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6:00 am, June 6th, 2025 - 75 comments
Categories: open mike -
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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 …
Today's Posts (updated through the day):
Meta Ardern
New Post up:
Meta Ardern
OMG – when cookers turn on each other – Elon Musk has gone completely feral on Donald Trump on X in the last hour:
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·Time to drop the really big bomb:
@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!
And
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts,
@SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately
And
Elon Musk @elonmusk
The Trump tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year
Oh – when 'friends' fall out, it is so embarrassing. It is also predictable.
Problem is that Trump absolutely cannot resist putting the boot in when someone is down (reading about Tesla sales figures – really down).
Plus Musk doesn't seem to have any restraint when he has a keyboard next to him.
If Trump can end-run X and Musk like he end-ran FoxNews in the first term, he can break Musk.
Trump and his people are tactically merciless and will likely humiliate Musk.
Iron Man 2 v House of Cards Season 3 Kevin Spacey as VP vs Tusk billionaire. Pretty similar.
Sure. But they will cause themselves a lot of damage on the way through.
For instance right now SpaceX is effectively a major portion of the US space industry and in particular the military side of it. Tesla is the only significiant US contender in the EV area, an area that China is rapidly heading to dominance in.
For all his faults and bullshit, Musk is central to driving those along with a number of other areas of innovation like battery systems, neural linking, AI and even the Boring company.
Trump really winds up a lot of power to cause damage – mostly to his objectives to MAGA. Picture this with an old fat man on the trigger.
Musk was seeking a contract to provide the platform for Golden Dome and lease it to the Pentagon/Space Force.
Dependence on rare earth minerals from China and Taiwan chips and Musk are all US security issues.
Wouldn't happen. Military aren't into lease arrangements because their programmes last decades. Corporates are often lucky to last a decade in the same business.
Military in my experience of dealing with them (7.5 years of writing military training software + a long ago enlistment) buy their programmes and gear. They also get source code and hardware designs in escrow (at the least) complete with standalone systems that can produce replicated binary or close copies of the executables.
For one large contract, I wound up spending a about 6 weeks making 30+ build virtual machines that could reliably build replicas of released software the systems of the customers tester of our 30+ products in that contract. Since that were in multiple languages, built on multiple maker systems and targeting multiple operating systems on multiple hardware platforms – and all bespoke – it was tricky.
They do this so that they can check the code themselves or pass it off to another maintenance company when the original dies. Usually after it has been in service for a decade or more.
Leasing a military platform? Not bloody likely
I see Musk more as a risk-taker than an innovator per se. He’s been setting a breakback pace for his competitors to keep up with or lose ground (to him). He deliberately disrupts and breaks things (e.g., rules & conventions), which is why others (e.g., Trump) have joined forces with him. All this competition and survival of the fittest encourages innovation as a survival strategy.
Here in NZ, we have the Luxon AI-bot that mimics Musk with a singular focus on speed & efficiency but with a complete lack of vision & courage – they rather invest in safe-as-houses property & infrastructure than in science, R&D, and innovation. The Seymour AI-bot mimics Musk’s rule breaking. The Peters AI-bot, well, …, there’s no Peter’ AI-bot, just on old broken record playing Golden Oldies.
Given how much drugs he's been taking, I suspect it's more accidentally disrupts and breaks things. But he bought into companies that had enough incredibly competent and mission-dedicated people who could run things in the background and were able to save things i.e. but not the cybertruck and twitter.
Kudos to the people who said they would last less then 6 months.
Trump must have acquired enough of his own money (or enough Saudi-backed money) not to need him any more.
Everything Musk says about Trump, is evidence that Musk supported him for selfish reasons and or to manipulate him.
Every threat Musk makes, is proof that the power he wields does not belong to an unelected person.
JDV waiting in the wings?
RNZ:
Stephen Bannon wants Musk deported.
Putin has no problem with oligarchs because he imprisoned one and took all his wealth.
What will it take to persuade Musk back to the Democrats?
It's going to take that kind of united power to topple the Republicans now.
We don't want Musk anywhere near the Democrats because of how racist he is. The most likely thing is that he starts a new right wing party.
I would love to know who really gave Musk a black eye. It looks like it was a pretty heft shot 'cause he looked like he had carpet burns on his cheek and chin.
Bannon organising the counter-attack on Musk.
It's thorough.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/us/steve-bannon-trump-elon-musk.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Mk8.NGj-.ID0CPXovSmL7&smid=url-share
I've quoted something like this before on here, but it bears repetition:
And olde folke vnderstood, Whan theues fall out, true men come to their good
– John Heywood (1546)
(Though he appends the sobering comment: Which is not alwaie true.)
so Musk knew Trump was a rapist and chose to work with him anyway.
