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notices and features - Date published:
6:00 am, December 18th, 2025 - 27 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Fair enough.
Don't want to deflate your high, but I listened to the RNZ news @ 9pm; they had around a dozen stories and this poll result was not one of them!
Okay, could be that nobody in their newsroom tonight has been paying attention to other news media. Somewhat unprofessional, if not clueless.
Could be a Deep State Agent has taken control, and has ordered that the result is to be ignored by State Media. If so, he may not be wearing a Deep State Agent logo on his uniform, of course. Some folks are just not retro.
[1. RNZ have a piece about it on their website.
2. RNZ are routinely low activity in the evenings with current events
3. The poll is from a MSM rival, it’s probably not on their top priority list
4. you can’t promote conspiracy theories here. Take this as a warning.
– weka]
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
mod note.
you can’t promote conspiracy theories here
I was satirising it, but I accept that readers won't necessarily see that. I appreciate not being banned, but I may have to ban myself for a while to embed the deterrent.
Why? 1. Elderly folk have terrible short-term memory performance (they drift on a flow of habitual stances). 2. Conspiracy theories drive much of politics globally nowadays, so any political commenter will want to swim in that sea.
As usual, I have no real problem with your rationale. The only other point worth making is that it is human nature to wonder about possibilities – particularly in situations where more than facts are at play. Consequently, I was alerting MS & readers to the most salient possibility. Consciousness-raising.
There's a more subtle point to that, too. AI may display a tendency to reflect bodies of human opinion in ratio to programmer input. Consequently any verdict it renders on political stuff is likely to provide a measure of that. Since around half of folks in western countries take conspiracy theories seriously nowadays, we ought to expect AI to do so too. Things have not yet gelled on that front sufficiently to give us a reliable take on how well design caters for this dimension of humanity.
I suggest you just make your satire more clear in that case. You're not the only one that applies to.
that needs a citation. Maybe you are being rhetorical, but how would we know. Precision matters. If I as a mod have to sit here and wonder what you mean too much, that's a problem.
Definitely want a credible citation for why we ought to expect that. Or what you even mean. You seem to be implying more capacity to AI than it has. If you mean AI can be manipulated, yes it can, but critical thinking still works.
The problem here is you making claims of fact when they are actually opinions. We all do it at times, but it's harder to make sense of yours.
I didn't understand the relevance of elderly people's memory, but would add that since covid, lots of people have shit memory. Taking notes helps. I'd also suggest posting less number of comments, and putting more into the ones you do make. Again, you're not the only person that's applied too. It does help.
Yeah, my half was based on poor memory, so here's the AI composite view from Google:
This from a polling org:
This one does state comparisons: https://yougov.co.uk/international/articles/33746-global-where-believe-conspiracy-theories-true
State media has always defined reality for kiwis, so their political policy, defined by what they report as news, signifies Aotearoa's control system. RNZ's news bulletin at 7.30am failed to report the significant jump in Labour support in yesterday's poll that RNZ reported on their website. So we're supposed to take it as too insigificant to dwell on.
Well, sheeple is as sheeple does. Anyone surprised?
I am. It ain't like Deep State Agents to be so out there, doing their thing. Waving a stern finger at Labour being audacious seems a tad 19th century, but we are still neocolonial so no surprise there.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/first-up/audio/2019017417/labour-mp-duncan-webb-on-latest-poll-gun-reform
In other RNZ ‘news’ [careful now RNZ]:
I know I’m dreaming, but how about those expensive boot camps next.
I know I’m dreaming, but how about those expensive boot camps next.
Never. Boot camps are for punishment, and we know how big the Right are on punishment, especially for those at the bottom of the heap. They will spend more money on punishing (read: more prisons) rather than fixing the societal problems that directly lead to offending. Societal problems often directly caused by their policies.
Why the NZ media silence on Trump's illegal and lying statement on blockading Venezuela and his veiled threats to attack the country, and steal its oil and resources?
My guess is that they see it as a matter of competitive framing:
Capitalising the label is meant to make it even more official, to impress voters who are into capitals. Not just capitalism, though, also imperialism, to revive imperialist foreign policy as another way of impressing voters.
RNZ has reported on this, so it’s not really accurate to call it “media silence.”
