Im retired on NZ Super and some savings in KiwiSaver that gives me an extra income. It rankles that I have to pay tax on anything KiwiSaver gives me, having already paid tax for the saving of it. But, of course, I also pay tax on the Super, believe it or not, for it forms part of my taxable income. For the most part, I can afford some of the things I enjoyed when I was in full time work - nights out, a few trips to the movies. But I own my own home, mortgage free. I can see the crunch arriving if I need any ongoing medical treatment not paid for by the state, for I cant even get a visit to the doctor with the inevitable trip to the pharmacy, without knocking a hole in $50. Thats a night out I wont enjoy even if I have the health to enjoy it.
Sensational language from the headline to the end. Hundreds of kilometres from home is an irrelevancy here - its not as if they were stranded up on some mountain ledge in the Alps. Come on Jane! Get real!
Serena Williams is a disgrace to the feminist movements. Her inability to reflect on her own failings is her loss but she is so blind that she may never understand where she went wrong. She will lose a lot of credibility and mana by her outlandish claims of fighting for women.
Im a PÄkehÄ but I have never been opposed to learning Te Reo. When I taught science in a distance learning school, teachers were encouraged to use Te Reo in emails and when speaking on the phone or other audio communication media. I taught many students who were MÄori and would always greet them with a MÄori greeting when I phoned them - in fact, I greeted all my students with such greetings. Two things I learnt in the 20 years I taught in that school.1 - None of the email packages we were provided with had a spellchecker that recognised words in Te Reo, so they were all useless as spellcheckers for anything I wrote in Te Reo.2 - Very few of my MÄori students spoke Te Reo.So I wondered at the demand made of teachers to learn a language that even MÄori students did not understand. Im not making a case against promoting Te Reo, but it seems to me that if there is such a high proportion of indigenous MÄori who are not using Te Reo and who do not know Te Reo, then why should learning and using Te Reo be part of the requirement for registration as a teacher in New Zealand? This seems like tokenism to me.
If you go to France, the French will respect you, if you try to speak their language. Its the same thing in all foreign countries. I agree with you, Caffeineo. I suspect that attempts to speak the language by someone who is new to the language would also gain respect. Cest une simple courtoisie.
Its amazing how subjective people are about matters to do with conservation. You often hear the announcement, Lets save the planet! The response comes back, For whose benefit? Human beings? Orangutans? Dolphins? Tapeworms? Jane Goodall said in relation to the importance of survival of particular species, If you did a census of all species on earth at the moment as to which species would be the best one to disappear, it would be us (humans).
The trouble with free speech, responsible speech and hate speech is that one is objective and the others are subjective. That subjectivity gives carte blanche to anyone to use the terms as they like. So freedom of speech gets a bullet when responsible speech is dubbed as hate speech. There are no arbiters, so responsible speech ends up in the kangaroo court and gets shut down when it is thrown into the dubious category of hate speech. Whats more, since the hate speech has no defined boundary, it is used by those who campaign to shut down responsible speech by calling it hate speech. No wonder the American judiciary will not recognise hate speech.
It is well known that teeth vary in their resistance to caries from person to person. Im not a disbeliever. Im just an inquisitive scientist. Have you ever tested your claimed miracle mouthwash? Have you ever tried it out on people who were willing to follow your daily regimen for long enough to be able to also claim what you are claiming? My feeling is that you are one of the lucky ones who never need to go to the dentist as their teeth are of hard dentine and are resistant to common caries. How about you back up your claim with evidence that it works on most other people? You could be on to a million dollar claim, yknow.
(I)ts only when the police introduce the fear of â˜getting caught that we start to think twice. I dont agree with this generalisation. It may apply to some drivers, though I dont think that its a majority. It certainly is not how my mind works when I am at the wheel. Also, I know of no driver who I have been with at the time they were at the wheel who drove as if they believe this either. I suggest that getting caught by the police is not a factor that governs good driving in the large majority of people and feel kind of insulted that its suggested that my ability to drive carefully could have anything to do with a fear that I may have of being caught by the police. It makes no logical sense, behaviouraly or otherwise.
