About
Contact
Advertise

Facebook
Twitter

December 29, 2025 8:00am by Kokila Patel

General Debate 29 December 2025

Like this:

Like Loading…

Email
Facebook
Twitter
Comment106

Uncategorized
General Debate

Comments (106)

Login to comment or vote

Ra Henare

This week the shooting and bombing in Cambodia /Thailand has ceased. Hopefully for the foreseeable future. Displaced people are already heading home.

The Peace deal cobbled together for Trumps signature was an obvious shamble and not bought in to by either side.

This latest agreement has buy in from both sides.

For those interested to know the background, cause and why they signed up under Trumps threats/bullying of tariffs.

This Video summarise very well what I also believe to be the truth. IE its not really about borders as such.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kalKFkjw-GM
8 7
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 8:13am
- Dave
  
  Thanks, Ra. That was very informative. Don’t know why you’ve got some down ticks.
  
  7 6
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 10:46am
  - Ra Henare
    
    haha Dave,
    Its standard for most everything I post.
    Hint. Its not about content
    
    11 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 2:26pm
Scott

Just another day in Israel. This will not get a lot of coverage in the mainstream media –

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-881470

Two murdered, two wounded in combined terror attack in three sites in northern Israel.

This is just normal for the Jews. A 68 year old killed. An 18 year old killed.
It’s not about land. It’s about Israel existing. How can you negotiate with these people? Some guy goes on a murder rampage. Because he hates Israel. And this happens all the time.
It’s also about Islam. The terrorists are following the commands of Muhammad – “There’s a Jew hiding behind a tree, kill him.”
The west, which includes Israel, needs to defeat Islam.
42 6
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 8:13am
- Mike
  
  That’s some radical geopolitical realignment you propose, Scott. Can you imagine ‘the west’ combining to attack an alliance of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Malysia and Indonesia?
  
  6 35
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 9:53am
  - Scott
    
    Thanks for your comments Mikey. With regard to defeating Islam I was more thinking not importing them into western countries. Stop Muslim immigration. Also no burquas, no mass public praying, deport anyone who hates the West and shows terrorist sympathies.
    In other words the west needs to stand up for itself.
    
    40 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 10:41am
    - Mike
      
      You might need to have a more detailed policy prescription How, for instance, you would changè our BORA and other laws to enable religious discrimination, and how you would enforce it.
      
      4 18
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 12:34pm
      - cmm
        
        Simple. Don’t even allow them into the country, then the BORA does not apply.
        
        12 0
        Report
        December 29, 2025 5:35pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      “….deport anyone who hates the West…”
      
      I agree. All societies have their homegrown malcontents, but the record shows that many of most fervent haters of the West came from without 100 or 150 years ago and have always been intent on subverting it by seeding corrosive ideas. When society is so open (as per liberal tenets) it can be more easily attacked by those who resent it. That’s not to say that society should be hermetically sealed, but caution is needed.
      
      Karl Popper’s “The Open Society” is really the post-WW2 blueprint for bringing about the fall of the West by openness and tolerance, even if – to be very generous indeed – this was not the explicit intention. So too anti-Western propaganda like Theodore Adorno’s “The Authoritarian Personality.” Post WW2, we all had to be brainwashed into believing that Western cultural norms would logically end in mass murder.
      
      It was thought that the “strong Gods” hitherto sustaining almost all societies (of race, family, faith etc.) and the transcendence and collectivism attending them, as well as the social cohesion they engendered, were inherently totalitarian and exclusionary to minorities (putting them in danger as to majority) and the only solution was to indoctrinate “openness” and inclusivity to destroy people’s sense of all of these things.
      
      Hence minorities and their causes are worshipped, while any hint of collectivisation in the majority is seen as the second coming of Hitler, and must be immediately squashed. This is why the Nazis still artificially cast such a long shadow, despite otherwise being completely irrelevant 100 years later. They are like a “do not enter” warning sign.
      
      Of course, amidst all of this excessive tolerance was an explicit intolerance for anyone who was not, and is not, onboard with the radical egalitarian project.
      
      12 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 12:41pm
    - cmm
      
      Cape Town has had a significant Muslim population for over 300 years. They are well integrated with Christians. In over 300 years there has been no religious civil war (yes, gang warfare etc – but that’s a completely different animal).
      
      I do not believe that Cape Town has ever had a Muslim terror attack. There was a terror attack against a church in 1993, but that was by a Xhosa Communist outfit called APLA – the armed wing of the PAC – buddies of Mandela – not Muslims.
      
