Lo, it was dark times in the Queendom.
The Red Empress had worked her woke magick
and unleashed an army of the night:
her vile necromancy had summoned a legion of zombies
through cost of undead payments.
In that year, many strange and wondrous wizards and elves
strode the Roads of National Significance.
Wizard Leo of Molloy, who poked himself in the eye
with his magic wand;
Wizard/Baron/Air Commodore Luxon, who was digging a giant hole
all the way to the Promised Land;
and Wizard of Trees and Lichens, The Shawrax,
who was running across forest glades
pursued by a buzzing swarm of green unicorn hornets.
But none of these pretenders
could summon the unworldly powers of the Mighty One, Brian. He was known by many names in the lands: Original Gangsta, Elvis Tokoroa, The Profit. His trials had been many. There was the trial from the Auckland domain, then there was the trial from the motorway protest, and lo, the trial for careless driving of a late model SUV chariot with heated seats; for it is written in The Book, the Sacred Butt must be kept cozy during the End Times. But Yahweh Brian heeded not the laws of Rome, for verily, he is a law unto himself. So Brian clambered to the top of the Mount and giveth a sermon to his flock. Lo, he saith: the Great Satan will gag you with freedom muzzles. His flock groaned in horror. Lo, he saith: the Great Satan will provide free public healthcare. His flock gnashed and wailed in despair. Lo, he saith, the Great Satan will disconnecteth my mobile EFTPOS terminals.
His flock trembled in silence at this doom. But just as they prepared to marcheth
on the bazaars and tents of Newmarket,
a great tramping of feet was heard.
Over the horizon came a mighty host
from all corners of the Queendom.
There were pink and green non-binary Unicorns;
there were blue Smurfs from the industrial dairy wastelands;
there were the merchants of Newmarket.
Lo, saith Yahweh Brian in surprise. I have united
the warring tribes of Judah: surely this is a sign
that I am the Official Wi Fi Hotspot of the Almighty.
But the host grew closer and they could be heard
chanting a most curious war cry:
FARC OFF BRIAN! FARC OFF BRIAN!
And they carried cow manure in great buckets;
and grooved to disco music as they came;
and so it was that Yahweh Brian
had a sudden revelation; and rode off
into the sunset on his gold plated Harley in great haste.
Professional firefighters are presently on a limited strike but there has been virtually nothing in the media about this.
Some stats which may surprise many:
Most of the trucks in the fleet are older than 15 years, in some cases as old as 40 years
Frontline firefighters are paid at the lower end only $48000 per year
Many admin staff are Fire NZ are paid more than Frontline firefighters, in many cases significantly more
Managers at Fire NZ are paid the same as their counterparts in Australia yet Frontline firefighters are paid 40% less than their Australian counterparts
Firefighters were offered a 1.75% payrise over 2 years
Except it isn't new at all, its the very same tired old 'get tough on beneficiaries'. 
They want to 'help' young people into work, which would be fine if they'd just do something which really would help, such as perhaps free courses so younger people can learn new skills which may enable them to get a job. 
But claiming young people 'don't want to work' & must be punished if they don't find a job isn't really helpful.
"National leader Christopher Luxon has announced a plan to support unemployed youth into personalised job coaching sessions - or face benefit sanctions - as part of new welfare policy announced at his party's annual conference. "National thinks that if youÔÇÖre young and you can work, you should. And if you canÔÇÖt find a job, you need encouragement to keep taking active steps till you get one," the party leader said.
"To young people who donÔÇÖt want to work: You might have a free ride under Labour, but under National, it ends."
Under the new policy, National said it would offer a $1000 bonus to a person who is under 25, has been on the benefit for 12 months or longer, and who then starts work and stays off the benefit for the next year.
"Those who blatantly do not follow their agreed plan - meaning they donÔÇÖt turn up for courses, donÔÇÖt apply for jobs or donÔÇÖt engage with their jobs coach - will face sanctions."
Speaking to the media, Luxon said implementing the policy could mean reducing MSD's resourcing: "Whatever it takes to get an outcome, we're going to do it. And if that means we're going to be powering down MSD resources and budgets, and redirecting that very strongly into community organisations - we will do that."
That last comment could be taken to mean they'd stop paying a benefit if someone fails to find work; I hope they have more sense than that, if not empathy. It all sounds like their old 'work for the dole' scheme from years ago.
The Green Party's spokesperson for social development, Ricardo Men├®ndez March, said thousands of families will go hungry and cold under National.
"Forcing people into employment, no matter how unsuitable, isn't the answer. Increasing benefit sanctions will simply push people into hardship and criminalise families who need support. And National continues to wilfully ignore the reality that many people on jobseeker benefits have health conditions and already do critical work such as caregiving and in the community."
Men├®ndez March said the Greens are focused on enabling people to fully participate in their communities and meet their aspirations.
