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peteraranyi.bsky.social
OnThePaepae
@peteraranyi.bsky.social
310 followers 190 following 610 posts
Editor, Publisher | DM me for Signal user code.
It's me from the tweetx.

www.thepaepae.com
Aotearoa New Zealand
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peteraranyi.bsky.social
I'm re-reading John Grisham's thriller THE FIRM ... and as usual with reading for pleasure, the errors jump out.
#WoeBetide life as an editor.
Extract from the book THE FIRM showing “You’re” used where “Your” was required.
October 14, 2025 at 8:59 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Went to Teddy Swinns performing at Spark Arena tonight. What a very gracious and hard working artist he is. Big voice, big sound. Well worth going to see him if you get the chance.
Photo of Teddy Swinns in concert tonight.
October 9, 2025 at 10:21 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Man, that is a great article! Thanks.
This conclusion, towards the end, rang true to me.

The environmental piper will be paid, somehow
Excerpt, with *** highlighted: I would hope that this sentiment does not give you too much optimism about the future of U.S. regulations. ***Our Congress is broken, lazy, obstinate, and compromised, quite possibly the most ineffective governmental institution in the developed world. But sooner or later, actuarially speaking, even they will have to reckon with the reality on the ground.*** Even if they don't, and the tantrum of this moment somehow continues to unspool over a few chaotic generations, global companies are still compelled to work in global markets, and global markets include people who don't live in gutter states that feed on their own futures. Those people would prefer a rational operating future from the apparel industry; those people will continue to need and wear shoes.
October 4, 2025 at 9:07 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
I finished Lauren Southern’s book ‘This Is Not Real Life’ last night & you know what?
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND it, seriously.
It’s a fascinating insider’s account of the origins of online influence. Her own shallow part in it.
I was impressed with her candour, analysis & self criticism. A very good read.
Front cover of This Is Not Real Life by Lauren Southern.
September 29, 2025 at 8:32 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Packing for another trip, and, gee, my wife's Sony noise cancelling headphone are much more compact than mine.

Admittedly, that's a third-party hard case I have for the Airpods Max, and yeah (very unlike Apple), there's some wasted space – but even so.
Top: Sony headphones case. Bottom: Hard case for Apple Airpods Max. Top: Sony headphones case (open) Bottom: Hard case for Apple Airpods Max (open)
September 27, 2025 at 1:33 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Hope is for the hopeless.

Final paragraph of The Post's editorial 'Say no to less democracy', September 26, 2025
The law change is not politically neutral. Two ACT MPs let their masks slip when the bill was introduced in July. Todd Stephenson said lazy and disengaged people were “rocking up” to the voting booth and voting to “tax other people’s money away”. Meanwhile, his leader David Seymour notoriously described late enrollers as “drop kicks” who vote “to tax away hard-working people’s money”. While there are cynics who suggest that limiting the potential left-wing vote is the real intention of a bill such as this, we can only hope the Government is not that insincere. But it will undoubtedly erode trust in our political system, and that is something we cannot afford to lose. In these times, we should be celebrating the relative transparency and trustworthiness of New Zealand’s democratic system, rather than finding ways to limit it.
September 27, 2025 at 12:57 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Without falling down a rabbit hole, watching the PRIME MINISTER movie yesterday has got me thinking again about the bad-faith and artificiality of the Voices for Freedom agitprop group.

Is there an explainer somewhere anyone can point me to, please, re the origins and *funding* of this group?
Extract from, Wikipedia's entry for Voices for Freedom, with the sentence ' The organisation's financial sources remain opaque, having spent large amounts on promotion and court cases, but claims to have received donations from "thousands of concerned Kiwis" ' highlighted.
September 25, 2025 at 9:19 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Oooh lucky — a burrffday present from my darling. #Prov3
Photo of newly arrived AirPods Pro v3 — a birthday gift from my darling.
September 24, 2025 at 11:02 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Apparently Luxon is saying he'll still be leader of the National Party and PM.
That really clears things up.
Headline from 2020: [Simon] Bridges says it's quite clear he'll be National's leader on election day. (Reader, he wasn't.) Headline from 2018: Bill English insists his leadership not on the line. (Reader, it was. He was rolled.)
September 24, 2025 at 8:21 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
>> So as well as that 'Bowie Archive', there's also this VERY good audio history series 'David Bowie Changeling' about his first 5 years, developing his 'Rock Star' persona, and various transformations.
(I blitzed all 8 episodes last night and this morning.)
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...
Index page for BBC's Music Uncovered series this time: 'David Bowie Changeling'. Cover image of BBC series 'David Bowie Changeling'.
September 18, 2025 at 1:40 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Yes, ludicrous. Quite detached.
US Weekly headline: Charlie Sheen Compares Political Activist Charlie Kirk’s Death to John F. Kennedy’s Assassination
September 18, 2025 at 1:28 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Thanks for this thread. So do I correctly interpret this (below )as indicating the Memory Integrity Enforcement feature is exclusively for iPhone 17 & up?
Not backwards compatible on earlier models? Even the “AI” models 15 Pro, 16?
Extract from Apple’s press release with this line highlighted: “MIE is built right into Apple hardware and software in all models of iPhone 17 and iPhone Air..”
September 14, 2025 at 3:27 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Trump, quoted in #NYTimes in aftermath of Charlie Kirk assassination: “[W]e have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”

