Media reports of mental health consequences of lockdown are emerging. Could become a trend so I'll post a proactive response. "It’s easy to roll your eyes when you hear Sarah Tuck start to describe CoLiberate, the “mental health gym” she started with friend and co-director Bop Murdoch. But as she explains the way it works, those doubts quickly fade."https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/30-04-2020/mental-health-first-aid-could-be-just-what-our-country-needs/
Shift from focus on problem to focus on solution is the best way to handle the task of extricating oneself from a hole one has fallen into. Here's a good description of resilience theory: https://positivepsychology.com/resilience-theory/
"Resilience is something we can all develop, whether we want to grow as individuals, as a family, or as a society more broadly." Incorporating this thought is part of an essential response to covid-19. Then the challenge is moving from theory into practice! "Resilience Theory argues that it’s not the nature of adversity that is most important, but how we deal with it."
"Resilience has been defined in numerous ways, including the following:
“…the ability to bounce back from adversity, frustration, and misfortune…” (Ledesma, 2014: 1);
“the developable capacity to rebound or bounce back from adversity, conflict, and failure or even positive events, progress, and increased responsibility” (Luthans, 2002a: 702);
“…a stable trajectory of healthy functioning after a highly adverse event” (Bonanno et al., 2004; Bonanno et al., 2011); and
“…the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully” (Masten, 2014; Southwick, 2014).
When a panel discussion was called asking researchers to debate the nature of resilience, all agreed that resilience is complex – as a construct, it can have a different meaning between people, companies, cultures, and society."
And that, in our globalisation context, is the crux of the issue. Humanity must incorporate resilience thinking and planning – to shift away from addiction to neoliberalism. Collective survival requires us to do this shift. And it must be done at all the relevant levels: individual, family, community, tribe or nation. Permaculture teaches this thinking via practical techniques and methods in local contexts – but the bioregional context is more vital to collective survival. That part of the shift is currently not being attempted even, in most places.
Good points and something I've seen millennials rejecting outright as they expect 'business as usual' a return to their consumerisitic ways and to carry on.
They seem tied to the system and it's influencers, can't wait for us to push off as they've got echo Chambers telling them it's just a blip normality will return.
This is neither within the Moderators’ capability nor within their admin rights. The SYSOP is aware of these and other technical issues, but he also has a daytime job – most of his efforts here go unnoticed. Mostly, the site is functioning well.
Gone batshit: "The Wuhan Institute of Virology has dissected bats that carry RaTG13, the closest pathogen to SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19. The reports suggest that Five Eyes inquiries have centered on Wuhan scientists Peng Zhou and Shi Zhengli. Shi led a team from Wuhan and the US that took samples of droppings from horseshoe bats at a cave in Yunnan province in 2004 and was the first to find a definite connection between the animals and RaTG13. Her database found a 96% virus match between the droppings and Covid-19."
"Three other species of bats were also studied by the laboratory in a five-year period, according to papers published in 2005 and 2017. Shi disputed the belief that a host is needed for the virus to leap from bats to humans." https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/china-drops-a-covid-19-gauntlet-on-australia/
So the Oz/China batshit thingy is now having foreign policy consequences. "Peng and Shi also separately took part in research in the past decade at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory near Melbourne, which looked at links between coronaviruses and bats caught at a colony in Queensland. These bats were studied because they harbor hendra and nipah viruses, which have infected large fruit bats and can be transmitted to humans."
"Beijing initially said Covid-19, which was first detected in early January, originated in a wet market selling live animals near the Wuhan laboratory, but now maintains that there is no evidence that it came from China at all." Waving the red herring at the world did work initially, to distract attention from the research facility, but now the regime has switched to denial. Works for climate, so why not for covid, they think…
If I was to cause so much as an 'unintentional movement' on a piece of plant machinery, much less hurt someone, or (my always worst fear) kill just one person in the course of my work, there would have been a formal investigation. On any of the big sites here in Australia if it turned out that I had broken the rules, I would be given what is popularly known as the choice of "aisle or window seat".
Here we have a catastrophe many orders of magnitude worse and the CCP insists that there shall be no investigation and "maintains that there is no evidence that it came from China at all". From any perspective this is self-serving bullshit.
Indeed the Chinese authorities early in January commanded all their biotech researchers to immediately stop work, destroy any samples and submit any papers to the govt before publishing. Any technical information you are seeing coming out of China on this virus is now strictly controlled.
But however you cut it, the real world facts are undeniable. The Wuhan Institute had been working with this class of virus for years, had published papers and presented on it. The research was so risky, their standards of operation so sloppy, that it was protested by other nations (the US in particular).
Without invoking any genetic tech argument, that frankly few people are qualified to evaluate, the coincidence of this flawed and dangerous research being undertaken in the same damned city which experienced the first major outbreak is beyond question. Only made worse by the subsequent self-serving denials, cover-ups and obfuscations from the CCP .
Parallels can be drawn with the Pike River debacle, the problem was not that an investigation would find someone liable, but that too many people would be found guilty. People way too far up the food chain.
Was there ever any investigation into state culpability for that murderous spree.
The death toll is still rising all these years later.
You're pushing shit uphill anyway, there's such a thing as sovereign immunity
Instead put your shoulder to the wheel , and demand better food production policies
Sue Macdonalds!Coca Cola!KFC!
Our battery farms, pig farms, salmon farms, and intensive dairy aren't doing humanity or the world any favours either
It disgusts me that most beef produced in the world gets minced up for fucking hamburgers
Get that supply line cranking, the people must eat , even if its total shite and contributes to the very same underlying conditions that make coronavirus a sure fire killer …diabetes and obesity.
What about prosecuting the French for the 1066 invasion? History being an endless reservoir of whataboutism that we can tap into all day. But not very useful imo.
Your point about sovereign immunity is however a good one. If the CCP are going to hold themselves innocent of this crisis, make childishly transparent denials you wouldn't tolerate from a 4yr old, then you must accept that other nations also have the right to act in their own sovereign interests as well.
Over the past two days we've seen the Chinese Ambassador in Canberra threaten the Australian govt with trade reprisals for daring to suggest an independent investigation. Well if the consequence of open borders and trade with China is going to be catastrophic events as we have seen these past few months, then maybe the correct sovereign response is 'aisle seat or window'?
The French would go "Huh? Weren't us. Were the Normans. Buggers invaded us too!" Still, prosecuting Russel Norman for the war crimes of his ancestors could be fun.
Winston supported the prosecution of China, didn't he? Think I saw that somewhere. So the leaders of USA & Australia are getting support from conservatives elsewhere. Boris has yet to accede to the calls from his rump, but doubt he can hold out long. Will liberals jump on the bandwagon?
Ought I to be the first cab off the rank and suggest it was a dastardly communist plot to wreck the capitalist economy that succeeded? People would probably respond that it was always obvious to everyone so I was just articulating common knowledge. Folks are real good at hindsight! 🙄
But it is a very convenient distraction from covfefailures. So CoronaCamacho will do all he can to put that story out through Faux News and White House Lying Hour (previously known as press briefings).
A very interesting article which considers the role of the the western bloc in weakening the regulatory role of the WHO
By the 1990s, it had become clear that the WHO’s old International Health Regulations—originally issued in 1969, with only a few minor updates and new editions over the two decades after that—were inadequate. For one, these regulations were produced before the emergence of very infectious, lethal, and recurrent infections such as Ebola and the avian influenzas. Secondly, these old regulations were made before air travel began to move about 4.3 billion passengers per year, the scale of air traffic now making the movement of viruses so much easier.
In May 2005, the 58th World Health Assembly revised the 1969 regulations, pointing out that the new regulations would “prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the internatioal spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with and restricted to public health risks, and which avoid unnecessary interference with international traffic and trade.”
The North American and European states, in particular, insisted that the declaration of a PHEIC or global pandemic only be made after it was clear that air travel and trade would not be unduly interrupted. This restriction, essentially the core foundations of globalization, has constrained the WHO since 2005.
During lockdown my girls have been allowed to take over the kitchen and cook to their hearts content.
Sneaked out and brought them Macca's as a surprise yesterday. Thankfully there was no queue.
They had a couple of bites of a burger and the rest ended up in the bin. Telling me it tasted yuck and they prefer healthy food now. Then they made a delicious salad instead.
I found this after eating healthy for a few years. On occasions I went out and bought some fast food, which looked good in the promo photos. And my stomach protested. It now feels indigestible.
When even the the guard dog of the liberal establishment has to start running this story you know you got problems…still as all centrists are so used to selling out their morals and values I am sure they will find a way around even voting for an (alleged) rapist…
Pressure mounts on Joe Biden to address sexual assault claim
This distressing saga has also exposed the #metoo movement to be a hollow vessel and of course the outrageous double standards of all liberal media didn't need any more exposing (well unless you are a complete idiot that is).
Yesterday you posted an item saying that the makers of Planet of the Humans were suspect because they were white men; today you insinuate that Tara Reade lacks credibility because of her "backstory".
And how do those sinister "hard-core Berners" fit into the picture?
Of course no surprises that you and McFlock are completely fine in displaying your hypocrisy for all the world to see.
Any semblance of a guiding internal moral and ethical balance you guys might have once held, has long been burnt on the bonfire of your hollow, deranged and extremely selfish liberal centrist ideology.
I take it that's a no, you haven't made any attempt to gain a wider picture of the situation surrounding the allegations nor attempted to independently assess Reade's credibility?
Does Bidens handling of the Anita Hill/ Clarence Thomas count as part of your 'wider picture'? Or this, from back when the liberals weren't in love with Biden…
Indeed it does factor in to what aspects of the allegations I think likely happened and what aspects likely didn't. Furthermore, Biden's treatment of Anita Hill and his other creepy-handsy behaviour towards women were just two of the many reasons I would have much preferred someone else as the nominee, and in fact voted for Warren.
Nevertheless, a strong majority of Dem primary voters so far haven't shared my negative opinion of Biden but have chosen him to be the nominee.
So when it comes to she said/he said allegations sufficiently serious to be disqualifying from long ago with no physical evidence, assessment of credibility is about all there is for fair investigation to go on. Frankly, while Biden's creepy disrespect for women's personal space that doesn't reach the threshold of sexual touching makes it very likely something happened, Reade's credibility falls short when it comes to the allegations that go further than that.
Looking further out to November, it then becomes a choice between a self admitted, boasting actually, genital-grabbing golem with dozens of credible accusations, versus the slightly creepy guy with one dubious serious acccusation that has acknowledged the discomfort his behaviour causes and vowed to respect other people's space. Seriously, is that even a question?
I would have much preferred someone else as the nominee, and in fact voted for Warren.
Well, THERE's a sure-fire winner. Honest and ethical too.
Ms. Warren faced criticism last year after she released the results of a DNA test that provided evidence she had a Native American ancestor. After entering the presidential race, she apologized for the DNA test and for identifying herself as Native American during her career as a law professor.
Didn't even get so far as to question Reade's allegation.
If Biden were going up against a moderate Republican with competent governorship experience, some cross-partisan history, and nothing in the way of allegations then I could see there being some question about whom to vote for or wheter to vote at all.
But that's not who the voters chose. Not the DNC, dem voters in the primaries. Didn't even get to superdelegates.
So we've got one with boundary and consent issues vs one guy with dozens of rape and sexual assault allegations from across much of his life. Oh, and the serial rapist is astronomically incompetent.
Well, at this stage there is still time for the Dems to change course on Biden, if there really is something that disqualifies him.
But what would happen in that case if the primaries were opened back up again for Sanders to unsuspend his campaign, probably others would unsuspend as well. Which means Sanders wouldn't have a majority going into the convention, so it would be a brokered convention. I just can't see Sanders getting the nod in that scenario, especially after superdelegates come into play.
Given that most of the people pushing the story are hard-core Sanders supporters that frankly stretch the limits of rationality at the best of times, along with convergence wingnuts, I can't help wondering if they're operating under a fantasy that if they can somehow knock Biden out, then Sanders automatically becomes the nominee. Sanders himself really doesn't seem to be a part of it, but he sure seems to attract some shitbags mixed in amongst his bulk of ordinary reasonable supporters.
… hard-core Sanders supporters that frankly stretch the limits of rationality at the best of times,
How do they "stretch the limits of rationality"? Was it Sanders supporters that pushed the Russiagate conspiracy theory for the last three and a half years?
So Biden's problem is "boundary and consent issues", is it? What he did to Tara Reade, as well as his brutal dismissal of her after she reacted to his assault, goes far beyond mere "handsiness" or even simple uncouthness.
From what I recall of the allegation (rather than focussing on your love of the term "digitally penetrated"), Biden even said at the time "I thought you were into me", and acted like a dick when she wasn't.
