+ 1 for only mild use of mansplaining when there is plenty of opportunity to use it more
+10 for OP’s proving beyond doubt that we do in fact live in a rape culture
+ 7 for all those posters who declare that a drunk woman is partially, if not fully responsible for any subsequent rape that occurs while she is intoxicated (curiously no mention of any men having their dicks cut off while passed out drunk being entirely responsible for the loss of their manly member)
+2 for the poster who declares that, “you will get more credibility here if you post under your ‘usual’ name”. It’s only plus two because frankly it’s getting old and isn’t even intellectually offensive anymore because it’s not like anyone is actually going to use their real names because OP implied they needed more credibility in the first place. An intelligent argument should do just fine actually.
And +20 for this little gem from ratherbefishin, otherwise known as Greg from Waitakere City.
Occupation: Getting well from a serious car accident.
Hmmmm. Probably run down by a pissed off feminist.
Sure, there are predators out there, but your dauhgters [sic] are presenting themselves as bait. Look most rapes, not all, the girls are drunk or on drugs, dressed over provocatively, act like fools, put themselves in situations that is condusive to making the situation worse. It’s the parents fault for not naking them safe and teaching them the right values about mixing in the ‘right’ cirlces….you can’t get rabbits from rats.
“Sure, there are predators out there, but your dauhgters [sic] are presenting themselves as bait.”
There are predators out there, no doubting that, but whatever conduct or dress (lack of) sense, the ‘bait’ argument can only comes from those excusing or mitigating the ‘hunter’.
“Look most rapes, not all, the girls are drunk or on drugs, dressed over provocatively, act like fools, put themselves in situations that is condusive to making the situation worse.”
Doesn’t matter if women are drunk, drugged, in short skirts, boob tubes and give a guy the come on. The self control still remains with the male of the species. Always has, always will… Unless you’re a chimp.
“It’s the parents fault for not naking them safe and teaching them the right values about mixing in the ‘right’ cirlces”
Blame the parents of the victim of sex crimes. Nice work, idiot.
Yeah, I adopted a rating system from http://www.annalsofonlinedating.com/ where either the profiles of daters or their attempts at snagging someone via messaging are rated according to how bad they are.
But the handle ratherbefishin explains volumes about this guy. Some thickheaded kiwi bloke douchebag who wants to string gays up with piano wire and sees women as sub human.
Greg. I promise you, come the revolution, you will be sorry.
Anyone that can write that about rape must have a real struggle stopping themselves from attacking young women. I suggest preventative custody to safeguard society. If the guy hasn’t raped already, I bet he will.
It’s interesting that the commenting gets worse over time, and watching rape culture proponents work hard to prevail. I didn’t read the comments to the end because the thread was becoming ever-more demoralising to read. I assume the pro-rape-culture team continued to dominate the discussion through aggression and insults, seldom making any genuine effort to address the arguments of the protestors.
Still, I believe there has been real progress made in the public consciousness, since I was helped to join the dots to an understanding of rape culture, a few years ago.
The LGBT rights movement is always an inspiration in what can be achieved, but I’m only too aware of the personal brunt of public contempt and derision, and other kinds of psychological and physical violence borne hardest and most continuously by those at the forefront of the movement from the beginning. It was hard and dangerous work, and the fight continues today, but from a position of relative strength. But progress can happen in the teeth of seemingly overwhelming resistance.
The trademe boards are up their with major gaming forums for the level of burning stupid and outright sexist, echo-room bullshit. Nothing that a little “gentle” moderating couldn’t fix, but trademe lacks teh spine to do so, afraid that they’ll loose customers.
To this day I get pageviews from the Trademe forums to a post I wrote about Pippa Wetzell/Paul Henry/Breakfast, apparently from people who can’t spot the fact that my blog isn’t a news site and that the post in question is satire.
A couple of learnings for NZ; Labour is underacheiving (the Cameron Government is nowhere near as hopeless as Key’s lot) and if NZ First go into coalition with the tories after the next election, they can look forward to ceasing to exist 3 years later.
Sort of makes me glad the lib dems failed to get rid of first past the post.
One can only imagine how shockingly poor the conservative party would be if backed by the loonies and racists of the right to hold on to power.
Yep, Al1en, that’s exactly what Ashcroft wants. However, the results don’t help him turn them in that direction. If the poll had shown losses at, say, 20 seats, he could have got traction to move policy to the right; to strengthen the appeal to vavering traditional tory voters who have shifted to the anti-european UKIP. However, what this poll shows is that the electorate wants middle of the road or even left policies. So Cameron has to move to the centre to shore up the tory vote. That’s got to piss off Ashcroft more than just a bit.
Calamity and complacency aside, Labour, as unpopular as can be in government, will be back after only one term out, and whilst not the Labour party many here would prefer it to be, it’s got a well spoken leader that holds to core left principles. The people respond.
Camp mallard should have looked further afield for a game plan than the blinding light of our pm that so clearly bedazzles them and sets their agenda.
A month ago you were saying everything is fine and Shearer will lead Labour to victory and now you are saying that Labour is underachieving. What is happening?
Nothing gives, MS. I was making the comparison with UK Labour, who also started from a poor election result and are lead by someone who is still working to convince his own party of his merits, yet have gone on to gain enough support to govern alone. The NZLP caucus are underacheiving in comparison.
It comes down to attitude mickysavage. At present the caucus catechism is:
our (read ABC club) side is good.
the other side is bad.
We will only take notice of our side.
We will ignore everything the other side says and does.
Today I received my electorate’s first newsletter for the year. It contained a letter (no indication where it came from) from an unnamed new, young member who attended his/her first conference last November.. It was essentially a eulogy to David Shearer and contained such language as…working for a brighter future (now where have I heard that before), more progressive and more inclusive society… this is the Labour way and all of it was achieved at the Conference.
Why am I suspicious of this letter? Well, it has an [insert name here] quality about it.
“Drought gripping the North Island is the most severe in history, with the crisis far from over both for now and in years to come, scientists say.
“Long, dry spells are forecast to double by 2040 as temperatures continue to rise and New Zealand heads towards a more Mediterranean climate.
“Experts warn it could spell the end for farming as we know it and may cost the country billions of dollars in drought relief each year before practices are adjusted.”
“Experts warn it could spell the end for farming as we know it and may cost the country billions of dollars in drought relief each year before practices are adjusted.”
Actually, the best thing we could do would be to have the government buy enough farms to feed everybody and put in place practices (Heaps of R&D at the universities) to farm in the new environment. Then you let all the rest continue or fall upon their own – just as capitalism calls for.
I agree, the best research is being done outside of universities. The unis could get in behind though.
I’ll reiterate what others have said here recently – drought is being created by conventional farming as much as (if not more so) than by climate change.
This TED talk (20 mins) shows how to graze animals so you don’t end up in a drought (both locally and from climate change). Alan Savory has been doing this on the ground research for over 50 years, and developed systems of mob grazing that reverse desertification and sequester carbon and restore local microclimates on such a large scale that they probably would effect macro climate if adopted en masse.
At the end the TED host calls the presentation truly astonishing, but these farm technologies, based on mimicking natural cycles, are well known in sustainably land management circles and are even being used successfully in NZ.
John Liu’s work is worthy too, here he looks at the restoration of the severely damaged huge Loess Plateau in China back into a food producing oasis, as well as restoration in other parts of the world (50mins)
And a quick look (5mins) at the Greening the Desert project in Jordan (one of the driest places on earth supporting humans). Geoff Lawton took 10 acres of salinated man-made desert and had it starting to produce food from trees within four months.
Exactly. For instance, modern farming has destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of tussock land, which were crucial for feeding atmospheric moisture into the land.
At the end the TED host calls the presentation truly astonishing, but these farm technologies, based on mimicking natural cycles, are well known in sustainably land management circles and are even being used successfully in NZ.
That’s one thing that’s been bugging me for years. Academia in NZ is unwilling to accept knowledge gained outside of academia in NZ and that needs to change.
Maybe that happens in some specific branches of academia, DTB, but it couldn’t be applied in Physics, for example. I’m part of academia whether I like the label or not, and apart from Hitler’s attempt at introducing Aryan Physics, I’ve never seen evidence of what you suggest.
Which areas would you say this unwillingness applies to?
You need research working with real farmers on their own land.
Well, if the universities are doing their job, then they are. The simple fact of the matter is that the farmer is unlikely to be able to do the research but once the research has been done can help come up with better methods of implementation and the university owned farms would probably have farm managers on them as well.
“The simple fact of the matter is that the farmer is unlikely to be able to do the research”
Why do you say that? Many farmers practice empirical science anyway, and any farmer with either a good working knowledge of the scientific method, or support with that, can do research on their own property. It’s not rocket science 😉
Universities in NZ aren’t leading the way on developing sustainable practice, they’re following. And the way that universities are structured and operate, the hard sciences in particular, is inherently reductionist, making studying whole systems harder and less likely. This is why we are in the ridiculous situation of trying to solve river/waterway pollution from industrial dairying by chemically treating paddocks to prevent increases in nitrogen, instead of changing farming practices to prevent excess nitrogen in the first place. The inability to see natural cycles in their whole and to work with them is the big stumbling block, that and greed economics/capitalism. Universities are going to research conventional farming, because that’s what we do. They’re not focusing (enough*) on the kind that is making a difference.
Crown research is just as bad. Restructuring that happened in the 80s and 90s prevented the early adoption of sustainable practices, and many of the field researchers lost their jobs. From what I can tell focus was on economics and practices that created financial wealth.
*there are some notable exceptions eg the long-standing Biological Husbandry Unit at Lincoln has been pioneering organics for over 3 decades.
Seriously DTB, watch some of those videos and then compare what they are talking about with what is being done in universities, then you will get what I mean.
Because the farmers are more likely to be using land to make a profit with what they know. If they were doing anything else our waterways wouldn’t be as polluted as they are.
It’s not rocket science
No, it’s a hell of a lot more complex.
The inability to see natural cycles in their whole and to work with them is the big stumbling block, that and greed economics/capitalism.
That I can agree with but i also think that they’re changing. As I said, a number of them now have their own farms to work with and when you’ve got that then you must start to see the entire system rather than just the pieces.
This is why we are in the ridiculous situation of trying to solve river/waterway pollution from industrial dairying by chemically treating paddocks to prevent increases in nitrogen, instead of changing farming practices to prevent excess nitrogen in the first place.
“Because the farmers are more likely to be using land to make a profit with what they know. If they were doing anything else our waterways wouldn’t be as polluted as they are.”
We’re talking at cross purposes. I’m talking about farmers who are doing the cutting edge work on sustainable land management. They’re doing their own research, and being successful at creating new models of farming that don’t wreck the land (or quite as fast). Universities are lagging behind this.
” ” It’s not rocket science”
No, it’s a hell of a lot more complex.”
No, it’s not. Working with biological systems that mimic nature to grow food requires expertise, but you do not need an advanced science degree to understand it, not implement it. Nor study it.
“That I can agree with but i also think that they’re changing. As I said, a number of them now have their own farms to work with and when you’ve got that then you must start to see the entire system rather than just the pieces.”
Why? If you’ve been trained all your working life to look at the isolated detail and not the systems, and if your work situation demands that that is how you do research, and that kind of research is what gets the funding, why would you get to see it differently. Having one’s own farm doesn’t make one see differently – to use your example, if it did then farmers wouldn’t be polluting the environment.
“Or they could be doing both.”
Treating excess nitrogen by applying chemicals to a paddock is equivalent to the old lady that swallowed the fly. It’s just daft. If you manage land holistically in the first place, you don’t need to do that kind of disruptive intervention (or very rarely). I’m guessing you’re not that familiar with the kinds of technologies I’m talking about and don’t really understand the paradigm differences and why they matter. Maybe someone else can explain it?
“The new rules impose “compulsory competitive markets” on the entire health service.
The changes are planned under the overhaul launched by Tory former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley. He claimed there was nothing in it to “promote or permit the transfer of NHS activities to the private sector”.
But now all services are to be offered to the highest bidder from April 1.
The move would allow “any qualified provider” including giants such as Virgin Care to outbid local hospitals.
Critics fear the rules will let companies asset-strip NHS facilities. Labour have warned firms could cherry-pick the easiest, most profitable, procedures, leaving the NHS to pick up the tab for tricky and expensive surgery.”
“This intended ‘privatisation’ will mean a short term of financial gain for
the Tory Party followed by higher costs as shareholders have their hands out for their profit. Charing X Hospital is stuffed with new equipment, but understaffed – I wonder why! This government from what I deduce are thieves and profiteers. How much do they expect to make from our Schools and ‘Academies'”
Rodney Hide explains that since most business owners make less than the minimum wage (why the hell else would anyone run a business!) the pinkos shouldn’t expect a living wage. So there.
Rodney discretely omits any mention of the ability of business owners to sell their business and pay no capital gains tax, assuming that stupid lefties ” think running a business is easy. That’s because they have never done it.”
Good luck trying to sell a business not making money.
You’ll also find, unless a business has locked in contracts apart from stock and plant the business really has no value at all.
Mighty river power is a great investment, hopefully it will stimulate more interest in stocks and away from property
.Apart from property there’s no where else for people to invest there money and get any form of return.
Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also practised in other contexts. First, customers are “baited” by merchants’ advertising products or services at a low price; then customers discover the advertised goods are not available. Other products are “switched” for them; however, these items are often costlier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch
I don’t see the link with encouraging people to invest in the share market?
If there were already a lot of good share ‘products’ on the NZX …. then we would hardly need the government to be ‘baiting’ interest in the sharemarket with the float of MRP. Would we?
Given that the float is going to be well over-subscribed, or that there will be lots of people making a quick profit on the deal, the expectation you’ve raised is that there will be plenty of euphoric cash sloshing about looking for another deal. Hence the ‘switch’.
That’s pretty much the scenario you’ve raised is it not?
How about instead of spending your days posting on the interwebs, you get out there and show them how to do it.
With your abilities and ideas you’d be worth billions within the year.
How about instead of buying shares in a state controlled company so that the state can spend that money on state stuff, you invest in a private company?
Or do you think the state has better ideas about what to do with your capital than you do?
Sure will do, but this is not about me. It’s about how shitty private sector and corporate leadership has been in NZ that they’ve barely created any new worthwhile assets to invest in and so have to go poaching public ones.
Then stop talking about it and get out there and show them how it’s done.
Throwing shit from the bleachers isn’t really that helpful, especially some one with your business acumen and total awesomeness.
NZ need you to get out there and for you to lead the way.
It’s about the $100B in savings deposits in this country where people haven’t bothered to invest that money in jobs, busineses or industry, and have instead just sat that money on the sidelines.
That’s anti-business and anti-growth.
No wonder they have to poach public assets; there’s no imagination there.
” they’ve barely created any new worthwhile assets to invest in”
Well they have… but the worthwhile ones all get bought up by overseas interests. If they were on the stock market they then get de-listed. Just like the State assets will be.
Well yes they have, some small and medium businesses worth say $20M or $100M. Sam Morgan’s Trademe being about the only exception with a value much higher than that.
But on the industrial scale of an MRP? Nothing; absolutely nothing.
Apart from property there’s no where else for people to invest there money and get any form of return.
The whole point of capitalism is that there are massive amounts of ideas around just begging for capital investment and that such capital investment is done in a very highly efficient manner through the stock exchange. If that’s not happening then I’d say that the capitalist ideal just doesn’t work.
Basically, I figure that the ideas are out there but that the rich (who are the only ones with enough accumulated wealth) aren’t investing in them because they want guaranteed returns and not to actually take any risk. This is proven by the way that they’re lining up to buy power shares which they know they can’t lose on as the government can’t let power crash and burn. Basically, the people lining up to buy power company shares are just looking to bludge for the rest of their lives off of the hard work of the rest of NZ.
Monopoly and dictatorship is the natural end point of capitalism and that is what we’re seeing. The accumulation into fewer hands and the governments then passing policies, such as selling state assets, that benefit only those few.
Im over people like Rodney who think that workers should, pretty much, have their wages and conditions slashed.
If he came round to my house telling me that I shouldnt be getting the money that I get from my job, he would be on the floor getting the shit kicked out of him.
“If he came round to my house telling me that I shouldnt be getting the money that I get from my job, he would be on the floor getting the shit kicked out of him.”
He ran away from me when I challenged him in the Environment Waikato building in Hamilton a few weeks after his holiday rort was exposed.
Yellow by party, yellow by nature.
Think of the floor, Millsy. Do it outside. Really, I share your sentiments. How the hell did such naked greed and loathsome thinking ever get taken seriously outside of textbooks on forensic psychiatry?
Maybe we should be happy with a minimum wage that allows us to fly around the world for holidays, have a couple of cars, a few houses, and constantly rising capital value. To come up with this rubbish, Hide really is contemptuous of his readers. One more corrupt self-serving orc who should do us all a favour and just disappear.
Why Israeli Apartheid is Worse Than South Africa’s Version
Is Palestinian Solidarity an Occupied Zone?
by GILAD ATZMON March 09, 2013
Once involved with Palestinian Solidarity you have to accept that Jews are special and so is their suffering; Jews are like no other people, their Holocaust is like no other genocide and anti Semitism is the most vile form of racism the world has ever known and so on and so forth.
But when it comes to the Palestinians, the exact opposite is the case. For some reason we are expected to believe that the Palestinians are not special at all – they are just like everyone else. Palestinians have not been subject to a unique, racist, nationalist and expansionist Jewish nationalist movement, instead, we must all agree that, just like the Indians and the Africans, the Palestinian ordeal results from run-of-the-mill 19th century colonialism – just more of the same old boring Apartheid.
So, Jews, Zionists and Israelis are exceptional, like no one else, while Palestinians are always somehow ordinary, always part of some greater political narrative, always just like everyone else. Their suffering is never due to the particularity of Jewish nationalism, or Jewish racism, or even AIPAC dominating USA foreign policy no, the Palestinian is always a victim of a dull, banal dynamic – general, abstract and totally lacking in particularity.
This raises some serious questions.
Can you think of any other liberation or solidarity movement that prides itself in being boring, ordinary and dull? Can you think of any other solidarity movement that downgrades its subject into just one more meaningless exhibit in a museum of materialist historical happenings? I don’t think so! Did the black South Africans see themselves as being like everyone else? Did Martin Luther King believe his brothers and sisters to be inherently undistinguishable?
I don’t think so. So how come Palestinian solidarity has managed to sink so low that their spokespersons and supporters compete against each other to see who can best eliminate the uniqueness of the Palestinian struggle into just part of a general historical trend such as colonialism or Apartheid?
The answer is simple. Palestinian Solidarity is an occupied zone and, like all such occupied zones must dedicate itself to the fight against ‘anti Semitism’. Dutifully united against racism, fully engaged with LGBT issues in Palestine and in the movement itself, but for one reason or another, the movement is almost indifferent towards the fate of millions of Palestinians living in refugee camps and their Right of Return to their homeland.
But all this can change. Palestinians and their supporters could begin to see their cause for what it is, unique and distinctive. Nor need this be all that difficult. After all, if Jewish nationalism is inherently exceptional as Zionists proclaim, is it not only natural that the victims of such a distinctive racist endeavor are at least, themselves, just as distinctive.
So far, Palestine solidarity has failed to liberate Palestine, but it has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams in creating a Palestine Solidarity Industry, and one largely funded by liberal Zionists. We have been very productive in schlepping activists around the world promoting ‘boycotts’ and ‘sanctions’ meanwhile Israel trade with Britain is booming and Hummus Tzabar is clearly apparent in every British grocery store.
All those attempts to reduce Palestinian ordeal into a dated, dull, generalised materialist narrative should be exposed for what they are – an attempt to appease liberal Zionists. Palestinian suffering is actually unique in history at least as unique as the Zionist project.
Yesterday I came across this from South African minister Ronnie Kasrils. In a comment on Israeli Apartheid he said : “This is much worse than Apartheid…Israeli measures, the brutality, make apartheid look like a picnic. We never had jets attacking our townships; we never had sieges that lasted month after month. We never had tanks destroying houses.”
Kasrils is dead right. It is much worse than Apartheid and far more sophisticated than colonialism. And why? Because what the Zionists did and are doing is neither Apartheid nor is it colonialism. Apartheid wanted to exploit the African, Israel wants the Palestinian gone. Colonialism is an exchange between a mother and a settler state. Israel never had a mother State, though it may well have had a few ‘surrogate mothers’.
Now is the time to look at the unique ordeal of the Palestinian people. Similarly, now is the time to look at the Zionist crime in the light of Jewish culture and identity politics.
Can the solidarity movement meet this challenge? Probably, but like Palestine, it must first, itself, be liberated.
Gilad Atzmon’s latest book is The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics
Israel has constitutional democracy and a free press. Those are the important things for Pop. He’s a caricature.
Meanwhile, what worries me most about Israel and the hardcore Zionists is how they have managed to refine anti-semitism as being anything they don’t like. Their efforts to rewrite the history of Palestine are heroic in their magnitude. They are writing the Palestinians out of existence.
The one and only thing that Goff ever did that I liked was to tell Tel Aviv that they didn’t decide who he could visit and go ahead with a visit to Arafat. I can’t see either Shearer or Key doing anything comparable.
The one and only thing that Goff ever did that I liked was to tell Tel Aviv that they didn’t decide who he could visit and go ahead with a visit to Arafat.
Fair comment, Murray, but even then, Goff did not have the integrity or the courage to meet with the Hamas leadership.
I can’t see either Shearer or Key doing anything comparable.
Neither can I. I don’t believe any of the talk about how Shearer used to “stare down warlords” in Iraq.
“I don’t believe any of the talk about how Shearer used to “stare down warlords” in Iraq.”
Me neither. Mainly because the country concerned is Somalia. If you have any evidence that Shearer lied about his work and experiances in Lebanon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Serbia and Somalia, and, latterly, Iraq, then by all means front up with it. Or just admit you’re just making shit up, as usual.
I made nothing up. I simply quoted one of the most common factoids (or, more accurately, falsoids) put into the media at the time Shearer was making his run for the leadership.
Based on his inability to say anything coherently, even when faced with a friendly interviewer, I doubt that he “stared down warlords in Iraq”, as his spin-doctors claimed repeatedly.
You seem to have an emotional investment in Shearer; I wonder if you were one of the ones involved in the spinning of this patently absurd legend.
So, no proof then, Mozza? Why am I not surprised? If you have any reason to doubt Shearer’s work history, now would be a good time to pony up. Otherwise, you tend to look like a bit of a sad sack. BTW, what was it like for you when you did your humanitarian work? Y’know, when you put your life at risk to help others? Do, tell, mate, I’m sure your backstory will be fascinating.
Were you there with Shearer when he did his *humanitarian work*, or when he *stared down warlords*…
If you were not there with him, then your support, like the fantastical words of the PR spin behind Shearer, and Key etc, are simply endorsing the puppets of those who simply, made shit up!
Sad diversion BTW Voice, Mozza is not Trojan horse leader of the LP selling himself as giving a toss about NZ, or its people (include the Africans in that), using a fantastical back story, the rival of the *great self made businessman*, John Key!
Obama got a Nobel prize for peace, yeah, shit gets manufactured to suit a purpose!
Any proof the stories aren’t true, Muz? No? Then bollox to you too. Just another keyboard warrior, sans the balls to actually face reality as it is lives. Y’know, the real difference between you and Moz and David Shearer is that he can’t talk the talk and you two phonies can’t walk the walk.
Voice – So you were not with Shearer on his UN adventures then, we have established that!
Talk of reality, and walk or talk, is foolish, you have no idea about my situations/contributions, than you do of Shearers, thats the reality sport!
As I’ve said on here a long time back, your personal efforts to the LP etc, will not be any less meaningful, in reality, at the time it becomes even more obvious than it already is, David Shearer exposed as yet another parachuted sham traitor pretending to be a Kiwi!
Shearer’s humanitarian work (and personal courage) is well documented and recognised. It long predates his decision to run for Labour leader, or even stand in Mt Albert. (for example, his office was bombed in Baghdad, and yes, he had to deal with warlords in Somalia).
The fact that Shearer is poor at his current job doesn’t mean we have to belittle his previous one(s).
Fair enough. So is it to much to ask for this. I want to see that personal courage on display right up front and centre as Labour Leader standing explicitly for Labour values.
Somalia, knee capping your own colleagues, promising private house building corporates windfall profits, whatever doesn’t count. In this game, you’re only as good as your last sales pitch, not the one you successfully made 10 years ago.
You would think after the Pike River disaster this kind of thing couldn’t happen? What Kiwi Rail’s General Manager Rick Vanerveld has to say is a bloody disgrace & he should be sacked!
If I recall correct this bloke was in the papers axing nearly 200 Track jobs about this time & then I heard he got in contractors. Yip that sounds right as they were contractors in that tunnel, untrained in gas emergency evacuation etc. This mug is backing one of his Managers, who rather then
take the gassed workers for immediate medical treatment, instead takes them for a feed like they had too much to drink…”that’s shocking he should have been fired for that ¬ seeing they were trained.”
It will never happen the bosses always back their own & fudge things over after the pricks!
I wonder if the media are following this story up? I smell a cover up & bet there is a lot more to this story!
Our industrial landscape is starting to resemble third world environments with a govt willingly undermining health, safety and backing management all the way.
Kiwi rail is a classic example as its got slipperys henchmen kicking it at every turn and a puppet CEO natty boy.
OSH and ACC should be claiming a few scalps over this. And this is business as usual when companies axe staff and hire external contractors and sub-contractors, as currently all the health and safety risk is moved onto the external contractors, who usually try and cut corners to save money…
(I’ve done temping, and all we got was a very basic H&S video, while working directly for a company I’ve been given pretty decent H&S)
As I’ve said before, I know two senior H&S people who’ve both confirmed to me that ‘contracting out the risk’ is the major motivation.
The entire trend towards contracting, temping and casualisation is exceedingly bad. It’s damaging at every level. Contracting has a place, but only in certain specific scenarios. Where it is plainly being used to replace full-time employment, this practise must be stamped out.
Looking forward to hearing David Shearer announce strong policy aimed squarely towards at fixing this.
notes not handy, but, the article on TV ONE on cannabis use and opiate use in the NZ workplace blew my mind (but didn’t surprise me). When I dug ditches / drove a dump-truck, a quarter to a third of the crew were stoned or fried. 🙂
Another comment my acquaintances have made is that it’s been more than 20 yrs since the passing of the 1992 H&S Act ….but serious harm injuries have scarcely declined at all. Still hovering around the 5000-7000 pa mark.
