Is this really why marijuana got banned in the 30s? A prohibitionist bureaucratic empire-builder was about to lose his empire so he had to find a new reason to keep it alive, and marijuana was the most convenient new bogeyman?
I haven’t read the book, but the; Anslinger role in post-prohibition cannabis outlawing has been common knowledge since at least the 90s (when I became aware of it). I found the Lincata information in that article fascinating though:
Harry Anslinger became obsessed with one case in particular. In Florida, a boy called Victor Licata hacked his family to death with an axe. Anslinger explained to America: This is what will happen when you smoke “the demon weed.”…
Years later, somebody went and looked at the psychiatric files for Victor Licata.
It turns out there’s no evidence he ever used cannabis.
He had a lot of mental illness in his family. They had been told a year before he needed to be institutionalized — but they refused. His psychiatrists never even mentioned marijuana in connection to him.
2000 years ago, China’s whole civilisation was dependent on the Cannabis crop, interestingly, today they’re finding the medicinal benefits through science that the Chinese discovered thousands of years ago.
If it’s so bad for society, how come it’s legal in five states in the US and various other parts of the world, I would suggest that it’s a lot less harmful to society than cheap liquor and gambling.
Over the years I’ve read of many reasons why marijuana got banned. Racism and pressure from the cotton industry (hemp cloth is reportedly better and cheaper than cotton and grows pretty much everywhere) being the main ones.
TPP and The Commission
The TPP commission – executive body of TPP, chapter 27
Functions of commission reviews agreement, amends, establish the model rules for arbitral tribunals,
If another Democrat, be it Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, is president this time next year, we can expect that this surge of embittered right-wing radicalism isn’t going away. If anything, they’ll be even more aggravated after the loss of their great orange hope, Donald Trump. That means this kind of incoherent right-wing rage at losing “their” country is just going to keep on keeping on.
QFT
And we’ll see similar whinging here from the RWNJs when a Left leaning government gets in.
Bombshell Study Exposes Frightening Facts About Anti-Depressant Drugs & Pharmaceutical Companies
Big Pharma tactics: includes video with Dr Peter Rost, MD who “is a former vice president of Pfizer, and a whistleblower of the entire pharmaceutical industry in general. He is the author of The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman.” Visible text
This is the unprincipled pharmaceutical industry which is going to require PHARMAC to justify its choice of drugs!
TMM – is it just me but I linked into your article and its a teaser – many people are on anti-depressants and will be linking into this as well – it just doesn’t say what the “frightening facts” are – everything but, it does say its dangerous for teenagers but again, why are the side effects not disclosed so people can make an evaluated guess. I do not disagree with you, big PHARMA are a devious corrupt lot but the article again, to me, is not very helpful and we are left not knowing. Most people accept there are side effects to drugs and if they need to take stuff will sort out what suits them best with their doctor. Good that you expose this though and most readers will not be surprised by this at all. Depression is a clinical imbalance in the brain and people who take these pills usually are in a pretty bad state so this is bad news really for them unfortunately.
@ Whispering Kate
Research paper Suicidality and aggression during antidepressant treatment: systematic review and meta-analyses based on clinical study reports
In the summary trial reports on Eli Lilly’s website, almost all deaths were noted, but all suicidal ideation events were missing, and the information on the remaining outcomes was incomplete.
Conclusions Because of the shortcomings identified and having only partial access to appendices with no access to case report forms, the harms could not be estimated accurately. In adults there was no significant increase in all four outcomes, but in children and adolescents the risk of suicidality and aggression doubled. To elucidate the harms reliably, access to anonymised individual patient data is needed.
Thanks for that TMM – I think I’ve read sometime ago that teenagers were having suicidal tendencies and comitting suicide on anti depressants, this is terrible. Kids need to be cared for and research needs to be done to combat this. People I know who are on anti depressants (adults) say it has changed their whole lives, they can live their lives feeling like they once used to. I can see a huge difference in them.
I know that there are still a lot of people about who think, if you cannot tangibly see an illness – bandages etc, then “putting on some runners and going out and exercising” will be the cure, “buck up and get on with it” sort of advice. Depression has been with us forever and so has suicide, thankfully now for adults at least they can take something to balance out clinical imbalances occurring in the brain. John Kirwan did such a lot to advertise the seriousness of depression thankfully which has helped to change attitudes with Depression.
Not all depressions are the same and not all anti-depressants work the same way. It is often a process of ‘trial & error’ to match the ‘right’ anti-depressant to the ‘right’ patient; this involves a lead-in period.
The other thing to note with anti-depressants is that you cannot come off them suddenly (‘cold turkey’) without expecting a (strong) relapse. Taking these drugs at the right dose at the right time is fairly important and something that people don’t always stick to (compliance issues are a very common problem with pretty much all medication).
A combination of medication, counselling & support, and healthy life style (e.g. diet) is the way to effectively deal with depression. Lastly, it is thought that genetics do play a role in disposition to depression.
I temporarily worked for SKB (SmithKlineBeecham) in their customer purchase department, when Aropax was being marketed aggressively.
The strategy used to help promote sales was to allow the stocks of Stelazine to drop to near zero, and when pharmacies rang to order – say that Stelazine was out of stock and there was no confirmed production date, and direct them to Aropax.
There were many calls from irate GP’s and pharmacies, due to the fact that the transition from one drug to another was a minimum six weeks – if not more. Furthermore, many patients were successfully using Stelazine, and their supply was cut off suddenly and they had no choice but to change drugs. I’m guessing the patents on Aropax were more recent, and they were ensuring the crossover of as many patients as possible to this newer drug.
I agree with CV on this one. Depression has more to do with your life situation and surroundings more than chemicals in your brain.
I know someone who was on prozac for about 11 years. She was pretty much bedridden for most of that time. Then one day she flushed her pills down the toilet and started walking.
Never looked back.
Unfortunately it is cheaper for the government and the non-profit industrial complex it underwrites to give the mentally ill and chronically depressed a prozac script, dump them into a boarding house and pay them $200 a week, rather than actually help them overcome their depression.
Looks like they haven’t changed. I can still recall the treatment of the Aussie doctor who discovered stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria and could be cured with antibiotics. The drug companies did everything they could to prevent his discovery becoming an accepted treatment, they were making too much money out of the acid reducing drugs like Zantac that treated the symptoms but didn’t cure.
I developed an ulcer after taking anti-inflammatories, a common cause I didn’t know about at the time & discovered too late. For over a year I was prescribed the standard treatment, they alternated between different brands as each would lose it’s effectiveness after about a month. A very cosy deal for the drug companies, they all had a bite at the profit cherry. Then one day I found a doctor who’d been reading about the Aussie discovery. He prescribed antibiotics and the ulcer was gone in a week… never to return like it did with the old treatment.
This is one of the fundamental flaws with long patents. It removes a lot of the motive for developing new drugs. Why spend dosh on research for more effective treatments & cures when you can keep raking it in from old medicines that cost peanuts to manufacture.
Ahhh… no. The only impact on Pharmac is the potential extra costs involved with new Biologics that come online. But as you seem to be implying that Pharmacutical companies lie about the benefit of the drugs it seems we won’t have much to worry about if we don’t take them.
There you are again pretending to have a crystal ball. How about the profit boosting revenue generating recommendation that every American be screened for depression
” The only impact on Pharmac is the potential extra costs involved with new Biologics that come online”
Biologics are the current/most obvious example of expensive, innovative new drugs, not the sum of.
Because pharmaceuticals companies massage the data, doesn’t mean drugs don’t work – it means the model they are working under is not fit for purpose (if that purpose is to provide the best possible meds that have the least harmful side effects).
But the rivals share common ground in a key area of economic and trade policy which, if it comes to pass, could damage New Zealand’s interests.
Both men want to tear up free trade deals, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership which the US, along with 11 other nations around the region, signed in Auckland last week. New Zealand’s prosperity rests on the ability to get exports into markets with as few impediments as possible.
Sanders and Trump alike complain that trade deals signed by Washington over the years have come at the expense of American jobs. This has been an argument against trade liberalisation all along, but the political consensus that everyone benefits from free trade has prevailed.
Now this policy is under fierce attack, with Trump and Sanders accusing the US political establishment of opening up American markets without extracting equal concessions from trade partners.
Trump also proposes a steep tariff on Chinese imports – a move which would invite Beijing’s retaliation. The implications for the global economy – and for New Zealand – could be profound. The White House race clearly bears watching.
Not really. The Us can’t state that it hasn’t got the ability to send produce here because our barriers are already low. This means they can’t stonewall on these areas by claiming they will only lower their barriers if we lower ours.
I see Admin has posted a long article about the history of the 1951 Waterfront Strike.
Lots of detailed history but omits stating that the National Government which locked out the workers and brought in the Army to work the ships was led by Sidney George Holland who after being invited to join the war-time cabinet, left after only a short time and stayed out for the rest of the war.