It is a facet of present day thinking that progress is done without planning. The ideology says that there is no need to research things, for that is paralysis by analysis. It strides into a new world putting everything behind, including what has been learnt in the old world, without understanding that the old world and the new world are the same thing. It has been here for millions of years. The enlightenment era happened long ago and it is now being eschewed simply because it was in the past. We are better now, more enlightened, more educated and we dont need the trappings of the past. Do we? So, we stride out and build a new transport schedule that, oh my, doesnt work. Well, well, well!
Its not as if its a lifetime pass. It costs and that cost has to be met by the commuter every month. That is not likely to financially ruin a transport system. There will always be people who think its cheaper to buy individual fares and some of them will end up paying more than they would if they bought a pass. Its swings and roundabouts for that group.
One of the main reasons that it has been such a long time that primary teachers have struck for pay and conditions is simply this: At the beginning of this century, primary teachers were given pay parity with the secondary sector. The secondary teachers had no say in that legislation. Unfortunately, pay parity acted as a stumbling block for secondary teacher claims because it increased the potential costs of a settlement with the Government. Secondary teachers began to concentrate on other conditions of service that did not necessarily apply to primary teachers. However, any pay claim that the secondary teachers fought for and received was also awarded to the primary teachers. So, thats why primary teachers have not had to strike about their pay for 25 years. But, their other conditions of service went by the wayside buoyed up by the fat increase in salary that all primary teachers received way back at the beginning of the century. History is so often forgotten.
Why is Jami-Lee Ross disgraced as it states in the title of this article? We have only very recently heard anything directly from Ross and most if not all of that fits with the timing of events that have been announced entirely by Simon Bridges and from the start. Whats more, Ross statements put a complexion on the reasons for the events in a far more cogent way than they were explained by Bridges. It seems that, once again, we have assumptions that are given to us before matters have been fully investigated.
Well Janus, It all depends on who starts the clock and when the gun goes off. How are you going to time a teacher who sits for hours at the weekend preparing lessons for the week? How are you going to time a teacher who travels home on a train from Wellington to Upper Hutt, marking assignments and other student work? I suppose you are going to follow the teacher from the station to home so that the timing process can begin again after time used in relaxing a bit with family and eating evening meal is over at 9 pm when the rest of the student assignments are marked? Then theres the fracas when the teacher attempts to have his or her breaks in the staff room during school time. Are you going to walk round the playground with the teacher and time the playground duty or other such allocation of responsibility that comes with a teaching job? It is quite naive to think that all the teacher ever does starts at the beginning of the first teaching session for the day and ends at the finish of the last. Yes, Janus, it would be very interesting to find how much a teacher gets paid by the hour if youre willing to add up all the hours a teacher works in a week. Go for it - do the timing. Youve got your work cut out for you doing only that.
The present-day narrative is make your own truth. This has been supported by claims of fake news that have become so common that people are forced to make their own minds up about the truth with little or no real authentic evidence and facts surrounding the issue. So, here we go again, with Sarah Sanders claiming her video to be valid against another rendition of it. People will choose the evidence that best fits with what they already think and believe about these people - Trump and his admin helpers, interns, etc. To misquote G W Bush, youre either with them or against them and video evidence isnt going to change that.
It is a leftist practice to blame anyone except those who are truly responsible. Clearly, the sponsorship has the potential to do good. Clearly, fast food is only a threat to those who abuse it. They are the ones with the fault. They persist in abusing fast food by pigging out on it at every opportunity. Come on, leftist government! Start calling out the ones that are causing the problems for themselves and leave the rest to get on with our lives.
Winston Peters is one of the most able statesmen who have walked in parliament. His enormous experience in many parliamentary roles, his knowledge of New Zealand and his indisputable wit and intelligence has given New Zealand one of the best acting prime ministers of all time. Jacinda Ardern must be proud to have him as her deputy.
The critics are looking at the housing areas from above. People living there dont look at their lives from above, nor should they have to. To see the 1 colours of the people who live in the houses, you have to go into the houses, not look down on them, and see the diversity of colour in their hearts and lives.
Unfortunately, this sort of day-to-day scenario of the teacher isnt understood or talked about by people who are not teachers. A large chunk of the work of the teacher is done in silence, often in places where no one but close family sees it happening. So the ignorant and uninitiated bad mouth the teacher as a shirker who is highly paid for a few hours work per day, when these critics dont have a clue what they are talking about.
