Bernie is hanging in there as an arterial blockage is being dealt to, and perhaps a stint will be placed in his partial blockage as the US media says he is expected to be back in operation before to long so we hope they are correct there.
Elizabeth Warren is rising in the polls and nearing equal to Biden now we hear.
I wouldn't take to much notice of the mainly negative MSM spin on Bernie..I like this by Norman Soloman when talking about some liberal media in regards to it's coverage of Sanders.. "Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip." —George Orwell"
The media seem to have coalesced around Warren now, personally I would be very disappointed if Warren wins the nomination, she would be for the US what Helen Clark was to NZ..nothing much, and even her most ardent supporters couldn't make that case that she was at all transformative…and that is exactly what the world needs right now, and we all know what candidate that is.
The time has long past for the world to sit and wait for the centrist liberal/capitalist project and it's bullshit incrementalism to make any meaningful changes, we all know now that those changes will never happen, we all know now that liberal capitalists would rather lose everything than concede anything on their bottom line or capital gains or any of the power..that is exactly why the unified single chant that can be heard loud and clear from the board rooms of big business, corporate media and establishment political think tanks across the States is…Anyone One But Bernie!, why?.. because he is the only one who threatens them and their system of exploitative extraction of workers, the environment and the planet..not Biden and not Warren, Bernie Sanders.
Get well Bernie…the only transformative candidate in 2020.
"she would be for the US what Helen Clark was to NZ..nothing much,.."
Labour was a minority party during those years…remember MMP was designed to stop big changes from a major party , and its works still.
Sanders would have to try to get separately elected House AND Senate to pass any of his agenda…and you could say he would be in a more difficult situation than Boris Johnson is now and Clark was over a decade ago.
You should really follow US politics more to see how it really works.
Lyndon Johnson was a master legislator – even though he was personally quite corrupt – as he had been the leader of the Senate for some years and knew every trick to get legislators to back him, as happened to the Civil rights laws.
Even Bill Clinton was a well persuader and could work to get things passed by difficult House and Senate.
Sanders is a mediocre legislator based on his record, he has nowhere near the ability or long background of even say Biden or someone like Warren who has had a major impact in her short time.
His committee is Veteran Affairs ….. that changed everything very little
“While sitting down with then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who was meeting with members of his conference one on one during the difficult days in 2009, Sanders told the then-Senate majority leader not to worry: He was going to vote for Obamacare, though he would continue speaking publicly as if he wouldn’t so he could continue to rail against the absence of a public option. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/bernies-record-220508
Wow Bernie… be the worst sort of Politician…
Well guess what Sanders made a $10 mill transfer too
"Sanders had raised $46.3 million by the end of the second quarter, according to Federal Election Commission records. That includes $10.1 million transferred from previous campaigns.
Spot the differences..if you can…hahahaha
"Sanders doesn’t hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions and doesn’t accept money from corporate PACs or super PACs, or from fossil fuel, drug or insurance companies.
Warren doesn’t hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions and doesn’t accept money from federal lobbyists or PACs, or fossil fuel or pharmaceutical executives.
“Time magazine reported in December 2015: “Sanders has hosted at least nine medium- to high-dollar, closed-door fundraisers in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere to directly fund his own presidential campaign. Even though Sanders’ efforts sometimes have a proletarian flair — he held one $200-per-ticket fundraiser at a dive bar near a grungy Seattle park — some aspects of the Democratic insurgent’s fundraising are similar to the candidates he condemns.”
"For months,(2016) the Federal Election Commission has been writing to the Sanders campaign with warnings that hundreds of his donors have exceeded the $2,700 contribution limit and that hundreds more may be foreign nationals illegally giving Sanders money.
hell $2700 is a huge amount , as that limit applies to everyone. Wheter you are Mark Zuckerberg or of Vera from Vermont.
….doesn’t hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions and doesn’t accept money from corporate PACs or super PACs, or from fossil fuel, drug or insurance companies.
