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/thedetail/540103/breathing-life-into-queen-street-with-lessons-from-london
Just reading the title alarms. Sounds interesting and expensive – just perfect for the administration of Auckland city to embrace with fervour!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/540099/digital-nomad-visa-change-getting-overseas-interest-business-expert
What’s this? Palestinians out but USA destroyers in – destroying our society with their tech, destroying the financial world and distribution of access to it with their unhealthy accretion of money, destroying the access to health with their money obsession, destroying the planet by their obsession with machinery and constant building of it snatching other countries’ resources. destroying the balance of money strata with neoliberalism and bias to the wealthy blah blah until active minds close down to acceptance after battering of info and fantasies for decades.
Perpetual war being referred to – better listen!
Podcast Episode
118. Ex-Head of Mossad: Hamas, Ceasefire, and Netanyahu (Uzi Arad)
What’s the relationship between intelligence agencies and the politicians they serve? How does Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu react in a crisis? How confident…
January 27, 2025 · 1 hr 22 min 36 sec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVcugY2ncYA 57m
Conversations With History: America’s Path to Permanent War
Uni of California – Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations and History at Boston University…
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZKTSgWWUa8
Perpetual War (Catholic connected Sensus Fidelium) 24m
On this Memorial Day weekend when we remember those who have laid down their lives for our nation, it is important that we consider the war in Ukraine which is being made more and more each day into an American war. In his farewell address, President George Washington warned his countrymen against permanent alliances that could easily trigger conflict and even world wars. But as the years and decades have passed, the United States has forgotten this admonition. At this moment in time, the United States has literally dozens and dozens and dozens of treaties…multiple agreements with foreign nations that would force us to go to war if an ally of ours was attacked. Forgetting our founding fathers, we have gone from a republic to an outright empire with imperialistic designs. As one observer put in, we are in a perpetual state of war in order to have supposedly a perpetual peace, which sounds like an Orwellian Ministry of Peace, where Oceania is always at war with Eastasia.
and
The West’s Commitment to Perpetual War #1221
YouTube · Ayn Rand Centre UK 1.3K+ views · 3 months ago 25:51
The West is basically committed to Perpetual War.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e9jjfht3T4
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2501/S00038/on-the-governments-gaslighting-about-growth.htm
Gordon Campbell – starts with Trump and Luxon compared. Economic management or…?
More points from Gordon Campbell: Mining and mass tourism. Come and see the last place on earth to be settled by man (and woman too of course)? Good slogan.
Come and tread down all our special features, despoil our bush (we like natural so don’t necessarily provide toilets where needed.)
…Nor, BTW, are the much-touted “precious elements” (essential for EVs, solar panels, smart phones etc) present here on a scale likely to produce significant gains:
The prime minister also gave a nod to the minerals “critical for our climate transition”. While it’s true that “EVs, solar panels and data centres aren’t made out of thin air”, they are also not made in any significant way with the minerals we currently or might potentially mine (aside from some antimony, possibly).
As the authors conclude, the “critical minerals” argument for mining being pushed by both Luxon and the Regional Development Minister Shane Jones “risks being a cloak for justifying more mining of coal and gold.”
…The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s 2019 report – titled “Pristine, popular … imperilled?” – warned of the environmental damage that would be caused by pursuing [a “high growth tourism”] approach.
Moreover, government funding would be needed “to manage growth and provide infrastructure, particularly in areas with low numbers of ratepayers:
The need stretches from providing public toilets for busloads of tourists flowing through MacKenzie District, to maintaining popular tracks such as the West Coast Wilderness Trail. A 2024 report from Tourism New Zealand showed 68% of residents experienced negative impacts from tourism, including increased traffic congestion
and rubbish.
In sum, there is little evidence that a significant increase in mining and a surrender to mass tourism are viable pathways to local or national prosperity. Mass tourism in particular would jeopardise the pristine settings and the local goodwill that have made travellers willing to endure the long journeys required to get here.
Surely, Luxon and Willis cannot really believe what they were saying last week. Their speeches are best treated as examples of the gaslighting that this government is turning into an art form.
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2501/S00038/on-the-governments-gaslighting-about-growth.htm
They will feel proud that they can do something that well. Is there a parliamentary and political fitness and ability test? Should be part of our educational standards at top schools demand.
What to say about Trotter? His political obituary.
I was thinking of commenting on his blog to him about this but he’s beyond that.
My idea is … I’m not sure. It’s ok to be human? Maybe I ‘can’ put that on his blog. But I think he’d take that as a disproval of his contribution.
sumsuch You bring a saying to mind – I paraphrase: ‘”Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury like a [staunch supporter] scorned”. There are no rigid unchanging rules to society’s ways – actually never have been. Now trying to work out which is best is the task eg we needed to decide that Labour’s faults were less than those of the Rights of National and ACT. Trotter is trying to find a straight line that one could remain true to, but you and I wonder whether it is right with a small ‘R’.