Some employers (like my one) do take their H&S responsibilities very seriously; far too many others simply parasite off the system doing the least they can possibly get away with doing. Or less. And their employees (or contractors) simply pick up on the lack of leadership.
It’s not hard. If everyone knows that certain H&S breaches are automatic dismissal offences … then everyone very quickly plays the game.
personally, and objectively Red, I agree with the comment made earlier this week re: we just don’t have the political class (the liquidity or investment) to reverse up the decline; I talk to a wide range of people, from the giftedly “insane” to the lucidly “sane” on these sociological / geographical matters and the outlook seems to be “Gimme Shelter”
(+ thanks to TS and wider directed reading, there is plenty of confirmation on the ‘net if one is not a caught up playing “games” or looking for things to buy) btw, thanks for your endorsement of the influence of “faiths” in all this calamity in your postings.
yet, we could always Welcome China, but then, there is always that great wall, (i don’t think the Chinese will ever forget the Nanking Massacre / RAPE of Nanking either).People are people (for example, all these pissed diplomat / negotiators at UN conferences) and what was sown by the majority of the West (grass for example) will be mown down in time. There is an “eclectic” prophecy for ya; it has all gone too far, in my humble opinion.
Yeap, and the the business hiring temp’s know also they’re getting a shit deal, as usually the workers aren’t that capable due or even interested and so poor work results. As I’ve heard oft from commercial businesses I’ve worked for via student job search.
[insert shoddy contracting via lowest-bidder stories here]
Looking forward to hearing David Shearer announce strong policy aimed squarely towards at fixing this.
O_o
From Captain Mubblefuck?…
We’re more likely to get a complete reversal on asset sales by Key than such a piece of policy from Labour at present /cough
There sure is a lot more to it. http://i.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/7290292/Union-fears-KiwiRail-cuts-threaten-workers-safety This rank and file Union guy blew the whistle on serious Health & Safety issues at Kiwi Rail, including the Kaimai tunnel incident. Those bastards running the railways tried to use the job cuts to get get rid of him. Last I heard he got forced to move up to the far North or be made redundant. In other words ‘sacked’.
I would have thought whistle blowers were protected by law and the Employer would be skating on thin ice if he took a personal grievance?
The following link is to Rod Oram’s comments on Govt proposals to change the RMA. Govt is holding public meetings over next couple of weeks to “explain” their discussion paper. Oram suggests Govt is leaving out vital facts, and just using surveys as factual reasons to change the RMA.
Oram suggests Govt is leaving out vital facts, and just using surveys as factual reasons to change the RMA.
That would be normal for this government. Paint a pretty picture but leave out the facts so that people don’t realise the truth and thus can’t make informed decisions. It’s all part of the We know best syndrome of National and the ideological ignoring of reality.
Granting considerable new powers to central Government such as the ability to take individual consent decisions out of local councils and place them in a new national body; and inserting provisions in local council plans without any consultation.
Yep, more dictatorial control from this government.
Fingers crossed it bloody well works as this would allow us to kick our coal habit within a couple of decades at least. Mainly as you need the infrastructure for harvesting and delivering deuterium on very large scales + manufacture the reactors.
There’s actually a lot of research going on in fusion power sources. The “always 50 years away” really refers to the big tokamak reactors that will eventually get there, but obviously not for a long time and at such a cost that they’re not truly feasible as a source of power.
In the mean time, we may see one of these ‘alternative’ methods take off.
Tokamak’s are problematic mainly due to the fluid physics of the plasma, lots of eddies that reduce fusion output and require large amounts of computing power to model and iron out. ITER will probably provide better data on whether or not Tok’s can ever produce enough power for commercial viability.
And yeah, tok’s and laser-based interial confinement fusion systems have pretty much taken the lion’s share of available funding. ICF particularly as it provides useful data for nuclear weapons, but mainly it’s been international treaties and science politics that’s kept these two methods in the forefront in my opinion*.
The other main alternative runner is the Polywell, which has achieved fusion, but they’ve lost US Naval funding as of 2012 so are trying to get private funding.
As for cold fusion – load of crap at present, too little non-problematic data, in particular Bubble Fusion is another shining example of how science can go wrongzors.
________________________________________
*Could make for a fun history of science area actually… Generally you see a pattern of older, established scientists holding sway over an area and so it becomes difficult to bring in new ideas unless they have a lot of empirical evidence behind them. Seems to affect physics more.
I’ve been following pollywell for 5 or so years now, didn’t know they lost their navel funding though, that sucks. Alternatively, it seemed like the government wasn’t really giving it the funding it deserved and kept everything Top Secret, so this could be an improvement.
Mind you, the basics of the polywell are actually pretty cheap to build and test, though more research is needed to test it’s viability as there’s still some issues with the physics of the plasma confinement and pressure going off the details available.
Anyhow, it’s good to see that Lockheed-Martin’s actually putting the funds from it’s horribly overpriced military hardware to a much more useful technology and letting Skunk Works go nuts :3
I reckon that these developments are about 25 years too late to have a big impact on the energy future of the world, and I’m thinking about India and China here, two massive coal users. The best case I see is for a relatively small number of fusion generators to be built in time for VIP and high priority uses.
Unless of course the dream of having a suitcased size generator putting out a MW of energy comes true, but that’s the stuff of Star Trek.
But remember the circumstances under which the Enterprise crew first met “Q”…it was a desolate picture of earth in the 21st century after the next global war.
furthermore, Wonders of Wonders for you LGBT folk out there 😉 ; at S.A service this morning an extended testimony by a Gay man, artist, novelist, trained pianist, tertiary teacher, about his journey and acceptance. Very moving (although a few Trads. seemed a little bemused, still, that’s progress for you.kinda like how being tr*lld makes ya stronger, iron sharpening Iron and all that stainless. 🙂
I don’t think so, China at least accepts climate change is a very serious issue, and if this reactor is viable, they’ll probably cancel the coal plants waiting to be built and redirect funding towards building these reactors. Heck, depending on how the energy from the reactor is being turned into electricity, you could retrofit current coal burning plant’s with them and drive the in place steam turbine power generators. Saving a lot of infrastructure costs in the process.
And your forgetting just how much shear industrial capacity is present, given the drive, it can easily be redeployed towards producing just about anything, and the FRC reactor Skunk Work’s is proposing is far less complex that a tokamak. Mainly due to the confinement of the plasma via a magnetic bottle which doesn’t need a huge array of powerful electromagnets to run, and so doesn’t need entirely special lining as there’s no plasma eroding it.
It will obviously take time to build and set up using current carbon-based energy sources, but if Skunk Works can get it to produce a large net energy from a self-sustaining fusion reaction, the possibilities are literally mind-boggling. For one, human civilisation might just have enough energy to start mining the air for carbon at an industrial scale and reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Along with no longer needing to dam so many rivers for energy production, allowing for the rehabilitation of certain river systems and removal of dams in very tectonically active areas.
Then there’s the obvious advantages in terms of electrification in the developing world for food and medicine preservation and storage. All from a reactor that is highly portable compared to the nuclear* and carbon-based alternatives.
Are we still stuffed climate and resource wise? Yeap, but this is the sort of technology that when combined with other green-methods would allow us to adapt, survive and even reduce global temperatures. Albeit, a rather problematic set of “if” statements are still involved, mainly as democratic governments can be bloody stupid and some powerful non-state actors (i.e. corporations) have their heads firmly stuck in the short-term, despite the looming crises…
Oh, and it makes SPAAAAAAACE a lot easier to move around in, as this reactor can be used to generate thrust directly, or used to run an ion-based drive array :3
________________________________________
*well, pebble-bed reactors show some promise for portability and safety, but there’s a whole range of issues, including all the usual ones…
This is the absolute tech-solution best case, not saying it won’t happen but I wouldn’t rate it at a higher than 10% chance right now.
The Skunk Works is not going to release this tech to the world (or to China) for a very long time. It would be too much of a strategic advantage for the USA.
Once the technology has a pilot which can produce say 100MW sustained, I’ll believe that it is on the way.
Right now, I’m tempted to put it in the category of civilisation saving solutions requiring “Unobtanium” to work.
Yeap, but this is the sort of technology that when combined with other green-methods would allow us to adapt, survive and even reduce global temperatures
😛
As for this not being available to China, lets just say this tech isn’t exactly hard to replicate (based off currently published research on FRC and other reactors) and Lockhead-Martin might suck deeply and greedily on the teat of US Defence contracts. But this is a major money spinner that would give them a far more secure line of funding than the US DoD contracts. Which is going to get cut to the bone as American politicians are now beginning to stop holding it’s budget as sacrosanct.
Although the moronic right are a significant issue that may cause problems.
Worth bearing in mind that Lockheed Martin could also make a tonne of money exporting the F-22 Raptor, but it’s banned from doing so through national security legislation and technology export restrictions.
True, but that’s mainly because they’re getting government funding to develop and build the F22 airframe, internals and computer systems.
And while certain political douchebags might push for Skunk Works’ FRC reactor tech to not be exported to China and Russia, the shear need for this technology will hopefully hammer those idiots out of sight. Otherwise China’s gotten very good at industrial espionage 😉
Sometimes humanity prevails against it’s more stupid, short-sighted impulses.
They’re still trying the tokamak route, though the stuff being trailed is very interesting. Main issue with the tokamaks is that so far, they appear to need to be rather large to provide significant power (scalability being teh term). Along with the turbulence issues with eddies in the plasma that can cause power spikes/drops. Also China’s part of the ITER project.
But I suspect the Chinese aren’t standing still on other alternatives and their fusion research will be keeping an eye on anything out of Skunk Works.
As for this not being available to China, lets just say this tech isn’t exactly hard to replicate (based off currently published research on FRC and other reactors)
Yep, and other governments, except ours, probably have their research already looking in to it – especially after the release of that video.
Yeap, but this is the sort of technology that when combined with other green-methods would allow us to adapt, survive and even reduce global temperatures
😛
As for this not being available to China, lets just say this tech isn’t exactly hard to replicate (based off currently published research on FRC and other reactors) and Lockhead-Martin might suck deeply and greedily on the teat of US Defence contracts. But this is a major money spinner that would give them a far more secure line of funding than the US DoD contracts. Which is going to get cut to the bone as American politicians are now beginning to stop holding it’s budget as sacrosanct.
Although the moronic right are a significant issue that may cause problems.
Yeap, but this is the sort of technology that when combined with other green-methods would allow us to adapt, survive and even reduce global temperatures
😛
As for this not being available to China, lets just say this tech isn’t exactly hard to replicate (based off currently published research on FRC and other reactors) and Lockhead-Martin might suck deeply and greedily on the teat of US Defence contracts. But this is a major money spinner that would give them a far more secure line of funding than the US DoD contracts. Which is going to get cut to the bone as American politicians are now beginning to stop holding it’s budget as sacrosanct.
Although the moronic right are a significant issue that may cause problems.
When you get a 500 error on a comment just go to the front page and then reload the page that you were on. Your comment is usually there. I also suggest, if you’re really paranoid, a ctrl-a, ctrl-c before hitting submit.
In theory (as in I will believe it when I don’t see it), I should have largely eliminated the main cause of those this afternoon just before 1700 hours. There was a SEO plugin with a bad habit of locking the whole post table when it pulled all 11777 public posts for an analysis. It particularly caused a problem when a re-edit tried to start it a second time while the first was still running (for some obscure reason). Eliminated it, changed it for a less clueless plugin doing the same thing, and couldn’t see the reproducible effect afterwards.
I won’t know for sure until I see some new posts going up when the system is loaded. Ditto for finding out how well the new plugin keeps the search engines updated on comments. This one has less visible controls.
The log hasn’t shown any 500 responses since I restarted the apache server to start analysing the lag at about 2000 (been out)
The tech isn’t coming out of the “Skunk Works” – it’s mostly private sector, or possible government funded projects in France and Japan. The Polywell is pretty well understood, and I think you seriously underestimate China’s tech state of the art.
CV
While thinking about India there was a good update on Radionz this morning on how it is thinking and acting which might put recent vicious attacks on women in the picture among other matters.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday
11:44 Wayne Brittenden’s Counterpoint
Wayne Brittenden has been Radio New Zealand’s correspondent in several capital cities over the years. Each week he gives fresh insights into a wide variety of topics of national and international concern, followed by Chris Laidlaw’s discussion of the issue with guests. Today, while India is now seen as belonging to the middle economic bracket countries, new Oxford University research reveals what critics within India have known all along — that the last 20 years of unfettered market forces haven’t reduced the vast number of those living in dire poverty. Wayne looks at today’s neo-liberal consumerist India, and Chris follows up with Dharmendra Kumar, the Director of the Indian Campaign Group, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Watch. (14′49″)
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed
A less polluting and more efficient power source certainly opens up a lot of opportunities. If it’s used by the public sector to provide cheap power and save natural resources, it could be a great advance. If it ends up in the hands of the same greedy corporates, the price of power probably wouldn’t even go down. The technological solutions are always possible, but we need the social organisation which allows them to be used for more than the benefit of a small minority.
