from Only in Maine

A Maine warehouse says one of its most reliable “employees” is a black cat who clocks in like he’s been working waterfront shifts since before the lighthouse was built.

Workers say he shows up right on time, walks in like he owns the building and the surrounding woods, and taps the time clock with his paw before starting another long shift of absolutely no measurable work. Management confirms he immediately finds the coziest, quietest corner in the place, curls up like it’s part of the job description, and commits to an eight-hour nap with zero interruptions.
HR tried to get him on payroll, but things got complicated when nobody could confirm his legal name, tax forms, or whether he technically belongs to the warehouse… or just chose it one day and never left. Still, after realizing his attendance is perfect and his presence somehow calms the entire place down, they gave him an employee number anyway.

One supervisor questioned his productivity once and got nothing but a slow blink and a look that said, “you new here?”

Coworkers say he follows a strict Maine routine: clock in → find a quiet spot immediately → nap like it’s winter prep → casually wander the floor like he owns the property → stare at people until snacks appear → leave exactly at quittin’ time without saying a word.

Officials are calling him a true Maine professional — quiet, independent, and fully committed to doing the bare minimum without drawing attention.
Honestly?

That’s not a cat. That’s the most dependable employee in the entire Northeast.

Actually a red deer, and one that’s obviously avoided the 1080 poison drops — the deerstalkers will be out there now.

Look, you have to understand the gravity of what is happening here. It’s not a joke, and it’s not just “culture.” We are witnessing the systematic dismantling of the secular state, and we’re doing it under the guise of compassion and inclusivity. It is a lie.

​The MBIE whistleblower footage isn’t just a recording of a song; it’s a recording of a ritual. Let’s be precise. When you have state employees gathered in a government building, engaging in collective, rhythmic chanting, you are no longer in a secular workplace. You are in a temple. And if you think participation is “voluntary,” you are pathologically naive. You don’t understand human hierarchy and you don’t understand social pressure.

​In any high-functioning bureaucracy, the pressure to conform is absolute. If you are the one person sitting at your desk while the rest of the tribe is engaged in a collective spiritual manifestation, you are marked. You are the outsider. That is a form of soft-tissue coercion that is antithetical to a free, individualistic society.

​We claim to be a secular nation. Secularism is the hard-won peace that allows people of all beliefs—and no belief—to work together without being subjected to someone else’s metaphysics. But New Zealand has decided to play a dangerous game. We are embedding esoteric, spiritual language into our legislation and daily governance, specifically from the Māori worldview, and then we have the audacity to pretend it’s just “etiquette.”

​It’s a soft theocracy. That’s the word for it. When the state adopts a specific spiritual framework and mandates its practice in the halls of power, the secular wall hasn’t just been breached—it’s been pulverized.

​You see it everywhere: karakia, haka, hongi, pōwhiri, waiata. Taken individually, the “compassionate” types will tell you they’re harmless. But aim the lens at the aggregate. When the state adopts the rituals of a specific spirituality, it is no longer neutral. It is proselytizing.

​We are trading the sovereignty of the individual for a forced, collective performance. It is intellectually dishonest, it is legally hypocritical, and it is happening because everyone is too terrified of being called a “bigot” to state the obvious truth: A state workplace is for work, not for the state-sponsored manifestation of the divine. Pick a lane. Either we are secular, or we are a theocracy. You don’t get to lie to us and say we’re both.

■ Make New Zealand Secular

—–

POV: you work at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. ( MBIE )

That’s a real audio recording, video sent to The New Zealand Taxpayers Union from a disgruntled worker

Credit to the whistleblower for exposing this.

There are about 8 of them in this area.

Dear Mayor Holborow and Councillors,

THE WORSENING COST OF LIVING CRISIS AND THE FUEL CRISIS: IT IS TIME TO REDUCE THE FORECAST RATES INCREASE FOR 2026/27

We have spoken to you on many occasions over the impact that the cost-of-living crisis and cumulative rates increases have had on Kapiti residents. Everyday costs — groceries, insurance, power, and mortgages — have risen far faster than incomes. In recent years, rate increases of over 35% on average (compared to cumulative CPI inflation: 11.2%)1 of have added to that burden, becoming one of the most significant contributors to rising household costs.

