Open mike 13/10/2013

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, October 13th, 2013 - 215 comments
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Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike…

215 comments on “Open mike 13/10/2013 ”

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    • miravox 1.1
      13 October 2013 at 8:29 am

      The second sentence means I don’t need to read any further, I know what’s coming. Actually because it’s Damien Grant I know reading any further is a waste of time (unless he’s had an epiphany – 2nd sentence show’s that’s unlikely).

      So to save others time, 2nd sentence …

      First, if someone wants to sell you their labour for $14 an hour and you choose to pay them more, the difference is charity.

      Then blah, blah, blah…. it’s unfair that people should be paid a living wage from our rates [the end].

    • Rogue Trooper 1.2
      13 October 2013 at 3:40 pm

      “truth is the sort of error without which a definite type of living entity could not live”.- Nietzsche
      (double 7’s if anybody is card counting).

  2. AsleepWhileWalking 2
    13 October 2013 at 8:42 am

    According to this article best we not look at abortion law lest we get something even worse! – Really?? How about we challenge for a better law anyway?

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/9277101/Abortions-lead-to-mental-health-issues

    • QoT 2.1
      13 October 2013 at 9:44 am

      Fergusson’s study is old news and also incredibly unconvincing – I blogged about it back in May:
      http://ideologicallyimpure.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/abortion-and-mental-health-research-not-as-clear-cut-as-reported-no-surprises-there/

      ETA: Oh, and fuck Dame Linda Holloway and her “from a prochoice position it doesn’t matter”. Pregnant people have to jump through hoops, travel long distances and wait longer than necessary to have a very safe medical procedure? What could be wrong with THAT?

      • NZ Femme 2.1.1
        13 October 2013 at 12:38 pm

        QoT, haven’t seen anything any thing written about the pro-life TV ads I’ve been seeing on TV2 over the past week; wondering if you’ve seen them? I caught one last Monday night sometime between 11.00pm and midnight. Young woman (actor? dunno) talking about becoming infertile after an abortion. Another one Thursday night, same timeframe, young woman saying not having an abortion stopped her from self-harming (cutting).

        I’ve been trying to find out via the pro-life websites who’s behind them, but not having much luck.

        • QoT 2.1.1.1
          13 October 2013 at 1:08 pm

          I’ve seen some Facebook discussion of them but so far I’ve not caught them on TV myself. But I do have a prochoice post coming up this week!

          The ads appear to be from Voice for Life, formerly SPUC, which was heavily financed by the Catholic Church back in the 70s.

  3. Morrissey 3
    13 October 2013 at 9:00 am

    Interesting things they keep off the News
    No. 1: Guantanamo Bay captives
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2013/oct/11/guantanamo-bay-hunger-strikes-video-animation

  4. muzza 4
    13 October 2013 at 9:29 am

    Very soon, every American will be required to register their biological property
    (that’s you and your children) in a national system designed to keep track of the people and that will operate
    under the ancient system of pledging. By such methodology, we can compel people to submit to our agenda,
    which will affect our security as a charge back for our fiat paper currency.
    Every American will be forced to register or suffer not being able to work and earn a living. They will be
    our chattels (property) and we will hold the security interest over them forever, by operation of the law
    merchant under the scheme of secured transactions. Americans, by unknowingly or unwittingly delivering
    the bills of lading (Birth Certificate) to us will be rendered bankrupt and insolvent, secured by their pledges.
    They will be stripped of their rights and given a commercial value designed to make us a profit and
    they will be none the wiser, for not one man in a million could ever figure our plans and, if by accident one
    or two should figure it out, we have in our arsenal plausible deniability. After all, this is the only logical way
    to fund government, by floating liens and debts to the registrants in the form of benefits and privileges.
    This will inevitably reap us huge profits beyond our wildest expectations and leave every American a
    contributor to this fraud, which we will call “Social Insurance.” Without realizing it, every American will
    unknowingly be our servant, however begrudgingly. The people will become helpless and without any hope
    for their redemption and we will employ the high office (presidency) of our dummy corporation (USA) to
    foment this plot against America. – Colonel Edward Mandell House

    The above statement was made to Woodrow Wilson, approximately 100 years ago!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson

    Ugly Truth, who posts occasionally, attempts to inform on how the fraud is achieved, and routinely gets blown off.

    Those who blow off the posts, need to start to read up, quickly!

    • joe90 4.1
      13 October 2013 at 9:45 am

      ♪ ..prison planet … ♫

      • locus 4.1.1
        13 October 2013 at 10:33 am

        succinct and right on target as usual joe90

      • muzza 4.1.2
        13 October 2013 at 1:34 pm

        What’s Prison Planet Joe?

        If you’re talking about the way vast swaths of the worlds peoples are living, like an open air prison, then you would be in the right direction. Is that what you meant?

        Perhaps your could present a case against the text, hows about you give that crack!

        Locus, if the best you have to offer is to concur with whatever J90 was on about, you need to try harder.

        Perhaps offer forward some thoughts comments, a rebuttle even.

        • Pascal's bookie 4.1.2.1
          13 October 2013 at 2:30 pm

          Sure. There are questions that need to be answered though.

          1) Where’d the text come from? Not just where did you found it, but how do we know it is legit. when did it first surface, and where, is it verified as being what it claims to be. There are plenty of texts lying about the place claiming to be significant, but with no provenance, ie, they just surface in odd places in ways that make it impossible to tell if they are real, or fabrications.

          2) What happened next? For the text to be significant, even if we believe it be legitimate, we need to know what influence it had. That influence has to be shown in law. Birth certificates are legal things, with their purpose written into law. This text makes claims about what they do, but those claims will only be real if they are reflected in the laws about birth certificates.

          Those are the obvious questions that need to be answered first up.

          Have at it.

          For “1” I’d like to see the document referenced as to where and when it was supposedly written, and how it surfaced.

          For “2” we need to see that context of the document, what effect did it have. Did Wilson reply for example, where there others involved in the debate? And we need to see what is written in the law to text if the claims made about birth certificates reflect what actually happened.

          • McFlock 4.1.2.1.1
            13 October 2013 at 3:28 pm

            Given the context of Wilson’s presidency, it appears to be a rant against the Federal Reserve that morphs into equating social welfare with fraud and possibly slavery. As found on nutbar conspiracy sites, according to google.

            • Pascal's bookie 4.1.2.1.1.1
              13 October 2013 at 4:49 pm

              Yeah, there’s horde of them.

              I first came across this stuff in discussions about the 90’s militia movement. Ruby ridge, waco and all that jazz. “Sovereign citizens” and the like. Post-McVeigh they all got the scares and folded up their tents to an extent, I guess when someone started things off they decided that, well, someone else should carry on but they were all too busy sitting on their hands and saying it was just a hobby, and a theory, and never you mind.

      • Murray Olsen 4.1.3
        13 October 2013 at 5:27 pm

        Exactly, but I try not to feed them.
        “Massa, the sugar cane is cut” – said to George Washington by the overseer on his Manassass sugar plantation.

    • Ugly Truth 4.2
      13 October 2013 at 11:17 am

      Hi Muzza

      The process of redemption involves a change of legal status from a human being to a man or woman. Human beings are always persons and have lower status than men or women. Humans suffer from universalism, which implies that they think that everyone is like them. For them equality under the state is the highest virtue.

      The relationship between the state and humans is much like the relationship between deity and people. The state protects humans from harm and they petition the state when they think that their needs are not being met.

      The realm of the state and the realm of deity are disparate. While the state may pay lip service to deity, it is fundamentally secular. The diffrerence between law and rules is that law is ordained (or consistent with what is ordained) while rules are purely secular constructs. Since the state has removed the connection to deity, the rules of the state do not constitute law. The state assumes the role of deity when it gives its legislation the name of law.

      http://www.actsinjunction.info/nwo.html

      • Pascal's bookie 4.2.1
        13 October 2013 at 2:38 pm

        UT, are laws revealed, or discovered by way of observation?

