels , prior to their murders by Hamas. 4 men two women.
    
    A number of them had had severe injuries from the Oct 7 invasion .
    
    Of course our media will effectively cancel these victims by ignoring the story entirely .
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:38am
- Hugh Jarse
  
  Yes and it highlights what a failure the MSM in this country has become and what a disservice they are doing to the public of New Zealand. The public knows through the alternative media sources that there are stories to be told but the MSM does not go anywhere near them because they don’t suit the cours du jour, pressure, legal threat, politics or whatever other reason we are left to try and work out.
  
  If only Sky Australia created a New Zealand news desk and daily news hour like their Australian one ?.
  
  The MSM are creating their own downfall and the corresponding rise of an alternative media. The sooner the better in my view.
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:30am
  - lifesgood
    
    Sky News used to have a New Zealand segment but they dropped it a few years ago. It’s a real shame.
    
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    December 14, 2025 11:20am
- pdm
  
  There is a common thread.
  Waipareira Trust – Tamihere empire
  MUMA – Jackson affiliated
  Te Kaika – Ngai Tahu Affiliated I think.
  
  All are handed taxpayers funds without checks, oversight or accountability.
  
  I will bet there are a further 10, 20, 50 or maybe even more similar outfits doing the same thing.
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:42am
  - Bridgenag
    
    7 tribes paid off to turn the soil on the Ikea site apparently
    
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    December 15, 2025 1:03pm
- Toes on the nose
  
  Shubs is the only one following this… he’s a Maori from Oz on Youtube. He reckons that Waipareira Mob, and MUMA Mob both own Uma, and Uma own Waatea News … and Willie and Tukaki love a bit of Waatea good news. Uma and Waatea are waka deep with directors like JT, Willie’s missus etc. These guys have fingers in more pies than the Gambino, Bananos, and all five familes (whanau)
  
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  December 14, 2025 11:06am
  - JimBobJoe
    
    Shubz is correct:
    UMA Broadcasting Ltd – Company #: 1003130
    Registered Office and Address for service: Manukau Urban Maori Authority…..
    Share Holdings = 2
    Te Whanau O Waipereira Trust (Status? Looks to have been deregistered as a Charity as not on Charities Register anymore. So probably just operating as a standard trust?)
    Manukau Urban Maori Authority Inc (Charitable Trust)
    
    This info is easy to find……..
    
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    December 14, 2025 1:42pm
Sparrow

What I find fascinating on this blog are the downtickers. Fair enough if you disagree with a comment give a downtick. Many downticks make no sense to me. An example yesterday was a comment from David Garrett simply referring to how quick he had got through the airport. He got downticks!. Bizarre. Can only presume if some bloggers don’t like another blogger they automatically downtick them. All rather infantile. OK here comes my downticks.
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December 14, 2025 8:58am
- Wandering Star
  
  Of course there are automatic downticks for no other reason than something approaching spite, regardless of what is being said on any one occasion. There’s even the censorship-by-numbers aspect where perfectly reasonable and insightful comments become hidden due to the weight of mob opinion. Many of these same people then rave on about how the freedom to vote in our democracy is what makes our system superior. Is a system wherein popular spite can determine policy really the best means of political organisation? It also works in reverse, where dumb ideas can become popular and thus become policy.
  
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  December 14, 2025 11:33am
- R
  
  An up tick from me sparrow. I agree that we have a lot of small minded viewers. Probably why they are most likely envious underachievers in life.
  
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  December 14, 2025 11:55am
- NothingLeft
  
  It would now be easy to create an AI agent to set up a few different accounts and downtick all comments into oblivion. Over time AI will fuck all human interaction on the interwebs
  
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  December 14, 2025 1:22pm
Pineapple Lumps

I find the thinking around the Moriori genocide extremely illogical. When used as an example of what life with maori supreme power was like in pre-treaty NZ one is told they should not spread the Moriori myth. For some reason it is diminished by protectors of the maori image as just tribal conflict. It was posted here yesterday that moriori were a hapu, a sub-tribe, within maoridom.

