Author Archive

The wonder of e-bikes and e-scooters

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, January 6th, 2019 - 20 comments

The rise of cycleways, e-bikes, and e-scooters is steadily revolutionising commutes around Auckland, especially Central Auckland. Like public transport the economic reasons for commuters are easy to understand. You don’t get ridiculous parking costs or the lousy variable commute times of fat footprint cars jammed up on crowded roads.

Test embeds in comments.

Written By: - Date published: 8:04 pm, January 3rd, 2019 - 32 comments

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve started testing some embeds in comments in OpenMike today. This is a test to see what is possible in posts that can worthwhile be carried over to the comments. I’ll probably make decisions on what I allow over the weekend and either add what you want or remove the ones that look like they will break the conversation.

Wow, Anak Krakatau is just gone..

Written By: - Date published: 11:17 am, December 31st, 2018 - 14 comments

Satellite radar images

The progeny of Krakatoa, Anak Krakatau, that blew up and dropped most of its volume into the ocean to cause the December 22nd tsunami in Indonesia was very intense. Satellite radar images show that it lost most of its volume and the cone is just gone. That was just a minor eruption in a crowded world.

Now on WordPress 5

Written By: - Date published: 12:59 am, December 30th, 2018 - 12 comments

Just upgraded to Wordpress 5.02. There were a couple of minor tweaks required on our site for old posts, but nothing earth shattering. Proceeding on to changing the theme after 8 years.

US turnout – the single advantage of having a stupid elected monarch

Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, December 12th, 2018 - 19 comments

The voter turnout in the US mid-terms was the highest that it has been in a hundred years. For the first time that I think Donald Trump, the elected monarch of the strangest “democracy” on the planet actually achieved more than boasting and meaningless hand-waving. Of course that appears to have been an unwelcome accident to him.

Double down – protect parliament – ban Bridges for a month

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 pm, December 5th, 2018 - 104 comments

Simon Bridges appears to have deliberately maligned the position of the speaker of the house of representatives, and did it before he had any cause to do so. While he may think that it is in the public interest to do so, he isn’t special. He should expect what every other social activist knows will happen. You suffer the consequences..

The bigotry of lemmings – the China scare

Written By: - Date published: 5:46 pm, November 28th, 2018 - 134 comments

I can’t think of the number of countless times that I have seen scare stories about someone wanting to take over this society and/or the world. Sometimes they are even correct about intent, but usually they are not. Usually the difference between what is insinuated and whatever facts are known makes those making such insinuations just look like attention-seeking nuts.

 

My civics – the New Zealand civil war

Written By: - Date published: 5:19 pm, November 18th, 2018 - 67 comments

While looking at a missing post on Briefing Papers, I ran across some material on deficiencies in our current education regime looking at our civil war in the 19th century. So I wrote this post about why I personally think that it matters.

Bryce Edwards: Just another political simpleton

Written By: - Date published: 1:33 am, November 5th, 2018 - 68 comments

I can only describe Bryce Edwards spin about what a “The Standard” post means is that it is complete bullshit. This site is not the editorial and political monolith. But what else do you expect from a political simpleton with a limited understanding of actual debate. Like Mike Hosking, he is far more suited to a broadcast medium where he doesn’t get robust debate on their inane explanations of real world politics.

Trump laughed at for waving his toad at UN

Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, September 26th, 2018 - 45 comments

What can one say about Trump’s daft bragging at the UN, that raised a chorus of laughter at what he was saying. Clearly his toad is out of control.

Just because you’re crass and politically stupid, Mr Bridges!

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, September 24th, 2018 - 25 comments

The most dumbarse thing I have seen Simon Bridges quoted on was in an article about climate change issues saying that Jacinda Ardern should promote for more international tourism. After vast increases in visitors, we’re close to our current tourism capacity and we want to burn more carbon to get more tourists? WTF?

Help identify a spy – who is Laurie Moore?

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 am, September 18th, 2018 - 30 comments

Yesterday, a piece by Stuff Circuit questioned whether an activist by the name of Laurie Moore was in fact a spy for the New Zealand Police or Thompson & Clark back in 2003. New Zealand is a really small place, and we figure that someone must be able to identify this man. Please share these photos far and wide and appeal to all your networks to identify this man.

Oh! To be Human

Written By: - Date published: 10:09 am, August 4th, 2018 - 15 comments

I was in a foul mood last night after work having dragged my exhausted arse off to the Aotea Square in an exercise of my freedom of expression. Just in case we had to make our greedy Canadian bigot guests more unwelcome. It didn’t happen. So I went to Human circus and burlesque at the Q. Now that was really worth seeing.

Congrats: fuel tax drive more trucks out of Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 9:02 am, July 2nd, 2018 - 25 comments

Truck drivers are being to told to refuel outside of the Auckland regional fuel tax. Hopefully this will also mean that more of the excessively subsidised road destroying heavy vehicles will stay outside of our precious Auckland roads. But raising the Road User Charges in accordance to the general 4th power law would be more direct and have a better economic effect.

Populism and population decline

Written By: - Date published: 7:55 pm, June 9th, 2018 - 63 comments

As we enter the era of relative world wide population declines, we are are seeing populist movements trying to put the finger in the dike. The two are related. Big cities beset by congestion and housing issues as the young flood into them. Populistic movements driven from left-behind areas. Voting patterns show the distinct differences between the large urban centres and those in the declining regions.