Turning Japanese http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10870285
so in Christchurch.
tail-end of an RNZ article on cancer treatment, along with Stress, Resentment is a significant etiological factor. (best to unload the sack on our back as we tramp through life; His yoke is Light
😉 )
And this is what National’s possibly looking at going into a coalition with? Ye gads, it’s almost enough to make me want to keep ACT’s undead corpse around. Notice too, how he conveniently doesn’t cite any polling evidence.
Well, he has a point. If you take “public support is shifting towards a traditional view of marriage” to mean “by lying to people about the current law and scaremongering about issues that don’t exist and also lying about the process being followed, we’ve created a lot of confusion and then carefully worded our polling questions so they almost get the answers we want”. Craig’s just being more concise, is all.
TV One News has just announced Joyce has committed to fixing Novopay within three months. An education sector person was hailing it on the news on tele as great to hear and that it was about time. But that’s not what Joyce said. He did say that he wanted as much done as possible to fix things within three months. That’s very different. In fact, does this mean that Joyce accepts not as much as possible was done over the past few months? Probably, but people need to listen to these slippery characters. When the three months is up and nothing’s been done Joyce will simply say that he did not give a commitment to fix Novopay within three months, and he’ll be right.
Of course it buys Joyce time and by that time the heat will have gone out and maybe the population will be bored by the story. Trust Mr Joyce? Sure can.
Native Affairs was on tonight (Maori TV) and featured an interview with David Shearer. I didn’t see it, because – not for the first time – it was poorly publicised. Some reaction here …
I never know whether Labour’s media reticence is deliberate strategy or just incompetence. Is it so hard to use social media and other outlets to say: “Today the leader will be on bFM, Maori TV, etc (as happened today). Why not issue a bulletin every day, announcing the day ahead? Too simple?
I learn far more from Google and Twitter than I ever do from the people who are PAID to publicise their party, their polcies, and their people. What on earth do they do all day?
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Building your own computer can be a rewarding and cost-effective way to get a high-performance machine tailored to your specific needs. However, it also requires careful planning and execution, and one of the most important factors to consider is the time it will take. The exact time it takes to ...
Sleep mode is a power-saving state that allows your computer to quickly resume operation without having to boot up from scratch. This can be useful if you need to step away from your computer for a short period of time but don’t want to shut it down completely. There are ...
Introduction Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) has revolutionized the field of translation by harnessing the power of technology to assist human translators in their work. This innovative approach combines specialized software with human expertise to improve the efficiency, accuracy, and consistency of translations. In this comprehensive article, we will delve into the ...
In today’s digital age, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our daily lives. Among the vast array of portable computing options available, iPads and tablet computers stand out as two prominent contenders. While both offer similar functionalities, there are subtle yet significant differences between these two devices. This ...
A computer is an electronic device that can be programmed to carry out a set of instructions. The basic components of a computer are the processor, memory, storage, input devices, and output devices. The Processor The processor, also known as the central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of the ...
Voice Memos is a convenient app on your iPhone that allows you to quickly record and store audio snippets. These recordings can be useful for a variety of purposes, such as taking notes, capturing ideas, or recording interviews. While you can listen to your voice memos on your iPhone, you ...
Laptop screens are essential for interacting with our devices and accessing information. However, when lines appear on the screen, it can be frustrating and disrupt productivity. Understanding the underlying causes of these lines is crucial for finding effective solutions. Types of Screen Lines Horizontal lines: Also known as scan ...
Right-clicking is a common and essential computer operation that allows users to access additional options and settings. While most desktop computers have dedicated right-click buttons on their mice, laptops often do not have these buttons due to space limitations. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on how to right-click ...
Powering up and shutting down your ASUS laptop is an essential task for any laptop user. Locating the power button can sometimes be a hassle, especially if you’re new to ASUS laptops. This article will provide a comprehensive guide on where to find the power button on different ASUS laptop ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
Recreational catch limits will be reduced in areas of Fiordland and the Chatham Islands to help keep those fisheries healthy and sustainable, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. The lower recreational daily catch limits for a range of finfish and shellfish species caught in the Fiordland Marine Area and ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
The coalition Government is delivering on its commitment to improve resource management laws and give greater certainty to consent applicants, with a Bill to amend the Resource Management Act (RMA) expected to be introduced to Parliament next month. RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop has today outlined the first RMA Amendment ...
Overseas models for regulating the oil and gas sector, including their decommissioning regimes, are being carefully scrutinised as a potential template for New Zealand’s own sector, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. The Coalition Government is focused on rebuilding investor confidence in New Zealand’s energy sector as it looks to strengthen ...
Emergency Management and Recovery Minister Mark Mitchell has today released the Report of the Government Inquiry into the response to the North Island Severe Weather Events. “The report shows that New Zealand’s emergency management system is not fit-for-purpose and there are some significant gaps we need to address,” Mr Mitchell ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith is today travelling to Europe where he’ll update the United Nations Human Rights Council on the Government’s work to restore law and order. “Attending the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva provides us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while ...
Associate Agriculture Minister, Mark Patterson, formally reopened the world’s largest wool processing facility today in Awatoto, Napier, following a $50 million rebuild and refurbishment project. “The reopening of this facility will significantly lift the economic opportunities available to New Zealand’s wool sector, which already accounts for 20 per cent of ...
Hon Andrew Bayly, Minister for Small Business and Manufacturing At the Southland Otago Regional Engineering Collective (SOREC) Summit, 18 April, Dunedin Ngā mihi nui, Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Ko Whanganui aho Good Afternoon and thank you for inviting me to open your summit today. I am delighted ...
The Government is delivering on its commitment to bring back the Three Strikes legislation, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee announced today. “Our Government is committed to restoring law and order and enforcing appropriate consequences on criminals. We are making it clear that repeat serious violent or sexual offending is not ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has today announced four new diplomatic appointments for New Zealand’s overseas missions. “Our diplomats have a vital role in maintaining and protecting New Zealand’s interests around the world,” Mr Peters says. “I am pleased to announce the appointment of these senior diplomats from the ...
New Zealand is contributing NZ$7 million to support communities affected by severe food insecurity and other urgent humanitarian needs in Ethiopia and Somalia, Foreign Minister Rt Hon Winston Peters announced today. “Over 21 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance across Ethiopia, with a further 6.9 million people ...
Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Paul Goldsmith is congratulating Mataaho Collective for winning the Golden Lion for best participant in the main exhibition at the Venice Biennale. "Congratulations to the Mataaho Collective for winning one of the world's most prestigious art prizes at the Venice Biennale. “It is good ...
The Government is reforming financial services to improve access to home loans and other lending, and strengthen customer protections, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly and Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced today. “Our coalition Government is committed to rebuilding the economy and making life simpler by cutting red tape. We are ...
“China remains a strong commercial opportunity for Kiwi exporters as Chinese businesses and consumers continue to value our high-quality safe produce,” Trade and Agriculture Minister Todd McClay says. Mr McClay has returned to New Zealand following visits to Beijing, Harbin and Shanghai where he met ministers, governors and mayors and engaged in trade and agricultural events with the New ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has completed a successful trip to Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, deepening relationships and capitalising on opportunities. Mr Luxon was accompanied by a business delegation and says the choice of countries represents the priority the New Zealand Government places on South East Asia, and our relationships in ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
I was initially resistant to the idea often suggested to me that the Government should deliver an arts strategy. The whole point of the arts and creativity is that people should do whatever the hell they want, unbound by the dictates of politicians in Wellington. Peter Jackson, Kiri Te Kanawa, Eleanor ...
Asia Pacific Report The Freedom Flotilla is ready to sail to Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. All the required paperwork has been submitted to the port authority, and the cargo has been loaded and prepared for the humanitarian trip to the besieged enclave. However, organisers received word of an “administrative ...
Pacific Media Watch Palestine solidarity protesters today demonstrated at the Auckland headquarters of Television New Zealand, accusing the country’s major TV network of broadcasting “propaganda” backing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. About 50 protesters targeted the main entrance to the TVNZ building near Sky Tower and also picketed a side ...
Opinion by Lynley Hood. Forty years on from my 1985 Fulbright Grant, my disquiet over the war in Gaza evoked some troubling questions. The answer to my first question – What is the primary purpose of the Fulbright Programme? – was on the Fulbright NZ website. It says: US Senator, ...
The ministers responsible for green-lighting major projects need to be open about potential conflicts of interest, says Transparency International. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University It has been a particularly distressing start to the year. There is little that can ease the current grief of individuals, families and communities who have needlessly lost a loved one to men’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne Lichen, the first described example of symbiosis.AdeJ Artventure/Shutterstock Once known only to those studying biology, the word symbiosis is now widely used. Symbiosis is the intimate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kim Hemsley, Head, Childhood Dementia Research Group, Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University Olena Ivanova/Shutterstock “Childhood” and “dementia” are two words we wish we didn’t have to use together. But sadly, around 1,400 ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Whiteford, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University The government’s Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee has just published its second report. It was set up by Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth in 2022 to provide: ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne The Queensland state election will be held in October. A YouGov poll for The Courier Mail, conducted April 9–17 from a sample ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Amin Naeni, PhD candidate at Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Deakin University There’s been much talk in recent months about what a possible second Donald Trump presidency in the United States could mean for Europe, Russia’s war in Ukraine, the ...
A brief round-up of submissions on the controversial proposed law. This is an excerpt from our weekly environmental newsletter Future Proof. Sign up here. Last week, submissions on the controversial Fast-track Approvals Bill closed just hours after the government released a list of stakeholder organisations who were sent letters advising how they could ...
A poem from Robin Peace’s new collection Detritus of Empire: feather / grass / rock. Cereal giving I see a woman’s hands, see her curious hands break a stalk as she walks through the tall prairie, the savannah, the steppe, wherever it was. See her idly bite the grass that ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)A handsomely produced (debossed cover, lovely ...
The Commissioner's decision validates the longstanding efforts of the local community and ensures that Awataha Marae will be managed to serve the needs of the local community, particularly for hosting tangihanga. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tristan Salles, Associate professor, University of Sydney Examples of Australian landscapes.Unsplash Seventy thousand years ago, the sea level was much lower than today. Australia, along with New Guinea and Tasmania, formed a connected landmass known as Sahul. Around this time – ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Felicity Castagna, Lecturer, Creative Writing, Western Sydney University Day Day Market, ParramattaPhoto: Garry Trinh I live on the edge of Parramatta, Australia’s fastest-growing city, on the kind of old-fashioned suburban street that has 1950s fibros constructed in the post-war housing boom, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Ryan, Teaching Fellow in Economics, University of Waikato GettyImagesfatido/Getty Images There is an ongoing global debate over whether the high inflation seen in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic can be lowered without a recession. New Zealand is not ...
The ‘Wicked Game’ heartthrob is in his late 60s now. That didn’t stop him putting on a lively, goofy and very sparkly show. Apart from ‘Wicked Game’, which graces a sultry playlist of mine simply called 💋, my last sustained Chris Isaak listening session took place when I was about ...
Analysis - Two ministers were stripped of portfolios in a warning to Cabinet, drama broke out at the Waitangi Tribunal, and the gang patch ban bill ran into opposition. ...
Tara Ward makes an impassioned plea for some vital pop culture merch. In April 1999, I became obsessed with a new reality television show called Popstars. Every Tuesday night, five strangers transformed into music royalty before my very eyes as Joe, Keri, Carly, Erika and Megan were chosen to form ...
PNG Post-Courier In the early hours of ANZAC Day, aerial photographs captured an impressive gathering of Australians and Papua New Guineans at Isurava in the Northern (Oro) Province. The solemn dawn service yesterday was held at a site steeped in history, where some of the fiercest battles of World War ...
The PSA is shocked that Oranga Tamariki has used the cost cutting drive to downgrade its commitment to Te Ao Māori and remove many specialist Māori roles. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ian Kemish, Adjunct Professor, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland There can be no more powerful symbol of the relationship between Australia and Papua New Guinea than the prime ministers of these neighbouring countries walking together on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharon Robinson, Distinguished Professor and Deputy Director of ARC Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future (SAEF), University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong Andrew Netherwood Over the last 25 years, the ozone hole which forming over Antarctica each spring has started to shrink. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Viktoria Kahui, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Economics, University of Otago Getty Images/Amy Toensing Biodiversity is declining at rates unprecedented in human history. This suggests the ways we currently use to manage our natural environment are failing. One emerging concept focuses on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Timothy Colin Bednall, Associate Professor in Management, Swinburne University of Technology marvent/Shutterstock Finding the best person to fill a position can be tough, from drafting a job ad to producing a shortlist of top interview candidates. Employers typically consider information from ...
Wondering where to host your next BYO? Whether its a small gathering or a massive party, we’ve got some recommendations. I was first introduced to the concept of BYOs at Dunedin’s India Gardens, a legendary but sadly defunct establishment, which purveyed enormous quantities of mango chicken to Aotearoa’s drunkest future ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julien Cooper, Honorary Lecturer, Department of History and Archaeology, Macquarie University Julien Cooper The hyper-arid desert of Eastern Sudan, the Atbai Desert, seems like an unlikely place to find evidence of ancient cattle herders. But in this dry environment, my new ...
The sector says it’s hopeful her replacement Paul Goldsmith will be able to throw it a lifeline, after six months with a minister deemed missing in action, writes Catherine McGregor in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s morning news round-up. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign ...
The government can't just rely on axing public sector jobs and has to do more to cut spending, says the chief economist at a free market think tank. ...