So, yeah, an arsehole. He assumed consent, because he thinks he's all that. Was a fucking jerk when it was clear that consent was refused.
But he also stopped when it was clear that consent was refused.
So yeah, not reading consent properly was an issue, rather than being aware consent was refused and not caring.
Made a dick of himself infront of a woman, thought he got a 'Hi baby' signal but it was a 'Hi client' signal….You better take me outside and shoot me now.
Ha, I can feel it like it was yesterday "Why are you holding my hand?'
He shouldn't have gone as far as he did without clear signals to proceed. That's definitely the area of sexual assault via carelessness/recklessness, and should rule him out of contention. But it didn't, so now it's him or dolt45.
"Dubious"? How so? Her neighbour and her mother have corroborated what she says. And exactly how is the tape of her mother talking to Larry King shortly after the assault "dubious"?
… that has acknowledged the discomfort his behaviour causes…
???? He treated Tara Reade with utter contempt when she reacted negatively to his digital penetration of her.
Admitting reality contains ethical conflicts and quandaries is not hypocrisy.
Claiming to not support dolt45 while spending 90% of your effort on the topic to hobble his opponent, on the other hand, is some next-level bullshit.
Have you ever answered the question about what you expect a normal democrat to do come November? The only options I see are to vote for Biden, vote for dolt45, or not vote. Only one of those choices would be an attempt to change the guy in charge. The rest is preferring to leave the current guy in charge.
Opposing one corrupt and discredited politician does not imply that one supports his opponent.
Surely, instead of firing out wild accusations at Adrian—90 percent of his effort, indeed!—your own energies should be going into establishing exactly how someone as sleazy and corrupt and notoriously racist as Biden got to be the nominee.
It's called "running interference", in sporting parlance, and is as old as the hills.
It's not as old as the hills. Running interference occurs only in American football—that joyless "game" where hardly anyone ever kicks the ball, and most of the players never even touch it. Running interference is ridiculous and highly dangerous, and it's only been permitted since some fools in the universities legalized it in the late 19th century.
Sun Tzu described the analagous technique in warfare and politics.
As for Biden not winning in November, I expressed similar sentiments when there were 20 people in the primaries. But he is the guy the voters chose, so getting rid of dolt45 means trying to stop that prediction from coming true. If dolt45 kills enough of his supporters between now and then, it might happen.
So what's more important to you and the rest of the bros: getting rid of the current "president", or being proved right about how unelectable Biden is?
When you use that dismissive "bro" term to disparage the people who support the most popular, coherent and substantive mainstream American politician for the last thirty years, are you also sneering at the women who support him?
But nah, bro. Anyone who can't bring themselves to say that kicking dolt45 out of office is a bigger priority than being proved right about Biden's unelectability probably deserves being sneered at in a reasonably precise manner.
So who you voting for? Oh, that's right, you can't. How many people do you rickn you'll dissuade from voting? Oh, that's right, we can't either. At this point you're just whinging pointlessly.
The only whingeing here—ceaseless, daily whingeing—is by our friends Andre and Joe 90. I merely point out their shuddering inconsistencies and their susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
Endless the oligarchy's idea of the Left. It's a legitimate question when that has produced an authoritarian anti-democrat and war on democracy whether to carry on voting for the lesser of two evils. We are at the point of whether there'll be a US election next November.
If you keep choking off democracy you up other less wordy opposition. And it's obviously time for such a ruction to put America back on FDR's path.
"Planet of the Humans" has certainly provoked discussion. I came across the piece below which partly explores a couple of the many different camps of environmental thought. It's a longish piece that certainly has its flaws, starting with its oversimplified dichotomous starting premise, but it contains a lot of worthwhile info and points. And unless you're a verrrrrry slooooooow reader, it's a small fraction of one hour forty minutes.
When it comes to Environmentalism, there are two main schools of thought:
A) that we humans must mend our technological ways, end our fossil fuel use, better manage Earth’s biosphere, and stop being a “throwaway” civilization.
B) that we humans are too numerous, lack the discipline necessary for long-term sustainability, and that “green energy” tends to be counter-productive.
School A holds that there is sufficient energy and everything else to go around on this planet or within our reach and that we must continue to get smarter about our technologies. The answers to our problems, accordingly, lie in science and medicine and engineering. We are a long way from using as much energy as the Sun provides at Earth, but we must cease burning non-renewable fuels that we happen to have inherited from previous epochs of living things, like fossil coal, gas, and oil. The idea of burning up everything flammable we can lay our hands-on, regardless of the by-products of that combustion, simply must go to the trash bin of history as soon as possible.
School B holds that 7–10 billion humans are simply far more than this poor planet can handle, especially when we exhibit so little regard for the other life forms upon which we depend for our sustenance, not to mention all our other bad habits. The answer to our problems is “reduce, reuse, recycle”, and by “reduce” we mean to reduce our numbers, our demands for obsolescent new stuff, and our discarded refuse. There is a certain “fire and brimstone” aspect of School B, harking back to religious anxiety about (Nature’s) God and their reaction to humanity. There is a strongly held belief that Mother Earth will reduce our population if we won’t take care of it ourselves. Technological efforts to produce clean energy are regarded as misguided distractions that increase energy usage, and thus are as harmful as fossil energy has been.
A piece exploring how old and inaccurate information has been presented:
In a red flag for any veteran of the wind farm debate, Gibbs then uses footage of a collection of old wind turbines – rusted, gross and horrible – to illustrate the short life and lasting damage of these huge spiky bastards.
If you’re familiar with the network of anti-wind farm groups, you’ll recognise that they’re old machines from South Point on Big Island, Hawaii. They were removed in 2012, by the owner of the facility. All that is left now are small hexagonal pads on farmland used by the cattle that roam it:
“Why for most of my life, have I fallen for the illusion that green energy would save us?” It sounds like he’s saying this in 2020, but he is saying it well in the past. Gibbs was posting anti-wind memes roughly 23 full epidemics ago.
Heated newsletter writer Emily Atkin, in a post enumerating questions on the film for Gibbs and Moore, wondered why POTH avoids backing up its claims on energy.
"This movie repeatedly claims that humans are better off burning fossil fuels than using renewable energy," said Atkin. "But it also fails to cite any peer-reviewed science on lifecycle emissions, which show the cumulative impact of different renewable energy sources. Why?"
In a more disturbing move, Gibbs promotes population control as the best answer to the warming of the planet.
"There's a reason that Breitbart and other conservative voices aligned with climate denial and fossil fuel companies have taken a shine to the film," Earther's Brian Kahn wrote last week. "It's because it ignores the solution of holding power to account and sounds like a racist dog whistle."
That sentiment was echoed by Joshi, who noted that the film's emphasis on prioritizing white American voices was in line with its argument on population control.
"The film features a parade of—solely—white Americans, mostly male, insisting the planet has to reduce its population," wrote Joshi. "There is no information provided on which people in the world need to stop fucking, but we can take a guess, based on the demographics of the people doing the asking."
My view is closer to School A, and extends it to the notion of a technology based society using abundant, carbon free energy to create closed loop resource use at every level. The end goal is a highly urbanised, high efficiency societies that maximise decoupling from the nature world.
I personally find School B morally unacceptable; as you say its way to adjacent to eugenics and the anti-human mass die-off advocates for my liking. But it makes the valid argument that our current population has over-shot our current carrying capacity. It also argues that we consume way more than is necessary.
My response to School B is that you can have the reducing population you want if you extend human development universally across the whole human race, not just the 'golden 1b'.
And as populations reach equilibrium and they start to age, they also tend toward consuming less. As people reach middle age they move from wanting things to wanting experiences, essentially moving up the Maslow pyramid.
Of course getting to this vision is impossible with our current industrial technologies, I fully acknowledge this, but School B's assertions this means we have to shut them down is absolutely wrong-headed.
I tend to have the suspicion that School B types have very little understanding of how resource-intensive even a sharply pared-down lifestyle is in a western country. Nor how dependent it is on the vast web of interdependent industrial – technological infrastructure we have around us. Nor what kind of lifestyle is lived by those that only have access to the fringes of modern technological – industrial infrastructure.
Maybe you need to actually see and experience it personally to gain that understanding. And to understand how damaging it would be to what little remains of the natural world if all 8 billion of us did suddenly try the depower detech deindustrial route.
Maybe you need to actually see and experience it personally to gain that understanding.
Yup. You are right, this is very much where I'm coming from, but I get the feeling that I'm not conveying message this effectively.
I accept also that it means I'm a bit biased; yet there is enough unreconstructed hippie left in me to hold nothing against the School B types among us who personally prefer to pull back from directly living in the urbanised, industrial world. There is plenty of room for people to explore alternative ways to construct intentional communities, permacultures and similar. I really enjoy visiting these places, I like them as people.
All I ask of them in return is the intellectual honesty to acknowledge their underlying dependency on the School A industrialised world to provide the many vital services enabling their welfare, security and standards of life.
School A and School B are points on a continuum – mixtures of both exist and these mixtures are morally healthier and less likely to go bad in some way.
School A goes bad by being so in love with the economic status quo that it is determined to limit change to just swapping out the energy system to something low carbon, while leaving everything else in place. It is so compromised by this that not enough is done, and CC kills lots of people anyway. School B goes bad by genocidally eliminating 'inferior' populations. Not a nice choice – be wary of purists.
Fair point; we only reduce it to a binary choice for the sake of a tidy argument, but reality is of course much more complex.
My primary thesis is that science, tech and engineering are primary enablers of social change. For example slavery, while everyone considered it undesirable, was considered an inevitable feature of human life for millennia, until coal and steam engines came along. Then suddenly it wasn't so inevitable.
I believe this means that features of human life we now regard as undesirable (such as our primitive tendencies toward rivalry, status seeking and excess consumption as a sexual signal) may turn out to be not nearly so hardwired into us as we like to imagine. That given the right context, both in material and spiritual terms, we may well find ourselves changing a lot more than we think possible.
Trotter's description of life per-neoliberalism is common knowledge to those of us who lived through the changes – don't need to be a student of history.
Peters reminds me of my Dad, a pakeha Northland boy from a rural background, who made it up to the professional classes. The same pro-Muldoonism plus social conservativism. Something similar about their senses of humour.
Very pro-capitalism, but always quite egalitarian in his men's club kind of work and social life, at a time when most women stayed at home after giving birth. Blokey, but still accepting of a very competent woman who managed to make her way into the professional work classes.
One of his better pieces….but its always difficult to instil an understanding of something not experienced so I'm not sure how successful Winston will be….though he may well select who's PM again (and spend considerable energy undermining him/her)
Hogan says he made sure the plane with tests landed at BWI instead of Dulles, with a large presence of Maryland National Guard and Maryland State police, bc the tests were valuable and Massachusetts Gov. Baker said his plane load of masks was basically confiscated by the feds https://t.co/6vaP1zDp0V
On cranks, scam artists, woo-pedlars, single-issue nutters, opportunists and click-bait revenue undermining science.
A toxic legacy of poor-quality research, media hype, lax regulatory oversight, and vicious partisanship has come home to roost in the search for effective treatments for COVID-19.
On September 14, 1918, in the midst of the worst pandemic in modern history, an article in the New York Times quoted Dr. Rupert Blue, then surgeon general of the US Public Health Service. Blue reported that doctors in many countries were treating their influenza patients with digitalis and the antimalaria drug quinine. There was no evidence that the two drugs were any more effective than folk remedies being used by patients, including cinnamon, goose grease poultices, and salt stuffed up the nose, but doctors were desperate and willing to try just about anything. They would eventually abandon quinine and digitalis as treatments for flu when studies showed they were not only ineffective but caused serious and sometimes deadly side effects.
Today, just shy of two months since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the media are once again flooded with cures, patients such as Michigan State Representative Karen Whitsett are being quoted with claims that hydroxychloroquine “saved my life,” and doctors are prescribing drugs that have not been shown to be effective. Only this time, it’s the twenty-first century, the age of “evidence-based medicine.” Or so it might seem. But instead of no science to back up treatments, we now have bad studies being reported uncritically in the press, and Twitter storms of doctors, journalists, and researchers arguing about the ethics of withholding drugs from dying patients, even though we have no idea if those drugs do more harm than good.
You missed out including the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand in your list of cranks and nutters. They are currently researching your so called woo-woo medicine.
And now you're equating an extension to a wider international study (REMAP-CAP) which has been recruiting patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia and a second trial that will see patients in the community who have tested positive for Covid-19, but do not require hospital treatment, also given hydroxychloroquine with your preferred woo-pedaling cranks and nutters.
"it’s the twenty-first century, the age of “evidence-based medicine."
