General Debate 17 January 2018

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Lance

No WoO please
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January 17, 2018 8:03am
- Paulus Gnome
  
  No WoO? Does chinky names Twyford know this gentleman?
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:05am
  - sooty
    
    BFF!!!
    
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    January 17, 2018 12:39pm
Paulus Gnome

A man travelling from Iceland to London was turned away from a British Airways flight after he wore eight pairs of pants and 10 shirts to avoid paying for checked in luggage.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11976392

Racial profiling according to the gentleman.

Bollocks.
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January 17, 2018 8:03am
- Maxx
  
  My wife did this back in 2002 when going through Heathrow. At the screening counter they said she had too much carry on (one separate bag which BA had said was fine for her to take on board).
  
  The agent was having none of this though so she emptied the bag and put on all of the clothing, went through screening and then bagged it back up again.
  
  Couldn’t do that today.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:08am
  - Lance
    
    Leaving via Heathrow 1988
    I had a pocket knife in my carry on. Big telling off, terrorism threat blaa blaa, I thought ‘oh shit – lost my swiss army knife for sure, maybe kicked off flight etc’.
    After the border official wagged her finger at me for an extended period of time, she put the pocket knife back in my bag and told me never to do it again………..WTF?
    Those were the days
    
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    January 17, 2018 8:16am
    - cmm
      
      I traveled from NZ to USA quite a bit in the 1990s. When I did so I always carried a big 5 inch blade lock-blade Swiss Army knife. Just pop it in the wee basket thing along with keys and wallet etc. No problems.
      
      The only time I ever got any hassle was when I forgot to put it in the basket in NZ and the metal detector went off. I said sorry, put it in the basket. No problems.
      
      Then 11/9/2011.
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:22am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Lance, I traveled a fair bit in the 90’s and always carried my swiss army knife with me. I never had a problem with it.
      “Those were the days”. In the 70′ and early 8o’s, my parents never locked the house when they went out. Often leave both back and front door wide open to let the breeze go through on really hot days. There was a note pad on the fridge for people that called when we weren’t there to leave a message. To be fair we lived in Ashburton, so it was fairly quiet! Now those really were the days!
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:45am
    - Positan
      
      Embarking on a flight out of LA, I was told I had a knife in my carry bag. “Open it,” the official demanded, acting every bit as much as if he’d discovered a 65-year-old suicide bomber – his associates moving closer so as to “inspect” me.
      
      Very puzzled, I did so. The offending item was found to be a nail-file among my toiletries and shaving gear.
      
      No apology – just “pack it up, move on.”
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:51am
    - Wangas Feral
      
      Back in 2000 I was coming back from visiting my mother in Sydney. As I was leaving she gave me a complete set of ginsu type knives she got off the tv. I had them in my hand luggage and was passed through Australian customs and into NZ with no trouble and they were checked by the customs officers. Fucking Muslim terrorists making the world a shittier place all round.
      
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      January 17, 2018 9:28am
    - oob
      
      Flying from Saigon to Kuala Lumpur with Air Asia in 2007, I forgot my Leatherman was in my hand luggage and expected it to be confiscated.
      
      Security just waved me through. I can’t be certain but I suspect it was because I’m Caucasian.
      
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      January 17, 2018 12:34pm
- cmm
  
  When I was at university people did this with diving weightbelts so they would not count as checked weight.
  
  It got banned after a year or two.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:13am
- wombatge
  
  Should have flown EasyJet, they has the most bizarre cabin baggage allowance, you can take unlimited weight in your cabin baggage as long as you can lift it into the locker, but standard size cabin case as with most airlines
  the really bizarre thing is if you take it through to boarding gate, they will put it in the hold for you.
  Good airline but I chuckle at this every time I fly them.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:20am
- Nigel Kearney
  
  Set the limit for combined weight of passenger and luggage. Solves that problem and others.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:13am
Inandout

The gay social media commentator on Garner is crowing about Bannon ‘breaking his silence’ on Trump before a Grand Jury, and the net is ‘all abuzz’. Bannon is suddenly the darling of the Left, it defies belief.
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January 17, 2018 8:05am
- Disaster Area
  
  The enemy of your enemy is your friend.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:30am
  - Lance
    
    What could possibly go wrong with that philosophy?
    
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    January 17, 2018 8:33am
  - Inandout
    
    Except the ‘enemy of your enemy’ scenario doesn’t exactly apply to the Left’s love of Islam, a gay hating creed totally opposed to reform of any kind. They both loathe Israel for sure, but there the similarity stops.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:08am
    - ztev
      
      Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
      he can give evidence of what Big Donny was doing that day or what they were doing if it didnt involve meeting with Trump
      
      That way the have the background to what Trumps aides were doing around that time.
      Once Trump lies about a meeting that didnt happen they have got him, not some minor thing but the smoking gun meeting on collusion.
      
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      January 17, 2018 9:36am
      - Harkman
        
        No actually he can’t, because the meeting with the Russian lawyer Natalia V was in June 2016 and Bannon joined the campaign in August 2016.
        
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        January 17, 2018 9:53am
      - Ross12
        
        ztev
        
        You sound as desperate as the leftie US MSM.
        
        The reality is the noose it tightening on all those involved in what could prove to be one of the biggest political scandals in USA history.
        So Bannon is subpoened to appear before a Grand jury before any investigator has spoken to him –that must set a precident. This is just a distraction and a shadow boxing exercise.
        
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        January 17, 2018 10:23am
    - kowtow
      
      Yep, not often I agree with Chris Trotsky.
      
      “ONE OF THE MOST PERPLEXING political phenomena of the twenty-first century is feminism’s silence in the face of Islamist oppression. For nearly a quarter-of-a-century, as the evidence of weaponised misogyny across the Islamic world has mounted, the absence of globalised feminist resistance has become increasingly difficult to ignore. The contrast between global feminism’s muted response to the oppression of women in the Islamic world, and its ongoing campaign against the sexist excesses of western males, is stark. Why one, and not the other?’
      
      https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.co.nz/2018/01/why-isnt-injury-to-one-sister-injury-to.html
      
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      January 17, 2018 9:58am
      - GoVege
        
        Kowtow: probably because there’s no frigging loyalty between women. …or bugger all anyway.
        Women are brainwashed from an early age in western culture to doll themselves up for males.
        They become very vain and self-centred and see other women as competition.
        Why else do millions of women and girls tune in daily to watch airheads like the Kardashians discussing their boob jobs or whatever.
        This is what women have been raised to admire and emulate.
        Then if the unfortunate but fairly natural result of constantly preening themselves occurs, I. E: men behaving badly….they get even more attention!
        Stuff the girls and women getting mutilated, acid-attacked and murdered in poor countries. …it’s all about us!
        
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        January 17, 2018 8:27pm
- stephieboy
  
  Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
  Inandout , we can say it is staggering turn of events when it was quite the opposite leading up to the election, 2016 , during it and its aftermath .
  
  Trumpeters like you were then and until recently effusive and uncritical in praise of Bannon.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:21am
Southern Raider

So Stage Challenge is cancelled around NZ because the Ministry of Education hasn’t renewed the funding.

A tiny $260K per annum to involve thousands of children around the country.

Apparently the funding is being invested back into the curriculum eg Marxist doctrine
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January 17, 2018 8:05am
- GazzaW
  
  They can’t afford it. All the cash has been spent on rebating school donations and free tertiary. The cupboard is totally bare
  
  Can you imagine the hullabaloo from Chippy had this happened under the Nats?
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:29am
  - CHFR1
    
    Exactly, my kid was really looking forward to doing stage challenge this year alas she will have to miss out because some rich prick wants their free year at University. Thanks Jacinda.
    
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    January 17, 2018 8:40am
  - pdm
    
    Nah GazzaW – the money has been spent on hiring conference rooms for all the committees they are forming to have `conversations’ on every bloody thing!!
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:18am
  - alloytoo
    
    Wasn’t the first program for the chop and won’t be the last. Chippy and Grant will scrape the cupboard bare.
    
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    January 17, 2018 10:25am
- Disaster Area
  
  As a teacher who regularly has his classes disrupted by a never ending stream of activities which are apparently more important than actually learning stuff, I shall not be sad to see it go.
  
  If the students love singing and dancing so much, they can join ‘Glee clubs’ and use up their evenings.
  
  It’s amazing how many of these dedicated, motivated students lose interest when they realise that they can’t use it as an excuse to miss lessons.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:56am
  - cmm
    
    I have to agree with the DA.
    
    What happened to the old days when schools taught real core stuff and did that well?
    
    School has increasingly become an extension of social services etc and the lazy way to deal with some issue seems to be by trying to add yet another activity/subject into the school curriculum.
    
    First it was PE and sex ed, then budgeting and driving.
    
    Is there any room left for English, Maths, etc?
    
    If schools want extra activities, then add them as extra-curricular activities like sports.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:16am
  - Southern Raider
    
    Wasn’t Stage Challenge treated as an extra curricular activity and done outside of normal class time like sports is?
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:47am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Hahahahahaha….
      
      been into schools lately?
      “Why are you late for class, young man/lady?”
      “Polyfest practice, Miss”
      “Kapa Haka practice, Miss”
      “Band practice, Sir”
      “Sports trials, Whaea”
      
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      January 17, 2018 10:12am
      - SGA
        
        I guess there must be school-to-school variation, Maggy. When my kids have been involved in Stage Challenge, school productions, and sports trials, then they have been largely after school. In fact, the problem was clashes. Setting up for the actual events themselves did, of course, encroach on school time (as did playing sport in inter-school exchanges).
        
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        January 17, 2018 11:26am
      - lifesgood
        
        Maggy, you are so right, and, yes, I have inside knowledge. Then there are the away sports trips and the long overseas trips meant to be for culture, history art etc, all things that can be learnt in the classroom and experienced later in life. Everyone knows these trips are just teachers excuse to have a cheap, subsidised holiday.
        
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        January 17, 2018 3:10pm
      - Disaster Area
        
        If you think that taking students away on a trip is a ‘holiday’ for the supervising staff, then you are very, very much mistaken.
        
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        January 17, 2018 5:28pm
    - doggone7
      
      It was for our kids.
      
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      January 17, 2018 11:57am
  - Viking2
    
    Feel the same about all the money poured into sports. Why would it be the taxpayers responsibility to train sports people?
    Cut that funding and concentrate on there things that people need to learn for life.
    
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    January 17, 2018 12:36pm
- Gabby
  
  You should be thrilled the money isn’t being squandered on effnick prancing around and effeminate flouncing sodden rotter.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:45am
  - Southern Raider
    
    When you die the oxygen levels on the planet are going to sky rocket. You are just an oxygen thief who adds no value to anything
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:48am
    - Gabby
      
      Snofwake need a big biodegradable paper hankie sodden?
      
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      January 17, 2018 11:22am
- kowtow
  
  They could try to get some sponsorship from the tobacco companies …….. alternatively give themselves a Maori name , Te Stagee Challengee o Aotearoa, claim to promote “iwi” values and voila ,plenty of tax payer money coming your way……
  
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  January 17, 2018 10:06am
- doggone7
  
  The Ministry of Education had a contract with the Stage Challenge Foundation which gave them $267,000 a year. The Ministry said that covered about a third of the total annual cost.
  
  I presume if the Government covered all the costs they’d be up for something over $800,000.
  
  Tell all the kids who are missing out the money which could have been used is in Saudi with a sheep farmer and in Clutha with an office woman.
  
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  January 17, 2018 12:06pm
Poppa

Great win in the cricket last night.

That innings by Dutchie was one of the best I have witnessed & I have seen a few
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January 17, 2018 8:05am
- oldgolfer
  
  de Grandhomme is a cricketer’s cricketer – fearless with the bat, more than handy with the ball, and deft in the field.
  He does the sort of thing that inspires players and teams, and he has proved that you do not have to bowl at express pace, if you move it around, to be effective.
  And, to boot, he’s unassuming.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:23am
- In Vino Veritas
  
  It was OK Poppa, but there have been way better ones (and yes, its opinon).
  McCullum 50* v Aus of 20 odd balls to win chasing 330
  McMillan 120 v Aus chasing 350 and 40 for 4, to win
  Jerry Coney 55 v WI with Holding, Garner and co when NZ were 60 for 6 chasing 200
  Luke Ronchi, NZ 90 for 5 after 20 overs when he came in and hit 170* off 100 balls or so v Sri Lanka
  Jesse Ryder (50balls) and Corey Andersons (30 odd balls) 100’s v WI.
  And that’s just a few among many.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:33am
  - Poppa
    
    Yes I saw all of those too, but his timing is something which is very rare even amongst top players. He makes the game seem easy.
    
    He is a special talent & hopefully we will get to see much more of him
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:07am
  - Kimbo
    
    Hadlee and Coney’s partnership of 121 chasing down England’s 296 in scorching heat in Adelaide in 1982-83. Hadlee was out just before the winning runs were hit with about an over to spare. In those days no team had ever scored more than 300 in a 50 over game, so it was the equivalemnt of chasing about 400 today.
    
    http://www.espncricinfo.com/series/61710/scorecard/65348/England-vs-New-Zealand-11th%20Match-England-tour-of-Australia
    
    Was Hadlee’s highest ODI score. Like Botham, Hadlee strangely never scored big and/or consistent runs in ODIs. Neither ever scored a century. More the occasional quick 50, or a quick 30 off maybe 20 balls at the end of an innings. Although they tried both as openers, Botham more often and with a bit more success. Different era. With today’s flat pitches with good bounce, bigger bats, shorter boundaries and better planning technology they would be scoring big in the modern game. Botham was such a powerful hitter, whereas Hadlee was such a sweet timer when the ball was in the slot – pitched up outside off.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:18am
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Yep Kimbo, early 80’s 220-240 was tough to chase, with 250 invariably winning. And you are right about the pitches, have a look at some of the old you tube clips of pitches in the 70’s (particularly – see NZ chasing 470 to win at Trent Bridge in ’73 even on day 5 it was green) and the early to mid 80’s. Batters today would want them condemned as unplayable green tops!
      