"By ensuring people have liveable incomes we ensure they have the opportunities to go into training, to look after their families and pursue education," he said. "The changes the Greens will make will lift people out of poverty and unlock what everyone needs to live a good life. We have a track record of advocating for liveable wages and good working conditions that would help build a fairer, more equitable Aotearoa where everyone has what they need to provide for their families, a roof over their heads, and food on the table."
Sepuloni said young people aren't getting a "free ride" under the current Government - something that Luxon asserted was happening.
"How we view young people is as a group of people that have potential. If they're on welfare and they're in the welfare system, then we want to make sure that they get access to the support that they need to be able to realise that potential," she said.
"Things like 49,000 people getting an apprenticeship boost, over 5000 now in Mana in Mahi, and one-third of the nearly 18,000 on flexi-wage are young people as well. Those are the types of investments that actually help young people get ahead."
Quote:A Curia poll for the Taxpayers Union in July noted a 5.6 per cent drop in support for Luxon as preferred PM, a perilous trajectory for any new Opposition Leader. And just this week, Roy Morgan reported that National fell by 4 points in its most recent survey to 35 per cent, its lowest since January.
Christopher Luxon certainly came out swinging on Wednesday morning's AM show when host Ryan Bridge offered the National Party leader the chance to whack the Government over the bumpy rollout of cost of living
Being leader of the Opposition is widely understood as the most thankless job in politics ÔÇô one that only true political lifers like Phil Goff and Simon Bridges can actually enjoy ÔÇô but a breakfast television hit like this one should really count as something of a walk in the park for anyone who does politics for a living.
But yet again, Luxon stumbled, just as he did in earlier outings with Tova O'Brien, Jack Tame and, as I wrote about in April, Moana Maniapoto.
This time, Bridge was able to interrupt Luxon's somewhat hyperbolic but effective tirade on the Government's ineptitude by asking for clarity around National's plans for health and education spending.
Since deputy leader and finance spokesperson Nicola Willis had called into question Luxon's earlier claims, also during an interview with Bridge, that National would ensure such spending kept pace with inflation, he was ÔÇô quite reasonably and entirely predictably ÔÇô being asked who was right.
Once again, as has become his habit, rather than address the question head on, Luxon resorted to talking points, failing to address the crux of the question he was being asked.
****
In a shorter-form interview, or at a media stand-up, this kind of non-responsive pivot is an effective tactic ÔÇô so well known that media trainers have a term for it: the "block and bridge".
But, in ways that Luxon's advisers must be scrambling to correct, it's not a technique that works when you have one questioner, and when that questioner has the power to decide how long the interview will go, and on what terms. Pretending not to understand a question in order to answer one you were not asked does not cut it when the interviewer gets as many goes as they want at asking it.
And so Bridge, noting an unmistakable whiff of obfuscation, persisted on the spending question until Luxon had no choice but to relent, offering this response:
"I can tell you for many years it will probably be ahead of inflation, some years it might be behind but over the long run we are going to be increasing health and education consistently each and every year that we are in government. So people shouldn't be concerned about that."
Only by putting a bow on it could Luxon make this quote more of a gift to the Labour Party.
In just five words "some years it might be behind", Luxon has conceded a point that every National Party leader before him has bent over backwards to refute as "scaremongering" ÔÇô that, if elected, they will slash spending on schools and hospitals.
Labour was bound to campaign on how National threatens social services ÔÇô they always do ÔÇô but Luxon has injected rocket fuel into those inevitable attacks.
Not for the first time in his tenure, the AM interview offered Luxon an open goal only for him to somehow find the back of his own net.
When I argued in April's column that they may have got it wrong by putting Luxon ahead of Willis, my National Party friends, somewhat understandably, accused me of stirring. He was, after all, still enjoying a generous honeymoon and being heralded in many elite quarters as the PM in waiting.
But when I make the same point to the same people today, there is noticeably less eye-rolling, and a lot more flickers of acknowledgement.
In the months since, the abortion fracas, the Waikiki jaunt, the brittle media performances, have prompted a decline in National's fortunes that no factor other than his increasingly unsteady leadership can explain.
A Curia poll for the Taxpayers Union in July noted a 5.6 per cent drop in support for Luxon as preferred PM, a perilous trajectory for any new Opposition Leader. And just this week, Roy Morgan reported that National fell by 4 points in its most recent survey to 35 per cent, its lowest since January.
Given the stiff economic and public health headwinds facing the Government, National's smarter strategists will see cause for far greater concern than these apparently modest shifts indicate. The party should be soaring in these conditions ÔÇô and surely would be if Luxon was the leader everyone kept saying he was.
The AM interview prompted me once again to ponder this question: at what point will Luxon's CEO credentials and superficial plausibility give way to the recognition he is just not very good at this?
