Paul Marshall

It has been reported that police have recently visited Renee-Rose Schwenke about a so-called 'offensive' social media post she posted. Not threatening, not inciting violence, just that it allegedly offended someone. If this report is true, this is '1984 thought-police' level overreach. It should seriously frighten every New Zealander who believes in freedom of speech. This is not about whether this particular post was offensive or not. There will always be personal responsibility and consequences for people voicing their opinions that are viewed by some as tasteless or gormless or offensive - but those consequences should not be by way of a police visit. No one has the right to not be offended, nor do they have the right to be protected from having hurt feelings. In fact it is precisely the right to be able to offend which is the foundation of freedom of speech in our country. This has happened overseas with more regularity where social media posts, opinions, views, expressions, and even jokes are now deemed offensive by some authoritarian power and have been met with threats from police, arrests, or even convictions in court. We never thought we would see this happen here and it has a chilling effect on where we are going as a country. As Oliver Wendall Homles Jr said, freedom of speech also comes with responsibility of speech - you cannot falsely yell 'fire' in a crowded theatre without there rightly being a consequence. We already have laws around 'responsibility of speech' ranging from defamation to incitement of violence, and that is important - but people's freedom to have their own free opinion is something which should be aggressively defended. We don't all have to agree with each other's opinions, but we should all fight for each other's right to have them. This is the essential foundation of our free democracy. If we start to accept this kind of overreach by police to curtail individual freedom of speech, our democracy will fall into the type of totalitarian oblivion that will destroy our country.

jargon to game the system. Across a field, reviews often contradict, subgroup endlessly, and claim “new knowledge” where little exists. At this point, systematic collation of original studies should be automated. AI is better suited to this. Make it so...👍🤞

Over a decade ago a senior academic told me: “If you want to get ahead, write reviews.” Fast forward and the explosion of reviews is obvious. Journals benefit (citations, impact factor), but we’ve likely passed an inflection point. Many are rushed, narrow, and dressed up with🧵

Whoa.... Devin Booker just WENT OFF on the NBA refs right now in the post game press conference: "It's definitely something that has to be looked at. I heard (Alex) Caruso tell them to call the tech and he ended up doing it. In my 11 years, I haven't called a ref out by name, but James (Williams) was terrible tonight, through and through. It's bad for the sport, bad for the integrity of the sport. People are going to start viewing this as the WWE if they're not held responsible." "I know I haven't won a championship in this league but I have been in it for 11 years now, so to get to this point to be treated like that, for me to even be saying something out loud, it's bad. It's my first time in 11 years but it's needed. Whatever, I get fined for it, everybody can pull the clips and see where the frustration comes from."

@gaye_ess I wrote this to my local MP over a year ago. The intervening period has only reinforced it (long-time Natl voter)

It wasn't hard for National to maintain the support they had at the 2023 election. They just had to stay the course and deliver on what they campaigned on. They just had to read the room and see the things that people were passionate about, and what they were worried about. They didn't. They continued to dive into left positions on many issues. This has been all their own work. The people who voted for them in 2023 would have voted for them in 2026. Their voters are not woke, and they don't want woke policies. The claims that they are Labour Lite have only increased. Luxon is weak and will not give a strong emphatic response on any issue he is questioned on. He thinks that fence-sitting and being non-committal is safe. He thinks that impassioned statements on things that kiwis are passionate about is dangerous to his popularity. The opposite is true. He has run a huge risk by not doing this, and now he is paying the price. From 38% of the vote in 2023, they are now polling in the high 20s to low 30s. They have jeopardised the success of the coalition with ignorance, pride, and forgetting the voters who put them there. #nzpol

@SonofOmahu Well put.

It's over an hour since Cyclone Vaianu hit Hawke's Bay. Rainfall has eased off to a gentle shower and the wind is down to bugger all. We need to have a national conversation about panic-mongering. A middle ground is needed between "she'll be right" and "we're all doomed."

@gaye_ess Beachlands, Auckland. Calm and warm atm.

The cyclone wasn't meant to hit till 10.00pm here in the Waikato, but it's here already with very strong winds and heavy rain. It's going to be a wild night. Where are you and what's it like there?

OUR LAST 2026 MASTERS UPDATE. ALL ON THE FIELD. NEEDED CPR 🚑

@sam_gzstrength You don't need barbells with how good modern machines are

In one sentence, what is the fastest way to trigger a Starting Strength Coach?

Our paper telling the story around the home-based resistance exercise programme we codesigned for cardiac rehab has proved very useful with alot of stakeholders & patients mdpi.com/2077-0383/13/2… @JCM_MDPI funny how non-traditional journals can work out so well with good work

CYCLONE VAIANU ⚠️🌀🚨 Cyclone Vaianu is likely to move across the North Island on Sunday, 12 April. If it does, it will bring damaging, potentially life-threatening winds. However, uncertainty remains in the cyclone's exact track, so the locations of the most severe winds are not yet certain. As confidence in the track increases, parts of this Watch will be upgraded to Orange or possibly Red Warnings. 🟠🔴 Vaianu will also bring heavy rain, with Heavy Rain Watches and/or Warnings likely to be issued on Thursday for some areas. High chance of upgrading to a Warning. 📢 More information: metservice.com/warnings @NZcivildefence

Now that Artemis II has launched we have 10 days to get everyone on Earth a Planet of the Apes costume so we can do something hilarious when the astronauts return 😁

I feel like I live in a different universe We just watched a player score the second most points in a month in NBA history; the most points in a month in Los Angeles Lakers history. Propel his team to a 15-2 record during their longest roadtrip of the season… wins against some of the best teams in the league. A 60 point game. A 50 point triple double… 40 PPG during a 10 game stretch… most points on the road since Michael Jordan… 40 points in 7 of his last 13 games… 13 straight games of 30+ points yet, he’s not even considered for the MVP

I’ve done two reviews of strength training programs this week where both lifters had the same problem. They were both trying to “neurologically efficiency” their way into progress where muscle mass was the bottleneck. Strength on any lift is essentially just a combination of those two things. How much muscle do you have? How efficiently do you recruit that muscle mass into a given movement? Let’s say you have 5 men to do a job. The only way you can increase output is to train them to work more efficiently. But you will always be limited by the fact there are only 5 men. Your competitor has 10 men to do the same job. They aren’t as efficient but there are 10. Who has more output? Hard to say. But what happens when his 10 men become just as efficient as your 5 men?? Now he blows you out of the water. At some point you have to implement strategies into your programming (and diet) to add size or you’ll just be hitting the same bottlenecks over and over again with your lifts.

17 Year Old Benches 500 lbs LIKE AIR!

You should be giving RUC a discount!! Diesel runs this country!!!

What is the best Star Trek series and why is it Deep Space Nine?

@calvinrobinson Because the Dominion storyline was phenomenal

I know this is Star Trek, but it's a great case study in leadership. Every boss eventually needs to have this talk with a senior employee at some point in their career. Sometimes you have to remind people who is in charge.