At this point I shall happily give up my US citizenship. I've lived abroad for almost 30 years anyway.

Fundies should never be running the government - people who aren't able to acknowledge reality are unfit to lead. I wouldn't trust them to run a cake stall.

As we used to say when I played cricket in England: the rain will arrive at the first sign of cricket.

"Vote for us, and we won't spend any money" is not the inspiring message they would like it to be. 🤦‍♂️

It's so cool how this government is doing so many Trumpian things- voter suppression, climate denial, interfering in education against expert advice, destroying healthcare, rolling back environmental protections- but we're still largely treating them as normal and being like 'But how's the economy?'

As Craig Renney revealed to a shocked Dr Gary Payinda, Te Whatu Ora underspent its wages budget by $500m which has been signed off by Willis & returned to general coffers. Let that sink in. The money was there, but they deliberately underspent. On orders?

I know a little bit about them...

It's winging its way to my house here in New Zealand as I type.

I'm from the Berkshires, and I later lived in Queensland in Australia. Don't think I could handle even a day of northeast winter now.

Eddie, I *can* tell you that the government ignored the advice of its own EAG, which was convened over 2024/5. I know this because I was a member of the EAG.

I first saw him in some film whose name I can't remember in the early 80s. What a remarkable life.

Peter Coyote!

Considering the fact that they bypassed testing for a lot of other legal meds and focussed on four (partly) illicit drugs, I would not be in the least bit surprised.

Quite frankly, it feels like targeted harassment of medicinal cannabis users. Probably by design.

Did the call come from inside the house? 😆