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Junk Science And Bad Policing: The Homicide Prediction Project
Friday, 11 April 2025, 12:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in identifying a form of predictive criminality perpetuates similar sins. The trend towards data heavy systems that supposedly offer insight into inherent, potential criminality has captured police departments ... More >>
True Abundance
Friday, 11 April 2025, 7:23 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
True abundance is wholly an inward phenomenon. And while one can physically live without it, as the vast majority of Americans have for decades, if not our entire history as a colonising and westward expanding nation, one cannot inwardly survive ... More >>
Netanyahu’s Shin Bet Scandal: Who Holds The Power?
Thursday, 10 April 2025, 6:12 pm | Ramzy Baroud
This chaotic decision-making process helps explain the deep lack of trust Israelis have in their leadership. Recent public opinion polls show that a significant percentage of Israelis lack faith in their government and are calling for new elections or Netanyahu’s ... More >>
Rational Expectations, Intelligence, And War
Thursday, 10 April 2025, 4:23 pm | Keith Rankin
It is through our ManualI – our manual override, our consciousness, our awareness – that we have the opportunity to make rational valuations which incorporate morality. Our AutoI, while rational in its own terms, is also amoral. Our automatic benefit-cost ... More >>
On Marketing The Military Threat Posed By China
Thursday, 10 April 2025, 1:30 pm | Gordon Campbell
Gosh, we had to wait years for this flimsy Defence Capability Plan (DCP), only to get a 25 page document filled with back-of-the-envelope costings meant to justify a gigantic $12 billion spending spree of public money over the next four years. More >>
Dunne's Weekly: Is Andrew Little Wellington's Mayor-In-Waiting?
Thursday, 10 April 2025, 9:59 am | Peter Dunne
Andrew Little was regarded in national politics as a reasonable, competent safe pair of hands, although sometimes his passion got the better of him, causing the National-led Government to label him "Angry Andy" after one of his not infrequent outbursts in ... More >>
Killing Paramedics: Israel’s War On Palestinian Health
Wednesday, 9 April 2025, 12:32 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Since October 7, 2023, the death toll of health workers in the Gaza Strip has been impressively grim, reaching 1,060. Health facilities have been destroyed, with hundreds of attacks launched on health services. More >>
On Peter Dutton’s Fading Election Prospects.
Tuesday, 8 April 2025, 1:11 pm | Gordon Campbell
Since Australia is now our only dependable defence ally, maybe we should be paying attention to their upcoming election. Thanks entirely to Donald Trump, this is a very, very good time for those in power to be holding an election. More >>
Withdrawal Symptoms: Hungary, Europe And The International Criminal Court
Tuesday, 8 April 2025, 11:29 am | Binoy Kampmark
On the arrival of the Israeli leader for a four-day visit, there was a conspicuous absence of any law officer or police official willing to discharge the duties of the Rome Statute. The reception for Netanyahu featured a welcoming ceremony at the ... More >>
The Dalai Lama's Escape & CIA Money
Monday, 7 April 2025, 2:08 pm | Richard S. Ehrlich
The unprecedented event may irk Beijing which began invading Tibet in 1951 and denounces the Dalai Lama as subversive. More >>
No Silver Lining, Just An Opening
Monday, 7 April 2025, 10:32 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The evils being perpetrated by the Trump Administration did not begin with Trump and won’t end with him. We have to understand just what this malevolence is, where it comes from, and what its goals are. More >>
Breaking The Silence On Palestinian Armed Struggle: A Call For Legal Clarity
Monday, 7 April 2025, 10:28 am | Ramzy Baroud
The history of Palestinian resistance is not a history of armed resistance, per se. The latter is a mere manifestation of a long history of popular resistance that reaches all aspects of societal expression, ranging from culture, spirituality, civil disobedience, ... More >>
Trump Tariffs Island Without People
Monday, 7 April 2025, 8:44 am | Adrian Maidment
Adrian Maidment cartoon More >>
Addressing Hate Speech And Incitement: Holding Meta Accountable In Africa
Sunday, 6 April 2025, 1:54 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It is yet another example of holding the conduct of tech behemoths to account for the convulsive information ecosystem they have so blithely created and exploited. More >>
Closed For Business: The Oddities Of Trump’s Tariffs
Friday, 4 April 2025, 1:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
A baseline tariff of 10% was applied on goods imported by the US. Countries were then singled out for being particularly mischievous, in the eyes of the administration, not so much for having their own tariffs on US goods and products so much as having ... More >>
Teach Children The Distinction Between The World And Nature
Friday, 4 April 2025, 11:42 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Perhaps the most important distinction we can teach children, which most adults lose sight of as they grow older, is the difference between nature and the world. The world is the man-made reality, the manifestation of the human mind, whereas obviously ... More >>
On The Clash Between Auckland Airport And Air New Zealand
Thursday, 3 April 2025, 10:45 am | Gordon Campbell
With one notable exception, the Commerce Commission’s comprehensive investigation has ended up endorsing every other aspect of the airport’s building programme (and its pricing/charging decisions) as “reasonable” and /or “acceptable” within ... More >>
Civil War On The Horizon? The Ashkenazi-Sephardic Conflict And Israel’s Future
Thursday, 3 April 2025, 10:32 am | Ramzy Baroud
The battle in Israel has preceded the Israeli genocide in Gaza. It largely began when Netanyahu rebelled against the Supreme Court and attempted to fire former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant in March 2023. Mass protests in Israel that followed highlighted ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: While We're Breaking Up Monoliths, What About MBIE?
