May I suggest you get fucked?

I've been invited to the Canes Brumbies game tonight and I need to be able to hold my own in conversation, so could someone tell me what happened in rugby union in the last 14 years. Is there anything I should know? Has the offside rule changed again? Also, what the heck is a "qualifying final"?

We now know that within the Prime Ministers Office there was a political lobbying pathway operating via the PM's Chief Policy Advisor's private email. Fonterra says it was told to send the lobbying docs via this pathway. It may still be operating via other staffers private email addresses.

Street traffic at our new place is getting me out of bed early but listen I'm not complaining.

“CALENDAR is a unique object in and of itself as much as it is about objects.” Courtney Powell on Vanessa Berry’s new book, its origins in zine culture and the material world as an ecology of signs.

Actually she said "disinginuous". Because she's a moron.

Periodic reminder that HUGO was a shit film.

“GeoCities remains an important reminder that collective labour on the internet is not new — and that recognising ourselves as workers is the first step towards organising as such.” Maria Dudko on social media as work.

I have just discovered that if you Google Geocities, the results come up in comic sans.

“More than four decades on, Edward Said’s famous observation that ‘permission to narrate’ is denied to the Palestinian perspective has lost none of its currency.” Nick Riemer reviews the transcripts of the Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

Me when I collect valuable data

I have a long essay up at the Conversation looking at Adam Johnson's important book on the liberal media and the Gaza genocide

Spoken like someone who has just taken out a contract on her.

“To conduct her so-called “audit”, Jillian Segal appointed a man who’d had not only found the universities guilty of tolerating antisemitism but had described them as “subscribing” to it.” Jeff Sparrow on Greg Craven's antisemitism audit.

It’s like Iran On your wedding day

Positively herculean effort in this article to present all the external challenges to the government's finances without mentioning how they also deliberately shrunk their own income to benefit tobacco companies and landlords. www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

I'm dying over here.

I don't understand all this scare-mongering about AI actors, we've had AI actors for ages for instance Al Pacino

Just want to say that people acted like the flotilla was some kind of pointless self-indulgent exercise and here it is forcing these disgustingly complicit governments to at least pay lip service to international law. Solidarity to all the brave participants who sacrificed their bodies for justice.

“… We knew they could / only be betrayed by their own.” Our latest #fridaypoem is JUDAS GOATS by Caitlin Maling

Relieved to see a decent response from the NZ Human Rights Commission to the NZF terf bill, with comments from the Commissioners who *aren't* terfs themselves. Doubly relieved since the UK's EHRC has been a travesty for so long, & now only exists to campaign against trans people having a wee.

The same Bill that a majority of our parliamentarians chose to progress to a second reading today was introduced in Australia by Pauline Hanson and their parliament told her to fuck off. The absolute shame of it all.

“In order to be what it is, poetry has to cross the line and keep on crossing it.” Louis Armand reviews Pam Brown’s GUESS THE EXPERIENCE

"protecting women and girls" this was YESTERDAY

Expecting Radio New Zealand to call it the Hamas-led Lebanese Health Ministry.

Bluesky is such a weird bubble. People here are not eager to sacrifice their children to ba'al - something extremely popular in the group chat, on X the everything app, and in Ohio diners

Have they done a thorough proof of concept for AI in public service? No. But are they using it successfully themselves? Also no. But do they have clear plans for how AI will be deployed? No. This article would be hilarious if it wasn't devastating. www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...

Absolute madness. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

“The AI arms race is inherently an energy arms race. And Australia is being conscripted into both.” Gwenaël Velge on Australia’s manufactured security crisis

I have a new preferred prime minister.

AirBnB has appeared in front of the Wellington Council to lobby against the proposed rates increase for people who use their houses as small hotels and said the stupidest thing. (from this story: www.rnz.co.nz/news/ldr/595...)

It absolutely isn't. Is this person high?

To supplement my income I thought I could start giving violin lessons but then of course - silly me - I remembered I can't play the violin at all.

Keir Hipkins at his best.

This is just disgusting. Particularly as our government does not give one single solitary fuck

Yum. Digestive doctors are my favourite kind of doctors.

Starmer is refusing to resign in order to "avoid plunging the country into chaos". Instead, he's going to stay on and continue to gently marinate the country into chaos.

10 years is tin, 20 years is china, 50 years is gold and 100 years is wasps.

Number five will shock you!

Thank you for your attention to this matter

One for my collection: the New Zealand Labour Party is an organisation whose purpose is to produce Labour MPs. Governing the country - let alone improving the lives of ordinary people - is very much secondary, and sometimes actively gets in the way.

Very surprising behaviour from a human adult whose first name is [rustles papers] "Seeby".

“Today memory culture means that Germany supposedly makes up for the Holocaust by its commitment to Israel.” Jewish author Janey Stone reflects on a visit to Germany.

Drury employee breaks NDA to tell her story. He says her claims are unfounded. My latest story in this investigation:

The American version of World of Wearable Arts is quite adorable and scrappy. bsky.app/profile/lito...

My thoughts are with his creditors at this difficult time.

Over the weekend, THE AUSTRALIAN published a scurrilous piece by Michael Gawenda that included an attack on OVERLAND and our former editor Jeff Sparrow. Jeff responds here.

In my experience a good strategy is to start giving kids small chores at the youngest possible age so you can keep concentrating on your devices.

It’s May Day so I’m allowed to tap the sign: universal benefits are fiscally responsible because they’re way way less expensive to implement. Public Policy 101, the money that’s wasted on policing targeted benefits is wasted.