There always has been a need for change. This is the time-honoured mantra of education authorities in New Zealand. Each time this mantra was trotted out in campaigns for change, New Zealand was hoodwinked into believing that the educators and education authorities must know what they were doing. The outcomes of all these knee-jerk moves has shown us, without fail, that what was implemented, after any campaign for reform, was no better and often worse than what was there before. The evidence for the worsening at each change was seen in the furtive and costly moves and adjustments that were often success-critical and almost unprincipled and that were seen as needed to kick start a new change into something that looked as if it worked. Theres a need to get rid of NCEA - theres no doubt about that. But what is far more important is that any change that is planned must be based on evidence which shows that the change is likely to be an improvement. Educators use the term and you hear it said, but they need to walk the talk of evidence based change. Simply by saying that there is a need for change is not an incentive to change things around without careful consideration of what has to be changed and why they are needed in the first place. A history of change, over forty years in New Zealand education, has seen botched changes in curricula and in assessment methods as well as in the means for providing the students of New Zealand with a system that awards qualifications that are recognised as worthy by other nations.
Director2017, just let me choose the students I have to teach and I will accept any performance pay you can give me. Thats the problem with performance pay in any teaching job. Its like getting paid week by week for the quality of the weather. Just think about that.
Im all for this. I have four daughters who are now adults, but it was my secret fear when they were teenagers that they would not be safe enjoying the night-life in Wellington. However, it is clear that the incidence of sexual offenses is on the increase - as stated in the article - and that there is a need to address the causes in the first place. Is it too PC to suggest that statistics gathered about sexual offenses should include the ethnic origin of the offenders? Im aware that this may be objected to by some, but if we are serious about doing something about sexual offending, surely we need to gather all the information and not ignore that which might throw a light on how we could go about fixing it.
Why not? I say. You could collect all that data too, but it is already evident from data collected in other western countries that there is a direct correlation between per-capita offending and ethnicity of the offenders. Its as simple as that. When you have this data, whether it be about hair colour or criminal background or whatever, then you have far more information to work on. Lets eliminate one factor thats become an established fact in other countries before we start theorising about other factors. However, I anticipated that somebody somewhere would reject my suggestion out of hand.
We have movies and other video depictions of war and murder and violent horror scenes and nothing is said. Why the heck should violence in rape be regarded any differently? The reality is that rape happens far more often than the scenes of war and murder. We need to face up to what society is doing to itself and not shove the crime of violent rape into the background as something we shouldnt really talk about.
Its a far-leftist point of view that can only see things the way they want them to be seen. Diversity is an issue in many European cities - it does not work everywhere and may even become problematic in New Zealand given the recent unrest of racism. Racist issues can apply just as much between whites as it can between people of different colour.
The harm that these substances cause to humans is controversial. Even BPA, which seems to be used as some sort of toxic standard here, is controversial. The main reason for the controversy is that the toxic substance, like any other substance, becomes toxic when enough of it is ingested and thats the controversy. We know a substance is toxic if ingested, then some people try to make a case that the use of it is poisoning humans, when there is no real evidence for this. Sure BPA is toxic if ingested, but the amounts of BPA that is leached from plastic that contains BPA has been found to be minuscule and there is no evidence that such a tiny amount causes any harm. Eat enough table salt, and its toxic. Drink enough water and it can kill you.
City Councils have a habit of using the think big approaches that died with the Muldoon era. Thats a real pity for it shows that these councils and the people that are their members have not really moved on since that disastrous unenterprising time. In Lower Hutt, we are still waiting on the announcement that the world class park at Avalon has been completed. Parts of it are still under construction and other parts are a mess, yet we have had no announcement from the Lower Hutt City Council of the progress of this huge and ambitious project. It was supposed to have been completed over a year ago.
ac5, I think you need to learn more about how KiwiSaver works. Its an investment. ANY return on a KiwiSaver investment is taxed. Im not talking about withdrawals here, A withdrawal is a totally different process from a return on investment.