Thursday, 3 April 2025, 8:06 am | Peter Dunne
To ensure New Zealand does not become a backwater for international sporting and related events, the government ought to establish a stand-alone independent specialist agency to work on both securing such events for New Zealand and the public and private ... More >>
Revisiting Universalism
Wednesday, 2 April 2025, 7:35 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses the role of universalism in the provision of public services and benefits in New Zealand in the context of a challenging published critique. More >>
Supermarket Signs
Wednesday, 2 April 2025, 2:38 pm | Adrian Maidment
Adrian Maidment cartoon More >>
For The Love Of Landmines: European States Exit The Ottawa Convention
Wednesday, 2 April 2025, 1:37 pm | Binoy Kampmark
With the vibrant war chat that has gripped European capitals, the stockpiling and use of landmines is now being revisited as a genuine possibility. In its 2023 Landmine Monitor report, Human Rights Watch found that the active remnants of landmines killed ... More >>
In A Global Society, There Is No Such Thing As “National Security”
Wednesday, 2 April 2025, 10:04 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
Global citizens are facing the imminent complete collapse of the international order. But people can be psychologically and philosophically prepared to change course and create a true global order during the short window of opportunity after the bombs ... More >>
On The Government’s Latest Ferries Scam
Tuesday, 1 April 2025, 1:47 pm | Gordon Campbell
Has Winston Peters got a ferries deal for you! One of the contract bidders, South Korea’s vast Hyundai-Mipo Dockyard (HMD) held the initial contract for Labour’s iRex ferries, and this has to give HDM a unique ability to dictate the terms of where ... More >>
Secrecy And Virtue Signalling: Another View Of Signalgate
Tuesday, 1 April 2025, 1:26 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Other countries, notably members of the Five Eyes alliance system, are also voicing concern that their valuable secrets are at risk if shared with the Trump administration. Again, the focus there is less on the accountability of officials than the cast iron ... More >>
Trumpian Health Leadership
Monday, 31 March 2025, 10:54 am | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses the implications of the decision of Health New Zealand to restrict the relative independence of medical officers of health and the wider ramifications for health professionals. More >>
Disruption: Historians Challenge Russophobic Propaganda
Saturday, 29 March 2025, 6:07 pm | Eugene Doyle
The courage to oppose a dominant discourse comes at a price. Powerful forces are pressing in on academics and others who dare to express alternative views. Staying silent or parroting the party line is the safer option. More >>
War, Doublethink, And The Struggle For Survival: Geopolitics Of The Gaza Genocide
Saturday, 29 March 2025, 4:51 pm | Ramzy Baroud
The Arab world must escalate beyond mere statements, or the Middle East may endure further war, all to prolong Netanyahu’s coalition of extremists a little longer. More >>
Authoritarian Politics: Netanyahu’s War On Israeli Institutions
Friday, 28 March 2025, 1:08 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The convulsions in Israeli politics have been evident from various efforts to stall, if not abandon the legislation altogether. The law changing the judicial appointments committee had received 71,023 filed objections. While it passed 67-1, it only did ... More >>
Hope Is The Prison Of Time
Friday, 28 March 2025, 8:39 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
But that’s only true if hope is the last true thing to perish in a person before they quit on life. The end of hope is then synonymous with hopelessness, and identical with despair. However, ending hope is a completely different thing than hopelessness. More >>
