Written By:
- Date published:
6:00 am, February 2nd, 2026 - 21 comments
Categories: open mike -
Tags:
Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
The
tailarse wagging the dog?…And well…yes.
However, that notwithstanding, IMO it is really what National want. It just gives them a very convenient but a bigger boy made us do it…
RNZ questioning (onya !)
Our Left opposition MP's cutting through the flab..
The arse himself, shame Jones
Whereas most rational people, would see the exact opposite reality from his last statement !
IMO NZFist should not be anywhere in NZ's Future plan….
Despite many NZ First voters being amenable to a coalition with Labour, Peters (as Foreign Minister no less) has chosen a course with Jones (Mr pillage the earth and sea and pollute the air) that takes New Zealand on the Trumpian path (American-Russian anti-Earth) and way from international co-operation.
Is Peters still holding out for a Russian FTA, with any end to sanctions?
I hope, and could see, those who went over to the darkside (ie NZfirst), return to Labour as the consequences and impact of NACT1's (with Winston's support) trashing of NZ continues unabated.
Where would a vote for Winston and Jones take us?
IMO this needs to be sheeted home from now until the election…
Who pays, the Ferryman.
Port facilities not ready in time.
Peters has a plan for that.
No not really.
It seems he should have asked for a deal to delay sending them till the port facilities were built.
https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360938828/ferry-terminal-timeline-strained-government-rejects-extreme-risk-warnings
Indeed. A Plan.But of course getting a Winston Ship Solution into the news was prime urgency. For Winston.
ACT = Animal Cruelty Tolerated
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/585664/live-animal-export-industry-remain-hopeful-practice-will-resume-after-ban
"conceived in milk-fed politics". Dairy farmers will love Jones' putdown there. More seriously, Shane Jones in his putdowns reveals more than he knows. What is it with his visceral dislike of environmental concerns and patronage of fossil fuels? Is he a 'big boy' now, after weaning, who likes both the attention-seeking sound of loud engine exhausts and his own voice?
When I see Jones like this, my mind pictures the laughing of my neighbour's young male visitor who wheel spun his noisy 'look at me' way down our shared drive to give the finger to me and the neighbourhood.
He didn't care either….
The Coalition, through ACT’s Brooke van Velden, continues to underpay workers on minimum wage.
1 April 2024 to $23.15 an hour (2% increase)
1 April 2025 to $23.50 an hour (1.5% increase)
1 April 2026 to $23.95 an hour (2% increase) [actually, it’s a 1.9% increase]
That’s a whole term, and three Budgets, where the minimum wage hasn’t budged and stayed within the $23 an hour ‘band’. Of course, that’s three years of going backwards in real dollar terms, i.e., of effective pay-cuts, for the lowest paid Kiwis in NZ.
If you don’t fancy another three years of staying within the $24 an hour ‘band’, then vote this lot out on 7 November.
Add to that no Industry Awards (FPA), no pay equity and underfunding ACC – so there is less capacity to provide for injured workers.
We’re certainly living in interesting times.
/
@Dobrokhotov
Translated from Russian
I like this series.
Episode one: the 2000s. The leader of the Kremlin youth movement “Nashi,” Vasily Yakemenko, doubles as a pimp for Surkov, finding prostitutes for him — one of whom, nicknamed Katya Mu-Mu, Surkov later uses as a honey trap against opposition figures. (See https://theins.ru/politika/34558). And the chief commissar of the Nashi movement turns out to be underage Masha Drokovа, who dreamed of kissing Putin. Her dream came true, and they even made a film with the same title about it.
Episode two: Russia’s main official patriot, Masha Drokovа, flees to America, announces that she has rethought her views and… becomes the PR manager for the pimp-pedophile Jeffrey Epstein!
I have a feeling this series isn’t over yet, because the Epstein files are already starting to reveal how the security services used honey traps against Americans at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).
