Goddamnit. Two days of overcast night skies during massive CME event. Literally, old man shakes fist at cloud.

Only 1/2hr after sunset, while taking a timelapse, this was happening in front of my camera (timelapse processing later). This was about 1/4 of the #Aurora happening off the South Otago coast. #Nikon #NZ #AuroraAustralis Nikon Z7ii 20mmS ISO f/1.8 1.3 seconds

Aurora color guide! What creates the different shades? Different atoms getting "excited" at different altitudes The bright reds are a sign of a particularly intense event

Crikey. That escalated quickly. www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/pla...

Oh my god, KP9 (highest level) Aurora right now

I was introduced to Gandalf a couple of years ago. He's a GC.

NZ needs to have a mature conversation on whether we should gift our drunk racist uncle a Christopher Luxon-shaped butt plug for Xmas.

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

Just leaving this here: "YES. I AM A SOCIALIST AND I'M PROUD OF IT. YEAH-THERE YOU GO. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. BRING IT ON, AND I'M VERY PROUD TO SAY TO THE GOOD PEOPLE OF THE WAIRARAPA THAT THEY ELECTED A PROUD SOCIALIST AS THEIR MP." KIERAN MCANULTY, LABOUR MP. #NZPol

I fully support this, noting that the skeleton of the Social Security Act is still buried in the original 1930s meaning, and has significant catching up to do.

It doesn't get said enough that Nats have built just 45 State houses since coming into government, no one is being housed in your ghost houses Bishop and now you want to hunt people off the streets? Where worse can you send them, the sewers where you slither? #NZPol

*golf clap* That's some Obama-grade rhetoric he's throwing.

It's Melbourne Fucup day

I want to think he shat himself at fireworks last night, prompting him to pen a stern letter to the editor in the form of a bill, but it's more likely he was - like me - cuddling his scared dog, so I'm with him on this occasion. Let's call time on Fuckwit Christmas. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Just a reminder that's there's a symposium this Wednesday on Drug Reform in Wellington. hrca.nz/symposium-2025

Flat meeting, everyone. We're a year away from the next election. Everyone hates Christopher Luxon, including his caucus. He was parachuted in too early by John Key's request, so that's on him as well.

#HighFlyingBooksReviews Terry Pratchett's Small Gods. Should be required reading for any first year PHIL or Religious Studies paper. The whole mistaking map for the territory goes to a whole new level.

Ok, here's the thing. If Donald Trump runs a third time for president, the Democrats need to run Obama.

It's a thin edge of the wedge. They'll be taxing my large collection of racehorses and luxury cars next.

I was temporarily conflicted over this thing. I was born hearing impaired. Somewhere on the spectrum too. Mainstreaming gave me nothing, except speech therapy classes. I was offered Deaf School as a kid, but back then I was the Diet Coke of Deaf. NZSL was banned from 1880 til 1979.

Who knew a Gully could get so wet?

David Simon: I have created the police rewards system from The Wire as a cautionary tale... NZ politicians:

Luckily for Luxon, he has a diplomatic passport so no-one at Customs can check if he comes back with a MAGA cap.

Jesus Fucking Christ. At least I had the Peleponnesian War inflicted on me at uni. The word antagonise derives from Antigone. Also, who took the curriculum back 60 years? Fuck, I'm almost missing Merv Wellington.

Just don't cosplay Nazis. Or Israelis.

Care to elaborate? Love to know what our great fundamentalist sect Prosperity Jesus Tax Free Property Flipper PM wants. I'm guessing it's either training kids to be pawns or widgets.

History is written by the winners, apparently. Fortunately, we are ruled by losers.

If any teachers would like to share their thoughts on the draft social sciences curriculum through my newsletter send me a DM.

FYI, I'm currently wearing a Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt under a Gorillaz Demon Days Sweatshirt. It's truly the Year of the Febrile Snake.

Immediately, my mind goes back to Muldoon; Winston's mentor, not Seymour's. I knew where I was during the 1981 Springbok Tour. Everything is political. Like it or loathe it, we're soaking in it.

Yeah yeah yeah. It's on my reading list.

Is Labour's CGT up to snuff? It's far from perfect but it's better than the status quo, which for the last forty years put the thumb on the scales of land speculation without taxation above productive investment.

That is the stance the Fourth Labour Govt took, for good reason. The neoliberal point being that you didn't have to own the asset when you get to write the laws that govern them. The problem since then is that we've had shitty governance.

If passive-aggressiveness was made an Olympic sport, I reckon NZ would win the gold medal every time.

#HighFlyingFlicksReviews Novocaine (Neon). A bunch of arse. Whatever cred Jack Quaid gained in The Boys is squandered in this shitty Baby Driver ripoff.

Luxon holds orgy. Nobody came.

Happy fucking Labour Weekend. The centre cannot hold. Dark shit builds up.

Late on Friday afternoon, a press release acknowledged that Health Minister Simeon Brown has been diagnosed with Pontius Pilate Syndrome, or PPS. Symptoms include a constant washing of hands motion, and being in a position of making a judgement on which you are vastly underqualified to make.

I can smell the Ukrainian on Winston's breath.

I have been mad about AI and the delusional talk of “superintelligence” - and the media’s casual acceptance of it - for a long time but hearing Sam Altman casually toss off about turning the only known life-supporting planet into endless data centres made me furious enough to write this

The squeaky wheel gets the most oil.

That'll be the climate change. Your kids can tell their grandkids about the time when we had Shitsville during Spring and Autumn, before Super-Shitsville, Mega-Shitsville and Ultimate-Get-in-a-Cave-Shitsville became the norm.

As a former Actoid, you will by now be probably unamazed by the fact that this is not the first NAMBLA-adjacent person in the Act party I have known. *side eyes a certain bookshop in Newton, Auckland in the early 2000s* www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Welcome to Louise Upston's Job Lotto. You've got to be in to win or we'll shoot you in the kneecaps.

Granny Weatherwax! Nanny Ogg! I'm embarrassed to admit this but I've only started reading Terry Prachett's Discworld novels this year, in part due to Bluesky community. Currently on Witches Abroad.

Have you tried to sell her any kauri gum yet?

In fairness, I can imagine Christopher Luxon in a box with a decaying isotope and a cyanide capsule.

So stupid of Luxon and Willis to claim responsibility for inflation going down when it's rising again due to *waves hand at commodity prices*. Of course, Britain is even worse coz of their self-imposed Brexit tariff.

Mithridatism. Only been around for a couple of thousand years. Who knew?

I have long resigned myself to our economy being held together by house prices and related party transactions.