Roachie

What Things Want Robert Bly 1926-2021 You have to let things Occupy their own space. This room is small, But the green settee Likes to be here. The big marsh reeds, Crowding out the slough, Find the world good. You have to let things Be as they are. Who knows which of us Deserves the world more?

You have to let things Occupy their own space. This room is small, But the green settee

Likes to be here.

....
You have to let things Be as they are. Who knows which of us Deserves the world more?
- Robert Bly
#Poetry 💙📚👀

The second Covid report is out – now Winston Peters wants another one As politicians relitigate Labour's pandemic response, NZ First is seizing the chance to remind the freedom movement which party is on their side.

“The Royal Commission report unequivocally endorsed the use of vaccines and found NZ had “among one of the best pandemic responses in the world”

The Royal Commission wouldn’t lie so Peters is pushing for another one that he hopes will? How much money will be wasted electioneering for NZF? #nzpol

Beneficiary numbers soar to 12-year high despite government's reduction promise Louise Upston vowed to "curb the surge in welfare dependency" after taking office, but the numbers are now the highest since at least 2013.

Stuff in here about inflation. Minister blaming Labour's inflation for high unemployment & an economist saying it could be inflationary for the govt to get people into jobs.

Unstated is that to reconcile those points we need to recognise that increasing unemployment is how we fight inflation

NOT GETTING A CENTURY PROOFED PORT AND STRAIT INFRASTRUCTURE.

MINIMUM VIABILITY.

SMALLER FERRIES FOR MORE MONEY.

WORSE PORTS FOR THE SAME MONEY.

THIS IS COLOSSAL INCOMPETENCE.

While the pathetic grifters are whining about Labour 'ignoring advice' regarding COVID, here's a quick reminder #nzpol

Advice ignored
- Smokefree Legislation
- Emissions Targets, etc
- Māori Health Authority
- Fast-track Bill
- School Lunches
- iReX
- Landlord Tax Breaks
- Significant Natural Areas

THE BIGGEST NAMES IN BOOKS ARE COMING TO AUCKLAND WRITERS FESTIVAL WAITUHI O TĀMAKI IN MAY 2026 - News • Auckland Writers Festival

Holy shit, folks, the Auckland Writers Festival this year has a real Lollapalooza line-up.
Fran m-fing Lebowitz AS I LIVE AND BREATHE.
(not to mention, Roddy Doyle, Mick Herron, Maggie O'Farrell, R. F. Kuang and more)
I need a readers' fainting couch...
www.writersfestival.co.nz/news/Page1/t...

Not a single right-wing NZ politician has said that the Covid Inquiries will provide useful research for dealing with future pandemics, making their criticisms transparently and exclusively about discrediting the previous government and not about concern for the population. #nzpol

"Human writing often includes some clunky phrases, like this passage from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, caused by the author's aversion to punctuation: 'As well ask men what they think of stone.'"

This is the stupidest g.d. thing I have read all day.

Lockdown, vaccine decisions 'considered and appropriate' – Royal Commission The Covid-19 Royal Commission has broadly backed the decisions taken during the pandemic, while identifying areas for improvement.

newsroom.co.nz/2026/03/10/l...

Genuinely a massive issue for society that 'Taking big problems seriously' has become coded as feminine and hysterical

Dear Women, Happy International Women's Day, I got you a paycut! love, Christopher x New Zealand Labour Party Facebook post

NZ has seen zero progress on pay equity, home ownership, sexual assault (and justice for it), medical misogyny, roles in leadership/politics.
Women earn $900K less than men over a lifetime. Women/girls are routinely sexualised and subjected to violence.
Stupid jokes are really, really not it, team.

I like this beautiful poem from the latest @newyorker.com

If you must use Al (don't) or know someone who does and blindly believes whatever it says, before asking it a question, ask it why you shouldn't trust what it will tell you.
Claude, sonnet 4.6:

Cutting dialysis just to save a couple of dollars is truly toxic behaviour. But let's ask ourselves the question: where did the money that used to be available to keep people alive actually go?