I would like you to think about this a little deeper. Moriori were from similar origins to Maori ie they were East Polynesians. They arrived at the Chatamns around 1400 years ago, where they lived as an independent society with their unique worldview for over 400 years. To put this into context the Moriori were more separated as a society than NZ is from Australia today. They didn’t travel back and forth from the Chatamns to NZ. They didn’t trade or play sport with their closest neighbours. They were in complete isolation.

So why do maori apologists insist on treating Moriori as a sub-tribe. Justifiably ripe for genocide. When in fact they were an independent Nation. The Chatamns were not part of NZ in 1400 – they were an unconnected island that was geographically and politically separated from its closest neighbour by 800km of ocean.

If NZ were to be invaded and enslaved by Australia today would that be OK because we are of similar origins? No that would be an act of war – the dominance of one nation over another.

The moriori genocide is an example of Maori worldviews in pre-treaty NZ. A brutal, savage, violent, cruel worldview that resulted in the genocide of a nation.

In that context the protection and equality of citizenship provided by the TOW was an unprecedentedly non-violent coming together of peoples. I do not believe it conferred special rights and status on maori as we are being force fed today. But it prevented the genocide and subjugation of maori in a way that maori were incapable of when dealing with each other and when dealing with other nations at the same time. In this light, the British expansion into NZ is something we should be proud of. It is something that all NZers should be grateful for and be proud of. Not something being used to try and give maori superior powers and monetary gain over the rest of NZers.
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December 14, 2025 9:10am
- cmm
  
  I expect your analysis is correct, but I think people use the “Moriori were Maori” argument as a deflection.
  
  It is absurd for people to clam that the genocide of Moriori was not a genocide because they were Maori too. A genocide is a directed against people because of their identity – no matter what that difference is. Even if the Moriori were just a Maori splinter group that would still be genocide.
  
  The Moriori had a different identity. It is genocide.
  
  This is really no different to the multiple genocides in Africa (eg. Zulu vs Ndebele). They’re racially the same. They speak slightly different but mutually comprehensible languages.
  
  There were far more differences between Maori and Moriori than between Zulu and Ndebele.
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:57am
  - David Garrett
    
    cmm: Brilliant comment Sir – your African comparisons provide a unique insight into our racial situation here.
    
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    December 14, 2025 10:36am
  - R
    
    I have often wondered if the Moriori we the offspring from the person (mythical perhaps) called Kupe who was supposed to have discovered NZ first, and then returned home to organize the family to travel to paradise?. He may have left the nucleus of a family unit here to lighten the load in the Waka
    
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    December 14, 2025 12:00pm
    - Don Beckett
      
      That is what my Maori aunty told me many years ago – that Kupe came & left people to populate the coutry, & when the other tribes arrived, those people being pacifist, left for the Chathams.
      I think her story was flawed as she was Tuhoe, and had been in isolation from most tribes for many years, but being raided for food & women by Ngati Porou & Ngati Tuwharetoa. So I think her story was influenced by other tribal narratives.
      According to my reading documents about them, they actually found their own way to the Chathams a few hundred years before Maori migration to NZ, and never bothered travelling further west.
      It’s certainly up for debate.
      
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      December 14, 2025 1:11pm
      - cmm
        
        I was not there and I have never been to the Chathams, but there are other things to consider here.
        
        Are the Chathams such a wonderful place that people would choose them as a final destination and would not be keen to look for a better place to live?
        
        For example, as I understand it, Chathams didn’t have those tasty Moa. Nor did Chathams have some useful resources like ponamu or obsidian. Sounds like a pretty marginal place to set up camp.
        
        That might indicate that Chathams would not be a preferred destination and, maybe, people only lived there to get away from the Once Were Warrior mob on the mainland.
        
