Yarp.

Seems like an overtly political - not religious - action. Hopefully they once again lose their tax-exempt status.

What an absolute legend. Give him a medal.

Got a gull stuck in the decorative grill on the front of our office once. Spent the whole morning shrieking, seemed like he was stuck. Called the council, SPCA, building owner, nobody wanted to help.

Then after a few hours the bastard quite calmly hopped up and flew out.

That gull was a dick. We named him Greg.

Better to ask forgiveness rather than permission.

Edit: how did I get that backwards?

Nitrates in drinking water are linked to cancer and birth defects. In high-enough concentrations it can trigger blue-baby syndrome, which can straight-up kill babies.

Got an email advertising cyber monday sales on firewood. Yup, logs of wood. For cyber monday.

100%. Unless the toilet has a dedicated ass-wiping professional I’m not paying to use it.

“Prior to this attack, the man arrested had been receiving support of the mental health services,” Patel added.

Sounds like a lone-wolf with some complex stuff going on. Still horrible.

Summer interns starting today, why do I do this to myself?

Update: this year’s crop is great! I am so tired.

Education is really important. But you can lift people out of poverty just by straight-up giving them money too. A properly-funded welfare system (or a UBI) would go a long way to truly ending poverty. Childhood poverty is such a strong predictor for anti-social behaviours like gang membership, crime, unemployment, that it blows my mind we don’t just funnel money to people to break them out of the inter-generational poverty loop.

Had a persistent headache all of yesterday, took the afternoon off. This morning I realised I hadn’t had any coffee yesterday. I truly am an addict.

https://nz.pcpartpicker.com/ might be what you need

This. This this this this this

Found this wee dude chilling on my daughter’s face after she had some play time in the sandpit.

Yeah that last point is fascinating.

There’s a saying on the left that if you sit down at a table with a nazi, there are now two nazis at the table. I don’t completely agree with that logic, but the far-right are a sizable influence in those protest groups. Sure you get the crunchy hippy vegan wellness-mummas who are only there because they’re anti-vax or anti-fluoride or whatever, but they have seemed pretty alarmingly willing to jump on the anti-trans hate train recently. Anger at the system does seem to be the main uniting value, you’re right, and personally I think that anger is something that needs to be healed through civil discourse and maybe politics. But that anger is currently being hijacked by the far-right to bolster their cause, and that worries me.

I don’t believe that all these middle age women at the protests are blaming Jews for the vaccine

I don’t believe they are either, but I think some of the people supporting and pushing these movements absolutely are. For a movement that is hyper-aware of “agendas” and “narratives” the people in these protest movements seem pretty oblivious to the possibility their own movement is influenced in exactly that type of way.

The only term that I identify with is pro-russian.

Which is honestly unsurprising. Western intelligence groups have been sounding alarm bells about Russian attempts to interfere in the politics of western democracies for a decade or so now, as you likely know well. In my time on Telegram I’ve noticed a constant low-level hum of spam in major channels that has all the fingerprints of state-sponsored propaganda, likely out of Russia. Telegram itself has such intimate links to the Kremlin it may as well be a state asset at this point. Whatever your personal reasons for being pro-Russia, you have to recognise they have a clear interest in sowing disharmony in western nations, and they have the capability to do it. If I were in their shoes, these anti-government fringe movements would be the perfect tool for the job. Have you really not considered the possibility that you’ve bought into the propaganda platform of an increasingly hostile foreign government?

He uses an “average house price” of $893,639. That is being massively skewed upwards by urban centres. Rural houses are still relatively affordable - a quick search on Trademe finds perfectly acceptable houses in small towns like Ashburton for $300k, and if you get out into rural areas it gets even cheaper. He’s also assuming that farmhand would have bought an “average-price” house back in the 90s - in fact rural houses were cheaper back then just as they are today.

Using the Westpac Mortgage calculator he used, a couple each on the median income of $61k ($29 an hour) could afford a property at $809,687 with a 20% deposit. To give him credit, that is still pretty much unaffordable for most people and something we should all be appalled by, but it is nowhere near as terrible as the picture he is painting.

I know nothing about them.

Vince has some extremely questionable views on things like culture, race, history and politics. According to him, ultimately a lot of things come back to “the Jews”. He is a contributor to the far-right fringe disinformation outlet Counterspin Media.

Sorry Jeff but I have to disagree with you on some of what you wrote.

crazed notion that middle age women who oppose vaccination are somehow crypto-fascists … [is] a Reddit fantasy

Your description of their beliefs isn’t quite complete, you’re missing some of the most critical stuff off the list of things they oppose:

• “globalists”, (eg bankers, politicians, corporations, academics, “the ruling elite”, yadayada)
• “gender ideology”

I’ve spent some time observing and talking to people in these movements and for the most part these two terms are usually dog-whistles for:

• Jews
• gays

Personally I wouldn’t bother putting the “crypto-” in front. It’s hard to spend any time in these communities without beginning to notice some of the really major similarities between their ideologies and the early stages of European fascism in the start of the 20th century. Those middle-aged women may not personally identify with the labels of “fascist”, “racist”, “anti-Semitic” or “homophobic”, but the things they say align pretty well with those labels. Yeah I agree the terms of fascist, nazi etc are thrown around a little too freely by the online left, but sometimes you just have to call a spade a spade. For us on the left, “fascist” is shorthand for “authoritarian far-right” (in the same way “communist” can be shorthand for “authoritarian far-left”), and based on the things I’ve seen you and others associated with that movement write online, I am absolutely comfortable giving you the label of “authoritarian far-right”.

There are people on Reddit who think that Carl Bromley and Lee Williams are Nazis.

Based off the many things he has said in his Youtube videos I am quite happy to call Lee authoritarian far-right, as well as a racist and a homophobe. If some people online shorthand that to “nazi” I won’t lose any sleep over that. Carl on the other hand strikes me as a bit of a clown by comparison, though I haven’t followed him as closely.

[…] claims that far-right groups in NZ are preparing terrorist attacks […]

You may recall this actually did happen in New Zealand’s very-recent history, and it is something kiwis are (rightly) alert to, and are (rightly) unwilling to let happen again.

Kyle Chapman was arrested for owning a gun, but he’s not even a part of any far-right group…

[…] claim that the Rob Gray Life Centre is a [right-wing] terrorist training hub.

Kyle has expressed some quite extreme beliefs on topics like race, culture, and has convictions for violence related to those views. Let’s be 100% clear here, “far-right” and “terrorist” are labels that fit Kyle pretty well from his track-record, even if he has softened up a bit in the last few decades. He is absolutely not the kind of person who should be in possession of weapons, let alone firearms - I’m actually really curious to know what his justification for being in possession of them was. And he’s running “survivalist” training courses at RGLC - Rangi is hyperbolic but he has a point.

To be fair I’ve never met you in person, or Kyle, or anyone else at RGLC - I can only go off the things I’ve seen you say online. In fact I agree with you on some issues - for example you personally are 100% correct to be angry about the state of housing and income inequality in this country - I’m angry about those same issues. However I don’t think the solution to these problems involves racism, or homophobia, or hate in any form - it’s just a pointless non-productive waste of your emotional energy.

If I’ve got the wrong end of the stick about you as an individual, by all means let me know. But I’m pretty comfortable to call the movement you’re defending in this comment far-right and authoritarian.

Given that Vince is so wrong about so many things, it isn’t surprising to find that also extends to finance, economics and maths.