People at the top often seem to be ‘comfortable’ working with arseholes and dickheads. Perhaps they got to the top because they weren’t held back or slowed down by ethical and moral considerations. In fact, after wreaking havoc on others they get rewarded with gongs and cozy well-paying positions.
All forms of feminism are being hunted down by both these guys. Trump is a convicted rapist and Musk is a serial breeder straight from Attwood.
Epstein is just apprenticeship.
Yep. And Musk just took another step into his own shitfest.
I am happy it’s not two massive egos with the nuclear codes though.
Not hard to marshall into broad civil disorder though.
Musk should be grateful he doesn't live in Russia – otherwise he might be in danger of falling out of a 3rd storey window!
So the test is whether it goes beyond words.
In his first term Trump threatened to nuke North Korea. But then they exchanged love letters.
Trump hasn't pulled any military contracts yet.
Musk hasn't openly tweaked the X algorithms against Trump.
There are multiple escalation points after that, on both sides.
But no move beyond words yet.
Very big MMA-Marvel Universe moment.
https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4lx6nur5wstwoc4wtgj56kyu/bafkreig3hf2nrnonfrbn4ijljmfrrlisj3heprfyofdbqojg4b36z6q3de@jpeg
lol
Michael Cohen, President Trump’s former personal attorney, predicts he will “go after” tech billionaire Elon Musk’s money now that the Tesla CEO’s time as a special government employee has finished.
“I said from the very start that this bromance was going to come to an end,” Cohen said on MSNBC. “I’m going to go one step even further, again, and I’m going to say Trump will ultimately go after Elon’s money next because it bothers him that he is the richest man in the world.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5329018-michael-cohen-trump-elon-musk-doge-tesla/
Success out of the Trump-Musk war is Musk runs a new third party and splits the Republican vote up and down the mid-term ticket and beyond into 2028.
Failure is Musk is crushed.
National Party client journalist, Thomas Coughlan, goes in to bat for Luxon and Chambers.
He spend a lot of time on the apparent 'exasperating' procedural failures of the system but doesn't acknowledge the enormous moral failures of the National Party which welcomed yet another sex pest into their highest ranks:
https://archive.is/8H4bJ
You mean like Darren Hughes, naked boys running for their life first thing in the morning.
Pot kettle black
sex abuse is not political
Lol that's going a waaaaaaay back so things must be pretty desperate in the Nat camp. Everything is political esp when one is in or working for a political party (in the office of the PM FFS).
Ooh, the Nat-bots are out today.
Sex abuse is kinda political because more National party men do it. It would be interesting to know why.
Gosh – love to see the source of your figures. Did you conduct a poll amongst your acquaintances? /sarc/
In other words, you are only a victim of sexual abuse if the perpetrator is from the other side…
This sort of thinking protected priests and teachers from being held responsible for their actions.
I didn't say that, at all.
Muttonbird made an absolute statement – that this behaviour is more common from National party men – I'm challenging the source of his data.
My position is that sexual offending happens in all areas of life, from all types of people. And I never think that it's excusable because of social position, political affiliation, status, social background, or race.
The only common factor is that it is statistically much more common for men to be offenders than for women.
Oh stop your self-righteous nit-picking and virtue signalling.
Your own use of language is sloppy, selective, and biased, but you lack the appropriate self-awareness to correct it:
Do us all a favour and lead by example – thank you in advance.
14 years ago Terry tsk, tsk
Yeah true, unfortunately some people only seem to care about sexual abuse when they can blame the other side for it.
I think there’s a world of difference between the Darren Hughes saga and what’s happened with Michael Forbes.
In Hughes’ case, the allegation came from a single individual, the evidence was circumstantial, and after a full Police investigation, no charges were laid.
However, Hughes still resigned, not because he was found guilty of anything, but to protect the integrity of Parliament and avoid becoming a political distraction.
That level of accountability is rare.
By contrast, the situation with Michael Forbes involves multiple allegations and what could fairly be described as a mountain of credible evidence. This wasn’t just a political scandal. It led to the termination of his Ministerial Services contract.
That’s a big step, and it suggests the claims were not only substantial, but were taken seriously by those in a position to act.
Just not, apparently, by the Police.
You’re absolutely right: sexual abuse should never be politicised.
But that also means we have a responsibility to recognise the differences between cases—in terms of the evidence, the behaviour of the individuals involved, and the consequences they faced.
Coughlan is trying to win the election for the Nats single-handed.
If you're referring to Michael Forbes – he is (or was) a press secretary – employed by Ministerial Services, not by a political party – let alone at the "highest rank"
Hold on to your fine distinctions if you must, but Joe (or Jo) Blow aren't going to bother with them, especially if they're of RW persuasions going after a LW figure.
Or, clearly, in this case for LW persuasions going after a RW figure.