      From where I lived in Cape Town we’d wake up to the Muslim call to prayer droning across the Cape Flats. The closest mosque was about 4km away and they had speakers about 6ft across. Most people just considered that part of the rich tapestry of Cape Town.
      
      What we certainly don’t want is the set of problems they have in USA or Australia where Somali and other incompatible enclaves have formed and sponge off the charity of the taxpayer.
      
      There are some tensions between Hindu and Muslim Indians around Durban, but, again, that’s a different matter.
      
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_James_Church_massacre
      
      4 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 5:54pm
  - herb1
    
    Clearly the difference between Muslims and Islam, subtle as it is., is beyond you Mike
    
    8 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 12:15pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      And yet you chose not to elucidate, with particular reference to Mike’s 9:53AM comment.
      
      In other words, your comment is meaningless.
      
      1 6
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 3:45pm
- Wandering Star
  
  “The west, which includes Israel, needs to defeat Islam.”
  
  Israel is not part of the West. It never has been (geographically) nor have its people generally ever been (spiritually and psychologically), notwithstanding that they were domiciled in the west for want of their long-sought Middle Eastern homeland.
  
  If Jews had really ever assimilated properly into the Christian West, they wouldn’t still be hell bent on a unique Jewish State where they can exercise their unique Jewishness. The mere fact of a Jewish state clearly indicates they aren’t Western, otherwise they’d be content to live in the West.
  
  Islam is really only a concern of the West to the extent they come here in great numbers, which is a combination of being driven out of the region by the Zionist and the Greater Israel project, and being welcomed into the West through a radical liberalisation “melting pot” project of which Jews with a distaste for the homogeniety of the “old” West have always been at the forefront.
  
  The Israel/Palestine issue is not inherently about Islam either. It is, contra your suggestion, a land conflict. If Orthodox Greeks had lived in Palestine instead, but Israel was earmarked for a Jewish homeland, then the Jews would be in conflict with the Orthodox Greeks instead – because its about land.
  
  1 29
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 10:56am
  - Scott
    
    Wandering – or – the Jews have moved back into their homeland which they never really left. A homeland which they have had for thousands of years and provides them a place where they can live in safety. Given Israel is a fact the Muslims should accept it. But they don’t because their religion teaches them to hate Jews for all eternity.
    
    The Jews want to live in peace in their tiny state of Israel, about the size of Canterbury. It’s not about land. It’s about the existence of Israel and the presence of the Jews. Which Muslims, and yourself seemingly, can’t abide.
    Isn’t it time to stop hating on the Jews?
    
    19 4
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 11:54am
    - Wandering Star
      
      Can we talk politics and discuss ideas like grown adults without lazily falling back on the word “hate” for once? Despite what you may think, you’re really no better in this regard than a purple-haired leftist who also doesn’t have a very good argument.
      
      2 7
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 2:30pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Scott: Are you an American perchance? “Hating ON” is another annoying Americanism only slightly less annoying than “Off of” and “visit with”.
      
      7 4
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 4:45pm
      - Scott
        
        David – thanks for touching base. You’ve hit upon some low hanging fruit in your comments. I’m going to have to think outside the box to try and eliminate my American phrases. However I’m going to rethink my strategy and hopefully hit the ground running tomorrow. 😁
        
        4 1
        Report
        December 29, 2025 8:11pm
      - David Garrett
        
        Scott: Well, I just identified two you can avoid! Number three is the verb “write” without a preposition, as in “He said he would write me every week”
        
        But “off of” is the one I dislike the most…
        
        3 1
        Report
        December 29, 2025 9:50pm
  - Taieri
    
    The mere fact of a Jewish state clearly indicates they aren’t Western, otherwise they’d be content to live in the West.
    ————-
    
    Approx. 8.5 million Jews live outside of Israel. That’s more than the entire population of that country.
    
    11 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 12:25pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      But if they are truly Western, isn’t Israel ipso facto unnecessary? If I’m a Jewish person in Germany or in Italy, I’ve already got Germany or Italy, and so on. I don’t need another state somewhere else, unless I feel that being a German or an Italian is insufficient.
      
      A very high proportion of those 8.5 million non-Israeli Jews strongly back the idea of a Jewish state, despite not living there or ever intending to, which only supports my point that they see themselves as primarily part of the Jewish collective (aka the Jewish nation) despite living in the West.
      
      This ethnic solidarity is actually admirable, but denial that it exists is just dishonest. You’ll have Jews all around the world coming out in defence of another country (Israel), yet simply pointing this dynamic out makes you a conspiracy theorist? “Jews need their own state” they will tell us, but if anyone else observes that Israel is a Jewish state and that Jews have an ethnic affinity with Israel, you’re an antisemite? Which is it? The gaslighting is ridiculous.
      