….. doesn’t hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions and doesn’t accept money from federal lobbyists or PACs, or fossil fuel or pharmaceutical executives.
The maximum individual limit is $2700 and we know that Bernie got plenty of those last time ( and even exceeded it)
However both have used slightly deceptive wording:
..hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions..
Which still allows max $ contributions from almost anyone
Well, dreams are free, but accurate predictions they aren't. Neither of those two things will happen, and both, that's so far removed from reality it more like fantasy politics.
Best wishes to Bernie. Hey, Mick Jagger had a heart op and finished the Stones tour, Mr Sanders is ornery and committed enough to do similar. He would likely have one good term in him at least, and make a number of changes future Pressies would find hard to roll back.
hes in hospital with heart issues …havent read any real news?
What Congress changes are you suggesting Sanders will make- Ive said hes a useless legislator and thats based on his record.
Sanders is a prodigious fund raiser, is his only claim to fame, so he should be able to get his campaign themes out there no problem. Yet the primaries where democrats can vote show him as a runner up in 2016 and will happen gain in 2020
her medical records said : hypothyroidism, She takes a prescription blood thinner to guard against clots,fainted four years ago after becoming dehydrated and suffered a concussion
Watch the same play being used against Ardern next year, its because women politicians are susceptible to false rumours of all kinds but medical ones get traction.
Yes that was a good discussion. Hedge's comments starting about 20 minutes in, about the liberal church and christian fascists as represented by Pence, were right on the mark as well.
So Trump who has been accused of using fake news throughout his political meanderings is now accusing others of using fake news to impeach him. What a hoot. What delicious irony.
He wishes to focus on his Tear Ranga Council bid and bizzniss activities?
He seems "passionate" about us and our, and as a "strategic thinker" he might be seeing the writing on the wall.
Or maybe since he had pulled himself up by the bootstraps to "the heights of the Corporate world" ( no doubt with the help of his good lady woif -who also no doubt had to make so many sacrifices), his ambitions lay outside of centril gummint.
Yes the Herald called it "mysterious" but the original release earlier on Politik clearly referred to possible health issues, personal issues etc. Why is it now that the minute details of what may effect someone in this position or similar are open to such innuendo and scrutiny if they are not highly critical to operations of some sort? Things happen to and for people. He had already had clearance weeks back from NZFirst for leave and has reached this decision. The most mysterious thing is NZ media currently, they are determined to make every event an "issue", this is the normal passage of life people encounter.
Degradable – This is a standard plastic with a chemical added that disintegrates the bag into tiny pieces of plastic (called Microplastics)
Biodegradable – This is plastic which will eventually degrade into Microplastics from the action of naturally occurring micro-organisms, with no set time (could be 30+ years!)
Compostable – This is a product that is capable of disintegrating into natural elements in a compost environment, leaving no toxicity or plastic particles in the soil.
Commercially Compostable – This means only compostable in a municipal composting environment; moisture and temperatures of at least 50-65°C required to break down.
Home Compostable – This will compost at lower temperatures, ideally suited to a home compost bin environment (this is what we’ve chosen)
Recyclable – Packaging that can be processed back into reusable materials. This is what our Regular Proper Crisp Bags are, through the Soft Plastics Recycling Scheme.
Helpful stuff weka. So much to get head around. Looking at my blue plastic bag this morning. What can I use that reduces those bits, already less than used to be. Have an idea. Will pursue.
Sorry for the pessimism, but i am very very careful with these sudden 'feel' good 'compostable, natural, etc 'plant based meat' solution that essentially allow us to continue with our bad food habits of eating crap mass produced 'cheap' food, that allow us to continue to mindlessly consume cause its is all 'environmentally friendly' and above all we don't actually have to change a thing we do. Ergo, nothing changes and in a few years time we will learn that the stuff that was sold to us as a miracle solution was neither a miracle nor a solution.