On the substance: yes, a blockade of “sanctioned” tankers is a serious escalation. But it’s overly simplistic to say U.S. policy toward the Maduro regime is driven solely by a desire to access Venezuelan oil.
First, the U.S. is now broadly a net exporter of petroleum on balance (even though it still imports some crude for refinery/logistics reasons). It’s not in the same position as the 2000s where “we need their oil” was a straightforward explanation.
It's capable of supplying its own domestic needs, even though it’s still exposed to global price shocks.
Second, the more consistent through-line in Trump-era Venezuela policy has been political coercion and regime change. Seeking to squeeze the Maduro regime through sanctions and economic leverage, without risking a repeat of the open-ended entanglements of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Trump’s foreign policy brand is a paradox: willing to threaten, and at times us, force on one hand. But reluctant to commit to large-scale, expensive, and unpopular “forever wars” on the other.
That tension arguably reflects the mood within MAGA as much as Trump’s own instincts: perform strength, avoid open-ended deployments and nation-building.
In any case, the oil matters here less as a resource to loot and more as the economic lifeline of a broken and despotic regime: one that can be deliberately disrupted to pressure elites and undermine Maduro’s legitimacy.
So, call it reckless, escalatory, and legally dubious if you want. That has the great value of being true.
But “they’re doing it to steal Venezuela’s oil” reads more like a slogan than a serious account of what’s driving the policy.
Petroleum politics is so 2004.
Venezuela and Canada have heavy crude. Most of the USA's fracked oil is light crude. America's refineries are mostly set up for heavy crude. MSNOW had a feature on it a couple of nights ago.
Thanks.
I must have still been putting my post below together when you posted this.
Clearly the latest statement by Trump has been a worrying escalation, and regime change does seem to be a significant part of that. Trump seems to be going for control of the Americas from Canada on south.
The US govt has long been keen on replacing Sth American govts with ones keen to do the US bidding.
It also sounds like oil is a significant thing for Trump, including control over where Venezuela exports oil to, but also the US import of some crude from Venezuela.
Politico has an article that says Trump has been asking US oil companies to return to Venezuela and revive what is a dwindling and poorly resourced industry there, but is not getting any takers at the moment for various reasons. The article says there's a "latent" interest in the US companies returning to Venezuela.
At the same time, restricting oil exports from Venezuela will help to get Maduro out of office.
The UK Independent has an article that says the US does want access to Venezuelan crude oil which requires advanced technology to extract, and
The article also says the US govt wants to stop Venezuela exporting oil to China. Plus, though Maduro seems to have come to power fraudulently, the main issue for the US (as always re Sth America) is that, as the Independent article says:
On the contary, one can never have too much oil:
Or:
Or:
https://the307.substack.com/p/trump-announces-siege-warfare-on?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
And on the subject of María Corina Machado, the tirelessly brave Julian Assange seems ready for more action. He
Nobels will is binding under Swedish law and the peace prize can not be used to promote war. Some of the more egregious statements by Machado include:
https://the307.substack.com/p/julian-assange-launches-criminal?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=400703&post_id=181891172&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=b9n9c&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
This is a person just begging for the country she calls home to be invaded along with all the blood spilling that will entail.
Lastly, a naval blockade with no declaration of war is considered in the same basket as an actual invasion and can be prosecuted as a crime of aggresion.
“It is international law 101 that a military blockade is not just a violation of the UN Charter, but a crime of aggression.
Unless that blockade is in response to an ‘armed attack.’
None of President’s Trump’s list of complaints come close to an armed attack.”
https://x.com/rgoodlaw/status/2001086748642668865
Machado is literally fully supporting and encouraging the US to commit war crimes in her country
I’m not remotely supportive of Trump’s Venezuela posture. The current policy is reckless, escalatory, and legally fraught.
But if we’re going to be serious about analysing the situation, we should acknowledge that foreign policy is almost never monocausal. States act from a bundle of incentives: domestic politics, coercive diplomacy, sanctions enforcement, regional signalling, and strategic competition, alongside economic interests like oil.
At the same time, we don’t need to romanticise Maduro in order to criticise Trump. His regime is, at best, legally dubious, politically repressive, and economically catastrophic. It’s hard to argue Venezuelans, or the region, are better off with it remaining in place.
