Shit is bad here in Aotearoa NZ. Our centre left Labour govt was ousted in the last election. 40 days later a coalition of chaos was formed with a centre right party, National and two marginal dangerous parties that are further from to right, (NZ First and ACT Party) that got very small portions of the vote.
They have now started destroying all the progressive things that the Labour govt had brought in. The new people want to take the Maori titles out of a lot of our govt departments and shit on any encouragment of people learning Te Reo. They want to have a referendum on whether we should even honour the Treaty between Maori and pakeha.
They are removing the clean air rebate on EVs. The left had an ambitious plan to effectively make it impossible to sell cigarettes to the next generation of kids. Thats on the scrap heap now too. Its a populist shit-fest. Tough on crime BS too. For all the good that the previous govt did, with incredible results during covid, dealing with a mass shooting and a deadly volcanic eruption, its like it never happened.
The new coalition want to repeal the RMA so farmers and businesses can just dump shit into our rivers with no redress. The prime minster is an inexperienced twat who thinks his experience in the business world somehow is relevant to running a country.
One of the coalition party leaders from the NZFirst party is one of the most savvy fucks in NZ politics and will run rings around him. The other eejit wants to ban the Human rights commission and all sorts of other shit that would look out for the less advantaged in our society. Its a real cluster.
Will be interesting to see if they can achieve anything at all before they implode. They are saying they are going to fire masses of govt workers and repeal gun laws, blaming the inflation (that every country in the world is experiencing) on govt over spending.
Our prime minister Jacinda Ardern had to step down, such was the level of misogynistic hate towards her despite her success. It appears that keeping Auckland (where most of our population is) under lock-down for a longer time than the rest of the country was what bit them in the voting booth.
Hugs Jeff. Knew it was gonna get bad but they’ve really hit the ground running… Amazing that voters will shoot themselves in the foot like this for suffering the minor inconvenience of lockdown and no rampant covid.
Yeah, its just shows that a lot of people are just really selfish and DAF about anything except themselves. I don’t think this govt will see full term. By themselves I think most people could live with National, but its the policies from the other two more extreme right parties that have pushed them over the edge. They couldn’t decide on a deputy PM after 40 days of negotiations so the two OTHER parties are doing an 18 month stint each…
Yeah our system is different than yours. I think your is a little like the US one ? We only have one level. All parties vote. If the far right don’t agree with the centre right, then it doesn’t pass, and vice versa.
I think the issue for QLD was that the upper house members were appointees a-la UK house of lords rather than elected and were a bunch of stuffed shirts so the problem they were solving was real (everyone else just made the upper house elected).
All up, the history of QLD politics vs. other states isn’t as a shining light of good govt.
So: there is this guy in Minneapolis who is known on various social media sites as “MPLS Bike Wrath.” He is one of those guys who rides around with cameras and relishes getting in arguments and screaming matches with every car driver he feels wrongs him in some way. Here is his YouTube if you want a taste: https://www.youtube.com/@MPLSBikeWrath
Anyways – I was eating lunch the other day, looking out of the front windows at Lyndale, a busy MPLS street. Some guy on a bike is riding past and caught my attention immediately: very flashy pink-oriented custom painted bike, matching jacket, matching motorcycle-style helmet festooned with multiple go-pros.
Clown biker rides past slowly, then awkwardly runs a red light, cuts off a car, honking, swerving, typical dipshit biker who thinks he’s (it’s always a man) hot shit cycling fuckup extravaganza. But for some reason I asked myself, “I wonder if that is the elusive MPLS Bike wrath? it’s gotta be.”
and so I stalked the guy’s Facebook and yeah, he’s got a “selfie” of him in that stupid helmet. I don’t really care about cyclists who do that dumb shit, but to be the kind of person to seemingly devote a huge chunk of his life to petty arguments with motorists, you’d think he be, you know, good at riding bikes.
Can’t say that I’m a big fan of this large group of people on gas powered dirt bikes and four wheelers tearing ass around the CX course on Cricket Hill and on the jogging path of the socket field adjacent.
Can’t see much in my bad pictures.
paywalled but wayback machine works for the text. I don’t know how I feel about calling out Portland for homeless pedestrian deaths; my experience here is that cohort is both physically endangered by camp proximity to roadways and also behaves largely oblivious to hazards whether through mental health challenges or being under the influence of substances. it’s not unusual to encounter someone staggering in the street where no lucid, rational person would be.
of course many people here only wear dark colours and combined with our poor street lighting and bad visibility conditions even a fully conscious pedestrian is likely to overestimate their visibility to other road users