        • Ugly Truth 4.2.1.1
          13 October 2013 at 4:33 pm

          PB, natural laws (eg the physical laws) are discovered by observation.

          • Pascal's bookie 4.2.1.1.1
            13 October 2013 at 4:41 pm

            The diffrerence between law and rules is that law is ordained (or consistent with what is ordained) while rules are purely secular constructs. Since the state has removed the connection to deity, the rules of the state do not constitute law.

            I was obviously asking about these ‘ordained’ laws. How do we know which are laws that are ordained, and which are rules made by the state?

    • Draco T Bastard 4.3
      13 October 2013 at 1:14 pm

      The problem is that UT has a habit of ranting on what is complete bollocks – usually about the law and how it was 500 years ago and why it shouldn’t have changed despite the fact that people have been having problems with the law going back thousands of years (Debt: The first 5000 years, David Graeber).

      • muzza 4.3.1
        13 October 2013 at 1:46 pm

        Is that the same Graeber who was involved with occupy?

        And yes, you can see that the agenda was put into action many thousands of years ago, and is entirely responsible for the current state of the world we live in!

        Just because you can’t wrap your head around it Draco, does not make it bollocks!

        The point is, the controllers are getting away with their plans somehow, and what are the key mechanisms which enable the agenda

        1: Controling, writing and enforcing, so called law.

        2: Inventing, owning and controlling, so called money/currency.

        • Draco T Bastard 4.3.1.1
          13 October 2013 at 2:31 pm

          I’m quite aware of what’s happening and how our idea of ownership is at the heart of the problem. Thing is, UT usually says that we need to go back to the way things were around 500 years when things were actually worse. We have, over time, corrected some of the worse aspects but we still need to look to the problem of ownership itself.

          • Ugly Truth 4.3.1.1.1
            13 October 2013 at 4:29 pm

            “UT usually says that we need to go back to the way things were around 500 years when things were actually worse”

            I’ve never said that, fool.

            • Rogue Trooper 4.3.1.1.1.1
              13 October 2013 at 4:31 pm

              “fool” is a fairly generic term

            • Draco T Bastard 4.3.1.1.1.2
              13 October 2013 at 4:56 pm

              Yeah, actually, you have. Don’t believe me, just go read your comments. And more.

              You’re as delusional as a libertarian.

              • Rogue Trooper …
                13 October 2013 at 5:08 pm

                Time on your hands then (not the devil’s plaything).

                -comment #101.

              • Ugly Truth …
                13 October 2013 at 5:17 pm

                You’re as delusional as a libertarian.

                Project much, Draco?

                Talking about common law is not the same as saying that “we need to go back to the way things were around 500 years”

                • Rogue Trooper …
                  13 October 2013 at 5:24 pm

                  personally, i have found your voice interesting…

                • McFlock …
                  13 October 2013 at 5:25 pm

                  So you wouldn’t have said that an easy way to return to democracy would be a tax embargo and common law courts?

                • TheContrarian …
                  13 October 2013 at 6:50 pm

                  A deluded Draco debates a delusional Ugly Truth.

                  However, after Ugly’s “Aliens controls teh gummints!” rant at Kiwiblog I’d throw my lot in with Draco.

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  13 October 2013 at 8:23 pm

                  Project much, Draco?

                  Nope.

                  Talking about common law is not the same as saying that “we need to go back to the way things were around 500 years”

                  The way you talk about it it is.

      • Chooky 4.3.2
        13 October 2013 at 3:36 pm

        500 years ago …middle of the Inquisition

  5. miravox 5
    13 October 2013 at 9:44 am

    Rodney Hide has cheek!

    Len Brown is good for Auckland. He was the first mayor of a united Auckland and has been re-elected with hardly a ripple of dissent or opposition….
    …
    We need a new box to tick on the ballot. One that says “none of the above”. That would enable voters to say, we don’t care, we just want the elected government of the day to appoint the best people to run our city and region.

    Len wouldn’t even have been elected as mayor for you to opine on whether he’s good for the place, or not, Rodney, if you had your way.

    To add further insult to citizens who elect people like Len, Rodney moves on to Canterbury in a ridiculous attempt to underline a point he failed to make in the first place.

    That’s what’s happened with the regional council in Canterbury. It has a top civil servant, a former top judge, an ex-minister, and business people – a qualified and professional leadership team who can get on with the job.

    It’s a far better team than one would ever get standing for election. It would seem to me that we should have that option in the rest of the country.

    Sorry Cantabrians, you’re useless unless Rodders belatedly agrees with a choice he thinks you are better off for not having. Does he not realise that he just endorsed the mayor people voted for in Auckland in his pronouncement that mayors should be appointed by Rodders mates because the electors pick useless people!

    I’m seriously struggling to refrain from shouting.

    • Paul 5.1
      13 October 2013 at 9:47 am

      The Herald uses corporate shills to sell the narrative of the 1%.
      Don’t bother reading it.

      • locus 5.1.1
        13 October 2013 at 10:27 am

        agreed Paul, but i got tempted, and though it make me choke to say it… the MSM – and their corporate shills – still influence public opinion

        but just in case anyone else is tempted here’s the two-faced anti-democratic self-serving crap from Hide in the Herald:
        “I would vote if I could tick a box that allowed the government of the day to appoint the best people to run the council. It would save a lot of fluffing around”

    • fender 5.2
      13 October 2013 at 2:10 pm

      +1 Miravox

      Rodney Hide actually has two cheeks inside his scull where a brain should be.

      “………….we just want the elected government of the day to appoint the best people to run our city and region.”

      What utter crap, makes me want to shout too.

  6. dan1 6
    13 October 2013 at 10:18 am

    Cunliffe excellent on the Nation just now. Rachel Smalley desperately tried to nail him but was left floundering. Cunliffe measured and confident.

    • Lanthanide 6.1
      13 October 2013 at 10:26 am

      I truly hope the ABCer’s see what a ridiculous cock-up they made of putting up Shearer ahead of Cunliffe back in 2011. Still think Cunliffe shouldn’t have tried to do that double-ticket with Nanaia and that it played a big part of his loss, though.

    • Morrissey 6.2
      13 October 2013 at 10:50 am

      Cunliffe looks like Lange did in 1983-4: like the prime minister-in-waiting. The National Party knows that too, hence their hysterical, doomed attempts to portray him as “extreme left”.

      • Pascal's bookie 6.2.1
        13 October 2013 at 11:00 am

        Concur. I listened to a speech he did during the leadership stoush with another tab open in front so I wasn’t distracted by the images, and his cadences reminded me very much of Lange.

      • Chooky 6.2.2
        13 October 2013 at 3:41 pm

        …They will be going for him in whatever way they can to undermine him….The main thing is that he isn’t diverted or panicked by them ( like Helen Clark was by Brash’s speech)…but keeps a steady course to a great victory!!!

  8. bad12 8
    13 October 2013 at 11:50 am

    QOT,re: Fluoride, anti science, that’s a matter of opinion, you mean anti-statistical production from those who have a vested interest,

    Christchurch which has never used fluoride in it’s water supply has remarkably ‘average teeth’ when compared with the rest of New Zealand, at times having a lower rate of caries than the average and at times having a slightly higher rate, according to ‘science’ that cannot be true,but it is,

    Looking country on country Iceland with the same number of caries per head of population as New Zealand has never used fluoride in it’s water supply, according to ‘science’ Ice land should have a far higher rate of caries than New Zealand, but they don’t…

    • Lanthanide 8.1
      13 October 2013 at 12:23 pm

      Sure, if you choose to simply say “no fluoride in this water, therefore we expect differences in dental problems which we aren’t seeing”.