Rate this translation:
https://xcancel.com/Dobrokhotov/status/2017796524172857418
https://dossier.center/jeffreyepsteinrusconnect-en/
Most interesting Joe90, it could be that tomorrow's news will already have been imagined on screen last year. The way things are, a journalist who referred to the possibility after a few months, will seem like a seer when it actually happens.
If genuine lefties here want a social media platform to follow which mostly reflects their values I recommend Threads. Recommended accounts to follow for US politics: aaronparnas and aaron.rupar
It's not like X, formerly Twitter, which as far as I can tell is preferred by conservatives, racists, gender skeptics and the otherwise intolerant.
The minerals list made last year.
Then the argument was that was it was better to supply here than import.
Obvious concerns about including minerals on conservation lands or near waterway sources.
The other the Americans may want the Vanadium in the iron sands off Taranaki.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/528107/government-releases-list-of-35-critical-minerals-as-part-of-mining-strategy
Now they are talking about being part of the US supply chain – Trump is doing worldwide "Domesday" to source minerals for the USA (to reduce dependence on China).
Hilariously ACT says we should help as we have better labour and environment standards than other nations (when they want to reduce protection and fast track consents).
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/585733/opposition-parties-slam-secret-critical-minerals-talks
I'm having a conversation with chatGPT about the political implications of requiring social media accounts to be real life ID verified. I gave the example of twitter being required to have all accounts RL ID verified, at the same time as Musk having accessed government held data on US citizens when working with Trump (eg social security data). This was a longer, involved conversation about why it's very difficult to block bots from social media, but the GPT named the collapse of pseudonymous civic space. I'd call that a tragedy of the commons.
It mentions "The US has a long tradition of pseudonymous political speech
(Federalist Papers, pamphleteering, early labour organising)"
The left needs to pay attention to this. The Standard doesn't require RL ID, nor even a real email account to comment here, because thankfully the people that set it up understood the importance of pseudonymity in being able to talk online about politics. The solution to bots and trolls isn't to destroy the pseudonymous civic space, it's to have internal consistent rules for engagement that are pro-social.
Those excellent lenient rules are necessary but not sufficient. To foster and facilitate a robust debating culture, it also requires pro-active (as in preventative, patient, and educational) moderation. IMHO. Twitter (or X) fails on both fronts.
completely agree.
(not sure my pro-social is lenient necessarily, esp just having been lectured by a commenter that TS moderation is oppressive 😉 )
I think X is going to become obsolete for critical discussions. The way for the future IMO, is blogs and the likes of BSkY & Mastodon and Substack.
The latter 3 don't have the centralised widespread reach of X/twitter, but they give a certain amount of control to the users to moderate their own discussions and/or to choose who participates.
To work against the echo chamber effect, I think it's necessary to allow some debate, as TS does. And to subscribe to a diverse bunch of authors/servers/topics.
I really need to sort out the feeds. because atm I am relying on memory or links from others to go to substacks in particular.
I found bsky and mastodon not that easy, it seems to take more work to get shown where the interesting conversations are. I enjoyed mastodon when I first joined but once I got out of the loop it was hard to get back in. Both of course run No Debate on GCF politics, which I can work around, but it's possibly I am blocked by too many NZ pol people like on twitter.
I have been spending a bit of time on BSky lately. There are several GC left wing women & maybe some men on there, and there have been some discussions.
I chose a server on Mastodon that didn't signal in their policies that they are strongly into censoring/no platforming 'TERFs' or 'transphobes'
Eventually Bluesky will evolve (numbers) and then more will do their long form posts on Substack and reference them (as they do news stories).
That'd be good.
On the logic of social media I'd recommend:
Void if Removed: "Political Noise: How recommendation systems drive algorithmic claustrophobia"
Carol Cadwalladr's How to Survive the Broligarchy
eg this post: "Peter Thiel's New Model Army: The Palantirisation of the UK military is a national security disaster" plus the gobbal war on truth & how to survive it.
Includes this quote (since this post, Mandelson is now under fire for appearing on the Epstein Files):