A much more interesting political topic – is whether NZ laws around this kind of filming/recording (which was arguably legal – why he wasn't charged by the police) – need revision. What that revision would look like, and how any potential limitations on personal freedom and/or rights would be dealt with.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/05-06-2025/how-were-the-alleged-actions-of-the-pms-press-secretary-not-illegal
And before you jump in an say it should *always* be illegal to film without consent – there are plenty of examples of people carrying out protests (for example) who film those attempting to prevent them. A very recent example of this was the Destiny Church protest against the Rainbow Story Time – plenty of mobile phones recording the DC attempt to disrupt the event.
And plenty of people who record a conversation (to which they are party) as evidence of intimidation, or coercion.
It's not going to be easy to word the legislation (if change there is) to deal with those concerns.
As per the legal area – I was once told by a police officer, that if I had left a phone off the hook, so a member of the staff at The Dominion could listen to the police interview me in my home, it would have been a crime.
(it was the police questioning suspects after the threat to Tiger Woods)(communicating with the US embassy, that going into Iraq would be a mistake was seen as anti-American thus a person out to get Americans here playing golf).
Taking photos of people in public spaces is not illegal. Nor is taking videos.
The legal question here is taking sound recordings (or video image***) in private places without consent. And otherwise the taking photos of undressed women in their home from outside of it.
This *** is problematic for police now they are using drones to do this – do they need a warrant from a judge etc.
You appear to be referring to another country – not New Zealand. Possibly the imaginary world of Belladonnas?
This is a AI overview from google (first item) when I looked for "laws on recording in nz". I checked and it is a short accurate description (and the original has links leading back to legislation).
So if you look at your examples.
Police are not required to charge. They do it when they are sure of getting a result, ie a conviction and/or feel that they need to to prevent a repetition of the offence. On smaller offences, even when they are pretty sure of a conviction, they will often let people off with a warning on first offences. This prevents the diversion of scarce court and policing resources into court time. If you'd like to prevent this, then vote for actual (rather than the usual NZF/Nat imaginary) increases in policing budgets and retention (ie pay) policies.
Obviously you have a weird idea of what a library is. I will give you a hint. It is a public place. Parks are public places. Streets are public places. University grounds are public places. Shopping malls are public places, open lobbies of commercial buildings are public places….. Generally an action has to be taken, usually trespass notices or guards to exclude people from them.
Shops, business offices, toilets, showers, dressing rooms, and rooms in brothels are not public places and are to one degree or another are expected to be private places – often with specific legislation related to them.
There are generally no laws against recording conversations, limited laws about video recording. There are laws against the misuse or potential misuse of such recordings. In this case I suspect that personal titillation rather than harm was the intent – which was why a winnable case wasn't viable. He'd have probably got diversion at the worst if it had gone to court.
Clearly it wasn't. Which is why the legislation already does a nice balance between the differing needs in society.
Perhaps, Mrs Grundy, rather than stroking your indignation with fallacious intent for your own titillated pleasure, you should look at our actual legislation.
Glad that you think that no legislative change is required. I'll abide by your expert opinion.
As usual, you’re trying to crawl out of your self-dug hole through the passive-aggressive escape hatch. It just reaffirms that you’re not really interested in genuine robust debate but only in your own bigoted opinion.
what's the problem with the original comment? She raised a point that a number of people are asking, including the sex workers who were targeted. Lynn appeared to get the wrong end of the stick. My own view is the evolving technology means we need to keep talking about it. Drones are an obvious example.
Clients generally expect privacy from sex workers, that's what they are paying for, and the sex workers also expect that privacy to be reciprocated.
In this case the implied contract was violated and the violator paid a rather private (and public) price.
definitely broke the social contract in multiple ways and is paying the price (for quite some time). As he should. I thought his apology was appropriate, but would like to have seen him commit to making amends. His career has been destroyed and his public reputation. I hope it's true that the therapy he is getting is working. Best outcome here is that he doesn't offend again and that he restores justice to the women affected in some way (obviously can't so that with the women he doesn't know, but he could do it in a more general way).
The “original comment” @ 3.4?
Others have responded and debated that in substantial comments. BD, on the other hand, did none of that @ 3.4.2.1 and gave one of her idiosyncratic passive-aggressive retorts – there’s a historical pattern.
There may be a change to the law – as effect a deterrent of the practice – to make it more obvious that making the sound recording in a private place without consent and causing offence (a complaint) can result in a prosecution (with the exception when they are providing evidence of a crime – threat etc).
https://www.politik.co.nz/seriously-dumb-foreign-policy/?ct=t(POLITIKToday_07_10_2016_10_6_2016_COPY_02)&mc_cid=1870acad3c&mc_eid=7759fb9026
It always comes back to this.
https://youtu.be/sgspkxfkS4k?si=tTXbI4Z75S_meq7u
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/06/05/govt-confirms-tax-reform-on-the-way-for-double-cab-ute-exemption/
Consultation on changes of fringe benefit tax has just closed and it remains to be seen what and when will change.
https://www.taxpolicy.ird.govt.nz/consultation/2025/fbt-options-for-change
Something probably needs to happen.
