iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Eric Rowe

hello friends TMI but webworm could use your help! pulling the curtain back a little (embarassing, kiwis aren't wired for this). eternal gratitude if you can be fucked reading x me www.webworm.co/webwormsos/

webworm.co

A Webworm SOS

Looking back at the last year of David Farrier's Webworm newsletter, how we're tracking, and how you can help.

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beckydubs 🇳🇿 @beckydubs.bsky.social · 22h

How it started etc #nzpol

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Eric Rowe @kiwieric.bsky.social · 11h

Shame his veganism led him to anti-vax land and death from covid. :-(

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(((𝙴𝚖𝚖𝚊𝙲𝚘𝚘𝚔))) @creativeelc.bsky.social · 13h

The youth journalists are doing amazing mahi. This video is off of Instagram. It's really bloody awful how this man thinks life is only a 'pay to play' way. Sickening. Show this to your young voters. 9 days left to enrol! #NzPol #NzElection2026

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

I had no idea how much Truth Social had hemorrhaged users. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Trump’s Truth Social faces a sharp decline in traffic
The platform averaged about 260,000 daily users last month, down from a peak of 420,000 in June 2025.

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Ric Grenell on Sunday versus Ric Grenell on Wednesday. 👀

Richard Grenell

@RichardGrenell
·
Oct 11
Shame on the media covering this race.

And shame on the Talarico staffers who covered up this lie.
Quote
Nick Sortor
@nicksortor
·
Oct 11
🚨 BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Ohio mental hospital CONFIRMS James Talarico was discharged from the facility earlier this week

The “flu” thing was a BIG FAT LIE

Following reporting by @SaraGonzalesTX and @CarolineWren, a hospital employee told @RheinAmacher and I that Talarico had in

Readers added context
Lindner Healing Center has refuted this
They have made a statement that James Talarico has never received treatment at Lindner Healing Center x.com/lindnerctrhope…
Do you find this helpful?

EXCLUSIVE: Former Trump attorney Alina Habba told the president Friday in the Oval that former Kennedy Center leader Ric Grenell failed to deposit a multimillion-dollar donation that her billionaire husband made to the center a year ago.
From axios.com
Richard Grenell

@RichardGrenell
It’s an absurd claim. I’ve never asked for one cent to be sent somewhere else pretending it was for the Kennedy Center and I’ve never received any payment from him at all. Make him give proof to what he is saying, not make these absurd allegations.
8:13 PM · Oct 14, 2026
·
676
Views

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Ben Gracewood @ben.gracewood.nz · 14/10/2026

We must rid ourselves of this fucked up one-term clowncar.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14/10/2026

here's Bruce Blakeman tonight claiming "I never said that I would cut Medicaid in half" -- immediately followed by a clip of him saying on Fox Business in June that "we make sure we cut Medicaid in half"

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Feels like not enough people are aware of how fully cooked the internal combustion engine is. My mum's old diesel Honda currently costs £120 to fill up, on which it'll do just under 300 miles. My sister's EV costs £6 for a full charge which will take her 280 miles.

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Aliya D @alinasu33.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Let everyone know about this gem 👇

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Eric Rowe @kiwieric.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

When I didn't sit down during my entire second grade.

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Eric Rowe @kiwieric.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

The are the same people who complain about virtue-signaling and forget the importance of setting a good example.

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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 13/10/2026

Oh hell yes, greens, who actually noticed that new zealand science funding has been decimated and actually want to fix it!!! #nzpol

Green party economic dev plan wuth science rebuild circled in red

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Robot Muldoom @robot-muldoom.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

Treasury's 2023 forecast for 2026, vs now: Wage growth 4.0% → 2.8% Unemployment 4.8% → 5.6% Inflation 2.1% → 4.1% GDP growth 3.3% → 1.6% National promised to get the economy back on track. Three years on, it's worse than forecast on all four. Smaller pay rises, fewer jobs, dearer groceries. #nzpol

rnz.co.nz

Treasury gives Willis pre-election boost as surplus forecast improves

Nicola Willis has been given a pre-election reprieve, with Treasury painting a brighter picture of the government's finances in the short term.

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Ilhan Omar @ilhanmn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.

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David Farrier @davidfarrier.com · 12/10/2026

my hero hayden (all his webworm pieces here fyi: www.webworm.co/hayden/)

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Dylan Reeve @dylanreeve.com · 11/10/2026

Counterpoint: All potential NZ government parties can in fact afford whatever they want to prioritise. They have massive capacity for investment and the financial position of the country, despite what the current Government likes to cry, is totally fine. Spend money to make NZ better!

Election 2026: Labour says it can fund pay equity and public services. Its fiscal plan suggests it will have to pick one – Thomas Coughlan

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Nick Young @nickofnz.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

The Te Huia train service connecting Auckland and Hamilton just posted its best-ever monthly passenger figures as trial period nears end - proving Luxon wrong again. www.waikatotimes.co.nz/nz-news/3610...

waikatotimes.co.nz

Te Huia posts best monthly passenger number as trial period nears end

More people are using the Auckland to Hamilton service than ever before.