I generally agree. But short of a way to get everyone to change to low consumption in one go and pretty quick, this is a useful step in the right direction. It reduces plastic pollution, and at the same time points to zero waste as well as creating path out of consumption (when we start thinking about home composting, our relationship to the world changes).
2009 is well outdated in terms of the greenwashing issues. We went through all that bollocks about being sold degradable plastics, and we pushed back, likewise industrial compostable, and now we have companies that are working with actually useful plastic replacements instead of trying to hide the pollution.
Fake meat, don't get me started. That's the big one at the moment imo, because so many people who care about climate change don't seem to be making the connections between industrial processes and environmental damage and appear to believe that it's a reductionist issue – replace cow burps with soy and we'll be fine. This misses the issues around consumption, and ignores the vital importance of relocalising food supply.
I don't eat a lot of crisps, but if I am in town and hungry and this is what I can eat to get me through the shopping list until I get home, then I will buy the crisps in the packaging that I can put in the compost. This is a good thing.
'Fake meat, don't get me started. That's the big one at the moment imo, because so many people who care about climate change don't seem to be making the connections between industrial processes and environmental damage and appear to believe that it's a reductionist issue – replace cow burps with soy and we'll be fine. This misses the issues around consumption, and ignores the vital importance of relocalising food supply'
ok..there are two types of fake-meat – one grown in lab – one plant-based – neither of which has soy as an essential ingredient..it cd be used..but is not integral..
and interesting how you reference cows and soy – as 85% of the soy grown on the planet is feed to animals..that are then eaten..so unsure what the point is you are trying to make there..
and of course one of the reasons our animal-extraction industries are threatened..is because both of those fake-meat alternatives can be made locally..no need to ship from other side of world…so that fits with yr 'local' imperative..eh..?
Macdonald's chopped down Amazon rainforest to grow meat patties for their burgers and they'll do the same to grow soy burgers or pea protein fake meat. I support animal welfare, but the idea that going vegan is better for the environment only makes sense if you want a bit less damage instead of doing right by nature.
If you think this is about monsanto soy (or whatever) for vegans, I'm sorry to hear that that is how you eat. I will continue to point out that CC action on food has to be relocalised and regenag, and that best practice food growing can easily include animals as a positive thing. It's not a hard argument to follow.
"going vegan is better for the environment only makes sense if you want a bit less damage"
I’m trying to decrease my consumption of meat and dairy (the dairy is a real struggle), and am interested in this idea that going vegan might be a bit less damaging to the environment. Specifically I'd beinterested to know if there are any estimates of the magnitude of "a bit less", and in particular what range these estimates might span.
"One report explores the economic case for changing current food production and consumption habits, estimating that they cause about $12 trillion a year in damage to the environment, human health and development. If countries invested just half of 1 percent of global GDP in carbon-friendly agriculture, food waste reduction, reforestation and prescribing more plant-focused diets, among other measures, the world could sustainably feed itself and reduce the climate-related damage, the authors found."
If "a bit less damage" is code for 'a tiny bit less damage', why bother? If, however, "a bit less damage" turned out to be 'quite a bit less damage', then I would be less dismissive of plant-based diet initiatives.
"What over 9 billion people choose to eat and how they make these choices are at the heart of how our food and land use systems evolve," the report finds, adding: "The right animals, in the right places and raised in the right conditions can continue to play an important role in sustainable food and land use systems."
"So many countries are dealing with under-nourishment. They're going to have to increase food consumption, and accordingly their carbon footprints are going to have to go up," said Keeve Nachman, director of the Food Production and Public Health Program at Johns Hopkins' Center for a Livable Future and one of the report's authors. "We have a responsibility as a global community to make sure they have enough food. What that means is that high-income countries that typically consume more animal products are going to have to more rapidly consider some of these plant-forward dietary shifts."
there's a world of difference between reducing meat/dairy consumption and going vegan. For instance, there are small scale dairy farmers in NZ doing regenerative agriculture. If you reduce your dairy consumption and buy their products instead of Fonterra dairy, then you are helping reduce NZ's methane emissions, supporting local economies, and promoting regenerative ag which has multiple very important ecological benefits including being a carbon sink.
