Credit to PZ Myers linking to an essay by him in his blog on the fuzzy nature of right and wrong when it comes to knowing things.

http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm

Mr Little was very careful with his words. He didn’t come out and say: “I give a ringing endorsement of Mr Goff’s speech. It was a great speech, and I approve of everything in it, and have no concerns with any of the issues or how they were raised. I particularly approve of the way Mr Goff titled his speech “Nationhood”.”

Mr Little in fact damned the speech by failing to endorse it. It says a lot about the power relationship between the president and the leader that Mr Little has to clarify a point on whether or not he has personal concerns with the leader’s speech, yet very craftily says he it is rightly Mr Goff’s position to question the government on two points, as if it is Mr Little’s job to approve policy positions announced by the Leader.

Mr Little certainly didn’t point out in his press release that at the last Labour conference he called the foreshore and seabed legislation a mistake, yet Mr Goff’s speech was a slap in the face to the position that Mr Little took at Labour’s conference.

Time will tell in the next couple of days just how much heat is aired at tomorrow’s caucus meeting I suppose.

Will there be anything else, my petulant child?

[lprent: we try as well...]

Just as an aside there seems to be a quote mark in your link that shouldn’t be there, perhaps a moderator can edit it so that it works properly.

[Fixed.]

Straight from the Horse’s mouth.

In particular,

“There has been a range of reaction to the speech amongst the party membership and these reactions have been fully canvassed at last weekend’s New Zealand Council meeting. Like any major speech on a controversial issue there will continue to be discussion and reactions which is what needs to happen on these two crucial issues.

I support the stance taken by Phil in the speech and encourage ongoing discussion and debate about the issues that matter to New Zealanders.”

I think that you call this vindication.

Like I said, never trust anything you read in the Herald.

One idea for using pollution from cowyards was to harness it for energy use from methane produced. I wonder if that has proved to provide useful power with low wastes.

There are presently troubles for some farmers trying to stop thefts from their farms with cables for remote cameras being cut etc. I would think that such things may be done to harrass the factory and polluting farmers if they are allowed to continue ‘creaming’ the country. They are worse than foul-mouthed politicians and those trying dodgy methods to increase their salaries.

Then there is the water needed. These big businesses are pretty cold-eyed, they will try to get water rights for long terms. Even if others can’t get the water they need in the future, they will have supplies sewn up legally. Australia is running out of water, why wouldn’t some of their capital come here and find a way to utilise this asset of ours as well. There are long-term contracts already being made that will give some rich guys great advantage. Environment Canterbury I am pretty sure, said about water and the environment, that it didn’t want to grant too many rights for tree planting at the heads of catchments because that would reduce the amount available downstream. A queer attitude from a practical environmental perspective.

Lastly, in early colonial days the govt stepped in to prevent a few wealthy men getting large tracts of land so they could not follow the path of British aristocratic land grabbing and become squatters here.
But that is actually what is happening now, the small dairy farmer is being squeezed out. And the Crayfurs and the Gillespies are examples of the greedy being able to leverage their way onto farms they couldn’t afford or manage properly, but causing the land price to rise because of demand from such financial gamers.

Now how about a discussion about some really big issues such as global warming or corruption in New Zealand?

Given the pitiful amount of resources MAF puts into policing animal welfare that is not without some justification.

Why don’t you give yourself a break from blogging for a whole day before it becomes an obsession that squeezes the joy of life out of you and twists your mind and wrenches your soul from its moorings etc.

New Zealand agriculture has shot itself in the head rather than the foot this way over the years but seems incapable of learning – i heard the President of New Zealand farmers on radio this morning blaming environmentalists for forcing farmers to adopt these practices.

To fight this recession the Fed needs more than a snapback; it needs soaring household spending to offset moribund business investment. And to do that, as Paul McCulley of Pimco put it, Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble.

Keynesian FAIL.

I need a better mechanism for defeating the multiple-connection spam attacks.