OBAMA: It's fair to say that 80% of the world's problems involve old men hanging on who are afraid of death and insignificance, and they won't let go. They build pyramids, and they put their names on everything. They get very anxious about it.

If Stanford wants to talk about conflicts of interest, maybe we can talk about the fact she had input into the maths textbook procurement criteria and didn’t disclose her longstanding relationship with Prime Maths.

Treasury has one aim. Making the charts look nice. People are an annoying distraction from their charts and need to be eliminated.

As a parent who's raised some boys now, I think being constantly engaged with them, routinely having conversations about important moral, ethical and political issues, and modeling decent human behavior goes a long way toward inoculating against this. But the bigger issue is still concerning.

A couple of years ago my cousin had a heart attack. While in hospital he received a phone call from an organisation (you know which one) asking if had been vaccinated. He asked his doctor about them. His doc said: "ignore them, they're wankers" 😂 So yeah, listen to doctors!

What I would just say to you is I am a little confused because you said that I am a good friend to your friend but you don’t have any idea how much you are and you are a very nice guy

Discworld QOTD, from Feet of Clay “They were men who felt that The Time Had Come. Regimes can survive barbarian hordes, crazed terrorists and hooded secret societies, but they're in real trouble when prosperous and anonymous men sit around a big table and think thoughts like that.”

but who is pushing fascism globally, and who is paying them to do it?

"Canada Post is on track to lose money" Hum. Duh. It cost less than a toonie to send a letter across Canada. "Canada Post is a service and not a business" was common knowledge until late stage capitalism brain rotted most people into think if it ain't making money for shareholders, it's failing.

Microsoft will no longer allow Israel to use its cloud services to enable its mass surveillance of occupied Palestinians – "the first known case of a US technology company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war on Gaza"

"This meeting could have been a Signal chat!"

Should we be interested in the views “From the Boardroom”? Just a few short years ago Luxon was a highly-regarded member of that group.

made this chart eight whole years ago

TESCREAL is new to me. There are many things in this thread that are terrifying. Theil is right up there with Holy bejebus

“Atlas does not provide any funding” “Atlas has reimbursed travel expenses to its US and Asia events” It’s so easy to lie. You can do it two sentences in a row. Most folks pride their polite society actions, and ignore the lie. These people are criminals all the same.

In Oral Submissions to Justice C'ttee on Electoral Bill, Andrew Riddell says NZ Gov't is trying to gerrymander (change rules to gain advantage) 2026 election. Geoff Beresford of Law Association NZ says ~100K or 3.5% voters w'd be excluded #NZpol FYI @openpolicy.bsky.social vimeo.com/showcase/107...

Are we sure she’s not another mossad agent?

Pictured - a large group of antifa on their way to commit severe acts of property damage

Simeon Brown is funding private equity telehealth companies up to ~4.5 times ($65/appt) more than community GPs. These same companies e.g. Tend Health are then charging Kiwis $80-100 for a call. #kiwi

What I'd just say to you is, is it too much to ask #StraightUpMcAnulty to buy what we're selling for once in his life? #LyinLuxon #WorstPMEver #BullshitterBishop #WorstGovEver #NZpol

They are saying 32% GST and 72 for retirement age so we will happily accept 20% GST and 68 for retirement age. Why don’t they say 5% wealth tax and 40% corporate tax on big conglomerates? No of course they won’t say that no siree.

Dear fellow pedants, it’s National Punctuation Day and I’m not going to make it. Leave me here with some apostrophes, Oxford commas, and a loaded semicolon; I’ll try to hold them off - save yourselves: run! #NationalPunctuationDay

Will Chris Bishop be able to reverse a trailer like they reversed the economy. #nzpol

Remember when the richest man on earth used his massive fortune to buy a run down resort in Vegas, sealed himself on the top floor, collected his piss in jars and didn't make a peep for decades? Good times

Phew. I should add that my main beef is with the whole medieval monetarist model. Ratcheting down interest rates to persuade us to borrow more money to spend and stimulate the economy, and then crashing the economy when we get an external price shock is seriously stupid.

“despite knowing the risks, - Government is proposing to bulldoze the fences, signs and safe paths in our health system through its now ironically-named Healthy Futures (Pae Ora) Amendment Bill, -would do away with almost all of New Zealand’s preventive health infrastructure.” archive.today/YsJY6

In case anyone was wondering I too find the bailout of the arch Ayn Rand libertarian government of #Argentina by the America First government doubly funny.

GAYS, ITS TIME www.stereogum.com/2323988/roby...

Hi, Bluesky! Over one million people cut Disney+, which is why Disney did the right thing and brought Jimmy Kimmel back without conditions. So I ask you, which mega company are we boycotting next and why?

I dunno if I am being all Pollyanna like Nicola Willis said to, but I was just thinking how Christopher Luxon has well and truly killed the idea of "We just need a business guy to run the country like a business", so we can be glad of that 😁 #NZPol

The richest man on earth owns X. The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok. The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post. See the problem here?

I give you: John Oliver

"I believe Health NZ needs to have a long talk to the government about the funding parameters in place … "The answer is not in private hospitals and outsourcing - it's in sustainably staffed public hospitals, with many more doctors, nurses and allied health professionals than we have now." #nzpol

Dear Americans, I accept you brought this on yourselves. Unfortunately it has also impacted the rest of us. Have you got any concrete plans to fix the problem? Yours sincerely, the rest of the world.

Demented orange fascist is now straight-up soliciting for bribes and threatening to use the justice system to do it.

The good old fun days Who was riding shotgun #nzpol

Holy shit. This is terrifying. Tech bros, in this case Larry And poison pushing AI into every aspect of life. Gagging for access to the records of the NHS.

We’re not in normal times - this is about who wants in to an international strongman syndicate and the end game is power at all costs. We have an election coming up next year which imo genuinely is going to be our last opportunity to reject what is already a normalised culture of entitled rulership.

Unlike NZ where our lminister cut a deal with uber.

"Low effort, unhelpful AI generated work is having a significant impact on collaboration at work. Approximately half of the people we surveyed viewed colleagues who sent workslop as less creative, capable, and reliable than they did before ...AI-Generated “Workslop” Is Destroying Productivity

Newsom: "I fear that we will not have an election in 2028 -- I really mean that in the core of my soul -- unless we wake up to the code red, what's happening in this country, and we wake up soberly to how serious this moment is."

Gonna try live blog this Auckland Council Policy and Planning Committee meeting... will be interesting lol

Opportunity for new Local Boards to submit (so make sure to vote and vote for City Vision!) If not choosing a plan, will Chris Bishop step in? YES based on correspondence

C&R's Christine Fletcher has been spreading misinformation and causing panic about the planning options open to council ahead of the decision today. In contrast City Vision's Cr @juliefairey.bsky.social and running mate @jonturnernz.bsky.social have been out there explaining the facts