#Tag
"Reading your research suggested to me that ADHD traits - although I'm not minimizing the problems, and the anguish that ADHD people can feel - ADHD traits constitute a special skill set, not an impairment, often, and the impairment comes from not being able to express the skills."
#JimMora, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday/audio/2018943895/is-adhd-an-evolutionary-adaptation
All the hoopla around the opening of Ikea ...
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=72463043-2b3c-40b4-ba16-d8c7d20965c9
... reminds me of the 2004 Czech documentary Český sen (Czech Dream);
https://english.radio.cz/cesky-sen-hypermarket-czech-dream-didnt-come-true-8074451
But the documentary was much more fun.
#podcasts #RNZ MediaWatch #Ikea #documentary #ČeskýSen #CzechDream
Local government has been smushed into a much more centralised system over the last 4 decades. Elected local boards that took care of specific jobs in some places (eg drainage boards) were folded into councils. As were community boards in a lot of places.
Many councils were themselves folded together. A process known among local opponents as "forced amalgamation". Auckland started out with dozens of independent city, district and borough councils. Now there's one ring to rule them all.
(1/?)
Now it seems like we're looking at another round of forced amalgamation of local bodies, with Auckland's "supercity" council as the model. The first step being arbitrarily firing all regional councillors and adding their responsibilities to the jobs of city and district mayors.
Two RNZ shows have reported on this over the last week or so, Focus on Politics;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=ad5c05a5-7472-48fe-b6c8-f13f997ef2aa
... and The Detail;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/the-detail?share=58b425f8-6bc9-4e38-adf8-d9f921904eb9
(2/?)
"What's I'm doing is focused very much on my job. As I keep saying; polls, commentariat, rumours, my job is to get on with the country, and getting it sorted for people."
#CLuxon, speaking to Ryan Bridge in 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=8e7b038f-039b-4c10-86c4-cb2a67ad34af
Oh dear. The political truism regurgitation machine has started stringing random clauses together into vaguely sentence-shaped objects, which don't really hang together (they also don't mean anything but that's not new.
(1/?)
And to critics who argue that trapping, neutering, and releasing feral cats is better than culling them, Bailey has a blunt response: "They're killing our native birds and not shagging them."
That’s quoted from a good article this morning by Farah Hancock on #RNZ, on NZ’s big problem with feral cats and the social tension around what to do with them. “Predator-free” without dealing with feral cats makes no sense.
And to critics who argue that trapping, neutering, and releasing feral cats is better than culling them, Bailey has a blunt response: "They're killing our native birds and not shagging them."
That’s quoted from a good article this morning by Farah Hancock on #RNZ, on NZ’s big problem with feral cats and the social tension around what to do with them. “Predator-free” without dealing with feral cats makes no sense.
Lithium ion batteries can be a fire risk, yes. But cheap ones in household devices (phones, charging packs, *toys*) are much riskier than the ones in EVs, according to Colin Peacock;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=0fc8e854-476a-4b94-a849-ecfac17b8e35
Lithium ion EV batteries are probably no riskier than a tank of extremely explosive fuel. Certainly not risky enough to justify a regressive crusade against EVs in general, which these days may have nonexplosive sodium ion batteries.
"I tried, I'm disappointed too, but I wasn't prepared to hold up the entire Arms Act [rewrite] to fight over it, when there's a good win for everybody in it."
#NicoleMcKee, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=cf65a0e8-c8c6-43a1-82a3-0d61c93372a4
I've made some very strong criticisms of this firearms industry lobbyist turned ACT MP. But credit where credit is due; this is a really generous and pragmatic way for a politician to describe not getting exactly what they wanted from a bill.
(1/2)
"Chris Hipkins says he's comfortable being called a socialist, Zohran Mandani wins the New York mayoralty, and this is the question we've been asking ourselves all week; is Woke back?"