If on the other hand you go vegan, and need to get protein from plant sources alone, what are you planning to eat? Monocropping causes multiple environmental issues, and for NZ a lot of legume protein is imported, thus increasing food miles and GHGs. There are ways around that, but they're not particularly easy and they lead to things like fake animal products with high enviro impacts in cafes because that is easier than them cooking whole legumes. Further, the more people who chose not to eat the regenag dairy, the less conversion to regenag we will see and people will simply choose whatever even if it has high food miles. Transport is significant part of NZ's eco footprint (esp within NZ).
The go vegan messages I see from say the Guardian are based on global industrial food supply chains, which themselves are polluting, and not particularly relevant to NZ eg cattle in NZ are still raised on pastures not in CAFO feed lots. So sure, eat less meat if you can (which really depends on how much you eat now), but eat local whether it's meat, dairy, nuts or beans.
"Better land use, less-meat-intensive diets and eliminating food waste should be priorities to help forestall a climate catastrophe, the authors say."
Yep. Go look up what they mean by better land use. Afaik they're saying regenag (which includes animals).
Again, less meat intensive doesn't mean vegan. Veganism is primarily an animal rights movement where you have to use no animals at all. It prioritises the welfare of certain animals over ecologies and eating local, and it's philosophically against much of the regenag we desperately need.
Mixed farming systems integrating crops, livestock, fisheries and agro-forestry could maintain crop yield in the face of climate change, help the system to adapt to climatic risk, and minimise GHG emissions by increasingly improving the nutrient flow in the system
"there's a world of difference between reducing meat/dairy consumption and going vegan"
Absolutely true at the level of the individual; at a population level not so much, unless (of course) everyone adopts a vegan diet. Can't see that happening in NZ, where the per capita consumption of meat is relatively high. Consumption is reducing though, which is good for almost everything and everyone except perhaps meat farmers.
Doubt I could ever 'go vegan'; even ‘going vegetarian’ would be a challenge. But for those in our relatively healthy and wealthy society who make that choice for themselves, I say 'hear hear, good choice, well done'. And not just NZ society – kudos to Greta Thunberg, and to anyone else with the fortitude and commitment to 'go vegan'.
Bit hypocritical on my part, but every little bit helps – don't lose hope.
“Vegetarians should take some solace from the fact that meat consumption is declining in half of the countries listed above. Between 2002 and 2009 the amount consumed by US residents fell from 124.8 kilos per person to 120.2, for example, in Luxembourg from 141.7 to 107.9, in New Zealand from 142.1 to 106.7 [kilos per person per year] and in Denmark (previously the world’s biggest consumers of meat) from 145.9kg to 95.2kg.”
i don't think it changes everything all this 'feel good environmentally packaging/bullshit'. It changes nothing, worse even it allows us to stay in our little bubble were we can fool ourselfs that we are doing something. LOOK, my packaging is labelled 'biodegradable', 'compostable', 'reusable', LOOK, i am doing my part.
In the meantime we don't actually have any recycling facilities in this country worse calling it 'recycling facilities'. We don't actually properly seperate our rubbish, it all ends up in the same Landfill facility.
We still continue to buy rubbish junk food – albeit 'plant derived'!! YEI, me see how i am saving hte world? \
We still lie to ourself every day in order to continue doing what we do namely stop consuming like mindless idiots, stop eating crap (and that includes chemically derived fibres resembling meat from unidentified plant material), stop living desperate lives so empty that filling it with junk is what we call success.