      0 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 2:46pm
    - cmm
      
      “Approx. 8.5 million Jews live outside of Israel.”
      
      So what? Jews are not all from Israel or have any association with Israel. I would not really call Jews the Israeli diaspora.
      
      If you’re going to make statements like that then consider that the probably over 99.9% of Catholics live outside the Vatican City.
      
      3 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 6:02pm
  - David George
    
    “its about land”
    And the 1400 year history of murder and mayhem against Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Berbers, Zoroastrians and Hindus was about land too? Or fanatical religious supremacy?
    Any excuse that this about land is mere grist to the useful idiot mill. Hamas, Iran and Muslim brotherhood say its about killing Jews – hence “globalise the intifada” and Jews getting terrorised and murdered in places like UK, US and Australia.
    
    18 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 12:28pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      If two Buddhists, Berbers, Zoroastrians or Hindus, or even two White Australians, had just shot a group of Jews in Australia, you may have a better point. But that’s not what happened. No generality was involved. In other words, they were Muslims in particular shooting Jews in particular, and so it’s quite reasonable to draw a plausible connection between the ongoing geopolitical situation vis a vis Israel and its Muslim neighbours.
      
      4 5
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 2:52pm
      - David George
        
        I didn’t mention the Aussie massacre – they (the terrorists) were Pakistani origin Muslims, the victims were Australian Jews the common denominator is the same as the African Christians being slaughtered or the school girls at a pop concert getting blown to pieces: Islam.
        Nothing to do with Israel; everything to do with the barbaric death cult that has caused death and missery for 1400 years.
        
        9 1
        Report
        December 29, 2025 5:26pm
- pb
  
  The Talmud says: “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.”
  
  [Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations
  Ronen Bergman, 2018]
  
  Modern Israel has been toe to toe with the people living in Palestine since 1948. After a 2000 year absence they established a beach-head, and the fighting began. Bergman is an insider who describes the tit for tat killings that have only accelerated over time. Golda Meir was one of the few Israeli Prime Minister’s not explicitly military, but she was dragged into the 1984 Munich event, and she quickly learnt how to kill. Great read.
  
  2 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 2:20pm
  - kowtow
    
    1972
    
    Lest we forget.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 3:47pm
  - Scott
    
    pb, you are entitled to your own opinion. However you are not entitled to your own facts –
    “Throughout the centuries the size of the Jewish population in the land fluctuated. Before the birth of modern Zionism in the 1880s, by the early 19th century, more than 10,000 Jews were still living in the area that is today modern Israel.”
    
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_Jews
    
    The Jews having been living in Israel for the best part of 5000 years.
    
    4 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 5:51pm
- Philview
  
  I have listened to podcasts recently talking about the Muslim Brotherhood which is considered a very dangerous organisation and banned in some Muslim countries yet is allowed to operate in European countries like the UK.
  
  6 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 2:53pm
- Wayne1749
  
  “The west, which includes Israel, needs to defeat Islam.”
  How exactly do you propose to “defeat” a religion followed by nearly two billion people — by invading all their countries?
  Islamist extremism did not emerge in a vacuum. It was actively encouraged and instrumentalised by Western powers at various times, including against the Soviets, against secular Arab governments, and today in relation to China.
  When terrorism targets Russia, China, Gaddafi’s Libya, or Assad’s Syria, the West is often silent or implicitly complicit.
  You cannot selectively oppose extremism. Either you oppose Islamist extremism consistently, or you do not.
  
  0 6
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 3:53pm
  - David George
    
    Wayne: “Islamist extremism …..was actively encouraged and instrumentalised by Western powers”
    
    Of course; the 1400 year history of Islamic conquest through rape, murder and totalitarian oppression was really the West’s fault.
    
    0 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 30, 2025 7:30am
- Ra Henare
  
  Can I suggest it wont get NZ MSM coverage (other than in Israel where it is covered in detail).
  Same as “”terrorist”” attacks in Pakistan, Myanmar and dare I say it! Palestine.
  
  and my own backyard Thai/Cambo “”terrorism””
  
  Its not unique and not newsworthy to anyone other than Israelis.
  
  1 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 5:48pm
Maggy Wassilieff

RIP Garrick Tremain

https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/unafraid-cartoonist-dies-aged-84?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
44 0
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 8:43am
- CJames
  
  Didn’t he want to die by assisted suicide because of his aggressive cancer?
  He will be a big loss, if only as an exemplar to remind us just how bad the modern day replacements are.
  