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      January 17, 2018 10:07am
      - Kimbo
        
        Was watching the same clip a few days ago of that 1973 Trent Bridge chase. So close yet so far! And but for a dropped Kern Wadsworth catch in the next one at Lords they would have won there. Snow, Arnold, Greig, Illingworth and Gifford were the England attack from memory. No Deadly Derek Underwood or Bob Willis, so they sure had depth, in bowling at any rate- Boycott, Amiss, Greig and the inconsistent Fletcher were about it for their batting.
        
        Mind you Richard Hadlee always reckoned that was the most talented NZ side he ever played with – Turner, Congdon, Burgess, Hastings, Pollard, Wadsworth, Bruce Taylor, Dayle Hadlee, Hedley Howarth, Collinge. And somehow John Parker kept out Rodney Redmond! 😉 But Congo was too defensive a captain.
        
        Eden Park before drop-in pitches was always a funny one. The groundsman would be asked “what is the pitch like?”, and he’d lie his arse off, “good bounce and pace for the stroke makers”, when in reality it was a low, slow shit heap, where the bowlers would struggle to get the ball to bounce bail height, and 180-200 would be a good defendable ODI score, even with the short boundary off the right hand batsman’s legs in front of the No.1 (South) Stand! And 200 runs a day in a test match was about the right rate to not throw away your wickets needlessly, as forcing the run rate was a waste of time and a sure recipe for defeat.
        
        And yes, agree about green pitches. What they call ‘a green top’ today is laughable. There are so many averaging over 50 these days (and that used to be the benchmark of “greatness”) I reckon test batsmen today have about an extra ten runs added to their averages due to batter-friendly pitch conditions and a paucity of really great fast and seam bowlers compared to, say, the 1980s. Look at John Wright from 1978-93, averaged about 37 but consistently had to open on green wickets with variable and low bounce against the likes of Willis, the young Botham, Old, Hendrick, Imran, Sarfraz, Holding, Roberts, Croft, Garner, Marshall, Lillee, Thommo, Hogg, Alderman, Kapil, Wasim…
        
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        January 17, 2018 10:34am
      - Prince
        
        They had the Pom umpires to contend with too.
        The Umps told Congdon early on they would brook no Kiwi nonsense like loud appealing for caught behind – if the Pom batsman had hit the ball, he would walk, old chap. I think the Pom umpire was Constance or something like that – was worse than touring Pakistan.
        
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        January 17, 2018 10:17pm
    - In Vino Veritas
      
      Quite right Kimbo, re the 10 extra runs. Can you even begin to imagine what the likes of Greg Chappell and Viv Richards would have averaged on today’s pitches? Even Geoff Boycott. Holy heck, you’d have had to hire a crane to move him! When there is the slightest tinge of green, those batters that are used to hitting through the line of the ball with hard hands get nicked out.
      And on those bowlers, Waqar, Pollock, Donald, Bishop, Patterson, Daniel.
      
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      January 17, 2018 11:57am
      - Kimbo
        
        Indeed.
        
        Steve Smith is a great player, who, thus far no one has worked out. Will be interesting to see his final average. And Kohli and Williamson seem all class. Even Root who had a less-than glorious Ashes campaign. But who are the genuine great fast or medium pace bolwers today? Dayle Steyn, yes, even though he seems past his best. Philander when he is fit. But the rest, including Morkel, the Aussies, Anderson, Broad, and yes, Boult and Southee struggle in conditions that are not favourable to their need for either seam movement, swing or bounce.
        
        Contrast that with the likes of Lillee, Holding, Hadlee, Kapil, the young Botham and Imran who had the determination and skill to take wickets on pitches that were not conducive to their strengths. Or Wasim and Waqar’s yorkers which used to take the pitch out of the play. 😉
        
        But spin bowling outside of the continent is arguably stronger than the 1980s
        
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        January 17, 2018 12:12pm
      - Kimbo
        
        …and did I mention that, as much as I admire Neil Wagner, and think he should have always been our third seamer, his “short ball” attack, while highly effective against batsman used to flat roads where they can stand and deliver, is nothing compared to the round-the-wicket line into the rib cage that the likes of Malcolm Marshall used to deliver. Just ask Ken Rutherford how he went as a 19 year old in his first series in the West Indies in 1984-85!
        
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        January 17, 2018 12:21pm
- dime
  
  yeah outstanding. i felt for the pakis!
  
  the catch to get rid of kane was awesome.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:03am
Maxx

When even the guy cleaning the windows is telling me to invest in Bitcoin you know its trouble.

I see now that Bitcoin (and all of the other crypto’s) are crashing, down 20%+ in the last 24hours.

Interesting article on Techcrunch showing how it is likely that back in 2013 one person managed to manipulate the price from $150 to $1000 in just two months.
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January 17, 2018 8:05am
- Andrei
  
  LOL have you seen how much electricity is consumed mining these phantoms?
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:10am
- Inandout
  
  1987 all over again.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:13am
- Andrei
  
  From yesterday New Zealand’s very own coin offering
  
  Centrality sells US$80m-worth of cyber tokens in six minutes
  
  Frenzied demand saw the tokens, called CENNZ, sell out in just six minutes to investors, who paid for the tokens in virtual currency Ethereum.
  
  Centrality chief executive Aaron McDonald, 38, said the virtual funds raised were on top of US$15m in Ethereum the company netted late last year from a “pre-sale”.
  
  Ethereum right on cue crashed loosing 20% of its “value” in an hour
  
  Of course its real value is nothing but people seem willing to exchange real money for virtual coins in the hope they will strike gold
  
  But money doesn’t grow on trees nor in bitcoin mining machines which chew through power
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:24am
  - cmm
    
    “Of course its real value is nothing ”
    
    Quite.
    
    Even a $1000,000,000,000 Zimbabwe note still represented a tiny slice of the Zimbabwean economy.
    
    A tulip after the tulip mania bubble burst was still a tulip that you could plant and watch grow.
    
    But a bitcoin is just a bunch of zeroes and ones. It is has no intrinsic value and is not a share of anything.
    
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    January 17, 2018 8:32am
    - MCos
      
      It’s like anything else.
      It’s worth what someone is prepared to pay for it.
      That applies to everything.
      If you advertise a car for five grand and the best price you can get is four grand. That’s what it’s worth.
      
      BTW remember when used phone cards changed hands for large sums of money. Until they didn’t.
      
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      January 17, 2018 9:08am
      - Nigel Kearney
        
        Exactly. Just a few months ago I traded a car for some pieces of paper with pictures of Ernest Rutherford on them. The problem with Bitcoin is not that it has no intrinsic value. The problem is that it has no real future as a medium of exchange because the time and cost of processing transactions is too high.
        
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        January 17, 2018 9:24am
      - cmm
        
        Sure, at some level something is olny worth what someone is prepared to pay for it, but the volatility of the value is reduced if the value is somehow linked to something tangible (ie. intrinsic value).
        
        Your car that you might sell for $5k one day is very unlikely to drop to $1k or even $100 over a couple of days because it is still a car that has utility and the utility has not decreased by a factor of 5 (or 50).
        
        There is no such value underpinning bitcoin. It is all just mere speculation: people buying it because they think they can make a killing when they sell it to some other sucker. There is absolutely nothing stopping bitcoin crashing by a factor of 50 or 100.
        
        The impacts are potentially far worse than the US housing bubble because the house price can’t easily crash by a factor of 10 or 50 because the house is still a house and provides utility (shelter etc).
        
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        January 17, 2018 9:26am
  - Dave Mann
    
    Where can I buy some tokens? I’ve got 100 billion blerktrings to re-invest and I think some of these tokens would be just what I need.
    
    I created the blerktrings myself by repurposing used toilet paper, so I can assure buyers that they are ethical and sustainable.
    
    One sheet of dunny paper is equivalent to 100 million blerktrings right now, but the value is changing hourly as the olefactory excrement factor fluctuates, so my plan is to be in quick and make a killing.
    
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    January 17, 2018 1:32pm
- Southern Raider
  
  Putting aside the value the other major issues are
  
  – China has ability to take over this currency market and manipulate it
  – As many have discovered you loose the keys for you coins and you can never recover them
  – Transaction fees are very high for every day purchases
  – Transcation times are stretching out to a couple of weeks so sellers are pulling out of deals because of the delays
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:55am
  - Andrei
    
    Is it any wonder if you sell something for bitcoin when it is at over 19,000 $ÜS but by the time it transaction is processed you bitcoins are only “worth” 10500 $US (the current price)
    
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    January 17, 2018 10:40am
wombatge

What is happening with Shane Martin, our news was abuzz with him getting back into Aussie by Christmas, he then flew to Bali via Singapore just before Christmas as Australian immigration would not let him go via Australia. Was denied entry to Indonesia and sent back to NZ.
I cannot find a single report on this in NZ, I guess because it is AFL related, they all went bananas over here.
No interest at all in NZ?
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January 17, 2018 8:13am
- doggone7
  
  It’s AFL. Was it a rugby player? Was there an airport? Was there a woman? Was there a toilet?
  
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  January 17, 2018 10:40am
- Gabby
  
  Some bloke in a top with the sleeves missing? No fear.
  
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  January 17, 2018 11:20am
cmm

Joke:

And God said “Go forth and multiply.”

The snakes said “Oh Lord almighty, we cannot follow your command, for we are adders.”

Thus spake the Lord “Go and fell those trees and build furniture out of them. For adders can multiply with the aid of log tables”.

Sadly very few people will understand that joke any more.
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January 17, 2018 8:16am
- VicParking
  
  Log tables take me back to the good old days when schools actually taught. Where you did as you were told under threat of the cane and I got to fire a Bren gun during school cadet days.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:29am
  - GazzaW
    
    They are still very much alive and well. They are an absolute last resort for commercial pilots should their avionics systems fail. I’m sure that trig is used in other fields as well.
    
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    January 17, 2018 8:34am
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Might take a few minutes to locate my old slide rule.. but I’m sure its here, somewhere.
      How are the young generation going to do big sums when the electrickery goes down?
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:41am
      - hullkiwi
        
        Protractors, log tables & slide rules, geez we are going back.
        Reminds of the Apollo 13 movie when all the people in Houston Control grabbed their slide rules to confirm the re-entry coordinates. That was something, & given the computers used in that era were no more powerful than an average pocket calculator in the 1980s.
        
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        January 17, 2018 10:11am
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      Really? Why not a hand calculator or iPad?
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:52am
    - G152
      
      They’ll never replace the ‘whizz wheel’ in aviation.
      No batteries, no technology other than rotate the ring and read off the result.
      Still got my E6 in a drawer if needed
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:52am
    - jcuk
      
      It was sort of the basis of my navigation .. adding and subtracting numbers from Nories 🙂
      
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      January 17, 2018 9:52am
  - Lance
    
    Luxury, we only used .22 rifles at the schools rifle range.
    
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    January 17, 2018 8:36am
    - pdm
      
      I fired a 303 at cadets in the fourth form as I recall. Travelled in an old army truck from Waipukurau to Roys Hill.
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:42am
      - fernglas
        
        “I fired a 303 at cadets in the fourth form”. Did you hit any?
        
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        January 17, 2018 8:58am
      - pdm
        
        Doubt it Fernglas – I was scared of the kick from the thing.
        
        Just read your comment again – very clever and my answer remains the same.
        
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        January 17, 2018 9:22am
      - RF
        
        Yep.. fired 22 on the 25 yard school range and assorted heavier stuff such as 303, Bren & vickers on the Linton army range. 6th formers got to fire 38 revolvers. Only 6 shots each.
        
        Those were the days when school cadets was something you looked forward to.
        
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        January 17, 2018 7:50pm
- In Vino Veritas
  
  Yep cmm, Eton Statistical & Math Tables. Still have mine in my library!
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:38am
  - Lance
    
    I used to hate those, and slide rules. They sucked to the max.
    I know plenty of people took to them like a duck to water, but not me.
    You will have to take my scientific calculator out of my cold dead hands, it’s ‘my precious’.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:22am
    - cmm
      
      The real win with learning to use slide rules is that the answer you get is only the mantissa (ie. the digits) and not the exponent (ie. where the decimal point goes).
      
      That forces people to get make reasonable estimates in their head and get a good “feel” for the numbers and what they should be.
      
      People with an over-reliance on calculators will often multiply two numbers, stuff up the decimal point and get the wrong answer (eg. 10.23 instead of 102.3) and just write down the answer because they don’t have a good “feel” for there being something wrong.
      
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      January 17, 2018 10:31am
    - Paulus
      
      I used a manual winder Swiss calculator for many years prior to an electric one – an Olivetti Divisuma which was an electrical manual clunker-
      about early 1970 – we only had one and were allocated to use it for 30 minutes only.
      My first hand held battery one, which I still have was an American one, -4 systems only addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. About mid 1970s.
      Oh happy days.
      
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      January 17, 2018 1:57pm
- Disaster Area
  
  I prefer the joke “There are 10 types of people in the world: Those that understand binary and those that don’t”
  
  My absolute favourite was after reeling off a long stream of electricity puns. I looked at my class and said “I’m sorry about the quality of my jokes, I’m not a professional comedian, only an ammeter”.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:01am
  - graham
    
    About 10 years ago during a meeting with my daughter’s teacher, she was fascinated to discover that I regularly used binary as part of my job (data networks) along with Boolean operations (AND the IP address with the subnet mask).
    
    She commented that she was really pleased to find that something she taught but was hard put to think of as being useful in an ordinary job, was actually useful.
    