Except it isn't. There has been a push the past couple of decades to put medicine on an evidence-based footing but so little of it still is. This is especially so in intensive/critical/emergency care because it is so hard to run proper trials because of ethical issues around withholding treatment. So much of intensive care is just best practice, which isn't necessarily much use when faced with novel threats.
"Evidence-based practice is research-based practice that has been shown effective through rigorous scientific evaluation. Best practice typically does not undergo the same scientific evaluation—those processes used in research to validate the assessment or effectiveness of practice."
However, as the "typically" implies, best practice could be evidence-based.
As it is often ethically difficult to conduct randomised controlled trials in critical care (because patients might die because treatment is withheld or because they are given experimental treatments), the level of evidence to support critical care practices is often low.
What does the heavy lifting is all the stuff which occurs prior to the RCT (or double blind) studies where a treatment is developed and the causal nature of its effects it observed in experiments.
Well, medicine generally has greater "transportability" than economics (which is essentially a pseudoscience), but every properly-conducted study with peer reviewed results is scientific evidence.
Bit harsh on RCTs, I reckon. It's important to know that the experimental results actually do translate to a safe and effective treatment in the real world, not just when the research team is watching closely.
Yes, the heavy lifting is done in the lab. Before you get to the larger randomised double-blind multi-centre clinical trials (AKA Phase 3 or III), you first have to conduct Safety trials (AKA Phase 1 or I) followed by Efficacy trials (AKA Phase 2 or II). It used to be that Phase 3 trials were the required Registration trials before obtaining market approval but some treatments are now fast-tracked based on Phase 2 trial results. Typically, in Phase 3 trials the new treatment is compared against the standard-of-care. At each step along the way data are collected, which generally builds a compelling ‘package’ of efficacy in the target patient population with a tolerable (acceptable) safety profile. However, these trials also serve to mitigate risk and provide a (crude) estimate of value-for-money. This, in turn, is used by regulatory and medical authorities, governments, and insurance companies to regulate (control) its use, subsidy, and reimbursement levels. Last, but not least, the pharma companies use it to set the market price and develop their marketing strategy. It is a very competitive market with loads of greedy shareholders to keep on board.
I understand that critical care complicates things. However, there are many trials with patients that have life-threatening conditions/diseases with relatively short life expectancy (e.g. terminal cancer patients). In these situations, and as far as I know, a new experimental treatment is never compared to placebo (“treatment is withheld”) but compared to standard-of-care treatment. As you imply, ethics committees would not approve any other way for obvious reasons.
Inaccurate (not from another land, or perhaps not even thugs) and bi-opically tunnel-visioned (unless you also accept the massively wider field of imperlialist whities from the Crusades to Desert Storm).
You seem to have a compulsive habit of taking aim at the messenger or source rather than addressing the message. This is going to trip you up. Just saying.
No, I did not get you were joking. I am not a mind reader and you have form, as I said.
I’m also not the only Moderator who’s taking an interest in you; you are quite ‘popular’ among some here.
I don’t hammer your comments, I hint.
You’re a long-time prolific commenter here who has a bad habit, which you share with many, I have to add, to be fair, of shooting at the messenger and/or source instead of debating the contents.
If you’re trying to tell me what I should do or not do on this site, you’ll have to have extraordinarily good reasons to do so because otherwise it is as if you’re trying to deflect with whataboutery and I really cannot stand that.
Whenever something like this happens, I remember that California expanded gun control in the 1960s because Black Power started doing open-carry in their communities.
I wonder what his advisers are telling him about his public pronouncements considering what Trumps advisers told him about poll numbers he too did not accept, and how he reacted. I wonder if for example Ms Pugh from the West Coast is having a quiet moment of ah reflection upon her leader's fortunes.
I guess that this dog has now, after too long and often gone barking at passing cars, started in on biting his own tail.
"“It’s very good, I think it exceeds our expectations,” said the Drug Foundation’s Ross Bell. “We were already quite happy with the first draft, and the public health controls that were included. But to see the final bill, and all of those extra details that have been added – they’ve covered all the key issues, and public health remains at the heart of the bill.” He was also pleased with the provisions that would allow those currently working in the illicit market to move into the legal market."
"And Green Party drug reform spokesperson Chlöe Swarbrick said it was “an evidence-based, harm-reduction approach, to control access and produce better justice and mental health outcomes across Aotearoa. “The question facing New Zealanders is: do we want to continue to empower black market, unregulated chaos, or do we want to implement safety standards, duties of care and ease of access to help for those who need it?” she added."
On the downside, only allowing two plants to grow-your-own folk poses a small problem: some seedlings don't make it, as any gardener knows, and what if both turn out to be male??? I hope some practical amendments result from further parliamentary processing of the bill. However, if not, growers will most likely wait till their plants sex up, then cull all except the two most vigorous females.
Hmm, so you're guessing that the specialist cannabis shops will provide young females for growers? Would make economic sense. I wonder if this apparently-intelligent design of legislation will reverse the poll trend of the past year. Hope so. Despite not having gotten high the past 7/8 years I may encounter the necessity to do so due to adverse aging trends in the future. Be good to have the option available.
Problem with that notion is the risk to children. Spinoff says "any products deemed to be aimed at children would be banned." They also say a govt org will be established to administer the act, so we await further clarification. Parliament also has the opportunity to amend the act because it is merely a proposal at this stage…
Waitemata dhb deputy ceo does not fill me with confidence or admiration. Mind you, they're going through a process, so I guess everything's peachy. Doctors can be pratty bureaucrats too apparently.
Bloomfield, Robertson and Ardern were shown on TV1 tonight saying there plenty of flu vaccines
TV1 reported that the flu vaccine operators are saying that there are not enough and an email produced which warns that there may be a gap in supply next week. Pretty serious in spite of the record delivery of jabs compared with previous years.
Unless some political elements are twisting the facts. Who should I believe? TV1 or the top three spokespeople. Easy.
as someone who has had their jab cancelled late March, and place on the waiting list when new stock is available, still waiting to hear from the surgery. everyone is pointing the finger to someone else. Didn't we have this issue last year and the same with measles ?? once understandable, twice need to take some learnings a 3rd time …..
Ianmac you forgot to include heath workers in your list of who to trust , these same health workers who have been saying there is an issue since early April
"The British and Irish aviation industry appears to be running what basketball fans might term a full court press when it comes to requesting state aid: Heathrow Airport’s boss is also asking for help."
Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.It was another ‘SHOCK! HORROR!’ headline from a media increasingly venturing into tabloid-style journalism:Andrea Vance’s article seemed to focus on the "million dollar sums from the Government as the country grapples with a housing ...
Dr Brian Easton writes: It’s the summer break. Everyone settles down with family, books, the sun and some fishing. But the Prime Minister has a pile of briefing papers prepared just before Christmas, which have to be worked through. I haven’t seen them. Here is my guess at some ...
What Was the Prime Minister Reading in the Runup to Election Year?It’s the summer break. Everyone settles down with family, books, the sun and some fishing. But the Prime Minister has a pile of briefing papers prepared just before Christmas, which have to be worked through. I haven’t seen them. ...
In case you hadn't noticed, FYI, the public OIA request site, has been used to conduct a significant excavation into New Zealand's intelligence agencies, with requests made for assorted policies and procedures. Yesterday in response to one of these requests the GCSB released its policy on New Zealand Purpose and ...
Farming leaders are watching closely whether Damien O’Connor keeps the key portfolios of Agriculture and Trade when Prime Minister Chris Hipkins restructures his Cabinet. O’Connor has been one of the few ministers during Labour’s term in office who has won broad support for what he has done ...
South Islands farmers are whining about another drought, the third in three years. If only we knew what was causing this! If only someone had warned them that they faced a drying climate! But we do know what is causing it: climate change. And they have been warned, repeatedly, for ...
Ok, there’s good news and bad news in this week’s inflation figures, but bad > good. Our inflation rate held steady but hey, at a level below the inflation rate in Australia. The main reason for the so/so result here? A fall in petrol prices of 7.2% offset the really ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes: Since her shock resignation announcement, Jacinda Ardern has been at pains to point out that she isn’t leaving because of the toxicity directed at her on social media and elsewhere, rebutting journalists who suggested misogyny and hate may have driven her from office. Yet ...
Since her shock resignation announcement, Jacinda Ardern has been at pains to point out that she isn’t leaving because of the toxicity directed at her on social media and elsewhere, rebutting journalists who suggested misogyny and hate may have driven her from office. Yet there have been dozens of columns ...
The Clinical Magus: Of particular relevance to New Zealanders struggling to come to terms with the sudden departure of their prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, is Jung’s concept of the anima. Much more than what others have called the feminine principle, the anima is what the human male has made out ...
The Select Committee, considering the proposed RNZ-TVNZ merger, has come back with a report conceding many of the criticisms that were made of the original legislation. In what is one of the most comprehensive demolitions of a Bill submitted to a Select Committee, the Economic Development, Science and Innovation ...
Such are the 2020s, the age when no-one, it seems, actually respects the basic underpinnings of democracy. Even in New Zealand. This week, I stumbled across a pair of lengthy and genuinely serious articles, that basically argue that Something is Rotten in the state of New Zealand democracy. One ...
Buzz from the Beehive Hurrah. Today we found something fresh on the Beehive website, Beehive.govt.nz, which claims to be the best place to find Government initiatives, policies and Ministerial information. It wasn’t from Finance Minister Grant Robertson, whose reaction to the latest inflation figures would have been appreciated. So, too, ...
Smiling And Waiving A Golden Opportunity: Chris Hipkins knew that the day at Ratana would be Jacinda’s day – her final opportunity to bask in the unalloyed love and support of her followers. He simply could not afford to be seen to overshadow this last chance for his former boss ...
Extremism Consumes Itself: The plot of “Act of Oblivion” concerns the relentless pursuit of the “regicides” Edward Whalley and William Goffe – two of the fifty-nine signatories to King Charles I’s death warrant. As with his many other works of historical fiction, Robert Harris’s novel brings to life a period ...
To challenge the Government’s promotion of co-governance, to share power between Maori and public authorities and agencies, is to invite accusations of racism. An example: this article by Martyn Bradbury on The Daily Blog headed Luxon’s race baiting hypocrisy at Ratana. The article was triggered by National leader Christopher Luxon, ...
A very informative video discussion: Are we getting the whole story about Ukraine? | Robert Wright & Ivan Katchanovski Getting objective information on the situation in Ukraine and the cause of this current war is not easy. There is the current censorship and blatant mainstream media bias – which ...
Yesterday the Herald ran an op-ed from Mayor Wayne Brown titled “The case for light rail is lighter than ever” and a few things stood out. However, it’s getting more and more tricky to make a strong economic case for spending up to $29 billion on a single route of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Samantha Harrington Imagine it’s a cold February night and your furnace breaks. You want to replace it with an electric heat pump because you’ve heard that tax credits will help pay for the switch. And you know that heat pumps can reduce ...
In 2005, then-National Party leader based his entire election campaign on racism, with his infamous racist Orewa speech and racist iwi/kiwi billboards. Now, Christopher Luxon seems to want to do it all again: Fresh off using his platform at this week's Rātana celebrations to criticise the government's approach to ...
Inflation is showing little sign of slowing down, posing a problem for freshly minted PM Chris Hipkins. According to that old campaigner Richard Prebble, Hipkins should call a snap election. If he waits till October, he risks being swept away. The dilemma for the new leader is that fighting an election ...
Buzz from the Beehive A great deal has happened since January 19. Among other things, a new Prime Minister and deputy have been sworn in and our leaders (past, present and aspiring) have delivered speeches at Ratana. Newshub reported that politicians of all stripes had descended upon Rātana for the ...
It’s a big day for New Zealand; our 41st Prime Minister has taken office and the new, “Chippy” era of politics is underway. Or, on the other hand, the Labour Party continues to govern with an overall majority and much the same leadership team in place. Life goes on and ...
New Zealand has another Prime Minister who does not have a basic grasp of the three articles of the Treaty of Waitangi. THOMAS CRANMER writes: It is simply astonishing that New Zealand’s next Prime Minister, Chris Hipkins, is unable to give even a brief explanation of the three articles ...
A statue of a semi-naked Nick Smith puts the misogyny debate into perspective. GRAHAM ADAMS writes … In the wake of Ardern’s abrupt resignation, the mainstream media are determined to convince us she was hounded from office mainly because she is a woman and had to fall on her sword ...
A Different Kind Of Vibe: In the days and weeks ahead, as the Hipkins ministry takes shape, the only question that matters is whether New Zealand’s new prime minister possesses both the wisdom and the courage to correct his party’s currently suicidal political course. If Chris “Chippy” Hipkins is ...
An editorial in the NZ Herald last week, titled “Nimbyism goes bananas as housing intensifies“, introduced Herald readers to a couple of acronyms that go along with the now-familiar NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard): “bananas” (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone) “cave” dwellers (citizens against virtually everything). The editorial ...