Shane Te Pou (Ngāi Tūhoe) is a commentator, blogger and former Labour party activist.
It seems that some of us are getting more than a little fed up with the McBishop & his antics & have seen to it that their protests will meet with counter protests. Good for them.
All the McBishop's nonsense about 'patriots' & 'freedom fighters' is ludicrous; its extremely unlikely he'd know either one if they jumped up & bit him.
"A counter-protest supporting democracy is planned to go head-to-head with a rally led by Brian Tamaki's Freedoms & Rights Coalition in Auckland this weekend.
Counter protest organiser Mark Graham said it was a spur of the moment decision to show up and "save the nation's democracy".
"The coalition and Brian Tamaki are not calling for freedom and rights, they want things to be done the way they want. That's just selfish. "He is throwing a tantrum because he is not getting what he wants. This is not democratic."
Graham said their group was building in numbers since last night's decision to head to Auckland Domain on Saturday. "It is an important issue for us. We do not like what the coalition is doing, it is just not right. "We hope more people will show up to save our nation's democracy."
The group, led by Destiny Church's Brian Tamaki, are calling Saturday morning's protest a "Kiwi Patriots Day and March". The group claims the upcoming march will be an "opportunity to unite freedom fighters across the North Island and rally the public for the coming events ahead".
Windows 10 2004 or greater required for upgrade CPU Recent cpus from up to 3 years ago eg Intel 8th generation and above... RAM 4 gigabyte (GB). Storage 64 GB or larger storage System firmware UEFI, Secure Boot capable 
┬á ┬á (ÔÇ£LegacyÔÇØ BIOS,┬áalso known as ÔÇ£CSMÔÇØ Mode,┬áis not allowed)┬á
    ( This generally means the HDD/SSD needs a GPT partition table, MBR is a no go) TPM version 2.0 hardware required
TPM
I have had several desktop systems that generally meet the requirements less the TPM chip.  A quick check of the Motherboard found a TPM header that I was able to add one of these cards to meet the requirements https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/ADPGBM0...in-SLB9665
Storage
A couple of the above also had MBR partitioned drives that I tried and tried to convert to GPT but couldn't get this done successfully.
Thus, these needed the drive re-partitioned to GPT and windows reinstalled (backing up data of course)
On the subject of storage I had a client notebook (Acer) that had a weird double sided mSata card configured in a RAID 0.  This refused to complete the upgrade at all...  These should be few and far between...
CPU
Although there is a firm list of supported CPU, and anything older than three years or so is 'unsupported', Microsoft were nice enough to provide a workaround or 'hack' to allow older and unsupported systems to have windows 11 installed.  This is obviously unsupported by Microsoft and presumably comes with no warranty, not that any software Microsoft produce actually does...
This is the legacy that Bloomfield has left us with, mass medication with a poison namely hexafluorosilicic acid in our drinking water, all in a lame effort to "try" and prevent tooth decay in a minor demographic of kids whos uneducated parents think giving their kids soft drinks is good for them.
It aint going to make a scrap of difference how much of this shit they put in the water if these kids keep drinking coke and dont brush their teeth.
And to make things worse, most water filters cant remove it effectively, so those that dont want to drink this in our water have no choice.
This is mass medication which is a breach of our bill of rights. And people are wondering why we are seeing levels of dementia on the rise? Its no wonder.
The outcome should be very interesting, as this will be the first legal ruling where voters have been able to express their views. Confusingly, those voting yes are not saying yes to the right to abortion but the Yes vote affirms that Kansas has no constitutional right to abortion.
 Voting No means keeping the constitution as it is, which means Kansas women do have the right to access an abortion.
"On 2 August, Kansans will vote on whether to alter the language of the state constitution, the first state to vote on such an amendment since the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, abolishing the constitutional right for a woman to have an abortion. If it passes, members of the Republican-controlled state legislature can write laws that make it much harder, if not impossible, for a woman in Kansas to get an abortion.
The ballot is written so that a "yes" vote affirms that "there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion". Voting against the amendment would keep the constitution as-is, meaning that women in the state do have a right to an abortion.
Both sides are supported by powerful figures, and lots of money. Progressive activists are behind in the polls, but they have a fundraising edge. The leaders of an organisation, Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, have reported more than $7.4m in contributions towards their campaign to defeat the amendment. US Senator Elizabeth Warren and other prominent Democrats have endorsed their campaign.
On the other side, the Value Them Both Association (the amendment is referred to as the "Value Them Both Amendment"; in this case, "both" refers to mother and child) has raised more than $6m in contributions.
The lion's share of their money has come from the archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, which is led by Archbishop Joseph Naumann.Churches are tax-exempt in the US, and they are not allowed to get involved in campaigns for political candidates. Yet churches can campaign for a specific issue, such as the referendum on abortion."
