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6:00 am, January 22nd, 2026 - 65 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 …
Always the details. Reminding us that God created the devil for a reason, which, for some obscure reason, the authors of the Bible failed to insert into the text. I agree re substance over rhetorical style. Macron upstaged Carney anyway, via a cool look.
So his superhero stance has boosted capitalism to that extent, which is bliss to any incrementalist. Carney could regain the initiative via lateral thinking though. Tell Trump to organise a decent show trial for Maduro, get him to strut his socialist stuff in front of the judge or jury, get the thing scaling up towards the Supreme Court. Every headline story at every stage up the justice hierarchy is media gold.
Advertisers compete to place their tv ads next to news headlines, same principle applying online nowadays too. When the verdict of 18 months probation comes in, announce that Maduro will be performing community service, which will take the form of strutting the global stage instructing everyone how to do socialism. The economy will get a another boost from all the advertising around that. Win win all around.
[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.]
[I’m a big believer in the Standard’s position that you can argue anything you like so long as you make an actual argument. I value this because it stops TS becoming an insular liberal/leftist cul de sac with no capacity for challenge or self-reflection.
However we have some limits. In this case two things. One is you are off topic. Some tangential reference to Carney doesn’t count as a response to the post. I suspect you didn’t watch the speech.
Two, stop using posts to grandstand your bizarro theories. I don’t care if you were trying to be satirical in some way, you’ve had a lot of feedback from quite a range of people about the nature of some of your comments, and you seem incapable of taking feedback so that you can find a good space here.
Three, I now count your comments to work with Trump as trolling. They’re nonsensical and they make a mockery of the incredibly dangerous situation we are in as well as fragility of rules based order that has maintained safety for large parts of the world in the past decades. That’s me crossing a line about editorial control of comments, but as with zero tolerance on climate denial, the situation is so serious globally, I don’t feel it is ethical to allow these kind of derails.
Two day ban for the off-topic nonsense, but I suggest you take this as a warning for larger bans, and bearing in mind we are doing longer bans than normal to clear the commentariat for election year. I also suggest you reread the moderator and commentor feedback you have had so you understand we are setting boundaries here, and eventually mod patience will just run out. – weka]
and personally, I find this sad, because there was a time when you brought interesting and left field challenges here, they just used to make sense.
ban extended for another week after reading the comment in Trash and seeing that you are learning nothing from the feedback.
Look! All I am saying to you is this!
A little bit of austerity does us all good.
Why I have cut my daily ration of two boxes of chocolates while
workingwatching TV down to one. It has been a great improvement! Now I can afford an extra double latte and a large slice of cake at lunch!Tyrannosaurus ‘Fast Track‘ Jones eats demonic eggbeaters, green banshees and woke-riddled munchkins for breakfast – dig, baby, dig.
Sir Ian Taylor is animated.
The case for the gold mining is demolished quicker than a fire hydrant during the New York summer. Spiked.
I commented under the Mountain Tui post on the health system but I thought I would comment here and widen the conversation.
In a nutshell what does 21st century industrial action look like for a workforce that is largely migrant, female and young. By that I mean around 30.
Back in the day we had various connections so to go a few days without income wasn't the sacrifice it is now. For example meals, child care etc.
When the watersiders were going on strike in the ’50s, government desperately passed laws making it illegal to support or feed striking workers, such was the union’s power.
40 years of this horrible neo liberal experiment has us atomized as a group of individuals isolated from supports and networks that we once took for granted.
So to strike i.e to go without a few days pay when the cause is for conditions and looking out for the next generation of workers, it can be a big ask.
Nurses are in their second year of negotiations with this horrible regime all the while the penny pinchers haven't had to pay increased wages.
I ask again what can modern industrial action look like?
Ummm I see a CSS failure on the front-pages. It now underlines the title. I will fix that when I have few minutes.
It looks like a systematic update overriding the defined attributes.
Arggh I can't stand it… Hacked.
Zelenskyy should never have let Boris Johnson, in Istanbul in 2022, bully him out of making peace with Russia a few weeks into the conflict.
Zelenskyy should have accepted Russia’s ‘peace’ terms during an active invasion, because vibes and anti-imperialism.
There. Fixed it for you.
If you think Zelenskyy is the one driving this war by insisting that checks notes his country continues to exist, maybe you shouldn’t be posting foreign policy takes online.
I've never thought Zelenskyy was the one driving this war.
So who is driving this war? You know it as well as I do. Trump's golfing buddy and investor in human misery and mayhem Senator Lindsey Graham explained it perfectly it a few years back. …
Sooo… Russia has nothing to do with a war that they started. For land they wanted. With a country they claim is illegitimate and should have been part of their country all along?