#WallaceChapman, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/politics-nz?share=b80fcdfb-3903-482c-926e-50dcf1983607
Huh? No. Obviously not. How did it take you more than 2 seconds to answer that?
(1/?)
Meanwhile, in New Zealand news, a couple put their house rebuild on hold to wait for the penguins under the house to finish nesting.
Meanwhile, in New Zealand news, a couple put their house rebuild on hold to wait for the penguins under the house to finish nesting.
Yesterday's Midweek MediaWatch covered the decision by police not to prosecute Stuff for publishing anonymised audio of the cops during the final minutes of Tom Phillips' life;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=22b39814-2065-4113-a6bd-587235737567
I guess the cops haven't heard of the Streisand Effect. Because the first thing I did upon learning that they didn't want it published, was to go listen to it;
https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360819884/police-audio-end-tom-phillips-chase
I doubt I'm the only one who did.
#podcasts #RNZ #MediaWatch #Stuff #StreisandEffect #DeathByCop #TomPhillips
"In an effort to grow revenue, the company said it would support 'the digital transformation of the New Zealand healthcare sector' to take a slice of what it estimated was a $1 billion opportunity.
It said the sector was ripe for digitisation in light of Covid-19 and that it would launch the health service as a cloud-based system for health providers, which would include electronic medical records and health analytics."
#RNZ, 2020
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/426194/spark-to-scrap-data-caps-on-wireless-broadband-plans
Be warned.
"All Labour has done is chosen a group of people that can be marginalised and be taxed without - they hope - fear of electoral retribution."
#MattBall, NZ Property Investors Federation, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=72dfab42-b0de-46f3-9958-29494bf53211
You mean Māori? Beneficiaries? Women getting pay equity? Unionised workers? Trans people? Oops, sorry, he's taking about *Labour* there. My bad.
(1/2)
"The government this month announced its plans to change pig welfare regulations including around the use of the crates ...
Documents have shown the government's own animal welfare experts disagreed with the approach taken, which were developed after eight meetings with NZ Pork."
#RussellPalmer, 2025
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/577252/no-consultation-on-pig-welfare-regulation-changes-spca
"There are recurring themes, the most dominant of these is probably reining in the overuse of Parliamentary Urgency, including skipping or curtailing the Select Committees process.
Ideas to curb urgency include automatic expiry dates for laws passed without full process, governments needing to convince the Speaker that urgency is necessary, and select committees undertaking post-hoc reviews of laws that bypass them."
#PhilSmith, 2025
The Tories are virtue signalling around climate policy to shore up their rural vote;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/focusonpolitics?share=0fdf10db-6e5c-4b60-a29d-0acfd02449e0
But considering all the things they could have done - and that ACT and Winston First would have done given the chance - what they've done is pretty weak tea. Which suggests a significant majority of kiwis support strong climate protection policy, and NatACT First know it.
#podcasts #RNZ #FocusOnPolitics #ClimateChange #AgriculturalEmissions
A fascinating discussion on Midweek MediaWatch about whether or not Sean Plunket's digital soapbox The Platform is under the jurisdiction of the Broadcasting Standards Authority;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=7308019f-a654-4741-b3db-b6f3edb1fce2
Plunket is a contemptible human being who platforms hateful concern trolling, in the style of Cameron Slater. So on one level I'd love to see the BSA throw the book at him. But as with the case against Slater, there are deeper principles at stake here.
(1/?)
This week's MediaWatch dived into the online safety debate. Starting about 23 minutes in, after a story about news coverage of Silver Ferns coaching drama, and a roundup of the midweek edition;
https://www.rnz.co.nz/podcast/mediawatch?share=33fb446b-4f18-4f7d-8327-ddd5cf4bf4ab
It's a mixed bag. As with so much commentary on this, our genuine concerns about civil liberties and human rights kind of get lumped in with the self-serving opinions of reputation launderers for DataFarms (including ACT MPs).
(1/?)
A space for Bonfire maintainers and contributors to communicate