All you people who are telling me about withdrawals obviously think I dont know the difference between a withdrawal and a return on the investment! You need to learn the difference. Withdrawals from a KiwiSaver account are nothing to do with returns on the KiwiSaver investment. All KiwiSaver gains - that is to say, returns on the investments to your KiwiSaver account - are taxed. Period.
Thats the first step for New Zealand to undo the disgraceful and shameful banning of the speeches of Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux. The next step is in permitting Chelsea Manning the right and platform to speak
Simon Bridges will suffer from the release of this tape but it will not be legitimate. There are already claims of racism over what Bridges said in the conversation. However, the conversation was private or, at least, Bridges thought it was. A private discourse between Ross and Bridges should have remained private, but for the disclosure of it by Ross to the public. By sharing his thoughts in private, Bridges own private feelings were revealed. This is quite different from Bridges relating these ideas in a public forum, which he did not do. Now, its as if the Thought Police are in force - shades of 1984. It is wrong for those who claim racism in such circumstances, though they will try to do that, just the same.
NZ Super isn't enough for 'no frills' lifestyle, but Kiwis are bridging the gap
Im retired on NZ Super and some savings in KiwiSaver that gives me an extra income. It rankles that I have to pay tax on anything KiwiSaver gives me, having already paid tax for the saving of it. But, of course, I also pay tax on the Super, believe it or not, for it forms part of my taxable income. For the most part, I can afford some of the things I enjoyed when I was in full time work - nights out, a few trips to the movies. But I own my own home, mortgage free. I can see the crunch arriving if I need any ongoing medical treatment not paid for by the state, for I cant even get a visit to the doctor with the inevitable trip to the pharmacy, without knocking a hole in $50. Thats a night out I wont enjoy even if I have the health to enjoy it.
Teens told to sleep at airport after flight cancelled as Air NZ holds 'no obligation'
Sensational language from the headline to the end. Hundreds of kilometres from home is an irrelevancy here - its not as if they were stranded up on some mountain ledge in the Alps. Come on Jane! Get real!
Kiwi Grand Slam semifinalist Belinda Cordwell rejects Serena's sexism call
Serena Williams is a disgrace to the feminist movements. Her inability to reflect on her own failings is her loss but she is so blind that she may never understand where she went wrong. She will lose a lot of credibility and mana by her outlandish claims of fighting for women.
Joel Maxwell: You're never too old to become a better you
Im a PÄkehÄ but I have never been opposed to learning Te Reo. When I taught science in a distance learning school, teachers were encouraged to use Te Reo in emails and when speaking on the phone or other audio communication media. I taught many students who were MÄori and would always greet them with a MÄori greeting when I phoned them - in fact, I greeted all my students with such greetings. Two things I learnt in the 20 years I taught in that school.1 - None of the email packages we were provided with had a spellchecker that recognised words in Te Reo, so they were all useless as spellcheckers for anything I wrote in Te Reo.2 - Very few of my MÄori students spoke Te Reo.So I wondered at the demand made of teachers to learn a language that even MÄori students did not understand. Im not making a case against promoting Te Reo, but it seems to me that if there is such a high proportion of indigenous MÄori who are not using Te Reo and who do not know Te Reo, then why should learning and using Te Reo be part of the requirement for registration as a teacher in New Zealand? This seems like tokenism to me.
The truth about living in France according to Kiwis who live there
If you go to France, the French will respect you, if you try to speak their language. Its the same thing in all foreign countries. I agree with you, Caffeineo. I suspect that attempts to speak the language by someone who is new to the language would also gain respect. Cest une simple courtoisie.
How do we decide which endangered species to save?
Its amazing how subjective people are about matters to do with conservation. You often hear the announcement, Lets save the planet! The response comes back, For whose benefit? Human beings? Orangutans? Dolphins? Tapeworms? Jane Goodall said in relation to the importance of survival of particular species, If you did a census of all species on earth at the moment as to which species would be the best one to disappear, it would be us (humans).
An ode to free and responsible speech - it's been a rough week for it
The trouble with free speech, responsible speech and hate speech is that one is objective and the others are subjective. That subjectivity gives carte blanche to anyone to use the terms as they like. So freedom of speech gets a bullet when responsible speech is dubbed as hate speech. There are no arbiters, so responsible speech ends up in the kangaroo court and gets shut down when it is thrown into the dubious category of hate speech. Whats more, since the hate speech has no defined boundary, it is used by those who campaign to shut down responsible speech by calling it hate speech. No wonder the American judiciary will not recognise hate speech.