      However fluoride being in just the local drinking water is not the sole factor. For example products that substantially contain water (beverages) that are produced in an area that has fluoride in the water and shipped to areas that don’t, will provide a ‘halo’ effect on those areas.

      Now, looking at the most basic, obvious correlation and then saying “science” this and “science” that, using quotes as if science is somehow at fault, just makes *you* look stupid.

      The truth of the matter is that science, when it comes to studies of human health, is very complex and complicated, which is why we leave it to the professionals, called scientists, and not the average joe on the street.

      • bad12 8.1.1
        13 October 2013 at 1:15 pm

        Lolz, ‘the halo effect’ now that’s definitely scientific right, tell me what exactly is stupid about (a) comparing the second biggest city in New Zealand which does not dump fluoride in it’s water supply with other cities that do,

        Oh except LOLZ for your halo effect, when did you make up that little gem, just now perhaps,

        So a place like Iceland which has remarkably the same number of caries as the New Zealand average is protected by your ‘halo effect’ is it, LOLZ can you link me to the study that says this,or did you as usual pull the ‘halo’ outta ya anus…

        • QoT 8.1.1.1
          13 October 2013 at 1:34 pm

          Yes. And then Lanth travelled through time to 1994 to publish a paper on it.
          http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8070242

          • bad12 8.1.1.1.1
            13 October 2013 at 1:45 pm

            So you suggest that Iceland imports one hell of a lot of liquids that they drink, all with fluoride that has been untainted by any effect of whatever it is that the end user drink turns out to be and any manufacturing process that was undergone to reach that end use product,

            Christchurch kids all drink the same amount of what, coke perhaps, as each other, and enough imported liquids to equal the intake of fluoridated water that kids in other places using fluoride in the water do???

            That’s a stretch even of my imagination, i am more inclined to believe that as far as fluoride goes Christchurch kids brush their teeth as much as any other kids anywhere else in New Zealand from whence, if fluoride is of any benefit, they get more than enough to keep their teeth on a par with the rest of the kids in New Zealand,

            Which just brings me to where the biggest problem would be vis a vis tooth decay, South Auckland fluoridated, Porirua fluoridated, the missing link wouldn’t be tooth paste would it…

            • Lanthanide 8.1.1.1.1.1
              13 October 2013 at 2:38 pm

              “So you suggest that Iceland imports one hell of a lot of liquids that they drink, all with fluoride that has been untainted by any effect of whatever it is that the end user drink turns out to be and any manufacturing process that was undergone to reach that end use product,”

              Actually, I’m suggesting that the halo effect is something that is beyond the obvious “the water supply of this town has no fluoride in it and yet the dental evidence is the same”.

              I’m not suggesting that the halo effect is necessarily in effect in Iceland. Merely that there are many many many compounding factors involved in a complex system like this, and your a priori “argument” isn’t worth bumpkiss.

        • Matthew Whitehead 8.1.1.2
          13 October 2013 at 4:45 pm

          Lath appears to be adapting the term which is directly searchable on Wikipedia:
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

          And yes, it’s reasonable that a city that doesn’t fluoridate its water inside a country that does could still have average teeth when there are other factors involved, including fluoride content of products produced in other cities. Christchurch could, for all we know, have the best teeth in the country if it DID fluoridate it’s water. Science is not about making simplistic assumptions, it’s far more about painstaking accuracy and research, and thus, as Lanthanide points out, is best left to professionals and the really talented amateurs.

      • Chooky 8.1.2
        13 October 2013 at 6:09 pm

        @ Lanthanide….except some scientists are bought off, or their studies are flawed and require more evidence….eg ‘science’ and scientists who supported the cigarette industry…..So it always pays to form your own opinion on things, based on the evidence as far as possible…and not just take the “experts” as Gospel…In fact it pays not to take the Gospel as gospel ( eg Inquisition ….as the pagans, heretics and witches on the ducking stools and in the bonfires found out).

        • Rogue Trooper 8.1.2.1
          13 October 2013 at 6:48 pm

          hence hermeneutics

          • miravox 8.1.2.1.1
            13 October 2013 at 11:09 pm

            I was reading about Herr Schleiermacher and his circle (or do I prefer spiral?) just yesterday. Will be making use of his work today.

        • Lanthanide 8.1.2.2
          13 October 2013 at 9:04 pm

          Yes, very valid point, Chooky.

          However bad12 did not imply any of those things in his post at all, he just seem up a flimsy strawman.

    • QoT 8.2
      13 October 2013 at 1:11 pm

      Because New Zealand and Iceland, barring fluoridated water, are completely identical in every way.

      … and that’s why I say “anti-science”. I should probably just say “anti-logic”.

      • bad12 8.2.1
        13 October 2013 at 1:18 pm

        PFFT, try an answer in understandable English wont you, when statistics tell you something other than what you postulate regress into ‘other factors’ that’s laughable,

        What you actually allude to is that other factors in the diet have a far greater bearing on the number of caries than does Fluoride, which in reality when we compare the two countries has FA to do with the number of caries…

        • QoT 8.2.1.1
          13 October 2013 at 1:39 pm

          I’m pretty sure my comment was in very understandable English.

          The fact is there are many, many things which are different between Iceland and New Zealand. Climate. Economy. Diet. Ethnic and age differences. Probably very different attitudes towards health and lifestyle factors.

          The “laughable” thing is pretending that we can form any conclusion on fluoride based solely on rates of caries in two very different populations.

          And please don’t try to explain “what I’m alluding to”. Because you couldn’t be more incorrect.

          • bad12 8.2.1.1.1
            13 October 2013 at 2:06 pm

            LOLZ, thats making me snigger, but fluroide so you say is the magic ingredient, you can hide behind such an argument here in New Zealand as well, but as far as the magic ingreedient goes its all simply wallpaper over the holes in your argument,

            The fact is, the claim is, that Fluoride in the water has a marked difference in tooth decay, Iceland and Christchurch say that isnt true,

            You then claim a ‘halo effect’ from imported liquids along with enthnic,age,diet,climate blah blah blah differences as if the American halo effect is not also filled with the same differences,

            Face it, IF fluoride has an effect then brushing your teeth with toothpaste and not rinsing it off would be the efficacious means of delivering such fluoride, the worst teeth in New Zealand are the result of fluoride in the water…

            • QoT 8.2.1.1.1.1
              13 October 2013 at 2:24 pm

              I’ve never said “fluoride is the magic ingredient”. I also didn’t bring up the halo effect – Lanthanide did.

              It’s cute how you keep arguing against things no one is saying and then making wild statements with nothing to back them up … and then think this is going to make me revisit my opinion of anti-fluoride folk.

              • RedLogix …
                13 October 2013 at 4:25 pm

                You may want to consider that in the city of Wellington the old borough of Petone has never been fluoridated while the rest of the city is. Otherwise they get the exact same water from the exact same source as the rest of Lower Hutt. I know this for an absolute fact. (I used to write the software that controlled it all.)

                This has been a long running and ‘as good as you are going to get’ controlled experiment and I’m not aware of any good data telling us that the dental health, or otherwise, of people who have lived in Petone all their lives is any different to the rest of the city. (If anyone knows otherwise I’d be most interested.)

                Whatever is going on I don’t think dosing the public water supply is the dominant factor anymore. Tooth decay is all about sugar and carbohydrates … not what’s in the water.