I'm not sure we do disagree. I mean, I agree with what you are saying there. If it were up to me, and maybe you too, I'd have us powering down (with all the shift in culture that goes with that) so we don't need home compostable packaging for crisps. But we are a small minority and I don't see many progressives yet seeing the need to stop consuming, let alone people in positions of power. There's more than there used to be, but not so many that would commit to doing so now.
I think it's likely we will be forced to powerdown, but in the meantime I'd like capitalism to do less damage.
“We are sitting here every day ready to negotiate, the kamikaze way in which it is being treated by the UK government is not something we have chosen,” one EU diplomat said.
Another said a move “half an inch” from the current proposal to keep open the sensitive border between Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland would make a deal difficult.
Brexit kamikaze pilot Boorish! The EU must be watching with sourness and anger as Britain throws its wobbly. All that fighting in WW2 which has settled down to a relatively stable co-operative bloc is to be abandoned. The Irish Troubles and their settlement to a workable system, to be abandoned. Probably because Germany is perceived as doing better than Britain. So Britain wants to turn away from being the UK, and return to the old Britain relying on the USA to be its partner and collaborator. This from this reference repeated below. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/battle-of-britain/aftermath
Irresponsible, determinedly ignorant public school boys and girls enveloping the whole country in their persiflage. (Try reading Vintage Stuff and the adventures of Peregrine Clyde-Brown where the type is lampooned by Tom Sharpe.)
I recall thinking of grand action that arose during the Battle FOR Britain. Air Marshall Dowding planned night and day, and was cognisant of all the resources, and ensuring new ones, and conserved what Britain had. And looked at cost efficiency closely both for finances, built resources and humans, pilots and crew in particular. Against his careful implementation of calculated risks and also that of Air Vice Marshall Keith Park, a New Zealander, were the fly-boys who wanted to dash in shouting 'Follow Me Chaps, Death or Glory', (the so-called Big Wing approach, advocated by Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory).
Britain was saved from German invasion by Dowding and Park who spoke later – With benefit of experience in later commands, Park was convinced that ‘we would have lost the Battle of Britain if I had adopted the “withholding” tactics of No. 12 Group’. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/battle-of-britain/the-battle-september-october
This piece on the aftermath of WW2 points out how in supporting Britain, the USA also gained a stepping stone as a world power. Britain is now advancing that by withdrawing from the EU and 'paling up' with USA, and late-stage, crony capitalism. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/battle-of-britain/aftermath
The Battle of Britain was the first serious setback experienced by the Germans during the Second World War. This in itself was significant at a time when the German military forces seemed to be unstoppable, and it gave hope to conquered Europeans. But the long-term significance was even greater: Britain was preserved as a base for offensive action against Germany. Bombers operating from its bases would devastate German industry and infrastructure later in the war. As a springboard for the deployment of American power, it was vital to the eventual liberation of Western Europe.
And now the American power is to be given deference by the UK as an expedient by its hungry capital-accreting Right Wing. Will the ordinary citizens look on bemused and rudderless?
" The Irish Troubles and their settlement to a workable system, to be abandoned. "
No it doesnt. have you even read 1 page of the Good Friday agreement. Its hundred or more pages , hardly mentions the border ( apart from removing military army/police posts)
meanwhile plenty of chapters on the shared power arrangements for the NI Assembly and its 'compulsory coalitions and parallel consent' for both Unionist and Nationalist blocs.
Havent you noticed but the Assembly hasnt been working since Jan 2017.
Has the 'troubles' returned because of this major collapse of the GFA ?
Its a complete nonsense to suggest that a customs border but still retain freedom of movement ( since 1922) between North and South will cause any strife.
Remember Ireland joined Britain outside of the Schengen agreement to retain freedom of movement with UK,
Well the reports finally out, recommends shifting Ports of Auckland to Northland in stages. Would be biggest infrastructure spend in modern NZ history. Great stuff so long as the self interested Auckland politicians dont scuttlebit.