    And yes, of course you can find subnet calculators on the Internet that will do it all for you, but I actually like to understand the theory behind WHY a particular mask will allow you x number of hosts in a subnet.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:38am
    - cmm
      
      Real programmers have sixteen fingers.
      
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      January 17, 2018 10:32am
  - jcuk
    
    Kiwiblog is regaining its purpose with these jokes
    Keep up the good work lads and lassies
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:57am
    - Left Right and Centre
      
      publicwatchdog = lassie
      
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      January 17, 2018 10:17am
- cmm
  
  I recently gave away by collection of about 15 slide rules to a collector who was going to make some sort of display in a museum. Oldest was made in 1903. Most valuable was an Otis-King cylindrical slide rule.
  
  I still have a book of log tables that I used in school. It was printed in 1916 and I picked it up at a second hand book sale wen I was 10 or so.
  
  Compared to our modern tech which changes all the time, slide rules etc were very stable over a long time.
  
  The first print of the log table book was 1887, so it was 49 years old when mine was printed.
  
  Slide rules ruled the engineering world from the 1600s until the early 1980s.
  
  Interesting point: almost all the useful planes in the US military were designed on desks with slide rules on them: F16, A-10, C130, Harrier Jump jet,….
  
  Almost all the modern computer generated whizz-bang planes (F22, F117, …) have been discontinued. The only notable exception really being the B2 bomber.
  
  Computer Aided Design or Computer Hindered Design?
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:06am
  - Lance
    
    A computer is a tool.
    If you are shit at your trade, even the best tools won’t make you better.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:26am
  - MCos
    
    The slide rule, which I thought was a marvelous design aid, had the advantage over the early electronic calculators that it produced answered to decimal places appropriate to requirements.
    However manual calculations have been left in the dust by the increasingly more sophisticated computer programmes on the market that enable the incredibly shaped high rise buildings now going up worldwide.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:16pm
- KevOB
  
  With quarter sawn timber use quarter squares.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:24am
  - KevOB
    
    Another aid to multiplication , try and see :
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/41135937?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
    
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    January 17, 2018 12:37pm
VicParking

Gave myself a new iPad for Christmas including an Apple Pencil. The pencil Works brilliantly and makes navigation simple and fast. That is except for one online news site, The Failing Newspaper. I always found the pages for the Herald unresponsive but with the Pencil nothing. So as well as having cheap journalism they also have cheap programming.
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January 17, 2018 8:24am
- Frank Thomas
  
  The Hearald website is utter crap when using mobile devices. Takes forever and day to load every time you click on a page!!!
  Whoever designed it needs to lined up and kicked in the gonads until they admit to their error……(metaphorically speaking of course)
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:51am
  - VicParking
    
    It takes ages to load because the 100 adverts on the page get precedence. Also to watch a 20 sec video you have to sit through a 30 sec advert. No wonder its failing. Between headlines not representing the story, showing the same articles for days but the story has moved on, FAKE NEWS, opinion pieces that only give on side of the story one can see why circulation is falling faster than Twitfords credibility.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:16am
    - KevOB
      
      Ghostery does marvels with such sites–lose the ads and trackers.
      
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      January 17, 2018 9:28am
    - Peter
      
      Yes.
      
      The pre-roll advertising, the fake news, the Reddit repeating, the rampant leftism, the lack of journalism….
      
      What value are they offering, exactly?
      
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      January 17, 2018 10:16am
    - Digmen1
      
      And Climate Change articles every week
      
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      January 17, 2018 10:57am
godruelf

Interesting to see there is another Rahui in place after a drowning in Waimaramara originally I thought these may have been only where the unfortunate was indigenous. This does not appear to be the case in the latest incident.
I have not heard anything of a Rahui in Lake Whakatipu for a missing skydiver. Could this be due to the amount of skin Ngai Tahu have in the tourism game?
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January 17, 2018 8:29am
- Lance
  
  Surely you are not saying money trumps cultural beliefs?
  I’m shocked
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:38am
- Jack5
  
  I don’t think the spelling of Lake Wakitipu has changed to “Lake Whakitipu”.
  
  Following on the lines of the change in spelling of Wanganui to Whanganui, the Ngai Tahu’s Tipene O’Regan is supporting the addition of “h” to the name Wakitipu.
  
  Otago regional councillor Michael Laws, who waged a similar battle over the name change to Wanganui when he was mayor of the North Island town, has said it is “madness” to change the spelling from Wakatipu to Whakatipu.
  
  O’Regan for 28 years was on the Geography Board, which has been re-Maorifying New Zealand place names.
  
  This is from Wikipedia on the spelling of the lake’s name:
  
  The original form and meaning of the name are not known for certain. The name is believed to originate from the Waitaha people, who were later displaced by Kati Mamoe. Taken literally, Wakatipu would mean “growing canoe” or possibly “growing bay” if the original was Whakatipu and the h elided as a result of the Southern Maori dialect.The dialect is also known for dropping final vowels, and Wakatipua or Whakatipua (Canoe/Bay of spirits) have also been recorded historically, as has Wakatapu (sacred vessel). A legend says that the lake bed was formed when a giant ogre, Kopu-wai was burned while lying asleep. Waka can also mean ‘hollow’
  
  A solution to the difference of opinion on spelling of Maori place names would be for Maori to spell it whichever way they want in Maori, and in the English language, the spelling and name be left how it has evolved and become legally established.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:27am
- kowtow
  
  Don’t see why the descendants of a warlike invading tribe gets to have a say over anything in an area they have no more claim to than any other migrant or “settler”.
  
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  January 17, 2018 10:27am
pdm

Off switch activated – Kerre’s gone.
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January 17, 2018 8:38am
- Left Right and Centre
  
  Flicking stations I there she was and she managed to do a ‘memory jog tsk’ inside two seconds.
  
  That prompts a ‘hand on hot stove’ channel change – ha.
  
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  January 17, 2018 10:23am
Maggy Wassilieff

Went to see Darkest Hour yesterday.
I wasn’t expecting much…
But it is brilliant, all round.
Excellent script by Anthony Mccarten.
Terrific cinematography.
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January 17, 2018 8:47am
- Kimbo
  
  Yep. Gary Oldman is a very good actor.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:26am
- KevOB
  
  Looking forward to seeing it too.
  The anti-Churchill historians and Chamberlain apologists are active these days. I have just read an account of the German military history of WWII. It seems that Churchill’s effectively taking out 9 German ships in Norway prevented the invasion of Britain. With the reduced fleet it would have taken too long to ferry the troops and the Lufwaffe could not sustain that delay. Hitler turned to Europe and put it on the back burner.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:38am
  - Kimbo
    
    My understanding was that the irony of Churchill’s elevation to the Prime Ministership on May 10 1940 (the same day the Germans coincidentally launched their famed Panzer offensive through the Ardennes) was because of disillusionment with Chamberlain’s handling of the war, and failing to intercept the German invasion force of Norway was the final straw – yet it was Churchill’s admiralty that bore primary responsibility.
    
    Churchill is a funny one – tactically a military blunderer – as Kiwis dying at Gallipoli or again in Greece and Crete in 1941 could attest. So it is fair enough that the hagiography about him is revised. But it makes him all the more human, and shows in stark relief that the one thing he got right – that the Nazis had to be destroyed – was crucial. And he was saying it when it wasn’t popular. So for all his failures and desires to initiate offensives in far off theatres (the Balkans?!) he was the one guy with the moral authority to lead the Empire. Now, any minute now EAD will be along with some Holocaust denial…
    
    Same revisionism is done re the Great War, e.g., “The Sleepwalkers” where somehow the British, not the Germans with their “blank cheque” to the Austro-Hungarians, the Schlieffen Plan and “scrap of paper” violation of Belgian neutrality, are made out to be the initiators. A just war that had to be fought against an implacable aggressor. At least the revisionists haven’t got around to blaming Belgium…yet! 😉
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:55am
    - Digmen1
      
      I get really annoyed at people blaming Churchill for the failure at Gallipoli.
      I was a great idea, and if it succeeded could have knocked Turkey out of the war early.
      If the original attack by the ships had been supported by land forces, then they might have walked all over Gallipoli and into Constantinople.
      
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      January 17, 2018 11:07am
      - Kimbo
        
        I was a great idea, and if it succeeded could have knocked Turkey out of the war early.
        
        Seaborne invasions are always the most fraught, but yes, they did sacrifice the element of surprise. But even then, when the Anzacs landed they had a crucial window of about 30 minutes to advance to the high ground unhindered, which they missed. But Churchill’s dismissal of Sir Charles Munro’s assessment of late 1915 to evacuate (“he came, he saw, he capitulated”) showed what a deluded, self-serving dreamer Churchill was on the issue of Gallipoli!
        
        But leaving the strategy/execution issue aside, your critique reveals the false premise from which so much poor Allied strategy in 1914-18 resulted. Gallipoli, Salonika (“the biggest soldier internment camp of the war!”). Italy, Palestine. Mesopotamia, Rumania – all useless attempts to allegedly “knock out the props” as per Lloyd George and Churchill.
        
        Wrong! Germany was the prop! It kept the other Central Powers going, not the other way around. If Turkey had fallen in 1915, even with the ability to supply the Russians via the Black Sea the effect on Germany would have been negligible. The Tsar’s mismanagement would still have resulted in the (first) Revolution. And due to internal lines of communication and supply, Germany held the advantage whenever offensives on the fringes such as those I’ve mentioned were launched. Where and how could one attack Germany effectively through the mountainous Balkans….when it was already such a logistics ordeal to do it through flat as a table top Belgium!
        
        Unfashionable and unpleasant as it was, and still is, the one place where the Great War was always going to be won and lost was…the Western Front. The German Army was a formidable machine that was never going to be defeated in one quick or decisive campaign. is just a fact of the technology of the time, where transport and communications favoured the defensive, not the offensive. As awful as they were, Verdun, the Somme and Passchedaele were necessary and in the long run effective. if the politicians didn’t like that, then they had to sue for peace. Or let the military do its job. Instead, the likes of the scheming mendacious Lloyd George was diverting British troops away from the Western Front for the pointless Italian campaign, just at the time when Ludendorff launched is last gamble, the 21 march 1918 offensive. If Amiens had fallen, which it nearly did sue to the shortage of defenders, then it could have been another Dunkirk
        
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        January 17, 2018 11:33am
      - oob
        
        One of the exhibits at the Battlefield Museum is the map British planners used to design the invasion, at least according to the museum.
        
        Apparently they lacked detailed maps so relied upon this, a tourist map of the area produced by the Ottoman government, lacking so much detail it is barely more than an outline with dots representing major settlements.
        
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        January 17, 2018 2:31pm
    - RF
      
      I can remember taking tea with my elderly grand parents many years ago and I happened to mention that Churchill was a fraud. Cannot remember why I said that.
      
      Pass the smelling salts… that caused a major family crisis. I had to grovel to get out of that one.
      
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      January 17, 2018 7:59pm
  - stephieboy
    
    A friend has seen it and like many critics thought it over long and ponderous .
    
    Much , much better he thought was The Gathering Storm with Albert Finney as Churchill.. I agree with him on the later .
    
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    January 17, 2018 12:16pm
    - realityczech
      
      “A friend”
      
      Bullshit stupidboy.
      
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kV2ujWEPOXU
      
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      January 17, 2018 12:41pm
    - thedavincimode
      
      A friend
      
      Splooge? Where did you meet? The mall? Park bench?
      
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      January 17, 2018 5:50pm
    - Maggy Wassilieff
      
      Here’s a summary of critics reviews…..
      – a very few have posted negative reviews
      – a great majority have given it positive reviews.
      http://www.metacritic.com/movie/darkest-hour/critic-reviews
      
      Gosh… you can’t please everyone all the time.
      The film isn’t a full blow by blow account of the life & times of WC during WW2….. it’s a glimpse of a man taking a stance and convincing his peers that he can lead them in a time of crisis. It only deals with a couple of weeks in May 1940.
      
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      January 17, 2018 5:54pm
      - stephieboy
        
        MW , the fact is we all have different opinions . I will see it for myself and draw my one conclusions .
        
        My friend thought differently to you . However we both really enjoyed “The Post “with Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep with top notch performances .At the top of their game .
        
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        January 17, 2018 6:22pm
- Digmen1
  
  Yes, I am planning to see it this week.
  I did not like the other Churchill movie that portrayed him as week, and kind of against the D-Day landing’s
  Also that movie was full of him getting into and out of black cars.
  
  I have heard that people in the UK applauded during the Darkest Hour movie at some of the speeches.
  
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  January 17, 2018 11:01am
  - Kimbo
    
    Churchill was against D Day. As per my post above, he wanted to launch yet another diversionary offensive against Germany through the mountainous Balkans (to also head off his Russian allies), even though there was already another Allied offensive bogged down in mountainous…Italy. Took some two years to work their way up the Italian peninsula, to finish the war…hundreds of miles from Germany, and with the Alps in between.
    
    Then there were all the Kiwis needlessly slaughtered in Greece and then Crete in 1941 at Churchill’s behest. The Greeks were coping with the Italians on their own perfectly well, while the British were driving the Italians back in Cyrenaica. Instead, Church diverted British and Empire troops to Greece, which drew in the Germans and dissipated from the Desert campaign. And Crete has no strategic value, so even though Freyberg and Hargest dropped the ball, what the hell were we doing fighting there in the first place!
    
    Churchill – great orator and courageous visionary who was crucial in saving Western Civilisation. But whenever he meddled in military affairs it was almost always a guaranteed fuck up. Highlights his human greatness.
    
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    January 17, 2018 11:54am
  - Kimbo
    
    …and then there was the worst debacle on Churchill’s watch, the fall of Singapore!
    
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    January 17, 2018 12:02pm
    - Lance
      
      All that pales into insignificance when considering he rejected Hitlers peace proposal and went around the political elite and appealed directly to the British people to fight on.
      Hitlers ‘peace’ would have been an unending disaster of economic collapse, mass killings and subjugation.
      