That is certainly a take. Just not a smart or good one.
Russia didn't start that NATO-provoked conflict, any more than Russia handled Trump as a Manchurian candidate in 2016.
I'm sorry, I must have missed the part where NATO invaded Ukraine and tried to create a puppet government.
Hi Res, there was a coup in 2014. The Russians responded. Why couldnt the freedom loving democracy defender west wait for the next elections to vote out Viktor Yanukovych????
And why couldn't Russia just not invade Ukraine?
Even if one accepts the claim that Maidan was an illegal coup (a claim many Ukrainians themselves reject) nothing compelled Russia to respond with a full-scale invasion.
States have options. Russia chose tanks, missiles, and annexation.
And whatever happened in 2014, Ukraine today is led by a democratically elected president. Russia is not “responding to a coup”; it is attempting to extinguish a sovereign state it has repeatedly declared illegitimate.
Blaming NATO or the US does not absolve Russia of responsibility for the war it initiated, the cities it has flattened, or the tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers it has killed.
Nor does it absolve those who excuse it.
While you sit and pontificate from the safety of New Zealand, thousands of people: better, braver and infinitely more worthy than either of us, are fighting and dying for the right of their families to live in peace and security.
Until the early nineties Ukraine was a federal state within Russia. At that time, after the Soviet Union was dissolved, Yeltsin, foolishly perhaps, gave them their independence, though on the understanding that the two countries remain friendly. Ukraine, in 2014, breached that understanding, and then refused to allow the formation of a federal Donbas state within Ukraine, so I think Russia is now saying 'we want our country back'.
From whom, the Ukrainians living there?
Technically, the Soviet Union, of which Russia was only one constituent republic. Ukraine was never a “federal state within Russia.”
If you’re going to try construct a constitutional theory to justify a war of aggression, the basic facts matter.
When Ukraine declared independence in 1991, Yeltsin was president of the Russian SFSR, not the USSR. Gorbachev was still the Soviet leader, and it was his decision not to preserve the union by force.
That decision reflected reality: the Soviet Union was no longer politically, morally, or economically viable. If recognising reality (a feat none of his predecessors could manage) was a “mistake,” then we should all aspire to fail even half as badly as he did.
There is only one group of people entitled to decide whether Ukraine exists, how it is governed, and what alliances it chooses: the Ukrainians themselves.
That principle is settled international law. Violating it is a war crime.
Technically, the Soviet Union, of which Russia was only one constituent republic. Ukraine was never a “federal state within Russia.”
The UkSSR was set up as part the Soviet Union. When the latter was dissolved the The status of Ukraine was unclear. Full independence was granted by Yeltsin in the early nineties.
Russia of course was subject to Soviet control during the Soviet era.
Stalin enabled independence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_the_United_Nations
Hi Res
you didn't answer. Why didn't the west support democracy when the 2014 coup occurred?
thanks
They did: they allowed events to play out and the Ukrainians to elect a new government of their own choosing.
But a better question is: how does a Ukrainian protest movement in 2014 in any way justify Russian aggression and war crimes in 2026?
And its corollary: why do you keep engaging in bullshit whataboutery?
Can you answer Adamski's question, Res?
If you have nothing useful and of substance to add here then butt out, thanks.
See also Weka’s replies for you, just below:
https://thestandard.nz/open-mike-22-01-2026/#comment-2054488
https://thestandard.nz/open-mike-22-01-2026/#comment-2054489
But a better question is: how does a Ukrainian protest movement in 2014 in any way justify Russian aggression and war crimes in 2026?
The shooting match between the central government and the rebel oblasts that was going on between 2014 and 2022 can hardly be be considered just a "protest movement".
Sure, given "off duty" Russian soldiers were part of the original 2014 Donbas action (et al afterwards).
Sure, given "off duty" Russian soldiers were part of the original 2014 Donbas action (et al afterwards).
I don't deny the assistance given "unofficially" to the rebels by Russia, but I wouldn't really be willing to condemn it either. What the Donbas wanted apparently was sufficient autonomy within Ukraine to speak Russian, run its own affairs, and enjoy its own Russian culture; which the nationalists who took over the government in 2014 considered something of an anathema.
Incidentally, I don't think Russia had anything to do with the events that led to the nationalist's takeover of the government in 2014 as you seem to be implying. The annexation of Crimea happened after the takeover.
For land they wanted. With a country they claim is illegitimate and should have been part of their country all along?