  31 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 9:07am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    I would like to think that there’s a cartoonist somewhere who’s worthy of his salt, that has Garrick lined up at the Pearly Gates, right behind Brigitte Bardot.
    
    12 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 12:32pm
    - Ra Henare
      
      Didnt know Brigitte Bardot was a cartoonist.
      Always something interesting in kiwiblog
      
      2 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 5:50pm
- kowtow
  
  Indeed.
  
  But te media have it every which way.
  
  ‘A lot of his work was political satire, and he published daily cartoons for the ODT until 2019 when his tenure ended amid controversy.’
  
  I wonder how long it took them to come up with that sentence , when they basically bottled out , having published the cartoon and then essentially betraying him by dropping him entirely.
  
  But what would you expect from a paper that runs a front page headline “Je suis” but also wouldn’t subsequently publish the Hedbo cartoons.And meanwhile the ODT editorial position has become very favourable towards the regular anti Israel protests .
  
  34 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 9:17am
  - Taieri
    
    he published daily cartoons for the ODT until 2019 when his tenure ended amid controversy
    —————-
    
    Hypocrites…
    
    12 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 12:26pm
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    This is the cartoon that caused the problem.
    
    https://www.9news.com.au/world/samoa-measles-crisis-garrick-tremain-stood-down-over-cartoon/567248c6-d6a7-4fca-8090-c3f4d39c8590
    
    I don’t find it very funny but it is hardly a cause for outrage. He was not poking fun at dying children or the parents who failed to vaccinate the children. Indeed he would have been quite right to satirise the actions of the parents. It was their decisions that caused the vaccination rate to fall to critically low levels. In a country where families typically sleep together in close quarters. Perfect storm.
    
    12 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 2:08pm
    - David Garrett
      
      Nikola: Are you sure that is the one which got him de-platformed??
      
      I see to remember one with two obviously obese Samoan kids [thus reflecting the reality] covered in spots. I can’t remember what the caption was.
      
      2 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 5:13pm
      - Nikola Donatello
        
        No I cannot be sure.
        
        3 0
        Report
        December 29, 2025 6:27pm
- David Garrett
  
  Tremain was a great cartoonist – I was on his list of persons he sent his cartoons to after he was sacked by the ODT for a politically incorrect cartoon of this that they published.
  
  I was unaware of his illness. He is a great loss both to cartooning and political commentary.
  
  23 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 11:24am
  - kowtow
    
    DG
    
    Sean Plunket and his Platform had recently done a series of interviews with him .
    
    I see the interviews are Platform members only , subscription. Sorry not that helpful!
    
    I think they were close.
    
    10 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 11:48am
    - CJames
      
      They are available on the Platform’s pod as well as Youtube and Facebook. Here is the one maybe most relevant.
      https://theplatform.kiwi/podcasts/episode/garrick-tremain-his-decision-with-euthanasia-part-4
      I can’t listen to them live so I now do a quick check each day they are broadcasting to see what interviews The Platform put up. They are a lot better than the pap on other media sites.
      
      7 1
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 2:13pm
      - kowtow
        
        ‘They are a lot better than the pap on other media sites.’
        
        Indeed they are.
        Thanks for that , I looked but could only find the subscriber ones.
        
        4 1
        Report
        December 29, 2025 3:50pm
  - Philview
    
    I saw one of the interviews and he looked like he had really endured suffering and I assume his right eye had been removed but he still seemed in good spirits.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 3:48pm
pdm

Much needed rain falling in Hawkes Bay.

There is supposed to be two days of it under an Orange Weather warning. It won’t do much for grass growth because of the the previous hot days and those that will follow but will top up water supplies and help the aquifer a little.
25 1
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 8:43am
- NeverMindTheBollocks
  
  The weather people are making a meal of their forecasts. Doom laden pronouncements, or what! So, it’s going to rain for a bit. Seems completely normal to me. But climate catastrophisers gotta catastrophise. It’s year end. Perhaps they’re down on quota.
  
  20 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 9:05am
  - pdm
    
    True Bollocks.
    
    We had a good heavy shower as I wrote that post, it gradually eased off over about half an hour and nothing since.
    
    Off out to tie up our tomatoes now.
    
    9 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 11:07am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Absolutely pissing down here in Gizzy and has been pretty heavy for the last couple of hours….and not predicted to stop ’til 11pm.
      
      Definitely an indoors day.
      
      12 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 11:49am
      - NeverMindTheBollocks
        
        Just in time for Rhythm & Vines. Could be a few soggy campers in the neighbourhood.
        
        9 1
        Report
        December 29, 2025 12:42pm
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    The meteorologists at the Metservice are excellent. It is journalists who catastrophise.
    
