For someone who's working life has been working with words and making presentations as an historian and then a politician, Paul Goldsmith is incredibly difficult to listen to with a very staccatto delivery interspersed with a lot of fillers. #nzpol

I only now realized that when I searched for the cover image of White Flight earlier, it pulled up this image drawn from one of the blurbs for the book. The words are from the amazing southern historian Dan Carter. But the image is of the amazing New Zealand rugby star Dan Carter.

As an illustrator, I set myself a rule that I would not interact with any business or service that uses AI art. This is becoming increasingly difficult and even my daughter's school are using it for posters now. We truly live in hell

Hello NZ govt 👋, maybe this is a better approach than building more prisons & punishing beneficiaries? Hard to argue with the numbers #nzpol

Get Out The Mid Term Vote @gotmtv.bsky.social · 19h ago

A vote for National, NZFirst, or ACT is a vote to keep older kiwis in poverty, and to make their poverty worse. This coalition government has actively passed policies that have made things tougher for everyone who isn't in the wealthy donor class. It will only get worse if they are voted back in.

RNZ News Feeds@rnzrss.bsky.social · yesterday

Older Kiwis choosing between 'starving or heating' as price increases bite

what a bunch of hoofwanking bunglecunts

Goodemorning Gonzobongos! If yu see a new cratter on tha moon soon IT WAZNOT ME I DIDNOT DO IT !itis NOTT my fawlt!

There’s been a lot of talk about children this past week - how to punish them, how to breed them, and how business people are like them - but none of it about child welfare. My #cartoon today #NZpol

I mean, it's nice there's some policy but of course it's going to be the most lacklustre, tech company positive policies dripping with the assumption that genAI is the future because the MPs are all using it I'M GOING MAD #nzpol

Lately I've been experiencing side-effects of the widespread use of "ai assistants" that I haven't heard talked about so much, and I'm curious if others have noticed it - maybe even the phenomenon has been studied or named.

Behold: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me”. The pulling power of Abject Idiocy in the plundered minds of the indentured.

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · 4d ago

Suresh describes this as a literal religious mania. In the 500+ employee businesses Suresh studied, the only people who were promoted - or even spared from being fired - were people who professed "religious declarations of faith" about "the transformative power of AI." 23/

"Luxon isnt a buisness person, he's a corporate person. There's a big difference"

If they really wanna be disruptive, fucking sack Winston Peters

Luxon has a long history of disparaging AoNZ businesses and business people, reaching back before he came PM. He called them whiny or something similar to an overseas audience some years ago. His apology means nothing, he still has underlying contempt for small business people. #nzpol

"I have spoken to the Foreign Minister and made it clear that racist comments are unacceptable from AoNZ's senior diplomat, no matter what hat he is claiming to wear at the time, and that a repeat would result in his removal" is what a real PM would have said. #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Luxon speaks to Peters about comments: 'That's a conversation between us'

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says he has had a conversation with Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, following his tirade towards a Chinese-born MP in Parliament last week.

rnz.co.nz

Mental health minister's contract promise to community providers yet to be honoured

Mental health minister's contract promise to community providers yet to be honoured

There's "incredible disappointment" among community mental health providers that a promise of multi-year contracts is yet to be honoured, an industry representative says.

rnz.co.nz

Survivors of abuse in care hand-delivered flowers to Parliament. The flowers were picked from the grounds of hospitals and care residences that were sites of abuse, and marked 2 years since the damning findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry. My #cartoon today #NZpol #AbuseInCare #ChildWelfare

This ad has been the subject of an ASA complaint. But they apply a frankly, imho, ridiculous standard to political ads and says it was fine. asa.co.nz/decision/26-...

henry cooke@henrycooke.bsky.social · 3d ago

National says it’s “triple your taxes” ads refer to three parties wanting to raise taxes. www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361...

From about minute 18, Jenna Lynch finally (far too gently) calls him out on lying about his experience in business. Incredible that no one has ever done this before #nzpol www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Watch: PM Christopher Luxon apologises for 'parent-child mentality' comments

The prime minister has apologised for his comments to the Rotorua business community last week, saying he was sorry they "did not properly acknowledge the challenges that many small business owners ar...

rnz.co.nz

This is what Erica Stanford's reforms will do to children here in Aotearoa #nzpol

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 3d ago

I'm glad to see this. It's what many of us have been arguing for a long time, but until now no one in government seemed ready to listen. Let's hope we will begin to see an education policy which works for children, and for the 21st Century. In The Times today.

Pervert glasses should be only available in hi viz yellow so that we can easily see who’s wearing them.

"stop screaming at me, I'm giving you what you want!" - the cat owner's lament

Yes - like we saw with Nicola Willis disrupting the new Cook Strait ferries. How did that go?

When they say disrupt it is shorthand for "wreck decades of people's work and discard institutional knowledge so it can be hijacked for a partisan agenda for private profit".

Dave@dpdiver.bsky.social · 3d ago

I’m already sick of hearing about how this government wants to ‘disrupt’ everything (ie fuck things up). Luxon uses the word and now everyone in National wants to be a fucking ‘disruptor’. Tired techbro speaking not any basis for government policy. #nzpol

Covid was the ultimate disruptor barring war and remember when we were going to build back better? New teachers: if experienced teachers weren't fleeing NZ teaching causing a dire shortage and the constant curriculum changes, it would be ok again for new teachers to be…new. #nzpol

#NZPol

Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social · 4d ago

"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob." —FDR, 1936

So I woke up this morning to find out that Ozzy Osbourne’s son made a video falsely accusing me of using AI to write a Rolling Stone article about the Tate brothers.

Max Miller released audio recordings of conversations he has with his ex wife. In one of them, she accuses him of clandestinely recording their conversations. “I have never recorded our conversations” he says, while recording their conversation. This is domestic violence. Ask me how I know.