Every cost cutting decision related to transport, health, energy and education that this government has made is going to cost everyone so much more than their supposed savings.
I won’t be satisfied until a Tom Holland challenges Timothée Chamalet to a dance off and ballets him into the Shadow Realm.
Paper bag of feijoas from an Eastern Suburbs aunty via Roskill distribution hub
Socialist fruit season has begun
He is having a crisis after I said I need to wash his fave blankie
“Hello darkness my old friend..”
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
Picture of DOGE guy Nate Cavanaugh
Screenshot of my DOGE letter “Dr. Joseph Rezek Dear NEH Grantee, This letter provides notice that the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is terminating your federal grant (Grant Application No. FEL29509824) effective April 3, 2025, in accordance with the termination clause in your Grant Agreement. Your grant no longer effectuates the agency's needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination due to several reasonable causes, as outlined in 2CFR§200.340. For instance, NEH has reasonable cause to terminate your grant in light of the fact that the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President's agenda. The President's February 19, 2025 executive order mandates that the NEH eliminate all non-statutorily required activities and functions. See Commencing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy, E.O. 14217 (Feb. 19, 2025). Your grant's immediate termination is necessary to safeguard the interests of the federal government, including its fiscal priorities. Any objections or appeals to this termination will be managed in strict accordance with the President's Executive Orders,
Last year, this guy (left) from DOGE used ChatGPT to find NEH grants that were too “DEI” for Trump, and canceled them, including mine, as shown by the letter I received last April (right). Huge new NYT article on the back story link below
Imagine Liam, if this govt had accelerated, even just continued, energy transition, getting NZ off the oil&gas addiction, liberating our economy from this vulnerability they would have something real to offer. But no, they chose the exact opposite, for reasons.
www.nzherald.co.nz/business/ira...
Magical and inspiring! So happy-making.
A black and white still image of a large parrot in a burrow, sitting on a nest. At least one fluffy chick is visible under her as they're starting to get too big to contain even under her voluminous girth, and the parrot has her head tilted, her gaze seemingly fixed on the ground. One can imagine a blue hooded robe enveloping her, the symbol of the Virgin in medieval religious art.
Madonna and Child, Duccio, c.1300
What a lovely opportunity for you both!
Partly painted Kākāpō
A partly painted car kakapo with a sideways trucker cap
Anyway here’s Kakabro
They seem to think that being reactionary on climate policy will only have political upsides, when the whole purpose of being bought by the fossil fuel industry is that the material upsides accrue to the fossil fuel industry. Which has political downsides. People gonna be mad bro.
I'm just annoyed that I feel like all the knowledge and the technology we have means we could all be having a really nice time and scientists could be doing science and everyone could have enough food and shelter and everything they need but instead *gestures at everything*
Hey, congrats! All up, I’d say those trenches are a good place to snuggle into right now.
Just envision that a Government came to power and cancelled a whole raft of essential programmes which would reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels, only for there to be a once in a century oil crisis.
A little pied shag airing its wings out on a branch, reflected in the shiny waters of Te Wai Ōrea /Western Springs Lake, on a brilliantly blue afternoon in late summer. There were also baby black swans, and teenage pūkeko, and beaky wee coots, and writhing eels, and human families galore. Life goes on…
What a day! Even the birds were like 🙌
Other nice adjectives for this approach, if say any opposition parties were looking to fortify their appeal at the moment: sensible, prudent, thrifty, versatile, creative, self-sufficient, adaptable, organised, strategic, ready, provident, collaborative, cooperative, united, and dare I say, popular.
Ok, hear me out here. A govt enabled acceleration to renewables, effective alternatives to always driving, + EVs, is essentially the lowest cost, most resilient, independence supporting, job creating, and actually ‘conservative’ option ahead.
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
If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kākāpō chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!
When people say National are good at managing "the economy" but trust Labour more on environment, housing, safety, taxes, education, inflation, poverty and health...exactly what part of "the economy" do they think National are good at managing?
Amazing! Kiwi galore!
The Good Day (to you, ma’am) Kiwi!
The next morning, around 11:30 am, I came face to face with the most photogenic, determined-to-get-on-camera kiwi I have yet met.
I had been going uphill so was frankly quite happy to make like a tree for a few minutes but had no idea that I would have such success!! 😅
Friendly reminder that for all Labour’s bland centrist resistance to change, they’re nothing whatsoever like National.
I get very tired of this comparison. It’s bullshit. And yes, I vote for more change than Labour (alone) can achieve.
“Two Talbot Mills polls have revealed New Zealanders overwhelmingly want politicians to think long-term with future generations in mind; our economic system to change; and for the ultra rich to be taxed more to fund public goods like healthcare, housing and climate action.” #nzpol
Female #kakapo are utterly focussed on their chicks. Stella came back to the nest while I was checking her very young chicks two nights ago. Apparently unconcerned by me being there, she jumped in and started brooding them in front of me. #conservation #parrots #birds #kakapo2026
“She was a person for whom kindness was a very ordinary thing, who believed that the only acceptable excuse for not having a bird feeder in the back garden was that you had one in the front garden.” From the novel Leonard and Hungry Paul, by Rónán Hession (describing Leonard’s mother).
Lovely! By coincidence I had just noted this line in a book…
He aroha whakatō He aroha puta mai. If kindness is sown, Then kindness you shall receive.
He aroha whakatō He aroha puta mai. If kindness is sown, Then kindness you shall receive.
He aroha whakatō
He aroha puta mai.
If kindness is sown,
Then kindness you shall receive.
Banana's Loose
Dire warning at the supermarket