He was a nasty piece of work in my opinion and our present PM reminds me of him in many ways.
Neither ever had to handle lampblack in paper bags.
On 2 Feb. my wife and I were only dispensed 1month’s supply of an essential , for us, drug rather than the 3 months supply that our Doctor had prescribed. The Pharmacy said they understood there was a shortage.
Here is the official statement from Pharmac to pharmacies.
Metoprolol succinate long-acting – stock shortage
From 11 December 2015, stat dispensing was removed from all strengths of metoprolol succinate long-acting tabs, 23.75 mg, 47.5 mg, 95 mg and 190 mg, with prescriptions presented needing to be dispensed in monthly lots due to a manufacturing and supply issue.
There is a potential lack of sufficient supply of some strengths over the next few months. PHARMAC anticipate that during January 2016 the 190 mg long-acting tabs supply will be exhausted and patients on the 190 mg long-acting tabs will need to be dispensed 2 x 95 mg long-acting tabs as a replacement. It will be important to ensure all patients are aware of the need to take more tablets than they are used to during this time and vice versa when reinstating the 190 mg tabs. Stat dispensing for this product should be reinstated 1 March 2016.
Thought Standardistas might like to know. No reason for the shortage was given as far as I could see.
For years, Dr. Harry Lever, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, has been warning nearly anyone who would listen of his growing suspicions about generic versions of a widely used heart drug, Toprol XL.
Patient after patient, he said, would visit his office complaining of chest pains or other symptoms after switching from the brand-name version, made by AstraZeneca, to a generic product, often one made in India. When he switched them back to the brand — or to another generic — the symptoms disappeared, he said. Dr. Lever wrote a letter outlining his concerns to the Food and Drug Administration in 2012, and this year, he traveled to Washington to try to get the attention of Congress.
Dr. Lever could not prove that the generic drugs were to blame. “You see enough people and you get a feel, but it’s anecdotes,” he said in an interview Monday. “It’s not science.”
Now, Dr. Lever is feeling a sort of sad vindication. Two large Indian manufacturers, Wockhardt and Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, have announced recalls over the last two months totaling more than 100,000 bottles because their products were not dissolving properly — therefore probably not working as they should. The drug is a beta blocker that treats high blood pressure and heart ailments.
@CV
So there is no confusion medically , metoprolol is the generic name for this medicine also known as Beta Blockers.
Here is the complete list of names used:-
Brand Names: Lopressor, Metoprolol Succinate ER, Metoprolol Tartrate, Toprol-XL
Generic Name: metoprolol (Pronunciation: me TOE pro lol)
CV & Alwyn are entitled to have their little political discussion about Pharmac but I was simply trying to bring this shortage situation to the attention of TS readers.
I presume you are talking about the 2008 story. I only picked it out to illustrate what has been going on ever since 1997 when we adopted the system. I wasn’t advocating for those drugs.
I think that it is completely impossible to provide ALL possible health care. I remember back about 1980 an economist I know showed that you could spend the entire health budget on providing maximum care for kidney disease. Every single cent. There is simply no upper limit on what health care could cost, and compromise is essential.
Sometimes politicians, catering to public demand, get it wrong. John Key admitted recently that their promise of 12 month treatments with Herceptin, although popular with the public, was wrong and that there was no advantage from the longer period.
Yes. He is about the only politician I can think of though who admitted it.
I cannot think of a single occasion when his predecessor ever ‘fessed up about one of her mistakes.
It is a real shame that Little hasn’t learned from that. Instead he is setting himself up as the arbiter in the case of Pembrolizumab. Why doesn’t he take the expert opinions of Pharmac?
He really is thick that fellow. Instead of learning from Key’s mistake in promising to go to Waitangi every year he is repeating the error.
Yes. He is about the only politician I can think of though who admitted it.
I cannot think of a single occasion when his predecessor ever ‘fessed up about one of her mistakes.
???
Turning bloody mindedness and ignoring advice into a virtue now?
Do you really think the PM has learnt not to ignore professional advice now?
He may be, at least as far as Pharmac goes, take their advice in the future.
Of course it wasn’t a virtue. It is not doing it in the future and learning from earlier mistakes by yourself or others that is the virtue.
“OK maybe, however I bet you that the PM will continue to ignore good advice whenever it suits him.
We already know his attitude: if he doesn’t like the advice that he gets, he’ll just go fishing for another opinion until he finds one he does like.”
These are the very points we (at ts) strive to educate the unsuspecting voter about, but it’s a hard job to get through to some of them.
It’s not only Key, it’s the whole lot of them, from the $6B man McCully (Leaky Home Syndrome) to Bennett, Collins, English the double dipper, the list just doesn’t stop, there are too many “sheeple” and not enough people in NZ to recognise this.
Andrew Geddis reports that amongst Republicans Trump has less than 30% support. No way he can get majority of Republican support in the long run.
I suppose while there were 12 nominees the apparent support was just because the votes were spread over so many. As the number of nominees drops the Trump ranking will drop. Cruz is much more dangerous than Trump.
Sanders has no chance of beating Clinton. The delegates and super delegates have him beaten before he starts.
I wouldn’t say that Sanders has no chance, but it is certainly an uphill battle. I’ve commented on the superdelegate issue before, but this is a good backgrounder from today’s Salon:
“Clinton has endorsements from more than 360 Democratic superdelegates, versus eight for Sanders. According to our back-of-envelope math, that means Sanders must win 54% of the remaining delegates to get to the magic number of 2,382 delegates to clinch the nomination., while Clinton needs to win just 46%. That is a huge advantage, especially when you consider that the 2008 Democratic delegate race between Barack Obama and Clinton was essentially a 52%-48% affair.”
The caveat to this, as NBC notes, is that the pressure on those superdelegates to switch will be considerable if Sanders manages to win the popular vote in their respective states. But there’s no guarantee of that, which highlights just how absurd and undemocratic this process is. When Clinton supporters insist the electoral math favors her, this is part of the reason why. And it’s also the reason Sanders supporters aren’t wrong when they say the establishment is in the tank for Clinton.
Me too Andre and Masupial. Still a faint hope for Sanders, though convention and staus quo is pretty powerful against him. At the very least maybe a significant message will be getting through to management signalled by Sander’s support.
The biggest reasons why the GOP hates the Clintons is that they implemented 80% of their agenda — ie welfare reform (love to know what happens when the 5 year limit is maxed out), NAFTA, zero tolerance low and order policies, etc. The republicans cannot take credit because the Clintons swiped their core planks. And they are mad as hell.
I think you’re misreading where Geddis was going with that. Trump could easily win the majority of delegates with only 35% support and hence win the nomination. At which point the majority of Republicans would be very unhappy, which is the point I think he was trying to make.
Yes. Clinton’s record as a foreign warmonger, agent of the bankster class and blatant dishonesty over her official and personal emails, will all hurt her.
The main thing which will put a hole in the side of her campaign however is the fact that she represents the status quo political establishment.
In short, Clinton can manipulate the Democratic Party hierarchy to win the party’s nomination, but she can’t use the same tricks on the general electorate.
although it is very early days in the nomination process and I am unconvinced Trump will end up with the nomination, if it came to Clinton Trump option for president the fact Clinton represents the old guard and the status quo won’t count for as much as the fear of a lunatic with the nuclear codes….the American system may be bizarre but I don’t believe the majority of the population are certifiable
I think the Deep State will swing in hard against Trump if he finally looks like getting the nomination.
Also, Trump supporters are not “lunatics” or “certifiable.”
As I said, Trump has been dead set against foreign wars during his campaign, and he will point out that Clinton has been for foreign wars, as well as assassinating foreign leaders (Gadaffi) and killing old sick men with extreme prejudice (Bin Laden).
In many ways, if you want to avoid a nuclear confrontation between the USA and China/Russia, Trump is the person to vote for, not Clinton.
Interesting article on large dam failure, with a pertinent point at the end about how if we build something industrial that we are reliant on and/or that is dangerous if it fails, we have to have the capacity to either dismantle it or look after it in perpetuity. The article suggests that the age of the large dams is over and ‘other’ renewables are now more competitive, but I think we should be applying the same general principles to solar, wind, wave etc as well. What is our capacity to maintain in perpetuity in a post-carbon age? This is at the crux of “green tech replacement to keep our current lifestyles”, vs “let’s learn to live within out limits”. At the moment we still far to focussed on the former and not paying attention to the latter.
On January 11th, the New York Times reported that Mosul Dam, the largest such structure in Iraq, urgently requires maintenance to prevent its collapse, a disaster that could drown as many as five hundred thousand people downstream and leave a million homeless. Four days earlier, the energy minister of Zambia declared that Kariba Dam, which straddles the border between his country and Zimbabwe, holding back the world’s largest reservoir, was in “dire” condition. An unprecedented drought threatens to shut down the dam’s power production, which supplies nearly half the nation’s electricity.