                • Rogue Trooper …
                  13 October 2013 at 4:30 pm

                  and then, there is the Public Health perspective

                • Matthew Whitehead …
                  13 October 2013 at 4:49 pm

                  See that sounds pretty reasonable. Do Petone and the rest of Lower Hutt have roughly similar statistics then? Good to know. 🙂

                • QoT …
                  13 October 2013 at 6:03 pm

                  Um … you may want to consider that there isn’t a wall built around Petone which isolates its residents from the rest of Wellington. I don’t know what kind of “controlled experiments” you run where there’s actually no serious separation of the test and control groups, but they don’t sound like any kind of controlled experiment I’d put a lot of faith into.

                  • Lanthanide …
                    13 October 2013 at 9:06 pm

                    Exactly my thoughts, QoT. I think realistically you could only hope to go with entire regions that don’t fluoridate water, but even that is doubtful if the halo effect comes into play.

                  • weka …
                    13 October 2013 at 9:16 pm

                    “Um … you may want to consider that there isn’t a wall built around Petone which isolates its residents from the rest of Wellington. I don’t know what kind of “controlled experiments” you run where there’s actually no serious separation of the test and control groups, but they don’t sound like any kind of controlled experiment I’d put a lot of faith into.”

                    There are lots of different ways of generating knowledge, even within science. In this case, you could look at the health dental outcomes of a certain subset of people that lived in the area ie the people that were drinking non-treated water. You compare them to the outcomes of the people who were drinking treated water.

                    • QoT …
                      13 October 2013 at 9:26 pm

                      Of course you could. But that’s not what RedLogix has asserted. “Drinks only untreated water and only products made with untreated water vs treated” is very different from “Petone vs rest of Wellington”.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      13 October 2013 at 9:30 pm

                      So what the pro-fluoridation lobby are saying now:

                      Improved child dental health in fluoridation areas is due to fluoridation

                      Improved child dental health in non-fluoridation areas is due to fluoridation

                      It’s assanine, the totally unscientific theory of “second hand fluoridation”.

                    • QoT …
                      13 October 2013 at 9:42 pm

                      No one’s said that anywhere, CV. We’ve just said that it’s difficult to draw a clear line around populations completely divorced from treated water, so it’s difficult to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of fluoridation.

                      But please, continue today’s trend of reading what you want to instead of what people are actually saying.

                    • Colonial Viper …
                      13 October 2013 at 9:46 pm

                      A kid in Christchurch gets dental protection from Coke bottled in Auckland using Auckland water?

                      Not only does it sound ridiculous, second hand fluoridation has no evidence in science.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      13 October 2013 at 9:56 pm

                      @ CV: As I replied to you in the other thread, I have *not* posited that CHCH is benefiting from the halo effect. I simply suggested it as a possible reason, to illustrate how flimsy bad12’s strawman was.

                      Also QoT linked to a paper from 1994 that discusses the halo effect of fluoridation. I’m sure there will be more recent studies that have more information, too.

                    • McFlock …
                      13 October 2013 at 9:58 pm

                      CV: Is the coke made using fluoridated water? It the kid drinking coke zero?

                      Besides, the chrischurch thing was already done in June. You’re just reinventing the bullshit wheel.

                    • felix …
                      13 October 2013 at 10:12 pm

                      “Drinks only untreated water and only products made with untreated water vs treated” is very different from “Petone vs rest of Wellington”.

                      Good thing no-one suggested that then.

                    • QoT …
                      13 October 2013 at 10:17 pm

                      @felix: That was certainly how I read RL’s comment:

                      You may want to consider that in the city of Wellington the old borough of Petone has never been fluoridated while the rest of the city is.

                      …

                      This has been a long running and ‘as good as you are going to get’ controlled experiment and I’m not aware of any good data telling us that the dental health, or otherwise, of people who have lived in Petone all their lives is any different to the rest of the city.

                    • miravox …
                      13 October 2013 at 10:22 pm

                      I dunno, as leftie middle-class person I’m willing to take one for the team and buy one of those new-fandangled water purifier thingies until I know that all poor kids go to homes with usable toothbrushes and toothpaste, parents who have the time and energy to make sure these are used, and when milk is cheaper than coke.

                    • felix …
                      13 October 2013 at 10:27 pm

                      @QoT

                      I may have misread it, but it looks to me like “and only products made with untreated water” is your own addition.

                    • McFlock …
                      13 October 2013 at 10:45 pm

                      Even then the assumption is still a complete isolation of everyone in Petone from everywhere else in wellington, on a long term basis, in order to guarantee any experimental validity.

                    • felix …
                      13 October 2013 at 11:13 pm

                      How so?

                      I thought the assumption was that the people in Petone would be exposed to broadly the same environmental and dietary conditions as the rest of Wellington.

                      Perhaps I’ve misunderstood the purpose of the experiment.

                    • McFlock …
                      13 October 2013 at 11:26 pm

                      If someone who sleeps in a house in petone spends most of their awake time in wellington or vice versa, that kind of screws the experiment. And it also ignores that there can be massive socioeconomic (and therefore dietary and even environmental differences) differences between suburbs in a city – to put it more bluntly, is petone on the “right side of the tracks”?

                      So one factor serves to muddy the water by bringing the populations closer together, and the other factor might move them apart in a manner independent of water fluoridation.
                      So who knows where the balance would lie. Doable, but increases the cost of the study by an order of magnitude.

                    • felix …
                      13 October 2013 at 11:37 pm

                      It’s reasonable to assume that most children who drink tap water are going to get most of it from their home or their school.

                      No?

                      Again, maybe I’ve misunderstood the purpose of the experiment.

                      (ps the question of which “side of the tracks” is irrelevant unless only one “side of the tracks” is flouridated. I don’t think anyone has suggested that.)

                    • McFlock …
                      13 October 2013 at 11:58 pm

                      I have no idea what proportion of metropolitan kids go to school in the same mains water area as their home.

                      Nor, more importantly, do I have any idea whether kids who live in petone but go to school in a fluoridated area are systematically different in family income, dental care, or dietary practise.

                      Addressing those questions is why the cost of the study would be an order of magnitude higher than just comparing school dmftt rates.

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 12:17 am

                      “I have no idea what proportion of metropolitan kids go to school in the same mains water area as their home.”

                      Does that matter? I’m assuming the long term dental records are tied to the schools.

                      The crucial point though is that the comparison between the two groups doesn’t rely on isolation for validity. It’s not important that some children in Petone are drinking some amount of flouridated water unless you’re analysing individual cases.

                      But like I said, I may have misunderstood the purpose of the experiment.

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 12:30 am

                      Of course it matters if you don’t know how much overlap there is between your case and control groups. It stuffs your entire experiment.

                      How many kids going to schools in petone drink lots of water at their homes in kilbirnie? Or vice versa? You could make the same-catchment assumption in rural schools, but metro areas linked by a decent public transport system? The moh dmftt checks are based on school checks, but the public data is grouped by dhb.

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 12:35 am

                      I don’t see how that “stuffs your entire experiment” at all.

                      Children who live in a flouridated area and go to school in a non-flouridated area (or vise-versa) will on average be getting less flouridated tap water than children who live and go to school in a flouridated area.

                      But of course I may have misunderstood the purpose of the experiment.

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 12:50 am

                      However you slice it, one group can be assumed to be consuming more flouridated tap water than the other.

                      Well, when one is looking at the effect of a variable that differs between two equivalent groups, it pays to actually know that the variable does in fact differ between groups that are in fact equivalent, rather than just assuming it.

                      edit: oh, there was an edit:

                      Children who live in a flouridated area and go to school in a non-flouridated area (or vise-versa) will on average be getting less flouridated tap water than children who live and go to school in a flouridated area.

                      [citation needed]

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 1:00 am

                      Yes I edited to make it clear exactly what I’m assuming.

                      Hardly a controversial assumption, is it?