Back in the dark autumn of 2020, when the prospect of Covid was freaking the country out, Finance Minister Grant Robertson set himself and Treasury a series of questions about what a post-Covid economy might look like. Those were fearful days, and the questions in part reflected a series ...
Buzz from the Beehive Yet another day has passed without Ministers of the Crown posting something to show they are still working for us on the Beehive website. Nothing new has been posted since January 17. Perhaps the ministers are all engaged in the bemusing annual excursion ...
Incoming Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has already indicated he intends making the tax system “fairer”. That points to the route a government facing an election could take to tilt the odds towards winning in its favour, given Labour’s support in the last months of the Ardern era had been ...
NewsHub has a poll on the cost-of-living crisis, which has an interesting finding: the vast majority of kiwis prefer wage rises to tax cuts: When asked whether income has kept up with the cost of living, 54.8 percent of people surveyed said no and according to 58.6 percent of ...
Labour has begun 2023 with the centre-left bloc behind in the polls and losing ground. That being so, did his colleagues choose Chris Hipkins as the replacement for Jacinda Ardern because they think he has a realistic shot at leading them to victory this year, or because he‘s the best ...
Two Flags, Two Masters? Just as it required a full-scale military effort to destroy the first attempt at Māori self-government in the 1850s and 60s (an effort that divided Maoridom itself into supporters and opponents of the Crown) any second attempt to establish tino rangatiratanga, based on the confiscatory policies ...
The first of Kiwirail’s big network shutdowns to fix the foundations on our tracks is now well underway with the Southern Line closed between Otahuhu and Newmarket. This is following on from the network wide Christmas/New Year shutdown, during which Kiwirail say that nearly 1,300 people working across 69 different ...
This is a re-post from the Citizens' Climate Lobby blogIn last year’s passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Congress included about $20 billion earmarked for natural climate solutions. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is responsible for deciding how those funds should be allocated to meet the climate ...
You’ve really got to wonder at the introspection, or lack thereof, from much of the mainstream media post Jacinda Ardern stepping down. Some so-called journalists haven’t even taken a breath before once again putting the boot in, which clearly shows their inherent bias and lack of any misgivings about fueling ...
Over the weekend I was interviewed by a media outlet about the threats that Jacinda Ardern and her family have received while she has been PM and what can be expected now that she has resigned. I noted that the level of threat she has been exposed to is unprecedented ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes: The days of the Labour Government being associated with middle class social liberalism look to be numbered. Soon-to-be Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni are heralding a major shift in emphasis away from the constituencies and ideologies of liberal Grey ...
A Different Kind Of Vibe: In the days and weeks ahead, as the Hipkins ministry takes shape, the only question that matters is whether New Zealand’s new prime minister possesses both the wisdom and the courage to correct his party’s currently suicidal political course. If Chris “Chippy” Hipkins is able to steer ...
The days of the Labour Government being associated with middle class social liberalism look to be numbered. Soon-to-be Prime Minister Chris Hipkins and Deputy Prime Minister Carmel Sepuloni are heralding a major shift in emphasis away from the constituencies and ideologies of liberal Grey Lynn and Wellington Central towards the ...
Following the surprise resignation of Jacinda Ardern last week, her replacement, Chis Hipkins, has said: Over the coming week, Cabinet will be making decisions on reining in some programs and projects that aren’t essential right now That messaging is similar to what Jacinda Ardern said late last year and as ...
Much of what will mark the early days of Chris Hipkins’ Prime Ministership would have happened anyway. By December, the Prime Minister and Finance Minister were making it clear the summer break and early days of this year were going to be spent on a reset of government policy. ...
Going to try to get into the blogging thing again (ha!) what with an election coming up and all that. So today I thought I'd start small and simple, by merely tackling the world's (second) richest man.I'm no fan of Elon Musk. You don't want to know why, but I'll ...
A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 15, 2023 thru Sat, Jan 21, 2023. Story of the Week State of the climate: How the world warmed in 2022With a new year underway, most of the climate data for ...
Well, that was a disappointment. As of today, the New Zealand Labour Caucus opted for Chris Hipkins as our new Prime Minister, and I cannot help but let loose a cynical cackle. ...
Get ready for a major political reset once Chris Hipkins is sworn in as Prime Minister this week. Labour’s new leader is likely to push the Government to the right economically, and do his best to jettison the damaging perceptions that Labour has become “too woke” on social issues. Overall, ...
Things have gone sideways… and it’s only the third week of January? It was political earthquake time. For some the Prime Minister made a truly significant announcement. For others – did you have this on your bingo card? – a body double did so (sit tight, you’ll understand later, ...
Buzz from the Beehive Because our hard-working Ministers of the Crown are engaged in Labour Party caucus stuff in Napier, no doubt jockeying to ensure they keep their jobs or get a better one, Point of Order was not surprised to find no fresh news on the Beehive website this ...
By the end of 2019, Jacinda Ardern was a political superstar heading towards an election defeat. She was an icon, internationally beloved, on track to be an ex-prime minister before the age of forty. It was the year of the Christchurch terror attack when Ardern’s response to the atrocity saw ...
People complain about their jobs being meaningless. Does it matter?David Graeber, author of Bullshit Jobs: The Rise of Pointless Work and What We Can Do About It, would have smiled at Elon Musk’s sacking half the Twitter workforce. Musk seems to be confirming the main thesis of the book, that ...
Dr Bryce Edwards writes: Should New Zealand have a snap election? That’s one of the questions arising out of the chaos of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation. There’s an increased realisation that everything has changed, and the old plans and assumptions for election year have suddenly evaporated. ...
Should New Zealand have a snap election? That’s one of the questions arising out of the chaos of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s shock resignation. There’s an increased realisation that everything has changed, and the old plans and assumptions for election year have suddenly evaporated. So, although Ardern has named an ...
I warned about the trap of virtue signaling in my article Virtue signaling over Ukraine. This video is still relevant – but have we moved on since then? The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was universally condemned at the time. Or was it? Certainly, the political atmosphere ...
Earlier this week Point of Order carried a post by Geoffrey Miller on how Japan under a new security blueprint is doubling its defence spending. The plans see Japan buying up advanced weaponry – including long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US – and spending more on ...
Anyone else suffering back-to-work-blues? We’re battling, but still upright. Haere tonu! Today’s cover image is of sunset over Tirohanga Whānui Bridge, sourced from Twitter. The week in Greater Auckland On Monday, Jolisa pondered the fate of AT’s ‘Statements of Imagination’. Tuesday’s post was a guest post by Grady ...
Open access notables Bad news delivered by an all-star cast of familiar researchers: Another Year of Record Heat for the Oceans. From the abstract: In 2022, the world’s oceans, as given by OHC, were again the hottest in the historical record and exceeded the previous 2021 record maximum. According to IAP/CAS data, ...
The resignation of Jacinda Ardern has already made more global headlines than you might expect for that of the PM of a small commonwealth nation like say Sierra Leone (population 6.5 million) or Singapore (population 5.5 million). But international observers might not be too surprised by Ardern’s announcement that ...
One of my earliest political memories is the resignation of Prime Minister David Lange in August 1989. I remember this because of a brown felt-tipped pen drawing I did of the Beehive, the building that houses the Executive of the New Zealand Government. More than thirty years later, we ...
Buzz from the Beehive Hard on the heels of our Buzz from the Beehive earlier today, the PM has made two announcements – the 2023 general election will be held on Saturday 14 October and she will not be campaigning to win a third term as Prime Minister. She will ...
Jacinda Ardern had an outsized impact on New Zealand’s international relations. While all Prime Ministers travel internationally, Ardern’s calendar was fuller than most. Ardern’s first major foreign trip came within weeks of her election in 2017, to the APEC summit in Vietnam. The meeting gave Ardern her first in-person encounter ...
She gave it her all. No New Zealand Prime Minister has ever dominated the political scene at home as she has done, or has established an international profile to match hers. No New Zealand Prime Minister has had to confront such a sequence of domestic and international catastrophes – from ...
Jacinda Ardern's shock resignation announcement today has left a lot of us with a lot of complicated feelings. In my case, while I've been highly critical of Ardern's government, I'm still sorry to see her go. We've had far too many terrible things happen during her term as Prime Minister ...
The decision by Jacinda Ardern to end her term as Prime Minister on February 7 has come as a stunning surprise. It turns the task of a centre-left government winning re-election this year from difficult to nigh on impossible. No-one else among the Labour caucus has Ardern’s ability to explain ...
Jacinda Ardern’s first press conference as Labour leader in August 2017 was a defining moment in the past decade of New Zealand politics. A young woman (by the standards of politics) who had long been tipped for higher office, she had underperformed as a minister and Andrew Little’s noble resignation ...
The tools exist to help families with surging costs – and as costs continue to rise it is more urgent than ever that we use them, the Green Party says. ...
Members of Parliament for the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand have today written to Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Khamenei to condemn the ongoing violence and killing of women’s rights and democracy protesters, and to call on him to intervene immediately. ...
As the Mayor of Auckland has announced a state of emergency, the Government, through NEMA, is able to step up support for those affected by flooding in Auckland. “I’d urge people to follow the advice of authorities and check Auckland Emergency Management for the latest information. As always, the Government ...
Ka papā te whatitiri, Hikohiko ana te uira, wāhi rua mai ana rā runga mai o Huruiki maunga Kua hinga te māreikura o te Nota, a Titewhai Harawira Nā reira, e te kahurangi, takoto, e moe Ka mōwai koa a Whakapara, kua uhia te Tai Tokerau e te kapua pōuri ...
Carmel Sepuloni, Minister for Social Development and Employment, has activated Enhanced Taskforce Green (ETFG) in response to flooding and damaged caused by Cyclone Hale in the Tairāwhiti region. Up to $500,000 will be made available to employ job seekers to support the clean-up. We are still investigating whether other parts ...
The 2023 General Election will be held on Saturday 14 October 2023, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced today. “Announcing the election date early in the year provides New Zealanders with certainty and has become the practice of this Government and the previous one, and I believe is best practice,” Jacinda ...
Jacinda Ardern has announced she will step down as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Her resignation will take effect on the appointment of a new Prime Minister. A caucus vote to elect a new Party Leader will occur in 3 days’ time on Sunday the 22nd of ...
The Government is maintaining its strong trade focus in 2023 with Trade and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor visiting Europe this week to discuss the role of agricultural trade in climate change and food security, WTO reform and New Zealand agricultural innovation. Damien O’Connor will travel tomorrow to Switzerland to attend the ...
The Government has extended its medium-scale classification of Cyclone Hale to the Wairarapa after assessing storm damage to the eastern coastline of the region. “We’re making up to $80,000 available to the East Coast Rural Support Trust to help farmers and growers recover from the significant damage in the region,” ...
The Government is making an initial contribution of $150,000 to the Mayoral Relief Fund to help communities in Tairāwhiti following ex-Tropical Cyclone Hale, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced. “While Cyclone Hale has caused widespread heavy rain, flooding and high winds across many parts of the North Island, Tairāwhiti ...
Rural Communities Minister Damien O’Connor has classified this week’s Cyclone Hale that caused significant flood damage across the Tairāwhiti/Gisborne District as a medium-scale adverse event, unlocking Government support for farmers and growers. “We’re making up to $100,000 available to help coordinate efforts as farmers and growers recover from the heavy ...
A vaccine for people at risk of mpox (Monkeypox) will be available if prescribed by a medical practitioner to people who meet eligibility criteria from Monday 16 January, says Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall. 5,000 vials of the vaccine have been obtained, enough for up to 20,000 ...
RNZ News Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has acknowledged the way Aucklanders have come together and opened their homes to those in need, with the New Zealand government focused on providing the resources needed to get the city back up and running. The new prime minister — just four days into ...
RNZ News Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty has asked for communication on support after the severe thunderstorm in Auckland to be stepped up. It comes after a Civil Defence warning text failed to be sent out, and Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown told RNZ they will be reviewing the response, ...
RNZ News Three people are dead and at least one person is missing following the flooding overnight in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. About 1000 people were still stranded today after Auckland Airport was closed last night because of flooding of the arrival and departure foyers. Flights were cancelled for ...
Wayne Brown has doubled down on his decision last night to shun the media until close to midnight and only order a state of emergency at 9.30pm. In a defensive display to the media this afternoon, the Auckland mayor was questioned on comments other councillors made last night, including some ...
Prime minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed there are three deaths linked to the extreme weather event in Auckland over the past 24 hours. There is also at least one person missing. Speaking at a press conference in Auckland, Hipkins said the priority was to make sure Aucklanders were safe, housed ...