At our public meetings, we hear real stories from Kapiti residents about the difficult trade-offs they are having to make. Households are reducing their insurance cover, delaying repairs, or putting discretionary spending, like holidays on hold, just to stay afloat. We know of Kapiti residents who have put their houses on the market as the impact of cumulative rates increases have become the final straw in their battle to stay in their homes. Councillor Koh’s famous prediction at the June 2024 Council meeting has come to pass for some residents.

Even though you are ultimately responsible to residents, the Council’s failure to consult on the 2026 Annual Plan means that Council is oblivious to the real pain that rates increases – past and planned –
is having of the welfare and mental wellbeing of Kapiti residents.

The current fuel crisis has only made matters worse – much, much worse. We have surely reached a tipping point where the Council’s planned rates increases are simply too much for the community to bear.

We call upon the Council to urgently re-think its planned rates increase for 2026/27 of between 5.7 and 6.4%

1. Some Councillors have long argued that the Local Government costs increase faster than the rate of CPI inflation. However, the recent Infometrics report: Wellington City Rates Affordability, March 2026, Chart 23, page 38 shows that since 2021, the CPI and LGCI indices have in fact tracked very closely.
2. 
   In response to the fuel crisis, the Government has made it clear to all but a few households that, as costs go up, they must manage their spending and bring down their costs to make ends meet. The same discipline should apply to Kapiti Coast District Council.

At a time when households are making tough, sometimes painful, decisions to balance their budgets, Council should be applying the same discipline to its own. Some costs have indeed gone up but no apparent effort has been made to absorb or offset those costs or to reconsider the timing or magnitude of the work it plans to undertake. Instead, the Council is planning to pass increased costs directly to ratepayers, and make “savings” not by reducing the Council’s own budget but by reducing funding to NGOs and community groups. This was laid bare in the so-called “waterfall diagram” presented to Councillors at the Annual Plan briefing on 5 February 2026.

Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti is calling on Councillors to stop the level of planned rate increases for 1uly. We believe the Council to reassess its whole approach to setting rates — not just to trim around the edges. Fortunately, we have already provided advice to Councillor through our Briefing to the Incoming Council of November 2025 on how this can be done (this advice can be found at: https://concernedratepayerskapiti.org/our-proposal-for-affordable-rates).

The Council also needs to fundamentally reconsider how to set its budget, with the best interests of its community front and centre.

With the combined impacts of the cost-of-living crisis and the fuel crisis, the time to start this is now.

Chris Harwood
Chair, Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti

---

“How does KCDC think I can afford yet another big increase in my costs?”

by Eric Meder

Private property is an often forgotten aspect of liberty; that’s because it is such a core fundamental aspect of it that people take it for granted. Ownership is what gives you power. Private property is the backbone of individualism. Today,

I had the pleasure of interviewing Tom DeWeese, the founder of American Policy Center. In this interview we discuss how property rights are slowly being taken from us. This is a huge component of the great taking, the great reset, and the globally coordinated attack on liberty (individuality) happening around the world — all heading towards the WEF’s glorious “You’ll own nothing and you will be happy.” Tom has a wealth of knowledge on this subject; he even founded the American Policy Center to help provide solutions for this. https://americanpolicy.org/

Tom is not an end times doomsayer; he is a man of action. And that is exactly the type of person I want to work together with. I’m grateful to have had the chance to interview him, and I hope you enjoy it! To follow my personal work, please go to:- https://privacyacademy.com/

from The Daily Telegraph NZ

New Official Information Act (OIA) disclosures obtained by the NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party’s Aly Cook have exposed a high-level effort to scrub vaccine safety information from public communications.

Internal documents reveal that an informal group of senior Cabinet members, referred to as the “Vaccine Ministers,” were central to the decision to remove references to myocarditis risks just days before New Zealand’s 2021 Delta lockdown.

The Redaction Order: August 17th Meeting

A critical piece of evidence is the record of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meeting on August 17, 2021. Section 6.0 of the meeting notes, titled “Myocarditis after Pfizer Vaccination,” contains a directive that compromised public transparency:

“It was requested that references to increasing dosing intervals potentially providing some protection against myocarditis be removed from communications. This has been actioned.”