The World Bank and other international financiers like dams because they seem to offer large-scale solutions to energy and water shortages. Kariba is just one of more than two thousand large dams in Africa; Zimbabwe, one of the world’s poorest nations, has at least two hundred and fifty-four. But maintaining a dam is expensive—and much less popular than building one. Even in affluent countries such as the United States—whose dam infrastructure is in sufficient disrepair to have earned a “D” rating from the American Society of Civil Engineers, in 2013—maintenance is often neglected; it’s not likely to fare better in impoverished, corruption-ridden countries such as Zimbabwe or Iraq. Dams can’t be drained, and dismantling them can be as costly as building them. It’s the trap of Industrial Age technology: once mechanized systems supplant natural ones, they must be managed in perpetuity, or else they break down.
Yes, economics. And a social decision on what kind of risks are acceptable for the long term storage of hazardous waste. For example, the Yucca Mountain storage facility was canned partly because it couldn’t guarantee absolute containment for 10,000 years. In this particular case, it looks to me like the nuclear industry is being required to meet much much higher standards of long term safety than coal, mining, chemical…pretty much any other industrial activity.
Personally, I would be in favour of simply cordoning off large areas around nuclear plants and leaving them be. The wildlife around Chernobyl is apparently thriving.
Probably because humans get a bit more upset about radiation-induced mutations and diseases in human babies that they do see, compared to their reaction to radiation-induced mutations and diseases in wild animals that they never see (and that end up dying quickly anyway).
Right, so when people say the wild life are thriving the implication is that that it’s not that bad, but that is in fact very misleading. It’s also anathema to those of us who think in systems and can see the impact on the ecosystem rather than a few dead rabbit babies.
The lesson from Chernobyl’s exclusion zone (by comparison to the nearest wildlife reserves) appears to be that the presence of any humans at all (no matter how few) apparently has a more damaging effect on wild ecosystems than a small radiation load.
What is our capacity to maintain in perpetuity in a post-carbon age?
That is dependent upon our ability and propensity to recycle rather than anything else. Unfortunately, there’s a very good reason why we called a consumerist society. We consume without though for the future because consumption increases profits for the rich.
Very true, and it’s also driven at the production side, we’re in the age of planned obsolescence (bloody Apple are about the change the power port on their iphone to a new shape that no-one else uses including older iphones. That should be illegal), and let’s make things that break so people have to buy a new one. All that will have to go in a post-carbon world.
We can probably assume that windfarms are both less breakable and have less parts that are intentionally obsolete, but I still think that there is an issue here particularly around manufacture and distribution and the extent to which we can get those techs up and running closer to home and in a more resilient way. How much of replacement parts for critical infrastructure are currently manufactured overseas?
(bloody Apple are about the change the power port on their iphone to a new shape that no-one else uses including older iphones. That should be illegal
Yes it should be. Such things should be set by legal standard.
How much of replacement parts for critical infrastructure are currently manufactured overseas?
Again, wrong question. The question is actually Why aren’t we producing them here?
And the answer to that is our delusional financial system that has been designed to protect and enrich the already rich. A financial system that is designed to turn the majority of people into serfs of the few.
That’s an important question, but so is mine and here’s why. If we want to get to a position of being able to manufacture and maintain our own infrastructure, we have to understand the lack of resiliency we currently have, both at the system level and the engineering audit level. This is in the context of shifting awareness as much as anything.
At the system level, I think once people start thinking about what would happen if the filters on the waterpumps in their town’s water suppy system couldn’t be replace then the overall necessity becomes much more apparent.
At the audit level, how much of our current infrastructure is currently dependent on overseas sources, and where are the particular vulnerabilities.
We all know the story about how NZ only has 3 days worth of groceries in the supermarkets. After the Fukushima tsunami it was really hard to get parts for my Subaru for a while. But those examples are too isolated. When we have more stories like this across the board, people will be more willing to consider that we should be manufacturing more here.
Australian minister resigns for breaching code of conduct
Friday, 12 February 2016
The New Zealand Herald
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ” An embattled Australian government minister resigned on Friday for breaching ministerial standards through a business trip to China, clearing the way for the prime minister to announce a final Cabinet reshuffle ahead of elections due this year.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said an investigation found Stuart Robert had breached the government’s Code of Ministerial Standards through his 2014 trip to Beijing with a friend and donor to the ruling Liberal Party, Paul Marks. Marks made the trip to seal a mining deal between his company Nimrod Resources and Chinese government-owned Minmetals.
…
______________
After all, why do corporations and the super-rich pour money into campaigns and lobbying? Sometimes political convictions are at play. But far more so than small-scale donors, the biggest spenders are investing in favorable policy outcomes. Money doesn’t just give big spenders the chance to express a view or support a candidate; it gives them leverage to reshape the American economy in their favor. And as the richest have pulled away from the rest of America, the policies they want—extremely low tax rates on the wealthy at a time of record deficits, rampant underinvestment in our future, special treatment for corporations that are imposing major environmental costs and financial risks on our society—are increasingly at odds with the policies the country desperately needs.
It’s about the US but we see exactly the same workings here through National’s Cabinet Club and other money anonymising entities.
This sounds very dodgy to me. This occurred when there was a deadlock on cars, dairy etc.
3 hours ago
Japan denies snub of Canada in TPP side deal
OTTAWA — Japanese officials say they believed they were also negotiating with Canada and Mexico when they struck a controversial side agreement with the United States on automobiles last year during the Trans-Pacific Partnership talks.
They discussed that agreement with U.S., which angered Canada and Mexico, in a briefing ahead of a Friday meeting between Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion and his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida.
….
he Japan-U.S. deal on rules of origin in the auto sector would have allowed a higher percentage of Japanese parts in cars in North America’s highly integrated industry. The fallout stalled completion of the 12-country Pacific Rim deal by at least two months.
The Japanese officials say they were surprised to learn that they had negotiated a deal with only the United States.
Mexico’s former ambassador to Canada has said the side deal angered the Canadians and Mexicans and nearly drove the two countries from the bargaining table.
But the Japanese officials, who briefed journalists on the condition they not be named, said their government didn’t think they were doing anything to snub Canada and Mexico.
“We thought that the U.S. represented Canada and Mexico,” said one.
This is awesome, making scientific knowledge free. What needs to complement this is freely available education on how to be scientifically literate that is aimed at lay people (so not written by geeks, sorry geeks).
A researcher in Russia has made more than 48 million journal articles – almost every single peer-reviewed paper every published – freely available online. And she’s now refusing to shut the site down, despite a court injunction and a lawsuit from Elsevier, one of the world’s biggest publishers.
“Payment of $32 is just insane when you need to skim or read tens or hundreds of these papers to do research. I obtained these papers by pirating them,” Elbakyan told Torrent Freak last year. “Everyone should have access to knowledge regardless of their income or affiliation. And that’s absolutely legal.”
If it sounds like a modern day Robin Hood struggle, that’s because it kinda is. But in this story, it’s not just the poor who don’t have access to scientific papers – journal subscriptions have become so expensive that leading universities such as Harvard and Cornell have admitted they can no longer afford them. Researchers have also taken a stand – with 15,000 scientists vowing to boycott publisher Elsevier in part for its excessive paywall fees.
That’s where Sci-Hub comes into the picture. The site works in two stages. First of all when you search for a paper, Sci-Hub tries to immediately download it from fellow pirate database LibGen. If that doesn’t work, Sci-Hub is able to bypass journal paywalls thanks to a range of access keys that have been donated by anonymous academics (thank you, science spies).
Super awesome! I’m doing a bit of work for a non-profit at the moment and getting access to journal articles as an independent researcher is frustratingly difficult.
I’m very grateful for open access authors and publications, but this is amazing.
Let me know how you find it. I’m getting a few pages with short message in Russian that I assume say no results, but sometimes there is a download of the article?
It’s great. I got that sort of message when I put the journal name in.
I’m looking at papers I already have the references for – if you enter that (jnl/vol/issue etc) , it will bring a google scholar list and go from there… or if say, you’re browsing abstracts at a journal site, paste the url for the paper into Sci-Hub and it will open the article directly.
Yep, I think I got that. Mostly I’ve been able to access the papers I want (even the free ones, no subscribing thank-god). With some of the less mainstream ones I’m getting the Russian note that sometimes does nothing.
“At a time when millions of Americans cannot afford to purchase the prescription drugs they require, we need a leader at the FDA who is prepared to stand up to the drug companies,” Sanders said.
“We need someone who will work to substantially lower drug prices, implement rules to safely import brand-name drugs from Canada and hold companies accountable who defraud our government.”
Sen. Sanders’ decision to block Dr. Califf’s appointment to the FDA hardly comes as a surprise for those who saw the Vermont senator’s epic takedown of Dr. Califf during his confirmation hearings last November.
