If Wellingtonians want to catch a sweet little musical about local supernatural creatures that's also made up on the spot, one more chance bats.co.nz/whats-on/son...

Steve Bannon: If we lose the midterms and we lose 2028, some in this room are going to prison, myself included.

New fren.

If you read the terms of the package it’s a bunch of highly improbable goals Tesla could not reach in a reasonable time frame so this is literally just a “special boy wants attention” deal. Elon wants the press to report on it to “trigger” libs and look cool to his little rube followers

Marie & the Atom Pt 2 of my blog on Flying Nun multitrack tapes, analyzing two songs by the amazing MATA, recorded by Terry Moore for their second EP "Spit it out" in 1985. What does the tape tell us? Have a read & listen to samples of the original multitrack audio. natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/f...

Some of our wonderful writers are also excellent musicians. In that light, we'd like to say a huge congratulations to GlenMoffatt, who, along with Kaylee Bell, will be inducted into the NZ Gold Guitar Awards Hall of Fame in 2026. Ka rawe Glen! www.audioculture.co.nz/profile/glen...

The implicit promise of the govt's whole shtick was to leave things to locals and get central govt and political interference out of local decisions. That implicit promise has been thoroughly and repeatedly broken and one would hope one of our country's political editors would notice that.

Again a systemic story that's bigger than the individual bits: a govt which ran into power in large part based on banging the localism drum about water has accelerated the pace of centralised - and personal Ministerial - decision-making. This is a big story about this govt. Someone should tell it.

EVs somehow got shifted to the frontline of the culture war.

incredible photo that's definitely worth at least 1,000 words from Andrew Harnik of Getty

Spoiler: a jury has found the DC Sandwich Guy NOT GUILTY. But you should still read this thread about what was said in court, because it's very funny.

If you aren't seeing skeets from some of your fave people, they might have been labeled "Rude" by bsky mods. Idk what they are thinking, I don't need a mommy to tell me who to be buddies with. Anyway, go into Settings > moderation > bluesky moderation (advanced) and turn Rude off.

Wow it defaults to hiding quite a few things. Many probably for the best, but for now I'm switching most to warn (and I remain willing to see rude posts - I follow @dimsie.bsky.social after all)

Hey, @rachaelking70.bsky.social – we're both at my local recycling centre!

Checked this dude’s age when I took him to the vet this morning. He’s going pretty well for a cat who turned 19 yesterday.

These guys' whole business model is presenting everything they're mad about as a breaking development so they have to be like "sadly, there are immigrants in New York now"

Welcome to induced demand All you do is move the queue down the road and why NZTA has never widened the Southern Motorway Bridge at Mt Wellington

Nigeria is a difficult country in which to conduct a national census, but it’s not uncommon to see the general figure of more than 230 million people. That’s close to the size of the US population in the 1980s. Senator Tuberville is an ignoramus who knows nothing about the world outside of Alabama.

Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.

If you'd like 25 minutes of hope & unity, watch @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social giving his victory speech as Mayor-Elect of New York City🚕🍕🗽🇺🇸 It's wonderful to see a leader elected with such a positive view of the possibilities & responsibility of civic leadership. Very best wishes from Auckland NZ 🇳🇿

In its way, this seems as significant as the major results.

Pains me to say it but I think this is true. Some of my colleagues in the media who’ve stayed on X don’t even realize how badly its noxious algorithm is skewing their perception of politics and reality. Also, that place seems designed to make you miserable unless you’re a Nazi. It’s just wretched.

Mamdani cracks 1M votes, the first NYC mayor to do so since John Lindsay in 1969

Just more great comms.

Rimmer plays the hat game to avoid admitting that - as always - he has no evidence, and those "phone calls from outraged parents" never happened.

Unemployment in NZ is now well above the OECD average (4.9%), the UK (4.7%), Oz (4.3%), and the US (4.2%). There were 2.58 million fewer hours worked than 2 years ago, and 39,000 fewer people are in full-time work. 160,000 people unemployed – the highest number since March 1994

#nzpol Unemployment reached a 9 year of 5.3%. The labour market took another turn for the worse - unemployment growing, underemployment growing, fewer hours being worked, and wages are not keeping up with inflation. This data is another sign the economy is not working. A thread

A bonfire of the climate policies. An emissions Guy Fawkes Day

Nandor really is a very chill, normal guy. Just in general, but in particular compared to any number of the stripy-business-shirt tories who stand for office in the regions.

Ugh. You really don't want this stuff.

We did the Listener TV highlights differently this week, so I got to write 1000 (paywalled) words about The Hack, the new drama telling the story of how Nick Davies and The Guardian cracked the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. Starts Sunday on TVNZ 1. www.nzherald.co.nz/the-listener...

ADHD stimulant medications increase blood flow and perfusion in certain areas of the brain that are otherwise less active in people with ADHD. The finding that they also decrease the higher risk of dementia for people with ADHD makes sense because dementia is related to brain metabolic dysfunction.

Gift link

If you're going to loot the public purse, it is generally wise to at least pay your withholding tax.

Glorious. So chill.

Accept no imitations

Rāhina Monday has come around again, bringing with it the AudioCulture Quiz. This is a great one by Simon Grigg, all about women musicians... @opdiner.com www.audioculture.co.nz/articles/aud...

So the drag performer economic torts case against Brian Tamaki and Destiny Church supporters is going about as smoothly as you'd expect. nzlii.org/cgi-bin/down...

God knows how many times this has happened: Zero. Much like Vance lying about Haitian immigrants eating people's pets, this is 100% racist bullshit being spewed by an unabashed white nationalist. Congrats to everyone who patronizes the Nazi bar he runs.

I guess we'll take the win.

Allow me to summarize: 1. 5 IDF soldiers caught sexually molesting a Palestinian prisoner. 2. IDF files charges. 3. IDF AG faces enormous pressure from government to drop charges. Mob storms base where it happened. 4. IDF AG leaks video documenting the molestation. 5. IDF AG pushed out (continued)

Well this has been a very frustrating rugby match.

“Ram raid the Beehive” Tom Scott signs off a big night at The Civic.

For the rest of the world, the single case of Mike Johnson refusing to swear in Adelita Grijalva after her special election win, because Johnson knows her vote will tip the scales for the release of the Epstein files, is enough evidence by itself that the U.S. political system is broken and lawless.

I know this fascist shit is doomed when I see late 50s and early 60s white guys in their Costco Shopping Finest screaming ‘fuck you’ in DHS officers’ faces

The Saints last night. Really, it was great just to watch Ed play.

Overall social media use is declining. Between 2020 and 2024, more Americans — especially the youngest (18–24) and oldest (65+) — report using no social media at all. A small group of heavy users remains, but the middle is thinning out.

This has got to be AI generated word salad, surely, because nobody with basic knowledge of real numbers would even think to write that division of integers can generate irrational numbers.