    There are clear and objective criteria for all severe weather warnings.
    
    Also New Zealand weather fronts can often “train”. Yes named after trains. The ones on tracks. There may be a few showers at your house, but torrential rain 30 kilometres away.
    
    So, I see no evidence of any catastrophic behaviour. The journalists, yes.
    
    6 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 1:09pm
    - Chuck Bird
      
      It is the same for climate scientists. It is the journalists who are the doom sayers.
      
      5 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 3:37pm
      - Nikola Donatello
        
        It is not the same at all. Based on your comments, you would regard the views of the vast majority of climatologists as being of “doom sayers”.
        
        5 0
        Report
        December 29, 2025 6:30pm
      - NZer In Exile
        
        ND the whole field is ideologically captured. Many who do actually beleive in the scientific method do NOT believe in the alarmist narratives but to speak out is certain career death. Bringing home the bacon, feeding the family, being a fine upstanding SUV driving, designer clothes wearing, overseas holiday enjoying normie is far more important to most than standing up to (and losing to) the system.
        
        0 0
        Report
        December 30, 2025 3:15pm
- sirknz
  
  Bit wet here in Northland too. Just had to drive into Whangarei for some bits to repair some ‘wear and tear’ and the usual “It is only speed that kills” special people were out driving doing stupid shit like overtaking a line of cars that were going 100km/h while towing a boat at up to 130km/h.
  
  From what I can tell, that particular maneuver saved that genius roughly 10 seconds as he pulled into the gas station by the Bunnings store, in front of the car that was in front of me.
  
  I swear that the driving gets exponentially worse the farther north of Waipu you go.
  
  16 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 11:13am
  - david
    
    Was the towing vehicle a pimped out Ranger by any chance?
    
    5 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 12:49pm
  - Nikola Donatello
    
    What I found in the far north was many slow drivers. Meaning folk driving at 80 or slower on the highway. Combined with quite a few very fast and / or insane drivers. Not a good combination.
    
    3 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 6:34pm
sungsamning

https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/12/the-eu-could-be-gone-in-four-years-a-revolutionary-eruption-is-coming/
The EU could be gone in four years: A revolutionary eruption is coming.
In 1988, if you had told anyone that the Soviet Union would cease to exist just four years later, you would have been dismissed as a crank. The institutions looked solid, the bureaucracy entrenched, and the power absolute. Yet by 1992, it was history. [Will young Germans who are being replaced by Syrians fight for the Fourth Reich?]
15 4
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 8:49am
- Gussy Fink-Nottle
  
  A radical prediction, sungsamning.
  
  But how can the EU fail so consistently and maintain wider public support? Europe is failing in every significant way: productivity, energy, immigration, economy, free speech, and defence.
  
  And now the US is pointing at the naked European emperor and telling him to grow up and get his shit together.
  
  13 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 11:03am
  - sungsamning
    
    Well, the Soviet Union looked pretty solid… until it didn’t? I think we are living in interesting times.
    
    6 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 1:57pm
  - Paulus
    
    EU is still run by an ex German Defence Minister and her hairdresser, plus 27 Member States who all speak thir own lnguages and have their own politicians.
    Can’t last much longer !
    
    4 4
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 2:15pm
- Wandering Star
  
  “The institutions looked solid, the bureaucracy entrenched, and the power absolute.”
  
  Similarly, for the same reasons, the United States could also fall apart in 4 or 5 years given a sufficient impetus and alignment of circumstances.
  
  4 13
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 11:05am
  - sungsamning
    
    Certainly could if the Dems win in 26, or 28.
    
    4 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 1:58pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      The GOP is just as responsible for the rotten state of the US as the Dems are, because there’s been a uniparty in charge for the last 100 or so years, perhaps longer. It’s staggering that there is any residual faith in the “democratic process” to affect change. How much empirical evidence is required to accept that there is no willingness, and probably no ability, to correct course?
      
      3 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 3:03pm
  - MCōs
    
    America fell apart in 1861 over the issue of slavery.
    That was far more decisive than anything dividing the country at present and involved two distinct chunks of the country
    
    6 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 2:50pm
  - AitchW
    
    My late Dad who died in 1973 used to say that the best thing French President de Gaulle did for the UK was to refuse to let it join the European Common Market, the predecessor to the EU.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 5:39pm
- pb
  
  The dodgy lynch-pin is the financial chicanery. Ideology has been used to force the European nations to take on an insolvents debt. Exporting industrial manufacturing might to Asia for some financial chocolate biscuits was civilizational suicide. Its not just EU. NZ and AU and US are included in the death spiral.
  
