Real estate agent gets desperate

The end of the month is upon us again, so it’s time to induct another into the Sick Phoque Club. This month, it’s David Hilliam, an Auckland real estate agent who visited a fortune teller for help selling a client's home and has now been stripped of his licence. Hilliam was found guilty of serious misconduct and lost his licence for six months after he admitted consulting a traditional Hindu "jyotishee", or fortune teller, to predict the market. Hilliam was an agent with Zest for Realty Ltd, trading as RE/MAX Zest, when he was contracted by Christa Herbst and Clinton Holmes to sell their 2.5-hectare Waiuku property in 2016, according to the Real Estate Agents Disciplinary Tribunal. "Mr Hilliam follows certain Asian religious beliefs and practices and incorporates aspects of these, in particular numerology, into his real estate work," the tribunal's decision said. Not everyone does. And for anyone tempted to do this shit in 2020 during a pandemic, I have this to say to you: DON’T TAKE THE PISS. This behaviour is at best a lawsuit waiting to happen. The fortune teller won’t always get it right.

Shock that pole

The praise gets less and less praise-like over the years

Still hurts after 9 years

I don’t think that’s how this works

Hat trick against United

Let’s fighting love

Asian Logic 101

That’s what you get for kicking the dog

Hangin’ Over

Guess who’s back, back again? Premier League’s back, tell a friend!

Commando, Witch Style

Biden’s gonna lose unless he plays ball

Rona’s Return

After just eight days, New Zealand has lost its COVID-free status after it was revealed two women who arrived from the UK have the disease.

They were allowed to drive from Auckland to Wellington under a special exemption on compassionate grounds.

Now the Government is cancelling all exemptions that have been granted and will require a negative test result before any new ones will be approved.

Masks and gloves are now a must for security, hotel staff, and police entering the Novotel Ellerslie - PPE that's even more crucial than ever, as the hotel is the quarantine facility linked to our latest COVID-19 scare.

This is an opportunity to look back, and learn and fine-tune, so that we are even better prepared. We are going to be facing travellers coming to New Zealand every few weeks or months who are infected, because there is so much infection around the world. And I know what’s really to blame for all this - 5G.

Suppressing the black vote like a boss

If you’re gonna be pro-vax, then be honest about what you’re really in favour of!

Water over the bridge

The terf war has begun

Get Your Snake On

How to lose a woman the @Tagorjnr way

Trump Ivanka Style

So what has protesting accomplished?

👉🏾Within 10 days of sustained protests:

Minneapolis bans use of choke holds.

👉🏾Charges are upgraded against Officer Chauvin, and his accomplices are arrested and charged.

👉🏾Dallas adopts a "duty to intervene" rule that requires officers to stop other cops who are engaging in inappropriate use of force.

👉🏾New Jersey’s attorney general said the state will update its use-of-force guidelines for the first time in two decades.

👉🏾In Maryland, a bipartisan work group of state lawmakers announced a police reform work group.

👉🏾Los Angeles City Council introduces motion to reduce LAPD’s $1.8 billion operating budget.

👉🏾MBTA in Boston agrees to stop using public buses to transport police officers to protests.

👉🏾Police brutality captured on cameras leads to near-immediate suspensions and firings of officers in several cities (i.e., Buffalo, Ft. Lauderdale).

👉🏾Monuments celebrating confederates are removed in cities in Virginia, Alabama, and other states.

👉🏾Street in front of the White House is renamed "Black Lives Matter Plaza.”

Military forces begin to withdraw from D.C.

Then, there's all the other stuff that's hard to measure:

💓The really difficult public and private conversations that are happening about race and privilege.

💓The realizations some white people are coming to about racism and the role of policing in this country.

💓The self-reflection.

💓The internal battles exploding within organizations over issues that have been simmering or ignored for a long time. Some organizations will end as a result, others will be forever changed or replaced with something stronger and fairer.