During Sen. Sanders’ heated exchange with him, Sanders forced Dr. Califf’s hand, pointing out that since he supports the importing of fish products and vegetables from around the world, but not the importing of prescription drugs in Canada.
Dr. Califf also refused to take an official position on whether or not he supports allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs on behalf of seniors.
1.6. Along with the privilege of serving as a Minister, there is some personal sacrifice in terms of the time and energy that must be devoted to official duties and some loss of privacy.
Although their public lives encroach upon their private lives, it is critical that Ministers do not use public office for private purposes.
In particular, Ministers must not use any information that they gain in the course of their official duties, including in the course of Cabinet discussions, for personal gain or the benefit of any other person.
…..
____________________
How long would have Judith Collins lasted as ‘Minister of Justice’ if New Zealand had the equivalent of the following Australian ‘Statement of Ministerial Standards operating at the time she participated in three ‘networking opportunities’ for her friends and husband’s private company, Oravida when she visited China in her (then) Ministerial capacity?
Buzz from the Beehive Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities. He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants. His ...
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TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read: Gavin Jacobson talks to Thomas Piketty 10 years on from Capital in the 21st CenturyThe SalvoLocal scoop: Green MP’s business being investigated over migrant exploitation claims StuffSteve KilgallonLocal deep-dive: The commercial contractors making money from School ...
It’s a home - but Kāinga Ora tenants accused of “abusing the privilege” may lose it. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government announced a crackdown on Kāinga Ora tenants who were unruly and/or behind on their rent, with Housing Minister Chris Bishop saying a place in a state ...
This is a guest post by Connor Sharp of Surface Light Rail Light rail in Auckland: A way forward sooner than you think With the coup de grâce of Auckland Light Rail (ALR) earlier this year, and the shift of the government’s priorities to roads, roads, and more roads, it ...
Note: As a paid-up Webworm member, I’ve recorded this Webworm as a mini-podcast for you as well. Some of you said you liked this option - so I aim to provide it when I get a chance to record! Read more ...
TL;DR: In my ‘six-stack’ of substacks at 6.06pm on Monday, March 18:IKEA is accused of planting big forests in New Zealand to green-wash; REDD-MonitorA City for People takes a well-deserved victory lap over Wellington’s pro-YIMBY District Plan votes; A City for PeopleSteven Anastasiou takes a close look at the sticky ...
Buzz from the Beehive Here’s hoping for a lively post-cabinet press conference when the PM and – perhaps – some of his ministers tell us what was discussed at their meeting today. Until then, Point of Order has precious little Beehive news to report after its latest monitoring of the ...
David Farrar writes – We now have almost all 2023 data in, which has allowed me to update my annual table of how labour went against its promises. This is basically their final report card. The promiseThe result Build 100,000 affordable homes over 10 ...
I’m a bit worried that I’ve started a previous newsletter with the words “just when you think they couldn’t get any worse…” Seems lately that I could begin pretty much every issue with that opening. Such is the nature of our coalition government that they seem to be outdoing each ...
Geoffrey Miller writes – Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. ...
Depictions of Islam in Western popular culture have rarely been positive, even before 9/11. Five years on from the mosque shootings, this is one of the cultural headwinds that the Muslim community has to battle against. Whatever messages of tolerance and inclusion are offered in daylight, much of our culture ...
Last week Transport Minster Simeon Brown and Mayor Wayne Brown opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre. The new train control centre will see teams from KiwiRail, Auckland Transport and Auckland One Rail working more closely together to improve train services across the city. The Auckland Rail Operations Centre in ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson said in an exit interview with Q+A yesterday the Government can and should sustain more debt to invest in infrastructure for future generations. Elsewhere in the news in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 6:36am: Read more ...
Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017. Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy ...
TL;DR: The key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to March 18 include:China’s Foreign Minister visiting Wellington today;A post-cabinet news conference this afternoon; the resumption of Parliament on Tuesday for two weeks before Easter;retiring former Labour Finance Minister Grant Robertson gives his valedictory speech in Parliament; ...
New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters’s state-of-the-nation speech on Sunday was really a state-of-Winston-First speech. He barely mentioned any of the Government’s key policies and could not even wholly endorse its signature income tax cuts. Instead, he rehearsed all of his complaints about the Ardern Government, including an extraordinary claim ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
A listing of 35 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 10, 2024 thru Sat, March 16, 2024. Story of the week This week we'll give you a little glimpse into how we collect links to share and ...
“I’ve been internalising a really complicated situation in my head.”When they kept telling us we should wait until we get to know him, were they taking the piss? Was it a case of, if you think this is bad, wait till you get to know the real Christopher, after the ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
Happy fourth anniversary, Pandemic That Upended Bloody Everything. I have been observing it by enjoying my second bout of COVID. It’s 5.30 on Sunday morning and only now are lights turning back on for me.Allow me to copy and paste what I told reader Sara yesterday:Depleted, fogged and crappy. Resting, ...
.“$10 and a target that bleeds” - Bleeding Targets for Under $10!.Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.This government appears hell-bent on either scrapping life-saving legislation or reintroducing things that - frustrated critics insist - will be dangerous and likely ...
“It hardly strikes me as fair to criticise a government for doing exactly what it said it was going to do. For actually keeping its promises.”THUNDER WAS PLAYING TAG with lightning flashes amongst the distant peaks. Its rolling cadences interrupted by the here-I-come-here-I-go Doppler effect of the occasional passing car. ...
Subversive & Disruptive Technologies: Just as happened with that other great regulator of the masses, the Medieval Church, the advent of a new and hard-to-control technology – the Internet – is weakening the ties that bind. Then, and now, those who enjoy a monopoly on the dissemination of lies, cannot and will ...
Been Here Before: To find the precedents for what this Coalition Government is proposing, it is necessary to return to the “glory days” of Muldoonism.THE COALITION GOVERNMENT has celebrated its first 100 days in office by checking-off the last of its listed commitments. It remains, however, an angry government. It ...
Bob Edlin writes – And what is the world watching today…? The email newsletter from Associated Press which landed in our mailbox early this morning advised: In the news today: The father of a school shooter has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter; prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money case ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is another Green MP on their way out? And are the Greens severely tarnished by another integrity scandal? For the second time in three months, the Green Party has secretly suspended an MP over integrity issues. Mystery is surrounding the party’s decision to ...
For the last few years, the Green Party has been the party that has managed to avoid the plague of multiple scandals that have beleaguered other political parties. It appears that their luck has run out with a second scandal which, unfortunately for them, coincided with Golraz Ghahraman, the focus ...
TL;DR: The six newsey things that stood out to me as of 6:46am on Saturday, March 16.Andy Foster has accidentally allowed a Labour/Green amendment to cut road user chargers for plug-in hybrid vehicles, which the Government might accept; NZ HeraldThomas CoughlanSimeon Brown has rejected a plea from Westport ...
What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions.I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it ...
Anybody following the situation in Ukraine and Russia would probably have been amused by a recent Tweet on X NATO seems to be putting in an awful lot of effort to influence what is, at least according to them, a sham election in an autocracy.When do the Ukrainians go to ...
TL;DR:Shaun Baker on Wynyard Quarter's transformation. Magdalene Taylor on the problem with smart phones. How private equity are now all over reinsurance. Dylan Cleaver on rugby and CTE. Emily Atkin on ‘Big Meat’ looking like ‘Big Oil’.Bernard’s six-stack of substacks at 6pm on March 15Photo by Jeppe Hove Jensen ...
Buzz from the Beehive Finance Minister Nicola Willis had plenty to say when addressing the Auckland Business Chamber on the economic growth that (she tells us) is flagging more than we thought. But the government intends to put new life into it: We want our country to be a ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee has reported back on the Road User Charges (Light Electric RUC Vehicles) Amendment Bill, basicly rubberstamping it. While there was widespread support among submitters for the principle that EV and PHEV drivers should pay their fair share for the roads, they also overwhelmingly disagreed with ...
Peter Dunne writes – This week’s government bailout – the fifth in the last eighteen months – of the financially troubled Ruapehu Alpine Lifts company would have pleased many in the central North Island ski industry. The government’s stated rationale for the $7 million funding was that it ...
See if you can spot the difference. An Iranian born female MP from a progressive party is accused of serial shoplifting. Her name is leaked to the media, which goes into a pack frenzy even before the Police launch an … Continue reading → ...
Ele Ludemann writes – The government is omitting general Treaty references from legislation : The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last Government in a bid to get greater coherence in the public service on Treaty ...
What was that judge thinking?Peter Williams writes – That Golriz Ghahraman and District Court Judge Maria Pecotic were once lawyer colleagues is incontrovertible. There is published evidence that they took at least one case to the Court of Appeal together. There was a report on ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Climate Scorpion – the sting is in the tail. Introducing planetary solvency. A paper via the University of Exeter’s Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.Local scoop:Kāinga Ora starts pulling out of its Auckland projects and selling land RNZ ...