"Beat the hell out of them" is more than a dog-whistle, it's a call to action & justification. Trump showing he's *deficient* as a leader.
Clip of NY Times online quoting Donald Trump: In an interview on “Fox and Friends” that ran for nearly an hour, Mr. Trump built on the case he had made on Thursday evening to reporters that “we have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”
September 12, 2025 at 9:07 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Another factor to consider when gauging the 'newsworthiness' of such events, is the extent to which local political actors/colonisers such as this goon attach meaning to them.
Clip of Facebook post by former NZ National Party MP and Christian conservative Simon O'Conner using news of Charlie Kirk's assassination to air his unhinged, generalised, bitter grievances against "Progressivism". He posted: "Progressivism hates ideas and will go to extreme lengths to silence them. While we keep Charlie (among other things a young father) in our prayers, it won't be long till said progressives are making excuses for this cowardly attack." Context: This same religious firebrand and bigot celebrated the US Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade, which ended federal protection of US women's right to abortion.
September 10, 2025 at 11:05 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Yeah, Chris has had his finger on the pulse (like for ages), and also been crystal clear on NZ First's intentions etc...
Headline from Otago Daily Times 25 September 2017 promoting a column by Chris Trotter predicting Labour would not be able to form a coalition government with the Greens and NZ First -- which, cough, Labour's Jacinda Ardern actually did, when NZ First agreed to it. Headline from ABC news dated 19 October 2017 announcing formation of Labour government in coalition with NZ First.
September 8, 2025 at 2:28 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
I'm reading Lauren Southern's memoir & generally enjoying it.

She savages some, including Tommy Robinson, the Tait bros, but gives amnesty to others.
But her warm, understated bio for a racist White Nationalist anti vaxxer who even drove 'Pizzagate' made me question Southern's reliability. Compare.
Excerpt from Lauren Southern's memoir, describing her friend Brittany Pettibone: "I traveled to Russia with my friend Brittany Pettibone, an author with a modest political YouTube channel at the time. She'd joined me for much of my travel across Europe, and I was really fond of her. She was kind, grounded, and made me feel safer navigating unfamiliar places. One-on-one dinners or interviews with men often veered into awkward or uncomfortable territory, and Brittany became a kind of buffer against that. But more than protection, after ages on the road together, we grew incredibly close. Brittany always meant well and genuinely tried to live by the principles she believed in. I admired that. There was a version of myself I saw reflected in her, someone more grounded and disciplined,..." Wikipedia summary of Brittany Pettibone: "Brittany Sellner is an American white nationalist and conspiracy theorist. She has been active as a Youtuber, and advocates anti-feminism and the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. In June 2019, there was an investigation by the Austrian government of her husband, identitarian activist Martin Sellner, for alleged contacts with Christchurch terrorist Brenton Tarrant, and which widened to include her." Extract from Pettibone's Wikipedia entry: "She began her political activism in 2016 in support of Donald Trump's presidential campaign. She then actively promoted the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, and co-hosted the video podcast Virtue of the West with Tara McCarthy. The following year, she was one of the speakers at events that led to protests at Berkeley. She also traveled to France to support French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, and to Sicily to join Generation Identity's efforts to stop NGO boats of African migrants. In 2018, she was refused entry to the United Kingdom and deported along with her boyfriend, Austrian Identitarian activist Martin Sellner, after having come to Britain with the intention of interviewing Tommy Robinson. The same year, together with Lauren Southern, she met with and interviewed Russian ultranationalist Aleksandr Dugin. Sellner has also been noted to be a friend of Dutch right-wing influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek, 191 and appeared in anti-COVID-19 vaccination demonstrations. Sellner describes herself as a "Catholic American nationalist"", and advocates a "full stop on mass immigration". The Anti-Defamation League have described her as an alt-right or alt-lite activist who traffics in white nationalist ideas, having contributed to websites such as AltRight.com and Red Ice. She has been a major promoter of the Identitarian movement, and has promoted the white genocide and George Soros conspiracy theories. At the same time, she is noted for presenting a "soft" and feminine tradwife influencer lifestyle on social media like Instagram, appealing to a more mainstream audience.
September 1, 2025 at 6:40 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
1984 live version, from ‘David Live’ album (1974)
Front of album sleeve for David Live by David Bowie released 1974
August 25, 2025 at 11:46 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
The repetitive recycling of UK-based place names around the former Commonwealth is one of the reasons I delight that my kids’ (born at Middlemore Hospital, Auckland) birth certificates & passports record their place of birth as OTAHUHU. #Aotearoa
Clip of one of my children’s passports showing place of birth: OTAHUHU
August 25, 2025 at 7:30 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Yes, it’s always ‘personal’.
We’re none of us Manchurian candidates, but rather a distillation of our backgrounds, & the people/influences/ideas we meet; conclusions we reach, even if for a time.

