Written By:
- Date published:
6:00 am, February 24th, 2026 - 20 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 …
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world-news/360942583/mandelson-led-out-home-police-report
No2 down
What I find interesting is when these guys lose any power or influence, then they are arrested. Andrew stripped of his titles, Mandelson left to the wolves by the Brit Labour party.
…. but still no Yanks bar Epstein himself.
I thought this was both apt & funny …
"A homeless guy asked me for money today. I looked in my pocket & all I had was a $20 bill. "Do I really want this money going towards drugs?", I thought to myself. "Nah". So I gave him the $20."
That is a great ironic quip which we need regularly to lighten up the siege planning and escape routes and the hyped up yadah-yadah that we'll be served this year. Different from the previous y-y but just as useless as the previous. EXCEPT – it is important to vote for Labour or the definitely left then for action stick a drawing pin on Labour's chair and a whoopee cushion under each of the CoCs.
The way that people will put up with the ruinous insolence that we are fed slyly by those in power is apparently accepted just as the menials accepted what the nobility demanded in the 1800-1900s in the UK, which has been our pattern to follow.
Give me Labour or give me Death should be our oath. After the election then we can start really thinking how we are going to survive the regular small disasters, and loss of wise helpful schemes thought up by our dead forebears, the darlings. We must honour their efforts by not just lying down and being taken over. The future is 95% likely to be very trying – sideline Trump and Epstein in your mind.
Concentrate on uniting NZAO intelligently and kindly. And have one non-net communication line, a people's pathway to important truths and discussion of questions about present ways and possible legal different pathways. Try watching tv The Tripods for ideas of our future; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tripods_(TV_series)… Britain 2089. Since the invasion of the Tripods the country has been locked in a pre-industrial age. The Tripods tyranny on Earth has endured for decades, courtesy of the "Capping" process which most humans undergo on reaching adolescence. The caps are essentially metal plates which are fused into the wearer's head by the Tripods through which the Tripods can send instructions or orders. The Capped are not 'possessed'. They can work as butchers, farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters, get married, etc as they might have done otherwise, but they are never truly independent entities. Once capped, no one is ever truly free. (Also the series trilogy Sword of the Spirits – John Christopher, SF author, has the main character choosing not to reject science and progress, with similar question in book 'The Guardians'.)
Lots of hurt fee fees over this.
.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/republican-party-nazi-problem/686055/?gift=otEsSHbRYKNfFYMngVFweEW5ikNORoRTu76_mPLkAB4&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
Vicious NZAO governments and predatory overseas/businesses and neoliberalism will suck ordinary NZs dry – look at this latest example.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/587723/imaginary-income-lands-family-4000-working-for-families-bill
Tim Murphy's column on Newsroom is a positive step for Hipkins.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/24/hipkins-speech-wasnt-boring-by-accident/
But was the facecloth still cool after laying on his brow? I fear he is declining from an enervating, debilitating,wasting disease. Labour appears to have chronic constipation, a serious malady that requires surgical action, followed by strengthening protein powder-mix intake.
I think that both Tim Murphy and Chris Hipkins did good jobs. It certainly helps to separate the wheat from the chaff and constructive considered comments from banality and impetuous childish reckons.
This wasn’t a bad write-up either: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/587606/labour-s-chris-hipkins-to-put-affordability-at-the-heart-of-election-year-decisions [it contains clips of the post-speech stand-up and of the Q&A session with Simon Bridges]
A fact-check-type of analysis of NZ’s post-Covid retail crime wave that did never happen or at least not to the extent that some Law & Order zealots would like us to believe [hint: they’re the same ones who’d want us to believe, without irony or a modicum of modesty, that they are good managers of our economy].
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/02/23/why-nzs-retail-crime-statistics-rose-so-sharply-and-then-declined/
We are noticing how a society ruled by money and supposed consumer demand, does not result in better conditions for people, and replaces hated government monopoly [as seen by business] with corporate monopoly by legal entities that run on systems and figures monitored by machines down each level of management. A phrase in this expose on airbags by Joe Scott stands out for me: ,,,a combination of greed, corporate callousness and ineptitude…
Airbags have saved many lives in USA. But Joe Scott looks at the modern version – 'There are literally millions of cars on the roads with airbags that are as likely to kill you as save you. Through a combination of greed, corporate callousness and ineptitude, one of the largest airbag manufacturers in the world built and sold faulty airbags over…20years…ending up in over 100 million cars.' {There was a scandal about numbers of injuries that cost the company $26 billion approx.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBJW5-IDh5U 18.37m and | https://www.wowktv.com/news/do-not-drive-warning-issued-for-over-225000-vehicles-due-to-exploding-airbags/?ipid=promo-link-block1 .
@obtrectator, the noose is tightening, one of these weak men will spill to save himself
True that.
This is beyond irony! The party that wants a smaller government, and is going to campaign on this, has no scruples about abusing its power when in Government.
Brooke van Velden’s arrogance laps her ignorance, it’s not even a contest.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/24-02-2026/pay-equity-select-committee-finds-flagrant-and-significant-abuse-of-power
Well done, Alice Neville of The Spinoff.
Makes a lot of sense to me to establish clearly the status of English as an official language of the country. Anyone else think Chloe was a bit daft to be fighting on this particular hill (and very unstylishly into the bargain)?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iPYmojQegPU
It is not something that is required.
One could wonder at the motives of those seeking it, without opposing it.
English is not the de jure (legally declared) official language in the USA, UK, or Australia, where it serves as the de facto (customary) language of government and public life.
Maori (indigenous people and taonga under the Treaty) and sign language are de jure here, and English is the de facto language of government and public life.
Canada does have English as a de jure language, where it shares that status with French (in Quebec, French is the sole official language).
Not a hill I think the Greens should choose to die on.
IMO. Just say yes. Take away Peters steam, and publicity, by saying, "If you want, lets just hurry up, and codify the already existing status quo into law, so we can get onto more important things".
Objecting to it just gives Peters Oxygen.
Which is why he is doing it!
Got to give the Zombie points, for political instincts.
She’ll be right, mate, that old geezer is a bit munted.
Que?