The Sydenham Socialist & Motorcycle Enthusiast Society

10/07/2026

As horror and outrage continue to be expressed by our Govt. after China's test of an unarmed ICBM in the Pacific, a great many New Zealanders are being manipulated by an ongoing global, highly successful US propaganda campaign, aided by our complaisant public media.

To bring a little balance and proportion to the topic, below is a summary which would seem rather relevant. The information is not "classified"; it's all available from U.S. Govt. releases.

Strangely though, despite our Prime Minister Christopher Luxon describing China's ballistic missile test as "incredibly unwelcome" and "unacceptable", and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour strongly condemning the action as "extremely unwelcome behaviour" that militarises the region, neither seem aware of their bosom ally's history in the post-war Pacific. Have the GCSB and the NZSIS kept them in the dark? :) Somewhat doubtful ! "What I would say to you is that it's an Operational Matter." ???
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Recent dates on which US test fired nuclear-capable ICBM missiles 7,000kms into the mid-Pacific:

•2026: March 5, June tbc.
•2025: February 19, May 21, November 4.
•2024: June 4, June 6, September 4.
•2023: February 9, April 19, September 6, November 1.
•2022: August 16, September 7.
•2021: February 23, August 11.
•2020: February 5, August 4, September 2, October 29.
•2019: February 5, May 1, May 9, October 2.
•2018: April 25, May 14, July 31, November 7.
•2017: February 8, April 26, May 3, August 2.
•2016: February 20, February 25, September 5.
•2015: March 23, March 27, May 20, August 19, October 21.
•2014: May 22, September 23.
•2013: May 22, September 22, September 26.
•2012: February 25, November 14.
•2011: June 22, July 27.
•2010: June 16, September 17.
•2009: June 29, August 23.
•2008: May 22, August 13.
•2007: February 7, May 15, August 8.
•2006: February 16, June 14, July 20.
•2005: August 25, September 14.
•2004: July 23, September 15.
•2003: June 11, September 10.
•2002: September 18.
•2001: February 7, June 13.
•2000: June 8, September 27."

Source https://x.com/PeterCronau/status/2074411541643051128?s=20
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The SS&MES opposes ALL weapons-testing in the Pacific ----- we are disgusted though that successive NZ Governments have failed to condemn the U.S. war preparations in this perhaps optimistically labeled Ocean of Peace, and continue to send our military to take part in exercises such as RIMPAC and China-baiting battle group transits of the Taiwan Strait.
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* As a footnote:
A U.S test code-named "Frigate Bird" on May 6, 1962 was a key part of "Operation Dominic," a massive series of atmospheric nuclear tests. A Polaris A-2 ballistic missile fired from the USS Ethan Allen (SSBN-608) flew hundreds of miles and successfully detonated its live nuclear warhead in the atmosphere over the Pacific.
"Frigate Bird" is a landmark in U.S. military history, the first (launch to detonation) operational test of a nuclear missile fired from a submerged submarine ever carried out by the United States.
64 years later, the Chinese repeat the exercise, minus the nuclear explosion, and they're the bad guys?

09/07/2026

Interesting to see the countries that voted against or abstained.

Diplomatic tensions between Washington and Havana have widened in recent months.

06/07/2026

German federal prosecutors have filed charges against a Ukrainian national over a series of Nord Stream pipeline blasts in September 2022.

The suspect, identified only as Serhiy K. under German privacy law, faces allegations including war crimes, causing an explosion, and destroying infrastructure, according to German media reports.

Investigators say he coordinated the operation that damaged both pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm.

The blasts in September 2022 halted gas flows from Russia to Germany and crippled key energy links.



https://www.dw.com/p/5GP4x

05/07/2026

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME.

Trump Asked FIFA to Review Balogun’s Suspension. He Is Now Eligible to Play.

The reversal is highly unusual and the first time since 1962 that FIFA has allowed a player to appear in a game when they would have been suspended.
President Trump called Gianni Infantino, the president of FIFA, on Wednesday and asked him to review the suspension of the United States’ top goal scorer, Folarin Balogun, after he was given a red card in the team’s match that night against Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to three people familiar with the conversation.

On Sunday, FIFA announced that Mr. Balogun would be eligible to play Monday against Belgium after it reversed the suspension.

The reversal is highly unusual and the first time since 1962 that FIFA has allowed a player to appear in a game when they would have been suspended. It also comes as Mr. Infantino has spent years trying to curry favor with Mr. Trump. Last year, FIFA created and gave Mr. Trump the FIFA Peace Prize amid the president’s public, but failed, campaign to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

FIFA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pascale Van Damme, the president of the Belgian federation, did not reply to a message seeking comment.

NYT, 5 July 2026
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SS&MES . . and I guess we can now assume that team U.S.A. will contest the Final, that it will win, and that it will win by the Greatest Margin that a Football World Cup has ever been won by? Oh, and that a couple of the opposing Finalist's top players will receive retrospective Red Cards before the match kicks off? Corruption? What corruption?

02/07/2026

AN "OWN GOAL" FOR SMIRKER SEYMOUR ?

