Just now came across this organisation.  This isn't democracy; these people are seeking to destroy democracy & apparently want a return to the days of workhouses & orpahanages, or perhaps their intention is to take us even further back, to the days of serfdom.


https://www.badnewsletter.com/david-seym...TAi_1fKluo

To say "politicians lie" is like saying "fish swim." It's such an obvious truism that it's become a cliche – and yet, the sheer audacity of some political lies can still be breathtaking.
Such is the scope of David Seymour's denial of his connection to the Atlas Network.
To recap, quickly: The Atlas Network is a "think tank that creates think tanks"; a global network of more than 500 right-wing think tanks and lobby groups. New Zealand members of Atlas include the Taxpayers' Union and the New Zealand Initiative (formed from a merger of two think tanks, one of which was the infamous Business Roundtable.)
Seymour's extraordinary denial came during a recording of Mata with Mihingarangi Forbes on RNZ, recorded and released on Waitangi Day, February 6 2024. The relevant parts of the transcript are excerpted below.


Forbes: And those indigenous Australians are now warning Māori that the same groups are behind this referendum. Are they, do you think?
Seymour: Well, if you're about to go into the new Pizzagate of the left conspiracy theory, then I'll be real disappointed.
Forbes: What's that, the Pizzagate?
Seymour: That's some crazy conspiracy theory that Trump has had in the US.
Forbes: The campaign in Australia had links to the Atlas network.
Seymour: Oh, here we go.
Forbes: A network of think tanks, which promote individual liberty and free enterprise. And it said that the network pushes opinion pieces in favour of free speech. Do the ACT Party have any links or connections to the Atlas group?
Seymour, very quietly: No.

That is a lie. David Seymour and the ACT Party have numerous links to the Atlas Network. Here are some of them.
After a 10 month stint as an electrical engineer – his sole non-political, non-think tank job – David Seymour worked for a Canadian think tank called the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, from 2007 to 2011. From January 2013 to February 2014, he worked for The Manning Foundation (now called the Canada Strong and Free Network). Both these think tanks were members of the Atlas Network at the time. (They possibly still are: the Atlas Network no longer discloses member organisations on its website.) Just in case there's any doubt, here is David Seymour in the Atlas Year in Review, 2008. He is pictured composing a song about school choice to celebrate Milton Friedman Legacy Day, which is one of those sentences you never expect to find yourself writing."


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...as-network

"There are elements of fascism, elements borrowed from the Chinese state and elements that reflect Argentina’s history of dictatorship. But most of the programme for government announced by Javier Milei, the demagogic new Argentinian president, feels eerily familiar, here in the northern hemisphere.

A crash programme of massive cuts; demolishing public services; privatising public assets; centralising political power; sacking civil servants; sweeping away constraints on corporations and oligarchs; destroying regulations that protect workers, vulnerable people and the living world; supporting landlords against tenants; criminalising peaceful protest; restricting the right to strike. Anything ring a bell?

Milei is attempting, with a vast “emergency” decree and a monster “reform bill”, what the Conservatives have done in the UK over 45 years. The crash programme bears striking similarities to Liz Truss’s “mini” (maxi) budget, which trashed the prospects of many poor and middle-class people and exacerbated the turmoil that now dominates public life.


Coincidence? Not at all. Milei’s programme was heavily influenced by Argentinian neoliberal thinktanks belonging to something called the Atlas Network, a global coordinating body that promotes broadly the same political and economic package everywhere it operates. It was founded in 1981 by a UK citizen, Antony Fisher. Fisher was also the founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), one of the first members of the Atlas Network.


The dark-money junktanks, and the Atlas Network, are a highly effective means of disguising and aggregating power. They are the channel through which billionaires and corporations influence politics without showing their hands, learn the most effective policies and tactics for overcoming resistance to their agenda, and then spread these policies and tactics around the world. This is how nominal democracies become new aristocracies.

They also seem to be adept at shaping public opinion. For example, around the world, neoliberal junktanks have not only lobbied for extreme anti-protest measures, but have successfully demonised environmental protesters as “extremists” and “terrorists”. This might help to explain why peaceful environmental campaigners blocking a road are routinely punched, kicked and spat upon, and in some places run over or threatened with guns, by other citizens, while farmers or truckers blocking a road are not. It might also explain why there is scarcely a murmur of media coverage or public concern when extreme penalties are imposed: such as the six-month prison sentence handed in December to the climate campaigner Stephen Gingell for slow-marching along a London street."

I suspect that many Israelis  wish they could remove their disgraceful govt. Its difficult to find any reason as to why both Hamas leaders & the Israeli govt shouldn't be tried for war crimes.


https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...ace-to-run

"The last refuge is no longer a refuge. Around half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have found some kind of shelter in Rafah, often under canvas, raising the border city’s population fivefold. Now, though desperate, traumatised and exhausted, many are readying to flee again.
Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israeli troops will soon enter, despite warnings from António Guterres, the UN secretary general, that it would “increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare with untold regional consequences”. Strikes on the city appeared to be intensifying on Thursday.



The UN has warned that a ground offensive could lead to war crimes. It is hard to see how devastating civilian casualties would not result, given what has happened in less crowded areas. Israel said in late January that it had killed only about 30% of Hamas fighters – around 10,000, including 1,000 killed in the group’s murderous attack on 7 October, which claimed 1,200 mostly Israeli lives. The total death toll stands at 27,000 people, more than 11,000 of them children. Another 66,000 have been injured. A quarter of the population is starving.

Israel has reportedly told Egypt that it will allow people to leave Rafah before it moves in. But not everyone is capable of fleeing again, and there is nowhere safe to go. Some of those who have tried to leave the city in recent days have not been heard of since making the attempt. Fierce fighting continues in the Gazan city of Khan Younis. Overall, more than half of Gaza is still under evacuation orders, and Israel has said that fighting will continue in the north, where it had previously said operations were completed, due to the reappearance of Hamas combatants and officials.

