Author Archive

Cannabis, teens, and fecal matter

Written By: - Date published: 8:56 am, July 10th, 2019 - 28 comments

I’ve been musing on the subject of minor drugs that are currently illegal and their supply chain. It is early days so far, but almost all of the news coming through from where the recreational use of cannabis has been decriminalised hasn’t indicated dire consequences.  There are some pretty obvious benefits – especially in the quality of supply.

Clever visual satire on a millionaire beggar

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, July 6th, 2019 - 15 comments

Scott Marsh does a great depiction of Israel Folau’s essential ethics. Check out some of Scott’s other art as well.

On my reliable commute and dipshits like Mike Hosking

Written By: - Date published: 9:24 am, July 5th, 2019 - 38 comments

Traffic and parking in Auckland isn’t helped by ignorant conservative dipshit parasitic immigrants like Mike Hosking.  They really don’t get how this city can’t just keep adding roads as the roads backup after accidents. Or why it is so much safer for ratepayer cyclists to not have to contend motorists trying to accidentally kill them.

The desert that is the NZ Herald in the morning

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, June 20th, 2019 - 19 comments

This morning read at 0645 it was the New York Times with a subscription, BBC World which doesn’t need one, Sydney Morning Herald without one, NZ Herald without a subscription, Stuff doesn’t need one, Huff Post which also doesn’t need one, and the Guardian which I toss change to on a periodic basis. The NZ Herald absolutely sucks and doesn’t deserve a premium.

Greenland is melting – faster

Written By: - Date published: 9:17 am, June 19th, 2019 - 82 comments

Greenland holds a large store of fresh water. If fully melted, it will raise sea levels by roughly 7 metres. It is melting – fast. Last week, temperatures across Greenland about 22 degrees Celsius warmer than the normal for that time of year. It produced an extraordinary visual effect of dogs walking on water through surface melt over sea ice.

Whale Oil – the book

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, May 29th, 2019 - 15 comments

Whale Oil by Margie Thomson is about the Blomfield vs Slater case. Lost by Cameron Slater because after 7 years of trying to delay it, he was unable to mount a credible defense before a judge. But there is a lot of detail behind that that is worrying in an internet age..

Simon Bridges – criminal receiver

Written By: - Date published: 11:48 pm, May 28th, 2019 - 216 comments

You have to wonder about what kind of law Simon Bridges, a former criminal prosecutor, actually practiced. Because given the events of today – it seems questionable if he understands the legal basis of our criminal laws about computers. Do we really want someone so incompetent at his chosen profession before entering politics (or have a criminal receiver of stolen goods) to run this country? 

 

Religion and the threshold

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, May 24th, 2019 - 59 comments

It has been pretty boring watching the coverage of religious conservatives trying to present a meaningful political presence for the next election. Haven’t the NZ Herald’s puff piece journalists ever read about the history of religious parties in this “no religion” state? They’re fractional parties incapable of getting to 5% without assistance, and they don’t grow the vote for the right.

Adequate gun control and (almost) complete party support.

Written By: - Date published: 8:43 am, March 22nd, 2019 - 128 comments

Now that I’ve had time to look through what has been implemented and what is proposed to happen with changes to gun laws and think about it. I’m almost satisfied. Since that so seldom happens that I suspect a gotcha, I’m now going to keep debugging until I am sure that it is actually as good as it looks.

 

Rambo has been constrained. Now about those other semi-automatics?

Written By: - Date published: 4:39 pm, March 21st, 2019 - 80 comments

Jacinda Ardern has announced an effective ban by an order in council on the current sales of all military-style semi-automatic weapons and all assault rifles. There will be legislation passed to remove them from the hands of the public including a buyback and prison terms for possession. Not quite far enough yet. (Updated as I see other details)

Just outlaw semi-automatic weapons

Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, March 16th, 2019 - 213 comments

I’ve used and worked with weapons for large chunks of my life. They’re not there for dickheads. There aren’t any reasons to keep operational semi-automatic weapons in civilian life. Just outlaw them. The conviction for unlawful possession of them requires mandatory imprisonment.

Human Rights decision is quite pointed

Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, March 13th, 2019 - 13 comments

A decision released yesterday by the Human Rights Review Tribunal that went against Cameron Slater is very clear. The gratuitous publication of personal details on its own simply isn’t newsworthy in any news medium. The topic has to actually be newsworthy to get the exemption in the Privacy Act for news mediums. 

Cameron Slater slithers into bankruptcy

Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, February 27th, 2019 - 51 comments

Yesterday Cameron Slater announced that he would be seeking bankruptcy. It is unlikely to help him to avoid the stress of dealing with the legal consequences. The three current defamation cases that he is defending so badly have very little to do with money and a lot to do with making sure neither he nor any other arsehole dares to use his vile tactics again.

‘Taxpayers union’ – too ‘stupid’ to understand tax?

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, February 26th, 2019 - 59 comments

There is a classic piece of waffle in the NZ Herald about when capital gains tax will apply to the family home. But the conditions when this applies are extremely simple and obvious. However professed experts on taxation like the so-called ‘taxpayers union’ can’t understand them. Probably because they are paid not to.

Musing on independent breakaways in the UK.

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, February 21st, 2019 - 6 comments

Britain has an interesting political system, one that in many respects we share. The effect is to realise new streams of political effect without revolution. Usually not as a result of actual electoral success, but because it causes shifts in the positions of the major parties that form the governments. 

Climate change – the ongoing disaster

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, February 12th, 2019 - 32 comments

In my youth back in the late 1970s and early 80s, I did a BSc in Earth Sciences. I learned that our human framework of decades and centuries was but a blink of an eye to nature. Our period, that blink in time, is fast fading.

The wonder of e-bikes and e-scooters

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

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

Test embeds in comments.

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

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

Wow, Anak Krakatau is just gone..

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

Satellite radar images

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

Now on WordPress 5

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

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

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

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

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

Double down – protect parliament – ban Bridges for a month

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

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

The bigotry of lemmings – the China scare

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

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

 

My civics – the New Zealand civil war

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

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

Bryce Edwards: Just another political simpleton

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

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

Trump laughed at for waving his toad at UN

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

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

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

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

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

Help identify a spy – who is Laurie Moore?

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

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

Oh! To be Human

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

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

Congrats: fuel tax drive more trucks out of Auckland

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

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

Populism and population decline

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

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