Rock The Vote NZ, known for its advocacy for minor party unity and its role within the Freedoms NZ Coalition during the 2023 General Election, celebrates this merger as a strategic enhancement of its operational strength and outreach. ...
Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of something you use breaking and being difficult or expensive to fix. Proposed legislation could change that. It’s been raining on and off all Sunday afternoon but people are lining up outside a building in a corner of Gribblehirst Park in Sandringham, Auckland. In ...
What does a forever relationship look like when you don’t believe in marriage? And how do you celebrate it? This essay is part of our Sunday Essay series, made possible thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand.I’m going to do it, right now. I’m going to say ...
It’s not that long ago Eliza McCartney was seriously wondering if the Paris Olympics would be her pole vaulting swansong. After years of being hounded by injury after injury, the Rio Olympics bronze medallist was still confident she would compete at her second Olympics in Paris in July, unless something ...
FICTION 1 Take Two by Danielle Hawkins (Allen & Unwin, $36.99) There’s commercial fiction, like this book, and then there’s quality fiction, quality writers, quality literature; the forthcoming Auckland Writers Festival is full of quality, and ReadingRoom has two tickets to give away to the following events: Paul Lynch (Dublin ...
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You can’t have missed the Gallipoli story as the movies, documentaries, essays and books capture what it was like for New Zealand troops in their eight-month campaign on the Peninsula. But this Anzac Day the Auckland War Memorial Museum has published a book that sheds light on a little-known aspect of the ...
The Prime Minister has committed to resuming direct flights to Thailand. But it’s not a promise he will be able to deliver on anytime soon. The post Prime Minister jumps the gun in Thailand appeared first on Newsroom. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra In the free-for-all between the Australian government and Big Tech boss Elon Musk this week, the government had to be on a winner. Most people would have little sympathy with Musk’s vociferous opposition to ...
Asia Pacific Report Chief Mandla Mandela, a member of the National Assembly of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, has joined the Freedom Flotilla in istanbul as the ships prepare to sail for Gaza, reports Kia Ora Gaza. Mandela is also the ambassador for the Global Campaign to Return to ...
Pacific Media Watch Journalists who report on environmental issues are encountering growing difficulties in many parts of the world, reports Reporters Without Borders. According to the tally kept by RSF, 200 journalists have been subjected to threats and physical violence, including murder, in the past 10 years because they were ...
Analysis by Dr Bryce Edwards, Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)Political scientist, Dr Bryce Edwards. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra BagzhanSadvakassov/Upsplash, CC BY-SA Australia’s inflation rate has fallen for the fifth successive quarter, and it’s now less than half of what it was back in late 2022. ...
ACT's Rural Communities and Veterans spokesman Mark Cameron responds to cancellations and protests of ANZAC Day commemorations in Wellington. He says, "These pitiful attempts to detract from ANZAC Day are not at all indicative of the feelings of mainstream ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Meighen McCrae, Associate Professor of Strategic & Defence Studies, Australian National University American and Australian stretcher bearers working together near the front line during the Battle of Hamel in 1918.Australian War Memorial While the AUKUS alliance is new, the Australian-American partnership ...
Pōneke based peace activists staged a silent protest at the ANZAC day service to highlight New Zealand’s complicity in war and genocide, and urge the government to take concrete steps to stop the genocide in Palestine. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Magdalena M.E. Bunbury, Postdoctoral Researcher, James Cook University Burial with a horse at the Rákóczifalva site, Hungary (8th century AD).Sándor Hegedűs, Hungarian National Museum, CC BY How do we understand past societies? For centuries, our main sources of information have been ...
Amanda Thompson doesn’t really do Anzac Day. But what she does do is remember the people she knew who had a lifetime to remember stuff they didn’t really want to, because of a war they didn’t ask for. And she does make Anzac biscuits.First published in 2021.All my ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kathryn Willis, Postdoctoral Researcher, CSIRO Xavier Boulenger/Shutterstock In the two decades to 2019, global plastic production doubled. By 2040, plastic manufacturing and processing could consume as much as 20% of global oil production and use up 15% of the annual carbon ...
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+ 1 for only mild use of mansplaining when there is plenty of opportunity to use it more
+10 for OP’s proving beyond doubt that we do in fact live in a rape culture
+ 7 for all those posters who declare that a drunk woman is partially, if not fully responsible for any subsequent rape that occurs while she is intoxicated (curiously no mention of any men having their dicks cut off while passed out drunk being entirely responsible for the loss of their manly member)
+2 for the poster who declares that, “you will get more credibility here if you post under your ‘usual’ name”. It’s only plus two because frankly it’s getting old and isn’t even intellectually offensive anymore because it’s not like anyone is actually going to use their real names because OP implied they needed more credibility in the first place. An intelligent argument should do just fine actually.
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=1222972&topic=5
And +20 for this little gem from ratherbefishin, otherwise known as Greg from Waitakere City.
Occupation: Getting well from a serious car accident.
Hmmmm. Probably run down by a pissed off feminist.
Sure, there are predators out there, but your dauhgters [sic] are presenting themselves as bait. Look most rapes, not all, the girls are drunk or on drugs, dressed over provocatively, act like fools, put themselves in situations that is condusive to making the situation worse. It’s the parents fault for not naking them safe and teaching them the right values about mixing in the ‘right’ cirlces….you can’t get rabbits from rats.
You +20 that?
“Sure, there are predators out there, but your dauhgters [sic] are presenting themselves as bait.”
There are predators out there, no doubting that, but whatever conduct or dress (lack of) sense, the ‘bait’ argument can only comes from those excusing or mitigating the ‘hunter’.
“Look most rapes, not all, the girls are drunk or on drugs, dressed over provocatively, act like fools, put themselves in situations that is condusive to making the situation worse.”
Doesn’t matter if women are drunk, drugged, in short skirts, boob tubes and give a guy the come on. The self control still remains with the male of the species. Always has, always will… Unless you’re a chimp.
“It’s the parents fault for not naking them safe and teaching them the right values about mixing in the ‘right’ cirlces”
Blame the parents of the victim of sex crimes. Nice work, idiot.
“you can’t get rabbits from rats.”
Or reasoned debate from trade me.
Yeah, I adopted a rating system from http://www.annalsofonlinedating.com/ where either the profiles of daters or their attempts at snagging someone via messaging are rated according to how bad they are.
I didn’t understand the +
Now I do 😉
+ Tard
🙂
Absolutely disgusting.
But the handle ratherbefishin explains volumes about this guy. Some thickheaded kiwi bloke douchebag who wants to string gays up with piano wire and sees women as sub human.
Greg. I promise you, come the revolution, you will be sorry.
Thats not a very nice way to talk about your mother
Anyone that can write that about rape must have a real struggle stopping themselves from attacking young women. I suggest preventative custody to safeguard society. If the guy hasn’t raped already, I bet he will.
It’s interesting that the commenting gets worse over time, and watching rape culture proponents work hard to prevail. I didn’t read the comments to the end because the thread was becoming ever-more demoralising to read. I assume the pro-rape-culture team continued to dominate the discussion through aggression and insults, seldom making any genuine effort to address the arguments of the protestors.
Still, I believe there has been real progress made in the public consciousness, since I was helped to join the dots to an understanding of rape culture, a few years ago.
The LGBT rights movement is always an inspiration in what can be achieved, but I’m only too aware of the personal brunt of public contempt and derision, and other kinds of psychological and physical violence borne hardest and most continuously by those at the forefront of the movement from the beginning. It was hard and dangerous work, and the fight continues today, but from a position of relative strength. But progress can happen in the teeth of seemingly overwhelming resistance.
And there are some hopeful signs:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10870210
” rape culture proponents”
Who are they? Can you cite anyone who says rape culture is great and needs to be maintained?
“rape culture” is a concept which only belongs to feminist ideology, it is not generally accepted.
You are trying to smear anyone who doesn’t pedal feminist doctrine as rape supporters.
You are like those rightwing yanks who accuse anyone who opposes them as being terrorists supporters or sympathisers.
People like you who claim that rape culture doesn’t exist despite all the evidence that it does.
Ask the NZ Police force, they wrote the book on it!
194 million results for “rape culture” on Google. Only 6.5 mil for “deconstructionist Marxist feminist”.
js, thanks for the tautoko yesterday 🙂
Urge to summon Cthulhu rising….
The trademe boards are up their with major gaming forums for the level of burning stupid and outright sexist, echo-room bullshit. Nothing that a little “gentle” moderating couldn’t fix, but trademe lacks teh spine to do so, afraid that they’ll loose customers.
To this day I get pageviews from the Trademe forums to a post I wrote about Pippa Wetzell/Paul Henry/Breakfast, apparently from people who can’t spot the fact that my blog isn’t a news site and that the post in question is satire.
O_o
Well, trademe board users aren’t the brightest bunch at times…
(May the elder things grant me the mighty banhammer of troll-halla to smack the unworthy back unto the wretched lands of talkback, ramen)
Lord Ashcroft spends some more money, doesn’t get the result he hoped for:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/mar/09/labour-election-win-tory-poll
A couple of learnings for NZ; Labour is underacheiving (the Cameron Government is nowhere near as hopeless as Key’s lot) and if NZ First go into coalition with the tories after the next election, they can look forward to ceasing to exist 3 years later.
Sort of makes me glad the lib dems failed to get rid of first past the post.
One can only imagine how shockingly poor the conservative party would be if backed by the loonies and racists of the right to hold on to power.
I wonder if the Lord was using the “research” as a cunning way to direct the Tories in the direction that he wanted. Scare tactics?
Lurch to the right, play to baser instinct. What could go wrong?
Worked so well for JK, even NZ Labour are at it.
Yep, Al1en, that’s exactly what Ashcroft wants. However, the results don’t help him turn them in that direction. If the poll had shown losses at, say, 20 seats, he could have got traction to move policy to the right; to strengthen the appeal to vavering traditional tory voters who have shifted to the anti-european UKIP. However, what this poll shows is that the electorate wants middle of the road or even left policies. So Cameron has to move to the centre to shore up the tory vote. That’s got to piss off Ashcroft more than just a bit.
Calamity and complacency aside, Labour, as unpopular as can be in government, will be back after only one term out, and whilst not the Labour party many here would prefer it to be, it’s got a well spoken leader that holds to core left principles. The people respond.
Camp mallard should have looked further afield for a game plan than the blinding light of our pm that so clearly bedazzles them and sets their agenda.
NZ First will not go into coalition with National. The 1990s are over, everyone out of the pool.
Never predict winston 🙂
What gives TRP?
A month ago you were saying everything is fine and Shearer will lead Labour to victory and now you are saying that Labour is underachieving. What is happening?
Nothing gives, MS. I was making the comparison with UK Labour, who also started from a poor election result and are lead by someone who is still working to convince his own party of his merits, yet have gone on to gain enough support to govern alone. The NZLP caucus are underacheiving in comparison.
So what changes need to be made to Caucus, asked in the most neutral way possible …
It comes down to attitude mickysavage. At present the caucus catechism is:
our (read ABC club) side is good.
the other side is bad.
We will only take notice of our side.
We will ignore everything the other side says and does.
Today I received my electorate’s first newsletter for the year. It contained a letter (no indication where it came from) from an unnamed new, young member who attended his/her first conference last November.. It was essentially a eulogy to David Shearer and contained such language as…working for a brighter future (now where have I heard that before), more progressive and more inclusive society… this is the Labour way and all of it was achieved at the Conference.
Why am I suspicious of this letter? Well, it has an [insert name here] quality about it.
I sincerely hope I’m wrong.
“Drought gripping the North Island is the most severe in history, with the crisis far from over both for now and in years to come, scientists say.
“Long, dry spells are forecast to double by 2040 as temperatures continue to rise and New Zealand heads towards a more Mediterranean climate.
“Experts warn it could spell the end for farming as we know it and may cost the country billions of dollars in drought relief each year before practices are adjusted.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/8405004/North-Island-drought-worst-in-history
Actually, the best thing we could do would be to have the government buy enough farms to feed everybody and put in place practices (Heaps of R&D at the universities) to farm in the new environment. Then you let all the rest continue or fall upon their own – just as capitalism calls for.
University R&D can’t help in this situation. It’s the wrong approach to modifying and applying existing knowledge.
I agree, the best research is being done outside of universities. The unis could get in behind though.
I’ll reiterate what others have said here recently – drought is being created by conventional farming as much as (if not more so) than by climate change.
This TED talk (20 mins) shows how to graze animals so you don’t end up in a drought (both locally and from climate change). Alan Savory has been doing this on the ground research for over 50 years, and developed systems of mob grazing that reverse desertification and sequester carbon and restore local microclimates on such a large scale that they probably would effect macro climate if adopted en masse.
At the end the TED host calls the presentation truly astonishing, but these farm technologies, based on mimicking natural cycles, are well known in sustainably land management circles and are even being used successfully in NZ.
http://www.ted.com/speakers/allan_savory.html
John Liu’s work is worthy too, here he looks at the restoration of the severely damaged huge Loess Plateau in China back into a food producing oasis, as well as restoration in other parts of the world (50mins)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J3WisjXYik4
And a quick look (5mins) at the Greening the Desert project in Jordan (one of the driest places on earth supporting humans). Geoff Lawton took 10 acres of salinated man-made desert and had it starting to produce food from trees within four months.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sohI6vnWZmk
Exactly. For instance, modern farming has destroyed tens of thousands of hectares of tussock land, which were crucial for feeding atmospheric moisture into the land.