Poverty causing 'third world' dental problems, Hamilton dentist says
It is well known that teeth vary in their resistance to caries from person to person. Im not a disbeliever. Im just an inquisitive scientist. Have you ever tested your claimed miracle mouthwash? Have you ever tried it out on people who were willing to follow your daily regimen for long enough to be able to also claim what you are claiming? My feeling is that you are one of the lucky ones who never need to go to the dentist as their teeth are of hard dentine and are resistant to common caries. How about you back up your claim with evidence that it works on most other people? You could be on to a million dollar claim, yknow.
Drivers: Beware of 'everything else' on the roads
(I)ts only when the police introduce the fear of â˜getting caught that we start to think twice. I dont agree with this generalisation. It may apply to some drivers, though I dont think that its a majority. It certainly is not how my mind works when I am at the wheel. Also, I know of no driver who I have been with at the time they were at the wheel who drove as if they believe this either. I suggest that getting caught by the police is not a factor that governs good driving in the large majority of people and feel kind of insulted that its suggested that my ability to drive carefully could have anything to do with a fear that I may have of being caught by the police. It makes no logical sense, behaviouraly or otherwise.
How did transport planners get Wellington's new bus network so wrong?
It is a facet of present day thinking that progress is done without planning. The ideology says that there is no need to research things, for that is paralysis by analysis. It strides into a new world putting everything behind, including what has been learnt in the old world, without understanding that the old world and the new world are the same thing. It has been here for millions of years. The enlightenment era happened long ago and it is now being eschewed simply because it was in the past. We are better now, more enlightened, more educated and we dont need the trappings of the past. Do we? So, we stride out and build a new transport schedule that, oh my, doesnt work. Well, well, well!
Public transport 'superusers' in Auckland hurt government policy
Its not as if its a lifetime pass. It costs and that cost has to be met by the commuter every month. That is not likely to financially ruin a transport system. There will always be people who think its cheaper to buy individual fares and some of them will end up paying more than they would if they bought a pass. Its swings and roundabouts for that group.
Are teachers' salaries falling behind other Kiwi workers?
One of the main reasons that it has been such a long time that primary teachers have struck for pay and conditions is simply this: At the beginning of this century, primary teachers were given pay parity with the secondary sector. The secondary teachers had no say in that legislation. Unfortunately, pay parity acted as a stumbling block for secondary teacher claims because it increased the potential costs of a settlement with the Government. Secondary teachers began to concentrate on other conditions of service that did not necessarily apply to primary teachers. However, any pay claim that the secondary teachers fought for and received was also awarded to the primary teachers. So, thats why primary teachers have not had to strike about their pay for 25 years. But, their other conditions of service went by the wayside buoyed up by the fat increase in salary that all primary teachers received way back at the beginning of the century. History is so often forgotten.
"Explosive allegations before disgraced MP Jami-Lee Ross quits National Party, forcing by-election",
Why is Jami-Lee Ross disgraced as it states in the title of this article? We have only very recently heard anything directly from Ross and most if not all of that fits with the timing of events that have been announced entirely by Simon Bridges and from the start. Whats more, Ross statements put a complexion on the reasons for the events in a far more cogent way than they were explained by Bridges. It seems that, once again, we have assumptions that are given to us before matters have been fully investigated.
'This is why I'm striking': A day in the life of a teacher
Well Janus, It all depends on who starts the clock and when the gun goes off. How are you going to time a teacher who sits for hours at the weekend preparing lessons for the week? How are you going to time a teacher who travels home on a train from Wellington to Upper Hutt, marking assignments and other student work? I suppose you are going to follow the teacher from the station to home so that the timing process can begin again after time used in relaxing a bit with family and eating evening meal is over at 9 pm when the rest of the student assignments are marked? Then theres the fracas when the teacher attempts to have his or her breaks in the staff room during school time. Are you going to walk round the playground with the teacher and time the playground duty or other such allocation of responsibility that comes with a teaching job? It is quite naive to think that all the teacher ever does starts at the beginning of the first teaching session for the day and ends at the finish of the last. Yes, Janus, it would be very interesting to find how much a teacher gets paid by the hour if youre willing to add up all the hours a teacher works in a week. Go for it - do the timing. Youve got your work cut out for you doing only that.