The key point for me is this: it’s entirely possible to oppose Trump’s escalation and want Venezuela to have a democratic transition, without pretending either (a US coercion campaign or an entrenched authoritarian regime) is the “good” side. And without treating the word imperialism as a substitute for context, mechanism, or evidence.
Perhaps you're wrong and what is needed more for proper analysis, is to stop demonising the heads of state that you wish to "regime change". Anyone believing that Netanyahuu is making all the right choices has serious problems not to mention her obsequious desire to please Trump.
On the economic front, I think you underestimate the ability of the US to strangle an economy simply by applying its hegemonic control over all finance relating to $US world reserve currency. Currently, only one nation has survived complete denial of access to the $US system.
We are being sold the exact same bullshit that was sold before Libya and before Iraq and the result is many orders of magnitude greater than any evil you would care to hang on Maduro. Sadly, it is not possible to look at the result and go oh man thats bad and return to what you had. If you cant see that a genocide supporter (Machado) would not hesitate to unleash hell against those dirty iindigenous commumities that stood in her way then I don't know what else to say. But shes just another Seymour type that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing
I’m not “demonising” Maduro. I’m describing the regime in fairly standard terms: authoritarian, repressive, and economically catastrophic. Which is not exactly a controversial characterisation in mainstream comparative politics or IR.
If you put aside (for a moment) the very real concerns about US hegemony and its awful track record on externally driven regime change, there is still a pretty airtight case that some kind of political transition is necessary. The status quo is producing an ongoing economic and humanitarian disaster.
But that is not the same thing as saying there’s a case for US coercion, let alone military escalation. A desirable outcome does not automatically make every means of achieving it morally, legally, or strategically acceptable.
This is foreign policy: you rarely get good options, only trade-offs. States typically choose the least bad course, or the one that advances core interests at the lowest acceptable cost.
And at the end of the day, being opposed to US hegemony doesn't give you a free pass on arresting and torturing your opponents, presiding over systemic corruption, or overseeing a prolonged collapse that leaves millions facing food insecurity and unreliable access to basic services like electricity and safe water.
US policy is now officially non interference in domestic affairs, unless it determines on having cause – leadership of NATO (as white race nation identity authoritarian, rather than the free democratic world), the MIC sales front, imperial dictator on bi-lateral trade arrangements and as the America's hegemon.
Nations do not go from the end of USAID to concern for the people of Venezuela with any credibility.
The use of sanctions in the interest of the US oil industry is the driver.
The exercise of military blockade power is the follow up.
The motive is greed (Canadian and Greenland oil/gas assets).
RNZ has a reprint of an AFP (Agence France-Presse?) article on the "US oil blockade of Venezuela" that is pretty tame and avoids the details of what Trump's statement includes.
RNZ/AFP:
Trump's statement on Truth Social, accuses Venezuela of stealing USA's oil, land and other assets and wants them returned. This clearly makes oil the key thing Trump wants. the statement goes on to say that Venezuela uses the "stolen oil" to fund "Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping."
Actually, as I understand it, US oil companies were profiteering by extracting Venezuelan oil, and the Venezuelan govt, cancelled the contract and nationalised the oil for the country's benefit. The whole drug stuff is a spurious claim as the main illegal drug trafficking comes from the likes of Venezuela.
The AFP article does make it clear that Trump wants to force regime change in Venezuela.
Apparently international law is complex on foreign imposition of regime change. The UN Charter supports a country's sovereignty without foreign interference or threats. but some argue there are times when it's acceptable eg for humanitarian reasons or human rights abuses. However, it does happen & generally it's thought it requires the authorisation of the UN Security Council.
A few months back the Nobel Peace Prize went to the Opposition leader in Venezuela for her defence of democracy.
She wants to restore American control of the nations oil industry (end sanctions).
It would appear a cunning plan to have POTUS 47 focus on the Americas and US support for regime change in Venezuela, rather than pressuring Ukraine, to win his peace prize.
The "narco-terrorist" state claim is risible. The two states with the drug cartels are Mexico and Columbia (most drugs go into the USA via Mexico). It seems a reprise of claims made about Iraq (another socialist state with oil sanctions imposed on it). The desired goal being to end sanctions on the states oil but only after a regime change. The language used is to legitimise action to that end using the US military.