That’s one thing that’s been bugging me for years. Academia in NZ is unwilling to accept knowledge gained outside of academia in NZ and that needs to change.
Maybe that happens in some specific branches of academia, DTB, but it couldn’t be applied in Physics, for example. I’m part of academia whether I like the label or not, and apart from Hitler’s attempt at introducing Aryan Physics, I’ve never seen evidence of what you suggest.
Which areas would you say this unwillingness applies to?
The horticultural arms of universities tend to have farms where they research better methods of farming.
Too much of it is the wrong kind of research. You need research working with real farmers on their own land.
Well, if the universities are doing their job, then they are. The simple fact of the matter is that the farmer is unlikely to be able to do the research but once the research has been done can help come up with better methods of implementation and the university owned farms would probably have farm managers on them as well.
“The simple fact of the matter is that the farmer is unlikely to be able to do the research”
Why do you say that? Many farmers practice empirical science anyway, and any farmer with either a good working knowledge of the scientific method, or support with that, can do research on their own property. It’s not rocket science 😉
Universities in NZ aren’t leading the way on developing sustainable practice, they’re following. And the way that universities are structured and operate, the hard sciences in particular, is inherently reductionist, making studying whole systems harder and less likely. This is why we are in the ridiculous situation of trying to solve river/waterway pollution from industrial dairying by chemically treating paddocks to prevent increases in nitrogen, instead of changing farming practices to prevent excess nitrogen in the first place. The inability to see natural cycles in their whole and to work with them is the big stumbling block, that and greed economics/capitalism. Universities are going to research conventional farming, because that’s what we do. They’re not focusing (enough*) on the kind that is making a difference.
Crown research is just as bad. Restructuring that happened in the 80s and 90s prevented the early adoption of sustainable practices, and many of the field researchers lost their jobs. From what I can tell focus was on economics and practices that created financial wealth.
*there are some notable exceptions eg the long-standing Biological Husbandry Unit at Lincoln has been pioneering organics for over 3 decades.
Seriously DTB, watch some of those videos and then compare what they are talking about with what is being done in universities, then you will get what I mean.
Because the farmers are more likely to be using land to make a profit with what they know. If they were doing anything else our waterways wouldn’t be as polluted as they are.
No, it’s a hell of a lot more complex.
That I can agree with but i also think that they’re changing. As I said, a number of them now have their own farms to work with and when you’ve got that then you must start to see the entire system rather than just the pieces.
Or they could be doing both.
“Because the farmers are more likely to be using land to make a profit with what they know. If they were doing anything else our waterways wouldn’t be as polluted as they are.”
We’re talking at cross purposes. I’m talking about farmers who are doing the cutting edge work on sustainable land management. They’re doing their own research, and being successful at creating new models of farming that don’t wreck the land (or quite as fast). Universities are lagging behind this.
” ” It’s not rocket science”
No, it’s a hell of a lot more complex.”
No, it’s not. Working with biological systems that mimic nature to grow food requires expertise, but you do not need an advanced science degree to understand it, not implement it. Nor study it.
“That I can agree with but i also think that they’re changing. As I said, a number of them now have their own farms to work with and when you’ve got that then you must start to see the entire system rather than just the pieces.”
Why? If you’ve been trained all your working life to look at the isolated detail and not the systems, and if your work situation demands that that is how you do research, and that kind of research is what gets the funding, why would you get to see it differently. Having one’s own farm doesn’t make one see differently – to use your example, if it did then farmers wouldn’t be polluting the environment.
“Or they could be doing both.”
Treating excess nitrogen by applying chemicals to a paddock is equivalent to the old lady that swallowed the fly. It’s just daft. If you manage land holistically in the first place, you don’t need to do that kind of disruptive intervention (or very rarely). I’m guessing you’re not that familiar with the kinds of technologies I’m talking about and don’t really understand the paradigm differences and why they matter. Maybe someone else can explain it?
Golly. Yep. Jim
“David Cameron a liar a cheat a criminal in public office”
The artist taxi driver
Don’t forget Cameron and John Yankee are chums.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hEU9uN-bo0&list=UUGThM-ZZBba1Zl9rU-XeR-A&index=1
This government looks to the U$K for ideas to apply here. 🙁
Tories’ hidden privatisation plan revealed
25 Feb 2013 00:00
The massive step towards full privatisation of the NHS is being made in regulations sneaked out earlier this month – exposed by the Daily Mirror
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-tories-hidden-privatisation-plan-1729681
“The new rules impose “compulsory competitive markets” on the entire health service.
The changes are planned under the overhaul launched by Tory former Health Secretary Andrew Lansley. He claimed there was nothing in it to “promote or permit the transfer of NHS activities to the private sector”.
But now all services are to be offered to the highest bidder from April 1.
The move would allow “any qualified provider” including giants such as Virgin Care to outbid local hospitals.
Critics fear the rules will let companies asset-strip NHS facilities. Labour have warned firms could cherry-pick the easiest, most profitable, procedures, leaving the NHS to pick up the tab for tricky and expensive surgery.”
“This intended ‘privatisation’ will mean a short term of financial gain for
the Tory Party followed by higher costs as shareholders have their hands out for their profit. Charing X Hospital is stuffed with new equipment, but understaffed – I wonder why! This government from what I deduce are thieves and profiteers. How much do they expect to make from our Schools and ‘Academies'”
Heh the Daily Mirror proving that it’s (a little) more than just T&A.
Rodney Hide explains that since most business owners make less than the minimum wage (why the hell else would anyone run a business!) the pinkos shouldn’t expect a living wage. So there.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10870282
Rodney discretely omits any mention of the ability of business owners to sell their business and pay no capital gains tax, assuming that stupid lefties ” think running a business is easy. That’s because they have never done it.”
Or extract living and other expenses from the business’s effectively living directly from its funds.
A rort that rortney would be all too familiar with
He probably also counts poorly paid contractors as sole trader businesses.
Good luck trying to sell a business not making money.
You’ll also find, unless a business has locked in contracts apart from stock and plant the business really has no value at all.
That must be why Rortney and co. are so keen to buy our power generators.
Mighty river power is a great investment, hopefully it will stimulate more interest in stocks and away from property
.Apart from property there’s no where else for people to invest there money and get any form of return.
hopefully it will stimulate more interest in stocks
So it’s a bait and switch then?
Not sure how you get bait and switch?
Not sure how you miss it…
Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud used in retail sales but also practised in other contexts. First, customers are “baited” by merchants’ advertising products or services at a low price; then customers discover the advertised goods are not available. Other products are “switched” for them; however, these items are often costlier.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait-and-switch
I don’t see the link with encouraging people to invest in the share market?
If there were already a lot of good share ‘products’ on the NZX …. then we would hardly need the government to be ‘baiting’ interest in the sharemarket with the float of MRP. Would we?
Given that the float is going to be well over-subscribed, or that there will be lots of people making a quick profit on the deal, the expectation you’ve raised is that there will be plenty of euphoric cash sloshing about looking for another deal. Hence the ‘switch’.
That’s pretty much the scenario you’ve raised is it not?
That’s because private sector money has proven shitty, unimaginative and non-entrpreneurial.
Because they have created fuck all worth while new ones, they have to invest in assets which are 40 or more years old.
How about instead of spending your days posting on the interwebs, you get out there and show them how to do it.
With your abilities and ideas you’d be worth billions within the year.
“With your abilities and ideas you’d be worth billions within the year.”
You’d be in need of a bailout within minutes 😉
How about instead of buying shares in a state controlled company so that the state can spend that money on state stuff, you invest in a private company?
Or do you think the state has better ideas about what to do with your capital than you do?
Sure will do, but this is not about me. It’s about how shitty private sector and corporate leadership has been in NZ that they’ve barely created any new worthwhile assets to invest in and so have to go poaching public ones.
Then stop talking about it and get out there and show them how it’s done.
Throwing shit from the bleachers isn’t really that helpful, especially some one with your business acumen and total awesomeness.
NZ need you to get out there and for you to lead the way.
But it’s not about me and it’s not about you.
It’s about the $100B in savings deposits in this country where people haven’t bothered to invest that money in jobs, busineses or industry, and have instead just sat that money on the sidelines.
That’s anti-business and anti-growth.
No wonder they have to poach public assets; there’s no imagination there.
” they’ve barely created any new worthwhile assets to invest in”
Well they have… but the worthwhile ones all get bought up by overseas interests. If they were on the stock market they then get de-listed. Just like the State assets will be.
Well yes they have, some small and medium businesses worth say $20M or $100M. Sam Morgan’s Trademe being about the only exception with a value much higher than that.
But on the industrial scale of an MRP? Nothing; absolutely nothing.
Why not put their money in a bank, instead of getting rich from sky rocketing power prices that hurt the poor?
Those who are going to buy shares in MRP are no different than those who own rental property in Christchurch. Both will feed on human misery.
Middle class types will demand higher and higher dividends, and power prices will go higher and higher.
The whole point of capitalism is that there are massive amounts of ideas around just begging for capital investment and that such capital investment is done in a very highly efficient manner through the stock exchange. If that’s not happening then I’d say that the capitalist ideal just doesn’t work.
Basically, I figure that the ideas are out there but that the rich (who are the only ones with enough accumulated wealth) aren’t investing in them because they want guaranteed returns and not to actually take any risk. This is proven by the way that they’re lining up to buy power shares which they know they can’t lose on as the government can’t let power crash and burn. Basically, the people lining up to buy power company shares are just looking to bludge for the rest of their lives off of the hard work of the rest of NZ.
What’s happening now is more and more resembling the later stages of every game of Monopoly that has ever been played.
Nothing to do with investing or creating, all about the consolidation of existing wealth and resources into fewer and fewer hands.
+1
Monopoly and dictatorship is the natural end point of capitalism and that is what we’re seeing. The accumulation into fewer hands and the governments then passing policies, such as selling state assets, that benefit only those few.
Old Kent Road, do not pass Go…
Im over people like Rodney who think that workers should, pretty much, have their wages and conditions slashed.
If he came round to my house telling me that I shouldnt be getting the money that I get from my job, he would be on the floor getting the shit kicked out of him.
“If he came round to my house telling me that I shouldnt be getting the money that I get from my job, he would be on the floor getting the shit kicked out of him.”
He ran away from me when I challenged him in the Environment Waikato building in Hamilton a few weeks after his holiday rort was exposed.
Yellow by party, yellow by nature.
Like so many paid shills, all tough and righteous behind a media article.
lacking any intelligence to argue the issue in public, Banks being especially thick. It’s almost as if they never wrote it themselves……
I wonder what sort of thrill Rodney gets from taking the food out of the mouths of the children of poor workers.
Probably as good as the one he got buying a trophy wife on a ministerial salary.
You mean man The Allen !
If I were truly mean I would have mentioned how Rodney must’ve earned more than Murray.
He could only afford an April.
Think of the floor, Millsy. Do it outside. Really, I share your sentiments. How the hell did such naked greed and loathsome thinking ever get taken seriously outside of textbooks on forensic psychiatry?
Maybe we should be happy with a minimum wage that allows us to fly around the world for holidays, have a couple of cars, a few houses, and constantly rising capital value. To come up with this rubbish, Hide really is contemptuous of his readers. One more corrupt self-serving orc who should do us all a favour and just disappear.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34224.htm
Why Israeli Apartheid is Worse Than South Africa’s Version
Is Palestinian Solidarity an Occupied Zone?
by GILAD ATZMON March 09, 2013
Once involved with Palestinian Solidarity you have to accept that Jews are special and so is their suffering; Jews are like no other people, their Holocaust is like no other genocide and anti Semitism is the most vile form of racism the world has ever known and so on and so forth.
But when it comes to the Palestinians, the exact opposite is the case. For some reason we are expected to believe that the Palestinians are not special at all – they are just like everyone else. Palestinians have not been subject to a unique, racist, nationalist and expansionist Jewish nationalist movement, instead, we must all agree that, just like the Indians and the Africans, the Palestinian ordeal results from run-of-the-mill 19th century colonialism – just more of the same old boring Apartheid.
So, Jews, Zionists and Israelis are exceptional, like no one else, while Palestinians are always somehow ordinary, always part of some greater political narrative, always just like everyone else. Their suffering is never due to the particularity of Jewish nationalism, or Jewish racism, or even AIPAC dominating USA foreign policy no, the Palestinian is always a victim of a dull, banal dynamic – general, abstract and totally lacking in particularity.
This raises some serious questions.
Can you think of any other liberation or solidarity movement that prides itself in being boring, ordinary and dull? Can you think of any other solidarity movement that downgrades its subject into just one more meaningless exhibit in a museum of materialist historical happenings? I don’t think so! Did the black South Africans see themselves as being like everyone else? Did Martin Luther King believe his brothers and sisters to be inherently undistinguishable?
I don’t think so. So how come Palestinian solidarity has managed to sink so low that their spokespersons and supporters compete against each other to see who can best eliminate the uniqueness of the Palestinian struggle into just part of a general historical trend such as colonialism or Apartheid?