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      January 17, 2018 12:30pm
      - Kimbo
        
        Agree 100%. The one crucial thing he got right. For that, despite the other failures and debacles and multiple misjudgements, he is rightly described as “great”. The most significant Briton of the 20th Century.
        
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        January 17, 2018 12:34pm
      - stephieboy
        
        Lance , not quite . It was Hitler’s invasion of Poland that clinched it for Britain with Chamberlain declaring war on Nazi Germany .
        
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        January 17, 2018 4:05pm
    - KevOB
      
      Read Churchill’s own account where he explains the practical difficulties of a global war.
      
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      January 17, 2018 12:43pm
      - Kimbo
        
        I have no doubt there were! Comes with having an Empire – which, let it be remembered was the source of sailors, soldiers and airman, not to mention food and other supplies that helped keep Britain fighting. Can’t have the advantages without some problems! 😉
        
        But underestimating the Japanese, sending a poor commander (Percival), dispatching two battleships/cruisers, the Prince of Wales and Repulse without air cover when it should have been obvious, even before Pearl Harbour and based on the raid on Taranto and the sinking of the Bismarck that they were vulnerable to air attack, and expecting the Aussies to continue fighting in North Africa while the Japanese were sweeping down to their door step,
        
        ….didn’t have to happen! 😉
        
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        January 17, 2018 12:54pm
      - kowtow
        
        POW and Repulse should have been escorted by an aircraft carrier ,HMS Indominable which ran aground soemwhere so wasn’t available ( not Churchill’s fault)
        
        The Italian campaign tied down 1 million Krauts , who were thereby not available for the defence of France. (Bryant , Triumph in the West)
        
        The campaign In Greece delayed the German invasion of Russia , something that may have led to the ultimate outcome of the whole war being very different.That campaign was therefore a monumentally important one.
        
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        January 17, 2018 2:05pm
      - Kimbo
        
        @ kowtow
        
        POW and Repulse should have been escorted by an aircraft carrier ,HMS Indominable which ran aground soemwhere so wasn’t available ( not Churchill’s fault)
        
        Is when you’ve guaranteed the defence of Australia and NZ on the basis of Singapore. Didn’t need a carrier to protect the British capital ships – a land-based RAF could have done it, but they were supplied with obsolete aircraft and no match for the Japanese Zeros/Zekes.
        
        The campaign In Greece delayed the German invasion of Russia , something that may have led to the ultimate outcome of the whole war being very different.That campaign was therefore a monumentally important one.
        
        No, not significantly. Blitzkreig was always a likely failed strategy to use against a vast land like the Soviet Union. Is a misnomer that if Leningrad and especially Moscow had fallen before the winter of 1941 the result would have been different. Didn’t help Napoleon!
        
        The initial German strategy in 1941 was rightly to destroy the Soviet armies (as per the Germans in the Great war, “Russia takes much and yields back little”, i.e., winning territory avails nothing), not capture cities. So capturing Moscow was rightly always an afterthought. But the land mass was too big to continually encircle the enemy, especially after Stalin learned the value of tactical withdrawal. And the Soviets were better armed than they thought, and just had too great a population – which Stalin was prepared to throw into the meat grinder.
        
        And the Italian campaign tied down German troops? Yes, but by that justification so too would have a campaign…anywhere. So why not Normandy or elsewhere in Northern France in 1943? Is a more direct and geographically friendly route than anywhere else in Europe, especially Italy and/or the Balkans. After all, at least 80% of the German armies were always on the Eastern Front. And they sure as hell needed supporting because that is where WWII was won and lost. Unlike the Great War, where the Western Front was the crucial one.
        
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        January 17, 2018 2:27pm
Manolo

The Obama-effect goes on:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/16/stock-market-peak-still-at-least-a-year-away-bank-of-america-survey.html

rofessional investors are going all in on the raging bull market, reducing cash allocations to the lowest level in five years and putting the most money in stocks in two years.

As the market looks to continue its best ever start to a year, respondents to the January Bank of America Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey are showing that optimism has not dimmed, even after 2017’s big 20 percent gain. Stocks were looking at another strong performance Tuesday, judging by early trading action.

Ah, it’s all because of the incompetent messiah!
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January 17, 2018 8:50am
- stephieboy
  
  “Ah, it’s all because of the incompetent messiah!” ?
  
  Largely true unless you believe in the magic fairy wand that your President carries around with him.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:07am
  - Nigel Kearney
    
    Neither Trump nor Obama. It is mainly due to Hillary not winning.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:31am
    - KevOB
      
      It’s pass the parcel time.
      
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      January 17, 2018 9:41am
    - dime
      
      tax cuts. business confidence up as they know there arent a shit ton of new regulations coming their way.
      
      profits are up. people have more money, spending more money.
      
      we would have been about 17000 points if hillary had got in.
      
      god bless Donald Trump.
      
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      January 17, 2018 9:56am
- wombatge
  
  Meanwhile, in the land of the long white cloud the share market is starting to take on more of a Venezuelan look, since Cindy and Winnie took the reigns, business seems to be a tad worried.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:10am
- MrLovebucket
  
  The only effect that can be attributed to Obama is that his policies and approach to the economy simply strangled the life out of it. All Trump has done is take the handbrake off and look at it go.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:17am
- Gabby
  
  There’s fleecing to be done manuro – hang onto your dags man.
  
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  January 17, 2018 10:05am
Rich Prick

Oh my God! Oh my God! Trump used an umbrella!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-umbrella-melania-air-force-one-rain-barron-florida-a8161261.html

Fuck me.
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January 17, 2018 9:06am
- backster
  
  This article needs a repeat on Stuff.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:29am
- RalphT
  
  The cad! Obviously grounds for impeachment.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:54am
stephieboy

“How many times has President Donald Trump played golf while in office?”

}How many times has Trump played golf as President of the United States? Since taking office on Jan. 20, 2017, Mr. Trump has reportedly been on the grounds of his golf courses or played golf elsewhere 95 times since becoming President, and that’s as of Jan. 15, 2018.

The cost of Trump’s golf rounds to the American taxpayer varies by round and course, but it has totaled so far in the tens of millions of dollars.

He previously was on pace to visit his golf clubs more than 650 times in an eight-year presidency. As of Nov. 26, he’s currently on track to spend 772 days on his courses while in office over eight years, assuming he wins re-election and completes both terms. Through Sept. 23, Trump was on an 8-year pace of 759 days at his golf clubs.,,

The frequency with which Trump plays golf isn’t really an issue — just as it wasn’t for former President Barack Obama. The presidency is an overwhelmingly difficult job, and the office-holder is certainly entitled to a handful of hours every week to take a load off. However, Trump was particularly critical of how many rounds President Barack Obama played in office, and so now he looks somewhat hypocritical in retrospect.”

https://thegolfnewsnet.com/golfnewsnetteam/2018/01/15/how-many-times-president-donald-trump-played-golf-in-office-103836/
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January 17, 2018 9:15am
- Inandout
  
  Previous presidential golfers:
  
  https://www.ranker.com/list/golfing-presidents/mike-rothschild
  
  Mr Trump always beats records, good on him.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:23am
  - stephieboy
    
    Inandout , but of course not when the former President was doing golf rounds ?
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:46am
- VicParking
  
  Obama like you did not have the brains to play golf to any level of proficiency. If you take that Obama took 150 shots per round and Trump only 90 he actually plays less. Back to the goats Stephie you favourite has come into cycle. ??????
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:25am
- flipper
  
  Awwww …. absolute bollocks.
  A US President cannot have a crap without the cost being quantified by someone. He belongs to the Secret Service 24/7…and that means even while in bed. The issue with golf is what they could/should be doing at that time … e.g. Obama playing golf when US citizens (including the Ambassador) murdered in Bengahzi. And just in case you do not know, the SS and others follow him and carry with them communications and emergency nuclear response equipment that makes ours look life the phones of 70 years ago.
  
  So if you want to write about Trump playing golf, why not about the Toothfairy going to Australia ??? I’ll bet that was on the taxpayer’s dime (via subsidised travel, not forgetting the amateurish DPS).
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:45am
  - stephieboy
    
    flipper , out of your depth as usual bleating on about the GOP and alt right lies of Benghazi .
    
    Yes , I would expect the SS detail doing the same with Nuclear codes etcwhen any President was playing golf rounds .
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:50am
    - Harkman
      
      “the GOP and alt right lies of Benghazi”
      
      How do you know that? Hillary wiped her server clean suspiciously, so we will never know the truth. Why would someone have so much to hide?
      
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      January 17, 2018 10:08am
      - Inandout
        
        Well at Benghazi it seems that even Snopes has declared the death of the Ambassador ‘undetermined’. It appears though that Stevens was gay:
        
        http://canadafreepress.com/article/remembering-chris-stevens-an-ambassador-betrayed
        
        The Left of course protect Hillary when some accuse her of recklessness sending a gay man to Libya. They deny he was gay, or that his Islamic attackers committed unspeakable (anal) acts upon his still alive body.
        
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        January 17, 2018 10:57am
      - Gabby
        
        Did she pull a Wee Toddy Baccy hackman?
        
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        January 17, 2018 11:11am
      - stephieboy
        
        Hackman, all I wish to say in similar circumstances 63 people, including 17 American Embassy personal died when iThe Lebanon Embassy was attacked 18 April 1983 under Reagan’s watch .
        
        http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1842608_1842698_1842657,00.html
        
        No vindictive partisan investigation into that major security lapse.
        
        Why ?
        
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        January 17, 2018 12:20pm
    - Harkman
      
      “No vindictive partisan investigation into that major security lapse.
      
      Why ?”
      
      Perhaps the Democrats weren’t allied to Islam back in the early 1980s.
      
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      January 17, 2018 12:53pm
- Harkman
  
  You are supposed to do 60 minutes of exercise each day. Playing golf is exercise that Presidents should get in.
  
  Just listening to Dr Ronny Jackson and he is saying that President Trump has healthy mind and body. Oh, the left is in turmoil. I can hear you weeping.?
  
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  January 17, 2018 10:02am
  - Gabby
    
    It’s really just for warts isn’t it hackman.
    
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    January 17, 2018 10:08am
    - Harkman
      
      Boo hoo Gabby.
      
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      January 17, 2018 10:11am
    - cmm
      
      Shitting the bed isn’t exercise Gabby.
      
      18 4
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      January 17, 2018 10:18am
  - Inandout
    
    But Trump must lose a bit of weight. OMG, he is now a fat bastard.
    
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    January 17, 2018 11:00am
    - Ross12
      
      I see that on the NZ Herald headline–what a croc !
      He’s 6ft 3 in and weighs 108kgs. Supposedly that is officially obese –if that is the case then I guess a few AB forwards fit into that category.
      No, I’m not suggesting Trump is as fit as an AB but it shows how stupid the measure is.
      
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      January 17, 2018 2:45pm
  - rightoverlabour
    
    Agree, and I was always told that golf was where big business clinched the deal. Hit a ball for 20 secs, and then walk and talk for most of the round.
    
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    January 17, 2018 12:04pm
Happychappy

I see Winston is on his way to show how important he is in the talks over how to keep Kim happy and bring peace between North Korea and the rest of the world. When he first announced the USA wanted him to be part of a small delegation he and his MSM friends talked him up as a necessary part of the team but we see now there is 30 to 40 foreign ministers attending these talks, so does this mean he was talking up his own self importance earlier.
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January 17, 2018 9:22am
- Inandout
  
  Well at least Winston can talk ‘eye to eye’ with Kim.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:26am
  - backster
    
    If he scores a ‘pull aside’.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:31am
  - RF
    
    Is he taking his little stool to stand on so he looks the same height.
    
    A couple of years ago there was an Aussie “The Block” where one of the contestants was a short arse so they arranged for her to stand on a box during the line ups.
    
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    January 17, 2018 8:06pm
    - artemisia
      
      And Ms Turei standing on two paint cans for a photo op featured in a Kiwiblog caption contest. Some captions were hilarious!
      
      https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2014/12/caption_contest-64.html
      
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      January 18, 2018 8:25am
- KevOB
  
  Any talking with Kim has to be fruitful.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:43am
  - Digmen1
    
    Not really.
    He only understand strong actions.
    Ramp up the sanctions, search every ship going in and out and close those bridges.
    Sanctions, even if more North Koreans starve, are better than military action.
    
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    January 17, 2018 11:10am
  - wombatge
    
    KevOB, talking to Rocketman fruitful!!!!!!!!
    You have a different definition of fruitful to me.
    I prefer the Abbott method and give him a Putin shirt front.
    Don’t think Winston has the balls for this.
    Rocketman might give him an uncles farewell, tie him in the middle of a target and land a mortar on him.
    Anti aircraft guns are also a chosen weapon, he has disposed of over 300 of his fellow countrymen and most of his family in very inventive ways. Talking amongst family has had very bad outcomes.
    
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    January 17, 2018 5:43pm
    - KevOB
      
      KJU is peculiar but NK’s history doesn’t give them confidence of safety.
      I disagree vigorously with NK’s internal management but we are more likely to effect change by turning off the frighteners and talking peacefully. How can they change or why would they want to change if they cannot trust us?
      Can we afford to take the risk of goading them to the point that they actually use nuclear weapons or we use them because we cannot trust them not to? My first option is the peaceful route with such balanced risks.
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:20pm
Yvette

The Christchurch restaurant “racist” menu

Think it’s just a joke? That’s fine. But it’s a racist joke. A racist joke born out of wilful ignorance with an end goal of having people laugh at Asian people’s inability to pronounce words correctly.” – James Roque

Bamboozle, the Christchurch restaurant at the centre of the international media storm over its controversial menu has boasted capacity crowds. The restaurant attacked by Susan Devoy for having a bit of a laugh over Asian fusion menu items has hit the big time, all thanks to Susan Devoy and her lack of understanding about The Streisand Effect.
Bamboozle has been operating with the menu for two years, but sparked widespread interest last week when a Stuff restaurant reviewer accused it of using “racist, sexist language” by labelling dishes on its menu with names such as “suk sum teet” and “chirri an garrik prawn dumpring”.