1976
2007
2025
The Vanity Fair interview with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is extraordinary.
For those who do not know Wiles, she is probably the most important person in the Trump administration not named Trump. A long-time Republican political operative, Wiles was taken onboard during Trump’s first election campaign when she was his Florida chair (a rather important position considering the crucial weight of Florida’s electoral votes). Wiles stayed very close since and helped Trump win election again in 2024. She was then immediately made Chief of Staff. She runs the Trump White House, so anything she says is worthy of the closest Kremlinology.
There are lots of interesting stuff. JD Vance has been a conspiracy theorist for a decade. Musk post some of his craziest stuff "when he’s microdosing.” She referred to Health and Human Services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr as another world-class disrupter, as “my Bobby” and “quirky Bobby.” indicating his anti-vax lunacy is respected in the White House. Trump has floated a Vance-Rubio GOP presidential ticket in 2028, clearly his preference. On Ukraine she says “Donald Trump thinks he (Putin) wants the whole country” – which begs the question, is Trump happy to help Putin?
So much to digest.
Here are the links:
https://archive.is/79tgs Part 1
https://archive.is/wDiHj Part 2.
As far as trends go, being crazy has been cool since forever, and microdosing is so widespread it seems to be mainstreaming…
Vanity is fair at the top of politics, so her choice of media was spot on. Media capitalises on sensational stuff so narcissists are happy to provide it. Demand meets supply in the classic prescription. Harry's combination of warfare and tripping recycled Vietnam War soldier ethos precisely, made a man out of him with sufficient strength and clarity to know what his dad & bro were doing wrong and provide a positive role model instead.
Her commentary (have only read reported highlights) seems nicely forthright. The publisher's spin elicited a stroppy reaction from her but no big deal…
Anyone thinking of eating paua fritters from a local fish & chip shop should think again.
According to Youtube reports, paua is poached in huge amounts around NZ coasts (500 tons pa) and the black market is valued at $36 million.
If the retailer has bought black market paua, consumers can have no confidence the shellfish (or other fish) has been stored properly before it reaches the shop, and it may be a significant health risk.
Australia is enacting hate speech legislation, including the antisemitism's envoy's July report.
The political right wing, here and in Oz will make no criticism, because it is couched as part of antisemitism action.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgmneem1e89o
The USA has criticised Australian censorship of free speech since Albanese became PM, but has similar laws there on antisemitism – (IHRA definition and Jewish safety on campus).
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/16/labor-fast-tracking-response-antisemitism-envoy-report-bondi-attack-jillian-segal-what-are-the-recommendations-explainer-ntwnfb
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/582219/high-court-orders-corrections-boss-to-obey-law-allowing-prisoners-one-hour-out-of-cell
A surname for a prison governor – Lightfoot? And he has been heavy footed according to the UN rules on decent human treatment. And he is wearing what looks like a police uniform although a CEO of prisons which are a private enterprise. One that has raw material manufactured by our disgraceful governments.
Politicians are ultimately responsible for this semi-torture. They lock up ordinary people who have broken the law, for doing similar things to unreasonable things similar to what they do, hurtful but not involving personal violence from themselves. But the system is dynamic, which implies that change may be occuring. I should cocoa! That means something unlike the promises and reports and excuses that come from these dictators in our society.
Commissioner of custodial services, Leigh Marsh, said they had been working to meet the court's order. "We've been doing work in that environment to ensure that we are able to dynamically increase the staff, so I've increased the base number of staff in there immediately, to reduce the risk of the inability to do simultaneous unlocks," he said.
What a hoax this government is and if we don't wake up to the fact we will have proved that dumb people as we Kiwis seem to be, will never catch on. So the vicious pollies are home and hosed as the saying went.
https://youtu.be/7wtfhZwyrcc?si=u7P2y_D2AX7Ou13T
https://youtu.be/fKopy74weus?si=2So0sbLQtJlWgebb
https://youtu.be/CevxZvSJLk8?si=JvR3MeBm35wxFv-j
Hi everyone Eco maori here .
[comment deleted]
Hi Eco, the comments aren’t the right fit for TS and we won’t be letting through any more. Hope you can find somewhere that’s a better match. All the best for the summer season.