WATCH: Here's the segment CBS News pulled from "60 Minutes" last night

On one level, Splore calling it a day is ... well, things do end, better a graceful exit and a proper farewell to a unique festival. On another, a Linkin Park show at Spark getting NZ taxpayer funding that Splore didn't is everything that's wrong with the world. thespinoff.co.nz/pop-culture/...

A whiny blog that Paramount Skydance gave her $US150 million for. There are big prizes for playing the game.

Can’t be stressed enough that all these conservatives come up with all these ideas in their own flattering bubbles where you advance socially by not questioning anyone else in the bubble, and then when their ideas are deployed in the outside world they often break down immediately

I feel like there should be a personal version of the national emergency phone klaxon to remind me to put the bins out tomorrow night. If that recycling bin doesn't get emptied, I'm screwed.

🧵My top album for 2025 is also my top gig for 2025: Marlon Williams' 'Te Whare Tiwekaweka'. That remarkable record arrived at a very challenging time in my life and has a particularly personal resonance for me. But it's also a significant moment in the cultures we share by living here.

New from me: Health officials said there was ‘no evidence base’ about the likely impacts of the Government’s decision to ban puberty blockers for transgender youth. newsroom.co.nz/2025/12/22/c...

Any time David Seymour appears in this news claiming to be standing with a minority targeted by prejudice and violence journalists have an obligation to remind us he accepted a donation from a man who threatened to "destroy mosque after mosque until they take me out" www.stuff.co.nz/politics/350...

I honestly still can’t believe they did this it’s just photos on a desk! it’s not even in the same league as his fucking birthday note! removing it after the fact is the biggest possible “we are covering shit up” signal they could possibly send, couldn’t look guiltier if they tried

Tired: Democrats harvesting adrenochrome from children’s brains Wired: Republicans injecting themselves with dead people

Knackered now, but that went really well. I mean, it was mostly just my friends, but I have excellent friends.

I cannot state any more baldly or clearly than I already have about what an immense menace RFK Jr. is. The number of preventable illnesses and deaths - of *babies* - will be horrific. This anti-vax crap is grotesque anti-science, and always has been.

Jeez. Check out some of the early documents from the DOJ Epstein files in this thread.

The law is EXPLICITLY written to prohibit redactions on this ground: “No record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.”

Also worth noting that this survey coheres closely with the last few years of NZTA walking-and-cycling surveys. There is majority support for cycling everywhere – and for investing in bike infrastructure.

Miss Simone will be attending today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9Hw...

The government is not doing well in the courts this week and I couldn't be happier #nzpol

the neurotransmitter produced in the brain when a mutual likes your post is called a friendorphin

"Profits collapsed. Newsroom morale soared." Amazing piece from @joannastern.bsky.social www.wsj.com/tech/ai/anth...

The economy is flatlining, and claims of 2025 being the year of growth aren't being realised. Growth is in unemployment, & numbers of New Zealanders leaving the country. September per capita GDP has fallen for 2 years - $1,593 worse than it was at the start of this government

#nzpol Data released today shows that for all the talk of green shoots, the economy hasn’t grown at all in 2 years. Unemployment is up, & the cost of living is still rising for middle and low-income New Zealanders. The GDP increase today simply balances out the fall previously. A Thread

Yesterday: Judge injuncts govt's puberty blocker ban unlawful due to incorrect (political not merits) grounds Today: Different Judge declares govt's appointment of the Chief HRC and RRC unlawful due to incorrect tests This govt has a type drive.google.com/file/d/1NqTj... @pault.bsky.social

The event will also feature important life lessons from Mr Onyeabor at no additional charge. www.youtube.com/watch?v=N33-...

An oldie but a goodie.

Kai, come get your grandpa because no one else in your family seems to care that he’s lost his mind entirely. Trump is not well.

I'm shocked that the inaugural recipient of the FIFA Peace Prize would be preparing to wage war on another country to seize its resources. It's almost like that prize was a cynical and meaningless gesture.

