Kieran Craft

text reading "Do you back frontline workers? We invite you to join us in solidarity with unionised teachers, nurses, doctors and firefighters on the 23rd of October. This will be one of the biggest strikes in Aotearoa history."

Thursday, October 23, is shaping up to be one of the biggest protests against this Government – or any government – in NZ history.

We back the striking teachers, nurses, doctors, firefighters and other frontline workers! Do you? Make sure to show your support and appreciation for them on Thursday.

What I find genuinely confusing/interesting/refreshing about Brown as mayor is that he really doesn't seem to be ideological.

He actually does seem mostly driven by what he believes is genuinely in the best interests of the city. I disagree with his assessments in some cases, but it's positive.

Could I politely suggest, that with how Arts & Humanities research funding has been pulled from all of these, that political interference has already occurred.

The use of AI to marionette a woman whose tortured existence was spent trying to carve her own life and identity out of the space men forced her into is both damningly macabre and a surprisingly perfect encapsulation of the problems with this ghoulish use of technology.

"We Spent 25 Years Doing Virtually Nothing" Why New Zealand is one of the developed world's worst climate laggards

Seems like a good time to share this again - given the government's decision to weaken the methane emissions target and not to put a price on agricultural emissions northandsouth.co.nz/2021/10/18/n...

To sum up we're likely spending ~$700m per ferry to get worse ferries than the two we ordered for $550m total

Re-upping this thread in light of @ben.gracewood.nz uncovering that there is no record of David Seymour ever being told (as he had claimed) that alcohol warning labels hamper craft brewers ... a non-issue that would require us to break from our international agreements to fix ...

WHAT FUCKING PROBLEM IS THIS TRYING TO SOLVE?!?!

We're not in this mess because of illegal immigration, but because this government's policies have fucked over everyone but wealthy landowners and polluters.

Get IRD to crack down on tax avoidance by the rich, that'll ACTUALLY help! Not this shit.

PANEL 1: MATTIE and one other person are handcuffed on a platform over a big cylindrical vat full of glowing liquid. Behind them, TWO ARMED TROOPERS stand. One is shouting, next to a big lever. TROOPER: You have all been charged with sexual deviance under the new statutes! TROOPER: You are hereby sentenced… PANEL 2: Closer in on MATTIE and the person next to her. TROOPER (VO): …To being dropped into a big vat of acid, thus dissolving your perverted bodies! MATTIE: I sure did prefer life before we were overrun by fascist stormtroopers. PANEL 3: The TROOPERS look at each other. TROOPER 2: Sorry…What did she-he call us? TROOPER 1: NOT Cool… PANEL 4: The other TROOPER from panel 3. He's crying, and pulls the lever. Some acid splashes into the frame. TROOPER: STOP BULLYING ME! SFX: CLUNK SFX: SPLASH

what did she call us | patreon.com/lubchansky

So we don't care about climate change. Farmers can sit back and continue to pollute while being paid well for their milk and meat.

Remember the old rightwing argument that all we needed to do was put a price on climate emissions and let the market do its thing? Well the necessary step was for the Govt to put a price on emissions. The current far right NZ Govt just announced it will never put a price on emissions.

Mind blowing.

The Luxon Government has confirmed it will rewrite NZ’s once bipartisan climate change law to dilute methane reduction targets and PERMANENTLY exclude dairy from the Emissions Trading Scheme – a move Greenpeace says amounts to full-blown climate denial.
#nzpol

People who think the idea of "give me ideas" is something genuinely creative people want have literally never experienced the absolute EUPHORIA of a brainstorming breakthrough, either solo or with a human collaborator. They don't understand what is happening when artists create, on a basic level.

This also indicates the essential dishonesty of saying “it’s just a tool.” A hammer is a tool. Nobody writes about the “inevitability” of hammers. Nobody has ever studied the harmful effects of hammers on learning and concluded that teachers must all hit their students with hammers “responsibly.”

Imagine studying a technology whose presence in the classroom is so detrimental to the development of writing and research skills (including even the will to know the sources behind claims!) that mitigating its effects becomes a central goal of course design, and concluding with tips on adopting it.

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

Nation upset at the inevitable result of its own actions Step one: push people out of work and onto the streets. Step two: get mad at people being out of work or on the streets...

Nation upset at the inevitable result of its own actions

Essential services are not suited to "the market" — the objectives of private capital are too misaligned with the nature of the inelastic demand for the services.

I will never understand people who claim to understand capitalism and profit, and also suggest that "the market" can deliver security or lower costs or whatever.

"The market" will extract as much profit as it can. That's the explicit goal. It's an obligation for management.

Open the door to measles, and it won't stop there

Comment from Auckland University: Measles vaccination levels in NZ have dipped well below that necessary for herd immunity, exposing us to diseases we thought we’d consigned to history.

Government moves to give police back more information-collecting powers The amendments will also extend to letting police shut off more areas, not just roads, in an emergency or disorder.

After multiple exposes of the Police violating our human rights and civil liberties, instead of reigning them in, the Government is enabling the Police to further intensify its capacity to spy on us. This will only end we disarm, defund and disband the Police. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

... not only very similar to those of the Law Commission in 2011 and the Mental Health and Addictions Inquiry in 2018, but the Board of Health committee that led to the 1975 law in the first place. For half a century, politicians, for political reasons, have not heeded that advice. It is past time.

Safer drug laws We need safer drug laws for Aotearoa New Zealand - our new report sets out a pragmatic, evidence-based way forward.

The NZ Drug Foundation has a major new report pressing the case for a replacement of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975, which turns 50 this month. Thing is, its recommendations – for a complete realignment to health, not criminalisation and punishment, are ... drugfoundation.org.nz/topics/polic...

This has been the vicious fucking thing about the "Jobseeker Benefit" ever since Paula Bennett coined it in 2013

In addition to keeping people in poverty it's been a term of propaganda forcing us all to accept the frame of welfare as economic obligation instead of social support

Hundreds of teens with a health condition, disability may be cut from Jobseeker benefit The government is ending Jobseeker payments to 18- and 19 year olds whose parents earn more than $65,000.

Fucksake. It's quite clear now that they only looked at this benefit policy as political marketing and took no advice on who it would impact – which includes young people with serious health issues and disabilities. Just feckless and cynical. Shame on them. www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

What makes biz go delusional about the economy? Oh yeah, their party in power.
How great is the gap between reality + generally agreed right-wing public policy? Dead wrong about public finances + society, no matter how good they are at running own businesses? Via @bernardchickey.bsky.social

to add: it speaks also to how the aesthetics of fascism are always stolen or appropriated. the swastika is from euroasian religions like hinduism or buddhism. the fedora was originally women's fashion. gAI being popular among fascists makes sense when its entire function is to steal aesthetics

Pro-Palestine protesters blockade Christchurch aerospace summit, chain themselves to doorways - NZ Herald The pro-Palestine protesters are hoping to shut the Christchurch conference down today.

www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/christchu...