Globally:

🌎 Protests against racial inequality sparked by the police killing of George Floyd are taking place all over the world.

🌎 Rallies and memorials have been held in cities across Europe, as well as in Mexico, Canada, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand.

🌎 As the US contends with its second week of protests, issues of racism, police brutality, and oppression have been brought to light across the globe.

🌎 People all over the world understand that their own fights for human rights, for equality and fairness, will become so much more difficult to win if we are going to lose America as the place where 'I have a dream' is a real and universal political program," Wolfgang Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the US, told the New Yorker.

🌎 In France, protesters marched holding signs that said "I can't breathe" to signify both the words of Floyd, and the last words of Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old black man who was subdued by police officers and gasped the sentence before he died outside Paris in 2016.

🌎 Cities across Europe have come together after the death of George Floyd:

✊🏽 In Amsterdam, an estimated 10,000 people filled the Dam square on Monday, holding signs and shouting popular chants like "Black lives matter," and "No justice, no peace."

✊🏽 In Germany, people gathered in multiple locations throughout Berlin to demand justice for Floyd and fight against police brutality.

✊🏾 A mural dedicated to Floyd was also spray-painted on a stretch of wall in Berlin that once divided the German capital during the Cold War.

✊🏿 In Ireland, protesters held a peaceful demonstration outside of Belfast City Hall, and others gathered outside of the US embassy in Dublin.

✊🏿In Italy, protesters gathered and marched with signs that said "Stop killing black people," "Say his name," and "We will not be silent."

✊🏾 In Spain, people gathered to march and hold up signs throughout Barcelona and Madrid.

✊🏾 In Athens, Greece, protesters took to the streets to collectively hold up a sign that read "I can't breathe."

✊🏾 In Brussels, protesters were seen sitting in a peaceful demonstration in front of an opera house in the center of the city.

✊🏾In Denmark, protesters were heard chanting "No justice, no peace!" throughout the streets of Copenhagen, while others gathered outside the US embassy.

✊🏾 In Canada, protesters were also grieving for Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old black woman who died on Wednesday after falling from her balcony during a police investigation at her building.

✊🏾 And in New Zealand, roughly 2,000 people marched to the US embassy in Auckland, chanting and carrying signs demanding justice.

💐 Memorials have been built for Floyd around the world, too. In Mexico City, portraits of him were hung outside the US embassy with roses, candles, and signs.

💐 In Poland, candles and flowers were laid out next to photos of Floyd outside the US consulate.

💐 And in Syria, two artists created a mural depicting Floyd in the northwestern town of Binnish, "on a wall destroyed by military planes."

Before the assassination of George Floyd some of you were able to say whatever the hell you wanted and the world didn't say anything to you...

THERE HAS BEEN A SHIFT, AN AWAKENING...MANY OF YOU ARE BEING EXPOSED FOR WHO YOU REALLY ARE. #readthatagain

Don't wake up tomorrow on the wrong side of this issue. Its not to late to SAY,

"maybe I need to look at this from a different perspective.

Maybe I don't know what its like to be Black in America...

Maybe, just maybe, I have been taught wrong."

There is still so much work to be done. It's been a really dark, raw week. This could still end badly. But all we can do is keep doing the work.

Keep protesting.

WE ARE NOT TRYING TO START A RACE WAR; WE ARE PROTESTING TO END IT,

PEACEFULLY.

How beautiful is that?

ALL LIVES CANNOT MATTER UNTIL YOU INCLUDE BLACK LIVES.

YOU CANNOT SAY 'ALL LIVES MATTER' WHEN YOU DO NOTHING TO STOP SYSTEMIC RACISM & POLICE BRUTALITY.

YOU CANNOT SAY 'ALL LIVES MATTER' WHEN BLACK PEOPLE ARE DYING AND ALL YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT IS THE LOOTING.