Learning The Correct Lessons From World War Two In Europe
Thursday, 27 March 2025, 5:56 pm | Keith Rankin
While World War Two (WW2) always was a set of intersecting conflicts – with Japan fighting a war of imperialism in East Asia and the Western Pacific – the war in Europe has been cast as the ultimate battle of 'Good' versus 'Evil'. Hence the narrative ... More >>
Arab Failures: The Unspoken Complicity In Israel's Genocide
Thursday, 27 March 2025, 2:14 pm | Ramzy Baroud
The idea that Israel is brutalizing Palestinians simply because the Arabs are too weak to challenge the Benjamin Netanyahu government—or any government—implies that, in theory, Arab regimes could unite around Palestine. However, this view oversimplifies ... More >>
Dunne's Weekly: The "War On Woke" Is Really Just A "War Of Words"
Thursday, 27 March 2025, 9:13 am | Peter Dunne
By claiming the “anti-woke” ground as his own, Peters has stolen an early march on his rivals and thereby probably ensured New Zealand First’s re-election. Peters has always understood better than most that politics is about the acquisition and ... More >>
On The Americanising Of NZ’s Public Health System
Wednesday, 26 March 2025, 1:48 pm | Gordon Campbell
One of the odd aspects of the government's plan to Americanise the public health system – i.e by making healthcare access more reliant on user pay charges and private health insurance – is that it is happening in plain sight. More >>
An Inconvenient Truth Revisited
Wednesday, 26 March 2025, 1:42 pm | Howard Davis
We'll become increasingly plasticised, with no further need for FitBits, laptops, or cell phones, as we’ll all have neurochips implanted in our brains that literarily ‘hook’ us up to the virtual reality of the Metaverse of AI, thanks to the ‘genius’ ... More >>
Trump’s Star Wars Revival: The Golden Dome Antimissile Fantasy
Wednesday, 26 March 2025, 1:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The original SDI was heavy on the intended development and use of energy weapons, lasers being foremost among them. But even after four decades, US technological prowess remains unable to deploy such weapons of sufficient power and accuracy to eliminate ... More >>
Technology And Human Nature
Tuesday, 25 March 2025, 10:20 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
It’s self-evident that social media couldn’t maximize and manipulate “the worst passions” unless they were already present within us. Which is to say, unless they were a core aspect of human nature. More >>
Reclaiming The Narrative: Why Palestinians Must Own The Means Of Content Production
Monday, 24 March 2025, 7:05 pm | Ramzy Baroud
People’s history is an urgent necessity, especially in contexts like Palestine, where it is vital to communicate the empowered voices of the people to the rest of the world. More >>
On Israel’s Murderous Relapse, And Peters’ Sad Decline
Monday, 24 March 2025, 1:26 pm | Gordon Campbell
Israel has reverted to slaughtering civilians, starving children and welshing on the terms of the peace deal negotiated earlier this year. The IDF’s current offensive seems to be intended to render Gaza unlivable, preparatory (perhaps) to re-occupation ... More >>
Kirsty Coventry, Rebranding And The IOC
Monday, 24 March 2025, 12:05 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Little was given away on the more environmental or ecological aspect of the Games, which persist in altering local landscapes, redirecting and using valuable resources, and causing social disruption and hardships to local populations. More >>
Trump Evil Good & Look In The Mirror
Monday, 24 March 2025, 8:04 am | Adrian Maidment
Adrian Maidment cartoon More >>
A Devastating Critique; But There’s Always A But!
