Life Behind the IRon Drape II - Post-Covid Edition [ Mark Hubbard ]

  The Establishment in New Zealand just granted the prize of Kiwibank Young New Zealander of the Year to Shaneel Lal. As with Sunday  after the violence against the women at Let Women Speak in Auckland from the mob incited by Lal and his employer, New Zealand Herald; after his gloating and his glee at having bashed those women's voices into silence by physical assault and forcing Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull to flee the country for her life; after Lal's complete lack of any remorse or empathy for those women who were assaulted repeatedly in a rolling maul, terrified and injured (one badly, a 70 year old has a broken eye socket), I again have no words. I despise New Zealand right now. So, I can only offer one thought. Speak Up for Women NZ , the organisation, perhaps  think about mobilising politically. Field just one candidate in Chris Hipkins electorate, or a number of Labour and Green's top MPs, and pour your resources into taking votes from them in just those electorates.

   We have all seen the video footage of the violence from an out of control mob at Let Women Speak in Auckland last Saturday. I don't need to link it further here. That footage has been around the world, overseas media from Tucker Carlson in the US to TalkTV in UK view New Zealand, our police - who did nothing under a mis-interpretation of their own governing laws - and our media which has been at the fore front of smearing Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull with outright lies, as well as building and inciting the violence of that mob, as something between a laughing stock but also horror story where women are not safe. The New Zealand Herald columnist Shaneel Lal who was chief instigator of the violence continues even now on Twitter gloating about the brave women his mob injured and terrified to the point there was no way for them to speak, and Kelly-Jay had to leave the country fearing for her life, with his employer's sanction, because not only has that tabloid not moved to silence L

  Thanks to modern technology we all saw what happened yesterday: a vicious mob fuelled with hatred over the previous week by our media, particularly a columnist for the Herald, and by sitting MP's in government, seriously assaulted Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, aka Posie Parker, and a small group of defenceless women who were at 'Let Women Speak' to peacefully tell their stories, while our police force, I now have to assume a heavily politicised police force, simply watched on. I have no words after such a draining day as yesterday. It's very strange: I lived through Covid unvaccinated with the ostracisation and all that entailed, I watch as  co-Maori-governance is turning NZ into  New Zimbabwe , but strangely I find the scenes from yesterday some type of 'new' gestalt for myself: a final understanding and change to my thought that is incontrovertible at a gut level.  All I want to do in this piece is offer some thoughts out of the disgrace that occurred in Auckla

  Co-(that's Maori)-governance wasn't coming in with Five Waters: in a coup d'etat it has been practiced for some years now via the effective Maori veto enforced by every local council and government department. Where I live if I want to protect the erosion on my property's foreshore - not from climate change but the three times bigger mussel boat fleet and their bow waves - then I am forced to have by council processes Iwi clearance, so I am well advised to grease the palm, or at least not upset, the Iwi member whose desk consents go through. [A basic internal audit 101 would have shown the government's army of consultants that the veto around which co-governance works has terrible incentives and leads directly to corruption and graft, as exemplified by Nanaia Mahuta's many venal family placements when she was Minister of Local Government. The pity is there's a system developed over thousands of years called, nominally, Westminster democracy - or constitut

   David Farrar put up a fascinating piece this morning about the two thirds of Sweden's roads that are managed privately. As you can see from my previous post, I live on Moetapu Bay Road in the Marlborough Sounds which after storms 21 months and 9 months ago remains unfixed, frankly, dangerous, and in an interminable consultation process on whether it is even fixed. So, quick little post simply putting up here my post this morning to the Moetapu Bay Road Facebook page .... probably ill-advised but I've given up caring about putting peoples noses out of joint or offending their sensibilities. Post follows: Question re road: has anyone or the road association been given an end date for this consultation process we're stuck in, because I never have in all my correspondence? For those of us who need to move on is there the following knowns (which residents deserve [councilor's Facebook handle] to allow ourselves some modicum of planning our futures) - perhaps I've mis

 For me, this is the story that broke the proverbial camel's back, quote: The Government raised New Zealand's 2030 Paris Agreement carbon-slashing target and reaching that target would require paying other countries to slash emissions on New Zealand's behalf. Treasury estimates this will cost $12.8 billion by the end of the decade . The Indian Government this week issued an emergency ruling that all their coal fired power stations work at maximum capacity to meet consumption demand. China continues to open two coal fired power stations every week. This $12.8 billion of our tax money to be sent overseas to make our egomaniacal  politicians look virtuous will change NOTHING regards the climate, even if you believe the bunk about CO2. We all know that: on their own terms for their shonky science they know that. Minister David Parker and that conman James Shaw may as well burn this huge amount of money and sacrifice a virgin on the pyre akin to their near religious belief in c