White House shares doctored video to support punishment of CNN journalist
The present-day narrative is make your own truth. This has been supported by claims of fake news that have become so common that people are forced to make their own minds up about the truth with little or no real authentic evidence and facts surrounding the issue. So, here we go again, with Sarah Sanders claiming her video to be valid against another rendition of it. People will choose the evidence that best fits with what they already think and believe about these people - Trump and his admin helpers, interns, etc. To misquote G W Bush, youre either with them or against them and video evidence isnt going to change that.
On the table: Fast food giants could be asked to stop sponsoring childrens' sport
It is a leftist practice to blame anyone except those who are truly responsible. Clearly, the sponsorship has the potential to do good. Clearly, fast food is only a threat to those who abuse it. They are the ones with the fault. They persist in abusing fast food by pigging out on it at every opportunity. Come on, leftist government! Start calling out the ones that are causing the problems for themselves and leave the rest to get on with our lives.
Mike Yardley: Winston Peters did well as acting prime minister
Winston Peters is one of the most able statesmen who have walked in parliament. His enormous experience in many parliamentary roles, his knowledge of New Zealand and his indisputable wit and intelligence has given New Zealand one of the best acting prime ministers of all time. Jacinda Ardern must be proud to have him as her deputy.
Suburban Wellington's sea of grey roofs is frightening, architect says
The critics are looking at the housing areas from above. People living there dont look at their lives from above, nor should they have to. To see the 1 colours of the people who live in the houses, you have to go into the houses, not look down on them, and see the diversity of colour in their hearts and lives.
Teacher's diary: a day in the life of an intermediate school teacher
Unfortunately, this sort of day-to-day scenario of the teacher isnt understood or talked about by people who are not teachers. A large chunk of the work of the teacher is done in silence, often in places where no one but close family sees it happening. So the ignorant and uninitiated bad mouth the teacher as a shirker who is highly paid for a few hours work per day, when these critics dont have a clue what they are talking about.
Falling out of love with NCEA as stresses mount on New Zealand students
There always has been a need for change. This is the time-honoured mantra of education authorities in New Zealand. Each time this mantra was trotted out in campaigns for change, New Zealand was hoodwinked into believing that the educators and education authorities must know what they were doing. The outcomes of all these knee-jerk moves has shown us, without fail, that what was implemented, after any campaign for reform, was no better and often worse than what was there before. The evidence for the worsening at each change was seen in the furtive and costly moves and adjustments that were often success-critical and almost unprincipled and that were seen as needed to kick start a new change into something that looked as if it worked. Theres a need to get rid of NCEA - theres no doubt about that. But what is far more important is that any change that is planned must be based on evidence which shows that the change is likely to be an improvement. Educators use the term and you hear it said, but they need to walk the talk of evidence based change. Simply by saying that there is a need for change is not an incentive to change things around without careful consideration of what has to be changed and why they are needed in the first place. A history of change, over forty years in New Zealand education, has seen botched changes in curricula and in assessment methods as well as in the means for providing the students of New Zealand with a system that awards qualifications that are recognised as worthy by other nations.
'This is why I'm striking': A day in the life of a teacher
Director2017, just let me choose the students I have to teach and I will accept any performance pay you can give me. Thats the problem with performance pay in any teaching job. Its like getting paid week by week for the quality of the weather. Just think about that.
Student's earrings raise awareness of suicide and mental health
This is a wonderful way to promote awareness and to also contribute to worthy causes. Freedom of speech is alive and well in the earring industry.
'Culture change' needed to make Wellington NZ's first sexual abuse free city
Im all for this. I have four daughters who are now adults, but it was my secret fear when they were teenagers that they would not be safe enjoying the night-life in Wellington. However, it is clear that the incidence of sexual offenses is on the increase - as stated in the article - and that there is a need to address the causes in the first place. Is it too PC to suggest that statistics gathered about sexual offenses should include the ethnic origin of the offenders? Im aware that this may be objected to by some, but if we are serious about doing something about sexual offending, surely we need to gather all the information and not ignore that which might throw a light on how we could go about fixing it.