Saturday, 22 March 2025, 3:00 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses an economist’s critique of Health Minister Simeon Brown’s recent major health announcement. More >>
Careless People, Meta And Restricting The Digital Town Square
Saturday, 22 March 2025, 2:52 pm | Binoy Kampmark
While Meta has suppressed and will prevent discussion of the book on its platforms, it is cheering to authentic defenders of the town square that discussion about such companies takes place. Their mighty, unprincipled dominance necessitates that. More >>
Shifting Allegiances: The Role Of Palestine In US Domestic And Foreign Policy
Friday, 21 March 2025, 2:28 pm | Ramzy Baroud
Americans are increasingly viewing the situation in Palestine as a human rights issue, and one that is deeply relevant to domestic politics. Unlike Biden, whose support for Israel has been consistent, Trump’s stance has been confusing and contradictory. More >>
Back To Tried Failures: The New Offensive On Gaza
Friday, 21 March 2025, 1:10 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Israel and the United States have justified the resumption of hostilities on Hamas’ reluctance to release more hostages prior to commencing negotiations on ending the war. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has always been lukewarm to any notion of a durable ... More >>
Donald Trump's Views On The World Trading-system
Friday, 21 March 2025, 11:28 am | Keith Rankin
There is a name for Donald Trump's understanding of international trade: 'mercantilism'. While he is an unreconstructed mercantilist, in some ways the deeper 'reconstructed' mercantilism of miserly politicians like Angela Merkel and Olaf Scholz – and of ... More >>
On Winston Peters’ Bad Trip, And The Return Of The PPPs Zombie
Thursday, 20 March 2025, 11:15 am | Gordon Campbell
The epic importance of Winston Peters’ talks in Washington this week doesn’t seem to have culminated in anything more than us expressing our “concern” to the Americans about a series of issues that are already done and dusted. Tariffs? More >>
Dunne's Weekly: ACC Rules On Volunteers Need To Change
Thursday, 20 March 2025, 8:27 am | Peter Dunne
The only ACC Minister to show any real interest in and understanding of the issue was Matt Doocey, who was, unfortunately, reshuffled out of the portfolio earlier this year. His successors are yet to show their interest. More >>
The Trauma Will Be Instagrammed: Wombat Handlings Down Under
Wednesday, 19 March 2025, 1:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The response to Jones in Australia proved heated. A petition seeking deportation was launched, receiving over 40,000 signatures. The Wombat Protection Society expressed shock at the “mishandling of a wombat joey in an apparent snatch for ‘social ... More >>
Geopolitical Fractures, And Untidy Yet Workable Solutions
Tuesday, 18 March 2025, 4:01 pm | Keith Rankin
At present, it would seem, the United States of America, which sees itself as the world's preeminent geopolitical player, is impatient for conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine to end, so that it can get on with its 'game of choice', namely the 'new ... More >>
On Luxon’s Survival Chances, And The India FTA
Tuesday, 18 March 2025, 11:12 am | Gordon Campbell
Whenever Christopher Luxon drops a classically fatuous clanger or whenever the government has a bad poll – i.e. every week – the talk resumes that he is about to be rolled. This is unlikely for several reasons. For starters, there is no successor. More >>
Road Cone Final Exam & Donald, I Warned You!
Monday, 17 March 2025, 7:10 pm | Adrian Maidment
Adrian Maidment Cartoons More >>
The Script Of Anxiety: Poland’s Nuclear Weapons Fascination
Monday, 17 March 2025, 1:15 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Poland would receive collective military aid in any case should it be attacked. But, as Jon Wolfsthal of the Federation of American Scientists reasons, an innate concern of being abandoned in the face of aggression continues to cause jitters. More >>
Regarding Randomness And Significance
Monday, 17 March 2025, 11:07 am | Martin LeFevre - Meditations
The Earth, if one sets aside one’s knowledge and experience and looks afresh at nature every day, is endlessly wondrous. Out of the approximately 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, nearly all with planets circling them, how many life-bearing planets ... More >>
Beyond Western Hegemony: A Call For Middle Eastern Media Autonomy
Monday, 17 March 2025, 9:53 am | Ramzy Baroud
The problem is often compounded by the near complete absence of voices from the Global South, as if Middle Eastern media are simply duplicating the western media marginalization of all voices that operate outside their political hegemony. More >>
When Apartheid Met Zionism
Saturday, 15 March 2025, 6:42 pm | Ian Powell
Ian Powell discusses, in a New Zealand context, what happens when apartheid meets Zionism. More >>
Sporting Contradictions: Athletes, The Olympics And Climate Change
Saturday, 15 March 2025, 5:06 pm | Binoy Kampmark
If care of the planet is what these athletes sincerely want, a swift abolition of the Olympics, along with a virtuous cancellation of the IOC, would achieve their goals. Why wait for extreme weather to either modify or even do away with the games ... More >>
Militarising Europe: The EU Defence Spending Bug
Friday, 14 March 2025, 1:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The March 6 meeting of the Special European Council was a chance for 27 leaders of the European Union to make that point. It was time to cash in on the Russia threat and promote a strategic vision that spoke of elevated dangers. More >>
Brown’s Surgery Puts Health System At Increased Risk
Friday, 14 March 2025, 8:39 am | Ian Powell
Ian Powell delves upon Health Minister’s major announcement last week with a particular emphasis on the risks and realities of outsourcing non-acute surgery. More >>