*This story was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission*Until New Zealand's stormwater drain system adapts to our rising climate, it will never be able to cope with the level of flooding seen in Auckland on Friday night, writes James Renwick The extraordinary flood event Auckland experienced ...
Chris Hipkins has experienced his first major event as prime minister, just days into his tenure. He’s spent the day in Auckland alongside emergency services, surveying the damage and assessing next steps. He’s due to speak at 3.15pm alongside Auckland mayor Wayne Brown. Thanks to Stuff, here is a livestream. ...
Due to the “unprecedented weather event” in Auckland, organisers have confirmed the “heartbreaking decision” to cancel this year’s Laneway Festival. “We were so excited to deliver this show to our biggest crowd ever in New Zealand, our team has been working around the clock to do everything they can to ...
With the rain easing for a moment, many will be beginning the arduous task of cleaning out their flooded property. Auckland council has release advice for cleaning up after a flood. Cleaning up after a flood It is important to clean and dry your house and everything in it. Floodwater ...
Air New Zealand Chief Operational Integrity and Safety Officer Captain David Morgan says the airline’s domestic flights in and out of Auckland resumed from 12pm today as Auckland Airport re-opens. But he said with a backlog of flights and customers, the priority is those who need to travel urgently. “Those ...
Festival-goers holding on hope for Laneway, set to take place at Western Springs on Monday, will have to wait a bit longer for an official update. A brief post on Facebook this afternoon stated: “Safety is Laneway Festival’s number one priority. With the large weather event Auckland is currently experiencing, ...
Wayne Brown has defended the timing of a declaration of a state of emergency last night following record rainfall in Auckland. “The state of emergency is a prescribed process, it’s quite formal, and I had to wait until I had the official request from the emergency management centre. The moment ...
After the 11th hour cancellation last night, Elton John has cancelled the second concert of his farewell tour at Mt Smart, which had been scheduled for this evening. In a statement, John said: “Following the instruction of the emergency services, we have no option but to cancel tonight’s show in ...
The member of parliament for Mt Albert, Jacinda Ardern, has posted a message on Facebook following the flooding in Auckland. “I’m very conscious that it’s been a while since I posted, and there have been a few big things happening. But today the most important thing is everyone’s wellbeing and ...
Flooding of the runway, the check-in and arrivals areas on the ground floor and surrounding roads has disrupted operations at Auckland International, halting all departures until at least 5pm today, with no arrivals before 4:30am tomorrow. “People are asked not to come to the International Terminal at this time for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By James Renwick, Professor, Physical Geography (climate science), Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Victoria Park near the Auckland CBD on January 27.Getty Images The extraordinary flood event Auckland experienced on the night of January 27, the eve of the ...
New Zealand’s largest insurance group, IAG, says it is on track to receive more than 1,100 claims from Aucklanders by lunchtime after the city was deluged in the wettest day on record. Those claims, said the group which includes AMI, State and NZI Insurance, span property damage to homes and ...
The rampant flooding in Auckland didn’t just detonate its provincial public holiday weekend – it coincided with the biggest weekend of the year to date for live events. A pair of Elton John concerts at Mt Smart stadium had a combined capacity of over 80,000, while both Laneway at Western ...
Auckland is beginning a clean-up after its wettest day since records began. “Auckland was clobbered on Friday,” said emergency management duty controller Andrew Clark. “We won’t start to get a good idea of numbers affected until later today and, even then, this will take time, with information still coming in ...
The prime minister, Chris Hipkins, is travelling to Auckland after devastating floods hit the city overnight. With the airport out of operation until at least midday, he is landing at Whenuapai air base on a New Zealand Defence Force Hercules aircraft from Wellington. ...
Prime Minister Chris Hipkins has arrived in Auckland for a daylong visit to the city following its catastrophic flood on Friday night. Flying in an Air Force Hercules to Whenuapai, Hipkins will spend roughly three hours on the ground assessing flood damage in the city before returning. He will receive ...
A quirk of timing left all Auckland’s institutions on the back foot. But social media, particularly TikTok, graphically showed just how bad the situation was. Late afternoon on a Friday is known as time to quietly drop bad news. You have the plausible deniability of it happening during work hours, ...
It’s a common sight during summer. It’s also a recipe for disaster.I recently drove with my family from New Plymouth to Tāmaki Makaurau and, just like how I lost count of how many cows I saw on the way, I lost count of how many cars had a passenger ...
Opinion - Election year has begun with a bang, and already the punditry and speculation are ramping up, but Grant Duncan warns not to treat polls as gospel. ...
New Zealand’s new prime minister, Chris Hipkins, is formally facing down an emergency just a few days after being sworn in, summoning the National Crisis Management Centre to the Beehive. The Beehive Bunker is being stood up to help with coordination of the emergency response in Auckland. I’ve asked ...
Analysis - Jacinda Ardern is one of New Zealand's most historically significant leaders. But she did not achieve the grand vision for Aotearoa her outsized rhetoric promised. ...
Brits abroad can be an asset to Aotearoa - but only if we make an effort to engage with te ao Māori, writes Scottish expat Fran Barclay Earlier this week, the UK High Commissioner signalled a promising intention to address the barriers facing young Māori and Pasifika who aspire to ...
"They want the Māoris out": provincial life in NZShe hadn’t learned to shut her mouth. Howard was tired of Councillor Kemp harping on and on and on. He pushed himself deeper into the boardroom chair and leaned back as far as he could force it. This woman had ranted ...
Positive affirmation quotes often aren’t helpful for tāngata whai ora. But taking the piss out of them can be. Early in January, on the first day of what would be a week of staying in bed with the curtains pulled, I put a disappointingaffirmations Instagram post up on my stories. ...
Ellen Rykers visits Mahakirau Forest Estate, ‘a crown jewel in the Coromandel Range’, where pest control is serious business.This is an excerpt from our weekly environment newsletter Future Proof – sign up here. The Mahakirau Forest Estate is not your average subdivision. Enter through its tall ...
As Auckland tackles severe floods and the city’s airport emerges from a deluge on both the runway and in terminals, Air New Zealand has confirmed that no flights will leave or arrive before noon on Saturday at the earliest. In a statement, the airline said anyone booked for a flight ...
RNZ News Mayor Wayne Brown has shut down criticism that he was too slow in declaring a state of emergency after severe flooding in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city. In a media stand-up late on Friday evening, Brown said he was following advice from experts and as soon as they ...
The Prime Minister has gone down to the Beehive bunker to help coordinate the emergency response, as the Insurance Council warns some Aucklanders whose homes and business are flooded face very hard times ahead. Jonathan Milne reports.Comment: Standing by the south-western motorway, I watched in dismay as hundreds of cars ...
A state of emergency has been declared in Auckland as severe weather causes major flooding across much of the city. It’s expected the rain will continue into the morning. This post will be updated as more information is shared.What does a state of emergency mean? A state of emergency ...
Auckland’s mayor Wayne Brown said he declared an emergency in Auckland as soon as he possibly could – and he made the decision without listening to the “clamour” of the public. There has been some criticism of the mayor for his relative silence today throughout the deadly flooding that’s hit ...
Welcome to a special late night edition of The Spinoff’s live updates as Auckland enters a state of emergency. Stewart Sowman-Lund is on deck, with help from our news team.The top linesAuckland is in a state of emergency. It will remain in place for seven ...
Prime minister Chris Hipkins is pleased the call was made to declare a state of emergency in Auckland. All government agencies were working “flat out” to help in what was an “extraordinary set of circumstances”, Hipkins said in a tweet. “The emergency response is underway and the government is ready ...
Auckland’s mayor Wayne Brown has released a statement following the decision to declare a state of emergency in Auckland. Brown has faced criticism this evening for his relative silence throughout today’s major flooding, with the first public pronouncement of the state of emergency coming from his deputy. Brown said the ...
Christopher Luxon has criticised the time it took for the state of emergency in Auckland to be declared. The National Party leader is currently in Southland, but told Today FM he intends to get back to Auckland as soon as possible. Earlier in the night, Luxon sent a tweet “urging” ...
Here is, verbatim, that latest information we have from Civil Defence on tonight’s state of emergency in Auckland: Auckland Emergency Management has opened a Civil Defence Centre to assist those that have been displaced or need assistance following today’s severe weather. The centre is open now and is based at ...
Severe flooding has ravaged Auckland today but the mayor of the city is barely visible. As I write, the airport has flooded, check-in areas looking like a public pool. Motorways are overflowing and cars have been seen floating down streets like a river. A person has died in floodwaters in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Treasurer Jim Chalmers has laid out an economic blueprint for pursuing “values-based capitalism”, involving public-private co-investment and collaboration and the renovation of key economic institutions and markets. In a 6000-word essay in The Monthly ...
This is live coverage of the developing situation in Auckland. We will continue to update this with photos and information as it comes to hand. After a day of torrential rain, and new reports of at least one death in the flood water, a state of emergency has been declared ...
Fans are describing Auckland Transport's plans to help them get to and from Elton John's concerts in the supercity this weekend as a fiasco with tonight's concert now cancelled due to the weather. Two concerts were due at Mt Smart Stadium before tonight's concert was called off in the face ...
A state of emergency has been declared in Auckland due to severe flooding that has caused people to evacuate their homes. It was officially declared at 9.54pm. Meanwhile, Auckland Airport has closed its international terminal check-in due to flooding inside the building. The airport says it is sincerely sorry to ...
RNZ News Residents in flood-prone areas of West Auckland are being asked to prepare to evacuate as bad weather causes power cuts and car crashes across Tāmaki Makaurau, with a severe thunderstorm watch in place for the north of Aotearoa New Zealand. Auckland Emergency Management said the severe weather across ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Ward, Postdoctoral research fellow, The University of Queensland Five years ago, bulldozers with chains cleared forests and woodlands almost triple the size of the Australian Capital Territory in a single year. Brazil? Indonesia? No – much closer: Queensland. In 2018-19, ...
Auckland Transport has apologised for confusing messaging that suggested attendees of tonight’s Elton John concert should drive. In a post on Facebook last night, AT said “driving to the concert is recommended” – a suggestion that prompted backlash due to the lack of parking options near the stadium. The announcement ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Steven Tingay, John Curtin Distinguished Professor (Radio Astronomy), Curtin University Asteroid 20223 BU’s path in red, with green showing the orbit of geosynchronous satellites.NASA/JPL-Caltech There are hundreds of millions of asteroids in our Solar System, which means new asteroids are discovered ...
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry revealed he attended the future King and Queen of England’s wedding with a frostbitten penis. A veteran of Antarctic expeditions says it’s not an issue that crops up often, if at all.Now that the avalanche of coverage about the Duke of Sussex’s memoir ...
A new poem by Wellington poet and publisher Ash Davida Jane. objects in the mirror are closer than they appear if a dog digs in the right spot and unearths a rib what do I care if a woman grows from that bone take her in and tend to her ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove Press, $25) Everyone’s chowing down on fiction ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Susan Hazel, Associate Professor, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of Adelaide schankz/Shutterstock Have you ever worried if the play between your cats was getting too rough? A new study published in Scientific Reports has investigated play and fighting ...
More water than anything else, the cucumber is the perfect counter to intense and fiery flavours. Cucumber is without a doubt the most refreshing vegetable*, the antidote to hot summer days. At 95% water, a cucumber is basically an edible, crunchy, waste-free water bottle. Beside water, the cucumber has almost ...
REVIEW:By Rowan Callick Radio Australia was conceived at the beginning of the Second World War out of Canberra’s desire to counter Japanese propaganda in the Pacific. More than 70 years later its rebirth is being driven by a similarly urgent need to counter propaganda, this time from China. Set ...
The yellow brick road to Mt Smart stadium looks to be packed this weekend as thousands travel to dual Elton John concerts In the words of pop royal Elton John, “I think it’s going to be a long, long time” - in this case for the 40,000 odd concert-goers driving ...
The decision by Sport Northland to deny 'Stop Co-Governance', a community group, use of their Whangarei venue to hold a public meeting is illegal and defies the rights given to all Kiwis to voice their political opinions. This case, yet again, illustrates ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rolf Gerritsen, Professorial Research Fellow, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University The supposed dimensions of the “crisis” in Alice Springs have been exhaustively portrayed in the media, both nationally and in the Northern Territory. The stories abound: shopfront windows repeatedly broken, groups of ...
Children’s Commissioner, Judge Frances Eivers: "Myself and previous Commissioners have been clear that the use of motels at all is deplorable, and a symptom of a system that is failing children. "Concerns around the practice have been raised repeatedly ...