But which is worse? A one-off snigger at restaurant menu or a nightly hammering on television with the put down of Chinese pronunciation in “30 Second Spray & Walk Away”

The fact is certain languages have completely different sounds for vowels and on top of that, different sounds for some consonants, which Asians find difficult or impossible to pronounce, and vice versa – after years of pronouncing an alphabet one way, an Asian or European cannot easily change with fluently – with an even casual flow – to pronounce the set they are not familiar with.

In New Zealand this is a major difference between English and Maori, with the latter – te reo – using the Asian form of vowels rather than English.
And unless you can switch fluently between one set and the other, you don’t – you just use what you are used to, with as many years experience basically as you are old, to mispronounce the other set.

So, as funny as the pigeon Englisch of the restaurant menu maybe, or Spraying and Walking away, the irony is that most speakers of English as the official language of New Zealand are fucking useless at properly pronouncing an equally official other language of New Zealand and both of those flounder completely in the other official language: signing.

In my immediate circle, if I made the effort to properly pronounce Maori, the vowel changes would be so out of character and prominent as to draw criticism of “Looook! Who’s taking off who?” as I would have to launch myself into a vowel set of sounds that would be as unfamiliar to them as to myself. As simple as the change between “Taupo” and “Toe’paw”. It would be embarrassing, to myself, to them, and to many Maori who recognise and dislike “try hard” too.

This is only one aspect effecting te reo maori – a dying language.
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January 17, 2018 9:22am
- Jack5
  
  “Asian form of vowels”.
  
  I’m no expert, Yvette, but that doesn’t sound right to me. I think some non-Asian languages pile up vowels pronouncing each separately.
  
  Perhaps it’s more a case of synaeresis, in which European speakers have combined a pair of vowels within a Maori word into a single syllable. Instead, in Maori, there is diaeresis, where the two vowels would be pronounced separately.
  
  I don’t think there is anything wrong with having an English pronunciation of a place name in parallel with a Maori pronunciation of the name. In my view, the problem arises in NZ Pidgin, which is a PC-corrupted dialect of English.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:42am
  - KevOB
    
    You either get the vowels right or you’re wrong. Substitutions can give different meanings.
    
    The lack of native speakers as teachers and guides is now showing up.
    
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    January 17, 2018 9:52am
    - Gabby
      
      Ahwee mahn, yewah valls or ahl awva the pleeyuss.
      
      2 15
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      January 17, 2018 10:12am
  - Odakyu-sen
    
    Jack5
    
    Japanese vowel pronunciation is the same as Maori vowel pronunciation.
    
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    January 17, 2018 5:34pm
- Nigel Kearney
  
  if I made the effort to properly pronounce Maori
  
  The English pronunciation is ‘proper’. Taupo has both an English and Maori pronunciation in the same way that Paris has both an English and French pronunciation.
  
  If you use the French pronunciation of Paris when speaking English you will just seem pretentious, and the same applies to the Maori pronunciation of Taupo.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:46am
  - Digmen1
    
    If the Maori pronunciation of Taupo really was Topow, then why didn’t the missionaries spell it differently.
    
    Maori have three ways of pronouncing the word Maori.
    Maori, Maari (Ken Mair) and Mauree.
    Which is it.
    
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    January 17, 2018 11:15am
    - KevOB
      
      Taupo is three vowels. The first two “au” are run together quickly giving a rapid “areoo” sort of like “ow” but not so kiwi nasal. The “po” is not macronised and the “o” is not long so it should come out like a quick “aw”, almost swallowed. Regional differences may exist.
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:31pm
      - Johnboy
        
        Taauupoo dose it for me! 🙂
        
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        January 17, 2018 8:33pm
    - Johnboy
      
      Murri! 🙂
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:32pm
- KevOB
  
  Yes. My ears are pained at the kiwi mispronoucing Maori. Lately its gotten worse.
  The grammar is also being anglicised.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:47am
  - GoVege
    
    Who cares if we mispronounce Maori?
    Lots of us mispronounce English too.
    Some people never learn the language of their adopted home because they are so petrified of mispronouncing a word or three.
    
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    January 17, 2018 10:14am
    - KevOB
      
      My bother is the recent obvious changes to pushing common Maori and trying to pin it down to rules which ignore local variations and being spoken by people ignorant of what they are doing.
      
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      January 17, 2018 1:14pm
  - cmm
    
    I am not surprised Maori grammar gets anglicised.
    
    Maori is inadequate for modern day to day communications, so those using Maori will need to fuse it with some other language to make it useful.
    
    At the extremes, you can speak Maori grammar sentences and embed a few English words where Maori words do not exist or you can speak English grammar and drop in the odd “mana”/”hangi”/whatever.
    
    Where it gets far more messy is when you’re not just dropping in the odd word, but phrases and maybe whole sentences. When you do that you’re going to end up with mixed grammar.
    
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    January 17, 2018 11:35am
    - KevOB
      
      I have heard Samoan parliamentarians dropping in English phrases in fluent speeches. “That is”, “I mean to say”…
      
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      January 17, 2018 1:18pm
  - Kiwi Dave
    
    It’s normal for pronunciation and grammar to change when two language groups live side by side and incorporate words from each other’s language. Two hundred plus years of sharing England with the Danes simplified Anglo-Saxon grammar, introduced some new sounds, and added to or displaced A-S vocabulary.
    
    It’s also normal for people to modify borrowed words to fit more comfortably into their native patterns of speech, and tendentious moralising to accuse speakers of mispronunciation for doing so.
    
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    January 17, 2018 10:19pm
- cmm
  
  People can stumble along adequately in many languages without getting the sounds right.
  
  In South Africa I spoke English, Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa. They all have different sounds (and special sounds) and my father and I would often mix languages as we spoke because each language has ideas and words that have meanings not available in other languages.
  
  For example:
  * English has “th” which most Afrikaners pronounce as “v”: “those people” become “vose people”
  * Afrikaans has the hair-ball “g” sound which most English speaking people struggle with.
  * Zulus struggle with “r” (and use “l”) and “th”.
  * etc etc.
  
  My grandmother (who grew up in Canada and England, but lived in South Africa for 50 years) never mastered the Afrikaans, Zulu and Xhosa sounds but she could use all those languages and be understood pretty well.
  
  And all those languages thrive.
  
  Ultimately a language has to be used to survive. That has to be meaningful day-to-day usage with people actually “thinking” in that language. It must have utility.
  
  Trying to force artificial usage – especially as a government program – does not work. Nor does thinking in English and translating into Maori (eg. learning the word for cat), because that takes you nowhere that you can’t go with English.
  
  A language is a gateway to people, ideas, culture, business, technology etc. If there are no interesting ideas unlocked by learning the language then people will not learn it.
  
  A text-book case of a failed language is Esperanto, mainly because Esperanto is deliberately culture neutral and thus Esperanto has no utility.
  
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  January 17, 2018 9:57am
  - GoVege
    
    Yah.
    I like what English said: it’s up to Maori to keep the language alive.
    If Maori themselves can’t be bothered, what hope has it got?
    
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    January 17, 2018 10:17am
    - Digmen1
      
      No hope, I hope.
      Its really only ceremonial language with about 1,000 words, and no written langauge, or literature.
      The sooner we stop pandering to it the better.
      Who ever made it one of “official” languages should be shot, along with Angela Merkel.
      
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      January 17, 2018 11:24am
  - Kimbo
    
    * Afrikaans has the hair-ball “g” sound which most English speaking people struggle with.
    
    And y and/or the dipthong ui is pronounced as a long a
    And j is pronounced as a y
    And v as a light f.
    And Th as a hard t
    
    Hence Kiwis in 1981 pronounced the names of the Springbok rugby tourists as Jerrie Jermyziz (Gerrie Germishuys) and Gypsy Pie-nar (Gysie Pienaar)! 😉
    
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    January 17, 2018 10:54am
    - cmm
      
      Yup. If I had cataloged all the differences I would have needed a few pages, so I just picked a representative sample.
      
      Try Xhosa with 9 or so different click sounds – however you can get by with 3.
      
      Where it gets far more interesting is that some languages have structures that others do not. Xhosa has multiple different future and past tenses – moreso than English – but lacks most prepositions. Hence, you can express ideas in Xhosa that are hard to express in English, and vice versa.
      
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      January 17, 2018 11:43am
  - Kimbo
    
    …and don’t get me started on Mannetjies Roux, Frik du Preez, Morne du Plessis, Dawie de Villiers or the Afrikaans pronunciation of the other Hugenot-derived name, Olivier (not O-le-ve-yar as per the original French, but O-li-fi-er!). Or Chris Koch! 😉
    
    No wonder the likes of the Jewish Wilf Rosenberg and Rooinecks John Gainsford and Lionel Wilson were such popular Springbok tourists to NZ! Easy pronunciation of their names! 😉
    
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    January 17, 2018 11:05am
    - thedavincimode
      
      Mannetjies Roux
      
      A blast from the past. A very slippery customer back in the day.
      
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      January 17, 2018 5:40pm
- RF
  
  Great publicity you just cannot buy……
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:07pm
Disaster Area

I don’t know if anyone else is following the Dakar Rally, but hat’s off to the Malle Moto class motorbike riders.

They are only allowed one trunk of spare parts and tools and have to do all of the maintenance themselves.

Yesterday was an 800 km rally stage and when they got to the end, they were told that the next day’s stage was cancelled so they had to ride another 500 km to the camp.

That’s endurance!
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January 17, 2018 9:44am
- kowtow
  
  The “Dakar” rally ?
  
  Moved to South America cos it’s not safe in African “shitholes”
  
  And the media spend all their time bagging Trump.
  
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  January 17, 2018 10:49am
Jim

Interesting read on how California boosted their vaccination rate – prompted by a measles outbreak in 2014.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/upshot/measles-vaccination-california-students.html

If the Democratic Peoples Republic of California can do it so quickly, with just the stroke of a pen, then how about NZ?
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January 17, 2018 10:17am
Manolo

Would comrade PM Ardern ever follow suit?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tax-cuts-drive-business-back-to-the-motor-city/article/2645816

Fiat Chrysler will make Ram trucks in Michigan instead of Mexico beginning in 2020, and the company says this will mean 2,500 extra jobs at the plant in Warren, Detroit’s largest suburb.

While this isn’t the first bit of good economic news in the wake of big corporate tax cuts Republicans just passed, it’s the one that cheers us the most, because it best reflects the way lower corporate taxes work.
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January 17, 2018 11:03am
oldgolfer

Apologies to Fernglass – reported in error. So sorry. Jumpy finger.
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January 17, 2018 11:06am
- cmm
  
  Report really needs a confirmation. The code for a confirmation is already written – it is used for delete.
  
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  January 17, 2018 1:33pm
Manolo

Send the crims back to their shitholes. Australia and the joy of multiculturalism:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5273101/Minister-Alan-Tudge-backs-Peter-Dutton-deportation-call.html

A Turnbull Government minister has backed Immigration Minister Peter Dutton’s call for African gang criminals to be deported from Australia.

Citzenship and Multicultural Affairs Minister Alan Tudge said he agreed with Mr Dutton’s claim that people in the Victorian capital were too afraid to go out for dinner at night.
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January 17, 2018 11:46am
- kowtow
  
  Talking tough ?
  
  Must be slipping in the polls.
  
  The gutless fuckers will talk tough , but they’ll never do it.
  
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  January 17, 2018 11:56am
- igm
  
  Crockery will offer them homes, taxpayers’ money, and family reunification . . . think of the children!
  
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  January 17, 2018 12:57pm
Left Right and Centre

You want to buy a really budget new laptop.
You ask on to it KB community for their input . . .
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January 17, 2018 11:55am
- cmm
  
  Unless you want a real uber gaming laptop or are into heavy software development, video editing etc then just about anything out there is powerful enough for your needs.
  
  I used to regularly upgrade my business laptops every 18 months because they were increasing in leaps and bounds and it was worth buying a new one.
  
  Now – not so much – laptop technology has largely leveled off and, after a certain point, it just isn’t worth spending $1500-$2k to get something a small bit faster.
  
  About the only thing that really has improved in the last year or so is SSDs.
  
  For most people a $500-800 laptop has all the wellie you’ll ever need.
  
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  January 17, 2018 1:29pm
  - Left Right and Centre
    
    Thanks people.
    I was thinking my own laptop to make use of public free Wi-Fi.
    
    But today I found out where I am za intermiracle is FREE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
    
    This comment is brought to you by za vonderful *ratepayers* of CHCH.
    
    (still want my own laptop though – mind-boggling list of laptop capabilities and things to know about them – eek)
    
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    January 17, 2018 3:00pm
  - KevOB
    
    I got a HP6730B the other day for $15. They are well worthwhile looking out for: fast, well-built premium machines. Total cost with drive and charger $45. Installed Win 7 Pro for college use.
    
    Most people don’t need the new SSD drives. They have their lifecycle limits too. I have a another old HP running MX Linux with an SD card as its only drive–much like Chromebooks. This relentless increase in specs doesn’t show up in the typical apps in everyday use.
    
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    January 17, 2018 4:20pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  just make sure whatever you buy doesn’t have a shiny screen (that annoyingly reflects ambient light) and does have an SSD – much faster to turn on and off, and probably more reliable than spinning disk.
  