Reducing the risk of heart inflammation (myocarditis) in the 12–17 age group—was intentionally omitted from public messaging.

Who Were the “Vaccine Ministers”?

The term “Vaccine Ministers” was an informal designation used by the Ministry of Health and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) to describe the covid-19 Ministerial Group. This ad-hoc group was delegated the power to make rapid-fire decisions on the rollout, often bypassing the slower, more transparent processes of full Cabinet committees.

As of August 2021, the “Vaccine Ministers” group consisted of:

• Jacinda Ardern (Prime Minister)
• Chris Hipkins (Minister for COVID-19 Response)
• Andrew Little (Minister of Health)
• Grant Robertson (Finance Minister)
• Dr. Ayesha Verrall (Associate Minister of Health)
• Peeni Henare (Associate Minister of Health)

Warnings for the Under-30s and 12-17s Ignored

The OIA paper trail shows that the risks for young people were well-known to officials before the public was informed. On August 1, 2021, Chief Science Advisor Dr. Ian Town alerted Ashley Bloomfield that Australian advisors (ATAGI) were already considering limiting to one dose for those under 30 due to myocarditis concerns.

Despite this, following a “Vaccine Ministers zoom meeting” on August 13th, the directive was given to “remove or re-word” these safety justifications in the 12–17-year-old rollout plan.

The Personal Motivation Behind the Investigation

“This investigation is about the thousands of young New Zealanders who were denied the right to informed consent,” says Aly Cook of the NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party. “My son, Bailey, is among those who have suffered long-term from vaccine-induced pericarditis—a condition recognized by ACC, but one he still battles four years later. Knowing that politicians were meeting on Zoom to redact the very safety information that could have protected him is devastating.”

Watch Bailey’s Story on The Tribute.

“Ignoring the Science”

The NZ Outdoors & Freedom Party contends that the “Vaccine Ministers” prioritised a seamless rollout over the safety of young New Zealanders. “They repeatedly told the public to ‘follow the science,’ but these documents show they were actively editing the science when it became inconvenient, going to the extent of hiding information from the public” says Cook.

The party is now demanding the full Zoom recording and transcript of the August 13th meeting to identify which specific cabinet member or official issued the request to redact the safety data and redact their decision to do so from OIAs.

by Jonathan Gregory  ·

MBS bombshell call flips Trump at the last second: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Mega-Deal forces continuation of war on Iran

In a stunning eleventh-hour reversal, President Donald Trump scrapped his planned announcement of a complete ceasefire with Iran after an urgent, high stakes phone call from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman dramatically altered the course. Trump had been set to halt all U.S. military operations against the Iranian regime in exchange for the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital artery for global energy supplies. White House insiders revealed that the intense conversation with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman left Trump convinced that stopping short now would squander a rare chance to deliver a decisive blow to Tehran’s ambitions.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly pleaded with Trump not to end the fighting, calling it a “historic opportunity” that must be seized to weaken the Iranian regime once and for all. In exchange for pressing forward, Saudi Arabia put forward an unprecedented economic and strategic package:m; a direct $100 billion infusion to cover American war costs, roughly $1 trillion in new investments into the U.S. economy, and a massive $500 billion commitment to purchase American weapons.

The deal also included full normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel following the regime’s collapse, construction of a direct oil pipeline from Saudi fields to Israel’s port of Ashdod to position Israel as a major energy hub, establishment of a new U.S.-led regional defense alliance including Israel and moderate Arab states, joint naval forces to secure the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, funding for strategic American bases in Israel, and a joint reconstruction fund to help build a secular, moderate Iran after the current regime falls.

Trump instead declared only a temporary ceasefire, a move that senior diplomatic sources are already describing as a “historic turning point” ushering in a bold new regional order. The pivot showcases President Trump’s trademark deal making prowess and his willingness to listen to key allies when the stakes involve America’s long term security, energy dominance, and the reshaping of the Middle East in favor of stability and strength rather than rushed concessions.

by Stephen Maire

After roughly a decade and somewhere in the vicinity of $1.5 to $1.8 billion in taxpayer funding, New Zealand’s climate research sector has delivered a breakthrough: when warm, wet air arrives from the tropics, it tends to rain sometimes quite heavily. Groundbreaking stuff. Researchers from institutions like the University of Canterbury, University of Waikato, and National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research now warn that as the atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture meaning when it rains, it really rains. In other words, storms are getting stormier, just as they have for, well, millennia. But don’t worry the models are getting better at telling us that after the fact

To be fair, the funding largely channelled through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment hasn’t produced nothing. We’ve got improved forecasting, more detailed flood maps, and a growing library of reports explaining why councils should have built better drainage systems 20 years ago. The catch? These “outputs” are mostly invisible to the average taxpayer until something goes wrong at which point the same experts explain that the event was both predictable and unavoidable. It’s a convenient arrangement: success is theoretical, failure is proof more funding is needed.