  3 1
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 4:17pm
sungsamning

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/12/27/vance-praises-youtuber-nick-shirleys-report-on-somali-fraud-in-minnesota-far-more-useful-journalism-than-2024-pulitzer-prize-winners/
on Somali Fraud in Minnesota: ‘Far More Useful Journalism’ than 2024 Pulitzer Prize Winners.

Vice President JD Vance praised YouTuber Nick Shirley’s reporting on fraud in the state of Minnesota, stating that Shirley had “done far more useful journalism” than any of the 2024 winners of Pulitzer Prizes.

“This dude has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 @pulitzercenter prizes,” Vance wrote in a post on X.

Vance’s post came in response to a video posted on X, in which he and his team exposed “Minnesota fraud.” Shirley explained that he and his team “uncovered over $110,000,000 in ONE day.” [So, this is what the Dems meant when they said more money should be spent on education.]
27 4
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 8:49am
NeverMindTheBollocks

Ah, Brigitte Bardot. And God Created Woman, indeed.
34 0
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 9:09am
- mogg
  
  BB the true definition of the feminine form, she also endorsed Marine Le Pen.
  
  14 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 11:09am
- Wandering Star
  
  Famous for her 60s (bleached) blonde look, but her late 50s brunette (even when short haired) look was her pinnacle for me. Proper French. Also “far right” on many issues by contemporary standards, which was refreshing.
  
  9 6
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 11:30am
  - mogg
    
    Far right my ass.
    
    6 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 1:34pm
    - Paulus
      
      Don’t you mean her ass ?
      
      7 5
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 2:17pm
      - Steve Todd
        
        Oh, dear. You thought that was rather clever, didn’t you, Paulus?
        
        So, not only are you anti-Māori – that’s a nice way of saying you-know-what – but you are an unreconstructed sexist old man, as well!
        
        Blimmin’ heck! It must suck to be you.
        
        3 11
        Report
        December 29, 2025 2:49pm
  - AitchW
    
    Many of our Labour Party politicians are far right in comparison to French politics.
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 5:41pm
- Steve Todd
  
  BB was a little before my time: she was 17 years older than me.
  
  While she was certainly a symbol of the sexual revolution, she was not exactly “the perfect woman”, Bolly. Just ask her son.
  
  3 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 11:34am
  - kowtow
    
    Far from perfect , intellectually anyway.
    
    Way too into animal “rights”.
    
    3 6
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 11:52am
  - NeverMindTheBollocks
    
    Agreed. Woman, yes. Mother, no.
    
    2 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 12:30pm
    - Steve Todd
      
      Well, for women who are mothers (even if, as was the case with Bardot, they didn’t want to be; indeed, Bardot tried to spontaneously abort her son), motherhood is very much a part of being a woman.
      
      So, I continue to assert, while Bardot was considered to be beautiful, sexy, whatever, she was far from being a perfect woman, as her image (in her prime), advertising, etc., might have suggested she was.
      
      Still, having said all that, I’m saddened by her death.
      
      4 3
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 12:57pm
- kowtow
  
  The French President has the gall to call her a legend of the century , yet how many times did La Republique Francaise put their legend on charges and trial , for standing up for republican values .
  
  5 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 3:59pm
Toes on the nose

Thanks National .. a woman here in gissy gets 800K of HEALTH FUNDING to get some narrative from 5 people about their feelz about the local waka.But sadly the local waka is a dysfunctional mess with two trusts fighting eacher other over who gets their hands on the tiller….and the money trough. Jacinda’s lauded floating classroom hasn’t left the docks in two years.
33 1
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 9:53am
- AitchW
  
  Are you saying that another of Dame Jacinda’s “kind” brain farts has turned to a pile of excrement because it was ill conceived and poorly executed and managed? Say it isn’t so!
  
  19 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 10:49am
  - R
    
    But Jacinda was such a good manager, made all the correct decisions. Just ask the MSM
    
    15 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 12:18pm
    - AitchW
      
      She saved so very many Grannies.///
      
      4 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 5:42pm
MCōs

A Mr Hood was denied entry to a Georgia, USA medical school in 1959 because they were a Negro
https://www.threads.com/@enlivenglobalmedia/post/DS0B97wjk6G?xmt=AQF0DiEtvs-MdMzdFVoph1-Df08N6mqK8EKmEHzog5AT62eKrWTvUc3DenTN9Pl2gcK30x8&slof=1
The following year only whites were selected for the All Blacks to tour South Africa
3 10
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 11:03am
- Wandering Star
  
  That could easily be the case given the policies of the time, but that letter looks fake to me – does it look like it’s 66 years old?
  