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  January 17, 2018 1:43pm
dime

I just had a look at that maths exam that “made children cry”.

goddam these wimps need to harden up.

i havent done maths in years and it still didnt look very hard.
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January 17, 2018 12:05pm
- UrbanNeocolonialist
  
  Highschool mathematics is constantly slipping backwards looking 10 years after I went through (80’s) there had been 1 year of slippage. (90’s 6th form equivalent of 80’s 5th form). Teaching continues to get worse (no longer a prestige profession, and teachers generally exceptionally weak in math/science). So don’t judge by standards of when you went through.
  
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  January 17, 2018 12:35pm
  - cmm
    
    “School is constantly slipping backwards”
    
    FTFY. All core subjects, all levels…
    
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    January 17, 2018 1:36pm
    - Jim
      
      That’s the only way to get equality of outcome – make it so that the objective measurement (exam) of the dumbest is indistinguishable from the smartest.
      
      If it made kids cry then we still haven’t reached bottom then.
      
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      January 17, 2018 3:06pm
- Gabby
  
  dim’s gettin tough on the 15yos. dim’s a tough guy.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:33pm
  - Johnboy
    
    Yer fuckin lucky that you’re just seven then Gabby! 🙂
    
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    January 17, 2018 8:35pm
Longknives

‘Waaah -Friends is Racist/Sexist/Homophobic!’

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11976447

Another Day/Another Lefty Outrage…
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January 17, 2018 12:09pm
Manolo

PM Ardern will love it:
http://www.geelongadvertiser.com.au/news/national/abc-slammed-over-using-of-term-comrades-during-australian-of-year-promo/news-story/7e64e8ff301a0a9ead94ce94f2580898

The ABC stands accused of cultural Marxism today after an extraordinary prime-time radio plug calling listeners “comrades” in an Australian of the Year awards promotion.
16 2
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January 17, 2018 12:16pm
- Gabby
  
  The phrase comrades in arms must make you spit manuro.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:32pm
Surely Knott

Banning and generally being in other peoples business reaches a new high today as Trade Me bans English Bulldogs, Pugs and French bulldogs. The English Bulldog an ancient breed from the 13th century , which is the emblem of British strenght and compared to Winston Churchill for his tenacity and invasion of the Nazis. The bulldog has been specifically bred to remove the aggression and is now regarded as an excellent family pet good wiht children and other dogs. Sorry Bullie. After 13th centuries of awesomeness you find yourself on the wrong side of the modern puritans. But the Pitbull is another story. It is completely not allowed in cyber space to mention the breed issues and dog aggression related to these dogs who have been bred for dog fighting and are regularly in the paper for attacking other dogs. Who needs a government or the Church when we have Trademe to decide on the rights and wrongs of the day.
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January 17, 2018 12:19pm
- mandk
  
  The English Bulldog of the C13th and the current animal are very dissimilar.
  
  The former was a fit, agile working dog.
  
  The latter is a grotesque over-bred creature that can barely breathe and walk.
  
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  January 17, 2018 12:49pm
  - Surely Knott
    
    Bullshit. I’ve had a number of bullies. They are lovely. They can run very quickly and love to play soccer and have a run at the beach. A hippo isn’t sleek or slim but they can run. Bulldogs have been bred for gentle (but stubborn) temperments and known to be good with children and other pets. So not causing a problem for society. Meanwhile lets not mention the breed of the pit bull that ate the dog on Milford beach last week or the Rottweiler that bit the kids face. Perhaps they could work on improving those dog breeds before worrying about pugs and french bulldogs.
    
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    January 17, 2018 1:07pm
    - Surely Knott
      
      27 dogs breed related health issues:
      1 – Siberian Husky: Autoimmune Disorders. …
      2 -Bulldog: Respiratory Problems. …
      3- . Pug: Eye Problems. …
      4 – German Shepherd: Hip Dysplasia. …
      5- Labrador Retriever: Obesity. …
      6 – Beagle: Epilepsy. …
      7 . Shih Tzu: Wobbly Kneecaps. …
      8 . Boxer – Cancer.
      9. Daschund – Back Problems
      10. Doberman – Heart Conditions
      11.Cocker Spaniel – Ear Infections
      etc……
      
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      January 17, 2018 1:30pm
      - UrbanNeocolonialist
        
        That’s what happens when you deliberately breed for mongy dogs with birth defects.
        
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        January 17, 2018 8:31pm
    - mandk
      
      Who am I to believe: you or the NZ Veterinary Association?
      
      To quote the NZVA:
      “The veterinary profession has long held concerns for many breeds of cats and dogs whose welfare is compromised from being bred to look a certain way. The rise in popularity of English bulldogs, French bulldogs and pugs has seen a marked increase in dogs presenting to veterinarians with serious health issues from airway disease and eye problems. High proportions of English bulldogs, French bulldogs and pugs require correctional surgery to provide them with the simple ability to breathe without difficulty and blink without pain,” says NZVA Chief Executive Officer Mark Ward.
      
      “Without correctional surgery, large numbers of these dogs live with chronic pain and distress, with many owners and breeders unaware that their dog is suffering.”
      
      This is how English Bulldogs looked before they were abused by breeders:
      https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=XqcbRHn1&id=8C23DB78F1430D00349F2A36BC321B9453FEDD65&thid=OIP.XqcbRHn1Ikwa6uOZX_MEhQHaFl&q=old+painting+of+english+bulldog&simid=608006172452324952&selectedIndex=0
      
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      January 17, 2018 2:00pm
      - Surely Knott
        
        All good. But people buying German Sheppards who have Hip Dysplasia as a breed problem must be in the same boat. Imagine the pain, it stops them excercising. Maybe when the Veterinary association is finished banning the brachi dogs they will come for German Shepppards. And then Boxers, they are Brachis with short noses and prone to cancer. They should definitely ban those. And don’t forget the cats. Imagine the pain of all those half chewed native birds they leave everywhere. Definitely ban Cats. And also Daschunds… that’s not natural. And they have major problems from their long backs. Ban those for sure.
        
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        January 17, 2018 2:51pm
      - Surely Knott
        
        Just so you know the full list of breeds that can be affected by Brachiophylic Airway Syndrome (from Wikipedia) Affenpinscher, Boston Terrier[12], Boxer, Brussels Griffon, Bulldog, Bullmastiff
        Cane Corso, Cavalier King Charles spaniel
        Chihuahua (apple-headed),Dogue de Bordeaux
        English Mastiff, French Bulldog, Griffon Bruxellois, Japanese Chin, King Charles Spaniel, Neapolitan Mastiff, Pekingese, Pug, Rottweiler
        Shih Tzu, Tibetan Spaniel, Valley Bulldog plus the Himalayan and Persian Cats. Should all be banned to be fair. As they are all Brachis and can be affected by the obstructed airways issue that is seeing the Frecnh, English bulldog and Pug banned.
        
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        January 17, 2018 3:09pm
      - Jack5
        
        Staffies, English bull terriers, and the varieties of pitbulls have similar snubbish snouts.
        
        Have the dog designers been scared to tinker with these breeds?
        
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        January 17, 2018 3:09pm
      - Jack5
        
        Just had a look at “MandK’s” link to the picture of an old (original?) English bulldog.
        
        Present day Staffordshire bull terriers look closer to that than present-day bulldogs do.
        
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        January 17, 2018 3:16pm
    - Gabby
      
      You’ve had a number because they don’t live long.
      
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      January 17, 2018 8:30pm
sooty

Owen Glenn giving away 400mill. Do you think Labour will be lining up for their share?
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January 17, 2018 12:57pm
artemisia

So, reports on the wireless that the cost of abolishing financial sanctions for solo parents on benefit who do not name the other parent is estimated at $25 million a year. And likely to balloon as why would any applicant parent name the other parent now?
16 1
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January 17, 2018 1:06pm
- Digmen1
  
  The whole dpb should be abolished.
  
  Don’t hook up with a loser or violent guy.
  Don’t keep popping out babies and expect us to keep you in a lifestyle for the next 20 years!
  
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  January 17, 2018 1:52pm
  - Harriet
    
    “……The whole dpb should be abolished.
    Don’t hook up with a loser or violent guy…..”
    
    There’s more than just the above two ‘anti father’ reasons for why so many women are on the DPB…….contraceptive laziness……wrong contraceptives…….mothers too lazy to work……slutish behaviour…….preference for govt payments over working fathers………
    
    The sooner that the finance minister, police, courts, health dept, education dept etc all say “Fathers matter” the sooner it will be affirmed by the wider community, and the sooner ALL the associated costs will decrease.
    
    No one is standing up against the anti father narrative that has spread throughout NZ by feminists and their enablers, and hence all the social ills that NZ has. 😎
    
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    January 17, 2018 2:43pm
cmm

According to stuff Labour isn’t working for business…

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/100628736/the-real-reason-confidence-has-fallen-business-simply-doesnt-like-labour

A more pertinent question is whether they are working for anybody.

Apparently it is because business doesn’t “like” labour.

“Like”, as if it is just a subjective personal preference: business likes chocolate icecream and other people like hokey pokey.

No, it is objective. The policies Labour has been talking about: tax, employment law, tax, minimum wages, intrusions into the property market, tax , tamp[ering with international relations and trade, tax… are all objectively destructive to business – nothing subjective at all.
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January 17, 2018 1:08pm
- Digmen1
  
  Labour did not make one positive policy for business during its campaign.
  And Winston says capitalism has failed us (come on!)
  So no wonder business is getting depressed.
  I hope the rating keeps going down so that Labour and the electorate will get the message.
  Business is what drives any country.
  
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  January 17, 2018 2:09pm
  - Harriet
    
    “….Business is what drives any country….”
    
    Yep!!!!
    
    All that business HAD to do over the last 3 decades is pay their productive workers more, but instead they chose to pay nearly all those at the bottom EXACTLY the same – the minimum wage[or there abouts].
    Why is it the almost EVERY industry has LOTS of minimum wage workers? – because business wanted it that way —- but that behaviour doesn’t drive business as the minimum wage is nearly all spent on banks[mortgage/rents] supermarket food, utilities, and bugger all else – and it won’t be any different next year or the year after.
    NZ businesses need to grow up and stop taking ALL their staff for fools. 😎
    
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    January 17, 2018 2:55pm
    - Digmen1
      
      Wrong.
      Does the IT industry have lots of minimum wage workers?
      Or the building industry?
      Unskilled Factory workers yes
      Unskilled hospitality workers yes
      What industries are you talking about.
      
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      January 17, 2018 5:15pm
  - cmm
    
    Well they did help me, but then:
    1) I’m self employed.
    2) I have no employees.
    3) I have no debt.
    4) Most of my customers are off shore and thus:
    a) a screwed NZD helps me.
    b) if the NZ economy goes down the gurgler it does not hurt me.
    5) I don’t have large travel costs, so increased petrol prices don’t shaft me.
    
    Anyone with a different profile to me isn’t getting helped.
    
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    January 17, 2018 2:59pm
    - Harriet
      
      That’s a good business model. Working from home would be another advantage.
      
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      January 17, 2018 3:39pm
  - Gabby
    
    Is a less poor customer base of no use to business dicman?
    
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    January 17, 2018 8:01pm
Rodney Randall

http://mailchi.mp/9d340156623a/hands-off-motorists-piggy-bank-phil

MEDIA RELEASE
Hands off motorists’ piggy bank, Phil

“Phil Twyford is now suggesting the Land Transport Fund could be used for the Government’s pet rail projects. This fund is paid for by motorists through fuel taxes, registration fees, and road user charges, and motorists expect it to be used to maintain and improve our roads.”
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January 17, 2018 1:45pm
- sooty
  
  Too be expected. They have raid every little piggy bank they can find to pay for their bullshit! The trouble is that come election time when ever that maybe, there is going to be alot of things that are broke and need an injection of money.
  
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  January 17, 2018 3:37pm
Manolo

Will Trump end up firing Mueller?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/16/us/politics/steve-bannon-mueller-russia-subpoena.html
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January 17, 2018 2:52pm
- Ross12
  
  No, I think he will just let him and his gang continue to dig a bigger hole for themselves.
  Lets wait until we see what IG’s report says –due out very soon.
  
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  January 17, 2018 4:22pm
Rodney Randall

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42695319

Toronto police say scissor attack on a girl’s hijab ‘did not happen’

The girl made headlines last week after she said a man came up to her and tried to cut her hijab off.
Toronto police now say the incident, which they were treating as a hate crime, “did not happen.”

https://hotair.com/archives/2018/01/15/fake-anti-muslim-hate-crime-canada/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=YmWKeYMKruE

TAQIYYA
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January 17, 2018 3:15pm
- simpleton1
  
  Muslims will have a fear of a backlash, that a muslim hoaxer has been found out.
  
  Will Canadian law, ‘one law for all’ be applied, or will sharia law be allowed, for the sake of “religion of peace”
  
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  January 17, 2018 3:27pm
- stephieboy
  
  Rodney Randall, reporting all thanks to MSM Media. Please acknowledge that fact ,.
  
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  January 17, 2018 4:15pm
  - Rodney Randall
    
    “Trump supporters are largely white supremacists ” – Stephieboy.
    
    You went full retard yesterday Mr T.
    
    Never go full retard:)
    
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    January 17, 2018 7:37pm
lifesgood

Well that was a sight worth seeing- silly old Penny Not-so-Bright still sitting all alone in the middle of busy Quat St in a howling gale, looking forlorn. Fat lot of support she’s got. Hope she stays there.
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January 17, 2018 3:24pm
- lifesgood
  
  Quay St.
  
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  January 17, 2018 3:25pm
  - sooty
    
    The longer she’s there, she ain’t here!
    
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    January 17, 2018 3:32pm
    - stigie
      
      The main reason being Penny sitting outside in the howling gale is one way of cleaning up the odour.
      Has Watercare completely turned her water down where she’s now only getting 2 litres a day..?
      
