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.
All in all, TDB gives punters a very, very, very wide space to comment in but we won’t bother with out right lies or gleeful malice. We leave that to the Herald comment section.
EDITORS NOTE: – By the way, here’s a list of shit that will get your comment dumped. Sexist abuse, homophobic abuse, racist abuse, anti-muslim abuse, transphobic abuse, 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.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/537809/stormy-weather-expected-at-rhythm-and-vines-severe-weather-watch-issued
What we can expect for 2025 and beyond – raining on our parade. But then if we have periods of drought we might be running round gazing up in wonder with mouths open to catch the drops. And remember the famous Monsoon photo.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/537817/pay-gap-most-significant-for-asians-pasifika
The monetary system is working then for the PTB, low wages, competition at every level for the lower income citizens and more moolah to stack away for MEmememememememe.
Monsoon photo – Brian Brake – what a good photo. And what a neat job taking pictures of beautiful women. The thing is it echoes reality although it was a set-up. Thanks Brian you clever Kiwi.
Excerpts from 1 September 1939 WH Auden
https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939 (Start of WW2)
…Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night…
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again….
Some background to Thucydides:
…Because of his influence in the Thracian region, Thucydides wrote, he was sent as a strategos (general) to Thasos in 424 BC. During the winter of 424–423 BC, the Spartan general Brasidas attacked Amphipolis, a half-day’s sail west from Thasos on the Thracian coast, sparking the Battle of Amphipolis.
Eucles, the Athenian commander at Amphipolis, sent to Thucydides for help.[15] Brasidas, aware of the presence of Thucydides on Thasos and his influence with the people of Amphipolis, and afraid of help arriving by sea, acted quickly to offer moderate terms to the Amphipolitans for their surrender, which they accepted. Thus, when Thucydides arrived, Amphipolis was already under Spartan control.[16]
Amphipolis was of considerable strategic importance, and news of its fall caused great consternation in Athens.[17] It was blamed on Thucydides, although he claimed that it was not his fault and that he had simply been unable to reach it in time. Because of his failure to save Amphipolis, he was exiled:[18]…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides
He did not approve of the democratic commoners nor of the radical democracy that Pericles ushered in, but considered democracy acceptable when guided by a good leader.[28]…
…Thucydides has been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the political behavior of individuals and the subsequent outcomes of relations between states as ultimately mediated by, and constructed upon, fear and self-interest.[6] His text is still studied at universities and military colleges worldwide…
We can read important literary works painstakingly written and reflecting a life’s wisdom and thoughts based on observation and experience, and say proudly we have studied them – and then ignore them (unless they are likely to bring rewards of money, pleasures etc. to leading citizens)!! Turn from the past which is not venerated and embrace the novel, the fashionable, the most advanced, there is a rush towards automatic acceptance. Is there any hope for most nations and peoples that adopt such naive, actually stupid, behaviour as normal?
I thought these were telling paras from Chris Trotter at Bowalley.
…That Peters has just had himself appointed Minister of Railways is no accident. It is difficult to imagine a more disreputable example of National’s reckless presentism, nor of its sublime indifference to the nation’s future, than the cancellation of the iRex Project.
That Peters and his party, in a last-ditch effort to protect New Zealand’s state-owned rail network from the truckers who would happily wave it good-bye, were willing to interpose themselves between the privatisers of National and Act is vintage NZ First. It reflects Peters’ small-c conservative conviction that those who inhabit the present are not only morally obligated to meet the needs of those who are, but also to protect the achievements of those who were. How else to deliver a world worth living in to those who will be?…
So there are some points for NZ First in the 2024 year’s summing-up. Further down the post was a lovely Freudian slip? when he named Dough Graham. A good read and thoughtful one for all I think.
https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2024/12/2024-year-of-dishonouring-past-and.html
What do people think of double dipping for politicians. Should there political pay be reduced on that basis? The person needs a livable wage, but what about an asset declaration as they become a sort of beneficiary of the state don’t they. After all the government does less and less itself, and seems to have lost its will to live, sort of like an alcoholic well on.
Marlborough Express | The Press | Stuff Ltd
The Press https://www.thepress.co.nz
3 hours ago — Councillor-turned-MP to keep two jobs – and two salaries. Jamie Arbuckle, the councillor who became a NZ First MP, said in May that he had settled into the …
Shame on you Bomber for including in our list
‘anti-fluoride fanatics’
I suppose that would include me as I am deeply opposed to fluoride. And fluoridation of water is banned in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland. And what is more fluoride is banned in Hawaii and in many areas in practically every state of the United States.
23 Aug 2024 — The U.S. government published a report this week linking high levels of fluoride with lower IQs in children. China has also come out with a similar paper around this.
Can we have some links to reliable sources and background?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fluoridation#Effectiveness
Negative effects can arise from too high doses for sure. Alcohol added to water can also cause negative effects. Maybe it is more a matter of the right amount which is beneficial in a society already not in perfect health.
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