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6:00 am, April 11th, 2026 - 13 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 …
This is a taste of the gruel election campaign that cooker Simeon Brown will prepare for us and force us to swallow. Allegedly, he’s in advanced talks with David Seymour on how this can be transformed into free mandatory school lunches and unleash its full nutritional potential – together with Erica Stanford he’ll make sure that no wilful youth will escape school attendance and confiscate their means of communication with each other and the outside world at the school gates in preparation of entering the workforce in the real world.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/simeon-brown-37625621_im-pleased-to-be-taking-on-the-role-of-energy-activity-7445602094629142528-nCNJ [HT to Joel MacManus: https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/10-04-2026/it-was-a-good-week-for-luxon-and-browns-adult-to-adult-relationship]
Respecting 'our' economy – Jesus wept! The CoC (government by and for the sorted) is wrecking the economy, and so much more. The economy should be working for Kiwis.
https://www.stats.govt.nz/indicators/unemployment-rate/
Are you in anyway taken by surprise, Incognito?
I think that, despite expecting this strategy, the depth to which the CoC will go with their deceptions will indeed, surprise.
They've been testing the waters for a while now and know how low they can go without repercussion.
We'll need an alert system: Incoming! Incoming! for the carpet-bombing of lies that lies ahead.
Hope springs eternal and I’m an idealist at heart (aka a naïve gullible dreamer). I’m in the middle of writing a Post to free myself from undesirable thoughts.
Intus iter est
Two and a half years of these clowns and they are still blaming Labour.
Unfortunately, going by the polls, where the COC vote seems to be holding, it seems to be working.
No smooth sailing for oil tankers making their way to NZ thanks to Cyclone Vaianu.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/04/10/nz-bound-oil-tankers-turned-away-from-port-pounded-by-4m-storm-waves-at-sea/
Just another fly in the Coalition’s soup to keep fuel supply at sub-panic levels?
BBC headline: "Chimpanzees in Uganda locked in vicious 'civil war', say researchers"
Maybe they've learned a thing or two from humans, not all of them good?
Well the article reckons it just maybe that it indicates how conflicts arose in humans.
Other catalysts seem to be, death of an alpha male, unexplained deaths of some of the troop, mostly males that maybe disrupted social networks, and deaths from a respiratory epidemic.
Hope all the North Island Standardistas are safe and sound this weekend.
So far it's been quite a nice day in Auckland, with a bit of wind picking up.
Went to most of the rally against the US-Israel wars in Aotea Square. There was a fair amount of sunshine.
It was disappointing there were only a few hundred people there.
It was really good to see Phil Twyford there speaking on behalf of the Labour Party. He was highly critical of the US-Israel illegal aggression & said Labour wanted to build a broad anti war movement.
Ricardo Menéndez March spoke, but his voice was too soft for my aging hearing, because there was competition from a band playing loudly on the grass next to the square.
A guy from The Alliance said the current was were class wars and spoke for the working class opposing the wars. A woman from CTU also said it was great there was strong union opposition from to the wars. i think it was her that said something about unions not working to unload Israeli goods at the ports.
While I was there, I was disappointed that there weren't any signs of feminist opposition to the wars (from GC, gender ID supporting, or other feminists).
There doesn't seem to be any significant feminist organisations speaking against the wars. Just a smattering of materialist (GC or otherwise) feminists on social media. Seems that there's plenty of individual women IDing as feminists, but not so much activism – the sting in the tail of neoliberalism?
Anyway, we do need to build a bigger NZ anti-war movement generally.
Hope people stay safe in the North Island tonight & tomorrow.
thanks for that report, didn't know that was happening.
I don't even know what NZ feminism is now. There seem to be feminists working in organisations, but no feminist movement?
The protest was poorly promoted. Notice about it here.
Bomber promoted it on DTB. I recall going on an anti-TPP protest in the early days. It took a while for momentum to develop so that there were some big protest later on.
Very good video and photos of the rally, speeches, march and protest outside the US consulate.
I didn't go on the march as I had a personal matter to attend to at home.
I can hear Ricardo very clearly on the vid. He makes a commitment for the GP not only to hold the NZ govt to account for not condemning the US & Israel, but is offering a commitment to have a genuine foreign policy leave/lead the 5 Eyes Network to hold the US to account and to sanction Israel for its war crimes.
I didn't go on the march as I had a personal matter to attend to.
There used to be feminist meetings, and The Broadsheet, etc. Since then feminism has been appropriated, watered down, individualised, fragmented and commodified by the US-dominated media, popular culture a neoliberalism. So we now have NZ self IDed feminists, many of whom have been easily sucked into gender identity politics.