                      I mean I suppose it’s possible that the average child in a non flouridated area drinks just as much flouridated tap water as the average child in a flouridated area, but frankly that’s a bit far fetched to convince me to turn my back on the bleeding obvious.

                      But then I don’t have a barrow to push so I have the luxury of applying common sense.

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 1:18 am

                      I mean I suppose it’s possible that the average child in a non flouridated area drinks just as much flouridated tap water as the average child in a flouridated area, but frankly that’s a bit far fetched to convince me to turn my back on the bleeding obvious.

                      But that’s not the problem with your assumption. The assumption you are making is that there is no cross-contamination between the groups, or at least not enough to make the results undetectable (there are secondary assumptions that the two populations are equivalent in all factors that affect dental health, but the main problem is the cross-contamination).

                      Where do kids drink most of their water, at school or at home? If they drink most of their water at home, then kids who live outside petone but go to school in petone will reduce any detectable difference. If they get most of their water at school, the reverse is true. If it’s 50:50, then that just means that all kids who live in a different group to where they go to school muddy the waters – the ones in petone schools raise petone caries free %, the ones in wgtn schools lower wgtn caries-free%. You need to be able to estimate the effect of any cross-contamination.

                      This is basic shit, one of the first questions a reviewer or conference attendee would ask. You can’t just assume that your case and control groups don’t have cross-contamination – especially when a bunch of them share the same or adjacent school districts.

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 7:52 am

                      lolz, I suppose it’s also possible that there are no children who go to school where they live too.

                      I’m going to carrie on assuming that’s not the case though if it’s ok with you.

                      “You can’t just assume that your case and control groups don’t have cross-contamination”

                      Pretty sure I assumed they did. But then I may have misunderstood the purpose of the experiment.

                    • weka …
                      14 October 2013 at 8:18 am

                      Don’t see why you can’t just classify different sets of kids when the interviews get done. Kids who live and go to school in an area with untreated water, kids who live and go to school in an area with treated water, kids who who live in an untreated area but go to school in a treated area, etc. You can even just exclude the kids in the last group if it’s a problem.

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 9:35 am

                      Weka, yes, that’s why it’s not a case of just comparing stats as felix wants. A few hundred dollars and spare time becomes interviews and life histories and ethics approval across two school districts, just to see if two schools have a rate that’s different from the district norm.

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 10:29 am

                      Goodness, that does sound complicated. I guess we’ll never know then.

                      Unless of course we stop pretending that this is about comparing individual cases. But then I may have misunderstood the purpose of the experiment.

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 12:43 pm

                      Of course it comes down to cases – every filling is in a single child. But even from a population perspective, you’re talking about a case:control study. And even from a population perspective, you still need to demonstrate that you really have separated two populations, rather than just assuming it.

                      For example, how many intermediate or secondary schools are there in Petone, to get the year8 count? Do they serve more or fewer students than the two primary schools I’ve found? If fewer, do the rich ones with better teeth go to school outside of petone more often than poorer kids, or is it the other way around?

                      Option A: buy a spreadsheet with the data and “assume” that there is no difference, and whack out a quick article in your spare time. Cheap, but utter bullshit.

                      Option B: get ethical approval and parental and school consent to pay multiple research assistants to interview thousands of kids, cross reference them with dental checks, buy a suite of computers and a few analysts to crunch the data, rent office space to put them in, and hire a manager to sort out all the HR stuff. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, but a solid article at the end of it.

                      Option C: anywhere on the front where cost is reduced at the expense of validity.

                      Option D: piggy back on an already running longitudinal stud, if one’s running across wellington..

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 1:15 pm

                      Yeah.

                      I guess you either missed the part where I said “assume”, or you agree that the two groups can easily be compared if my assumptions turn out to be accurate.

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 1:27 pm

                      you agree that the two groups can easily be compared if my assumptions turn out to be accurate.

                      Of course.
                      But without testing those assumptions, the study rests entirely on something that might be utter crap. And if we do test those assumptions, then we are no longer assuming. We have demonstrated it.

                      So we can assume all you want, but with a population that small failure to test that assumption is akin to just throwing the entire study in the bin.

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 1:33 pm

                      My assumptions are as follows:

                      1. Children in Petone do not consume significantly more or less tap water than children anywhere else.

                      2. Children in Petone mostly go to school in Petone.

                      And with those two hugely controversial assumptions noted, I hereby throw the whole study in the bin.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      14 October 2013 at 1:46 pm

                      @ felix: science isn’t about controversy, it’s about certainty. That’s why it’s science and not “making shit up”.

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 1:54 pm

                      2. Children in Petone mostly go to school in Petone.

                      Are there even any year8 schools in petone?

                      I can’t seem to find any online. Maybe they all go to the Hutt?

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 2:12 pm

                      Lanth, that’s simply not true. There is always a degree of uncertainty in real-world testing. That’s why it’s done on as large a scale as possible rather than comparing the life histories of individual households.

                      McFlock I think by year 8 the children of Petone are all bussed off to Strawman Intermediate. It’s down at at the end of Red Herring Drive.

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 2:25 pm

                      Not at all. The 5yo check might have nothing to do with the school, especially if the parents commute and put the kids into daycare near their fluoridated workplace. And if the vast majority then go to school in the Hutt, then basically your confidence interval would be a mile wide because of the small numbers.

                      So for one age you have no idea which population is truly which, and for the other age group you’re not even sure that there’s a test population to count. And you still want to assume that any numbers you can drag out signify anything.

                      You want the largest scale possible? Compare national “fluoridated vs nonfluoridated” data. A couple of thousand kids (if that) in petone will not give you the accuracy you need, and will probably include major socioeconomic differences. Which you’d need to control for, which you can only do if you know what they are, which you can often get by… interviewing households, amongst other methods.

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 2:48 pm

                      If only there were some way of ranking the socio-economic levels of schools against one another…

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 3:30 pm

                      Yes, because dep10 accounts for every possible socioeconomic difference between school kids. 🙄

                      Fuck it. School dental checks:
                      Hutt 5yolds: total 1420, non-fluoridated 72
                      Capcoast 5yo: tot2649 NF 16
                      Hutt yr8: tot 1538 NF: 50
                      capcoast: tot:2563 NF 51

                      Even if all the NF were petone, and 3/4 comparisons show the caries free % much higher in fluoridated areas than non-fluoridated, the numbers are so small a 0.8 rate ratio has a 95% interval from 0.63-1.01, and a 0.85 ratio goes from 0.67-1.09.
                      By comparison, the same crunch with the total NZ data yr8 (44k kids) gives a RR of 0.94 with a 95% spread of 0.92-0.96.

                    • felix …
                      14 October 2013 at 6:54 pm

                      On the face of it that would seem to contradict what RL posted.

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 7:18 pm

                      That’s the impulse, but the numbers are just too small. I mean, it might improve by changing the CI methodology, but it’s beginning to over-play the data.

                      Basically, that’s where the pophealth crowd steps back and the qual and cohort folk walk in, and they’re the ones who isolate specific confounding variables and really get in-depth with lifestyles and other interventions.

    • joe90 8.3
      13 October 2013 at 1:30 pm

      In a word or two – volcanic gases.

    • NickS 8.4
      13 October 2013 at 1:57 pm

      🙄

      Use the search function for this site, I dumped a hell of a lot of science on fluoridation earlier this year, mainly on risk factors. Short version – the concentrations used in water treatment are perfectly safe, it’s only once you hit 0.5ppm that small negative effects are detected.

      Search terms: “flouridation NickS”

      Also – fluoridation effects are lessened when poverty is low and people have high levels of education about dental hygiene and easy access to fluoridated toothpaste. Like say Iceland.

