I’m always fascinated by how the media portrays our descent into fascism under this govt. It’s just a cute summer break with a person with eccentric things not importing an economic vandalism playbook noooooo of course not.

The human face of science funding cuts - Expert Reaction - Science Media Centre Kiwi scientists share how funding cuts have impacted their research and careers, in a new report from the Save Science Coalition. Many of the profiled researchers have been made redundant or have moved...

The human face of science funding cuts – Expert Reaction

rip to all the people excommunicated by the pope for their heresy but im different. and better. maybe even better than the pope

'I haven’t encountered any students who think they're learning when they let LLMs do their work, despite the face that college administrators and LLM advertising try to put on this. It's just workload management to them.'

Cuba's unending embargo Cuba has been under US trade sanctions since 1962 - University of Canterbury lecturer Josephine Varghese and Ambassador Luis Morejon Rodriguez talk to Kadambari Raghukumar about it in this Here Now episode.

Cuba's unending embargo

Oof. We ok with this? Because we do have a choice. Govt balance sheet could absorb the short-term blow to avoid the scarring from those 130,000 humans losing their jobs & the inflation that will amplify the damage. Instead, the Govt says the pain of marginally higher interest rates is worse.

We are a deeply unserious country

Everyone should be allowed to yell at Winston Peters in their spare time.

Haven't had time to do the graph yet (will get it done before the end of the month) but FYI, here are the amounts tax-free PhD stipends in AoNZ need to be to match or exceed the...

Minimum wage: NZ$41838
Living wage (as of September): NZ$50745
Training wage: $33793

this goes hard as fuck

The emotional foundations of Fascism. (from Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism)

Peters has previously said his party's bill would be "a win for common sense". "This bill would ensure our country moves away from the woke ideology that has crept in over the last few years, undermining the protection, progression, and safety of women." NZ First wants to see “women” defined in law as an “adult human biological female” and “man” defined as an “adult human biological male”. Peters added: “These definitions in law fight back against the cancerous social engineering we’ve seen being pushed in society by a woke minority. "The need for legislation like this shows how far the deluded left has taken us as a society. But we are fighting back."

winston peters is describing trans people existing as a "cancerous". fascism (for what else is this "social engineering" but an extant people expecting the same protections as everyone else?)
a disgusting transposition, when he is the one proposing to legislatively engineer our civil rights away

This is such a short-sighted and narrow perspective on the worth of science & research (literally "what can the market not provide?") and only allocates it based on near immediate direct monetisation assessments.

It takes an already underfunded research area and shuffles the deck chairs.

Column in The Post OIL CRISIS Henry Cooke As the Government firms up its "National Fuel Plan" there is debate underway between those who see a big role for the Government in rationing fuel, and those who think it should stay out of the way and let high prices do the work. Finance Minister Nicola Willis addressed this debate yesterday, saying she was doing all she could to avoid the "communism" of the Government deciding who got fuel and who didn't - and that price would still have a major role at any phase.

This might help explain why this lot are so bad at their job: they think that actually governing would be “communism”.

Trying desperately not to take the lack of funding for social and critical sciences personally 😮‍💨

The report says that "Small Advanced Economies" allocate 13% of research funding to society, education, politics etc. NZ allocates 3% and the PMSITAC recommend cutting it to 1%.

Few things make me as proud of Wellington than our women in cricket.

Infuriating. Investment in tech is one of the most direct ways to turn our public money into private wealth.

Oh hey, the PMSITAC report is out and the short version is 'let's take money from literally every other area of research in AoNZ to put into tech'. That's the plan. Underfund everything else *even more than it already is* over the next three years. 🧪

So, this thread has crystallised a lingering thought I’ve had about reactions to the sovcit movement, which is that it is actually kind of reasonable to think there is a cheat code to the law given that rich people avoid legal consequences all the time

Fired Up Stilettos Expects Better From Would-be Allies — 1/200 We think it is important to note that all organisations (and organisers!) will mess up at some point; what matters is the willingness to repair and grow.

Fired Up Stilettos Expects Better From Would-be Allies ✒️

When party strategy gets in the way of progress, what options are there for recourse?

We have the privilege to platform this article from Fired Up Stilettos detailing some worrying interactions with the Green Party.

Fifty years ago, NZ sent officers to hunt Pacific overstayers. Five years ago, we apologised. This week Parliament introduced a bill — same powers, same communities. The Cabinet paper warned it would disproportionately affect Pacific people. Five years between sorry and doing it again. #nzpol

Wikipedia now has higher standards than all universities

Emergency Department AI gives meth recipe in 'jailbreak' testing AI used in NZ hospitals also gave a guide to steal patient's identity during the testing.

The big risk with Heidi isn't that it tells a doctor how to make a bomb - it's that it puts incorrect notes on your file that affect your future clinical care, or gets used by ACC or an insurer to deny you entitlements years later.

yeah im bummed about sora. bummed i sora bunch of stupid fake videos

ACT Party deputy and minister Brooke van Velden retires from politics The party's deputy and government minister will not be seeking re-election in November.

BVV's legacy:
-screwing over workers
-cancelling Fair Pay Agreements
-brought back 90-day trials
-stopped Uber drivers from being decently paid
-hurt working women by canning pay equity
-rolled back worker protections
-creating low-wage, low-protection labour market

www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

I genuinely think that both the government and commentators are spending far too much time thinking about private transport costs and not enough about all the knock on costs.

Nothing for beneficiaries in the fuel relief package because they don't need to "get to and from work each day". Apparently they also don't need to eat, get their kids to school or a playground, aren't allowed to leave their homes for joy, connection. Apparently beneficiaries just shouldn't live.

Perfect

Greens offers votes for National Party crisis-relief package - with conditions The 15 votes would give National enough to pass the urgent package without support from anyone else.

Green's proposal
▪️free public transport
▪️relief payments for low income & rural people
▪️temporarily expanding eligibility for school buses & routes
▪️reversing planned cuts to the Total Mobility Scheme
▪️ increasing mileage rates to care givers
▪️ a windfall profits tax
Labour's counter offer?
#nzpol