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EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist language, homophobic language, racist language, anti-muslim hate, transphobic language, Chemtrails, 9/11 truthers, Qanon lunacy, climate deniers, anti-fluoride fanatics, anti-vaxxer lunatics, 5G conspiracy theories, the virus is a bioweapon, some weird bullshit about the UN taking over the world and ANYONE that links to fucking infowar.
Funny (odd) how Labour can’t see anything from a practical point of view. This:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/455452/three-strikes-law-you-re-out-justice-minister-to-repeal
‘Justice Minister Kris Faafoi is pushing ahead with moves to repeal the “three strikes” law, saying it is an anomaly in the justice system that has led to “absurd and perverse” outcomes.’
In a country that shoves people in jail, brutalises them, and then finds them homes on release cosily close to their previous victims, and uses the great NZ public as a petri dish to see what level of madness and perversion the perp has reached before they get a stern scolding from the Bench and time in the Jailhouse again, the casual attitudes that prevail don’t even try to make a law fit for purpose by changing its wording to meet its intent.
No, stand up with jaw out and strike a blow for ?something that sounds good.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/455454/firefighters-union-warns-of-roster-chaos-over-mandate
Firefighters face some awful chemicals and elemental destruction from fire and other duties piled on them. They are first responders often at motor accidents etc aren’t they? Wouldn’t it be right for such strong and responsible people to be safe in themselves and from mingling with others vulnerabilities, ie they could catch Covid or pass it on to an injured person.
Man and woman up, don’t listen to the pussy-footing types around you, they aren’t you and you must live your own life and take your own opportunities when they are offered. Because the vaccine is an opportunity to assist in keeping your health and also those around you. The government is for once concentrating on doing something for everyone. You’re a fool if you turn it down and not worthy of our trust.
New film by Jane Campion – sounds clever, grim and negative. https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/atthemovies/audio/2018819944/review-the-power-of-the-dog
Are we doing our heads in? How many viewings of people hating, battling each other, being cruel and thoughtless, before our brain tends to respond in that direction all the time?
What we watch and listen to does influence us. Has there been definitive research on our present criminal, drug-spattered, violence impregnated society as a result of tv without any positivity, enjoyment of involvement with others? It is a cliche in Court, ‘Your Honour the defendant had a bad upbringing.’ We want a better society, less aggro, so where is our model for that reality? On tv, film, living deliberately?
Further on this – Bryce Edwards heading on his latest political outlook:
‘Political Roundup: Brace yourself for ugly and intolerant politics’
Isn’t this wallowing in the negatives? What if it said anxious and emotive, highly sensitised and averse politics? Not the best restructure of the heading but conveying similar with a bit less sting.
Where is the wraparound care for young Maori women from the kuia and aunties in the hapu?
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/455453/leaked-data-shows-hundreds-of-pregnant-northlanders-unvaxed
Nov.11/21
One unvaccinated pregnant mum, from Whangārei, told RNZ she had had mixed messages about inoculation, that made her anxious.
“I can’t sleep already, and then you’re struggling with that, and you’re like ‘ah I’m having more family’ and so your anxiety goes up, and then the whole set up for complications is set when you’re having fear and anxiety, and stress.
“There’s definitely an overload of information,” she said…
Overall, only a quarter were double-dosed, despite being in Group 2, first eligible in March.
The numbers were leaked to RNZ after the DHB and Ministry of Health communications staff said this week they didn’t know the vaccination rates among pregnant people because they didn’t collect the data.
University of Auckland obstetrics and gynaecology professor Dr Michelle Wise said: “Just being pregnant alone is a risk factor for having moderate to severe Covid infection, to be hospitalised, to be admitted to intensive care, and this is what we’ve seen everywhere.
“The most recent study that came out was from the United Kingdom where they reviewed all the patients that were admitted to intensive care during the Delta outbreak and in fact one out of five of them was a pregnant, unvaccinated person.”
There are 24 active cases of Covid-19 in Northland, and the infection risk to babies was seen in Whangārei this week when a six-week-old with Covid was admitted to hospital.
“That is such a tragedy for a baby to get Covid infection when we know that the pēpi can be protected from the antibodies that the mum makes when the mum gets the vaccine,” Dr Wise said.
Every act that is carried out to entrench the military occupation consolidates Israel’s colonial control and expanding illegal Jewish settlements directly impacts the Palestinian environment.
Not a single day passes without a Palestinian tree or an orchard being set ablaze or cut down. ‘Clearing’ the Palestinian environment is, and has always been, the prerequisite of constructing or expanding Jewish settlements. For these colonies to be built, countless trees have to be ‘removed’, along with the Palestinians who have planted them.Every act that is carried out to entrench the military occupation consolidates Israel’s colonial control and expanding illegal Jewish settlements directly impacts the Palestinian environment.
Not a single day passes without a Palestinian tree or an orchard being set ablaze or cut down. ‘Clearing’ the Palestinian environment is, and has always been, the prerequisite of constructing or expanding Jewish settlements. For these colonies to be built, countless trees have to be ‘removed’, along with the Palestinians who have planted them. (Is this true? Or only 5/6 days out of 7?)
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2111/S00022/bill-gates-should-know-better-how-the-israeli-occupation-ravages-the-environment-in-palestine.htm
I think I am going to have to donate to Spinoff when its writers can produce such a thorough-going report giving the essence of NZ/AO deterioration of public thought as this :
observed “a disinformation landscape that is sophisticated, motivated, adaptive, resilient, increasingly violent and significantly volatile”. And: “The last 12 weeks show increasingly violent language and other forms of expression, which has become normalised and justified within the groups and individuals who make up the disinformation community in-group. Language specifically targeting individuals and minority groups has become more violent and graphic.” Specifically: “Explicit terminology, violent jokes, transphobia and homophobia, casual racist invective and slurs, crudity and vulgarity”, all of which was now, they found, “in use regularly by a wide range of New Zealanders”.
The researchers identified, too, a “broader threat”: signs that “Covid-19 and vaccination are being used as a kind of Trojan Horse for norm-setting and norm-entrenchment of far-right ideologies in Aotearoa New Zealand. Such ideologies include, but are not limited to, ideas about gun control, anti-Māori sentiment, anti-LGBTQIA+, conservative ideals around family and family structure, misogyny, and anti-immigration. Mis- and disinformation and ‘dangerous speech’ pose significant threats to social cohesion, freedom of expression, inclusion, and safety.”
It seems that we are menaced by invisible snapping mouths around us ready to bite off our ears, eyes, and any mental acuity we have gathered for the day’s use. These are like poisonous mosquitoes and hard to combat without being drawn into the maelstrom.
I can get a bit twitchy about things I hear and who says them. And reading things that economists say if like looking at the start of Covid, trouble started somewhere. And I reckon much of our present economic trouble started with upstart economists. So when some new one enters the stage I watch stony-faced.
Adam Tooze is the author of Shutdown: How Covid Shook the World’s Economy. He also hosts the podcast Ones and Tooze…
If a black swan is an unpredictable event, the Covid-19 pandemic is a grey rhino, says economic historian Adam Tooze.
“A grey rhino is a rhino and is scary and you really ought to be paying attention… but somehow you don’t.”
The thing is, is an economist uttering soothsaying prognostications a grey rhino in itself?
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