I don't think that was Putin's (or Russia's) intention originally. If it had been I think he would have launched the invasion much earlier. As it was he waited to see if the Minsk agreements would bring about a peaceful resolution. What he did not want was a country hostile to Russia sitting on Russia's border.
No state wants a hostile neighbour, or potential enemy ally, on its borders. From Putin and Russia’s perspective, this may feel like a “necessary” war to avoid NATO encirclement and secure what they see as their backyard.
But understanding that motivation doesn’t justify armed invasion, civilian deaths, or war crimes.
Context explains; it doesn’t excuse.
Putin had countless other ways to influence Kyiv, build a pro-Russian government, and maintain ties with Ukraine. He simply chose the absolute worst one. And for that folly, tens of thousands of innocent people have died, punished for the “crime” of wanting to be a sovereign, independent country.
But understanding that motivation doesn’t justify armed invasion, civilian deaths, or war crimes.
It's events that justify wars, not "understanding motivation". Understanding motivations usually happens afterwards when it dawns on people just what it was that provoked the war.
You say: Putin had countless other ways to influence Kyiv, build a pro-Russian government, and maintain ties with Ukraine.
Fat lot of good any of that would have done had it been attempted.
Cool, so you don't care about international law and underatand warfare simply to be a legitimate continuation of foreign policy by means of force?
In which case I look forward to your defence of the US military action in Venezuela and Trump's desire to acquire Greenland.
Carney agrees "in principle" with Trump's Board of Peace in Gaza, and he supports the abduction of President Maduro.
How exactly is he a dissenter, as opposed to a toady?
[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.]
Just had a quick look at your moderation history from last year. There was a lot, most of it for trolling, refusing to accept moderation and generally posting random personal views that don't contribute to the debate and just end up creating work for the moderators. In case you missed it, we're cleaning up the comments for election year by issuing long bans. We want serious commentary, not superficial and inane tweets like the one above.
you can read my mod note to Dennis at the top of the page.
Commenting on a post that you clearly haven't bothered to read or understand and then using the post to grandstand your own reckons is anti-social, just pisses people off including the mods, and is likely to eventually get a long ban.
Just to remind everyone, this government believes climate change is happening, but it wants to keep up actions that cause a more dangerous climate and bear fewer or none of the costs. This party in particular and their voters and backers have known for thirty years about climate change.
Don’t forget this:
https://newsroom.co.nz/2025/10/17/assumption-of-buyouts-after-disasters-ends-now-minister/
We can damage but not defend. You must take responsibility for our actions.
And these January floods are happening more frequently in the north. 2 Bodies recovered now in Papamoa/Tauranga, and people still missing.
The human cost is devastating.
I'm in two minds about that. Mostly atm I think people need to face up to reality and many aren't, and thus financial catastrophe serves to force people to look the climate crisis in the face, something that urgently needs to happen. It also has the potential to force communities to start acting like communities again and reprioritise around people and the environment. That's predicated on the idea that if we don't change most people will lose out in time from climate collapse.
Otoh, poor people will yet again be the worst off. And NACTF will not just resist transition but actively work against it. Some will be in denial, some just don't actually care.
It’s a failure at country level.
and some people get screwed over.
It just creates more worry and uncertainty. The housing market pushes people into marginal choices and the changing climate and our state of unpreparedness as a nation destroys their property and their wealth. Or worse.
Unnecessarily.
And these roads will have to be built again and again.
Summer holiday industries get smashed. Maybe Shane will find oil one day and it won’t make much difference because we’ve accepted a poor cut and already lost out on a wind farm…culture war insanity mixed with crony capitalism.
yes, I know. Thing is, if the government and councils bail people out, while we also continue to build houses in climate stupid places and promote adaptation (or pseudo adaptation in the cast of NACTF) instead of mitigation, transition and adaptation, then we are basically saying let's live the good life and fuck everyone else that comes after us. Or even fuck ourselves. Someone in their 30s with a house now, who thinks this is good retirement investment and preparation is deluded if they think that retirement will happen in a stable environment and society. The problem is it's a mass delusion.
As for fixing roads, what I don't get is this. We're already locked into the kinds of extreme weather events we're getting currently. We will get breaks from that, but we are now committed to major damage to infrastructure much more often in the past. We can't actually adapt to that by carrying on as normal. How many roads can we continually fix before we start running out of money/machinery/materials/labour if the events get more frequent and severe because we didn't mitigate? I really don't get why this isn't a major conversation, do people really thing everything is going to be alright? Why?
I think that’s a short-sighted and ultimately destructive position.