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      January 17, 2018 5:00pm
- Nostradamus
  
  Lifesgood:
  
  Quat St
  
  Freudian slip – you meant to say Squat St? 🙂
  
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  January 17, 2018 7:20pm
UpandComer

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-01-15/4-social-security-statistics-are-actually-scary

This is insane.

Social security in the US:

Has it’s liability growing 3 times faster then the US economy
People who are 70 right now will see benefits reduced
In 2016 the fund lost more money then it made – so the death spiral has started
Dependency on social security increases as you get older.

Can Bill English please be given kudos for being one of the few people to actually fund liabilities on the entire planet.

In before ‘Super fund’
– You don’t borrow to invest when markets are crashing, like they were for years when National first took office.
– Bill tried to raise the super-age. Jacinda lied and flip flopped after castigating John Key’s promise to hold the age at 65.

But at least millennials who have to pay for the US boomers in the US don’t also have to pay for their juniors to get free tertiary.

Every time I look at my student loan I get absolutely fucking livid. I just hope that sentiment is shared amongst other millennials.
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January 17, 2018 4:06pm
Manolo

It seems Senator Durbin lied:
http://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/16/politics/kirstjen-nielsen-dhs-secretary-hearing/index.html

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told senators Tuesday she “did not hear” President Donald Trump say the specific word “shithole” during a meeting with lawmakers last week that she attended.
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January 17, 2018 4:13pm
- fernglas
  
  “did not hear” is up there with “doesn’t recall” as a cop-out line
  
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  January 17, 2018 4:44pm
- stephieboy
  
  Manolo , not the case according to Senator Durbin,
  
  “Did Dick Durbin ‘Reveal Why He Lied’ About Trump’s Use of S***hole?”
  
  Fake news has recently sprung up regarding President Donald Trump’s alleged use of the term “shithole,” claiming that Senator Dick Durbin has “revealed why he lied about Trump saying” the word.
  
  The Washington Post broke the original story of Trump’s comments, reporting that:
  
  President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they discussed protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal.”
  
  “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” Trump said, according to these people, referring to countries mentioned by the lawmakers.
  
  Durbin, who was one of the lawmakers in the meeting, confirmed that the comments used in the Post’s story were accurate. “And then he went on when he started to describe the immigration from Africa…calling the nations they come from ‘sh*tholes,’” Durbin told reporters on Friday. “That was the nature of this conversation.”
  
  That’s where the fake news enters the scene. Capitol Conservative ran the headline, “Sen. Dick Durbin Just Revealed Why He Lied About Trump Saying ‘S***hole.’” The story shifts to stating that Durbin, during an event celebrating Martin Luther King on Monday, “practically admitted that he used the ‘S***hole’ accusation as a bargaining chip in the DACA negotiations.”
  The senator did nothing of the sort.
  
  Durbin, in fact, told reporters on Monday that, contrary to some speculation, it was not “shithouse” that he claims to have heard, but “shithole.”
  
  “Could it have been either word then?” a reporter asked Durbin. “No,” the senator replied. “I stick with my original interpretation. I am stunned that this is their defense…..”
  
  http://www.weeklystandard.com/did-dick-durbin-reveal-why-he-lied-about-trumps-use-of-shole/article/2011168
  
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  January 17, 2018 5:13pm
  - thedavincimode
    
    Running the 30 metre tape over pervieboy’s post suggests he knows this one’s a lost cause.
    
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    January 17, 2018 5:23pm
    - stephieboy
      
      No the facts do require to be set out in some detail and not just altright and Trumpeter three of four word factoids .
      
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      January 17, 2018 5:45pm
- Gabby
  
  It seems Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was spreading manuro.
  
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  January 17, 2018 7:55pm
Maggy Wassilieff

The president did “exceedingly well”, scoring 30 out of 30 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment which screens for illnesses such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. Jackson added: “He’s very sharp. He’s very articulate when he speaks to me and I’ve never known him to repeat himself around me. He says what he’s got to say. He speaks his mind. I’ve found no reason whatsoever to think the president has any issues whatsoever with his thought process.”

Trump aces his medical.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/16/white-house-doctor-says-trump-is-in-excellent-overall-health
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January 17, 2018 5:13pm
- stephieboy
  
  ‘ART OF THE DEAL’ GHOSTWRITER: TRUMP IS ‘DEEPLY DISTURBED’ AND ‘UTTERLY UNTRUSTWORTHY’
  
  The ghostwriter of President Donald Trump’s best-selling book The Art of the Deal has suggested that the president may suffer from a personality disorder and said he is “deeply disturbed and utterly untrustworthy.”
  
  Tony Schwartz, who spent 18 months shadowing the businessman in the 1980s, offered his opinion on Trump’s fitness for office ahead of the publication of a collection of essays by 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts assessing the president’s psychological condition….”
  
  http://www.newsweek.com/art-deal-donald-trump-mental-ill-674151
  
  A cognitive test is highly unlikely to reveal an underlying personality disorder.
  
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  January 17, 2018 5:23pm
  - thedavincimode
    
    An interesting contrast to your own circumstances pervieboy. You weren’t outed as a shopping mall schoolgirl perv / borderline kiddy fiddler by a ghostwriter. You did it yourself!
    
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    January 17, 2018 5:28pm
    - stephieboy
      
      Untrue but what could one expect from a loser like you .
      
      BTW why is at that you find the female form so shameful and disgusting ?
      
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      January 17, 2018 5:47pm
- stephieboy
  
  Revealed: The cognitive test President Trump did for his medical exam, earning a perfect score – but can YOU do it? Try it out for yourself…
  
  • Trump underwent the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (or, MoCA)
  • It is a 10-minute, one-page test which was designed in 1996, and is now the industry standard
  • The test assesses concentration, attention, memory, language, calculations, orientation, executive functions and visual skills
  • The president scored 30/30; anything above 26 is deemed normal
  
  Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-5276771/How-President-Trumps-cognitive-assessment-test.html#ixzz54Q0oNxn8
  Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
  
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  January 17, 2018 6:58pm
Digmen1

If you think our wages are low have a look at this.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11976474

They actually make things people want and pay a lot for.
Our burger flippers and checkout staff get 7 times as much as them!
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January 17, 2018 5:19pm
sooty

Dot Com is pissed off that his favorite chair is all mouldy and is having a hissy fot. Oh dear how sad. You could always fly over there and complain. We wish!
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January 17, 2018 5:22pm
Digmen1

The war in Yemen is very sad.
To me, its always been a poor barren country.
I was shocked to hear on the tv today that it has 27 million people!
Its probably smaller than NZ.
And its basically a desert.
So who feeds all these people?
Why do they have so many children?
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January 17, 2018 5:29pm
- stephieboy
  
  Digmen11 , the Yemen is about the twice the size of NZ and its population of 27 million is doing better than Japan with a smaller land mass ( little larger than us ),
  
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  January 17, 2018 5:52pm
- wombatge
  
  Official religion Muslim. 98%. There is answer.
  -28% growth, 30% inflation actually 28.3 million
  Population is kept down by FMG, stats show 25% of girls die from blood loss from FMG and most are put to the knife at very early age.
  Also Saudis have bombed them to oblivion lately.
  Dirty war, Muslims fighting Muslims.
  NZ population density 18/sq.km Yemen 52
  wouldn’t be a pleasant place to live, especially for woman it would be a hell hole.
  
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  January 17, 2018 6:26pm
  - nasska
    
    Mt Roskill, Beiruit or Karachi. Anywhere Islam is practised is a hell hole for women.
    
    10 1
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    January 17, 2018 6:37pm
    - Johnboy
      
      https://www.islamicfinder.org/world/new-zealand/45118988/eketahuna-prayer-times/
      
      Tell the ewe to get hijab’d nasska! 🙂
      
      7 2
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      January 17, 2018 6:55pm
    - stephieboy
      
      nasska , Mt Roskill a hellhole for Muslim women ? The factual basis for that claim ?
      
      1 13
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      January 17, 2018 6:57pm
      - Johnboy
        
        Phil Goff was uncircumcised? 🙂
        
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        January 17, 2018 7:03pm
      - nasska
        
        …..”The factual basis for that claim “…..
        
        1) They’re clitless due to their arsehole religion.
        
        2) They have sick bastards like you perving at their barely pubescent, mutilated bodies.
        
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        January 17, 2018 7:08pm
    - GoVege
      
      Anywhere a government is infected by religion is pretty much a hell hole for women.
      Samoa has recently announced itself to be “a Christian nation”.
      The Samoan PM thinks it is a laughable that hundreds of Samoan women are forced into prostitution by poverty.
      South America is even worse.
      If a woman or teenage girl accidentally miscarries, she can be jailed.
      
      6 1
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      January 17, 2018 8:08pm
      - KevOB
        
        Samoa has been a Christian Nation ever since independence in 1962. The Coat of Arms of Samoa has the Christian Cross at its top and the text:
        FA’AVE I LE ATUA SAMOA.
        Literally, Samoa is founded under the God.
        
        Your comments about their Palemia are reprehensible.
        
        2 2
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        January 17, 2018 8:45pm
      - Viking2
        
        A friend lives up in Thailand and travels around the rea a lot.
        He reckons that the Pope should be dragged kicking and screaming to the area and be made to look after all the unwanted children. He says that there are millions of children coming to haunt us.
        
        6 0
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        January 17, 2018 8:47pm
      - Nostradamus
        
        Viking2:
        
        A friend lives up in Thailand
        
        We’ve met Starboard – world-famous on Kiwiblog!
        
        3 0
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        January 17, 2018 9:11pm
    - UrbanNeocolonialist
      
      And yet women are in general the stalwart supporters of religion, possibly for evolutionary reasons – anything that gives society greater stability is mostly good for women and their ability to successfully raise children to adulthood, no matter how oppressive and horrible the rules might be.
      
      1 0
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      January 17, 2018 10:32pm
hullkiwi

News alert on (Red) RNZ, the Treasury over estimated the number of children to be lifted out of poverty by Taxcinda’s & Robbo’s tax package. Whoops, on dear is that the toilet I hear flushing on Taxcinda & Robbo’s financial & child poverty credibility! FFS, the political year hasn’t even started yet & they’re in the crap already.
14 1
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January 17, 2018 5:54pm
- nasska
  
  …..” the number of children to be lifted out of poverty by Taxcinda’s & Robbo’s tax package.”…..
  
  I presumed that from the complete dearth of sob stories in the media that all the children had already been raised shoulder height above poverdy.
  
  Don’t tell me that after four months the People’s Princess can’t get off her arse & choke the issue to death with taxation & moonbeams.
  
  Stop pissing around woman!
  
  16 1
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  January 17, 2018 6:19pm
  - GoVege
    
    If they would just pay the peasantry to use contraception, the problem would mostly solve itself.
    
    6 0
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    January 17, 2018 8:15pm
    - nasska
      
      Fat hope so long as the various Sky Fairy agencies want to increase the size of their power bases.
      
      6 1
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      January 17, 2018 8:24pm
      - GoVege
        
        I suppose we should try and see it from these dudes’ points of view, nasska…..I mean how else are they gonna be able to sneak away and play the field unless the mussus/es are constantly pregnant and caring for 6 or more kids?
        Then later on the kids get jobs at fast-food joints and pay for all dad’s jaunts back and forth to the homeland.
        Misogyny is a wonderful thing…for misogynists anyway… 🙂
        
        3 1
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        January 17, 2018 8:51pm
- Awww C-mon
  
  Well one could mention the Emperor and Clothing, but that would be misogynistic and sexist.
  
  So I will just say that the lip stick is fading quickly and the pig is not looking so flash.
  
  11 1
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  January 17, 2018 6:25pm
  - nasska
    
    …..”that would be misogynistic and sexist. “…..
    
    Fortunately I’ve never been hampered by such high ideals. I’m happy to call pontificating, virtue-seeking liars for what they are.
    
    10 1
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    January 17, 2018 6:31pm
    - Johnboy
      
      Labour Party candidates you mean nasska?
      Speaking of which the little darling that thought she could beat Chris Bishop seems to have disappeared from the Hutt South landscape….I wonder where shes gone? 🙂
      
      13 1
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      January 17, 2018 6:50pm
      - nasska
        
        They’ll be keeping her under wraps for 2020 probably JB. You know Labour…….recycle the old, brain dead & ineffective.
        
        12 1
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        January 17, 2018 7:03pm
      - Johnboy
        
        It’s worked for Little nasska! 🙂
        Do you really think they can resurrect Cunners? 🙂
        
        10 0
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        January 17, 2018 7:08pm
- Surely Knott
  
  Wow! That’s awkward when the Treasury has to make an apology. And it looks like back in Dec15 it was Stephen Joyce who called Labour out on the discrepancy and questioned the “how many would be lifted from Child Poverty” figures. Do Labour owe Stephen Joyce an apology? It seems it’s their addition that is in question. Is that a fiscal hole I see? According to scoop G.Robertson was boasting 39k kids, but the other number was 12k kids lifted. Only about by a small percentage then.
  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA1712/S00175/how-many-children-lifted-out-of-poverty.htm
  
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  January 17, 2018 6:36pm
Jack5

TVNZ’s “highest rate in the world” bullshit continues.

Tonight in TV1 news we were told that NZ had one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world.

A quick internet search shows that, in 2015, NZ ranked around 95th in world incidence of diabetes.

But it is interesting that, on 2017 figures, the four countries which have the highest incidence of diabetes per capita were Polynesian.

This is from the American Diabetic Association web site in an article about diabetes in the Asia-Pacific region:

Developed countries in WPR, such as Australia and New Zealand, have a much lower prevalence of diabetes compared with some developing countries and also the Pacific Islands.

(“WPR” in this context refers to: East Asia, South-east Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands.)

What the TVNZ article may have been trying to refer to was a Lancet study which found that, in wealthy nations, diabetes was highest in the United States, Malta, New Zealand and Spain.