        Again, I shall draw from some examples in Southern Africa.
        
        By far the most hospitable areas of South Africa are on the East Coast in the area that used to be called Zululand and Transkei. These are the areas where crops grew best (ie. without irrigation) and where cattle flourished (good grazing etc).
        
        It is thus no surprise that the strongest tribes (Zulu and Xhosa) lived in these areas and all the weaker tribes were driven into the more marginal areas that the Zulus and Xhosa did not want. If other areas had been better, the Zulus and Xhosa would have taken them – might is right and all that.
        
        So quite likely the same applied to the Moriori. They were weaker and needed to move away from areas the Maori wanted and got far enough away that the Maori had less reason to bother them.
        
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        December 14, 2025 3:08pm
      - NothingLeft
        
        The history of humans prior to 19th century is that there were always too many humans for the food supplies and starvation was a near constant threat for people on the margins of the social order leading to frequent violence and other means of culling excess population as a result of competition for those limited resources.
        
        As a result we would spread to all places where we could figure out some way to survive; from the Inuit in the Arctic to the (mostly naked and diving for shellfish) Yangan in Terre del Fuego with icebergs floating by, to Aboriginals living in desserts.
        
        I wouldn’t be surprised if Chatham’s were settled by Māori from more benign locales in North Island because of pressures for food or from violence.
        
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        December 14, 2025 3:44pm
- pb
  
  Its the idea that the Moriori were everywhere and the Maori smashed them. Gives the colonisers an out, see what the Maori did, they deserve it. The colonization of Chatham was a bit rough, but nothing unusual for the time. Apart from the cannabalism and genocide. That was a bit much. But a step up from eating each other for 400 years.
  
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  December 14, 2025 10:47am
- JackRabbit
  
  The Chatamns were not part of NZ in 1400…
  
  With truth, untruth (lies) is layered on like the skins of an onion.
  
  You peel off one layer and think you’ve arrived at the truth, because it is more factual and believable to a critical thinker than the layer just removed.
  
  Also gradualism, especially gradualism away from the truth gets worse with every generation and from those that that have a vested interest in re-writing history.
  
  For example: What is said about Moriori not being a subset of Maori is true, but arriving at the Chathams in 1400 is untrue and just another bullshit layer of the onion, masking the truth.
  
  I’m old enough to remember the history of the Maori and Moriori as taught at school. History that was recorded and documented from Maori’s own history. It was fact accepted by all New Zealanders. It was part of the History of New Zealand up until the 1960s.
  
  Specifically: “Moriori were living here in mainland New Zealand BEFORE Maori arrived. Maori triumphantly fought the Moriori, killing, enslaving, eating, raping and generally decimating the population. And survivors seeking retreat and fleeing to the Chatham Islands.”
  
  Things people doing unbiased research should research and dig into:
  
  [1] The Moriori being here BEFORE Maori was a truth provided by early Maori.
  
  [2] Ngāi Tahu DNA testing alongside Moriori DNA testing reveals that Ngāi Tahu is a blended race from interbreeding between South Island Maori and Moriori.
  
  [3] The Ngaphui history records the presence of fair skinned people living here when Ngapuhi arrived here.
  
  [4] The Cook Islands (Rarotonga) have maintained that they started started sailing to New Zealand around 500AD. And unlike the 1200AD Maori gate-crashers that arrived around 1200AD, may have been tribal but were not cannibalistic.
  
  [4] Selective re-writing of the history of New Zealand has been happening for 60-70 years, probably longer. So common school history as we learned in my generation, has all but been erased and re-written.
  
  [5] The Waitaha history in NZ goes back 2000 years., and at the time of the 1200AD gate-crashers, consisted of three races, one of which was Chinese in origin. Chinese cave paintings in South Canterbury, carbon dated as being 3000 years old, support that notion.
  
  [6] One Maori history group, where I have had contact with a member, confirm the early Ngapuhi arrival, and much earlier Waitaha presence.
  