Property owners already have a mechanism for managing natural-disaster risk: insurance. When climate risk makes a property uninsurable, that isn’t a failure. It’s the market doing exactly what it’s meant to do by signalling that the risk is no longer acceptable and that the property probably shouldn’t be there.
Continuing to socialise those losses just delays adaptation and locks everyone into worse outcomes. Why should taxpayers be forced to subsidise people who choose to ignore well-understood risks like flooding or slips?
It is unfortunate that some people will end up holding the bag, especially given how distorted the housing market already is, but that doesn’t automatically justify bailouts that entrench the problem.
At some point, responsibility has to attach to decisions made in the face of known risks. If we don’t accept that, then all we’re doing is propping up a failing system and subsidising people to remain in houses that will eventually kill them.
How very grown up of you.
Let’s examine processes:
1) there is a lot of scientific study and planning information available at low cost because of the study of the effects of climate change on various places in New Zealand.
2) These market signals, along with insurance, allow people to accurately gauge the potential costs of purchasing property.
3) Due to the investment in impact studies and communication of their risks, developers are building properties that are climate change resilient and infrastructure is seeing investment to similarly future proof it against storms, flooding or drought.
4) Part of the reason we feel this confident is that we’ve been part of a sustained international effort to keep warming, the science of which has been understood for 30-40 years, to keep warming under 1.5 degrees, alleviating the concern about unpredictable effects that might occur at higher levels of warming.
All hail the market, which has told us who will win and who will lose! Nothing we can do. Nothing we could have done. All hail the market.
Also what’s the price tag on that military swag? Dual use for civil defense? Nah, that’s fine.
Hi Weka,
do you have an opinion on Carney ?
ta.
Hi Res
youre saying a coup is democracy ? Have we entered the world where you the right winger words no longer have meaning ?
if you want to retain your commenting rights here, please be more clear. If you can't reply to a comment at least quote, or refer to the comment number, so people know what you are referring to. Better not to make assumptions about people's politics either, because it makes you look foolish in this case.
No, Adamski. Your semantic games, while amusing, are completely irrelevant.
The Maidan was not a coup. It was a popular protest. The president resigned because his position became politically untenable. New elections were held. The world moved on.
Even if you want to call it a coup, it has nothing to do with Russia’s invasion in 2022. If you think it does, you’re either ignoring the facts or implicitly supporting imperialism.
That’s a surprisingly bold position for someone claiming to be on the left.
All the right wing talking points are there in your post. Good job. The vote did not follow the impeachment process specified by the Ukrainian Constitution, which would have involved formally charging Yanukovych with a crime, a review of the charge by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and a three-fourths majority vote—at least 338 votes in favor—in parliament. They did not reach this number.
And the coup you say was so popular the east revolted against this new illegitimate government and here we are now. Ukraine should of signed the peace deal
when offered . Now it's getting its head beaten in . Oh well
An agreement was signed by Yanukovych and the opposition on 21 February 2014, but he secretly fled the capital that evening.
The next day, Ukraine's parliament voted to remove him and schedule early elections on the grounds that he had withdrawn from his constitutional duties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yanukovych
Hi SPC,
he didn't leave the country . When Yanukovich left Kiev, he went to Kharkov when the vote was held. Not only did they not follow procedure for impeachment they did not get the required numbers in their vote . An unconstitutional act. On top of that Rada (the Ukraine parliament) declared Turchynov acting president before any election was held. It wasn’t “just an election”. They called an election after illegally removing the president with a fake president that would support them.
I guess that is why the report did not say he did leave the country.
They did not impeach him.
Someone is in office, if it is said to be vacant/vacated.
Why did he not stay, so the deal made could proceed?
And what does all this whataboutery have to do with Russia invading 8 years later?
You keep talking about votes and coups like they are some kind of magic formula that justifies Russia's actions.
But at the end of the day, all you're doing is trying to rationalise siding with a dictator and internationally recognised war criminal.
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion. Even if it is stupid and wrong. And I respect your courage in arguing it even in the face of facts, reason, and basic human decency.
But seriously, dude, stop making an ass of yourself. Nobody is taking you seriously. Not because we are all secretly right wing. But because you obviously aren't a serious person and keep spouting Kremlin propoganda.
I'm with you re Putin's 'special military operation', but seriously, dude, the 'debating' style of your comment @10.2.1.2 doesn’t do you any favours, imho.
shrug
If people don’t want to be publicly mocked or called out, maybe they shouldn’t post spectacularly dumb takes cribbed from Russian state propaganda to justify war crimes.
Adamski isn’t debating in good faith. If they were, they’d provide actual analysis instead of rejecting facts and constantly shifting goalposts. If they want me to engage respectfully, it’s on them to present an argument worth engaging with.