'Culture change' needed to make Wellington NZ's first sexual abuse free city
Why not? I say. You could collect all that data too, but it is already evident from data collected in other western countries that there is a direct correlation between per-capita offending and ethnicity of the offenders. Its as simple as that. When you have this data, whether it be about hair colour or criminal background or whatever, then you have far more information to work on. Lets eliminate one factor thats become an established fact in other countries before we start theorising about other factors. However, I anticipated that somebody somewhere would reject my suggestion out of hand.
Shortland Street: NZ reacts to episode dealing with rape and sexual assault
We have movies and other video depictions of war and murder and violent horror scenes and nothing is said. Why the heck should violence in rape be regarded any differently? The reality is that rape happens far more often than the scenes of war and murder. We need to face up to what society is doing to itself and not shove the crime of violent rape into the background as something we shouldnt really talk about.
The truth about living in France according to Kiwis who live there
Its a far-leftist point of view that can only see things the way they want them to be seen. Diversity is an issue in many European cities - it does not work everywhere and may even become problematic in New Zealand given the recent unrest of racism. Racist issues can apply just as much between whites as it can between people of different colour.
The 'safe' plastic you're microwaving could be just as bad as BPA
The harm that these substances cause to humans is controversial. Even BPA, which seems to be used as some sort of toxic standard here, is controversial. The main reason for the controversy is that the toxic substance, like any other substance, becomes toxic when enough of it is ingested and thats the controversy. We know a substance is toxic if ingested, then some people try to make a case that the use of it is poisoning humans, when there is no real evidence for this. Sure BPA is toxic if ingested, but the amounts of BPA that is leached from plastic that contains BPA has been found to be minuscule and there is no evidence that such a tiny amount causes any harm. Eat enough table salt, and its toxic. Drink enough water and it can kill you.
Prison to five-star hotel: Wellington dreams big
City Councils have a habit of using the think big approaches that died with the Muldoon era. Thats a real pity for it shows that these councils and the people that are their members have not really moved on since that disastrous unenterprising time. In Lower Hutt, we are still waiting on the announcement that the world class park at Avalon has been completed. Parts of it are still under construction and other parts are a mess, yet we have had no announcement from the Lower Hutt City Council of the progress of this huge and ambitious project. It was supposed to have been completed over a year ago.
NZ Super isn't enough for 'no frills' lifestyle, but Kiwis are bridging the gap
ac5, I think you need to learn more about how KiwiSaver works. Its an investment. ANY return on a KiwiSaver investment is taxed. Im not talking about withdrawals here, A withdrawal is a totally different process from a return on investment.
NZ Super isn't enough for 'no frills' lifestyle, but Kiwis are bridging the gap
All you people who are telling me about withdrawals obviously think I dont know the difference between a withdrawal and a return on the investment! You need to learn the difference. Withdrawals from a KiwiSaver account are nothing to do with returns on the KiwiSaver investment. All KiwiSaver gains - that is to say, returns on the investments to your KiwiSaver account - are taxed. Period.
Chelsea Manning granted special direction to apply for visa
Thats the first step for New Zealand to undo the disgraceful and shameful banning of the speeches of Lauren Southern and Stefan Molyneux. The next step is in permitting Chelsea Manning the right and platform to speak
Kiwis treat sports stars as heroes but don't even shake hands of soldiers – Keating
Perhaps the younger generation is beginning to recognise the anachronism that is war.
"Secret tape recording embarrasses Simon Bridges, but it's not incriminating",
Simon Bridges will suffer from the release of this tape but it will not be legitimate. There are already claims of racism over what Bridges said in the conversation. However, the conversation was private or, at least, Bridges thought it was. A private discourse between Ross and Bridges should have remained private, but for the disclosure of it by Ross to the public. By sharing his thoughts in private, Bridges own private feelings were revealed. This is quite different from Bridges relating these ideas in a public forum, which he did not do. Now, its as if the Thought Police are in force - shades of 1984. It is wrong for those who claim racism in such circumstances, though they will try to do that, just the same.