So, lots of new jobs in Northland and the Auckland land stays in Aucklanders' hands, no contracting out to private interests, or wealthy apartment dwellers, who will do everything they can to shut the rest of us out. Happens all the time.
Maybe we can then compete with Wellington's waterfront people spaces.
Yes, Auckland foreshore probably could be the most beautiful recreational space in NZ. And the net benefit Auckland ratepayers will receive would be almost twice as much than the current dividend gives.
Sadly, I doubt it will happen. Too many vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
Auckland has hundreds of miles of foreshore for the public, whether its from Ihumatao or Long Bay.
Its a weird concept pushed by Northland and Jones. They now want of 4 land motorway all the way to Whangarei… so everything can be trucked back to Auckland.
As Tauranga is an export port and Auckland an Import one, what will happen is container ships will make one stop at Mt Maunganui instead of Marsden Pt.
The good news is that its a one sided report so will be ignored like all the others of that ilk
Some fools want people living in the lower half of New Zealand to keep in the dark until after 9am on winter days. School kids walking or cycling to school in the dark!
Sunrise isn't till about 0840NZST in mid-winter in the south and their idea to keep NZDT would have sunrise at 0940 local.
Yep, ridiculous. The likes of Houlbrooke just oppose anything that even slightly smacks of social responsibility, all under the guise of 'personal freedom'.
Such people want what they want to be what we should do. It is obviousthat his way is the best way. Is he a born NZr or a newish one changing a few things in the country to make it perfect for him.
Sensational tagline? perhaps, but news from the u.s warns people not to vape cannabis oil
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has now confirmed a total of 12 deaths, with all of the patients reportedly using e-cigarettes prior to their deaths.
Of those, three quarters said they had used a vape containing THC (cannabis) oil.
The CDC is investigating, and has recommended people steer clear of vaping products containing THC, and no one substance has yet been identified in all of the tested samples.
NZ experts, however, suggest caution not concern.
Dr Penny Truman, Massey University School of Health Sciences
"New Zealand vapers using nicotine (or the nicotine-free equivalent) should not be concerned by the problems in the USA," Dr Truman said.
"People have been vaping as a smoking cessation tool with no obvious problems for around 10 years now all around the world.
"In contrast, the lung damage that is appearing in the USA develops over a very short time-frame, is localised as to where it is happening and is almost certainly related to vaping cannabis.
As Dr Truman says, ten years so far without obvious problems, so another decade to quit nicotine sounds good to me.
Actually I've just been researching how to make those cannabis vape liquids, and as there are no doubt tens of thousands of legit vaping users in the states, and mostly medical by the looks, having this crop of deaths does point to the batches used or a badly made product at fault and not the delivery device in itself.
Ten years is pretty tight to even measure the negative effects of smoking, and I haven't seen any studies at close to the scale of many of the smoking harm studies.
Even when things like the doctor's study were delivering their results, that was based on the observed outcome after 40 years of endemic smoking. I'e' they had a lot of 60y.o. doctors who had been smoking all their lives, rather than everyone only having started ten years ago.
But the short term harm, as you point out, looks like being the joys of unregulated capitalism rather than a problem with vaping itself. Contrast would be the immediate and sustained effects of crack or meth, which are shit products even without unregulated capitalism.
Well the media hysteria over vaping we saw after the first deaths in the u.s is somewhat put to bed (not that vapers didn't know it was mostly bs), and despite the caution, which I also share as anything but fresh air in your lungs isn't good, vaping is still much safer than actually lighting up and inhaling toxic smoke.
In some respects, it likely is. ~0ppm tar, for example. But until the long term data comes in, we won't know by how much. If it's only a quarter (or even a sixteenth) as harmful as smoking, would we have been better off trying to suppress vaping as well as smoking? A rhetorical question to illustrate the public health balancing act.
All depends on what the math turns out to be. Even for the smokers, if the vape plateau that stops them actually addressing their addiction ends up in significantly fewer people stopping their nicotine use, that might offset the benefit of fewer people actually smoking. Whereas the clear harm of smoking is an incentive to break the habit.