I have zero interest in performative politeness here. Thousands of people are dying, and this person just wants to argue about whether the Maidan was technically a coup.
Res is frustrated in not being able to handle an alternative narrative to the lead up of the Ukraine war and has to resort to the words dumb , wrong and stupid – as if thats a winning argument. Thats what the right wing do.
Res also tells the world they are so concerned that thousands of people are dying yet wants the war to continue. Figure that out
[I warned you the other day. You’re now in pre-mod until I get a reply from you acknowledging this mod note. You can make most arguments here, but you have to make an actual argument. What you can’t do is start having a go at another commenter. Accusing someone of being right wing, when patently they’re not just pisses moderators off because we end up having to waste our time. But even if RP was right wing, that’s ok, the criteria for commenting here is being able to make a political argument, not having a particular position on the political spectrum. Please read the site Rules (top of the page) – weka]
That’s a spectacularly dishonest reading of my comment.
Concern for the thousands of people being killed in Ukraine is not wanting the war to continue. It’s recognizing the human cost and condemning Russia’s invasion.
Of course I want the war to end. But not without ensuring that Ukraine retains its territorial integrity, is able to chart its own course, and is secure from further Russian aggression.
Your name-calling doesn’t change the facts: your narrative parrots Kremlin propaganda, rejects evidence, and is being used to excuse war crimes.
You’re welcome to advocate for an alternative narrative, but you aren’t entitled to your own reality. Facts aren't left or right wing. They're just the truth.
If you can’t accept that, I see no reason to treat your “arguments” with anything other than the contempt they deserve.
mod note, please respond.
Hi Weka
Having a go at someone is calling what they write dumb stupid and wrong ( wrong just because). How do you know Res is not a right winger.??? They have not challenged this . Highlighting ones political leanings gives context to what they are claiming. Keep your moderation fair & consistent please
[I know they’re not RW because they’re a TS author and I’ve read their posts and comments over a long period of time. No-one here is under any obligation to say what their politics leanings are. I told you what the criteria are for commenting here, you seem to be ignoring it. Don’t tell moderators what to do, you clearly don’t understand how things work here. Take a week off, because I don’t want to be wasting my time on someone who thinks they know better than the people who run the site. Read the site Policy before you comment again – weka]
[ban updated to 2 months after the election, on the basis that you’ve been asked a number of times to pay attention to moderation and given every indication that you have no intention of doing so. We clear people out early in election year. – weka]
2nd mod note, in response to your comment in Trash.
mod note.
btw, being rude in passing isn't an offence here if the person makes coherent political arguments. Calling someone's takes dumb is pretty lightweight by TS standards. We're here for the robust debate, not hand holding. If your take isn’t dumb, you can always demonstrate that by making coherent arguments. When people veer off into having a go at the commenter and not making an argument, it’s usually because they don’t have one.
Imho, there's a degree of stylistic / attitudinal overlap with certain contemptuous pollies, à la bottom feeders, woke-riddled munchkins, dropkick derangement syndrome, etc. And maybe NZ's political left should express its frustration and even contempt more often, à la "grow a spine"?
Still, while acknowledging the merits of intelligent mockery, in my golden years I'm valuing politeness (a little) more and have become less enamoured of playground-level invective (stupid and wrong; arguing one's opinion even in the face of facts, reason, and basic human decency; making an ass/arse of yourself; nobody is taking you seriously; you obviously aren't a serious person; spouting) as a debating technique – nasty pieces of work such as Seymour, van Velden and Brown excepted 😉
If 'engaging' in this manner, e.g. "spectacularly dumb", "spectacularly dishonest", feels right(eous) and saves lives, then go for it and I can ignore the invective – time is precious, scrolling is easy.
And that's absolutely fair.
Thank you for sharing your perspective and for holding me to account for my own language.
I'm the first to admit I occasionally get carried away with my own cleverness and indulge in invective (about which I'm enormously grateful for the mods patience – Sorry again, Weka).
I do believe that as leftists we are often trapped in a cycle of performative politeness that demands we are civil and tolerant, even when confronted with ideas that fly in the face of our values.
It's evidence of Popper's Paradox of tolerance in action. Hence my willingess to engage in a more muscular and direct kind of rhetoric.
That said, I concede your point that tone can sometimes obscure substance, and that’s something I need to watch.
Thanks Res – fwiw, you're comments and posts are a welcome addition to TS. I admire your ability marshal arguments and find myself nodding in agreement more often than not. I’m old and grumpy – be yourself 🙂
Old, grumpy, and grammatically challenged –
you'reyour comments.