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/39/3/472
11 1
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January 17, 2018 6:31pm
- Harkman
  
  Oh apparently thanks to One News and the Greens we get rid of the most waste in the world. We are just so evil.
  
  11 3
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  January 17, 2018 7:06pm
- KevOB
  
  In Polynesia status and wealth are shown by the kilo. Genetic factors may have carried a propensity for weight gain and hence diabetes into the larger population.
  
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  January 17, 2018 8:51pm
Johnboy

Jeeze. Another days gone by and not a sign of the outraged Lebanese chap nor his champion.
I’ve kept the shears sharpened and think I’ll go back to watching MASH for my hairy Lebo prey! 🙂
12 0
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January 17, 2018 6:46pm
- nasska
  
  He mentioned that he didn’t like me any more the other night JB.
  
  Or words to that effect. 🙂
  
  12 0
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  January 17, 2018 7:04pm
  - Johnboy
    
    What a bastard. I’ve never shorn a hairy camel/cameless before. I was looking forward to the experience! 🙂
    
    11 0
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    January 17, 2018 7:12pm
    - RF
      
      Are you going to give it a Brazilian Johnboy ?
      
      4 0
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      January 17, 2018 8:52pm
cmm

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/100663014/christchurch-woman-admits-online-cheating

“Woman admits online cheating”.

Cheating sounds innocuous.

C’mon stuff, call it what it is: fraud.
9 0
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January 17, 2018 7:01pm
Inandout

The Guardian has stopped crowing about Steve Bannon and is in disbelief.

‘Steve Bannon refused to answer questions from the House Intelligence Committee during a closed-door session, even after he was issued a subpoena to testify by the committee on Tuesday, saying that the White House had told him not to’.

This darling of the Left, what the hell is he doing?
6 3
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January 17, 2018 7:26pm
- Gabby
  
  He wants his bf back.
  
  3 8
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  January 17, 2018 7:47pm
  - Inandout
    
    Poor Steve, already fallen out with the homophobes on KB.
    
    3 0
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    January 17, 2018 9:27pm
Nostradamus

“David” comments on Penny’s Facebook page:

New Zealanders in general are really out of touch when it comes to the importance of trees. I’ve seen quite a few lovely big trees on properties around the Wairarapa chopped down without a second thought lately. I think a part of it is due to a perverse remnant of settler colonizing mentality – the idea that there are an infinite number of trees in the world and you can chop them down endlessly to make way for development.

It seems that Nasska has been overcome by a “perverse remnant of settler colonising mentality” and chopping down trees – how terrible!
8 0
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January 17, 2018 7:26pm
- Johnboy
  
  The really terrible part was that nasska is so useless at dropping tree’s he couldn’t time it so Penny was underneath them! 🙂
  
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  January 17, 2018 7:31pm
  - nasska
    
    You want to read what others think about our road rooting, drain blocking native Xmas trees JB. As usual the mad Waterwoman’s penchant for publicity blinds her to sense. 🙂
    
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/americas/4073469/San-Franciscos-pohutukawa-curse
    
    14 0
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    January 17, 2018 7:41pm
- nasska
  
  To a cockie a tree in the wrong place is a weed Nostra. The late Murray Ball expressed it well. 🙂
  
  http://www.footrotflats.com/media/30976/s827.jpg?width=760
  
  8 0
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  January 17, 2018 7:37pm
  - Nostradamus
    
    Did those golden shears come from Catherine Delahunty’s collection, Nasska?
    
    7 0
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    January 17, 2018 8:00pm
    - nasska
      
      It would disturb me greatly to think that anything inspired by Catherine Delahunty’s was within about a hundred miles of anywhere I resided Nostra, 🙂
      
      9 1
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      January 17, 2018 8:08pm
      - Johnboy
        
        So the Eketahuna Pak n Save will have to stop stocking razors then nasska? 🙂
        
        7 0
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        January 17, 2018 8:17pm
      - stigie
        
        Imagine if Catherine Delahunty went and worked for the Eketahuna Pak n save..?
        
        6 0
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        January 17, 2018 8:34pm
      - Johnboy
        
        They’d have to change all their bags to opaque ones stigie in case she pulled one over her head? 🙂
        
        5 0
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        January 17, 2018 8:38pm
Johnboy

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/100641366/there-goes-the-neighbourhood-kpiti-residents-complain-of-growing-goose-numbers
Once upon a time a few of the locals would have shot the bastards. Now we need to form a council working party to decide what the status of geese in the environment entails! 🙂 Heres an idea. 🙂
https://honest-food.net/smoked-canada-goose-sausage/
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January 17, 2018 8:06pm
- Nostradamus
  
  Growing gaggles have taken up residence at Waikanae lagoons, and their aggressive behaviour, noise and mess are worrying the locals. Some residents say the birds are the neighbours from hell, pooping on the street, chasing children and scaring dogs, and they should be culled.
  
  These people clearly haven’t visited Cannons Creek!
  
  5 0
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  January 17, 2018 8:25pm
  - Johnboy
    
    Those pests make really crappy sausages Nostra. 🙂
    
    3 0
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    January 17, 2018 8:29pm
Johnboy

Well it’s got to 300 today! 🙂
3 1
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January 17, 2018 8:40pm
Viking2

In a bid to assist addicts, rather than lock users in cages, Norway’s parliament voted last week to decriminalize all drugs — citing Portugal and its general success lowering addiction and incarceration rates, getting those who need it into treatment, and drastically reducing crime and other issues related to the illegality of substances for personal use — thus, becoming the first Scandinavian nation to do so.

Four major political parties campaigned in favor of the revolutionary shift in policy, and a majority vote in Storting, Norwegian parliament, brought to fruition their efforts to, as Nicolas Wilkinson, health spokesman for the Socialist Left (SV) party, explained, “stop punishing people who struggle, but instead give them help and treatment.”

“It is important to emphasise that we do not legalise cannabis and other drugs, but we decriminalise,” Storting Health Committee Deputy Chairman Sveinung Stensland told national publication, VG.

https://truththeory.com/2017/12/26/historic-norways-parliament-votes-decriminalize-drugs/?utm_source=brianpicks

When will we?

In the broadest strokes, this mimicked what Portuguese officials initiated on July 1, 2001, with its groundbreaking — indeed, all but unheard of at the time — decision to offer compassion and effective patient care for addicts wanting treatment, while saying no to the U.S.-led and utterly failed planetary war on drugs.
5 0
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January 17, 2018 8:40pm
- nasska
  
  …..”When will we?”……
  
  When we get rid of the conservative, Godaddled, gin-soaked nannies who are determined to run our lives.
  
  Pathetic bastards that they are.
  
  5 0
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  January 17, 2018 8:44pm
- Johnboy
  
  What amazing news. If we decriminalized murder, rape, burglary, theft, pedophilia, speeding….etc…etc….we could be crime free! 🙂
  First in the progressive world even! 🙂
  
  6 3
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  January 17, 2018 8:50pm
  - simpleton1
    
    Make it a choice if one wants to pay tax.
    
    That way, funding of nanny state directives can cease.
    
    Problems solved, as with no one paying taxes, then there is no need of the tax payer to feel they need to direct nanny state in delivery of services to others.
    
    It is the addiction of paying taxes that makes the taxpayer feeling they need to have a say in how the money is spent.
    
    This so called need of “say” is far too often hijacked by a sophisticated gang, that then skim a lot of the money for their edification, in fancy offices, department cars, lazy lunches, conferences, and further studies in political science etc..
    
    All a viscous cycle that can be stopped by simply not paying taxes, and so become a crime free society. 🙂
    
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    January 17, 2018 10:37pm
- KevOB
  
  It’s an interesting judgment call. I’m close to agreeing with decriminalisation having had an inside glimpse of the crime involved and the human damage.
  
  6 0
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  January 17, 2018 8:59pm
- Digmen1
  
  You mean like the failed war on drugs in Iran and Singapore.
  
  We never had a war on drug.s
  The police caught the stoners and the judges let them off.
  
  How does re-habiliating some of them help when many don’t want to be rehabiliated.
  
  And the rest will keep buying drugs and causing problems and offering them to their friends….
  
  No time to get really tough on the importers and dealers, 2o years minimum.
  And one year for every user.
  No exceptions.
  They will soon get the message.
  
  1 2
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  January 17, 2018 9:07pm
  - Viking2
    
    You think when they make so much money.
    40 years and it hasn’t got better anywhere the has been.
    
    2 0
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    January 17, 2018 9:13pm
  - UrbanNeocolonialist
    
    Not sure what Iran has to do with Singapore in regard to drugs, Iran has appalling drug abuse, about 3% addicted to drugs – mostly opiates, and almost no alcohol.
    
    Chairman Mao had a ‘final’ solution for opium addicts, he had them all rounded up and murdered.
    
    5 0
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    January 17, 2018 9:17pm
    - stephieboy
      
      And the drug trade still flourishes in China . What could have gone wrong ?
      
      https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/philippines-drugs-china/
      
      1 8
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      January 17, 2018 9:21pm
      - Johnboy
        
        Mao must have died or run out of ammo before he died? 🙂
        
        8 0
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        January 17, 2018 9:23pm
      - softail 1450
        
        streppieboy, put the pipe down FFS.
        
        1 0
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        January 18, 2018 4:52am
Johnboy

It’s a funny old world you know. Just the other week I said “Only 79 to go” and look at me now.
23123….. and every fuckin one of them utter shit! 🙂
8 0
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January 17, 2018 8:42pm
- Nostradamus
  
  You’ve got a long way to go before you catch up with Pete George (24,862 comments) and Mikenmild (32,093 comments). It’s worth noting that Philu threw in the towel after 13,179 comments!
  
  4 0
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  January 17, 2018 8:46pm
  - Johnboy
    
    They never had the advantage of a Lebanese camel driver to play to. I feel I really blew that opportunity somewhat! 🙂
    
    7 0
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    January 17, 2018 8:54pm
- nasska
  
  …..”every fuckin one of them utter shit”……
  
  Up until today we’ve kept them in the dark……
  
  Don’t spoil it now! 🙂
  
  5 0
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  January 17, 2018 8:48pm
- stigie
  
  Most of us here don’t mine your utter shit JB and im damn sure it would be boring without it ole chap..?
  Btw where’s Dad..?
  
  2 0
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  January 17, 2018 8:56pm
  - Nostradamus
    
    Stigie:
    
    When you mentioned Dad last time, at 5.44 pm, he responded 12 minutes later. Since your comment is timestamped 8.56pm, we can hopefully expect Dad to join us at 9.08 pm to give us an update on the comings and goings in Christchurch. I think there are a few other Kiwiblog commenters from Christchurch, but Dad has the best local knowledge.
    
    6 0
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    January 17, 2018 9:03pm
    - Johnboy
      
      You’re almost as accurate and attractive as a cuckoo clock Nostra! 🙂
      
      6 0
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      January 17, 2018 9:06pm
      - Nostradamus
        
        Thanks for giving me something to aspire to, Johnboy! Now I have my 2018 resolution – better late than never as they say!
        
        4 0
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        January 17, 2018 9:06pm
    - stigie
      
      Times up Nostra !~
      Dads not coming tonight !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
      
      4 0
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      January 17, 2018 9:08pm
  - Johnboy
    
    Hopefully he’s studying camel wrangling techniques at the south end of Hagley Park so he can contribute more forcefully when the Lebanese Unibummer next flexes his muscles here! 🙂
    
    4 0
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    January 17, 2018 9:03pm
Viking2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLn7U–4wET-QHt1mLlg7ylZDYDlgk_Sed&time_continue=261&v=wgtuWP7zSbA

Need a laugh?
2 1
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January 17, 2018 9:09pm
Nostradamus

West Indies spark spirit-of-cricket debate with controversial dismissal

West Indies have once again ignited the spirit-of-cricket debate at the Under-19 World Cup, when they appealed against South Africa opener Jiveshan Pillay for obstructing the field in their Group A fixture in Mount Maunganui.

FFS – check out the video – that shouldn’t have been given out!
3 0
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January 17, 2018 9:20pm
- Johnboy
  
  You’re beginning to sound like John McEnroe! 🙂
  I’d stick to the clock carving if I was you! 🙂
  
  3 0
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  January 17, 2018 9:25pm
  - Nostradamus
    
    Johnboy:
    
    sound like John McEnroe
    
    How’d you know what my sultry voice sounds like? 🙂
    
    1 0
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    January 17, 2018 9:32pm
Maggy Wassilieff

What a bloody racket!

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/348343/govt-agency-spent-300k-on-entertainment

Time to overhaul this Science-Business innovation monstrosity.
2 0
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January 17, 2018 10:43pm
Jack5

More pressure on the EU.

Switzerland is looking at holding a Brexit-style refendum to end agreement with the European Union that keeps it borders open to people movement.

Switzerland isn’t a member of the EU, but has a number of deals with it, and liberal movement of people to and from Switzerland has been one of the conditions required by the EU.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/905836/switzerland-european-union-freedom-movement-brexit-style-referendum-swiss-peoples-party
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January 17, 2018 11:19pm
UpandComer

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/17/president-trump-reveals-winners-his-fake-news-awards.html

CNN is kill.
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January 18, 2018 2:47pm
- cha
  
  And Trump’s Twitter base is as fake as his tan, so far 38k bots have liked the dead link.
  
  And the FAKE NEWS winners are…https://t.co/59G6x2f7fD— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018
  
  The site is temporarily offline, we are working to bring it back up. Please try back later.
  
  https://gop.com/the-highly-anticipated-2017-fake-news-awards/
  
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  January 18, 2018 3:27pm
igm

See now Labour are in power weirdos are coming out of woodwork seeking gender reassignment paid for by taxpayers. No bloody way, come and see me, I have applicators and rubber rings, and would love to see a pervert jumping around a paddock with its nuts freshly ringed.
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January 19, 2018 7:07am

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