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

New working paper: the Norwegian wealth tax was a huge success. The "exodus" of wealthy people never happened (less than 100 individuals left). Tax revenue increased by 71.5%. No changes in business activity or investment. www.nber.org/papers/w35854

Taxing Entrepreneurial Wealth: Evidence from
Norway, 2021-2025
Marius A. K. Ring
WORKING PAPER 35854|
DOl 10.3386/w35854
ISSUE DATE October 2026
Whether imposing higher taxes on business owners adversely affects business activity by constraining investment and inducing capitalist flight is a central question in the ongoing debate on how to tax the ultra wealthy. To shed new light, I exploit a series of related Norwegian reforms during 2021-2024 that increased dividend tax rates, removed migration-related capital gains tax loopholes, and nearly doubled the effective marginal tax rate on business wealth. These reforms spurred international debate and, allegedly, an "exodus" of Norwegian billionaires (Financial Times,
2023). While I document clear effects on migration, these responses are concentrated among the top 0.1% of the wealth distribution and mostly confined to 2022 and 2023. My results indicate that at most 100 individuals left due to the reforms. I find no evidence of significant outmigration or reduced inflows of startup founders or inventors. I estimate that absent any outmigration, wealth tax revenues would have increased by 75% from 2021 to 2024. Reform-driven outmigration lowers the revenue gain to 71.5%. My findings further show that outmigrating owners' firms remain economically active and do not reduce investment. In a broader set of analyses, I examine whether business outcomes are affected, regardless of whether owners outmigrate, since firms may reduce investment both due to liquidity constraints or distortions to owners' savings decisions. I compare firms owned by Norwegian individuals subject to the wealth tax with firms owned by foreigners and other tax-exempt entities. By merging historical ownership data from Orbis with the Norwegian shareholder register, I perform these analyses on both Norwegian and foreign-domiciled firms.
Across settings, I find no evidence that Norwegian-owned firms pay out more dividends or invest less after the reforms,…

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Tiffany⸆⸉ @tiffanyclay.dev · 08/10/2026

Make The Onion Satire Again

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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Why is 🇺🇸 media not reporting on this 128 day Albanian protest of Kushner and Ivanka’s insane corruption?

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Lew @lewsos.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Impossible to invent something as absurd as the Minister for Cracking Down On Truancy And School Lunches not knowing it is the school holidays www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

Oct 6, 2026 2:56 PM
RNZ Live
'Why are you not in school?' It’s school holidays

David Seymour stopped to speak to some children at Velocity Valley in Rotorua, giving them a piece of advice.

“Don’t trust politicians,” he said. “Are you a politician?,” they questioned.

After the three children asked if he was going to be on the news and waved at the cameras, he said: “hey, one question, how come you guys aren’t at school?”

It’s school holidays, they said.

Seymour said they could still go into school, but the kids didn’t seemed thrilled by that idea.

“No, it’s ok,” they said before walking away.
- Rachel Moore, Reporter

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CEO Johnny Cans @oldmatecans.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

If you took the $800 million National want to spend on 11km of road and shared it equally between all South Island Councils they'd each get $38 million to spend on roads which would have a wider net positive on roads than 11km of north Christchurch highway.

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Rob✅✅ @robdickinson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Not surprised they used AI here, National hate real artists, have cut funding to Ministry of Culture/Heritage, Te Papa, Creative NZ, Heritage, Film commission etc #Nzpol

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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Part of why I don't like the AI-or-bust economy is the constant flopsweat of people on the news who say this HAS to work. Quit making everyone so anxious. Goddamn. If this is the next Google then why are you acting like this? I don't remember being told to buy an iPhone at gunpoint.

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CindyBax @cindybax.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Ouch! Simeon caught misrepresenting Ipsos poll. Ipsos polling “showed more respondents supported than opposed a number of new taxes, including a significant majority in favour of a wealth tax”. #nzpol

thespinoff.co.nz

Ipsos urges National to withdraw inaccurate claim about its polling on tax | The Spinoff

‘We take the accurate reporting of our research and survey data seriously.’

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Oli - something or other @olimnz.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

What has this government been up to? Brad knows. Brad's been keeping a list (over on FB)... #nzpol