YOU CANNOT SAY 'ALL LIVES MATTER' WHEN YOU ALLOW CHILDREN TO BE CAGED, VETERANS TO GO HOMELESS, AND POOR FAMILIES TO GO HUNGRY & LOSE THEIR HEALTH INSURANCE.

DO ALL LIVES MATTER? YES. BUT RIGHT NOW, ONLY BLACK LIVES ARE BEING TARGETED, JAILED, AND KILLED EN MASSE- SO THAT'S WHO WE'RE FOCUSING ON.

🖤🖤🖤BLACK LIVES MATTER🖤🖤🖤

IF YOU CAN'T SEE THIS, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

I can’t breathe

These are the last words of George Floyd, a 46-year-old man who died as a US police officer pinned him down, kneeling on his neck for almost nine minutes:

"It's my face man
I didn't do nothing serious man
please
please
please I can't breathe
please man
please somebody
please man
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
please
(inaudible)
man can't breathe, my face
just get up
I can't breathe
please, a knee on my neck
I can't breathe
shit
I will
I can't move
mama
mama
I can't
my knee
my neck
I'm through
I'm through
I'm claustrophobic
my stomach hurt
my neck hurts
everything hurts
some water or something
please
please
I can't breathe officer
don't kill me
they're gonna kill me, man
come on man
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
they're gonna kill me
they're gonna kill me
I can't breathe
I can't breathe
please sir
please
please
please I can't breathe"

Then his eyes shut and the pleas stop. George Floyd was pronounced dead shortly after.

As people of the world, we grieve the senseless loss of another life at the hands of US police, and right now, we have a choice. This can just be one more tragic death at the hands of US police -- or the moment for change.

We stand in community with everyone who is hurting.

These brutal killings must end. Each is a wound to the heart of our humanity and a shameful, indelible mark on that great flag of the United States of America.

Racism thrives in the company of silence -- so we will not stay quiet. Racism is a problem that belongs to us all. It is our fight.

But we cannot allow that fight to become hatred, for then we are no wiser than those whose hearts we seek to change. In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

It is in this spirit that we call on all those in power to act NOW, and hold President Trump and US state and local governments accountable to:

• Ensure all officers involved in the killing of George Floyd face legal due process,
• Expel and prosecute officers for even one instance of excessive force or the failure to intervene when excessive force is used,
• Ensure every police killing is independently and transparently investigated. We pledge to do our part, meeting the fear, anger, and ignorance of racism with all the hope, love, and strength of our humanity.

Rest in Power, George Floyd. It will not be in vain.

BEWARE: Facebook backs the Wu Han Organization

Worlds at War

Yes, their tracking is just that good

Who else has done this?

Making pizza like a boss

Bean waiting

If the ‘rona don’t get the brother man, the pigs will

And May 2020’s induction into the Sick Phoque Club, Derek Chauvin, did just that. On the 25th, George Floyd, an African-American man, died in Powderhorn, a neighborhood south of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. While Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down on a city street during an arrest, Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, kept his knee on the right side of Floyd's neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds; according to the criminal complaint against Chauvin, 2 minutes and 53 seconds of that time occurred after Floyd became unresponsive. WHITE ON BLACK VIOLENCE IS NOT ON. SERIOUSLY, IT IS NOT COOL. THIS IS WHY COLIN KAEPERNICK AND CO KNEEL DURING THE NATIONAL ANTHEM. THIS IS WHY EVEN BIDEN WOULD BE A BETTER PRESIDENT THAN THE ORANGE SACK OF SHIT THAT GOT IN DESPITE LOSING THE POPULAR VOTE. THIS IS WHY NWA PUT THAT SONG OUT BACK IN ‘88. THIS IS WHY ROSA PARKS REFUSED TO MOVE TO THE BACK OF THE BUS. THE ENABLER-IN-CHIEF HAS KICKED THE HORNETS’ NEST ONE TIME TOO MANY AND HE IS ABOUT TO GET STUNG AT THE BALLOT BOX IN NOVEMBER.