Where fighting has ceased, a wasteland is left. Homes, schools, bakeries, hospitals, mosques, churches, sewage infrastructure, aid centres – all erased from the earth. In the words of one witness: “It’s like after an atomic bomb.” The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has also complained that it has not been able to deliver aid to the north for more than a fortnight. A major ground offensive in Rafah threatens to cut off Gaza’s lifeline completely, since aid comes via the city’s crossing with Egypt.

Meanwhile, each day of war increases the need for those deliveries."

Some good news for a change.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ast-escape


"A pod of orcas trapped by drift ice off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island, have apparently safely escaped, officials have said.
The orcas, also known as killer whales, were initially spotted by a fisher who reported them to officials in the town of Rausu, on the north-east coast of Hokkaido, on Tuesday morning.



After environmental groups raised concerns, town officials travelled to the coast later on Tuesday and saw about a dozen orcas bobbing up and down in a tiny gap surrounded by drift ice about half a mile offshore.
They returned to the coast on Tuesday evening and saw that the pod had moved to the north, and it was gone when they returned again on Wednesday, said Masataka Shirayanagi, a Rausu official.
Officials said they believed the orcas were able to free themselves as gaps between the drift ice grew. Shirayanagi said: “We believe they were able to escape safely.”

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Not even sure whats so divisive about it, there is nothing in this bill that takes away rights from anyone.
If anything, it should be a good thing for Maori, as it for once will recognize the treaty at face value, rather than many of its many interpretations to suit different agendas over the years.
The treaty ensures equal treatment for everybody and thats what the point is of this bill.

ACT have now created a new website to address the concerns, due to the media spreading misinformation.

You can check it out here at www.treaty.nz

At least half of Gaza's buildings have been damaged or destroyed. The images with the article are stunning.


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68006607

"More than half of Gaza's buildings have been damaged or destroyed since Israel launched its retaliation for the Hamas attacks of 7 October, new analysis seen by the BBC reveals.
Detailed before-and-after imagery also shows how the bombardment of southern and central Gaza has intensified since the start of December, with the city of Khan Younis bearing much of the brunt of Israel's military action.
Israel has repeatedly told Gazans to move south for their own safety.
Across Gaza, residential areas have been left ruined, previously busy shopping streets reduced to rubble, universities destroyed and farmlands churned up, with tent cities springing up on the southern border to house many thousands of people left homeless.
About 1.7 million people - more than 80% of Gaza's population - are displaced, with nearly half crammed in the far southern end of the strip, according to the United Nations.
Further analysis, by BBC Verify, reveals the scale of destruction of farmland, identifying multiple areas of extensive damage.



The IDF has repeatedly justified its actions by noting that Hamas deliberately embeds itself in civilian areas and explained destruction of buildings in the light of targeting fighters. But questions have been asked about destruction of buildings seemingly firmly in the control of the IDF.
One example was the Israa University, in northern Gaza - initially badly damaged shortly before being blown up completely in what looked like a massive controlled explosion. The video was widely shared on social media and the IDF says the approval process for the blast is now being investigated.
Mr Scher, one of the academics who worked on the Gaza damage assessment, said it stands out compared with other war zones he's analysed.
"We've done work over Ukraine, we've also looked at Aleppo and other cities, but the extent and the pace of damage is remarkable. I've never seen this much damage appear so quickly."

How odd - a politician not believing a fellow politician! 


And seriously - 'All politicians are mindful of what the public wants??!'

Only if it suits them, though.



https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/...-bill.html


"ACT leader David Seymour is refusing to back down on his controversial Treaty Principles Bill, saying he believes the Prime Minister's opinion can be changed.   

Getting free Server partition software is next to impossible. Esp one that works well.

It also works good on standard operating systems.

Use it myself ( but the std version) here is a server edition of (free for a limited time but lifetime license) Can make bootable media as well.

Macrorit Partition Expert Server

Some good free software from that site

wainuitech
I need your help. All of a sudden my printer won't print and it says 9 documents waiting. I really need the printer at present as I lost my wife last week
and I need copies for the Probate. Can you suggest anything please?

It was never going to go down well.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/3501677...ty-grounds


"Deputy Prime Minister of New Zealand Winston Peters has been met with boos from the crowd after telling them to "stop the crap".

"You tell me whoever said we're getting rid of the Treaty of Waitangi? Stop the crap," Peters said.

While Peters is being booed, he mentioned Dame Whina Cooper asking the crowd "when she was marching, where were you?" 

"If you think separatism and division is going to take us to 2040, you're dreaming. Let me tell you sunshine, I used to go to a marae where they had tikanga and respect and not you shouting. Get some manners."

The crowd has told Peters to "e noho" (sit down) after he remarked "get an education!" 




Luxon

"When asked why his speech did not focus enough on the treaty, Luxon said the speech was designed to talk about the vision for New Zealand by 2040 and what needs to happen to achieve the vision or start the vision by next term. 

"We should be very proud of the treaty as part of our past, present and future. It's something we're going to continue to work at." 







Speaking to media, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said the Government is not supporting the treaty principles bill beyond the first reading. 

"There is no support, no commitment, no intention to take it beyond that. . . It's been the long-standing commitment of The National Party not to pursue a referdum at all. I appreciate its a different position from the ACT Party and part of that is as a condition of the coalition government, that's what we've agreed to do."



Seymour


"Crowd try to sing down Seymour 



Seymour is refusing to end his speech as a number of the crowd sing “whakarongo e noho”.



This has been going on for some time. 



“You can sing and you can sing and yet you are not going to end an idea by singing anymore than you will with a gun,” he said.