A deeply dangerous — and blatantly retaliatory action against Colorado — by the Trump administration. NCAR is one of the most renowned scientific facilities in the WORLD — where scientists perform cutting-edge research everyday. We will fight this reckless directive with every legal tool we have.

Another very useful thing to come out of this case regardless of final result. Finally an on the record position from the leader on behalf of the party. "Hipkins said Labour's position was that it was a matter for the young person concerned, their family, and their physician."

So the hotline’s 12 month budget was $400k. If we generously assume it spent only $200k given it operated for half of that time, that’s still $1000 per road cone removed. Nutty waste of money from the Coalition. 🤦‍♂️

Narrator - She did not resign #nzpol

More stupid theatre being quietly closed down amid the Christmas rush. The road cone hotline is to end, having achieved basically nothing. What was the cost per cone removed? www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...

PATHA judicial review against the govt's ban on puberty blockers for trans kids granted, partly on the basis that the decision was taken on political and not medical grounds Which, if it stands, seems like it could sink the whole scam www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/assets/cases...

This should be a much, much bigger story. Commitments of tens of billions of dollars are being made to dubious projects without us being allowed to know anything about how decisions are being made. It's literally the future of the nation.

Apparently if you say publicly that this sort of speech is "racist" you can find yourself defending a defamation action underwritten by a Canadian billionaire. That's interesting to know.

Reminder: The man in charge of @la28games.bsky.social has been accused of having sex with subordinate workers, rode on the Epstein jet 10 times, and put his Twitter on private the day Epstein was arrested.

This is a BIG anniversary. Thirty years ago this week, on December 15 1995, OMC's 'How Bizarre' was released in Aotearoa on CD single and cassette. Written and produced by Pauly Fuemana and Alan Jansson in a studio in Freeman's Bay... www.audioculture.co.nz/profile/omc

ICE Accidentally Publishes A ‘Watch List’ Of Immigration Lawyers, Which Is Definitely A Normal Thing For The Government To Do

Even worse, they are proposing to: ❌️ limit the number of subsidised trips a user can take ❌️make it harder and more bureaucratic to use ❌️limit it to wheelchair users only ❌️exploit Uber drivers more It's a sh*tty proposal and will severely limit the ability of disabled ppl to get out and about

Judge finds widespread voter fraud ‘infected’ the Papatoetoe local board election

And thus ends a stupid piece of lobby group theatre. The unseriousness of this whole thing has been depressing. www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/...

Well, this is an utter disaster for science. This gutting of peer review is very likely driven by Project 2025/OMB/Vought, very likely is about funding junk science, and very likely is coming for #NIH and biomedical research next. 🧪

And losing.

Imagine finishing your benefit forecasts for HYEFU, closing your laptop, and heading to floor 8 for a few miserable xmas treats... then the actual data comes out and blows your calculations out of the water! [NB: Actual data varies slightly from forecast data, but not by much)

#nzpol HYEFU shows that the OBEGAL deficit is no longer in the same postcode as the National Party Fiscal Plan. We never get close to the surplus being promised - to the tune of -$48bn across the period to 2027/28

#nzpol Just catching up with the HYEFU data today - but the data looks grim pretty much across the board. One data point stood out to me - the economy will be cumulatively $28.3bn smaller at the next election than predicted by Treasury at the last election.

Yeah, things are grim and Christmas is stressful. But come down to Cupid bar in Point Chev from 4pm on Saturday and let the music soothe you. (Also: great kebabs next door that the bar doesn't mind you bringing back to eat + three more takeaway options just metres away. Eat to the beats!)

please take a moment to appreciate Tesla's epic accomplishment of coming dead last in the auto industry in reliability, despite making relatively expensive cars with a tiny fraction of the moving parts www.consumerreports.org/cars/which-b...

'the number of emergency housing applications that were declined increased from 4 percent in March 2024 to 36 percent by June 2025'

Grading and googling hallucinated citations, as one does nowadays, and now that LLMs have been around for a while, I've discovered new horrors: hallucinated journals are now appearing in Google Scholar with dozens of citations bc so many people are citing these fake things