The answer is simple. Palestinian Solidarity is an occupied zone and, like all such occupied zones must dedicate itself to the fight against ‘anti Semitism’. Dutifully united against racism, fully engaged with LGBT issues in Palestine and in the movement itself, but for one reason or another, the movement is almost indifferent towards the fate of millions of Palestinians living in refugee camps and their Right of Return to their homeland.
But all this can change. Palestinians and their supporters could begin to see their cause for what it is, unique and distinctive. Nor need this be all that difficult. After all, if Jewish nationalism is inherently exceptional as Zionists proclaim, is it not only natural that the victims of such a distinctive racist endeavor are at least, themselves, just as distinctive.
So far, Palestine solidarity has failed to liberate Palestine, but it has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams in creating a Palestine Solidarity Industry, and one largely funded by liberal Zionists. We have been very productive in schlepping activists around the world promoting ‘boycotts’ and ‘sanctions’ meanwhile Israel trade with Britain is booming and Hummus Tzabar is clearly apparent in every British grocery store.
All those attempts to reduce Palestinian ordeal into a dated, dull, generalised materialist narrative should be exposed for what they are – an attempt to appease liberal Zionists. Palestinian suffering is actually unique in history at least as unique as the Zionist project.
Yesterday I came across this from South African minister Ronnie Kasrils. In a comment on Israeli Apartheid he said : “This is much worse than Apartheid…Israeli measures, the brutality, make apartheid look like a picnic. We never had jets attacking our townships; we never had sieges that lasted month after month. We never had tanks destroying houses.”
Kasrils is dead right. It is much worse than Apartheid and far more sophisticated than colonialism. And why? Because what the Zionists did and are doing is neither Apartheid nor is it colonialism. Apartheid wanted to exploit the African, Israel wants the Palestinian gone. Colonialism is an exchange between a mother and a settler state. Israel never had a mother State, though it may well have had a few ‘surrogate mothers’.
Now is the time to look at the unique ordeal of the Palestinian people. Similarly, now is the time to look at the Zionist crime in the light of Jewish culture and identity politics.
Can the solidarity movement meet this challenge? Probably, but like Palestine, it must first, itself, be liberated.
Gilad Atzmon’s latest book is The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article34224.htm
It’s that bloody Borat again, isn’t it.
Lol
Gosh you’re a funny guy. And you’re serious.
And you’re not right wing. Oh no.
Israel has constitutional democracy and a free press. Those are the important things for Pop. He’s a caricature.
Meanwhile, what worries me most about Israel and the hardcore Zionists is how they have managed to refine anti-semitism as being anything they don’t like. Their efforts to rewrite the history of Palestine are heroic in their magnitude. They are writing the Palestinians out of existence.
The one and only thing that Goff ever did that I liked was to tell Tel Aviv that they didn’t decide who he could visit and go ahead with a visit to Arafat. I can’t see either Shearer or Key doing anything comparable.
The one and only thing that Goff ever did that I liked was to tell Tel Aviv that they didn’t decide who he could visit and go ahead with a visit to Arafat.
Fair comment, Murray, but even then, Goff did not have the integrity or the courage to meet with the Hamas leadership.
I can’t see either Shearer or Key doing anything comparable.
Neither can I. I don’t believe any of the talk about how Shearer used to “stare down warlords” in Iraq.
“I don’t believe any of the talk about how Shearer used to “stare down warlords” in Iraq.”
Me neither. Mainly because the country concerned is Somalia. If you have any evidence that Shearer lied about his work and experiances in Lebanon, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Serbia and Somalia, and, latterly, Iraq, then by all means front up with it. Or just admit you’re just making shit up, as usual.
How about Keys back story, comfortable with that, and his career timeline, and claiming to have not been involved in the attcck on the NZ$ etc?
Such a nice man, from a state home , you know, self made *business man*, he just wants to do whats best and right for his own country….etc, blah!
Yeah, stories, they get made up, then molded to what suits the agenda.
What will it mean for your self worth once you realise you have been taken for yet another ride by the team with the *gay coloured* shirts on!
I made nothing up. I simply quoted one of the most common factoids (or, more accurately, falsoids) put into the media at the time Shearer was making his run for the leadership.
Based on his inability to say anything coherently, even when faced with a friendly interviewer, I doubt that he “stared down warlords in Iraq”, as his spin-doctors claimed repeatedly.
You seem to have an emotional investment in Shearer; I wonder if you were one of the ones involved in the spinning of this patently absurd legend.
So, no proof then, Mozza? Why am I not surprised? If you have any reason to doubt Shearer’s work history, now would be a good time to pony up. Otherwise, you tend to look like a bit of a sad sack. BTW, what was it like for you when you did your humanitarian work? Y’know, when you put your life at risk to help others? Do, tell, mate, I’m sure your backstory will be fascinating.
Were you there with Shearer when he did his *humanitarian work*, or when he *stared down warlords*…
If you were not there with him, then your support, like the fantastical words of the PR spin behind Shearer, and Key etc, are simply endorsing the puppets of those who simply, made shit up!
Sad diversion BTW Voice, Mozza is not Trojan horse leader of the LP selling himself as giving a toss about NZ, or its people (include the Africans in that), using a fantastical back story, the rival of the *great self made businessman*, John Key!
Obama got a Nobel prize for peace, yeah, shit gets manufactured to suit a purpose!
Any proof the stories aren’t true, Muz? No? Then bollox to you too. Just another keyboard warrior, sans the balls to actually face reality as it is lives. Y’know, the real difference between you and Moz and David Shearer is that he can’t talk the talk and you two phonies can’t walk the walk.
Voice – So you were not with Shearer on his UN adventures then, we have established that!
Talk of reality, and walk or talk, is foolish, you have no idea about my situations/contributions, than you do of Shearers, thats the reality sport!
As I’ve said on here a long time back, your personal efforts to the LP etc, will not be any less meaningful, in reality, at the time it becomes even more obvious than it already is, David Shearer exposed as yet another parachuted sham traitor pretending to be a Kiwi!
You’ve established nothing but your own self deluded twatitude, muzza. What a gutless wonder.
Shearer’s humanitarian work (and personal courage) is well documented and recognised. It long predates his decision to run for Labour leader, or even stand in Mt Albert. (for example, his office was bombed in Baghdad, and yes, he had to deal with warlords in Somalia).
The fact that Shearer is poor at his current job doesn’t mean we have to belittle his previous one(s).
Fair enough. So is it to much to ask for this. I want to see that personal courage on display right up front and centre as Labour Leader standing explicitly for Labour values.
Somalia, knee capping your own colleagues, promising private house building corporates windfall profits, whatever doesn’t count. In this game, you’re only as good as your last sales pitch, not the one you successfully made 10 years ago.
Tuning into RNZ this morning I caught the tail end of a news item about a near gassing of workers in the Kaimai tunnel link here; http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/130074/kiwirail-revises-training-after-workers-exposed-to-gas
You would think after the Pike River disaster this kind of thing couldn’t happen? What Kiwi Rail’s General Manager Rick Vanerveld has to say is a bloody disgrace & he should be sacked!
If I recall correct this bloke was in the papers axing nearly 200 Track jobs about this time & then I heard he got in contractors. Yip that sounds right as they were contractors in that tunnel, untrained in gas emergency evacuation etc. This mug is backing one of his Managers, who rather then
take the gassed workers for immediate medical treatment, instead takes them for a feed like they had too much to drink…”that’s shocking he should have been fired for that ¬ seeing they were trained.”
It will never happen the bosses always back their own & fudge things over after the pricks!
I wonder if the media are following this story up? I smell a cover up & bet there is a lot more to this story!
Our industrial landscape is starting to resemble third world environments with a govt willingly undermining health, safety and backing management all the way.
Kiwi rail is a classic example as its got slipperys henchmen kicking it at every turn and a puppet CEO natty boy.
T_T
OSH and ACC should be claiming a few scalps over this. And this is business as usual when companies axe staff and hire external contractors and sub-contractors, as currently all the health and safety risk is moved onto the external contractors, who usually try and cut corners to save money…
(I’ve done temping, and all we got was a very basic H&S video, while working directly for a company I’ve been given pretty decent H&S)
As I’ve said before, I know two senior H&S people who’ve both confirmed to me that ‘contracting out the risk’ is the major motivation.
The entire trend towards contracting, temping and casualisation is exceedingly bad. It’s damaging at every level. Contracting has a place, but only in certain specific scenarios. Where it is plainly being used to replace full-time employment, this practise must be stamped out.
Looking forward to hearing David Shearer announce strong policy aimed squarely towards at fixing this.
notes not handy, but, the article on TV ONE on cannabis use and opiate use in the NZ workplace blew my mind (but didn’t surprise me). When I dug ditches / drove a dump-truck, a quarter to a third of the crew were stoned or fried. 🙂
Another comment my acquaintances have made is that it’s been more than 20 yrs since the passing of the 1992 H&S Act ….but serious harm injuries have scarcely declined at all. Still hovering around the 5000-7000 pa mark.
Some employers (like my one) do take their H&S responsibilities very seriously; far too many others simply parasite off the system doing the least they can possibly get away with doing. Or less. And their employees (or contractors) simply pick up on the lack of leadership.
It’s not hard. If everyone knows that certain H&S breaches are automatic dismissal offences … then everyone very quickly plays the game.
And big fines for directors…and jail time for them if someone actually dies due to management negligence.
personally, and objectively Red, I agree with the comment made earlier this week re: we just don’t have the political class (the liquidity or investment) to reverse up the decline; I talk to a wide range of people, from the giftedly “insane” to the lucidly “sane” on these sociological / geographical matters and the outlook seems to be “Gimme Shelter”
(+ thanks to TS and wider directed reading, there is plenty of confirmation on the ‘net if one is not a caught up playing “games” or looking for things to buy) btw, thanks for your endorsement of the influence of “faiths” in all this calamity in your postings.
yet, we could always Welcome China, but then, there is always that great wall, (i don’t think the Chinese will ever forget the Nanking Massacre / RAPE of Nanking either).People are people (for example, all these pissed diplomat / negotiators at UN conferences) and what was sown by the majority of the West (grass for example) will be mown down in time. There is an “eclectic” prophecy for ya; it has all gone too far, in my humble opinion.
/nod
Yeap, and the the business hiring temp’s know also they’re getting a shit deal, as usually the workers aren’t that capable due or even interested and so poor work results. As I’ve heard oft from commercial businesses I’ve worked for via student job search.
[insert shoddy contracting via lowest-bidder stories here]
O_o
From Captain Mubblefuck?…
We’re more likely to get a complete reversal on asset sales by Key than such a piece of policy from Labour at present /cough
“Looking forward to hearing David Shearer announce strong policy aimed squarely towards at fixing this.”
I’m in danger of toppling over from all this looking forward to things David Shearer should’ve already done.
There sure is a lot more to it. http://i.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/7290292/Union-fears-KiwiRail-cuts-threaten-workers-safety This rank and file Union guy blew the whistle on serious Health & Safety issues at Kiwi Rail, including the Kaimai tunnel incident. Those bastards running the railways tried to use the job cuts to get get rid of him. Last I heard he got forced to move up to the far North or be made redundant. In other words ‘sacked’.
I would have thought whistle blowers were protected by law and the Employer would be skating on thin ice if he took a personal grievance?
Another, more relevant link: http://i.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/business/7530534/Contractors-forced-to-work-long-hours
The following link is to Rod Oram’s comments on Govt proposals to change the RMA. Govt is holding public meetings over next couple of weeks to “explain” their discussion paper. Oram suggests Govt is leaving out vital facts, and just using surveys as factual reasons to change the RMA.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/8400307/Oram-A-naked-power-grab
Yes an excellent read.
That would be normal for this government. Paint a pretty picture but leave out the facts so that people don’t realise the truth and thus can’t make informed decisions. It’s all part of the We know best syndrome of National and the ideological ignoring of reality.
This is a great article by Oram & really exposes National for scare mongering!
And then there’s this bit:
Yep, more dictatorial control from this government.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/122573-Clean-Fusion-Power-Could-Be-Feasible-by-2017
Basically this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field-reversed_configuration For more detailed info, check this: http://www.frascati.enea.it/ProtoSphera/ProtoSphera%202001/1.%20General%20framework.htm
Fingers crossed it bloody well works as this would allow us to kick our coal habit within a couple of decades at least. Mainly as you need the infrastructure for harvesting and delivering deuterium on very large scales + manufacture the reactors.
There’s actually a lot of research going on in fusion power sources. The “always 50 years away” really refers to the big tokamak reactors that will eventually get there, but obviously not for a long time and at such a cost that they’re not truly feasible as a source of power.
In the mean time, we may see one of these ‘alternative’ methods take off.
Tokamak’s are problematic mainly due to the fluid physics of the plasma, lots of eddies that reduce fusion output and require large amounts of computing power to model and iron out. ITER will probably provide better data on whether or not Tok’s can ever produce enough power for commercial viability.
And yeah, tok’s and laser-based interial confinement fusion systems have pretty much taken the lion’s share of available funding. ICF particularly as it provides useful data for nuclear weapons, but mainly it’s been international treaties and science politics that’s kept these two methods in the forefront in my opinion*.
The other main alternative runner is the Polywell, which has achieved fusion, but they’ve lost US Naval funding as of 2012 so are trying to get private funding.
As for cold fusion – load of crap at present, too little non-problematic data, in particular Bubble Fusion is another shining example of how science can go wrongzors.