A short thread.

#nzpol

As you can see here, right from the very first day he entered our house, Jim found great difficulty in getting settled and making the environment his own.

THREAD.

3 & 1/4 years ago, with no warning, a brilliant orange farm cat wandered over from the draughty barn where he'd been living, in rural Cornwall, & decided he wanted to live with us instead.

We decided to call him Jim.

This is the first photo I took of him, on that night: December 1st 2022

This is what happens when Christian Nationalism infiltrates the government YouTube video by Congressman Jared Huffman

Our troops are being told that war with Iran is part of a biblical prophecy for Armageddon that Trump was anointed by God to carry out.

This is what happens when Christian Nationalism infiltrates the government. And people are dying because of it.

New Zealanders support more taxes on ultra-rich, new poll shows Half of New Zealanders also agreed that billionaires shouldn't exist while people still struggled with basic necessities like housing, food and healthcare.

Begging @barbedmonds.bsky.social to revisit the taxation policy and the diluted, weak sauce, everything is exempt CGT that Labour have proposed

People want stronger action, the country (world) needs it. Be like Nike and JUST DO IT

It's not a "cost of living crisis", it's an inequity crisis
#nzpol

This is becoming a panic point for so many people I know. Their thermostats are set at 55. They are wearing multiple layers. Blankets at their doorstops. These are not wasteful people. $600 electric bills. Insane. Unsustainable for my neighbors

AI BOOSTER BINGO The squares read: I might get attacked for saying this Imagine what it'll do in 5 years Al critics are just afraid Al is better than you Everyone is doing it "Levels the playing Field" Your time will be spent on work that MATTERS Your time will be spent correcting the Al's errors MORE VOLUME!! Shit outputs? Switch to [alternate LLM] Yes jobs will be cut... Humans aren't perfect either It's FUN!!! No practical advice "Sorry bluesky" Solution to chronic underfunding What if it could cure cancer??? I made something that appears passable No need for pesky underlings Is it accurate? No. But... Framing human work as "bespoke, hand-crafted" Get with it or get left behind!!! Al critics are luddites This was actually written by AI For more free printables please visit www.timvandevall.com, created by Tim van de Vall, copyright 2013 Dutch Renaissance Press LLC

I made a bingo card

Discworld QOTD, from Jingo

“History was full of the bones of good men who'd followed bad orders in the hope that they could soften the blow. Oh, yes, there were worse things they could do, but most of them began right where they started following bad orders.”

We should be getting ready to press go on our mechanism to insulate the economy from an oil price shock. It's not like we don't know that all our episodes of inflation have been powered by oil and warmongering. But, why have a plan when we can increase debt costs and throw more people on the dole?

I think about this Tony Benn speech much more than I used to

#nzpol Please amplify the fact this is being considered, with very little pushback.

omg

😢

Our alarming rates of child poverty are entirely avoidable And yet we continue not to avoid them.

Child poverty aka as family poverty is a policy choice on New Zealand by successive governments #nzpol thespinoff.co.nz/politics/27-...

New Zealand women are under-represented in property ownership New Zealand women are under-represented in property ownership, despite a desire to own, according to new data released by Cotality. Financial journalist and creator of the Making Cents podcast, France...

This outcome is totally connected with the pay equity issue reported over the past few days, and NZ's intractable child poverty rates. Women's work (paid and unpaid) is still largely undervalued - a systemic issue, which impacts through generations.

This is totally unacceptable! 🤬 #nzpol #OneTermGovernment

#nzpol Child poverty data from Stats NZ out today. All political parties except Act agreed to the Child Poverty Reduction Act 2018, creating legally mandated targets for child poverty reduction. Right now, we are missing even the looser targets the government has set. A 🧵

The reporting on this is so lifeless - no significant change from 2018, blah blah. It feels like the media are over poverty, a bit bored by a story that never changes. The stats are centred, while the actual kids - doing it tough every day - are out of sight and out of mind.