Lauren Southern’s new memoir arrived at my house yesterday.
This self-reflection closes chapter 2:
“So, no, they don't make right-wing blonde e-celebrities in a lab somewhere. In my case, the formula was just thousands of hours of Fox News instead of Cocomelon, exposure to wealth disparity, evangelical religion, and way too many limitless digital rabbit holes. You can laugh at that-l certainly do. It's not the origin story I would've chosen for myself, but its the one I've got. And hey, I was deeply loved. Not enough kids get to say that. It gave me a unique perspective on the world, even if it came with some catastrophic blind spots.”
August 25, 2025 at 6:38 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
This clip, from the court (martial) report in yesterday’s NZ Herald, quoting the lawyer of the soldier convicted of espionage against his own country, contains Mike-Hosking-levels of ‘Let’s not lose sight of the real victims here’ bollocks.

Poor Nazi, attracting police attention after a MASSACRE.
Quite from sentencing; However, the soldier's lawyer, Steve Winter, said his client had simply gotten "out of his depth" when police focused on him and other members of the Dominion Movement and Action Zealandia after the mosque shootings. "Stuff had got real very quickly for him…”
August 23, 2025 at 9:08 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Worthwhile article from RNZ drawn from memoir promo interview today: 'Grant Robertson stands by Covid-era spending in wake of Treasury 'rewriting history' www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

But also, look at this amazing pic of him & Jacinda Ardern.

Man, we were lucky to have these two friends.
[Friends] Grant Robertson & Jacinda Ardern entering the House [of Parliament] before Ardern's valedictory speech. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
August 19, 2025 at 3:34 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
#Ooof, the pix in that Amelia Wade SST piece really tell a story, eh?

Luxon is simply not authentic and attractive -- this now seems to be an accepted fact, even amongst Nats.
Photo of gormless Chis Luxon from Sunday Star Times. Grigori Rasputin, oops I mean Simon Bridges, looking a bit intense, but much more comfortable in his skin than he did when Opposition Leader about to be rolled. From same SST article.
August 17, 2025 at 7:17 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Gee I enjoy the Scots.
Photo of a portable electronic billboard on a truck with an image of two rapists, and a caption: 'Welcome to Scotland, Donald'.
August 15, 2025 at 8:45 PM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Would someone get in trouble for this?
Hard to know.
Stock photo of Don Brash with statement: “SUPPORT MĀORI WARDS JUST LIKE ME”.
August 6, 2025 at 7:10 AM
peteraranyi.bsky.social
Perplexity AI says it’s complicated…

[In related news I once sued (a very guilty) someone & company for copyright infringement of mine & my authors’ material — although it was worthwhile, it was damn costly & stressful.]
Perplexity response to question about enforcing use of image without subject’s consent …”Someone whose image was used in an advertisement without their knowledge or consent, when the stock agency explicitly marked the photo “for editorial use only, no commercial use,” can pursue legal remedies and demand withdrawal and/or compensation through several avenues. First, the use of your image in an advertisement without your consent may constitute misleading or deceptive conduct, “passing off,” or a privacy breach, even if you do not own the copyright to the photo…”
August 6, 2025 at 6:31 AM