But we don't even know that vaping is actually safer, yet. It's a fair guess, but surprises happen.
It's true I wouldn't ever go back to smoking if vapes were banned, though I did read one reason for wanting to get rid of them is that a number of kids go on to cigarettes after vaping, which I find really odd.
Gordon Campbell looking at the swing in the world back to government involvement in infrastructure spending to kickstart a sluggish economy.
(And other matters.)
he IMF paper attributes the sluggish response of investment to the prevalence of market power. The authors find that investment rose less for companies with higher price mark-ups — a standard measure of a company’s power to dominate a market. This fits with the thesis that monopoly power is increasingly making the U.S. economy unresponsive to standard market forces. The benefit of corporate tax cuts might simply be one more piece of conventional economic wisdom that no longer applies. In any case, Trump’s tax cut looks like it underperformed in 2018. The effect in the long run might be more positive, but given the drag from the trade war and other events, that will be hard to know. The most reasonable conclusion seems to be that corporate tax cuts are not a particularly powerful tool for boosting economic growth in the U.S. The Trump tax cuts should be the last piece of evidence needed to end the illusion of supply-side economics.
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Timothy Ford, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Charles M. Schweik, University of Massachusetts AmherstTo mitigate health inequities and promote social justice, coronavirus vaccines need to get to underserved populations and hard-to-reach communities. There are few places in the U.S. that are unreachable by road, but other factors – many ...
Israel chose to pay a bit over the odds for the Pfizer vaccine to get earlier access. Here’s The Times of Israel from 16 November. American government will be charged $39 for each two-shot dose, and the European bloc even less, but Jerusalem said to agree to pay $56. Israel ...
Orla is a gender critical Marxist in Ireland. She gave a presentation on 15 January 2021 on the connection between postmodern/transgender identity politics and the current attacks on democratic and free speech rights. Orla has been active previously in the Irish Socialist Workers Party and the People Before Profit electoral ...
. . America: The Empire Strikes Back (at itself) Further to my comments in the first part of 2020: The History That Was, the following should be considered regarding the current state of the US. They most likely will be by future historians pondering the critical decades of ...
Nathaniel ScharpingIn March, as the Covid-19 pandemic began to shut down major cities in the U.S., researchers were thinking about blood. In particular, they were worried about the U.S. blood supply — the millions of donations every year that help keep hospital patients alive when they need a transfusion. ...
Sarah L Caddy, University of CambridgeVaccines are a marvel of medicine. Few interventions can claim to have saved as many lives. But it may surprise you to know that not all vaccines provide the same level of protection. Some vaccines stop you getting symptomatic disease, but others stop you ...
Back in 2016, the Portuguese government announced plans to stop burning coal by 2030. But progress has come much quicker, and they're now scheduled to close their last coal plant by the end of this year: The Sines coal plant in Portugal went offline at midnight yesterday evening (14 ...
The Sincerest Form Of Flattery: As anybody with the intestinal fortitude to brave the commentary threads of local news-sites, large and small, will attest, the number of Trump-supporting New Zealanders is really quite astounding. IT’S SO DIFFICULT to resist the temptation to be smug. From the distant perspective of New Zealand, ...
RNZ reports on continued arbitrariness on decisions at the border. British comedian Russell Howard is about to tour New Zealand and other acts allowed in through managed isolation this summer include drag queen RuPaul and musicians at Northern Bass in Mangawhai and the Bay Dreams festival. The vice-president of the ...
As families around the world mourn more than two million people dead from Covid-19, the Plan B academics and their PR industry collaborator continue to argue that the New Zealand government should stop focusing on our managed isolation and quarantine system and instead protect the elderly so that they can ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 10, 2021 through Sat, Jan 16, 2021Editor's ChoiceNASA says 2020 tied for hottest year on record — here’s what you can do to helpPhoto by Michael Held on Unsplash ...