      • bad12 8.4.1
        13 October 2013 at 2:18 pm

        Do you ‘know’ that Icelandic children have better access to and use more or as much toothpaste as New Zealand kids do,

        Your argument supports the use of toothpaste but is in effect saying that fluoride in drinking water has no effect…

        • NickS 8.4.1.1
          13 October 2013 at 2:32 pm

          🙄

          Warning – significant logic flaws detected in bad12’s post. Recommend rebooting user and exposing to list of formal/informal fallacies.

          • bad12 8.4.1.1.1
            13 October 2013 at 3:47 pm

            Bulls**t, you are the one who implied that Icelandic children have better levels of education about dental hygiene and better access to fluoridated toothpaste than New Zealand kids,

            Even if such were the case it proves nothing about fluoride in the water, except to say that it’s pretty much useless seeing as they don’t put the stuff in their water, then again Icelandic kids may live in the ‘halo world’ where they drink only imported liquids that have been made with the addition of fluoridated water…

            • NickS 8.4.1.1.1.1
              13 October 2013 at 3:59 pm

              lulz.

              Teh stupid, how it burns:

              Your argument supports the use of toothpaste but is in effect saying that fluoride in drinking water has no effect…

              Until you can actually work out why the above is wrong, I wont be bothering with you.

              And it’s _very_ obvious. So obvious even I could grasp it on no sleep and no caffeine :3

              Yet you’ve gone off on a tangent on Iceland, a tangent that Lanth, QoT and McFlock hath already dealt with. It would be infuriating, if I hadn’t seen a thousands times before with creationists, climate change denialists etc. Now? It’s just amusing.

              • Rogue Trooper …
                13 October 2013 at 4:27 pm

                ahhh, caffeine, was proposed a while back for admission to the DSM…Axis 1 😀 (Team Jesus).

              • bad12 …
                14 October 2013 at 9:09 am

                That’s frigging gut bustingly funny, the fact that Iceland which has never fluoridated its water is dealt with by those you name by claiming without a shred of evidence differences in diet blah blah blah,

                Or even funnier ‘the halo effect’ where supposedly Iceland must import and feed it’s kids one hell of a load of coke or something,

                The simple fact that you and others claim that Iceland with the exact same %of caries as this country achieves that not by water fluoridation but by some other magical means including diet blah blah blah is an admission on all your parts that fluoridation has sweet FA to do with dental outcomes…

                • Lanthanide …
                  14 October 2013 at 9:48 am

                  bad12, you’re clearly not engaging with what people are actually saying. Which is disappointing.

                  There comes a time when everyone should admit that there are other people that know more about a particular topic than themselves. Which is what you should be doing now.

                  • NickS …
                    14 October 2013 at 10:48 am

                    +1

                    It’s also obvious he hasn’t bothered digging up the stuff I suggested, despite the fact I’d linked to a variety of papers not locked behind paywalls, as otherwise he’d have found the review article on fluoridation efficacy and be using it 🙄

                  • bad12 …
                    14 October 2013 at 11:17 am

                    Lolz, funnier still, if all sorts of other factors except fluoridation in the drinking water lead Icelandic children to have teeth just as good or bad as New Zealand kids have with fluoride in the drinking water, then it’s obvious to most except you of course, that ‘the all sorts of other factors’ must be more important to the outcome than fluoride is,

                    Lolz, i just luuuurve the reeking of ego that your little statement imparts, your we know more than you so shut up is an excellent tool of debate used by Nazi’s everywhere,

                    i have cited but two places, Iceland and Christchurch, Red Logix cites another, there are of course a zillion other’s even befor i link you to science which debunks any that you or other’s have offered up in support of fluoride,

                    The worst kids teeth in New Zealand???Porirua and South Auckland, both have fluoride in the water, if ‘other’ factors are at work there then that simply tells us how ineffective fluoride is in the drinking water,

                    Kids in Christchurch, just as good teeth as the rest of the country, No fluoride in the drinking water, you lot say Christchurch kids must drink lots of ‘imported water’ from other places with fluoride in the water,

                    Yeah right, what is it they are importing and drinking which has lots of fluoridated water in the mix, coca cola???vodka???…

                    • TheContrarian …
                      14 October 2013 at 11:52 am

                      Iceland has a higher natural concentration of fluoride than NZ.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      14 October 2013 at 1:19 pm

                      There are so many fallacies in this reply alone that it’s not worth my time bothering to reply to them because I know you won’t engage.

                      Your loss, not mine.

                    • bad12 …
                      14 October 2013 at 2:01 pm

                      Lolz, yes honestly the sense of loss is palpable, oh by the way kids in Christchurch with better teeth than those in Porirua and South Auckland, no fluoride for the former but in the water for the latter,

                      Hence having fluoride in the drinking water doesn’t produce better results for kids teeth, carry on with dispensing the man’s propaganda for them tho wont you…

                    • McFlock …
                      14 October 2013 at 2:12 pm

                      [facepalm]
                      ever consider that Porirua kids teeth might be even worse without fluoridation, b12?
                      Dental health might have a pretty strong relationship with income, for example.

      • Paul Campbell 8.4.2
        14 October 2013 at 12:52 am

        (remember 1 liter of water weighs 1kg)

        Nick I tried to explain it to someone this way recently – water is fluoridated at .7mg/litre while LD50 of fluoride is 32-64mg/kg of body weight (let’s be conservative and say 32) -so to get a dose that high you’d have to drink 45 litres of fluoridated town water for every kg of your body weight

        Water is considered one of the least toxic of chemicals, it has a :LD50 of 90g/kg of body – you are going to die of water poisoning long long before you die from drinking fluoridated tap water

        • Colonial Viper 8.4.2.1
          14 October 2013 at 1:08 am

          You may be well meaning, but using an LD50 is mad and irrelevant.

          water is fluoridated at .7mg/litre while LD50 of fluoride is 32-64mg/kg of body weight (let’s be conservative and say 32)

          Fluoride is clearly and measurably neurotoxic at 1/10 or 1/20 or less of this level, and in human children is associated with significant neurodevelopmental delays and reduced intelligence.

          • McFlock 8.4.2.1.1
            14 October 2013 at 1:20 am

            but not at anywhere near NZ levels

            • Colonial Viper 8.4.2.1.1.1
              14 October 2013 at 1:24 am

              Agreed.

              Fluoride in water is a clearly demonstrated developmental neurotoxin, but only at concentrations 3x to 6x higher than that commonly added to NZ water.

              • McFlock …
                14 October 2013 at 1:30 am

                So it’s completely irrelevant to the debate in NZ then.

                If we’re scaremongering with irrelevancies, don’t we lose dozens of kids a year to drowning? And yet councils pipe this poison into people’s homes…

                [edit: night night. Back tomorrow]

                • Colonial Viper …
                  14 October 2013 at 1:35 am

                  I’m simply stating a scientific fact. You may decide it’s not relevant to this discussion, but the fact still stands.

                  Fluoride is a scientifically demonstrated developmental neurotoxin at concentration levels 3x to 6x that added to NZ water supplies.

                  • Lanthanide …
                    14 October 2013 at 8:53 am

                    It’s also a scientific fact that people drown in water and it’s piped into people’s homes.

                    Really CV, I thought you were better than this.

                    Next you’re going to be saying “Barrack Hussein Obama” like Morrissey did that one time and then defend it by saying you’re “just using his full name”.

                    • Morrissey …
                      15 October 2013 at 6:38 am

                      Next you’re going to be saying “Barrack Hussein Obama” like Morrissey did that one time and then defend it by saying you’re “just using his full name”.

                      Indeed I did, and that is exactly the case. Using the full name of that war criminal, serial liar and appallingly bad actor has no more significance than saying “Richard Milhous Nixon” or “Franklin Delano Roosevelt”.

                      If you want to go on another quixotic adventure and show I was pursuing some racist agenda, then go right ahead. I have neither written nor implied anything even remotely racist on this or any other forum.