My self-employment semi-retirement has been interesting.
I wound up paying Gross income ~50k (ex GST) on super + investment income + interest + self-employed part-time (10-20 hour pw) contract for 5 months (~24k).
But this time post-Feb 2024-redundancy and knowing that I'd be somewhat poorer than usual as I eased into semi-retirement/playing with hobbies, I got Hnry and started to concentrate on minimising tax. Something I have never bothered to do before. But i really don't like this government and its stupid policies..
I was able to legitimately expense ~$12k of the self-employed income, including equipment (~4.4k), rates and body corp (~1k), subscriptions for software (~0.9k), internet (~0.9k), motor vehicles running costs (~0.6k), mobile (~0.6k), external storage (~0.6k), power (0.5k) etc..
Virtually all of which I also use for my retirement hobbies – ie programming, observing politics, gaming, reading, and riding a e-bike.
All that really happened was that anything that I was using for work got upgraded to new and/or improved early.
My old laptop was 2017 vintage Asus ZenBook Pro with only 16GB RAM, 17" screen and upgraded to a fast 2Tb NVME and new battery. Had to be replaced…. Like the 2015 Macbook Pro I use occasionally for testing.
Because I could reduce my tax, I brought stuff earlier than I would have anyway.
'Spent' cast offs either went to 'hobby' gear (like the TS server) or to family (student niece has the old laptop).
My home office and its connections and gear, and vehicles is also what I use for all of the other things I do. After all it is only a 55 square metre apartment and I use about a third of it for working. The claimed expenses would have been much more – except the apartment is paid off – and my partner uses another third for her business.
So my gross income (less GST) was 49.9k
So my net 'profit' for everything before tax was ~38.0k.
My total tax payable was about ~5.0k
My effective tax rate (on actuals) on nett profit was 13.27%
My effective tax rate on gross income was 10.11%
I tend to view the latter as my actual tax. Because I’d have probably brought everything anyway for my non-paid ‘work’. Just a bit later or second hand.
And that is before I factor the effective GST reduction in.
I actually feel like I am better off in 2024/25 than I was the the 2023/24 financial year when my gross income was more that 3x the size.
Certainly I have way more spare time. I don't have to plan like crazy to find time to have a break or go off to see my dad in Rottenrua. My main constraint now on bike rides is the weather and how lazy I feel – not the stage of the current project.
And I have the added amusement of doing tax accounting on Hnry… Way easier than the last time I did contracting back in the early 1990s. All of my receipts now are electronic, the expenses are all paid via their virtual card, and the workload of running an accounting system happens every day as I read the email.
If that sounds like advertising – well it is . The best kind – unpaid for and unsolicited from a satisfied customer…
While we’re waiting for something to happen, we could catch up some time and compare notes.
Sounds like great idea. They have fires at Galbraiths… as well as the beer.
Ummm. I might feed the cat and take my laptop up there now. My partner is in the cold in Invercargill, I don't feel like either cooking or uber-eating. And I blocked by cabin fever.
I can’t tonight and I still need to feed the cat too, but have one for me too 😉
I’ll e-mail you this weekend.
Sounds good. They had a black pudding burger. Avoid it. I had to stop drinking beer whilst digesting it.
If we're doing board cabals, I'm interested.
Sure… I mostly go for the beer and the chips. Galbraiths was kind of full friday night. Apparently the fullest they have had it for a while.
Looks like the fires and local brewed ales have been pulling the groups to book. Fortunately, the back room was pretty clear and quiet for most of the time. Then invaded by a noisy group of about 16.
Noise cancelling ear plugs turned out to be useful for concentrating on the comment editor code (with a Praha Pilsner at hand for the tricky bits).
Lordie all this feelings bullshit.
She was one of our worst-ever performing Prime Ministers.
She's managed to generate a book which is a set of elegant words with zero delivery of anything in her life except a child.
If Ardern really has something in the tank as a second career, she'd better get on with it.
Sure has to be something more useful than a speaking circuit career about herself.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
we get it Ad, you really don’t like her. But please stop with the trolling.
Agreed, leave it to the professionals
Nah, even after all this time you're still just an amateur.
My payslip says otherwise
A paid troll. Why am I not surprised.
Why give it away for free?
Open season on you, then.
Might want to rethink that.
My thoughts exactly!
It's rare I think things through in the first place, rethinking even more so
Are you outing thyself… Thats ok, like other working professionals, we don’t discriminate. We just have fun with them.
As long as you pay you can have as much fun as you like with me