Everything you need to know to get through the chaotic commute to to the Elton John concert in Tāmaki Mākaurau this weekend. Fans heading to Elton John’s concerts at Mt Smart Stadium this weekend have been advised to drive or walk thereby Auckland Transport (AT). In a Facebook post ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tamara Borovica, Research assistant and early career researcher, Critical Mental Health research group, RMIT University Shutterstock If your new year’s resolutions include getting healthier, exercising more and lifting your mood, dance might be for you. By dance, we don’t ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Julie Andrews, Professor and Academic Director (Indigenous Research), La Trobe University ShutterstockAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains names and images of deceased people. Many people do not know about the early activism undertaken ...
Finance minister Grant Robertson has opted to go list-only for the upcoming election, meaning he will not seek to be re-elected as MP for Wellington Central. It opens up the door for a swift exit from politics should Labour lose the election; without an electorate, no byelection would be triggered ...
Tory Whanau told The Spinoff’s When The Facts Change podcast that National’s transport spokesperson would push Wellington ‘backwards’ if he becomes transport minister.Wellington’s left-leaning mayor is worried her plans for the city could be scuppered by a new National-led government – and specifically by the party’s most likely candidate ...
Thousands of people are expected to flock to Auckland’s Western Springs on Monday for the triumphant return of the Laneway Festival. But with severe weather warnings in place, is it going to be reduced to a Splendour in the Grass-style “hellscape”? According to the organisers, no. In an email sent ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robert G. Patman, Professor of International Relations, University of Otago A German Leopard 2 heavy battle tank of the type destined for Ukraine.Getty Images The recent decision by Olaf Scholz’s German government to supply Ukraine with Leopard 2 tanks – after ...
The Hauraki Gulf Alliance, a group of diverse organisations representing more than 1 million people, has rubbished proposals to continue trawling and dredging in New Zealand’s first marine park, the Hauraki Gulf Marine Park. The Hauraki Gulf Fisheries ...
Te Kāhui Tika Tangata Human Rights Commission has shared experiences of children and young people in emergency housing ahead of New Zealand’s review under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in Geneva this week. “The government ...
It’s felt like a long time between drinks, but everyone’s favourite/least favourite family are almost back on our screens. HBO today released a trailer for the upcoming fourth season of Succession and announced a March release date. Check out the trailer – which doesn’t give away too much, but successfully ...
Media reports of mental health consequences of lockdown are emerging. Could become a trend so I'll post a proactive response. "It’s easy to roll your eyes when you hear Sarah Tuck start to describe CoLiberate, the “mental health gym” she started with friend and co-director Bop Murdoch. But as she explains the way it works, those doubts quickly fade."https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/30-04-2020/mental-health-first-aid-could-be-just-what-our-country-needs/
Shift from focus on problem to focus on solution is the best way to handle the task of extricating oneself from a hole one has fallen into. Here's a good description of resilience theory: https://positivepsychology.com/resilience-theory/
"Resilience is something we can all develop, whether we want to grow as individuals, as a family, or as a society more broadly." Incorporating this thought is part of an essential response to covid-19. Then the challenge is moving from theory into practice! "Resilience Theory argues that it’s not the nature of adversity that is most important, but how we deal with it."
"Resilience has been defined in numerous ways, including the following:
When a panel discussion was called asking researchers to debate the nature of resilience, all agreed that resilience is complex – as a construct, it can have a different meaning between people, companies, cultures, and society."
And that, in our globalisation context, is the crux of the issue. Humanity must incorporate resilience thinking and planning – to shift away from addiction to neoliberalism. Collective survival requires us to do this shift. And it must be done at all the relevant levels: individual, family, community, tribe or nation. Permaculture teaches this thinking via practical techniques and methods in local contexts – but the bioregional context is more vital to collective survival. That part of the shift is currently not being attempted even, in most places.
Good points and something I've seen millennials rejecting outright as they expect 'business as usual' a return to their consumerisitic ways and to carry on.
They seem tied to the system and it's influencers, can't wait for us to push off as they've got echo Chambers telling them it's just a blip normality will return.
I have heard that a good site to go to if you are feeling depressed is clearhead.org.nz
I am only going buy what I have been told , they said it's good for students and farmers wife because they can put info about there other half.
I took a look. Does indeed seem well-designed, user-friendly, incorporating diagnostic process for those who can't afford professional fees. 👍
It looks like the Greens were right.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/30/covid-19-crisis-demand-fossil-fuels-iea-renewable-electricity?utm_term=RWRpdG9yaWFsX1VTTW9ybmluZ0JyaWVmaW5nLTIwMDQzMA%3D%3D&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=USMorningBriefing&CMP=usbriefing_email
Sorry, I can post, but not reply. Some weird iPad thing.
This is good however it's our production of steel, concrete, fertilizer and industry which give us the big headache.
Personal and residential use could become quite small but it's not the elephant in the room. Industry is.
Same problem here @ Stephen D (2). Sometimes I can't reply because the option isn't available. I'm using a Chromebook.
I have the same problem with my iPad. Mods can’t seem to fix it?
This is neither within the Moderators’ capability nor within their admin rights. The SYSOP is aware of these and other technical issues, but he also has a daytime job – most of his efforts here go unnoticed. Mostly, the site is functioning well.
This is clever
They are training sniffer dogs to detect covid infections.
Cant find the reference again.
A week or two ago there was a big fluffy of articles easily found by googling covid sniffer dogs. But I've yet to see any claimed successes.
Fair enough
I had seen it in stuff or herald. Didn’t think to google andre.
Gone batshit: "The Wuhan Institute of Virology has dissected bats that carry RaTG13, the closest pathogen to SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19. The reports suggest that Five Eyes inquiries have centered on Wuhan scientists Peng Zhou and Shi Zhengli. Shi led a team from Wuhan and the US that took samples of droppings from horseshoe bats at a cave in Yunnan province in 2004 and was the first to find a definite connection between the animals and RaTG13. Her database found a 96% virus match between the droppings and Covid-19."
"Three other species of bats were also studied by the laboratory in a five-year period, according to papers published in 2005 and 2017. Shi disputed the belief that a host is needed for the virus to leap from bats to humans." https://asiatimes.com/2020/04/china-drops-a-covid-19-gauntlet-on-australia/
So the Oz/China batshit thingy is now having foreign policy consequences. "Peng and Shi also separately took part in research in the past decade at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory near Melbourne, which looked at links between coronaviruses and bats caught at a colony in Queensland. These bats were studied because they harbor hendra and nipah viruses, which have infected large fruit bats and can be transmitted to humans."
"Beijing initially said Covid-19, which was first detected in early January, originated in a wet market selling live animals near the Wuhan laboratory, but now maintains that there is no evidence that it came from China at all." Waving the red herring at the world did work initially, to distract attention from the research facility, but now the regime has switched to denial. Works for climate, so why not for covid, they think…
If I was to cause so much as an 'unintentional movement' on a piece of plant machinery, much less hurt someone, or (my always worst fear) kill just one person in the course of my work, there would have been a formal investigation. On any of the big sites here in Australia if it turned out that I had broken the rules, I would be given what is popularly known as the choice of "aisle or window seat".
Here we have a catastrophe many orders of magnitude worse and the CCP insists that there shall be no investigation and "maintains that there is no evidence that it came from China at all". From any perspective this is self-serving bullshit.
Indeed the Chinese authorities early in January commanded all their biotech researchers to immediately stop work, destroy any samples and submit any papers to the govt before publishing. Any technical information you are seeing coming out of China on this virus is now strictly controlled.
But however you cut it, the real world facts are undeniable. The Wuhan Institute had been working with this class of virus for years, had published papers and presented on it. The research was so risky, their standards of operation so sloppy, that it was protested by other nations (the US in particular).
Without invoking any genetic tech argument, that frankly few people are qualified to evaluate, the coincidence of this flawed and dangerous research being undertaken in the same damned city which experienced the first major outbreak is beyond question. Only made worse by the subsequent self-serving denials, cover-ups and obfuscations from the CCP .
Parallels can be drawn with the Pike River debacle, the problem was not that an investigation would find someone liable, but that too many people would be found guilty. People way too far up the food chain.
Parallels can also be drawn with the Iraq debacle
Was there ever any investigation into state culpability for that murderous spree.
The death toll is still rising all these years later.
You're pushing shit uphill anyway, there's such a thing as sovereign immunity
Instead put your shoulder to the wheel , and demand better food production policies
Sue Macdonalds!Coca Cola!KFC!
Our battery farms, pig farms, salmon farms, and intensive dairy aren't doing humanity or the world any favours either
It disgusts me that most beef produced in the world gets minced up for fucking hamburgers
Get that supply line cranking, the people must eat , even if its total shite and contributes to the very same underlying conditions that make coronavirus a sure fire killer …diabetes and obesity.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1616_fastfood/page3.shtml
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/22/21228158/coronavirus-pandemic-risk-factory-farming-meat
What about prosecuting the French for the 1066 invasion? History being an endless reservoir of whataboutism that we can tap into all day. But not very useful imo.
Your point about sovereign immunity is however a good one. If the CCP are going to hold themselves innocent of this crisis, make childishly transparent denials you wouldn't tolerate from a 4yr old, then you must accept that other nations also have the right to act in their own sovereign interests as well.
Over the past two days we've seen the Chinese Ambassador in Canberra threaten the Australian govt with trade reprisals for daring to suggest an independent investigation. Well if the consequence of open borders and trade with China is going to be catastrophic events as we have seen these past few months, then maybe the correct sovereign response is 'aisle seat or window'?
The French would go "Huh? Weren't us. Were the Normans. Buggers invaded us too!" Still, prosecuting Russel Norman for the war crimes of his ancestors could be fun.
Winston supported the prosecution of China, didn't he? Think I saw that somewhere. So the leaders of USA & Australia are getting support from conservatives elsewhere. Boris has yet to accede to the calls from his rump, but doubt he can hold out long. Will liberals jump on the bandwagon?
Ought I to be the first cab off the rank and suggest it was a dastardly communist plot to wreck the capitalist economy that succeeded? People would probably respond that it was always obvious to everyone so I was just articulating common knowledge. Folks are real good at hindsight! 🙄
"Trump was produced in a Chinese lab, to fuck the USA".
True story.
That’s fake news, it was a Russian lab in Novichok.
Why Oz and us should keep our trade lower with China unless we want to follow their undemocratic standards.
And then when it got loose the yankers turned the other way and whistled? Dodgy.
All that is pure supposition with a fair lashing of scapegoating
My reading is that the science is pointing to a natural evolution
Blaming China is a very simplistic solution
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-new-coronavirus-could-have-been-percolating-innocently-in-humans-for-years
But it is a very convenient distraction from covfefailures. So CoronaCamacho will do all he can to put that story out through Faux News and White House Lying Hour (previously known as press briefings).
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2020/05/hey-wait-a-minute-i-think-ive-seen-this-movie-before/
Good distraction from the USA's abject failure to contain it.
What are they going to do, if the next virus starts in a US, abattoir?
How the Chinese Authorities and the World Health Organization Handled the Coronavirus
A very interesting article which considers the role of the the western bloc in weakening the regulatory role of the WHO
I think most people are looking towards the CCP on account of the wisps of smoke that continue to escape from the barrel of the gun they are holding.
Whereas we can not only see smoke from the gun being held by the USA and others but also the blood pouring from the holes in their feet.
During lockdown my girls have been allowed to take over the kitchen and cook to their hearts content.
Sneaked out and brought them Macca's as a surprise yesterday. Thankfully there was no queue.
They had a couple of bites of a burger and the rest ended up in the bin. Telling me it tasted yuck and they prefer healthy food now. Then they made a delicious salad instead.
Am so happy about this. Life is good.
I found this after eating healthy for a few years. On occasions I went out and bought some fast food, which looked good in the promo photos. And my stomach protested. It now feels indigestible.
That is really cool – another silver lining
Get 'em some of the junkiest sugared oversalted grease-dripping pizza you can find. They'll relapse.
Or not.
+1 Cinny Well done girls
KFC the last time I ate it was vile. Salt and fat.
When even the the guard dog of the liberal establishment has to start running this story you know you got problems…still as all centrists are so used to selling out their morals and values I am sure they will find a way around even voting for an (alleged) rapist…
Pressure mounts on Joe Biden to address sexual assault claim
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/29/joe-biden-sexual-assault-claim-democrats
This distressing saga has also exposed the #metoo movement to be a hollow vessel and of course the outrageous double standards of all liberal media didn't need any more exposing (well unless you are a complete idiot that is).
This is plain scary in terms of tribal bullshit determining what can and cannot be explored, questioned or reported.
Jesus, it takes down all of metoo not just the dem voters who thought Biden was the best chance to ditch trump? What a joke.
Yes, it's a quandary. For anyone who doesn't look at dolt45 for a millisecond.
Just curious, have you tried to gain a broader picture of the whole situation beyond just what's been spoon-fed by hard-core Berners?