                    • Lanthanide …
                      15 October 2013 at 9:15 am

                      Funny Morrissey, because you already had Obama in your little list and didn’t have his middle name for those entries, or anyone else already on the list. Subsequently when that item was archived to the list, you removed his middle name. All other new entrants on the list have not had their middle name.

                      So either it was a purely “innocent” brainfart on your part to put his middle name in, which you’ve never done before or since for anyone else, or you did it deliberately for some purpose.

                      I’m not implying you were doing it on a racist agenda, just that the evidence suggests you did it for some reason.

                    • Rogue Trooper …
                      15 October 2013 at 1:42 pm

                      “that one time in band camp”.

                  • McFlock …
                    14 October 2013 at 9:28 am

                    “Air is dangerously thin at 3 to 6 times the height of mt cook (scientific fact). You might decide it’s not relevant to this meeting of Mountain Safety NZ, but the fact still stands…”

                    Still waiting for any evidence of harm to nz kids.

                    • Morrissey …
                      15 October 2013 at 4:35 pm

                      I’m not implying you were doing it on a racist agenda, just that the evidence suggests you did it for some reason.

                      I think you’ve read much too much into it, my friend. My mentioning of Obama’s middle name sprang from no agenda, as far as I am aware, but feel free to continue psychoanalyzing me. Although I am sure you have noticed that Obama shares many of Saddam Hussein’s less savoury traits.

          • Paul Campbell 8.4.2.1.2
            14 October 2013 at 5:49 am

            Re: LD50 – well you have to choose something, I chose the same measure for the two things – even if it’s 1/20th the value you still need to drink more than twice your body weight in water – balloon up to 3 times your size – to get a dose that will harm you, and that’s going to be more than 20 times the LD50 for plain water itself (which is ~1/10 of your body mass)

    • McFlock 8.5
      13 October 2013 at 3:44 pm

      And Churchill lived to a ripe old age despite heavy smoking, heavy drinking, and obesity.

      But that doesn’t mean those habits would make you live longer.

      As for Iceland:
      What’re the background fluoride levels in the water supply?
      What’s their child & adult provision of dental care like?
      what’s their per capita consumption of high fructose corn syrup?
      Do they supplement anything else with fluoride, such as salt or flour, or are there higher levels elsewhere?

    • Chooky 8.6
      13 October 2013 at 3:47 pm

      In Scandanavia they use Xylitol quite a lot …it is a natural sugar substitute and supposed to remineralise teeth and get rid of bad bacteria causing teeth decay decay and other infections eg ear

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xylitol

    • Rogue Trooper 8.7
      13 October 2013 at 4:01 pm

      much respect for Lanth. (and Queen) established over, coming up, two years (at a stretch). now, gotta go an’ spray some weeds.

    • TheContrarian 8.8
      13 October 2013 at 6:55 pm

      “Looking country on country Iceland with the same number of caries per head of population as New Zealand has never used fluoride in it’s water supply”

      Yes but because of it’s volcanic history there is a vast natural occurrence of fluoride already present in the ground water so you aren’t comparing like with like.

  9. travellerev 9
    13 October 2013 at 11:59 am

    A nice Sunday doco: The four horsemen. The economic collapse of the US empire and hence the entire Anglo Saxon five-eye system Jon Key is traveling around the world to help keep together for his bankster puppet masters made simple so that even the average Kiwi can understand it so share with your colleagues and family.

    • muzza 9.1
      13 October 2013 at 12:26 pm

      Yes its been quite the global(ist) tour for little johnny lately!

      Meeting with one of the heads of the cartel, staying on-site and so forth – If I remember rightly it was NZ who took the lead role in the so called, laws of succession changes, surprise surprise!

      Speaking at the UN, selected to speak out against the security council veto and how they have failed the people of Syria!

      Then we get little johnny stepping in for barry, and carrying the responsibility of the latest round of secret negotiations , not the first time he has been front and center to spin the TPP fraud.

      Just what is little johnny being set up for, I think we can clearly see what his duties are here in NZ, but on the international stage, what’s going on…

      Most likely it is tied to the fraud being carried out in the name of the , “realm”

      • travellerev 9.1.1
        14 October 2013 at 6:58 am

        He is that nice “colonial clot” selling the TPP and bullying the 54 states of the common wealth into accepting the queen and her offspring to become their heads of state forever. The smiling Assassin’s MO from when he was a banker. He will be rewarded handsomely! A knighthood, a couple of seriously lucrative seats on some Financial Military Industrial complex boards raking it in!

  10. Rosie 10
    13 October 2013 at 12:20 pm

    Wow. How to lose comrades and alienate friends. Nice going Martyn, really getting everyone on side there with hostility and something verging on pathological hate.

    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/10/12/what-every-aucklander-knew-the-wellington-syndrome/

    Just when I thought it was safe to go back too………….

    • Rogue Trooper 10.1
      13 October 2013 at 12:23 pm

      yes, skipped over that article in te newsfeed. (check requests Murray Olsen).

    • fender 10.2
      13 October 2013 at 1:22 pm

      “Wow. How to lose comrades and alienate friends…………”

      +1 Rosie

      Many thumbs down there for Martyn to think about.

      • Rosie 10.2.1
        13 October 2013 at 1:46 pm

        Although the correct order should have been “how to lose friends and alienate comrades”.

        It’s a bit of shame he’s got such a bee in his bonnet because the work of the TDB has been otherwise good, with knowledgeable authors and live streaming of public meetings. Unfortunately he’s not helping himself and furthering the stereotype of the “Aucklander living in a bubble” (I did meet these types in my years of living in Akld, I believe they do exist, as well as the cool people) by today only publishing articles on the local body elections from an Auckland centric view, no word on the other regions, not even Liane Dalziel winning CHCH. Compare that with the the nationwide comment on TS on the subject, including Karols article on the Green Sweep.

        Oh well, it’s his blog and he can write what he likes. I just wonder if on top of his misdirected anger about Wellington he’s really sour about the fact that there was such a poor turnout at the Wellington TICS Bill meeting TDB hosted alongside the anti GCSB coalition.. TDB is possibly a bit out of pocket due to the cost of the venue and maybe the cost wasn’t met due to the lack of attendee’s when they had the whip round afterwards.He’d be right to be disappointed with the turnout though, I was surprised.

        • Rogue Trooper 10.2.1.1
          13 October 2013 at 4:04 pm

          wise words Rosie

        • David H 10.2.1.2
          13 October 2013 at 7:41 pm

          “Oh well, it’s his blog and he can write what he likes”
          But I thought it was opened to unite the best of the ‘left’ leaning authors, against the ‘right’ Blogs. Not to be Martyns personal soapbox.

          Launched on Friday 1 March, 2013, the ‘TheDailyBlog.co.nz’ unites over 42 of the country’s leading left-wing commentators and progressive opinion shapers to provide the other side of the story on today’s news, media and political agendas.

          • Rosie 10.2.1.2.1
            13 October 2013 at 8:39 pm

            Hmm well, with respect the many good authors on TDB, its the soapbox aspect that has been turning me off. Yesterday’s post really topped it.

    • ak 10.3
      13 October 2013 at 1:39 pm

      Yes, Rose, extremely disappointing in the current climate to see the Left leap into unprovoked infighting. Will we never learn? And right on cue, Bruiser Borrows leads with another prepared Benny-bash Right hook…..funny, innit, how the answer to billions in tax fraud is a tax cut and even the odd knighthood, but fail once to donate the odd lawnmowing cash to Key and you’re marked for life….. sickening. Focus that nausea, brothers and sisters, where it belongs.

