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6:00 am, August 8th, 2026 - 25 comments
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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 …
So much for "localism"!
One wonders about the Coalition of Cockups enthusiasm for amalgamating local bodies.
How much stems from the frustration of their supporters, with councils imposing limits on polluting, and anticommunity welfare, money making?
Of course there is always the idealogical push towards privatisation. Local democracy, just like Te Tiriti, are considered obstacles to be removed in the drive to "sell off everything not nailed down".
It is certainly not for cost and efficiency. Past amalgamations have delivered very mixed results in that regard.
You said it KJT – how to get that clear vision of actual reality to at least 2.5 million. This is the problem with democracy. A lot of confusion and fuzziness herds driven by a few incisive, pretentious, hunters. We are living a modern version of ancient man and woman who have abandoned their natural affinity with the Earth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnU-CN7Bgvo ' The Gods must be crazy'
1.30.26 film The Gods Must be Crazy, 1980, South African comedy film written, produced and directed by Jamie Uys.
The film features a San hunter/gatherer named N!xau in the lead role. The story starts with a Coca-Cola bottle that was thrown out of an airplane, fell into the Kalahari Desert and was found by a San tribe. As this was the only "modern" object in their world, it led to fights before it was decided that the bottle had to be returned to the Gods, who must have sent it in the first place.
[Uys (Jacobus Johannes Uys) was South African, a mathematics teacher in his hometown of Boksburg where gold was discovered in 1887. He married another mathematics teacher, and they then went farming, opened trading posts, and filming.
He was later appointed local magistrate and Justice of the Peace. In an interview, he stated, "Every Tuesday I crossed the wildest country and swam through rivers to get to the police post where I could hold court".] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Uys
The discovery of gold must have changed the simpler life of Uys' hometown considerably, and might have triggered his idea for the film. That is my conjecture. But we can see how discoveries bringing huge wealth can change people and countries detrimentally, eg right here in Kiwiland and mostly all over!
Climate change and its. and earthquakes' destruction, and the erosion of the pillars and values that held our inconstant society together, presents us with the problem presented in 'The Gods must be Crazy' film; there was a sequel to this that I haven't seen,
Watching this you can see how in real life we have the same problem. I fear we are far along worldwide what with drones dropping things from the sky that blow up people who are helpless. So think fast how to find other practical members of the thinking tribe who believe in being kindly and practical at base.
The film has serious issues with the depiction of San life under South African apartheid (wiki controversies). They include showing the San as naive, where they were in fact forced into an apartheid 'stan, living off minimal state handouts; in the portrayed incompetence of the guerilla band; and I read somewhere else, but can't find it, in paying peanuts to the San actors even after becoming a world-wide success.
Watch with open eyes.
tWig I did watch with open eyes and it was a good film showing people living simply, and the San were shown as very capable at their simple existence. You bring up the twisted western patronising attitude of any move to show something not perfectly matching the current sensibilities of society, gets dirty water thrown at it. It introduced the San people to a wider world, and they needed it as they have been marginalised and 'decultured'.
EBSCO https://www.ebsco.com › research-starters › social-sciences-and-humanities › san-people
This is the idmb summary which misses the point rather, it being light and wry rather than 'comic' to unbiased people. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080801/ 'A comic allegory about a traveling Bushman who encounters modern civilization and its stranger aspects, including a clumsy scientist and a band of revolutionaries.'
and in Wikipedia – : Despite its success, the film attracted controversy for its depiction of race and perceived ignorance of discrimination and segregation in South Africa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Must_Be_Crazy
Hopefully we get some sensible voting and a good Government out of the 2026 November General Election. I feel this Government is very divisive and is looking after the fat cats at the top end of town IMHO.
Win, win, win whatever it takes!
National Party mantra and Achilles heel for Labour.
“The remarks are offensive, I’ve been clear about my views on the conduct, and I’ve spoken to the Minister about it. My view is that we are 90 days away from an election,” he said, in response to another question about whether he still had confidence in the foreign minister."
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/361017150/stuffs-pulse-nation-voters-want-christopher-luxon-sack-winston-peters
The COC is a dogs breakfast ATM.
Luxon is so DIM he is likely to put his mouth in his foot.
Luxon is our Dunning Kruger PM.
Steve Braunias is on fire with his mockumentary of a Luxon’s best week so far on the dusty pre-campaign trail. Luckily for Luxon, the NZDF cavalry came to his rescue in the weekend.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/08/the-secret-diary-of-sheriff-luxon/
"Rancho Atlas Network"….it's only funny cos it's true.