  Anyone who has a genuine interest will find that data. But with progressive destruction of the true history, combined with the re-writing of the history, even enthusiastic researchers can arrive at what they think is the final truth and can go no further, so accept that what they have found is the truth and will argue that truth.
  
  The Moriori were here on the mainland long before Maori, and Waitaha were here long before both. And Chinese long before that.
  
  Multiple destroyed evidence and artifacts puts human existence here before the great volcanic eruptions of between 25,000 to 65,000 years ago.
  
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  December 14, 2025 10:57am
  - R
    
    Jack Rabbit your comments reflect what I recall learning in Primary school, and early NZ history at Secondary school 1950’s era
    
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    December 14, 2025 12:06pm
  - NothingLeft
    
    There is no chance that your story here is correct. If humans had arrived earlier we would have found evidence of it, and they would have rapidily spread out and filled the land of south and north Islands as neolithic humans always do, and easily seen off any new polynesian immigration through home-ground advantage (which is why no Polynesians spread into Australia or South America). They wouldn’t have confined themselves to just one island, they had eyes and boats after all.
    
    Oral history is mostly bullshit, embellished and misremembered chinese-whispered fantasies of bored and ignorant people sitting around campfires retelling stories with details that means nothing to them and so rapidly losing veracity.
    
    There are no chinese cave paintings in South Canterbury. If there were it would be widely known.
    
    Humans here 25-60 thousand years ago is pure fantasy without the remotest chance of being real. While some Paleolithic cultures had limited boat tech which is how America was settled, along coast 20-30000 years back), and how aboriginals got to Australia and humans to Phillipines 60000-80000 years back, but zero evidence of long sea voyages.
    
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    December 14, 2025 4:09pm
- rouppe
  
  So why do maori apologists insist on treating Moriori as a sub-tribe.
  
  And why do Moriori let them? I suspect because they can see the money associated with that position.
  
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  December 14, 2025 12:46pm
  - Maggy Wassilieff
    
    And why do Moriori let them?
    
    Maui Solomon doesn’t …
    
    I still read social media comments from Māori such as “Moriori are just another Māori tribe, so what happened to them is only what happened to other Māori tribes.” Wrong. We are not another Māori tribe. We are Moriori, the indigenous peoples of Rēkohu and Rangihaute (Pitt Island), with our own unique language (70 percent of our surviving re Moriori differs from te reo Māori) history and traditions.
    
    https://e-tangata.co.nz/reflections/moriori-still-setting-the-record-straight/
    
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    December 14, 2025 1:51pm
- NothingLeft
  
  We should judge people by the standards of the times not of today. Neolithic tribes murdering neighbours to take their territory (and resources) was standard operating practice for all of human history. Their worldview and religions would almost always see people outside of their tribe as sub-human others.
  
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  December 14, 2025 1:25pm
  - cmm
    
    Yup, certainly. Perhaps every nationality/tribal group has both taken slaves and been enslaved, has conquered or been conquered.
    
    But what we’re seeing is an airbrushing of history to modify opinions and justiify actions today.
    
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    December 14, 2025 3:13pm
  - AitchW
    
    Not unlike Ngapuhi and Ngati Whatua since forever.
    Those guys still hate each other.
    And Tainui.
    And Ngāi Tahu.
    It’s staggering the TMP lasted as long as it did.
    Love of the coloniser’s gold only overpowers hatred of all the other iwi for so long.
    
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    December 14, 2025 4:00pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    But what is taught to school children is maori wonderfulness, such as:
    – maori are superior kaitiaki (guardians) of the environment than white people. Clearly a myth, just ask the moa.
    – Māori are superior for manaakitanga (hospitality and kindness) than white people. Clearly a myth just ask Abel Tasman, Captain Cook and the Moriori.
    