Y'know, like maybe trying to get a feel for Reade's credibility by doing something like googling tara reade backstory?
Yesterday you posted an item saying that the makers of Planet of the Humans were suspect because they were white men; today you insinuate that Tara Reade lacks credibility because of her "backstory".
And how do those sinister "hard-core Berners" fit into the picture?
"hard-core Berners" the new term for the right to attack the left.
@ Andre + McFlock
Of course no surprises that you and McFlock are completely fine in displaying your hypocrisy for all the world to see.
Any semblance of a guiding internal moral and ethical balance you guys might have once held, has long been burnt on the bonfire of your hollow, deranged and extremely selfish liberal centrist ideology.
I take it that's a no, you haven't made any attempt to gain a wider picture of the situation surrounding the allegations nor attempted to independently assess Reade's credibility?
Does Bidens handling of the Anita Hill/ Clarence Thomas count as part of your 'wider picture'? Or this, from back when the liberals weren't in love with Biden…
https://forward.com/schmooze/421971/joe-biden-handsy-jon-stewart-2015-audacity-of-grope/
Indeed it does factor in to what aspects of the allegations I think likely happened and what aspects likely didn't. Furthermore, Biden's treatment of Anita Hill and his other creepy-handsy behaviour towards women were just two of the many reasons I would have much preferred someone else as the nominee, and in fact voted for Warren.
Nevertheless, a strong majority of Dem primary voters so far haven't shared my negative opinion of Biden but have chosen him to be the nominee.
So when it comes to she said/he said allegations sufficiently serious to be disqualifying from long ago with no physical evidence, assessment of credibility is about all there is for fair investigation to go on. Frankly, while Biden's creepy disrespect for women's personal space that doesn't reach the threshold of sexual touching makes it very likely something happened, Reade's credibility falls short when it comes to the allegations that go further than that.
Looking further out to November, it then becomes a choice between a self admitted, boasting actually, genital-grabbing golem with dozens of credible accusations, versus the slightly creepy guy with one dubious serious acccusation that has acknowledged the discomfort his behaviour causes and vowed to respect other people's space. Seriously, is that even a question?
I would have much preferred someone else as the nominee, and in fact voted for Warren.
Well, THERE's a sure-fire winner. Honest and ethical too.
Didn't even get so far as to question Reade's allegation.
If Biden were going up against a moderate Republican with competent governorship experience, some cross-partisan history, and nothing in the way of allegations then I could see there being some question about whom to vote for or wheter to vote at all.
But that's not who the voters chose. Not the DNC, dem voters in the primaries. Didn't even get to superdelegates.
So we've got one with boundary and consent issues vs one guy with dozens of rape and sexual assault allegations from across much of his life. Oh, and the serial rapist is astronomically incompetent.
I don't get how it's even a question.
Well, at this stage there is still time for the Dems to change course on Biden, if there really is something that disqualifies him.
But what would happen in that case if the primaries were opened back up again for Sanders to unsuspend his campaign, probably others would unsuspend as well. Which means Sanders wouldn't have a majority going into the convention, so it would be a brokered convention. I just can't see Sanders getting the nod in that scenario, especially after superdelegates come into play.
Given that most of the people pushing the story are hard-core Sanders supporters that frankly stretch the limits of rationality at the best of times, along with convergence wingnuts, I can't help wondering if they're operating under a fantasy that if they can somehow knock Biden out, then Sanders automatically becomes the nominee. Sanders himself really doesn't seem to be a part of it, but he sure seems to attract some shitbags mixed in amongst his bulk of ordinary reasonable supporters.
… hard-core Sanders supporters that frankly stretch the limits of rationality at the best of times,
How do they "stretch the limits of rationality"? Was it Sanders supporters that pushed the Russiagate conspiracy theory for the last three and a half years?
… along with convergence wingnuts,
What's a "convergence wingnut"?
So Biden's problem is "boundary and consent issues", is it? What he did to Tara Reade, as well as his brutal dismissal of her after she reacted to his assault, goes far beyond mere "handsiness" or even simple uncouthness.
https://theintercept.com/2020/04/24/new-evidence-tara-reade-joe-biden/
From what I recall of the allegation (rather than focussing on your love of the term "digitally penetrated"), Biden even said at the time "I thought you were into me", and acted like a dick when she wasn't.
So, yeah, an arsehole. He assumed consent, because he thinks he's all that. Was a fucking jerk when it was clear that consent was refused.
But he also stopped when it was clear that consent was refused.
So yeah, not reading consent properly was an issue, rather than being aware consent was refused and not caring.
Made a dick of himself infront of a woman, thought he got a 'Hi baby' signal but it was a 'Hi client' signal….You better take me outside and shoot me now.
Ha, I can feel it like it was yesterday "Why are you holding my hand?'
He shouldn't have gone as far as he did without clear signals to proceed. That's definitely the area of sexual assault via carelessness/recklessness, and should rule him out of contention. But it didn't, so now it's him or dolt45.
… one dubious serious acccusation
"Dubious"? How so? Her neighbour and her mother have corroborated what she says. And exactly how is the tape of her mother talking to Larry King shortly after the assault "dubious"?
… that has acknowledged the discomfort his behaviour causes…
???? He treated Tara Reade with utter contempt when she reacted negatively to his digital penetration of her.
Admitting reality contains ethical conflicts and quandaries is not hypocrisy.
Claiming to not support dolt45 while spending 90% of your effort on the topic to hobble his opponent, on the other hand, is some next-level bullshit.
Have you ever answered the question about what you expect a normal democrat to do come November? The only options I see are to vote for Biden, vote for dolt45, or not vote. Only one of those choices would be an attempt to change the guy in charge. The rest is preferring to leave the current guy in charge.
Opposing one corrupt and discredited politician does not imply that one supports his opponent.
Surely, instead of firing out wild accusations at Adrian—90 percent of his effort, indeed!—your own energies should be going into establishing exactly how someone as sleazy and corrupt and notoriously racist as Biden got to be the nominee.
It does when there is only one other candidate. It's called "running interference", in sporting parlance, and is as old as the hills.
We know how. People voted for him. Examining that more closely does nothing in November, because it’s one nominee or the other.
It's called "running interference", in sporting parlance, and is as old as the hills.
It's not as old as the hills. Running interference occurs only in American football—that joyless "game" where hardly anyone ever kicks the ball, and most of the players never even touch it. Running interference is ridiculous and highly dangerous, and it's only been permitted since some fools in the universities legalized it in the late 19th century.
People voted for him.
They won't in November.
The term is from american football.
Sun Tzu described the analagous technique in warfare and politics.
As for Biden not winning in November, I expressed similar sentiments when there were 20 people in the primaries. But he is the guy the voters chose, so getting rid of dolt45 means trying to stop that prediction from coming true. If dolt45 kills enough of his supporters between now and then, it might happen.
So what's more important to you and the rest of the bros: getting rid of the current "president", or being proved right about how unelectable Biden is?
When you use that dismissive "bro" term to disparage the people who support the most popular, coherent and substantive mainstream American politician for the last thirty years, are you also sneering at the women who support him?
You're coming in off a long run up tonight…
Primaries said not the most popular, but whatevs.
But nah, bro. Anyone who can't bring themselves to say that kicking dolt45 out of office is a bigger priority than being proved right about Biden's unelectability probably deserves being sneered at in a reasonably precise manner.
Good time to retire from the crease for the evening. See you tomorrow, my friend.
Good on you, McFlock! See you tomorrow.

And bowling spin, way wide outside off, going between slip and gully for extras.
So who you voting for? Oh, that's right, you can't. How many people do you rickn you'll dissuade from voting? Oh, that's right, we can't either. At this point you're just whinging pointlessly.
The only whingeing here—ceaseless, daily whingeing—is by our friends Andre and Joe 90. I merely point out their shuddering inconsistencies and their susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
Your contributions to the discourse have been dutifully noted.
Thanks Incognito. That makes two of us.
Endless the oligarchy's idea of the Left. It's a legitimate question when that has produced an authoritarian anti-democrat and war on democracy whether to carry on voting for the lesser of two evils. We are at the point of whether there'll be a US election next November.
If you keep choking off democracy you up other less wordy opposition. And it's obviously time for such a ruction to put America back on FDR's path.
"Planet of the Humans" has certainly provoked discussion. I came across the piece below which partly explores a couple of the many different camps of environmental thought. It's a longish piece that certainly has its flaws, starting with its oversimplified dichotomous starting premise, but it contains a lot of worthwhile info and points. And unless you're a verrrrrry slooooooow reader, it's a small fraction of one hour forty minutes.
For those interested in further reaction to "Planet of the Humans" from actual environmentalists and renewable energy experts, here's a selection:
Bill McKibben's response to the specific allegations made against him: https://350.org/response-planet-of-the-humans-documentary/
A piece exploring how old and inaccurate information has been presented:
A piece that looks a bit more at the politics:
Good comment Andre.
Both School A and B make logical arguments.
My view is closer to School A, and extends it to the notion of a technology based society using abundant, carbon free energy to create closed loop resource use at every level. The end goal is a highly urbanised, high efficiency societies that maximise decoupling from the nature world.
I personally find School B morally unacceptable; as you say its way to adjacent to eugenics and the anti-human mass die-off advocates for my liking. But it makes the valid argument that our current population has over-shot our current carrying capacity. It also argues that we consume way more than is necessary.
My response to School B is that you can have the reducing population you want if you extend human development universally across the whole human race, not just the 'golden 1b'.
And as populations reach equilibrium and they start to age, they also tend toward consuming less. As people reach middle age they move from wanting things to wanting experiences, essentially moving up the Maslow pyramid.
Of course getting to this vision is impossible with our current industrial technologies, I fully acknowledge this, but School B's assertions this means we have to shut them down is absolutely wrong-headed.
I tend to have the suspicion that School B types have very little understanding of how resource-intensive even a sharply pared-down lifestyle is in a western country. Nor how dependent it is on the vast web of interdependent industrial – technological infrastructure we have around us. Nor what kind of lifestyle is lived by those that only have access to the fringes of modern technological – industrial infrastructure.
Maybe you need to actually see and experience it personally to gain that understanding. And to understand how damaging it would be to what little remains of the natural world if all 8 billion of us did suddenly try the depower detech deindustrial route.
Maybe you need to actually see and experience it personally to gain that understanding.
Yup. You are right, this is very much where I'm coming from, but I get the feeling that I'm not conveying message this effectively.
I accept also that it means I'm a bit biased; yet there is enough unreconstructed hippie left in me to hold nothing against the School B types among us who personally prefer to pull back from directly living in the urbanised, industrial world. There is plenty of room for people to explore alternative ways to construct intentional communities, permacultures and similar. I really enjoy visiting these places, I like them as people.
All I ask of them in return is the intellectual honesty to acknowledge their underlying dependency on the School A industrialised world to provide the many vital services enabling their welfare, security and standards of life.
School A and School B are points on a continuum – mixtures of both exist and these mixtures are morally healthier and less likely to go bad in some way.
School A goes bad by being so in love with the economic status quo that it is determined to limit change to just swapping out the energy system to something low carbon, while leaving everything else in place. It is so compromised by this that not enough is done, and CC kills lots of people anyway. School B goes bad by genocidally eliminating 'inferior' populations. Not a nice choice – be wary of purists.
Fair point; we only reduce it to a binary choice for the sake of a tidy argument, but reality is of course much more complex.
My primary thesis is that science, tech and engineering are primary enablers of social change. For example slavery, while everyone considered it undesirable, was considered an inevitable feature of human life for millennia, until coal and steam engines came along. Then suddenly it wasn't so inevitable.
I believe this means that features of human life we now regard as undesirable (such as our primitive tendencies toward rivalry, status seeking and excess consumption as a sexual signal) may turn out to be not nearly so hardwired into us as we like to imagine. That given the right context, both in material and spiritual terms, we may well find ourselves changing a lot more than we think possible.
You remind me of Father Ted.
Bringing all this attention on something you don't approve of.
I am not down with population control, unless it is about us dialling back the population's thneeds.
It’s not often I follow links to the Daily Blog, and I gave up on Chris Trotter some time ago. However as a student of history, this makes some sense.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/05/01/the-list-candidate-winston-peters-and-the-looming-covid-19-depression/
Trotter's description of life per-neoliberalism is common knowledge to those of us who lived through the changes – don't need to be a student of history.
Peters reminds me of my Dad, a pakeha Northland boy from a rural background, who made it up to the professional classes. The same pro-Muldoonism plus social conservativism. Something similar about their senses of humour.
Very pro-capitalism, but always quite egalitarian in his men's club kind of work and social life, at a time when most women stayed at home after giving birth. Blokey, but still accepting of a very competent woman who managed to make her way into the professional work classes.