Anybody but Act Party Leader David Seymour would probably have been a little ashamed to take home the end of term Report assessed by the Auditor General's Office of the Associate Minister of Education's pet project, the "reformed" School Lunches scheme. His awareness of his own brilliance, however, seems to have protected our David from any crisis of self-confidence. Remember the old trick of "losing" a less than satisfactory report on the way home from school? It was working well here, until those pesky people of the Taxpayers' Union lodged an O.I.A. request and obtained a copy of the document.
Measured against the criteria for another of Seymour's portfolios, his self-contrived Ministry for Regulation ( designed, remember, to kneecap bureaucracy, slash red tape and save the country billions), it makes damning reading. In case you missed RNZ journalist Marika Khabazi's article, herewith an abbreviated summary.
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RNZ :

Staff at the Ministry of Education assigned to the Healthy School Lunches programme spent about $130,000 on travel in a year. Remodelled under Associate Education Minister David Seymour in an effort to save taxpayer money, the programme has come under renewed criticism this week after the Audit Office found unfair procurement practices and inadequate monitoring of value for money.

Now, an Official Information Act response to a request from the Taxpayers' Union has revealed details around staffing and travel expenses.

The documents show the equivalent of 37 total full-time staff work at the ministry work on the school lunches programme, which is largely delivered through external providers.

Nine of those had "manager" job titles, a further 22 were senior, principal or lead advisors, with the remainder being four programme coordinators and a "development chef ".

Two communications advisors were also dedicated to the scheme, with the ministry citing the need for continuity on the programmes.

The 12 staff hired since the start of 2025 were on starting rates of a combined minimum $1.1 million a year, half of those in senior roles earning more than $100,000 a year.

Recruitment since 1 January 2025 includes:

One strategy and partnerships manager in a band of at least $142k to $214k*
Two service delivery managers on at least $121k to $181k*
Three staff in a senior administrator band of about $100k to $108k
Six senior advisors on about $74k to $86k

* Uses pay band information from late 2023 to mid 2024

The general manager of the programme alone spent more than $17,600 between April 2025 and the start of March on accommodation and travel between Wellington and his home in Rotorua.

More than $10,000 was spent in the same time period on one staff member taking three trips - including flights, accommodation, meals, transport and parking - to the Chatham Islands to "implement the internal model at three schools".

The ministry's response also said it had no "analysis, briefings or advice" on appropriate staffing for a programme primarily delivering services through external providers..

In a statement, Taxpayers' Union spokesperson Austin Ellingham-Banks said the ministry had "outsourced the lunches but kept the bureaucracy".

"For all that overhead, the Auditor-General found the ministry 'did not have sufficiently robust mechanisms to measure, manage, and monitor' the programme. What on earth are they all doing?"

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SS&MES :

* "9 of the 37 staff had "manager" job titles, a further 22 were senior, principal or lead advisors, with the remainder being four programme coordinators and a "development chef". ???
That many Chiefs doesn't leave a helluva lot of Indians to get on with slashing the Red Tape. Still, we mustn't hold our collective breath waiting to hear a satisfactory explanation ---- the whole schemozzle will doubtless turn out to be yet another of those Ministerial "NO GO" areas, an Operational Matter. There've been quite a few of them lately.

02/07/2026

30/06/2026

EMAIL THIS MORNING FROM AN OLD U.S. FRIEND.
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Fred was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young pullets, and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs

He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters.

Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing.

Now, he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

Fred's favourite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all!

When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover.

To Fred's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

Fred was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the City Show and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the "No Bell Piece Prize," but they also awarded him the "Pulletsurprise" as well.

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making.

Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the unsuspecting populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Vote carefully in the next election, you can't always hear the bells.

29/06/2026

Latest letter

The Editor

While much of the public debate has focused on another attempt to wrest control of Lyttelton Port Company from its public owners, Environment Canterbury has quietly moved to entrench freshwater management practices that many would argue have contributed to the decline of one of our region’s most precious resources.

Last week, ECan voted 11–5 to notify Proposed Plan Change 8. The Press reported the decision under the headline: “ECan moves to close water bottling loophole with new rules.”

That headline suggests the council is acting to protect Cantabrians by ensuring bottling companies cannot use existing consents without obtaining fresh approval.

Yet it was the same regional council that previously argued there was nothing unlawful about Cloud Ocean using water permits originally granted for a wool scouring plant and a freezing works in Belfast.

The Supreme Court unanimously rejected that position. It held that the “take” and the “use” of water must be considered together under the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan. The Court warned against allowing historic water allocations to be effectively “banked” and later paired with new uses without proper environmental assessment.

ECan now says it wants to ensure that cannot happen again. However, Proposed Plan Change 8 would allow many existing consent holders to change the use of their water permits without requiring a new allocation.

That doesn’t create new water. It doesn’t improve equity. It doesn’t provide opportunities for young farmers, community water supplies or future generations. It simply changes the rules for those who already hold the resource.

And perhaps the easiest way to divert attention from that fundamental policy shift is to package it together with largely uncontroversial wetland provisions.

Gb