  Maybe they were actually being diplomatic and his grades just weren’t good enough, so they blamed it on segregation policy instead, presumably because there would be less room for review of the decision? Who knows.
  
  It’s a nice touch that Mr Hood received a refund of his $5 application fee, though – didn’t stop him complaining though.
  
  0 10
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 11:12am
  - David Garrett
    
    WS: The letter looks perfectly genuine to me.
    Are you old enough to have seen typewritten text??
    
    3 1
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 5:29pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      Notwithstanding that there are “type” fonts available, it’s less the typeface than the paper not looking very old. Doesn’t really look like it’s ever been folded either. Being analytic and noticing details is important.
      
      0 5
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 6:51pm
- stewmar
  
  Mcos, how can a Mr Hood be a they? Surely everyone in their RIGHT mind will know that Mr Hood is a he, you woke Wokster!!
  
  13 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 11:41am
  - MCōs
    
    Gosh!
    I’ve been rumbled
    
    4 3
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 1:42pm
- MCōs
  
  Dr Hood, as he was by then, received an apology from the university sixty plus years later
  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/emory-university-apologises-black-applicant-b1869003.html
  
  5 2
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 12:12pm
  - grumpy
    
    What about the white kids missing out on Otago Medical School because they are the wrong race?
    
    9 4
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 4:35pm
    - cmm
      
      Ah, but they are the right wrong race.
      
      5 2
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 6:25pm
Sweet Hitchhiker

It’s all about “land” is it, WS? You sure the Jews wanting their own homeland couldn’t have anything do with 6 million European Jews being handed over for slaughter by their communities just two generations ago?
15 4
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 12:21pm
- Wandering Star
  
  Zionism dates, at the latest, to its “founder” Theodore Herzl in the late 19th century, and let’s not forget the claim that the land on which Israel sits was promised to the Jews by Yahweh several thousands of years ago.
  
  So, to answer your questions, yes it is just about land (self-evidently), and no, Europe in the 1930s and 40s was not the motivating factor, although it got them across the line after several thousand years of trying.
  
  3 12
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 12:55pm
  - Cassandra
    
    “Several thousand years of persecution”:would be more accurate. Still going non.
    
    11 2
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 1:35pm
    - Wandering Star
      
      You can’t have it both ways. Doesn’t the “several thousand years of persecution” (much of it in Europe) argument strongly support my claim that Jews have never been part of Western civilisation, but have always been (and have actually seen themselves as) “other” and have thus always been, until very recently, peripheral to the Western project?
      
      If you need your own country to protect your people from Europeans, what does that say about the relationship?
      
      1 9
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 29, 2025 1:49pm
      - Sweet Hitchhiker
        
        What it “says”, WS, is that there used to be some very bad people in Europe but fortunately they lost to the good guys.
        Unfortunately most of the survivors of the mass slaughter in Nazi-occupied Europe were understandably too traumatized to return to the places they had previously settled. Some could only feel safe in their own country.
        Jews may have been persecuted for thousands of years, along with other groups, but it was only in the 1930s and 1940s that the attempt was made to actually murder every Jewish person, man, woman and child, in Europe and eventually the world. And was largely successful.
        The Jewish people have experienced just what human beings are capable of, even the most supposedly civilized ones.
        
        7 0
        Report
        December 29, 2025 6:38pm
  - vand
    
    WS: According to Hamas Charter Islam will destroy Israel. Islam as you know is a religious movement – the connection to land is that any previous Islamic controlled land is to be recovered for eternity…hence the on going attempt to destroy the state of Israel
    
    4 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 29, 2025 7:05pm
Steve Todd

I do wish cricketers would not wear sunglasses while being interviewed. It’s downright rude.

Melie Kerr, take note! (But all the best for today.)
3 4
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 12:36pm
- Steve Todd
  
  (But all the best for today.)
  
  Wow! 106 off 61. Well done, Melie. Looking good for the Blaze.
  
  But still, please lose the sunglasses. You, too, Maddy Green.
  
  3 3
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 2:10pm
Swifty

Where’s the denunciation, where’s the punishment, where’s the deterrent?

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/rotorua-playground-attack-bashed-dad-unhappy-as-offender-sentenced-to-community-work/UPPK3BWISFDYNKLE62KRB737TA/

Pathetic sentencing from our judiciary.
11 0
Log in to Reply
Report
December 29, 2025 5:45pm
- DimChappie
  
  Agreed. The crim Francee Page was toting a shotgun 20 years ago, according to a paywalled Herald article. Needs locking up but no, let’s wait for more violence.
  https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/icrime-scenei-man-wanted-after-shotgun-incident/ZEFN6Z5WMOUGQETG25FEEPKUUU/
  
  5 0
  Log in to Reply
  Report
  December 29, 2025 8:06pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    ZB covers it. Not pay walled.
    