One of his better pieces….but its always difficult to instil an understanding of something not experienced so I'm not sure how successful Winston will be….though he may well select who's PM again (and spend considerable energy undermining him/her)
Kushner as Frank Nitti to tRump's Capone.
An idea with promise
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018744752/wage-subsidy-alternative-student-loan-style
On cranks, scam artists, woo-pedlars, single-issue nutters, opportunists and click-bait revenue undermining science.
A toxic legacy of poor-quality research, media hype, lax regulatory oversight, and vicious partisanship has come home to roost in the search for effective treatments for COVID-19.
On September 14, 1918, in the midst of the worst pandemic in modern history, an article in the New York Times quoted Dr. Rupert Blue, then surgeon general of the US Public Health Service. Blue reported that doctors in many countries were treating their influenza patients with digitalis and the antimalaria drug quinine. There was no evidence that the two drugs were any more effective than folk remedies being used by patients, including cinnamon, goose grease poultices, and salt stuffed up the nose, but doctors were desperate and willing to try just about anything. They would eventually abandon quinine and digitalis as treatments for flu when studies showed they were not only ineffective but caused serious and sometimes deadly side effects.
Today, just shy of two months since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the media are once again flooded with cures, patients such as Michigan State Representative Karen Whitsett are being quoted with claims that hydroxychloroquine “saved my life,” and doctors are prescribing drugs that have not been shown to be effective. Only this time, it’s the twenty-first century, the age of “evidence-based medicine.” Or so it might seem. But instead of no science to back up treatments, we now have bad studies being reported uncritically in the press, and Twitter storms of doctors, journalists, and researchers arguing about the ethics of withholding drugs from dying patients, even though we have no idea if those drugs do more harm than good.
https://issues.org/pandemic-science-out-of-control/
You missed out including the Medical Research Institute of New Zealand in your list of cranks and nutters. They are currently researching your so called woo-woo medicine.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/121061040/coronavirus-positive-patients-healthcare-workers-to-be-given-hydroxychloroquine
And now you're equating an extension to a wider international study (REMAP-CAP) which has been recruiting patients with severe community-acquired pneumonia and a second trial that will see patients in the community who have tested positive for Covid-19, but do not require hospital treatment, also given hydroxychloroquine with your preferred woo-pedaling cranks and nutters.
Your bone-headed fuckwittery is staggering.
"it’s the twenty-first century, the age of “evidence-based medicine."
Except it isn't. There has been a push the past couple of decades to put medicine on an evidence-based footing but so little of it still is. This is especially so in intensive/critical/emergency care because it is so hard to run proper trials because of ethical issues around withholding treatment. So much of intensive care is just best practice, which isn't necessarily much use when faced with novel threats.
That’s an interesting distinction between best practice and evidence-based medicine. Would you like to elaborate, in the context of medicine?
Thinking about it, I have been careless in my use of terms for brevity sake.
I was using the terms in the context as described here (https://www.medline.com/skin-health/evidence-based-vs-best-practice/):
"Evidence-based practice is research-based practice that has been shown effective through rigorous scientific evaluation. Best practice typically does not undergo the same scientific evaluation—those processes used in research to validate the assessment or effectiveness of practice."
However, as the "typically" implies, best practice could be evidence-based.
Scientists/clinicians then use evidence hierarchies to indicate how good the evidence for a particular treatment is (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy_of_evidence).
As it is often ethically difficult to conduct randomised controlled trials in critical care (because patients might die because treatment is withheld or because they are given experimental treatments), the level of evidence to support critical care practices is often low.
Also (as is practiced in medicine) statistical models like randomised controlled trials do not provide scientific evidence.
https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2016/11/09/the-limitations-of-rcts-wonkish/
What does the heavy lifting is all the stuff which occurs prior to the RCT (or double blind) studies where a treatment is developed and the causal nature of its effects it observed in experiments.
Well, medicine generally has greater "transportability" than economics (which is essentially a pseudoscience), but every properly-conducted study with peer reviewed results is scientific evidence.
Bit harsh on RCTs, I reckon. It's important to know that the experimental results actually do translate to a safe and effective treatment in the real world, not just when the research team is watching closely.
Yes, the heavy lifting is done in the lab. Before you get to the larger randomised double-blind multi-centre clinical trials (AKA Phase 3 or III), you first have to conduct Safety trials (AKA Phase 1 or I) followed by Efficacy trials (AKA Phase 2 or II). It used to be that Phase 3 trials were the required Registration trials before obtaining market approval but some treatments are now fast-tracked based on Phase 2 trial results. Typically, in Phase 3 trials the new treatment is compared against the standard-of-care. At each step along the way data are collected, which generally builds a compelling ‘package’ of efficacy in the target patient population with a tolerable (acceptable) safety profile. However, these trials also serve to mitigate risk and provide a (crude) estimate of value-for-money. This, in turn, is used by regulatory and medical authorities, governments, and insurance companies to regulate (control) its use, subsidy, and reimbursement levels. Last, but not least, the pharma companies use it to set the market price and develop their marketing strategy. It is a very competitive market with loads of greedy shareholders to keep on board.
Thank you, I appreciate your considered response.
I understand that critical care complicates things. However, there are many trials with patients that have life-threatening conditions/diseases with relatively short life expectancy (e.g. terminal cancer patients). In these situations, and as far as I know, a new experimental treatment is never compared to placebo (“treatment is withheld”) but compared to standard-of-care treatment. As you imply, ethics committees would not approve any other way for obvious reasons.
Harsh, but true.
https://twitter.com/annaliesevd/status/1255289781686276096
Or Hongi Hika, or Te Rauparaha: musket war thugs who massacred and enslaved all before them.
Inaccurate (not from another land, or perhaps not even thugs) and bi-opically tunnel-visioned (unless you also accept the massively wider field of imperlialist whities from the Crusades to Desert Storm).
That northern thug came down here from another land, whatyoutalkinbout?
Dr. van Diemen possibly has a rather large guilt complex, going by her name.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-13/bid-to-mark-tasmanian-aboriginal-massacres-like-cape-grim/10803516
You seem to have a compulsive habit of taking aim at the messenger or source rather than addressing the message. This is going to trip you up. Just saying.
Gosh, Incognito, I was only making a little joke about her surname. Literate people would have got it, surely?
You got it, too, didn’t you?
You are always ready to wield the hammer on my comments, I notice. I have not abused anyone, unlike many of the other commentators here.
No, I did not get you were joking. I am not a mind reader and you have form, as I said.
I’m also not the only Moderator who’s taking an interest in you; you are quite ‘popular’ among some here.
I don’t hammer your comments, I hint.
You’re a long-time prolific commenter here who has a bad habit, which you share with many, I have to add, to be fair, of shooting at the messenger and/or source instead of debating the contents.
If you’re trying to tell me what I should do or not do on this site, you’ll have to have extraordinarily good reasons to do so because otherwise it is as if you’re trying to deflect with whataboutery and I really cannot stand that.
I cannot take a joke, but can you take a hint?
Apparently armed MADAmorons have stormed the Michigan capitol building.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/04/30/protesters-gathering-outside-capitol-amid-covid-19-restrictions/3054911001/
Whenever something like this happens, I remember that California expanded gun control in the 1960s because Black Power started doing open-carry in their communities.
Be great if that lead can be sustained. Funnily enough Simon does not agree with the numbers. Suppose he has no choice but to disagree.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12328854
What does Judith have to say?
As with all things, such as our response to COVID-19, complacency can make way for smugness and then failure. Nobody wants to be a failed smug, right?
I wonder what his advisers are telling him about his public pronouncements considering what Trumps advisers told him about poll numbers he too did not accept, and how he reacted. I wonder if for example Ms Pugh from the West Coast is having a quiet moment of ah reflection upon her leader's fortunes.
I guess that this dog has now, after too long and often gone barking at passing cars, started in on biting his own tail.
"What’s the exact question on the referendum going to be? ‘Do you support the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill?’" https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/01-05-2020/heres-what-well-be-voting-on-in-the-cannabis-referendum/
"“It’s very good, I think it exceeds our expectations,” said the Drug Foundation’s Ross Bell. “We were already quite happy with the first draft, and the public health controls that were included. But to see the final bill, and all of those extra details that have been added – they’ve covered all the key issues, and public health remains at the heart of the bill.” He was also pleased with the provisions that would allow those currently working in the illicit market to move into the legal market."
"And Green Party drug reform spokesperson Chlöe Swarbrick said it was “an evidence-based, harm-reduction approach, to control access and produce better justice and mental health outcomes across Aotearoa. “The question facing New Zealanders is: do we want to continue to empower black market, unregulated chaos, or do we want to implement safety standards, duties of care and ease of access to help for those who need it?” she added."
On the downside, only allowing two plants to grow-your-own folk poses a small problem: some seedlings don't make it, as any gardener knows, and what if both turn out to be male??? I hope some practical amendments result from further parliamentary processing of the bill. However, if not, growers will most likely wait till their plants sex up, then cull all except the two most vigorous females.
Most folk have moved on from playing hit and miss with seed to ready to plant cuttings of their favoured variety.
Hmm, so you're guessing that the specialist cannabis shops will provide young females for growers? Would make economic sense. I wonder if this apparently-intelligent design of legislation will reverse the poll trend of the past year. Hope so. Despite not having gotten high the past 7/8 years I may encounter the necessity to do so due to adverse aging trends in the future. Be good to have the option available.
Hmm, I misread this so badly in the back-end without the context 🙁
are we allowed to have infused Gummi Bears or is that still a no-no with the Dear Drug Reform Spokes Person?
just asking for those that like infused Gummi bears and other edibles.
Problem with that notion is the risk to children. Spinoff says "any products deemed to be aimed at children would be banned." They also say a govt org will be established to administer the act, so we await further clarification. Parliament also has the opportunity to amend the act because it is merely a proposal at this stage…
I understand plant material (cured and fresh) and seeds are stage 1.
Edibles are in the next stage.
They actually mentioned there will never be gummi bears nor space fizzy.
This could be worth the watch.
Fabulous new Juice vid out today:
Very good.
Waitemata dhb deputy ceo does not fill me with confidence or admiration. Mind you, they're going through a process, so I guess everything's peachy. Doctors can be pratty bureaucrats too apparently.
Bloomfield, Robertson and Ardern were shown on TV1 tonight saying there plenty of flu vaccines
TV1 reported that the flu vaccine operators are saying that there are not enough and an email produced which warns that there may be a gap in supply next week. Pretty serious in spite of the record delivery of jabs compared with previous years.
Unless some political elements are twisting the facts. Who should I believe? TV1 or the top three spokespeople. Easy.
as someone who has had their jab cancelled late March, and place on the waiting list when new stock is available, still waiting to hear from the surgery. everyone is pointing the finger to someone else. Didn't we have this issue last year and the same with measles ?? once understandable, twice need to take some learnings a 3rd time …..
Ianmac you forgot to include heath workers in your list of who to trust , these same health workers who have been saying there is an issue since early April
https://www.nzdoctor.co.nz/article/news/covid-19-vax-shortages-and-influenza-triple-whammy-primary-care
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/05/a-complete-debacle-flu-vaccines-about-to-run-out-despite-government-s-claim-all-kiwis-can-get-them.html
"The airport could sustain itself for 12 months even with no passengers, it said."
https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2020/may/01/stock-markets-ftse-100-wall-street-amazon-apple-rbs-ryanair-coronavirus-covid-19-sterling-manufacturing-business-live
"The British and Irish aviation industry appears to be running what basketball fans might term a full court press when it comes to requesting state aid: Heathrow Airport’s boss is also asking for help."
Kia Ora Newshub.
That's great another country banning automatic guns.
I think its going to be a buyers house market.
That's awesome breeding the endangered Spiders in Aotearoa.
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Its good that the mutton bird harvest has started under level 3 isolation it looks quite sestanable to.
Correct the tangata should be lining up for flue vaxcernation before fast Kai.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Newshub.
I wonder who is making those fulse claims.
Its great to see the kindness of people.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
Farmers need to invest in water supply systems tanks and troughs.
Come on tangata just keep yourselves isolated or else we could be in isolated longer.
Mana Wahine
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora The Am Show.
Politicizeing the virus issues is not on if you have a plan and targets you don't change them because some people are sad and blue.
There you go.
Distraction
Ka kite Ano.
Kia Ora Newshub.
Isolation would be quite easy for the people on the space station.
The Rain is great the paddocks are finally starting to green up again.
Ka kite Ano
Kia Ora Te Ao Maori News.
I think that this government is providing better services for Māori than others have but we still have a fair way to travel for equality.
The more Moana reserves the better I say so Our mokopuna can see and taste the taonga of Tangaroa for many generations to come.
Ka kite Ano