Wellington’s massively upzoned District Plan adds the opportunity for tens of thousands of new homes not just in the central city (such as these Webb St new builds) but also close to the CBD and public transport links. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Wellington gave itself the chance of ...
It’s Friday and we’re halfway through March Madness. Here’s some of the things that caught our attention this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday Matt asked how we can get better event trains and an option for grade separating Morningside Dr. On Tuesday Matt looked into ...
Something you might not know about me is that I’m quite a stubborn person. No, really. I don’t much care for criticism I think’s unfair or that I disagree with. Few of us do I suppose.Back when I was a drinker I’d sometimes respond defensively, even angrily. There are things ...
Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The five things that mattered in Aotearoa’s political economy that we wrote and spoke about via The Kākā and elsewhere for paying subscribers in the last week included:PM Christopher Luxon said the reversal of interest deductibility for landlords was done to help renters, who ...
It was not so much the Labour Party but really the Chris Hipkins party yesterday at Labour’s caucus retreat in Martinborough. The former Prime Minister was more or less consistent on wealth tax, which he was at best equivocal about, and social insurance, which he was not willing to revisit. ...
Buzz from the BeehiveThe text reproduced above appears on a page which records all the media statements and speeches posted on the government’s official website by Melissa Lee as Minister of Media and Communications and/or by Jenny Marcroft, her Parliamentary Under-secretary. It can be quickly analysed ...
For forty years, Robert Muldoon has been a dirty word in our politics. His style of government was so repulsive and authoritarian that the backlash to it helped set and entrench our constitutional norms. His pig-headedness over forcing through Think Big eventually gave us the RMA, with its participation and ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Is the new government reducing tax on rental properties to benefit landlords or to cut the cost of rents? That’s the big question this week, after Associate Finance Minister David Seymour announced on Sunday that the Government would be reversing the Labour Government’s removal ...
Saudi Arabia is rarely far from the international spotlight. The war in Gaza has brought new scrutiny to Saudi plans to normalise relations with Israel, while the fifth anniversary of the controversial killing of Jamal Khashoggi was marked shortly before the war began on October 7. And as the home ...
Questions need to be asked on both sides of the worldPeter Williams writes – The NRL Judiciary hands down an eight week suspension to Sydney Roosters forward Spencer Leniu , an Auckland-born Samoan, after he calls Ezra Mam, Sydney-orn but of Aboriginal and Torres Strait ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Contrary to what many headlines and news stories are saying, residential landlords are not getting a tax break. The government is simply restoring to them the tax deductibility of interest they had until the previous government removed it. There is no logical reason ...
I can't remember when it was goodMoments of happiness in bloomMaybe I just misunderstoodAll of the love we left behindWatching our flashbacks intertwineMemories I will never findIn spite of whatever you becomeForget that reckless thing turned onI think our lives have just begunI think our lives have just begunDoes anyone ...
Michael Bassett writes – At first reading, a front-page story in the New Zealand Herald on 13 March was bizarre. A group of severely intellectually limited teenagers, with little understanding of the law, have been pleading to the Justice Select Committee not to pass a bill dealing with ram ...
How much political capital is Christopher Luxon willing to burn through in order to deliver his $2.9 billion gift to landlords? Evidently, Luxon is: (a) unable to cost the policy accurately. As Anna Burns-Francis pointed out to him on Breakfast TV, the original ”rock solid” $2.1 billion cost he was ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Jonathon Porritt calling bullshit in his own blog post on mainstream climate science as ‘The New Denialism’.Local scoop:The Wellington City Council’s list of proposed changes to the IHP recommendations to be debated later today was leaked this ...
TL;DR:Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said yesterday tenants should be grateful for the reinstatement of interest deductibility because landlords would pass on their lower tax costs in the form of lower rents. That would be true if landlords were regulated monopolies such as Transpower or Auckland Airport1, but they’re not, ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The thing about life’s little victories is that they can be followed by a defeat.Reader Darryl told me on Monday night:Test again Dave. My “head cold” last week became COVID within 24 hours, and is still with me. I hear the new variants take a bit longer to show up ...
TL;DR: My top 10 news and analysis links this morning include:Today’s must-read:Angus Deaton on rethinking his economics IMFLocal scoop: The people behind Tamarind, the firm that left a $500m cleanup bill for taxpayers at Taranaki’s Tui oil well, are back operating in Taranaki under a different company name. Jonathan ...
Normally when we talk about accessing public transport it’s about improving how easy it is to get to, such as how easy is it to cross roads in a station/stop’s walking catchment, is it possible to cycle to safely, do bus connections work, or even if are there new routes/connections ...
Politicians are not renowned for telling the truth. Some tell us things that are verifiably not true. They offer statements that omit critical pieces of information. Gloss over risks, preferring to offer the best case scenario.Some not truths are quite small, others amusing in their transparency. There are those repeated ...
The pressure is mounting on the Government as it finalises its Budget Policy Statement, but yet more predicted revenue ‘goes missing’. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Climate Commission has delivered another funding blow to the National-ACT-NZ First coalition Government’s tax-cutting plans, potentially carving $1.4 billion off the ‘climate ...
The Government now faces the prospect of having to watch another tax raise the price of petrol when, only six days ago, it abolished the Auckland Regional Fuel tax. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon argued that the regional fuel tax imposed costs on lower-income people with less fuel-efficient vehicles and that ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
Today marks a tragic milestone for New Zealanders as the Coalition Government side with big tobacco to repeal the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act 2022, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins and Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
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 Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Tesch, Visiting Fellow at the ANU Centre for European Studies, Australian National University In perhaps the least surprising news of the year, Vladimir Putin has triumphed at the Russian ballot box and been enthroned for the fifth time as president. He ...
The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court has stopped a byelection for the Madang Open seat being held until an appeal filed by former MP Bryan Kramer is concluded. Kramer had appealed to the Supreme Court over a National Court decision not to review his application of the Leadership Tribunal decision ...
By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby Despite a “historic” ceasefire agreement in Papua New Guinea between Enga authorities and tribal leaders after months of bitter warfare, a young woman has been found brutally killed near Kaekin village, Wapenamanda. Despite the peace agreement and signing concluded in Port Moresby last Thursday ...
The second season of Ryan Murphy’s Feud is a sadder and slower entry into his canon of true story-telling, leaning heavily on a verdict about the cost of a single work of art. Hollywood heavyweight Ryan Murphy has had a bit of “ick” about him in the last few years. ...
Are you deeply passionate about sharing Māori stories? We’re on the hunt for an experienced writer/editor to lead coverage in our Ātea section.Ātea is a deeply valued section of The Spinoff site, offering Māori perspectives and insights across politics, current affairs and culture. We are thrilled to be looking ...
By Aisha Azeemah in Suva With the lights on one of his sneakers blinking as he ran through the gallery, a little boy looked up at several works of art. One of them was a sculpture of his grandfather: the man who changed how we see the Pacific — Epeli ...
WHAT: Uber drivers are holding a rally outside the Court of Appeal in Wellington tomorrow, as the company begins its appeal against 2022’s Employment Court verdict (in a case taken jointly by FIRST Union and E tū) that four drivers were permanent ...
RNZ Pacific The Fiji Meteorological Service has a heavy rain warning still in place for the whole of the country after a weekend of flooding, although some floodwaters have receded. Flood and flash flood warnings and alerts are also in place, including a warning for all flash flood-prone areas, small ...
Responding to Grant Robertson’s recent admission on a Q+A with Jack Tame that his only regret from his time in office was that he didn’t take on more debt, Taxpayers’ Union spokesperson, Alex Murphy, said: “Grant Robertson has now admitted that he ...
Is this really why marijuana got banned in the 30s? A prohibitionist bureaucratic empire-builder was about to lose his empire so he had to find a new reason to keep it alive, and marijuana was the most convenient new bogeyman?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-influence/real-reasons-marijuana-is-banned_b_9210248.html
Yes -it’a an amazing book.
I haven’t read the book, but the; Anslinger role in post-prohibition cannabis outlawing has been common knowledge since at least the 90s (when I became aware of it). I found the Lincata information in that article fascinating though:
The ‘banning’ of hemp is a similar situation, involving the chemical companies who are poisoning the planet and its inhabitants
People will recognize the names invovled
Been working with a mate growing hemp – such an awesome plant, and so wrongly maligned
MM
2000 years ago, China’s whole civilisation was dependent on the Cannabis crop, interestingly, today they’re finding the medicinal benefits through science that the Chinese discovered thousands of years ago.
If it’s so bad for society, how come it’s legal in five states in the US and various other parts of the world, I would suggest that it’s a lot less harmful to society than cheap liquor and gambling.