Fairs fair : how to complain, how not to and why not

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, May 16th, 2018 - 21 comments

Phil Quin has been his usual dickheaded self on the net. Trying to bully people about material that they probably didn’t write on this site is not a way to get it looked at. For that everyone need to follow the procedures detailed in our contact page and the pages linked to it. The alternatives aren’t nice. Ask Dermot Nottingham. Updated

Nearly time for the Bionic Beaver

Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, May 5th, 2018 - 10 comments

Like everyone these days, I live in a range of widespread cultures. There are always interesting shock effects when one culture runs into another. Like the Bionic Beaver…

Northland politicians want to drop more trucks into Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 6:24 am, April 5th, 2018 - 75 comments

Politik reports that some mayors from Northalnd are upset that they aren’t going to get a four lane boondoggle to feed more heavy trucks into traffic chaos that is the Auckland isthmus. They can stick their trucks up their body cavity of choice and learn to love rail. We don’t need more traffic in Auckland until we fix the disaster that National have left us.

Inevitably the crazy old morons remain

Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, March 14th, 2018 - 164 comments

In his usual dignified way, Donald Trump announced that he was sacking Rex Tillerson, the American Secretary of State in a tweet. And so the round of musical chairs that marks the White House’s descent into even more incompetence continues. Meanwhile the farce of the Russian election proceeds in their background of state operated terrorism in the UK. But there is some light

Bill is gone. Free for all spectator time

Written By: - Date published: 11:53 am, February 13th, 2018 - 353 comments

Bill English has resigned. Apparently his confidence of last week had a limited lifespan. RNZ has the live feed. Now we can really speculate on which one of the no-hopers will assume the position to fail at the next election.

Really buffering climate change

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 pm, January 14th, 2018 - 53 comments

The recent development of accident and disaster insurance over the last century is now having a profound influence on buffering climate change. The Economist had a recent article with an excellent graph. Perhaps this is worth encouraging to give a price signal and a political lobby against that of the polluter lobby.

The joy of biking

Written By: - Date published: 10:52 am, December 28th, 2017 - 22 comments

As I prepare to fly out of NZ yet again for work, I’m contemplating how much my personal transport has changed over the years. These days I most ride a e-bike. Faster than a car for my commute because of the frigging Auckland traffic. Effective exercise without too much pain. And a lot of fun.

RealMe and online government – good when it works

Written By: - Date published: 2:53 pm, December 27th, 2017 - 24 comments

The only thing worse than standing in queues with lumps of paper is having a website system that isn’t functioning. It is a first world problem I know. But having the government’s systems not be down for maintenance during the holidays is a good idea. There are no queues to form at the passport office because they are on holiday.

Phil Quin: our media’s goto dogwhistling Aussie

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, November 29th, 2017 - 93 comments

It always disappoints me in NZ is who our local media consider are ‘left’ or ‘labour’ commentators. They are usually strange and weird relics of left behind who frame their commentary in terms of long past history. Phil Quin, a grizzled veteran misogynist of the 1990s Thordon Bubble who thrives on chaos and ill informed dog whistles, is one of them. It isn’t like he knows much about NZ politics. Updated.

Nett migration – still coming in fast and not going out.

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, November 23rd, 2017 - 42 comments

Statistics NZ has released the latest nett  permanent and long term migration figures for the year to date at October 2017.  There is a slight fall from a  few months previously. But it remains a sustained high putting major pressure on infrastructure and resources – especially in Auckland. We need to massively cut any new migration here for years to catch up with the work.

 

Measuring the honeymoon

Written By: - Date published: 8:27 am, November 14th, 2017 - 34 comments

One of the things that I like about the Horizon poll is that it is unashamedly qualitative and highlights data beyond what is required for idiot talking heads needing a soundbite. Horizon breaks down some of the demographics to look at who is giving the government their honeymoon.

TPP: A slight improvement but deservedly still a zombie

Written By: - Date published: 9:23 am, November 13th, 2017 - 124 comments

Fortunately the TPP is still the dead walking. Now that the immediate rush for ‘momentum’ is over (a scam phrase), it is time to do some real analysis of the project. This government, if it wants to convince its own supporters to support it, needs to discard that hucksterism fostered by the John Key government. Because to me TPP is a still a crock.

Suck it up political sleazers.

Written By: - Date published: 8:22 am, November 8th, 2017 - 113 comments

Winston Peters has launched a legal fishing expedition to identify who exactly breached privacy on his superannuation over payments. A problem that he shares with about 50 thousand other pensioners. Unlike them, his problem wasn’t trying to find money to repay it. It was that the breach was deliberately timed to be a classic dirty politics ploy, almost certainly by National, in the leadup to the  recent election. I wish him good fishing.

 

The days of National dick waving

Written By: - Date published: 8:06 am, November 7th, 2017 - 28 comments

The spin that National are running is that they are unhappy with the move to reduce the MPs in select committees. That their dick size opposition party is the largest make me see teenage boys being idiots. Because there is no substantive difference to parliament from when this was recommended and now.

Better roads rather than fighting to maintain them against trucks.

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, October 25th, 2017 - 46 comments

Truckers don’t own the roadways. We do. If Ken Shirley wants a stricter adherence to user pays, then he should start with his trucking members. In the meantime the best thing we can do for improving the roading network is to get large trucks off of the road – they damage it way too much.

NZ First: We could and should be doing better

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, October 20th, 2017 - 15 comments

NZ First chose to be inside Cabinet in a full coalition. I’d rather expected that they would choose to be in a confidence and supply agreement as they did with Labour back in 2005. That they decided to take the risk despite their previous experience with National is a stunning level of trust. But they work well with Labour.

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