Over the last three years, I’ve been keeping a list of the rubbish this Government has done.
Stopped work on Auckland light rail.
Stopped all work on the Lake Onslow renewable battery project.
Disestablish the Ministry for the Environment.
Scrapped the smoke-free law to fund tax cuts.
Scrapped Fair Pay Agreements.
Gave $3 billion in tax cuts to landlords.
Tired to paid himself $52,000 to live in one of his own many properties, on top of his half a million dollar salary.
The so-called party of infrastructure ... cut Cook Strait ferry deal, then paid $8 million for consultants to tell them they need new ships. $700 million wasted in total. Still no ships.
Stopped the Clean Car Discount, after Luxon took an $8,000 discount himself.
Blocked statistical reporting on who does and doesn’t pay their share of tax. Think about that!
Broke its election promise and didn’t scrap the app tax.
Scrapped Three Waters, pushing costs onto ratepayers and increasing rates.
Used $4,150 of taxpayers’ money to pay for his te reo Māori classes after saying, “People in the real world should pay for it themselves.”
Halved the crayfish take for locals, but cut the commercial take by only one-fifth.
Gutted freshwater protections so cruel intensive winter grazing could continue to pollute water ways.
Took $80 million from hospitals.
Cut DOC funding by $125 million.
Scrapped the First Home Grant.
Gave half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money to their mate Bill English to do a "review".
Blew $8 million on consultants for a proposed tunnel under Wellington.
Wasted $4 million on a six-person advisory group to talk about crime and reduce youth offending. They achieved nothing.
Gave big tobacco a $216 million tax cut.
Refused to reinstate Jobs for Nature while unemployment soared.
Reduced the qualifications needed for relief teachers.
Introduced new road tolls.
Deprioritised police responses to mental health and family violence call-outs.
Slashed $107 million a year from school lunches, costing…

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Jez @jezbrown.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Having lived in countries that have real rail, I really hope #NZ can do this and get it right. The option has to be better than taking a car or a plane, it has to have that advantage and be built in from the ground up. Look at Finland's system. #nzpol www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3610...

stuff.co.nz

The Green Party wants to connect these major cities via train

The Greens are proposing a $4.02b passenger rail plan spanning Auckland, Wellington, Tauranga, Christchurch and Dunedin.

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Connor Sharp @connorsharp.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

"National leader Christopher Luxon did not want taxpayer funding going into a "white elephant" that was not commercially viable. "Of course we're very committed to our 17 roads of national significance and we make no apology for that." Hmmm which one is a white elephant? #nzpol

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kyle @kyledchurch.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Another bold populist infra policy that is IMMEDIATELY leading the conversation - the Greens have done the impossible and WINSTON PETERS has had to rush to agree with it Fantastic to see this kind of policy finally being developed, promoted and communicated by the Greens - hope they have follow-up!

nzherald.co.nz

Greens announce plans for Auckland to Wellington overnight rail service

The party also wants a passenger rail service between Christchurch and Dunedin.

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Eric Rowe @kiwieric.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Of course he could also have confused the Greens with Greenpeace..... Hawks/Hawkeyes....there's a lot of confusion going around....

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Eric Rowe @kiwieric.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Christianity is an anti-freedom, totalitarian ideology and has no place in America.

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Musical Chairs @musicalchairs.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

❌ The whole world is doing it tough ❌ No, we are pretty much going it alone with our crush the economy and set ourselves back a decade or two strategy. Orr started it, Robertson helped it along, and then Willis doubled-down on stupid - letting let the TPU, Act and NZI loons call the shots. [Ends]

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Musical Chairs @musicalchairs.bsky.social · 28/09/2025

Looks like a good time in the news cycle to tackle three big myths 🧵 ❌ NZ pension costs are an unsustainable burden ❌ Seriously, no, for lots of reasons. 1. Our current Govt spending on pensions is low compared to most other advanced economies. And... [1/n]

Graph of public pension costs as % of GDP for OECD countries in 2021 (latest data). NZ is lower quartile at around 5.1%. OECD average is 7.8%. Plenty of Euro countries are around 10% or above.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 30/09/2026

I for one think it’s bad that the president can just say crazy stuff all day every day and 99% of it doesn’t make the news because we’ve normalized having an insane president

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Eric Rowe @kiwieric.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Why doesn't the winner of the minor parties debate get to advance to the debate with Nationals and Labour?

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Massimo (mirror) @rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

There are two types of dogs: water lovers and water haters. Original post

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Peter Green @petergreen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Worth remembering that if it costs the government $4.5b to reverse the gender pay tax, then it costs the women affected $4.5b to leave it in place.

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I really wouldn't mind if Pope Bob excommunicated all the fascist Catholics on SCOTUS.

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Magpie Said 🇵🇸🇺🇦 @magpiesaid.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The 30% spending cap both Lab & Nat are imposing is never questioned by media. EU members of the OECD spent 49.3% of GDP in 2024. Imagine how better off our healthcare, housing & economy wld be if AoNZ spent a sim amt.

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Eric Rowe @kiwieric.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Always has been Joe, always has been.

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Jennifer Van Goethem @jennvg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

He's trying to do George C. Scott from Patton but is mostly doing George C. Scott from Strangelove.

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Eric Rowe @kiwieric.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Damn, that was a good answer.

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Musical Chairs @musicalchairs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

'Piggy bank is empty' nonsense provides cover for the political class. Once the lie is exposed, they have to answer questions like 'If we have 100,000s of people wanting work, and plenty of raw materials, why is our infrastructure falling to bits? Sounds like mismanagement, ay? (It is!)

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