Over the years I’ve read of many reasons why marijuana got banned. Racism and pressure from the cotton industry (hemp cloth is reportedly better and cheaper than cotton and grows pretty much everywhere) being the main ones.
Plus hemp does not destroy the soil like cotton does.
Has no natural insect enemies so no pesticides required which isn’t good business for big chemical/pharma interests.
Short videos on aspects of TPP
TPP and Sovereignty,
While the discussion is from the US point of view, the arguments all apply to NZ
http://video.thenewamerican.com/usnews/video/bill-jasper-christian-gomez-examination-tpp-pt-2
TPP and The Commission
The TPP commission – executive body of TPP, chapter 27
Functions of commission reviews agreement, amends, establish the model rules for arbitral tribunals,
TPP a living and evolving document
more members in, plus more powers…“integration” and “harmonisation”
eg harmonisation of health standards…
http://video.thenewamerican.com/usnews/video/bill-jasper-christian-gomez-examination-tpp-pt-4
missing link in post on TPP and the Commission
http://video.thenewamerican.com/usnews/video/bill-jasper-christian-gomez-examination-tpp-pt-3
Watched all 4 yesterday. Well worth the time TMA.
Y’all Qaeda rolls over and dies with barely a whimper.
Bonus: Cliven Bundy, the Osama of Y’all Qaeda, is finally arrested too.
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/12/dear_oregon_militia_men_heres_why_no_one_feels_sorry_for_you_and_rejects_your_mission_built_on_conservative_christian_rage/
Lots of details here.
https://twitter.com/jjmacnab
QFT
And we’ll see similar whinging here from the RWNJs when a Left leaning government gets in.
Except I think that populist rage in the US is very understandable and has very reasonable foundations.
It is mainly centred around the working class and the lower middle class being annhilated.
Bombshell Study Exposes Frightening Facts About Anti-Depressant Drugs & Pharmaceutical Companies
Big Pharma tactics: includes video with Dr Peter Rost, MD who “is a former vice president of Pfizer, and a whistleblower of the entire pharmaceutical industry in general. He is the author of The Whistleblower, Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman.”
Visible text
This is the unprincipled pharmaceutical industry which is going to require PHARMAC to justify its choice of drugs!
Link to article above
TMM – is it just me but I linked into your article and its a teaser – many people are on anti-depressants and will be linking into this as well – it just doesn’t say what the “frightening facts” are – everything but, it does say its dangerous for teenagers but again, why are the side effects not disclosed so people can make an evaluated guess. I do not disagree with you, big PHARMA are a devious corrupt lot but the article again, to me, is not very helpful and we are left not knowing. Most people accept there are side effects to drugs and if they need to take stuff will sort out what suits them best with their doctor. Good that you expose this though and most readers will not be surprised by this at all. Depression is a clinical imbalance in the brain and people who take these pills usually are in a pretty bad state so this is bad news really for them unfortunately.
@ Whispering Kate
Research paper
Suicidality and aggression during antidepressant treatment: systematic review and meta-analyses based on clinical study reports
http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i65
Thanks for that TMM – I think I’ve read sometime ago that teenagers were having suicidal tendencies and comitting suicide on anti depressants, this is terrible. Kids need to be cared for and research needs to be done to combat this. People I know who are on anti depressants (adults) say it has changed their whole lives, they can live their lives feeling like they once used to. I can see a huge difference in them.
I know that there are still a lot of people about who think, if you cannot tangibly see an illness – bandages etc, then “putting on some runners and going out and exercising” will be the cure, “buck up and get on with it” sort of advice. Depression has been with us forever and so has suicide, thankfully now for adults at least they can take something to balance out clinical imbalances occurring in the brain. John Kirwan did such a lot to advertise the seriousness of depression thankfully which has helped to change attitudes with Depression.
Not all depressions are the same and not all anti-depressants work the same way. It is often a process of ‘trial & error’ to match the ‘right’ anti-depressant to the ‘right’ patient; this involves a lead-in period.
The other thing to note with anti-depressants is that you cannot come off them suddenly (‘cold turkey’) without expecting a (strong) relapse. Taking these drugs at the right dose at the right time is fairly important and something that people don’t always stick to (compliance issues are a very common problem with pretty much all medication).
A combination of medication, counselling & support, and healthy life style (e.g. diet) is the way to effectively deal with depression. Lastly, it is thought that genetics do play a role in disposition to depression.
I temporarily worked for SKB (SmithKlineBeecham) in their customer purchase department, when Aropax was being marketed aggressively.
The strategy used to help promote sales was to allow the stocks of Stelazine to drop to near zero, and when pharmacies rang to order – say that Stelazine was out of stock and there was no confirmed production date, and direct them to Aropax.
There were many calls from irate GP’s and pharmacies, due to the fact that the transition from one drug to another was a minimum six weeks – if not more. Furthermore, many patients were successfully using Stelazine, and their supply was cut off suddenly and they had no choice but to change drugs. I’m guessing the patents on Aropax were more recent, and they were ensuring the crossover of as many patients as possible to this newer drug.
(Aropax (Paxil) was later found to be implicated in an increase in teenage suicide for it’s users, and SKB had hidden research papers which had these findings in order to ensure regulation.)
thanks for this first hand report of Big Pharma for-profit skullduggery
Nope, that’s how drug companies want to characterise the phenomenon, mainly because the solutions that they sell are chemical ones.
What is the alternative CV – sometimes therapy no matter how long just does not work.
I agree with CV on this one. Depression has more to do with your life situation and surroundings more than chemicals in your brain.
I know someone who was on prozac for about 11 years. She was pretty much bedridden for most of that time. Then one day she flushed her pills down the toilet and started walking.
Never looked back.
Unfortunately it is cheaper for the government and the non-profit industrial complex it underwrites to give the mentally ill and chronically depressed a prozac script, dump them into a boarding house and pay them $200 a week, rather than actually help them overcome their depression.
Spot on there Incognito.
Looks like they haven’t changed. I can still recall the treatment of the Aussie doctor who discovered stomach ulcers were caused by bacteria and could be cured with antibiotics. The drug companies did everything they could to prevent his discovery becoming an accepted treatment, they were making too much money out of the acid reducing drugs like Zantac that treated the symptoms but didn’t cure.
I developed an ulcer after taking anti-inflammatories, a common cause I didn’t know about at the time & discovered too late. For over a year I was prescribed the standard treatment, they alternated between different brands as each would lose it’s effectiveness after about a month. A very cosy deal for the drug companies, they all had a bite at the profit cherry. Then one day I found a doctor who’d been reading about the Aussie discovery. He prescribed antibiotics and the ulcer was gone in a week… never to return like it did with the old treatment.
This is one of the fundamental flaws with long patents. It removes a lot of the motive for developing new drugs. Why spend dosh on research for more effective treatments & cures when you can keep raking it in from old medicines that cost peanuts to manufacture.
Ahhh… no. The only impact on Pharmac is the potential extra costs involved with new Biologics that come online. But as you seem to be implying that Pharmacutical companies lie about the benefit of the drugs it seems we won’t have much to worry about if we don’t take them.
There you are again pretending to have a crystal ball. How about the profit boosting revenue generating recommendation that every American be screened for depression
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/01/26/all-adults-screened-for-depression/79347926/
Tell us some more about Venezuela…
bollocks
” The only impact on Pharmac is the potential extra costs involved with new Biologics that come online”
Biologics are the current/most obvious example of expensive, innovative new drugs, not the sum of.
Because pharmaceuticals companies massage the data, doesn’t mean drugs don’t work – it means the model they are working under is not fit for purpose (if that purpose is to provide the best possible meds that have the least harmful side effects).
Try http://www.badscience.net/category/big-pharma/ for a pretty conventional medical research pov on this topic if you’re really interested, much as I doubt that.
So – why the rush in New Zealand to ratify the TPPA?
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11588779
Editorial: US elections take adverse turn for NZ
…..
But the rivals share common ground in a key area of economic and trade policy which, if it comes to pass, could damage New Zealand’s interests.
Both men want to tear up free trade deals, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership which the US, along with 11 other nations around the region, signed in Auckland last week. New Zealand’s prosperity rests on the ability to get exports into markets with as few impediments as possible.
Sanders and Trump alike complain that trade deals signed by Washington over the years have come at the expense of American jobs. This has been an argument against trade liberalisation all along, but the political consensus that everyone benefits from free trade has prevailed.
Now this policy is under fierce attack, with Trump and Sanders accusing the US political establishment of opening up American markets without extracting equal concessions from trade partners.
Trump also proposes a steep tariff on Chinese imports – a move which would invite Beijing’s retaliation. The implications for the global economy – and for New Zealand – could be profound. The White House race clearly bears watching.
_____________________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
There is no problem with getting concessions on Trade related matters with NZ.
Indeed. And that’s the problem.
