"The latest 'Salvation Army State of the Nation Report 2026' presents a litany of excuses for the sorry state of New Zealand’s social statistics, in particular, those relating to Maori. ...

"'The over representation of Māori tamariki and rangatahi in state care [is said to] reflect ... the enduring impacts of colonisation and breaches of Te Tiriti o Waitangi ... disproportionate inequities are due to current systems and the lasting impacts of colonisation ... and institutional racism...'
    '[T]angata whenua experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness, ... disrupts connections to te ao Māori and limits the ability to exercise tino rangatiratanga. ...'
    'Colonial policies, land alienation and the imposition of state justice systems that do not represent partnership have had long‑lasting effects that continue to shape Māori experiences in the criminal justice system today.' ...

"The [report's] 'Maori lens' response run to pages. ... 

"[I]s the concept of personal responsibility foreign to Maori? I don’t believe it is. ...

"In the face of this report the best response the government could make is to defund the Salvation Army for being part of the problem."

~ Lindsay Mitchell from her post 'A litany of excuses'

"The 'AI will code for us' idea always skips over the 90% of the job that isn't coding.

"The real work is translating a vague business need into a precise, testable system. It's architecting something that won't fall over in 6 months. It's debugging a problem that only appears under a specific, bizarre set of conditions.

"Even with a perfect code generator, you still need someone who understands the problem deeply enough to tell it what to build. That part isn't getting automated."

~ Selim Erünkut commenting on the alleged obsolescence of coding [Emphasis mine.]

Trump has assumed the powers of a near absolute monarch to decide when, why, and against whom he will arbitrarily raise and lower and raise again tariffs on the importation of goods into the United States.