    • Murray Olsen 10.4
      13 October 2013 at 6:04 pm

      My comments do not seem to have appeared on that post. Basically, under a different pseudonym, I suggested Bomber learn that class does still have a place in politics. So far he’s managed to include birth dates and addresses, which covers A and B. Time for C. I also suggested he is so good at own goals that he should get himself selected for the Socceroos and give the All Whites a chance. I am really beginning to wonder if he is any more than an event manager.

      • Rosie 10.4.1
        13 October 2013 at 7:07 pm

        “My comments do not seem to have appeared on that post”.

        Could be some of that ol’ fashioned TDB moderating going on……….Although, mine got through within 30 mins this time. I was pleasantly surprised. Own goals? Indeed.

        Roguey and ak: acknowledged (especially the bit about tax fraud)

        What I never mentioned to Martyn was that I have a duck named Jaffa. She is named for her colourings which resemble the well known lollie, rather than the unkind term for an Aucklander. It’s not a term I’d use for my friends and family I left behind in that city. Shame he can’t see that his perception is somewhat unjustified, somewhat paranoid, and that his view doesn’t exactly cement solidarity.

        • TheContrarian 10.4.1.1
          13 October 2013 at 7:32 pm

          Quite – it is also interesting to note, from my own personal experience, that many of my Wellingtonian friends move (or want to move) to Auckland. I myself am considering such a move. The Wellington economy is tanking and Auckland never looked so bright and promising to us in the capital.

          • billbrowne 10.4.1.1.1
            13 October 2013 at 10:13 pm

            Really? you’ve got a job in Wgtn, your kids go to school there and you want to sell your house in the Wgtn market and buy one in the Akl market.

            I think bright and promising would turn to a daily dreary commute from Sth Akl very fast.

            Probably better off moving to Aus.

    • TheContrarian 10.5
      13 October 2013 at 6:59 pm

      Yeah it was an awful article. He’s a blowhard of the largest order.

      • Rosie 10.5.1
        13 October 2013 at 7:12 pm

        Gotta hand it to you TC, you did try to warn us. You were right about the moderation policy too….

        • Rogue Trooper 10.5.1.1
          13 October 2013 at 7:15 pm

          I’ll just pop in here.(thanks for the telephone box Rosie). now…back to the movie.

        • TheContrarian 10.5.1.2
          13 October 2013 at 7:28 pm

          Very rarely will critical comments be allowed through – particularly from those Bombers has already identified as his ‘enemies’ (and I am not just talking about myself – I know several others who get caught up in his..intriguing moderation policy. People further to left than me).

          I know, I know, it is technically his blog – his rules however The Standard, as much as I malign some of it’s editors, writers and positions, has a very adult approach to moderation in most cases. Bomber does the left a disservice by being so stridently uncompromising and rude to anyone who might question his POV.

          • Rogue Trooper 10.5.1.2.1
            13 October 2013 at 7:32 pm

            it all becomes clear

          • Rosie 10.5.1.2.2
            13 October 2013 at 7:53 pm

            I learnt the hard way by questioning the view that political polls conducted via land lines are biased in that they inadvertently target wealthier households. Prior to that, I thought it would have been clear that I am “on the same side” but really, what does that mean anyway. Observation, not question mark.

            If you do fly the coup to Akld TC, pack plenty of cash for accommodation, whether it be for rental or purchase. Apart from that, there is alot of interest to be found in Akld. Good luck with your decisions.

  11. tricldrown 11
    13 October 2013 at 12:48 pm

    Ugly Truth Science has been the nemisis of fundamentalist reilion for at least 1 000 years the more people that get a half decent education the less they believe in religion.
    You are the christian equivalent of the Taliban .
    Insecure people like yourself need to push regessive ideas onto others to justify your outdated naive guilt trip.
    That’s your ugly truth for you.
    Aree you an exclusive bretheren .

  12. greywarbler 12
    13 October 2013 at 1:57 pm

    I thought of getting some information about election in Taranaki. I looked at one info site and found 1 woman in 15 ranked councillors. Looked to see her photo but none supplied.

    Looked up Andrew Judd and it certainly pays to sort NZ pages. There are a number of Andrew Judds around the English speaking world. Found that he is an optician. Against questions placed at the site like what about library policy etc. his answer was look at other candidate answers.

    So the person looking on line can’t bring together informative material easily to so as to build an idea of his character. Perhaps you have to have to go and visit his offices and look into his eyes while he is looking at yours? He got 10,000 approx more votes than Duynhoven so they must know something about him in Naki. He has been on other councils.

  14. ScottGN 14
    13 October 2013 at 8:44 pm

    I had to watch it twice but I’m pretty sure that, in response to the discussion around superannuation on Q&A today Fran O’Sullivan said that John Key ‘should go’. Basically she made the point that a government’s superannuation policy should amount to more that just the PM’s pride and vanity (pretty galling I know to those of us here at The Standard who’ve been saying exactly that for ages). Call me an optimist but is there a sense that those in the so-called ‘business/economy lobby’ can see a change in the wind and are starting to gravitate towards the Cunliffe/Parker team?

    • McFlock 14.1
      13 October 2013 at 8:48 pm

      god no, they’d never go that far.
      But PM Collins, maybe…

      • ScottGN 14.1.1
        13 October 2013 at 8:57 pm

        Collins was pretty terrible on Q&A today (even Fran said she failed to make her case). She only looked remotely credible because Corin Dann is a fucking hopeless interviewer.

      • karol 14.1.2
        13 October 2013 at 8:59 pm

        Nope. Scott’s correct. At about 1min 56secs, FO’S says “He [Key] should go.” Interesting discussion. I tend to agree more with Annette Sykes though, rather than raising the retirement age beven further beyond when most Maori die.

        Agreed t=with the later point in the discussion about bringing parties back into local politics so people have an idea of what candidates stand for.

        And…. seriously! Susan Wood, political journalist, fucked up filling out her vote for the health board – I do agree the muddled mix of voting styles will confuse many, but surely not someone who is meant to be right up to date on political processes?

        • ScottGN 14.1.2.1
          13 October 2013 at 9:29 pm

          I was impressed with Annette Sykes today with one caveat. I think that while she made excellent points about maori life expectancy with regard to the pension, she lost an opportunity to link super with the living wage by pointing out how impossible it is for young NZers (maori, pacifica mostly but everybody really) on minimum wage (or lower in the case of the youth wage) to set aside any money for their retirement.

        • greywarbler 14.1.2.2
          14 October 2013 at 12:47 pm

          karol
          Susan Wood up to date – that gal needs raisin!

    • Colonial Viper 14.2
      13 October 2013 at 9:19 pm

      If they are gravitating to Labour because they think Cunliffe and Parker are willing to raise the super age (while National is not), then I’m not sure that “optimism” is the right word.

  15. Tracey 15
    13 October 2013 at 8:52 pm

    you lot have prolly already seen and discussed this, but i only saw it yesterday in a link in QoT post

    “Tax the hell out of religious organisations.

    According to the government’s charities website, religious groups are:

    Making about $1.5 billion dollars per year.

    The second largest collection of charity groups after research & education.

    The top 2 of the top 10 charities by assets and income combined.

    7 out of the 10 largest charities in the country.”

    does tithing attract a rebate?

    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/05/21/tax-the-hell-out-of-religion/

  16. Draco T Bastard 16
    13 October 2013 at 9:22 pm

    Facepalm

    When the European Commission asked Britain for proof that sly continentals were sneaking into our hospital beds, Whitehall replied that its demand for hard facts was an affront. “We consider that these questions place too much emphasis on quantitative evidence,” it huffed.

    Proof, if you still needed it, that conservatives ignore facts at will.

  17. Jim Nald 17
    14 October 2013 at 8:15 am

    Will today’s Open Mike be up?

    I would like to point out a link on The Guardian.