Not really. The Us can’t state that it hasn’t got the ability to send produce here because our barriers are already low. This means they can’t stonewall on these areas by claiming they will only lower their barriers if we lower ours.
I see Admin has posted a long article about the history of the 1951 Waterfront Strike.
Lots of detailed history but omits stating that the National Government which locked out the workers and brought in the Army to work the ships was led by Sidney George Holland who after being invited to join the war-time cabinet, left after only a short time and stayed out for the rest of the war.
He was a nasty piece of work in my opinion and our present PM reminds me of him in many ways.
Neither ever had to handle lampblack in paper bags.
Who or what is “Admin”?
A link would be nice for anyone who is interested in following up the comment.
Shortage of Medicines.
On 2 Feb. my wife and I were only dispensed 1month’s supply of an essential , for us, drug rather than the 3 months supply that our Doctor had prescribed. The Pharmacy said they understood there was a shortage.
Here is the official statement from Pharmac to pharmacies.
Metoprolol succinate long-acting – stock shortage
From 11 December 2015, stat dispensing was removed from all strengths of metoprolol succinate long-acting tabs, 23.75 mg, 47.5 mg, 95 mg and 190 mg, with prescriptions presented needing to be dispensed in monthly lots due to a manufacturing and supply issue.
There is a potential lack of sufficient supply of some strengths over the next few months. PHARMAC anticipate that during January 2016 the 190 mg long-acting tabs supply will be exhausted and patients on the 190 mg long-acting tabs will need to be dispensed 2 x 95 mg long-acting tabs as a replacement. It will be important to ensure all patients are aware of the need to take more tablets than they are used to during this time and vice versa when reinstating the 190 mg tabs. Stat dispensing for this product should be reinstated 1 March 2016.
Thought Standardistas might like to know. No reason for the shortage was given as far as I could see.
Generic version of Toprol XL recalled
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/24/health/warning-unheeded-heart-drugs-are-recalled.html?_r=0
More info here: “serious flaws” with FDA testing and approvals process
http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2014/05/15/metoprolol-mess-toprol-xl-reveals-serious-flaws-with-fdas-generic-process/
@CV
So there is no confusion medically , metoprolol is the generic name for this medicine also known as Beta Blockers.
Here is the complete list of names used:-
Brand Names: Lopressor, Metoprolol Succinate ER, Metoprolol Tartrate, Toprol-XL
Generic Name: metoprolol (Pronunciation: me TOE pro lol)
CV & Alwyn are entitled to have their little political discussion about Pharmac but I was simply trying to bring this shortage situation to the attention of TS readers.
There was a long story in the DomPost last weekend about it.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/76439113/patients-regularly-face-medicine-shortages-as-new-zealand-struggles-to-secure-supply
You will have to choose for yourself which side of the argument you prefer about the effects of the Pharmac purchasing model.
It has been around for a long time and people have been forever complaining about it. Here is another story from 2008
http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/features/740504/A-bitter-pill-10-drugs-you-can-t-have
Are these the same rich pricks who refuse to pay more taxes to pay for our health system?
Perhaps you should call on Key and English not to drop tax rates further.
I presume you are talking about the 2008 story. I only picked it out to illustrate what has been going on ever since 1997 when we adopted the system. I wasn’t advocating for those drugs.
I think that it is completely impossible to provide ALL possible health care. I remember back about 1980 an economist I know showed that you could spend the entire health budget on providing maximum care for kidney disease. Every single cent. There is simply no upper limit on what health care could cost, and compromise is essential.
Sometimes politicians, catering to public demand, get it wrong. John Key admitted recently that their promise of 12 month treatments with Herceptin, although popular with the public, was wrong and that there was no advantage from the longer period.
He was told that by health sector analysts way back then so it’s not like he didn’t know from the start.
Yes. He is about the only politician I can think of though who admitted it.
I cannot think of a single occasion when his predecessor ever ‘fessed up about one of her mistakes.
It is a real shame that Little hasn’t learned from that. Instead he is setting himself up as the arbiter in the case of Pembrolizumab. Why doesn’t he take the expert opinions of Pharmac?
He really is thick that fellow. Instead of learning from Key’s mistake in promising to go to Waitangi every year he is repeating the error.
???
Turning bloody mindedness and ignoring advice into a virtue now?
Do you really think the PM has learnt not to ignore professional advice now?
He may be, at least as far as Pharmac goes, take their advice in the future.
Of course it wasn’t a virtue. It is not doing it in the future and learning from earlier mistakes by yourself or others that is the virtue.
OK maybe, however I bet you that the PM will continue to ignore good advice whenever it suits him.
We already know is attitude: if he doesn’t like the advice that he gets, he’ll just go fishing for another opinion until he finds one he does like.
Cv Absolutely correct.
Hey CV
“OK maybe, however I bet you that the PM will continue to ignore good advice whenever it suits him.
We already know his attitude: if he doesn’t like the advice that he gets, he’ll just go fishing for another opinion until he finds one he does like.”
These are the very points we (at ts) strive to educate the unsuspecting voter about, but it’s a hard job to get through to some of them.
It’s not only Key, it’s the whole lot of them, from the $6B man McCully (Leaky Home Syndrome) to Bennett, Collins, English the double dipper, the list just doesn’t stop, there are too many “sheeple” and not enough people in NZ to recognise this.
Andrew Geddis reports that amongst Republicans Trump has less than 30% support. No way he can get majority of Republican support in the long run.
I suppose while there were 12 nominees the apparent support was just because the votes were spread over so many. As the number of nominees drops the Trump ranking will drop. Cruz is much more dangerous than Trump.
Sanders has no chance of beating Clinton. The delegates and super delegates have him beaten before he starts.
I wouldn’t say that Sanders has no chance, but it is certainly an uphill battle. I’ve commented on the superdelegate issue before, but this is a good backgrounder from today’s Salon:
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/12/sign_of_a_broken_system_bernies_biggest_problem_may_not_be_hillary_clinton_its_the_anti_democratic_superdelegates_in_her_corner/
A lot of states have winner-take-all primaries. So Clinton’s 15% starting advantage from superdelegates is not insurmountable.
Superdelegates are allowed to change their minds. A large enough popular vote swing to Sanders might be enough to persuade them to do so.
thanks Andre and Pasupial for those more encouraging analyses. I’d been wondering what was possible.
Me too Andre and Masupial. Still a faint hope for Sanders, though convention and staus quo is pretty powerful against him. At the very least maybe a significant message will be getting through to management signalled by Sander’s support.
The Clintons are partners with the banksters and the transnational corporates against the working class. That’s the starting point of this discussion.
The biggest reasons why the GOP hates the Clintons is that they implemented 80% of their agenda — ie welfare reform (love to know what happens when the 5 year limit is maxed out), NAFTA, zero tolerance low and order policies, etc. The republicans cannot take credit because the Clintons swiped their core planks. And they are mad as hell.
No, I don’t think that’s it, unless you are talking about the Republican elite/senior hierarchy.
WTF kind of analysis is this.
Trump has more support than the no.2 no.3 no.4 and no.5 candidates put together.
How does Geddis think that any of them are going to get “majority support in the long run” when they are well behind Trump???
I think you’re misreading where Geddis was going with that. Trump could easily win the majority of delegates with only 35% support and hence win the nomination. At which point the majority of Republicans would be very unhappy, which is the point I think he was trying to make.
Ahhh. Trump will roll all over Hilary and win the White House. I think most Republicans will like that.
😆 🙄
Now you speak for US citizens too.
*Shrug*
Happy to be proven wrong by you when Trump loses the nomination race.
assuming you are right and Trump wins the Rep. nomination do you genuinely believe he would be elected President ahead of Clinton?
Yes. Clinton’s record as a foreign warmonger, agent of the bankster class and blatant dishonesty over her official and personal emails, will all hurt her.
The main thing which will put a hole in the side of her campaign however is the fact that she represents the status quo political establishment.
In short, Clinton can manipulate the Democratic Party hierarchy to win the party’s nomination, but she can’t use the same tricks on the general electorate.
although it is very early days in the nomination process and I am unconvinced Trump will end up with the nomination, if it came to Clinton Trump option for president the fact Clinton represents the old guard and the status quo won’t count for as much as the fear of a lunatic with the nuclear codes….the American system may be bizarre but I don’t believe the majority of the population are certifiable
I think the Deep State will swing in hard against Trump if he finally looks like getting the nomination.
Also, Trump supporters are not “lunatics” or “certifiable.”
As I said, Trump has been dead set against foreign wars during his campaign, and he will point out that Clinton has been for foreign wars, as well as assassinating foreign leaders (Gadaffi) and killing old sick men with extreme prejudice (Bin Laden).