________________________________________
*Could make for a fun history of science area actually… Generally you see a pattern of older, established scientists holding sway over an area and so it becomes difficult to bring in new ideas unless they have a lot of empirical evidence behind them. Seems to affect physics more.
I’ve been following pollywell for 5 or so years now, didn’t know they lost their navel funding though, that sucks. Alternatively, it seemed like the government wasn’t really giving it the funding it deserved and kept everything Top Secret, so this could be an improvement.
That’s typical behaviour from the US Navy, but yeah, without a decent funding line and most investors seemingly rallying around what google likes and now with Lockheed-Martin’s Skunk Works out with an FRC reactor that seems very likely will work, Polywell’s sadly going to struggle :/
Mind you, the basics of the polywell are actually pretty cheap to build and test, though more research is needed to test it’s viability as there’s still some issues with the physics of the plasma confinement and pressure going off the details available.
Anyhow, it’s good to see that Lockheed-Martin’s actually putting the funds from it’s horribly overpriced military hardware to a much more useful technology and letting Skunk Works go nuts :3
derp, forgot the tag /facepalm
I reckon that these developments are about 25 years too late to have a big impact on the energy future of the world, and I’m thinking about India and China here, two massive coal users. The best case I see is for a relatively small number of fusion generators to be built in time for VIP and high priority uses.
Unless of course the dream of having a suitcased size generator putting out a MW of energy comes true, but that’s the stuff of Star Trek.
Howdy Hombre’, “Q” could (he could do just about anything)
haha!
But remember the circumstances under which the Enterprise crew first met “Q”…it was a desolate picture of earth in the 21st century after the next global war.
when you wiki him he’s “omnipotently in white”.
btw, ya don’t say Steven
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10870341
I hear they’re doing a Boy called Sue to the Education Ministry
an important demographic
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10869880
furthermore, Wonders of Wonders for you LGBT folk out there 😉 ; at S.A service this morning an extended testimony by a Gay man, artist, novelist, trained pianist, tertiary teacher, about his journey and acceptance. Very moving (although a few Trads. seemed a little bemused, still, that’s progress for you.kinda like how being tr*lld makes ya stronger, iron sharpening Iron and all that stainless. 🙂
I don’t think so, China at least accepts climate change is a very serious issue, and if this reactor is viable, they’ll probably cancel the coal plants waiting to be built and redirect funding towards building these reactors. Heck, depending on how the energy from the reactor is being turned into electricity, you could retrofit current coal burning plant’s with them and drive the in place steam turbine power generators. Saving a lot of infrastructure costs in the process.
And your forgetting just how much shear industrial capacity is present, given the drive, it can easily be redeployed towards producing just about anything, and the FRC reactor Skunk Work’s is proposing is far less complex that a tokamak. Mainly due to the confinement of the plasma via a magnetic bottle which doesn’t need a huge array of powerful electromagnets to run, and so doesn’t need entirely special lining as there’s no plasma eroding it.
It will obviously take time to build and set up using current carbon-based energy sources, but if Skunk Works can get it to produce a large net energy from a self-sustaining fusion reaction, the possibilities are literally mind-boggling. For one, human civilisation might just have enough energy to start mining the air for carbon at an industrial scale and reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Along with no longer needing to dam so many rivers for energy production, allowing for the rehabilitation of certain river systems and removal of dams in very tectonically active areas.
Then there’s the obvious advantages in terms of electrification in the developing world for food and medicine preservation and storage. All from a reactor that is highly portable compared to the nuclear* and carbon-based alternatives.
Are we still stuffed climate and resource wise? Yeap, but this is the sort of technology that when combined with other green-methods would allow us to adapt, survive and even reduce global temperatures. Albeit, a rather problematic set of “if” statements are still involved, mainly as democratic governments can be bloody stupid and some powerful non-state actors (i.e. corporations) have their heads firmly stuck in the short-term, despite the looming crises…
Oh, and it makes SPAAAAAAACE a lot easier to move around in, as this reactor can be used to generate thrust directly, or used to run an ion-based drive array :3
________________________________________
*well, pebble-bed reactors show some promise for portability and safety, but there’s a whole range of issues, including all the usual ones…
This is the absolute tech-solution best case, not saying it won’t happen but I wouldn’t rate it at a higher than 10% chance right now.
The Skunk Works is not going to release this tech to the world (or to China) for a very long time. It would be too much of a strategic advantage for the USA.
Once the technology has a pilot which can produce say 100MW sustained, I’ll believe that it is on the way.
Right now, I’m tempted to put it in the category of civilisation saving solutions requiring “Unobtanium” to work.
😛
As for this not being available to China, lets just say this tech isn’t exactly hard to replicate (based off currently published research on FRC and other reactors) and Lockhead-Martin might suck deeply and greedily on the teat of US Defence contracts. But this is a major money spinner that would give them a far more secure line of funding than the US DoD contracts. Which is going to get cut to the bone as American politicians are now beginning to stop holding it’s budget as sacrosanct.
Although the moronic right are a significant issue that may cause problems.
Worth bearing in mind that Lockheed Martin could also make a tonne of money exporting the F-22 Raptor, but it’s banned from doing so through national security legislation and technology export restrictions.
True, but that’s mainly because they’re getting government funding to develop and build the F22 airframe, internals and computer systems.
And while certain political douchebags might push for Skunk Works’ FRC reactor tech to not be exported to China and Russia, the shear need for this technology will hopefully hammer those idiots out of sight. Otherwise China’s gotten very good at industrial espionage 😉
Sometimes humanity prevails against it’s more stupid, short-sighted impulses.
Heh.
And it’s not like China is standing still in the field either
http://npre.illinois.edu/news/fusion-reactors-innovation-be-tested-china
They’re still trying the tokamak route, though the stuff being trailed is very interesting. Main issue with the tokamaks is that so far, they appear to need to be rather large to provide significant power (scalability being teh term). Along with the turbulence issues with eddies in the plasma that can cause power spikes/drops. Also China’s part of the ITER project.
But I suspect the Chinese aren’t standing still on other alternatives and their fusion research will be keeping an eye on anything out of Skunk Works.
Yep, and other governments, except ours, probably have their research already looking in to it – especially after the release of that video.
😛
As for this not being available to China, lets just say this tech isn’t exactly hard to replicate (based off currently published research on FRC and other reactors) and Lockhead-Martin might suck deeply and greedily on the teat of US Defence contracts. But this is a major money spinner that would give them a far more secure line of funding than the US DoD contracts. Which is going to get cut to the bone as American politicians are now beginning to stop holding it’s budget as sacrosanct.
Although the moronic right are a significant issue that may cause problems.
😛
As for this not being available to China, lets just say this tech isn’t exactly hard to replicate (based off currently published research on FRC and other reactors) and Lockhead-Martin might suck deeply and greedily on the teat of US Defence contracts. But this is a major money spinner that would give them a far more secure line of funding than the US DoD contracts. Which is going to get cut to the bone as American politicians are now beginning to stop holding it’s budget as sacrosanct.
Although the moronic right are a significant issue that may cause problems.
/facepalm – damn 500 error… Clean up please?
When you get a 500 error on a comment just go to the front page and then reload the page that you were on. Your comment is usually there. I also suggest, if you’re really paranoid, a ctrl-a, ctrl-c before hitting submit.
In theory (as in I will believe it when I don’t see it), I should have largely eliminated the main cause of those this afternoon just before 1700 hours. There was a SEO plugin with a bad habit of locking the whole post table when it pulled all 11777 public posts for an analysis. It particularly caused a problem when a re-edit tried to start it a second time while the first was still running (for some obscure reason). Eliminated it, changed it for a less clueless plugin doing the same thing, and couldn’t see the reproducible effect afterwards.
I won’t know for sure until I see some new posts going up when the system is loaded. Ditto for finding out how well the new plugin keeps the search engines updated on comments. This one has less visible controls.
The log hasn’t shown any 500 responses since I restarted the apache server to start analysing the lag at about 2000 (been out)
The tech isn’t coming out of the “Skunk Works” – it’s mostly private sector, or possible government funded projects in France and Japan. The Polywell is pretty well understood, and I think you seriously underestimate China’s tech state of the art.
Skunk Works is LM’s R&D department 😉
CV
While thinking about India there was a good update on Radionz this morning on how it is thinking and acting which might put recent vicious attacks on women in the picture among other matters.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday
11:44 Wayne Brittenden’s Counterpoint
Wayne Brittenden has been Radio New Zealand’s correspondent in several capital cities over the years. Each week he gives fresh insights into a wide variety of topics of national and international concern, followed by Chris Laidlaw’s discussion of the issue with guests. Today, while India is now seen as belonging to the middle economic bracket countries, new Oxford University research reveals what critics within India have known all along — that the last 20 years of unfettered market forces haven’t reduced the vast number of those living in dire poverty. Wayne looks at today’s neo-liberal consumerist India, and Chris follows up with Dharmendra Kumar, the Director of the Indian Campaign Group, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Watch. (14′49″)
Download: Ogg Vorbis MP3 | Embed
A less polluting and more efficient power source certainly opens up a lot of opportunities. If it’s used by the public sector to provide cheap power and save natural resources, it could be a great advance. If it ends up in the hands of the same greedy corporates, the price of power probably wouldn’t even go down. The technological solutions are always possible, but we need the social organisation which allows them to be used for more than the benefit of a small minority.
A test run with a view to having our very own twelve golden men?.
A lot of posters on here have indicated their displeasure at the Clifford Bay ferry terminal/port.
Youll probably even be less pleasured by the fact the Dictator of Christchurch has said that the govenment does not want to own it.
So it will be privately owned, because the government doesnt belive in public ownership of things like ports, etc.
Cool.
*digs through wikipedia’s fusion power articles*
*finds part of the US Strategic Defence Initiative, aka “Star Wars”*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MARAUDER
I can haz ion cannon?
Pretty Please?
Excellent. Our first catch of the day…
Go to 6.50 into video. Max suggests tying minimum wage to money supply (that’s how bankers are paid!)
http://maxkeiser.com/2013/03/07/breakingtheset-max-keiser-on-bitcoin-hugo-chavez-myths-latin-american-socialism/
Yoink:
http://www.vice.com/read/the-history-of-scabby-the-rat
Yes, that Rat 😉
Turning Japanese
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10870285
so in Christchurch.
tail-end of an RNZ article on cancer treatment, along with Stress, Resentment is a significant etiological factor. (best to unload the sack on our back as we tramp through life; His yoke is Light
😉 )
Another one from Molly Crabapple:
http://www.vice.com/read/new-york-cops-will-arrest-you-for-carrying-condoms
/sigh
The US is on a slow slide back to absolutism.
Still Allies
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/world/asia/china-says-it-will-not-abandon-north-korea.html?_r=0
Interesting.
Not especially. If China doesn’t continue to prop it up, it will have to deal with the hot mess that result. Sounds like realpolitik to me.
Yep. And after all is said and done, North Korea is still a piece (albeit a rather risky, unreliable one) on China’s side of the playing board.
http://tvnz.co.nz/politics-news/marriage-equality-bill-loses-public-support-says-colin-craig-5364683
And this is what National’s possibly looking at going into a coalition with? Ye gads, it’s almost enough to make me want to keep ACT’s undead corpse around. Notice too, how he conveniently doesn’t cite any polling evidence.
Well, he has a point. If you take “public support is shifting towards a traditional view of marriage” to mean “by lying to people about the current law and scaremongering about issues that don’t exist and also lying about the process being followed, we’ve created a lot of confusion and then carefully worded our polling questions so they almost get the answers we want”. Craig’s just being more concise, is all.
Oh yeah, forgot about this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/06/el-salvador-iraq-police-squads-washington
/shudder
TV One News has just announced Joyce has committed to fixing Novopay within three months. An education sector person was hailing it on the news on tele as great to hear and that it was about time. But that’s not what Joyce said. He did say that he wanted as much done as possible to fix things within three months. That’s very different. In fact, does this mean that Joyce accepts not as much as possible was done over the past few months? Probably, but people need to listen to these slippery characters. When the three months is up and nothing’s been done Joyce will simply say that he did not give a commitment to fix Novopay within three months, and he’ll be right.
Joyce can’t promise anything except behind the scenes bullying.
A guaranteed fix is returning to the working Datacom system these clowns know SFA about the actual detailed technical and process issues.
Of course it buys Joyce time and by that time the heat will have gone out and maybe the population will be bored by the story. Trust Mr Joyce? Sure can.
Sure, but hope the teachers see how disingenuous his remarks are.
Ok not seeing any 500 errors for valid pages apart from at the wp-admin side looking at edit-comment pages. That looks like a simple timeout issue.
Should have fixed the time limit.
Native Affairs was on tonight (Maori TV) and featured an interview with David Shearer. I didn’t see it, because – not for the first time – it was poorly publicised. Some reaction here …
https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=%23NativeAffairs&src=hash
I never know whether Labour’s media reticence is deliberate strategy or just incompetence. Is it so hard to use social media and other outlets to say: “Today the leader will be on bFM, Maori TV, etc (as happened today). Why not issue a bulletin every day, announcing the day ahead? Too simple?
I learn far more from Google and Twitter than I ever do from the people who are PAID to publicise their party, their polcies, and their people. What on earth do they do all day?
Note to self … it helps if you can read the date on the thread. Sorry.
(insert “embarrassed” smiley here)