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    December 14, 2025 4:07pm
- Maggy Wassilieff
  
  They didn’t travel back and forth from the Chatamns to NZ.
  
  https://www.science.org/content/article/incredible-carved-canoe-dates-back-first-settlement-islands-near-new-zealand
  
  It does appear that the ancient waka discovered on the Chathams last year is of NZ origin.
  It’s made from podocarp woods (totara and rimu ), and pukatea.
  
  Podocarp trees do not grow naturally on Chatham or Pitt Islands.
  
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  December 14, 2025 2:13pm
  - Pineapple Lumps
    
    Thanks for that Maggy.
    
    So some contact happened, but with limited resources on the Chatamns it was likely very one sided and the fact the waka was found there suggests a one way trip.
    
    I hope we can agree these would have been extremely limited and nowhere near the frequency of the interactions between Australia and NZ today. So this supports the position that the Chatamns was isolated geographically and politically, essentially its own nation for hundreds of years. Then colonised by Taranaki maori.
    
    It seems to me that the Moriori alive today must be heavily intermixed genetically with their captors and suffering from Stockholm syndrome. There seems to be more finger pointing at White people, for providing the means (sailing ship) and then not intervening until the 1860’s. Or is that the white guilt gravy train they are hoping to get a ride on?
    
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    December 14, 2025 4:03pm
BeaB

The Herald with some useful idiots like Jonathan Ayling and letter writers keep pushing the line that Andrew Coster was a decent and good man whose trust was manipulated by the nasty Jevon. This view conveniently overlooks the many acts of deception and distraction by Coster, outlined in the offical IPCA report, all designed to protect his mates and deceive the public. These are not the actions of a good man, or even a moron which is the only other possible explanation for his deliberate campaign.
Fronting up to the media , fudging his responsibility and playing the good guy card don’t absolve Coster of a grievous lack of integrity and judgment making him totally unsuited for any future role in public service.
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December 14, 2025 9:17am
- kowtow
  
  ‘all designed to protect his mates and deceive the public.’
  
  ironic , given this was the guy who, publicly, pushed the Peel Principles so hard ( policing by consent)
  
  wiki summary of same
  
  “They exercise their powers to police their fellow citizens with the implicit consent of those fellow citizens. “Policing by consent” indicates that the legitimacy of policing in the eyes of the public is based upon a consensus of support that follows from transparency about their powers, their integrity in exercising those powers, and their accountability for doing so.”
  
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  December 14, 2025 11:24am
- Hugh Jarse
  
  As Muldoon once said in relation to Bill Rowling, Andrew Coster was a “a shiver looking for a spine to run down“. A weak man and a weaker leader easily manipulated by his Labour government masters who was prepared to ignore McSkimmings obvious character flaws to protect his legacy of a woke police department. Any leader who is prepared to do that brings his powerful position into disrepute and is not worthy of it in my view. They should go and read the report, that will clarify matters for them.
  
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  December 14, 2025 12:13pm
- plc
  
  So was Coster also protecting the “First Man” with his unusal press conference in the early 2020s?
  
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  December 14, 2025 12:44pm
  - Hugh Jarse
    
    That was Bush in 2018.
    
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    December 14, 2025 1:16pm
    - cmm
      
      Dunno why you got a downvote for the undisputable truth.
      The statement was in May 2018 – right in the middle of Mike Bush’s watch.
      
      Even DPF got interviews by Stuff.
      https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/103559016/where-the-false-clarke-gayford-rumours-came-from
      
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      December 14, 2025 3:21pm
- MCōs
  
  You are accusing Coster of a cover up, which Minister Mitchell did too before having to issue a retraction.
  I don’t think anyone other than pundits and speculators have accused him of corruption
  
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  December 14, 2025 9:13pm
Waipuk

Pakeha guilt. The Indians weren’t care, The Chinese weren’t care.