If we keep drumming in about Luxon's gifts, which are obvious to any thinking person, he is likely to get a sympathy vote. Think on it. People vote with their feelings.
There has already been a mention here that there has been questioning as to why we are picking on dear Winston Peters! I note that as an example of the feelings I warn against.
The Bishop is dead. Long live the Bishop!
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/politics/934651/watch-national-party-announces-list-for-2026-general-election
I hope (but sadly don't expect) that a reporter at the press conference asks the very obvious follow up question:
"So Mr Luxon, which National-held electorates would you like to lose, so that prominent list MPs can get back in?".
Everything everywhere all at once by Simon Wilson
On Substack
'How to deal with the worst government in my lifetime."
Simon is now free from the Herald. This fairly long column is breathtaking in its breadth and its Hope for the future of New Zealand and the World.
He outlines the approach of the tipping point where Right's grip on diminishing democracy may be loosened and what we the people can do about it.
Like Tui's words, this is worth reading at least twice.
I too am looking forward to being unbound like Wilson and debt free so I can comment and activate and volunteer without restraint.
I didn't mind his bullet point rant. Even though it was a bullet point rant.
Looking foward to Wilson accelerating a movement of aspiration and hope.
The really big story about National's list is that they are throwing their Asian MPs out.
At least 3 will not return to Parliament, including Melissa Lee who's been there since 2008.
So – as suspected – they really are just tokens. Expendable.
Good analysis here on the National Party list scenarios
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2026/08/nationals_2026_party_list.html (Sorry.)
Dodgy for Gerry. Squeaky bum time for Bishop.
Yes, decent maths there, political bias aside.
Confirming what we already know: barring a major shift in the polls, National's list pickings will be very slim, with high profile casualties.
And to increase the pain (for all of us, not just National) those MPs will be replaced by NZF list candidates, at best useless, at worst Brian Tamaki bigots.
This reddit/newzealand post gives a comprehensive list of the sins of this government. 60+ entries. Worth the read, depressing, though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/newzealand/comments/1vik6h8/comment/p2emgag/
Brilliant post tWig. But how can we get this across in the election campaign one wonders.
Surely they have pissed off so many people that they can't be voted back?
I hoped for a Labour/Greens campaign "Enshittifying NZ since 2023", like the laconic tui beer ads, 2023 electoral promise on one side, reality on the other.
With our personality-dominated news cycle, most people just don’t understand the diarrheic mountain of shit legislation excreted by Luxon et al.
Hoo lordie that's a depressing list.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/08/greenland-iwarning-trump-linked-oil-firm-prepares-drill
"An American oil company connected to Donald Trump is preparing to sink wells in remote Greenland despite not having received permission from the local authorities….Jeff Landry, the hard-right Louisiana governor serving as Trump’s Greenland envoy, has said Greenland could be pumping oil next year."
Straight-out piracy. It’ll be fun watching the EU response.
What the hell does a Louisiana politician know about Greenland?
Louisiana landscapes features vast delta swamps, bayous, and the mouth of the Mississippi River. The climate is subtropical with hot, humid summers and mild winters.
Greenland has an ice sheet that covers roughly 80% of the island. It reaches thicknesses of up to 3 kilometres, weighing down the center of the country into a subterranean basin. The remaining 20% of ice-free land is a mountainous, rugged rim heavily carved by deep fjords where 100% of the population lives. Summer temperatures hover around 0°C to 10°C, while winters are long, dark, and average –5°C in the south to –20°C in the north. Because it sits within the Arctic Circle, Greenland experiences 24 hours of daylight in summer and continuous darkness in winter. Cold, dense air forces its way down from the high inland ice sheet toward the coasts, triggering sudden, fierce storms with hurricane-force winds.
I found this on Google to add to Mac1 on Louisiana projects!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1e1vg0gjl5o BBC story – Trump administration to pay German firm $1.2bn to halt US wind projects
…RWE said it has agreed to relinquish its leases off the California and Louisiana coasts as well as in the New York Bight.
Overall, the German firm plans to invest approximately €17bn (£14.5bn; $19.6bn) in the US over the next six years "to grow its generation capacity".
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement posted on X that Americans deserve an energy system built on common sense and not one dependent on "costly subsidies".
"We welcome RWE's agreement and voluntary investment in projects that strengthen our nation's energy security," he added.
The deal is the latest the Trump administration has reached this year as Trump, a vocal supporter of the fossil fuel industry, continues his push to halt offshore wind projects…