Then there’s the cost. Climate science today isn’t a bloke with a rain gauge it’s supercomputers, global datasets, and highly specialised teams running decade-long models to simulate what the weather might do in 2080. Add to that layers of policy requirements, including integrating mātauranga Māori perspectives under frameworks like Vision Mātauranga, and you’ve got a research ecosystem that’s as complex administratively as it is scientifically. Valuable? Perhaps in parts. Expensive? Undeniably.

All of which leaves the public with a fair question: at what point does better “understanding” translate into better outcomes on the ground? Because as extreme weather costs climb, and researchers warn that key projects are winding down, it seems we’re entering the next phase of the cycle where the solution to years of expensive insight is, inevitably, to spend even more.

By Chris Harwood, Chair of Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti

Households have reached a tipping point.  The proposed rate increases for 2026/27 on top of the impacts of rising fuel costs will be too much for many households to absorb.  The situation demands an urgent rethink of the Kapiti Coast District Council’s proposed rates increase for 2026/27.

We know that residents have already been under sustained financial pressure for the last two to three years.   Everyday costs — groceries, insurance, power, and mortgages — have risen far faster than incomes. In recent years, rate increases of over 35% on average have added to that burden, becoming one of the most significant contributors to rising household costs.

At our public meetings, we hear real stories from Kapiti residents about the difficult trade-offs they are having to make. Households are reducing their insurance cover, delaying repairs, or putting discretionary spending, like holidays on hold, just to stay afloat. With fuel and transport costs rising rapidly across the whole economy, many Kapiti residents are facing even sharper financial constraints. What was already difficult is becoming, for some, impossible.

But while households are making hard choices, the Council is not. The Council’s budgeting system shields it from the financial realities facing the community. It does not reassess spending from the ground up. Instead, the Council begins its process with last year’s budget — $116.3 million — and then adds on an additional sum of money to cover “cost pressures”. 

This way of working saw a projected rates increase of 8.4% for 2026/27 before possible savings were tabled for consideration by elected members. But even then, the scope of possible savings was limited. Discussions so far have focused on what Council staff describe as “low hanging fruit” — small grants or discretionary items affecting community groups and voluntary organisations— while the core structure and spending parameters of the core Council remains untouched.  Protected spending includes things like the highly questionable $3 million a year on “economic development” activities – in reality handouts to businesses – which is still planned to go ahead.  The current proposed rate increase after those savings is still between 5.7% and 6.4%. Proposed rate increases of this magnitude are increasingly out of step with reality that you are facing.

The process used by Council to determine the level of rates is the fundamental problem.

At a time when households are making tough, sometimes painful decisions to balance their budgets, Council should be applying the same discipline to its own. Some costs have indeed gone up but no apparent effort has been made to absorb or offset those costs or to reconsider the timing or magnitude of the work it plans to undertake. Instead, the Council is planning to pass increased costs directly to ratepayers.

Our rate increases were too high before, but now they are simply unaffordable in the middle of the fuel crisis.

Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti is calling on Councillors to stop the level of planned rate increases for 1 July.  We believe the Council to reassess its whole approach to setting rates – not just to trim around the edges. The Council needs to fundamentally reconsider how to set its budget with the best interest of its community front and centre.  And it needs to start doing this now.

Concerned Ratepayers Kapiti is a voluntary local community group, formed in 2024, working for fair and sustainable rates on the Kapiti Coast.  We also advocate for open and transparent Council processes, and for good Council governance and accountability.  Our details can be found at http://www.concernedratepayerskapiti.org

This article was submitted to the Kapiti News (yes, it still exists albeit with a very limited circulation).