The Daily Blog Open Mic – 26th August 2023

Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

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Announce protest actions, general chit chat or give your opinion on issues we haven’t covered for the day.

The Editor doesn’t moderate this blog,  3 volunteers do, they are very lenient to provide you a free speech space but if it’s just deranged abuse or putting words in bloggers mouths to have a pointless argument, we don’t bother publishing.

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.

8 COMMENTS

  1. Two interesting interviews on KIm Hill RNZ this morning. There might be some good thoughts within. Thanks to Kim – has she been given a NZ honour for her outstandng input into our consciousness all these years?

    10.05 am Graphic designer Paula Scher: painting with words
    Paula Scher
    New York-based Paula Scher is one of the world’s most influential graphic designers.
    A partner at Pentagram design studio since 1991, she began her career as an art director in the 1970s and ’80s, when she earned a reputation for her eclectic approach to typography.

    For over four decades, she has developed the visual language of iconic brands and institutions such as Citibank, Microsoft, the Museum of Modern Art, Tiffany & Co, Public Theater, the Metropolitan Opera, and the High Line.
    Scher is coming to Auckland next month for the AGI Open, a two-day design festival hosted by the Alliance Graphique Internationale.

    10.40 Danyl McLauchlan: a Machiavellian view of politics
    Danyl Mclauchlan
    Scientist and writer Danyl McLauchlan joins Kim to tackle life’s big questions, ideas and thinkers.
    This week, Nicolo Machiavelli, the founder of modern political theory, who argued that politics wasn’t about deciding who should rule, but about realising that many of the people who want to rule are ruthless and devious, so the best political systems are adversarial systems that set them against each other and subject them to scrutiny.

    Danyl is the author of two novels and Tranquillity and Ruin, an essay collection.

  2. Wow!

    “During a speech at the Moutere Hills Community Centre in rural Tasman on Thursday, ACT Party leader David Seymour told a crowd of 250 people that New Zealand had become a “lawless” country.

    It was ACT’s policy to put more people in prison, which he said was “some of the best money you can spend”.

    https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/300958418/would-nelson-mandela-have-campaigned-for-the-act-party-not-according-to-his-grandson

    Someone needs to investigate if David Seymour has private prison connections. It sounds like he may be working for them.

  3. Looking at stories of pakeha colonial families. We all achieved much in those early years, usually with Maori help, and those workers who were pakeha put in hard work with some smarts and luck between the recessions.

    Why are we letting it all slip away, in drop-jaw complacency? Where is our pride, ethics, discernment, guts and determination to be our own people, sharing, helping, able and competent?

    This:
    https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/reunion-marks-150-years-nz – 2008
    … Later, James Steel and his older brother Alexander embarked on a long, barefoot journey around Southland, seeking work.
    His mother, Elizabeth, also proved her pioneering spirit by completing long journeys on foot.

    She was famous in later years for refusing a guard’s offer to jump on a train one rainy day because she was “in a hurry” to get from her Waikiwi home to Invercargill.
    The refusal was not as silly as it seemed.
    The train could not operate on muddy tracks during wet weather and her husband had once beaten the train by two and a-half hours on a wet day.

    Mrs Herbert said the family history was “an amazing story” and it was remarkable to consider what young people achieved in circumstances that are now difficult to imagine.
    “I am a Steel from Tapanui. My father George was one of the 50. He was a long liver, Steel by name and steel by nature. All were long livers but he lived until he was 93,” Mrs Herbert said.
    The reunion was a first for the Steels and would be a chance to gather more stories and photographs and retrace the family’s first journey to Otapiri, Mrs Herbert said.

    “The sad thing is we didn’t have a reunion at 100 years. But it is probably for our generation that it is more fascinating, as time has gone by . . . and I think you are leaving a legacy for your children and grandchildren if you can document it all,” she said.

  4. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/496557/auckland-s-city-rail-link-review-finds-lack-of-skilled-workers-for-large-scale-infrastructure-projects
    The business sector was supposed to be so wise that it would train its needed workers itself, in smart planning ‘going forward’. Hah. Naturally the profit-miners brought in cheaper workers from overseas and put them, no doubt, through a pressure-cooker course. Silly old government stumbling, bumbling along couldn’t get it right, like China with its long-term plans and ‘Great Leap Forward’. China however isn’t happy still; it was too successful. Ho hum balance is everything in human doings and dealings.

    The problem is that it is so annoying when it is clear that your definite assertion is obviously a cock-up and as bad as a cream pie in the face, filled with sour cream. But there is a surprise twist for us all – if business turns quickly, pivots aside rather when the pie is in the air, it hits the simple people watching with their mouths open. Splosh!! (Add your own sound and fury effects.)

    Labour might win this election by a whisker – if it apologises to the country for making an unfortunate economic error in the belief that it was the right move in these fast-changing times. It would be the equivalent of expressing heartfelt sorrow to indigenous people for wrongs – something very hard to do. That is my suggestion, They are between a rock and a hard place; in 100 years after so much rubbing there will be no rock and no place either. National et al, will probably be setting up safaris in the desert hunting Al so they can eat him, or her.

  5. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/496539/with-covid-19-now-endemic-modelling-suggests-targeted-protection-will-be-more-effective-than-blanket-measures
    Latest – get primed for the new waves of Covid. Good info from sensible scientists.

    …But although the emergency is over and the disease is rapidly becoming endemic, the risk of new variants remains. Covid-19 is still causing a significant health burden…

    The situation in 2023 is vastly different. Almost everyone has some form of immunity, acquired either from vaccination, previous infection, or both. However, people will eventually become susceptible again because of waning immunity and new variants.
    This in turn means the virus won’t disappear altogether. Instead, the prevalence of infection will eventually reach what mathematicians call an endemic equilibrium. This is a state of balance: the loss of immunity due to its waning (and the cycle of births and deaths) is balanced by new immunity due to infections and vaccinations…

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