This is what Shane Jones has been banging on about for years. Perhaps this is why the great push to Maorify everything.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=MXRNDb9lmfg&si=6lhm_GZcToKRgebq
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December 14, 2025 10:57am
- cmm
  
  Ditto with climate guilt etc. Only the West are programmed to feel guilty.
  
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  December 14, 2025 2:48pm
Swifty

Any facts, no just polling ‘reckons’.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/581781/as-epstein-releases-near-americans-think-trump-knew-about-epstein-s-alleged-crimes

RNZ plumbs new depths.
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December 14, 2025 1:01pm
Chuck Bird

I heard about this on The Outsiders this morning.

‘Go to the gas chamber’: Rabbi and children targeted in antisemitic verbal attack on Melbourne tram

https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-880167
3 2
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December 14, 2025 1:44pm
- NothingLeft
  
  While I abhor the sentiment, I lament the state of the world where hurty words have become stories. Everybody needs to grow the hell up and stop being so ridiculously, performatively fragile – and we need to stop giving license to such kindergarten emotional level reactions and start mocking those that make a big deal of it.
  
  Adults should be expected to act adult.
  
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  December 14, 2025 2:47pm
  - kowtow
    
    ‘Everybody needs to grow the hell up and stop being so ridiculously, performatively fragile’
    
    That starts with the little nasty woman being so very offensive in the first place .
    
    Had that been the case the rabbi wouldn’t have had to react .
    
    Basic manners gone , particularly from the left activists and that applies to them running round with their performative , provocative symbols so publicly displayed.
    
    Live and let live. Do unto others….. but no this lot just have to signal their lefty virtue.
    
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    December 14, 2025 4:26pm
greybeard

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/360914172/former-new-zealand-league-star-manu-vatuvei-says-he-was-denied-entry-australia

“In March 2022, Vatuvei was sentenced to thee (sic) years and seven months in prison for importing methamphetamine.
In May 2023, he was released on parole under special and standard conditions until October 2025.”

So he served just over 12 months , then no doubt because he was a well-known league player he got special treatment. And still expects special treatment by the sound of it.
Anybody dealing in or importing that filthy substance should be shot, in my opinion.
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December 14, 2025 5:00pm
- Hugh Jarse
  
  Actions, meet consequences. Dumb as a sack full of hammers.
  
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  December 14, 2025 7:14pm
- AndyW
  
  I was going to post this but you were first. What type of idiot would post this and expect any type of sympathy? The only person would a a perfect storm of stupidiy, ignorance and (a sense of) entitlement. Manu, F$%k off: you were a highly paid athlete, you stuffed up and were convicted of importing drugs… Crawl back under yor rock
  
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  December 14, 2025 7:56pm
MCōs

Currently there is a border conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, that I don’t particularly understand.
There have been problems in that area for years. Well before the current flare up.
I lived in Thailand off and on back to the mid nineties and one of the first things I found the longer you live there, the less you know. That’s me anyway.
My wife is Thai and is glued to the news, but still has trouble explaining what’s happening. It’s complicated because there’s influential families in each country who are mates with each other.
The previous PM of Thailand had to resign because she spoke on the phone to Hun Sen in a subservient way and called him uncle. Her father Thaksin Shinawatra is a friend of Hun Sen . . . .
Basically, therefore it’s complicated and complex

Trump says he’s sorted everything out — again
Who does this Trump guy think he is, says my wife?
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December 14, 2025 6:03pm
- Mike
  
  He’s a very stable genius. And you can quote him on that.
  
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  December 14, 2025 6:56pm
Hugh Jarse

Sympathies to the dead and injured at Bondi and recognition of the incredibly brave act of the bystander who took one of the shooters down.
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December 14, 2025 10:43pm
Bridgenag

This cam this morning. Hope you all support him

My autobiography is now available for sale on my website and at Lakes District Museum in Arrowtown.
Options for local pick up, regular post and rural delivery available.

https://garricktremain.nz/
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December 15, 2025 12:56pm

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