In many ways, if you want to avoid a nuclear confrontation between the USA and China/Russia, Trump is the person to vote for, not Clinton.
http://news.groopspeak.com/bookies-right-91-of-the-time-in-elections-next-president-will-be/
Interesting article on large dam failure, with a pertinent point at the end about how if we build something industrial that we are reliant on and/or that is dangerous if it fails, we have to have the capacity to either dismantle it or look after it in perpetuity. The article suggests that the age of the large dams is over and ‘other’ renewables are now more competitive, but I think we should be applying the same general principles to solar, wind, wave etc as well. What is our capacity to maintain in perpetuity in a post-carbon age? This is at the crux of “green tech replacement to keep our current lifestyles”, vs “let’s learn to live within out limits”. At the moment we still far to focussed on the former and not paying attention to the latter.
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/one-of-africas-biggest-dams-is-falling-apart
an inability to properly decommission the dozens of aging nuclear reactors around the world is what is going to screw us.
It’s the gorilla in many corners about Europe that were part of the old soviet block.
“an inability to properly decommission the dozens of aging nuclear reactors around the world is what is going to screw us.”
Is that an economic issue rather than a tech one?
Yes, economics. And a social decision on what kind of risks are acceptable for the long term storage of hazardous waste. For example, the Yucca Mountain storage facility was canned partly because it couldn’t guarantee absolute containment for 10,000 years. In this particular case, it looks to me like the nuclear industry is being required to meet much much higher standards of long term safety than coal, mining, chemical…pretty much any other industrial activity.
Personally, I would be in favour of simply cordoning off large areas around nuclear plants and leaving them be. The wildlife around Chernobyl is apparently thriving.
If the wildlife are thriving around Chernobyl why would it be a problem for humans to live there?
Probably because humans get a bit more upset about radiation-induced mutations and diseases in human babies that they do see, compared to their reaction to radiation-induced mutations and diseases in wild animals that they never see (and that end up dying quickly anyway).
Right, so when people say the wild life are thriving the implication is that that it’s not that bad, but that is in fact very misleading. It’s also anathema to those of us who think in systems and can see the impact on the ecosystem rather than a few dead rabbit babies.
The lesson from Chernobyl’s exclusion zone (by comparison to the nearest wildlife reserves) appears to be that the presence of any humans at all (no matter how few) apparently has a more damaging effect on wild ecosystems than a small radiation load.
yeah, but we didn’t need a nuclear melt down to know that 😉
I think you are sidestepping my point.
Because of the extra harm that would do to the wildlife.
“The net positive effect of removing humans from the exclusion zone therefore appears to exceed the negative impacts of radiation.”
That is dependent upon our ability and propensity to recycle rather than anything else. Unfortunately, there’s a very good reason why we called a consumerist society. We consume without though for the future because consumption increases profits for the rich.
Very true, and it’s also driven at the production side, we’re in the age of planned obsolescence (bloody Apple are about the change the power port on their iphone to a new shape that no-one else uses including older iphones. That should be illegal), and let’s make things that break so people have to buy a new one. All that will have to go in a post-carbon world.
We can probably assume that windfarms are both less breakable and have less parts that are intentionally obsolete, but I still think that there is an issue here particularly around manufacture and distribution and the extent to which we can get those techs up and running closer to home and in a more resilient way. How much of replacement parts for critical infrastructure are currently manufactured overseas?
Yes it should be. Such things should be set by legal standard.
Again, wrong question. The question is actually Why aren’t we producing them here?
And the answer to that is our delusional financial system that has been designed to protect and enrich the already rich. A financial system that is designed to turn the majority of people into serfs of the few.
That’s an important question, but so is mine and here’s why. If we want to get to a position of being able to manufacture and maintain our own infrastructure, we have to understand the lack of resiliency we currently have, both at the system level and the engineering audit level. This is in the context of shifting awareness as much as anything.
At the system level, I think once people start thinking about what would happen if the filters on the waterpumps in their town’s water suppy system couldn’t be replace then the overall necessity becomes much more apparent.
At the audit level, how much of our current infrastructure is currently dependent on overseas sources, and where are the particular vulnerabilities.
We all know the story about how NZ only has 3 days worth of groceries in the supermarkets. After the Fukushima tsunami it was really hard to get parts for my Subaru for a while. But those examples are too isolated. When we have more stories like this across the board, people will be more willing to consider that we should be manufacturing more here.
Where’s New Zealand’s ‘Code of Ministerial Standards’?
http://m.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11588739
Australian minister resigns for breaching code of conduct
Friday, 12 February 2016
The New Zealand Herald
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) ” An embattled Australian government minister resigned on Friday for breaching ministerial standards through a business trip to China, clearing the way for the prime minister to announce a final Cabinet reshuffle ahead of elections due this year.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said an investigation found Stuart Robert had breached the government’s Code of Ministerial Standards through his 2014 trip to Beijing with a friend and donor to the ruling Liberal Party, Paul Marks. Marks made the trip to seal a mining deal between his company Nimrod Resources and Chinese government-owned Minmetals.
…
______________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
Interesting interview.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=135pYusFV_k
How Big Money Corrupts the Economy
It’s about the US but we see exactly the same workings here through National’s Cabinet Club and other money anonymising entities.
This sounds very dodgy to me. This occurred when there was a deadlock on cars, dairy etc.
3 hours ago
Japan denies snub of Canada in TPP side deal
http://www.guelphmercury.com/news-story/6305987-japan-denies-snub-of-canada-in-tpp-side-deal/
Heads up to the admins – the site currently won’t load for me when visiting from a mobile device.
Works fine on desktop.
This is awesome, making scientific knowledge free. What needs to complement this is freely available education on how to be scientifically literate that is aimed at lay people (so not written by geeks, sorry geeks).
http://www.sciencealert.com/this-woman-has-illegally-uploaded-millions-of-journal-articles-in-an-attempt-to-open-up-science
Shoutout to Aaron Swartz who died trying to make this happen.
Super awesome! I’m doing a bit of work for a non-profit at the moment and getting access to journal articles as an independent researcher is frustratingly difficult.
I’m very grateful for open access authors and publications, but this is amazing.
Let me know how you find it. I’m getting a few pages with short message in Russian that I assume say no results, but sometimes there is a download of the article?
It’s great. I got that sort of message when I put the journal name in.
I’m looking at papers I already have the references for – if you enter that (jnl/vol/issue etc) , it will bring a google scholar list and go from there… or if say, you’re browsing abstracts at a journal site, paste the url for the paper into Sci-Hub and it will open the article directly.
Yep, I think I got that. Mostly I’ve been able to access the papers I want (even the free ones, no subscribing thank-god). With some of the less mainstream ones I’m getting the Russian note that sometimes does nothing.
you had trouble getting searches to work in past day or so?
Yeah – the last one I tried took a a few attempts, I eventually got in using the doi number – after 2 attempts with that I got it in the end!
Bernie Sanders stands up to BIG PHARMA:
http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-sanders-blocks-obamas-fda-pick-over-ties-to-big-pharma/
“At a time when millions of Americans cannot afford to purchase the prescription drugs they require, we need a leader at the FDA who is prepared to stand up to the drug companies,” Sanders said.
“We need someone who will work to substantially lower drug prices, implement rules to safely import brand-name drugs from Canada and hold companies accountable who defraud our government.”
Sen. Sanders’ decision to block Dr. Califf’s appointment to the FDA hardly comes as a surprise for those who saw the Vermont senator’s epic takedown of Dr. Califf during his confirmation hearings last November.
During Sen. Sanders’ heated exchange with him, Sanders forced Dr. Califf’s hand, pointing out that since he supports the importing of fish products and vegetables from around the world, but not the importing of prescription drugs in Canada.
Dr. Califf also refused to take an official position on whether or not he supports allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of prescription drugs on behalf of seniors.
…
__________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
In my opinion, as an anti-corruption campaigner, New Zealand has a LOT to learn from the Australian ‘Statement of Ministerial Standards’:
https://www.dpmc.gov.au/sites/default/files/publications/statement_ministerial_standards.docx
” …Integrity
1.6. Along with the privilege of serving as a Minister, there is some personal sacrifice in terms of the time and energy that must be devoted to official duties and some loss of privacy.
Although their public lives encroach upon their private lives, it is critical that Ministers do not use public office for private purposes.
In particular, Ministers must not use any information that they gain in the course of their official duties, including in the course of Cabinet discussions, for personal gain or the benefit of any other person.
…..
____________________
How long would have Judith Collins lasted as ‘Minister of Justice’ if New Zealand had the equivalent of the following Australian ‘Statement of Ministerial Standards operating at the time she participated in three ‘networking opportunities’ for her friends and husband’s private company, Oravida when she visited China in her (then) Ministerial capacity?
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
NZ’s equivalent is the Cabinet Manual. We’ve seen how effective that is in the hands of a corrupt shit like Key.
Remind me again which party in NZ has had people actually found guilty of corruption charges?
Cabinet manual was not useful then, either.