Konstantin Kisin writes:

You’re struggling to understand where all this vaccine hesitancy comes from. Let me help you.

I was interested in this because I am puzzled by the level of vaccine hesitancy in the community. This is a US piece, but relevant elsewhere.

You’re more concerned with how best to protect yourself and your family from this deadly disease than with its origins at this point anyway. You consider buying surgical masks, or using homemade ones—you’ve seen visitors and tourists from Asian countries wear them, and they’ve been through things like this before, so maybe it’s best to follow their lead.

But the country’s chief medical experts tell you not to wear masks, and to focus on washing your hands instead. As lockdowns are introduced around the world, you diligently follow all the rules. You stay at home. You only go out once, and live off savings or government grants. You do your best to keep your hands clean, to not touch other surfaces that other people touch. Some political representatives make the solemn decision to shut down beaches, parks, and playgrounds, encouraging everyone to stay indoors.

You are proud to be doing your part. Thanks to you and millions of your fellow citizens, the first wave of the pandemic overwhelms certain hot spots, but it does not devastate the health care system at a national level. While thousands sadly die, you’ve helped to protect those around you.

Imagine your confusion as the same people who spent three months telling you not only that masks don’t work, but that there are several reasons you shouldn’t wear or purchase them, suddenly introduce mask mandates. We’re “following the science,” they tell you. This seems to make little sense, but a pandemic is no time for questions. And who knows, maybe our understanding of the science evolved?

As you cautiously go to the supermarket, you notice that masks have made people less likely to socially distance. You remember reading somewhere that bicycle helmets work similarly: They give the wearer more confidence, and the result is often more accidents and injuries, not fewer. “Silly people,” you say to yourself. “If only they would follow the experts.”

You turn on your TV and learn that shoppers at your local supermarket aren’t the only ones who have been ignoring the rules. Nancy Pelosi arranged for a salon, shutdown by government decree, to open privately for her—then publicly blamed the business owner for violating the lockdown. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is seen eating dinner at one of the most expensive restaurants in America with a large group of unmasked people indoors. In the U.K., Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist whose projections were used as the basis for lockdowns, appears to have broken his own rules to get some action with his married lover. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, drove halfway across the country to ensure he had a better place to isolate. The journalists who berate him for this are later found to have attended an unmasked, indoor birthday party in breach of the rules. The lockdowns continue.

And in NZ the then Minister of Health broke the rules.

While the lockdown rules remain in place, the protests against injustice spill out into public spaces. Tens of thousands of people crowd into the streets of major cities. Few of them wear masks, and social distancing is nonexistent. Clashes with police ensue, and in the United States, protesters loot stores, destroy businesses, attack residents, and start fires. A retired African American police officer from St. Louis named David Dorn is among dozens of people who are murdered in the chaos.

The media describes these events as “mostly peaceful protests,” as broadcast reporters stand in front of burning buildings. 

This actually happened.

After months of harsh restrictions, the media and political class offer no criticism of protests that violate every element of lockdown policy. 

Same in NZ. Anti-racism protests are good during a lockdown, but anti-lockdown protests are bad.

It is at this point that vaccines become the main focus of government policy and media commentary.

The same people who told you Brexit would never happen, that Trump would never win, that when he did win it was because of Russian collusion but also because of racism, that you must follow lockdowns while they don’t, that masks don’t work, that masks do work, that social justice protests during pandemic lockdowns are a form of “health intervention,” that ransacking African American communities in the name of fighting racism is a “mostly peaceful” form of protest, that poor and underserved children locked out of shuttered schools are “still learning,” that Jussie Smollett was a victim of a hate crime, that men are toxic, that there is an infinite number of genders, that COVID couldn’t have come from a lab until maybe it did, that closing borders is racist until maybe it isn’t, that you shouldn’t take Trump’s vaccine, that you must take the vaccine developed during the Trump administration, that Andrew Cuomo is a great leader, that Andrew Cuomo is a granny killer, that the number of COVID deaths is one thing and then another … are the same people telling you now that the vaccine is safe, that you must take it, and that if you don’t, you will be a second-class citizen.

There is a reason trust in traditional authority figures has declined.

Stuff reports:

The statistics tracking how long government agencies take to answer Official Information Act requests are “close to useless”, a Stuff investigation reveals.

The OIA generally requires agencies to respond to requests within 20 working days. However, the statistics count extensions as “on time” responses.

So some agencies who report 100 per cent compliance “within legislative timeframes” are actually extending half of their requests, or taking up to five times the 20-day timeframe.

An advocate for open government says the statistics incentivise extensions and are designed “for nice headlines for government, not better results for requesters”.

In September, Public Service Commissioner Peter Hughes announced that, in the six months to 30 June, 61 government agencies completed 100 per cent of their OIA requests within the legislated timeframe.

Overall, agencies responded to 97.8 per cent of requests “on time”. In the face of increasing requests, the numbers were “a good result”, Hughes said.

But those numbers mask a very different reality. The SIS reported that 100 per cent of its responses were returned within the statutory timeframe. During the same period, however, 54 per cent of those responses were extended beyond the 20-working day benchmark.

The Education Ministry also reported 100 per cent compliance, and told Stuff they were “very proud of our track record regarding the quality and timeliness of our responses”. Their average response time was 25 days, and almost half their responses (47 per cent) were extended.

The PSC should report more useful information in future on the OIA. Sure it is good to know what percentage of OIA requests are completed within the legal requirements, but they should report more than this bare minimum. I’d love to see.

• 25th percentile, median and 75th percentile for each agency in terms of time to supply a response
• How many complaints about that agency go to Ombudsman
• How many requests take more than 90 days

The ODT reports:

Media comments about council staff have landed Otago Regional Council deputy chairman Michael Laws in hot water and could see him lose his leadership role.

A code of conduct complaint was lodged by council chief executive Sarah Gardner on August 16 and an investigation is ongoing into whether Cr Laws breached the code.

Cr Laws said the complaint was in regards to comments he made about council staff in two stories that ran in the Otago Daily Times in July of this year.

In a July 21 story on illegal dumping into the Clutha River he said it was “extraordinarily embarrassing” that the council had given advice to a company that it later took enforcement action against for dumping construction waste in the river.

He also said he was unhappy with a lack of transparency between council staff and councillors.

In a July 23 story about a report on public submissions on flow scenarios for the Manuherikia River, Cr Laws said he was annoyed staff had released the report which he described as “bogus” and “crap”.

“It is in relationship to both those articles that the allegation of endangering regional council staff psychologically and physically has been made by the chief executive,” Cr Laws said.

Having a CEO try to silence legitimate criticism of the Council by a Councillor is worrying in the extreme. And whenever you see the claim that some feels endangered merely by criticism you should be suspicious.

Over five million adults in Virginia are about to vote for a new Governor. The race shouldn’t be close.

Joe Biden won Virginia by a massive 10%. It is basically a blue state, not a purple state.

No republican has won a state wide office since 2020. The Democrats are the majority in the State House and Senate.

And the Democratic candidate is a high profile former Governor while the Republican candidate is a businessman who has never stood for office before.

But amazingly Glenn Youngkin is ahead of Terry McAuliffe by 1% to 2% in the most recent polls. I won’t be surprised if McAuliffe still wins, but the fact it is so close is quite incredible in a state Biden won by 10%.

Education is now cited as the biggest issue in the election, and this is what Youngkin has been campaigning on – both opposition to critical race theory being taught in schools, and the arrest of a father who protested at a school board meeting over the sexual assault of his daughter in a bathroom (the assault was denied by the school administrators for a long time, until it was revealed the Police had in fact laid charges).

If Youngkin does win, or even lose narrowly, I think we will see education issues dominate in other races next year.

It will also show how vulnerable the Democrats may be in the mid terms where the lose of the House is probable and the Senate possible.

Of the 1,515 current cases only 129 are in MIQ and 32 in hospital. Over 1,300 are basically at home.

So we have 20,000 Kiwis waiting to get home. They are double vaccinated and have to test negative to board a flight. Yet the Government says they must go into MIQ yet allows over 1,000 people who have actually tested positive for MIQ (and are largely unvaccinated) to be at home.

It is a farce.

A reader writes in:

The roadmap out of lockdowns announced by the government is a Claytons roadmap.

Predictably, it was greeted mostly favourably by the media. However, this time even some business groups appear to have been suckered.

The minimum vaccination requirements are probably unachievable.

Firstly, Dr Bloomfield has said that around 5% of people receiving their first dose do not go on to get their second dose.

If this remains consistent, then a 90% full vaccination rate would require a 95% first dose rate – an unlikely prospect.

Secondly, the 90% requirement is not an average rate. The lowest performing DHB area must reach the 90% (for Auckland this is the Counties-Manukau area).

On Saturday, this area was about 4% behind the average (and 8% below the best performing area), based on figures published in the herald.

If this relationship remains consistent, then to achieve 90% full vaccination rate in this area would mean attaining around 94% average vaccination rate across Auckland I doubt any developed country has achieved 94% full vaccination rate  –  though they all started well before us.

I am also unaware of any country in the world which has set such a high vaccination requirement to end lockdowns. Melbourne and Sydney are moving out of lockdowns at 80% (average).

The vaccination requirement in the roadmap is unlikely to be achievable in any realistic timeframe. In the meantime, more businesses will go under, their owners lose their livelihoods and homes, and their staff their jobs.

The October 2021 Roy Morgan is out.

Party Vote

• Labour 39.5% (-6.0% from September)
• National 26.0% (+3.0%)
• Greens 10.5% (+1.0%)
• ACT 16.0% (nc)
• Maori 2.0% (nc)
• NZ First 2.5% (+1.0%)

Seats

• Labour 51 (-14 from election)
• National 33 (nc)
• Greens 13 (+3)
• ACT 20 (+10)
• Maori 3 (+1)

Governments

• Labour/Green 64/120
• National/ACT 53/120

Direction

• Right 48.0% (-9.0%)
• Wrong 38.5% (+6.5%)

The change in country direction is the most significant part of the poll. If right direction stays under 50%, the government struggles.

A bad poll for Labour as they fall under the psychological 40% barrier. National will be happy to be up 3% but just being back to where you were at the election is not enough. National needs to get into the 30s. ACT will be very happy to stay at 16% and Greens also happy to be up a bit.

The gender gap has shrunk. National/ACT is 4% (+2%) ahead of Labour/Greens with men but gone from 34% behind with women to 19% behind. This is important as closing that gender gap is critical.

Rako Science developed last year a epidemiological method to calculate the effective reproduction number or R0 for pandemics. They have applied this to NZ data, so one can see what the R value was at different points in time.

Of concern is that they have the current R value at 1.9 – a lot higher than the 1.2 to 1.3 the Government has been saying.

They have also provided as a public service a website where you can see the R value for any country over the last 18 months. They have Australia at 0.87, US at 2.0 and Singapore 0.9.

With 162 cases yesterday, the seven day rolling average (which I prefer as takes account of fewer tests at weekends) hits 119. A week ago it was 97, a fortnight ago 57 and a month ago 20. It was around six weeks ago that the Government lifted Level 4 in Auckland and you can see that average start to rise in late September.

25% of over 12s are not fully vaccinated, or 37% of the total population.

Dear Chlöe Swarbrick

I found this article interesting as it is about the type of student I have dedicated my life to working with. Highlights for me were:

• [Chlöe Swarbrick] the MP, known for tackling prickly topics in Parliament, brought the same energy last month when she first shared her adult ADHD diagnosis. In doing so, she used her platform to highlight the issues many with neurodiversity face in getting a diagnosis.

• Swarbrick speaks on the New Zealand Herald about her ADHD journey and why things need to change. This began after years of grappling with depression, when she says it felt as though something was coming unstuck and had to give.

• Retrospectively, she puts this down to her “masking” her symptoms. This concept is common with women who have ADHD and describes when neurodiverse people try to cover up their symptoms by copying the behaviour of neurotypical people to fit into the “neurotypical” world.

• “If, as a younger woman like myself, you were sat in a corner trying to read something but you were reading the page 100 times over and absorbing none of that information. You fit the bill of someone that looks studious but, you know, nobody’s necessarily seeing the things that are going through your brain.”

• Throughout her first few years at school Swarbrick says she was relatively decent, but she says the wheels “fell off” in her later years. Had she known more about ADHD back then she says she would have arranged things differently and had a higher level of wellbeing.

• Getting a diagnosis can end up becoming a “really expensive” process … “That lack of formal diagnosis then stands in the way of, and is a barrier to, what for some people is massively helpful medication.”

• Part of the reason she decided to participate in the conversation surrounding ADHD is because of the privilege she holds as an MP. “I have a job to do as a representative that I take really seriously.

• “Not only are her solutions quite different, she’s quite focused on them as well, so I think it helps make her a politician of the future. She’s not a normal politician.” “Having a role model like that is just massive. Oh goodness, it’s a little bit emotional when you think how brave Chlöe is, full stop. I think having a role model who isn’t the stereotype also really shakes it up in a useful way.”

• “There’s a big conversation to be had about how we can recognise it in a way that’s helpful and how we can validate people’s experience in a useful way. I think Chlöe’s probably done a great job of starting that in a really positive way.”

• ADHD affects 2 to 5 per cent of all children.

Here is the kicker though!

As you are aware, Chlöe, we have twice applied for a 480 students Designated Character School (non-zoned) for Neuro-Diverse learners in or near your electorate but available to Year 7 – 13 students from across Auckland. Many of the students who come to the school with be Maori and Pasifika and low decile. It would be called the Mt Hobson Academy.

We have shown significant demand and the ability to deliver in our applications. Students from the private version of this school (Mt Hobson Middle School) have been deeply cared for and have gone onto NCEA Level 1 at 96%, UE at 69% and many have found their adult niche – like you have.

In turning us down the Minister/Ministry had tried to say that neuro-diverse are fully cared for in ordinary State schools. However, in Parliament last week Jan Tinetti told the House that there are as many as 80,000 of children with needs being under-cared for in our education system. We are supported in our application by many families and organisations such as Autism NZ.

Your article notes there could be a many as 5% of children with ADHD. Add to this children with high anxiety, dyslexia, FAS, experiences of violence and other trauma in the home …

The 480 children per year we can help with our superb professionals and teaching staff need your help. Minister Hipkins has refused to meet with us for four years. You have stated to me that you are hesitant to help as I had been critical of some Green Party policies! It is not about me. Please see your way past that.

This school is desperately needed. You can make it happen. Please help. Turn your informed sympathy to practical empathy.

There is already a superbly funded “Green School” that you guys funded in Taranaki, with 72 students (60 Euro, 7 International, 3 Maori) so that name is taken. We could call ours “Swarbrick School” if it would help. Everyone needs a legacy.

Alwyn Poole
[email protected]

Tim Black at Spiked writes:

During a press conference last week, a journalist said that this sounded like Ardern was creating ‘two different classes of people’, the ‘vaccinated [and the] unvaccinated’. Yes, Ardern responded, ‘that is what it is’. ‘If you are still unvaccinated’, Ardern continued, ‘not only will you be more at risk of catching Covid-19, but many of the freedoms others enjoy will be out of reach’.

There is no getting away from the draconian, illiberal implications of this policy. Ardern’s government has effectively created a two-tier society, a nation of first- and second-class citizens. What’s more, this divisive policy cleaves along ethnic lines. According to recent reports, only 57 per cent of Māori and only 73 per cent of Pacific peoples have had their first jab. That compares against 80 per cent for white New Zealanders. This lack of protection has meant that Māori and Pacific peoples make up 83 per cent of all recent Covid cases. And now it seems that the same ethnic groupings will also be deprived of their basic rights during any future Covid outbreaks.

This raises an interesting point. If the vaccine mandates lead to a large number of Maori being forced out of work, might there be a Waitangi Tribunal claim lodged about it?

So since 2000 US emissions are down around one billion tonnes. The EU is down almost one billion tonnes. Russia and Japan are constant. India is up around one billion tonnes and oh yeah China has tripled to 12 billion tonnes.

What do we think it will look like in 2025 or 2030? Anyone want to bet China will be lower than 2020?

Dame Catherine Tizard has died, aged 90. She was Mayor of Auckland from 1983 to 1990 and Governor-General from 1990 to 1996.

Many will also remember her from the show, Beauty and the Beast, with Selwyn Toogood.

She almost had to use her reserve powers in 1993 when National won 50 seats and the opposition 49 seats. Back then the Speaker had no deliberative vote which meant National may not have been able to govern. But the issue was solved by Labour’s Peter Tapsell agreeing to become Speaker.

Condolences to her family and friends.

A reader writes:

Cost and benefit

Personalising risk and personalising cost.

NZ – Covid risk

Based upon current average death numbers at 1,500 per million, over 2 years.
Average age of death being 82 – life expectancy without Covid interference an additional 3 years.
So 1,500 x 5m pop. = 7,500 x 3 years = 22,500 life years.
On average at the end of life – low quality life years in most circumstances.

Expediture on Covid

Lets say it’s only 1 Billion – the cost of a single week of lockdown.

Comparative expenditure

In this example we will use the funding for Keytruda immunotherapy.
Ironically funding negotiations for this were cancelled by this Government citing the cost of Covid.
Only funded currently for inoperable melanoma, we will use it as required for cancers of the head, neck, edometriotic, lung and other cancers for which it has a proven performance.
30-50 people per week (say 40) given, on average, an additional 3-5 years of life (say 4).
Figures quoted for funding are $50-200m for 3-5 years. Lets say $100m for 4.
So:
40 people per week (say 2,000 people per annum) funded for 4 years = 8,000 people,
getting 4 years extra life on average, 32,000 life years in total.
$100m = 32,000 life years – average onset age? (lets say 65) higher quality of life years than Covid.
However we have only spent $100 million, so multiply the results x10
1 billion = Keytruda funded for 40 years saving 320,000 life years.
Note: It is not clear in the figures I have what length of time the treatment is applied, I have used 1 year.
Though it was worded as 3-5 years accumulative, So else – use between 80,000 and 320,000 life years.
Have we spent 50x times that on our Covid response? Or even more?
All public health decisions are ultimately $/risk/benefit analysis, how can this be justified?

Personalising risk and cost.

We hear at the moment things like “You are killing your Gran” etc.
Fine – but that statement personalises the risk, it does not personalise the cost.
Using the costs above as an indication – and I doubt they can be wrong by a factor of 50x –
A more honest statement might be …
“Save your Gran – but kill 10 other members of your family: children, siblings and/or cousins”.

Points on conclusion.

This is of course based on a zero sum game that assumes the budgeted money would be spent where it does the most good. The fact is it would probably not be spent at all on boring diseases.
Has anyone asked anyone over 80 whether they would prefer another year of life on the basis that they deny one of their children another year of life at age 60 – let alone?
My personal opinion of a preferred action would be to vaccinate often the 70 plus age group and the vulnerable. Then carry on as “old normal” zero restrictions. Perhaps take $10B and sprinkle a few modern base hospitals about the place. Spend another $5B on the like of Keytruda above and clearing some of the elective surgery lists. Of course there is still the other $35B!
What would you do?

A Blair Jones started a petition calling on the PM to resign four months ago. It didn’t have many signatures but in recent times it is gaining around 1,000 a day. It has no chance at all of having any political impact, but could be an interesting unscientific barometer of how many people are pissed off enough to sign it.

Stuff reports:

Wellington city councillors will split a retired colleague’s six-figure salary amongst themselves rather than appoint a replacement or donate the difference to charity.

The contempt for ratepayers is staggering.

The council also voted down an amendment by councillor Iona Pannett suggesting councillors pay back the equivalent amount of additional remuneration to the Council or some other charity.

The amendment would have been non-binding, on the advice of council staff.

Pannett​ said she felt uncomfortable voting to give herself a pay raise while many workers and businesses were struggling due to Covid-19.

On this issue Pannett is dead right. The extra remuneration should simply be paid back to Council.

The amendment lost 10-4, with Iona Pannett, Laurie Foon, Sarah Free, and Mayor Andy Foster in favour of donating the salary difference.

Well done those four.

A guest post from Jeremy Callender:

Dear 21^st Century NZ,

You exhaust me.

I want to care about you and your continued existence – I really do.  My own existence is, after all, somewhat bound up in it.  But you do make it so very hard.

And it’s not the endless news stories of endless state/group/family/individual violence, the nauseating ubiquity of celebrity worship, or the cultural embracing of narcissism as if it were the virtue next to godliness.

It’s the noise.  It’s just the [insert adjectival colouration of choice] noise.

You just don’t seem to know how or when to bite your tongue.  When to pause and consider your response.  When to quietly refrain from sharing your every thought.  When to just shut the hell up. 

You just have to have your say.  You have to get your ten cents in.   To share the bottomless depths of your Google-fuelled wisdom.  To raise your banner proudly in the crucial swing-state of Facebook and on the bloody battlefield of Twitter, confident in the sanctimony and self-righteousness that are so deservedly yours.

And I understand.  I get it – I really do.  After all, there are so many issues about which to sanctimoniously and self-righteously speak.  Here are just a few of the issues:

• Poor people are lazy bastards who live to defraud the taxpayer
• Rich people are lying bastards who live to defraud the taxpayer
• Brown people are whinging bastards who do all of the above
• Yellow people are an insidious peril and must be stopped
• White people live a life of undeserved privilege built on the spilt blood and trampled souls of innocent indigenous peoples who – prior to white people turning up – had never ever done anything remotely discourteous or otherwise warranting disapproval 
• Black lives matter
• White lives matter more
• Yellow lives probably matter, but secretly we’d prefer if they didn’t
• [insert name of preferred celebrity] has an opinion about something
• Somebody somewhere said something about something – and I was offended
• Donald Trump is alive
• There’s a housing crisis
• There’s a methamphetamine crisis
• There’s a poverty crisis
• There’s a pandemic
• Minorities have rights
• Animals have rights
• Old people have rights for now, but think how convenient it would be if they didn’t?
• White people (especially white men) shouldn’t have any rights at all

So many issues.  So many topics about which to sensibly converse in an informed, restrained and respectful manner.  

Flight of the Conchords used to sing about the issues:  “Think about it – think, think about it.”  I miss them.

See, the thing is, there have always been issues.  For as long as this ridiculous troupe of B-grade circus freaks that we call Humanity have been in charge of things, there have been issues.  The threat and reality of war. The possibility and reality of famine, plague, pestilence, immigration, emigration, social upheaval, injustice, poverty and inequality.  Overpriced avocados and underpaid sex workers.  

Et cetera and ad infinitum.

There have always been Donald Trumps and Kim Jong-Uns. There have always been environmental challenges to deal with.  There have always been people and groups of people who have possessed more and less than others.  There have always been people thinking and saying and doing things with which other people vehemently disagree.  There has always been pain and suffering and difficulty and unfairness and unhappiness.  This may come as a surprise to you, but there really is nothing new under the sun.

And in saying so, I am by no means implying that I think such things are great and wonderful and we should all be really stoked about it.

What I am saying is this: enough already.  Just …… enough.  Enough with the Facebook posts and the tweeting and the memes and the moral outrage and the hand wringing and the righteous vitriol and all of the other completely pointless and thoroughly unhelpful bullshit.

None of these things are going to go away.  They will always be with us in some form or another.  There will always be objects of fear for those who wish to fear.  Sources of offence for those who are determined to be offended.  Opportunities for exploitation by those with the will and the means to put their own desires first, irrespective of the cost to others.  There will always be the possibility of suffering, struggle and ultimate doom.  There always has been – just ask the dinosaurs.

Do you really think it matters in the long run if you’re Left, Right, up, down, black, white or yellow with purple stripes?  Conservative or liberal?  Casually religious or militantly less so?  Hetro He-Man archetype or ‘flaming’ homosexual?  Rich or poor?  

‘Coz it doesn’t.  

We’re all still incredibly imperfect human beings – isn’t that enough?  Aren’t we a sufficiently wretched species already?  Do we really need all of this other rubbish as well?  The cyber-fortresses of absolute righteous certainty?  The razorwire-topped walls of pseudo-ideological division?  The endless streams of senseless rhetoric and brain-dead invective in the “Comments” section of [insert name of preferred propaganda outlet], borne of ignorance and hurt and stupidity and fear?  

Do we need them?

Why is it so important that we each get our moral oar in?  Why is it so hard to accept and admit that we may all be as ill-informed and deceived as each other?  As biased as each other?  As bloody stupid as each other?  As lonely as each other?  As mortal and as scared as each other?

Why are we so determined to fight the possibility of smoke with the actuality of fire?  To crush any and all who dare to have a different point of view?  A view perhaps based on an experience of life that has been nothing like our own…

Is it fixing the problems?  Is it healing anyone’s pain?  Is it making us better people?  

Are our little online echo chambers helping us to sleep better at night?

Please tell me that they are…

Here’s a random theory that’s probably worth disregarding entirely:

If your journey brings you into contact with people whose opinions differ from your own, consider treating them gently: hearing them out and trying to understand them.  I mean, at the very least, you’ll be following Sun Tzu’s (and Rage Against The Machine’s) advice to know your enemy.  And if there are people around you who are living their lives in ways that just don’t quite gel with your ideas of how things should be, consider asking yourself – or, God forbid, respectfully asking them – why it is that they do what they do the way they do it.  

Who knows?  Their reasons might be better than – or the same as – yours…

Alternatively, you might just try quietly minding your own [insert adjective of choice] business.

If your ‘enemies’ – or their children – are hungry, then instead of bad-mouthing them to your friends, blogging about it or writing to your local representative, maybe you could consider taking them a meal.  If they are thirsty, give them something to drink.  And if they’re clearly not going to win the annual award for The Visual Embodiment of Perfect Middle Class Parenting any time soon, perhaps you could offer to babysit their kids from time to time.  

And if you’re deeply fearful that the condition of their front lawn may be negatively impacting property values, then perhaps consider pulling your fat head out of your righteous arse and offer to mow it for them. 

I think I remember once hearing about this guy who suggested that we should try loving our neighbours as we love ourselves……yes, yes I’m fairly certain I read that somewhere. 

But then again, what could a Jew have possibly known about suffering…?

Flaglouriously yours,

Jeremy Callander

Chris Bishop and Chris Luxon announced:

National has forced the Government to back down on an electoral power grab buried in a Covid bill.

“The Government proposed to give itself the power to repeatedly delay local body elections through a change hidden quietly in the Covid Response (Management Measures) Legislation Bill,” says National’s Local Government spokesperson Christopher Luxon.

“The bill allowed the Government to adjourn local elections multiple times without constraint – and not just in an election year, but the year after as well.

“As an example, it would have let the Government delay one of next year’s council elections by six weeks at a time, right through to the end of 2023.

“The Government has now buckled under the pressure and will delete that clause from the bill.

They were trying to sneak this law change through under urgency. Good to see the backdown.

Stuff reports:

The incumbent centre-right political group has repeated its clean sweep of the election for Entrust, the consumer trust which owns the majority of the electricity lines company Vector.

But the dismal turnout in the triennial postal ballot has fallen to a record 9.64 per cent, compared with the previous record low of 12.44 per cent in 2018.

The National Party-leaning Communities and Residents (C&R) ticket retained all five seats on Entrust, with the new trustees including two former National MPs Paul Hutchinson and Denise Lee, a former party board member Alastair Bell, and Michael Buczkowski and William Cairns.

The highest polling unsuccessful candidate was Emma McInnes, from the newly-formed More for You, Better for Climate group, who missed the cut 838 votes behind re-elected trust chairman William Cairns.

I was interested in the results of this election, as I thought it might be a useful reminder of how unrepresentative Twitter is.

The MFUBFC group were everywhere on Twitter. I saw tweets and hashtags for them hundreds and hundreds of times. If Twitter was your world, then they were everywhere. I’m not sure I can even recall a single tweet or hashtag for the C&R team. The ration of profile between the two was probably at least 50:1.

Yet the C&R team won in a clean sweep.

Even though the MFYBFC team was from the left, that didn’t mean some of their candidates weren’t impressive. In fact I even have some money invested with a fund managed by one of them. I regard him as a very smart business operator. So the problem for MFYBFC wasn’t the quality of their candidates – I think it was that they seemed to spend so much time online preaching to the converted rather than reaching out to those not on social media.