    Croc attack: Dad bashed at playground over kid’s shoes.
    https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/news/crime/rotorua-playground-attack-bashed-dad-unhappy-as-offender-sentenced-to-community-work/
    
    TLDR: Page’s partner approached the victim’s 6-year-old daughter and accused her of taking Page’s grandchild’s pink Crocs. The victim intervened in support of his daughter and explained to Page’s partner that his daughter arrived at the playground wearing the pink Crocs. Page punched the victim three times. The victim fell backwards on the ground. Page continued assaulting him until a member of the public intervened. The victim was hospitalised with a broken jaw, concussion and bruising and swelling to his face.
    
    Page pleaded guilty to a charge of injuring with intent to injure. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years’ jail. He was sentenced to 150 hours’ community work and was ordered to undergo two years of intensive supervision. The judge was Judge Andree Wiltens.
    
    It appears there are prior offences:
    https://lextechsuite.com/The-Queen-Versus-Francee-Edwin-Page-2006-03-22
    Hard to work out WTF was going on and who did what with the idiotic legal language therein!
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 30, 2025 2:31pm
    - NZer In Exile
      
      Key excerpts from the latter link re priors (which appears to be about an attempted appeal):
      
      “FRANCEE PAGE on or about the 6th day of February 2004 at Hamilton being armed with an offensive weapon namely a shotgun assaulted Louise Anne Pene with intent to rob Louise Anne Pene.
      
      [17] Again, possession of the shotgun was an essential element of the crime and was found proved by the jury. Count 4 alleged unlawful possession of a firearm on which the appellant was found guilty.
      
      [18] A disputed fact hearing was not, therefore, open on the question of who had possession of the shotgun and who discharged it. These facts had been established already by the jury verdicts. This ground of appeal has no merit.”
      
      1 0
      Log in to Reply
      Report
      December 30, 2025 2:49pm
  - NZer In Exile
    
    All this stuff does make me wonder if the judiciary is under the boot of ideological capture. As in the “treaty principles” (sourced from some activist’s bottom) are more important than protecting the community from violent offenders.
    
    1 0
    Log in to Reply
    Report
    December 30, 2025 4:14pm

Add a Comment Cancel reply

Login to comment or vote

« Kiwiblog’s 2026 predictions

Little support from Māori for TPM leader and deputies »

Donations

You can now donate to Kiwiblog

Exclusive content from DPF on Patreon

Become a Patron!

Never miss a post

Email Address

Join 13K other subscribers

Highlights

Target achieved II
Good progress on attendance
Health Target 5 – elective treatments
Health Target 4 – Specialist appointments

Links

Blair Destroys Net Zero Policy
Utopia
"For 40 years, NZers have been told that fewer councils mean better government. For 40 years, the evidence has refused to oblige."
Not PC
They all do it…
The Standard
My Final Word: Jools Topp & the New Zealand We’ve Lost
The Daily Blog
The beat up about so called NZ freeloading
Point of Order
Word of the day
Hompaddock
Saturday’s Quick Hits
No Minister
Parliament fails to defend transparency
No Right Turn
Playing with numbers.
Kiwipolitico
Another non-tariff barrier
Offsetting Behaviour
Rugby Premiership Predictions for Round 18
Stats Chat
Budget 2026
NZCPR
UK Conversion Therapy Ban, Digital ID, Rallies, Elections
Bob McCoskrie's McBlog
A central banker’s fiction
Croaking Cassandra
THE WORKING FROM HOME RACKET BY PUBLIC SERVANTS
No Punches Pulled (Bob Jones)
Tory Whanau may have to sell Wellington mayoralty to make ends meet
The Civilian
The Accidental Engagement
Imperator Fish
Legal Beagle: Election '23: The Special Votes
Public Address
Get Vaccinated Tomorrow Or Shut Your Pie Hole
Cactus Kate
Making this movie might have been a mistake
Liam Hehir
Why I am retiring from political blogging
Kiwi FireWalker

[email protected]

PO Box 12270, Thorndon, Wellington 6144

Facebook
Twitter
FourSquare
Instagram
LinkedIn
Google+

Archives
Disclosure Statement
Editorial Policy
Privacy Policy
Complaints Policy
Comments Policy

Design by cre8d

%d

Share this:

Like this: