If you want a chuckle, read this court judgement.

The short version is a lawyer was constantly rude and abusive to Air NZ ground staff, and eventually Air NZ gave her a 12 month ban.

She then sued Air NZ. and lost badly.

I’m amazed she thought the lawsuit was a good idea, as it enters her behaviour into the public record for good.

During these bleak times we need some lightness, so for those who don’t know who Mittens is, meet Mittens.

Mittens lives in Wellington. He is famous, due to his wondering nature.

Mittens lives on The Terrace but every day and most nights goes out exploring Wellington. He turns up everywhere from the waterfront to Cuba Street.

But it isn’t just the fact he wanders around. He is very unusual in that he will go into any building he can find and make himself at home. He’ll take over a bed in a student hostel, sleep on a desk in an office etc.

There is a Facebook page where people share photos of their encounters with him. I joined the group around a month ago and love the daily updates of where he has been.

Here’s a few recent photos:

His reserved table.

I’ve yet to meet Mittens but hope to do so one day!

Stats NZ reports:

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.5 percent in the December 2019 quarter, after a 0.8 percent rise in the previous quarter, Stats NZ said today. …

Annual GDP growth for the year ended December 2019 was 2.3 percent, compared with a 3.2 percent growth in the year ended December 2018.

0.5% quarterly growth is pretty miserable. This is before the impact of Coronavirus. The next quarter will be (I predict) slightly negative and the June quarter will be massively down.

Henry Cooke reported:

When people die from coronavirus, it’s generally because their lungs stop working.

The infection can cause a severe pneumonia, inflaming the air sacs in the lungs and then filling them with fluid, leading to serious trouble breathing without medical assistance.

Luckily, this only appears to happen in a small percentage of coronavirus cases. And if you’re in a hospital when it happens, modern medicine can do the breathing for you with a mechanical ventilator. Oxygen continues to pump through your blood while your lungs slowly recover. 

None of the confirmed coronavirus cases in Aotearoa have been serious enough to require sustained hospital care. And the efforts to “flatten the curve” are designed to make sure that when there are cases that do need serious hospital care, they don’t overwhelm the health system.

And yet nobody can tell me how many ventilators there are in this country. Not the ministry itself, not the minister of health, and not the director general of health Ashley Bloomfield. 

This is because there is no general database of crucial medical equipment in New Zealand. And in the months since this virus made itself known no proper survey appears to have been done.

It almost defies belief that two months in, and no one in central Government has done a stocktake of how many respirators we have – until media starting asking.

And they were even warned as Newsroom reports:

As February progressed and McGuinness heard nothing about ventilator stocks, McGuinness got really worried.

She wrote to Health Minister David Clark on March 2 pointing to overseas ventilator shortages and asking about the situation in New Zealand. 

“How many ICU beds does New Zealand currently have with medical ventilators and how many are currently being used?” she asked. “How many other respiratory devices do we have and do medical professionals consider they are useful (eg are they able to be repurposed into medical ventilators?).

“Has the Ministry of Health been in contact with suppliers or other organisations based in New Zealand that might be capable of manufacturing medical ventilators in preparation for possible outbreaks?” 

She didn’t get a response.

It took two further weeks for the Government to catch on there may be a problem.

Got notified yesterday that my password had been changed on Linked In. It was done from Senegal.

So I quickly reset the password using my e-mail address and set a new password using the iPhone’s password generator – one of those long impossible to remember passwords that can’t be guessed.

I presumed that the original compromise was because I don’t always use unique passwords so a hack on another site could have allowed them to get into my Linked In account.

But what surprised me was that after I set a new unique password, the person in Senegal managed to change my password again. I can’t work out how they could do this, now I had a unique ultra strong password.

Anyone got any theories?

I have now turned on two factor authentication and that has stopped things (lots of attempts though).

The hacker also changed my profile photo to a woman, and renamed it “Sophia Katherine” and had me in the Army. So don’t be alarmed if you saw my gender change – I have transitioned back 🙂

Peter Dunne wrote:

There should be little surprise at Shane Jones’ latest racist outburst against Indians living in New Zealand. …

Playing minorities off against the rest of the population in this way is a classic New Zealand First tactic and is the height of electoral cynicism.

But it is also much more than that.  It is a blunt expression of New Zealand First’s beliefs. Moreover, what it really shows is that racially motivated criticisms by New Zealand First MPs are not just some casual occurrence to be brushed aside as “their personal views”. There have been too many instances of this type of behaviour over the years for them to be dismissed credibly as just coincidence.  Rather, they are at the heart of New Zealand First’s monocultural, anti-immigrant message, which the party is unashamed and unabashed in promoting. It is a deliberate pitch to that segment of the population that holds similar views.

One only need recall Winston Peters’ quarter century of attacks on non-white migrants; former deputy leader Peter Brown’s outburst that there were too many Asian immigrants coming to New Zealand; former MP Richard Prosser’s references to people from “wogistan”, Ron Mark telling a Korean born MP to “go home”, or Clayton Mitchell’s anti-Semitic comments in  Parliament. The list goes on and on. Shane Jones is no different – he is just playing the same old tune his party has scratched out for years.

It’s a useful reminder that for NZ First racism is a strategy.

All the while, it is becoming increasingly ironic and incredible that the Labour Party which professes itself to the world as progressive, compassionate and kind should be propped up in office by such a regressive, racist coalition partner. Sadly, while National has already reduced New Zealand First’s relevance for the future by ruling out working with it, Labour is too electorally reliant on New Zealand First’s potential numbers to do likewise. And with the Prime Minister’s do-nothing response to New Zealand First’s racist attacks likely to continue, the country seems set to endure yet more ignorant and intemperate outbursts from Shane Jones and his colleagues over the next few months until the election, when the majority of New Zealanders will have the opportunity to finally put an end to this racism in politics once and for all.

If you don’t want Shane Jones in Cabinet, there is only one surefire way to achieve that – vote for National or ACT.

Stuff reports:

New Zealand is closing its borders to everyone but citizens and residents in an attempt to stop the growth of coronavirus.

The ban is in place for planes boarding after 11.59pm on Thursday – any planes in the air already would not be impacted.

Partners and children of citizens or residents are exempt from the ban, as are some health and humanitarian workers.

This should have been done last weekend, but better late than never.

The idea that voluntary self-isolation of inwards travelers was going to work was a naive strategy.

Being an island(s) is usually a disadvantage, but it can also be an advantage at times of pandemics etc.

Newsroom reports:

The maths is bleak. According to data from overseas outbreaks, around 5 percent of people who test positive for Covid-19 end up requiring intensive care. What percentage of the general population will catch the virus is anybody’s guess – forecasts vary from 20 percent of the global population to as high as 50 or 70 percent in some countries.

Our population is 4.8 million. 20% of that is 960,000 and 70% is 3.36 million.

If 5% need intensive care that is between 48,000 and 168,000.

These forecasts also assume the virus will continue to spread, perhaps seasonally, for at least the next 18 months, if not longer. This makes calculating the needed intensive care capacity – not to mention capacity for other resources, such as general hospital beds and active medical staff – exceedingly difficult.

Nonetheless, New Zealand’s stock of intensive care units – just 176 beds – doesn’t inspire confidence, David Galler says. Galler has been an intensive care specialist at Middlemore Hospital for more than three decades.

Let’s assume best case scenario and only 48,000 need intensive care and we can spread it over 18 months. And also assume each person only needs to be there for two weeks and we flatten the curve entirely. So highly optimistic assumptions.

In 18 months you have around 36 two week periods. So for each two week period you need 1,333 beds and we have 176.

And that is the optimistic scenario.

The pessimistic one is 70% get infected and they stay in for four weeks each. That means 9,333 people needing a ICU bed every four weeks.

In the optimistic scenario 13% of those needing ICU beds get one. In the pessimistic scenario 2% get one.

So we need more ICU beds, and soon.

I heard a good suggestion yesterday.

The cruise ship industry is now dead for six months or more. Why don’t we lease a cruise ship and turn it into a dedicated floating hospital for Coronavirus treatment?

Now that Biden is the presumptive nominee we can start to look at general election polls.

Now last time the national polls were accurate in terms of the popular vote, but not accurate in terms of state polls, so Trump won despite losing the popular vote.

The current RCP polling average has Biden 6.4% ahead of Trump. That is better than in 2016 when Clinton won the popular vote by 2.2% (but lost electoral college). But that doesn’t mean he’ll win as all about the marginal states.

So let’s look at current state polling:

• Wisconsin: Trump 45%, Biden 45%
• Florida: Trump 49%, Biden 48%
• Michigan: Trump 42%, Biden 47%
• Pennsylvania: Trump 44%, Biden 47%
• North Carolina: Trump 45%, Biden 49%
• Arizona: Trump 44%, Biden 48%
• Minnesota: Trump 38%, Biden 50%
• Texas: Trump 48%, Biden 45%
• Georgia: Trump 51%, Biden 44%

Most of these states are within the margin of error, and of course campaigning yet to seriously start. So this is a snapshot, not a prediction.

If one assumes Trump holds Wisconsin, we have:

• 2016: Trump wins 306 votes
• Trump holds Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, Georgia
• Biden holds Minnesota
• Biden wins Michigan (16), Pennsylvania (20), North Carolina (15) and Arizona (11)
• Result would be Trump 244, Biden 298

Soon today’s polls Biden is ahead. But it doesn’t need much movement for Trump to win.

Trump can afford to lose 26 electoral votes to hold on. So if he retains Michigan and Pennsylvania he wins 270 to 268.

If he retains Pennsylvania and Arizona it is 269 each and the House has (currently) a majority of Republican controlled delegations so he would win.

If he loses Pennsylvania, he can’t afford to lose any other seats.

So expect to see a lot of campaigning in Pennsylvania.

So a Hollywood actress and “anti-fascist” campaigner thinks Israel knew about this all in advance, and the Jews are seeking to make money out of it.

Sadly yes we are.

Bang goes the conspiracy theory.

Not heard of the Goebbels Gap before, but I like it. Will refer to it in future.

Stuff reports:

On its long-haul network Air New Zealand will be reducing its capacity by 85 per cent over the coming months and will operate a minimal schedule to allow Kiwis to return home and to keep trade corridors with Asia and North America open. Full details of this schedule will be advised in the coming days. …

Chief executive Greg Foran said, based on what the airline could see on Monday, its 12,500 workforce would drop by 30 per cent.

So 3,500 staff will lose their jobs. Terrible.

The New Zealand Airline Pilots’ Association president Captain Andrew Ridling said he understood it would not be a short-term measure.

“The industry is aware that, until this unprecedented situation developed, Air New Zealand would have had forecasted annual revenue of approximately $6 billion   I would no longer be surprised if that forecast is reduced to around $1b,” he said.

Air NZ last year had costs of around $5.4 billion. If their revenue is $1 billion, it seems inevitable they will need government assistance.

The third reading passed Wednesday night 68 votes to 51. The breakdown by party was:

• National 19 – 36 (35% in favour)
• Labour 37 – 9 (80%)
• NZ First 2 – 6 (25%)
• Greens 8 – 0 (100%)
• ACT 1 – 0 (100%)
• Independent 1 – 0 (100%)

The MP who didn’t vote was National’s Stuart Smith.

So National MPs around 1/3 in favour, Labour MPs 1/5 against and NZ First 1/3 in favour.

Here’s the vote by different demographics:

• Electorate MPs: 38 – 32 (54% in favour)
• List MPs: 30 – 19 (61%)
• Female MPs: 34 – 15 (69%)
• Male MPs: 34 – 36 (49%)
• Asian MPs: 4 – 4 (50%)
• European MPs: 46 – 30 (61%)
• Maori MPs: 14 – 13 (52%)
• Pasifika MPs: 4 – 4 (50%)
• Under 40 MPs: 15 – 6 (71%)
• 40s MPs: 24 – 16 (60%)
• 50s MPs: 22 – 20 (52%)
• 60+ MPs: 7 – 9 (44%)

The final speaker in the debate was Amy Adams. Some extracts:

I have sat with and held the hand, over my life, of women that I know and love who have had to make an incredibly difficult decision to have an abortion. I have seen them face the delays, the difficulties, the struggles, the judgment, and the abuse, frankly, and feel marginalised and criminalised because of our law, and that is not OK. I am very proud that in my last few months in this House, I get to be a part of—hopefully—putting that right for women today. …

If religious leaders in our community want to do something about unwanted pregnancies, then perhaps they could stop teaching that contraception is a sin. That would go a long way towards advancing the views and the rights of women.

Not all religions, but a very valid point.

I think those who are voting against this legislation—their views are their own, but I think they are out of step with New Zealand. I think this House is in grave danger of becoming far more socially conservative than New Zealand, and we do a disservice to New Zealand when we get out of step with the views of New Zealand. Like many of you—and I’ve heard others say it—on conscience issues, I take a lot of time talking to my community in my constituency. I represent a constituency that wouldn’t be regarded as urban liberal by any stretch of the imagination, and I can tell you that the very strongly held majority view—not exclusively, absolutely. But the very strongly expressed and held majority view is why wouldn’t we pass this legislation? It seems a no-brainer to so many, and yet we run the risk of allowing a very vocal minority, largely, in my view, directed by the religious leaders across New Zealand—although I accept that may not be true for all. We run the risk of allowing them to derail important legislative reform.

I don’t think this law change will lead to one more abortion in New Zealand. In fact they have been declining for many years. What it will lead to is women no longer having to pretend they are mentally ill (or will suffer mental damage) in order to have an abortion.

Yet in New Zealand we are still getting reports of people being denied tests.

Unless we are at our testing capacity, we should test anyone who requests it. Only when we reach capacity limits should we prioritise it.

One good suggestion was to even randomly test 1,000 people, which may give us good data on if significant numbers of people who are asymptomatic are infected.

The Herald reports:

The Government is defending the testing regime for Covid-19 as the World Health Organisation came out today with a strong message to “test, test, test”.

“We have not seen an urgent enough escalation in testing, isolation and contact tracing, which is the backbone of the response,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

“We have a simple message for all countries: Test, test, test.”

National Party leader Simon Bridges added his voice this morning, saying the testing criteria should be loosened because the number of tests in New Zealand was “simply not good enough”.

“We’re now in a position where it’s under 600 tests in this country, when comparable countries like Norway have 8000. We should be in the thousands. And I think that’s why, frankly, we have only eight confirmed cases.”

There has been an average of 11 tests a day since the start of February, but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that was not a fair measurement of the regime.

“My job is to make sure the capacity is there. It is,” Ardern said, adding capacity would reach 1500 tests a day later this week and continue to ramp up.

If we have capacity for 1,500 tests a day, why are we doing so few?

The Herald reports:

There will be no referendum on abortion law reforms.

The idea proposed by New Zealand First has been voted down by MPs, during the committee stage of the Abortion Legislation Bill.

There were just 19 votes in favour of a public referendum, and 100 against.

The bill passed its second reading in Parliament in a conscience vote early this month, with 81 votes in favour and 39 votes opposing, narrower than the 94 to 23 margin at the first reading last year.

Not sure if I could have coped with a third referendum. Two is enough.

Newshub reports:

The Prime Minister is not ruling out changing the date of the 2020 general election amid the coronavirus COVID-19 global pandemic.

It comes as six Members of Parliament are now in self-isolation and the Speaker of the House has told Newshub it’s a matter of when, not if, the virus spreads into Parliament.

September 19 is marked for the 2020 general election, and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday there are no plans at this stage to change the date.

But when Newshub asked if she was ruling out changing it, Ardern responded: “No, I’m saying at this point there is no basis for us to do that… we are some distance from the general election.”

So when could the election be delayed until? It’s a bit complicated.

• S17(1) of the Constitution Act 1986 states that Parliament expires three years after the writ was returned for the last election
• That was 12 Oct 2017 so Parliament expires 12 Oct 2020
• S125 of the Electoral Act say a writ for the election must be issued within 7 days of Parliament expiring so 19 Oct 2020
• S139(4) states the writ must be returned no later than 60 days after it is issued which is Friday 18 December 2020
• You really need at least two weeks for special votes, overseas votes, the final count and recounts so Sat 28 November 2020 is realistic last date. Maybe Sat 5 December but the Electoral Commission would hate you.

Now what if Coronavirus makes even a November election undesirable?

Well the three year term of Parliament is entrenched in the Electoral Act. You need a 75% super majority in Parliament to amend it, so National and Labour would have to agree.

Stuff reports:

Rates in Wellington city could be bumped up by 9.2 per cent as coronavirus is set to have a negative affect on local households and businesses. 

In Wellington City Council’s annual plan agenda, two options were put forward to councillors who will be making decisions on the plan on Thursday. 

The options  would be considered  with coronavirus in mind, as it “provides uncertainty and will have a negative economic impact on households and businesses in the year ahead”. 

There was a “high resilience” option of 9.2 per cent which included additional funding for Wellington Water Limited and Te Ngākau Civic Square while another option, without this extra funding, would be 7.9 per cent.

Both options are unacceptable.

Businesses are facing plummeting income. Families have huge uncertainty about their incomes as jobs are at risk.

WCC needs to live within its means and come up with a Budget with a rates rise no more than inflation.

They could start by suspending work on the convention centre, as pretty obviously won’t be any need for one for a while.

Stuff reports:

Recovering the Pike River mine drift could cost up to $51 million.

The Government has approved another $10.8m to complete the project as well as a $4.2m contingency. 

The agency was set up in January 2018 to re-enter the drift of the West Coast mine with the hope of finding out why 29 men died in a series of explosions in November 2010.

The Government originally budgeted $7.6m a year for three years, totalling $23m. It then topped up the budget to $36m. 

So this is the third budget blowout in two years and probably not the last.

The cost has increased around 700%.

They would spend less if they gave each family $1.75 million.

The Guardian reports:

Eight months from a presidential election, the virus has jeopardised Trump’s central reelection argument – a strong economy – just as Joe Biden, the candidate emerging from the Democratic field, seems poised to take advantage by offering stability and a safe pair of hands.

Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “The most calming and reassuring presidential voice of the past 24 hours has been Joe Biden. As a Republican, this is hard for me to say but it’s true.”

The coronavirus pandemic is being described as a once-in-a-lifetime event. History remembers how presidents handle such crises – and to Trump, it seems unlikely to be kind. He may be regarded as a Nero, fiddling while Rome burned.

Trump has failed at even the most basic task of a President – to communicate the right information. Here’s a list of just a few of the many false statements he has made on Coronavirus:

• 24 Jan – said the virus is totally under control
• 28 Jan – said falsely Johnson & Johnson creating a vaccine
• 30 Jan – said it is a very little problem
• 10 Feb – said will go away in April when it is warmer
• 19 Feb – said the numbers will progressively get better
• 23 Feb – said it was under control
• 26 Feb – said numbers were going down, not up
• 27 Feb – predicted it would soon disappear
• 29 Feb – said a vaccine would be available very quickly
• 4 March – said was very mild
• 4 March – said he had a hunch that death rate would be a fraction of 1%
• 6 March – falsely said anyone who wants to be tested can be
• 7 March – said not concerned at all
• 10 March – said will go away if people stay calm
• 11 March – said all travel from Europe was banned, but in fact was only foreign citizens
• 11 March – incorrectly said trade and cargo from Europe was banned
• 11 March – said insurers would cover all costs of testing and treatment, but treatment isn’t covered
• 12 March – said Americans who return from overseas are currently being tested very heavily for the coronavirus – not true

Trump’s pathological inability to tell the truth is normally disturbing but not overly harmful. But having him constantly say the wrong thing about a virus causing a global pandemic is exceptionally harmful and shows why he is so psychologically unsuitable to hold any elected office.

And no pointing out Trump has stuffed up is not TDS. True TDS is Trump Defender Syndrome – those so crazed by their support of him that they can’t actually intelligently respond to criticism of him except by yelling out TDS.

Key details are:

• $585 a week wage subsidy for 12 weeks, cost $5.1 billion. Have to show 30% revenue drop. Up to approx 20 staff maximum
• $585 a week also for workers or contractors who self-isolate
• Pay sick leave for anyone with Coronavirus – $126m
• $500 million for Vote Health
• Permanent $25 a week boost for beneficiaries – $2.8 billion
• Winter Energy Payment doubled from $450 to $900
• $2.8bn of tax changes for businesses -waive some interest, more asset deductions

Much of the package is sensible. I suspect a wage subsidy will be needed for far longer than 12 weeks.

I am surprised that there is no direct support for families who keep working. Those out of work get a reasonable boost, but those in work do not.

The article is not worth reading. It is vile insanity. An extract:

A careful analysis of all available information, including a complete technical as well as military analytic review of the full video tape, suggests that this was a false flag event. We need Muslim and US white nationalist investigators on the ground to determine if anyone actually died, all indications are that no one died, this appears to have been a completely staged event managed by the Mossad in complicity with corrupt New Zealand police and national authorities, and corrupt Freemasons.

So it was the Jews and the Freemasons that did it. Or didn’t do it, just pretend to do it.

Another extract:

Just as the Zionists assassinated John F. Kennedy Junior to clear the way for Hillary Clinton to buy her Senate seat in New York, they are seeking here to help the Democrats defeat President Trump in 2020.

The Jews also killed JFK Jr!

Bad enough that Iran’s official newspaper pushed this anti-Semitic conspiracy madness, but worse to have an aspiring political party in NZ promote it and defend it.

So who is behind the RealNZ Party? It appears to be David Moffett judging by this IRL – https://www.realnz.org.nz/party-founder/david-moffett (now inactive but on Goggle). Google Cache says:

David Founded New NZ and following much deliberation has taken a decision to rebrand to Real NZ Party. Prior to his foray into Politics he had a successful business career and was CEO of NZ Rugby, Welsh Rugby, Sanzar and NRL. Lives in North Canty with family, chooks, horses and sheep.

Now this doesn’t meet Moffett made that tweet, but it seems likely.

His party should be treated as cancerous and avoided.