Health authorities in Norway are reporting some concerns about deaths in frail elderly after receiving their COVID-19 vaccine. Is this causally related to the vaccine? Probably not but here are the things to consider. According to the news there have been 23 deaths in Norway shortly after vaccine administration and ...
Happy New Year! No, experts are not concerned that “…one of New Zealand’s COIVD-1( vaccines will fail to protect the country” Here is why. But first I wish to issue an expletive about this journalism (First in Australia and then in NZ). It exhibits utter failure to actually truly consult ...
All nations have shadows; some acknowledge them. For others they shape their image in uncomfortable ways.The staunch Labour supporter was in despair at what her Rogernomics Government was doing. But she finished ‘at least, we got rid of Muldoon’, a response which tells us that then, and today, one’s views ...
Grigori GuitchountsIn November, Springer Nature, one of the world’s largest publishers of scientific journals, made an attention-grabbing announcement: More than 30 of its most prestigious journals, including the flagship Nature, will now allow authors to pay a fee of US$11,390 to make their papers freely available for anyone to read ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Richard Richels, and Benjamin Santer Imagine a major climate change law passing the U.S. Congress unanimously? Don’t bother. It turns out that you don’t need to imagine it. Get this: The Global Change Research Act of 1990 was passed ...
“They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”WHO CAN FORGET the penultimate scene of the 1956 movie classic, Invasion of the Body Snatchers? The wild-eyed doctor, stumbling down the highway, trying desperately to warn his fellow citizens: “They’re here already! You’re next! You’re next! You’re next!”Ostensibly science-fiction, the movie ...
TheOneRing.Net has got its paws on the official synopsis of the upcoming Amazon Tolkien TV series. It’s a development that brings to mind the line about Sauron deliberately releasing Gollum from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. Amazon knew exactly what they were doing here, in terms of drumming up publicity: ...
Since Dwight Eisenhower’s inauguration in 1953, US presidents have joined an informal club intended to provide support - and occasionally rivalry - between those few who have been ‘leaders of the free world’. Donald Trump, elected on a promise to ‘drain the swamp’ and a constant mocker of his predecessors, ...
For over a decade commentators have noted the rise of a new brand of explicitly ideological politics throughout the world. By this they usually refer to the re-emergence of national populism and avowedly illiberal approaches to governance throughout the “advanced” democratic community, but they also extend the thought to the ...
The US House of Representatives has just impeached Donald Trump, giving him the dubious honour of being the only US President to be impeached twice. Ten Republicans voted for impeachement, making it the most bipartisan impeachment ever. The question now is whether the Senate will rise to the occasion, and ...
Kieren Mitchell; Alice Mouton, Université de Liège; Angela Perri, Durham University, and Laurent Frantz, Ludwig Maximilian University of MunichThanks to the hit television series Game of Thrones, the dire wolf has gained a near-mythical status. But it was a real animal that roamed the Americas for at least 250,000 ...
Tide of tidal data rises Having cast our own fate to include rising sea level, there's a degree of urgency in learning the history of mean sea level in any given spot, beyond idle curiosity. Sea level rise (SLR) isn't equal from one place to another and even at a particular ...
Well, some of those chickens sure came home bigly, didn’t they… and proceeded to shit all over the nice carpet in the Capitol. What we were seeing here are societal forces that have long had difficulty trying to reconcile people to the “idea” of America and the reality of ...
In the wake of Donald Trump's incitement of an assault on the US capitol, Twitter finally enforced its terms of service and suspended his account. They've since followed that up with action against prominent QAnon accounts and Trumpers, including in New Zealand. I'm not unhappy with this: Trump regularly violated ...
Peter S. Ross, University of British ColumbiaThe Arctic has long proven to be a barometer of the health of our planet. This remote part of the world faces unprecedented environmental assaults, as climate change and industrial chemicals threaten a way of life for Inuit and other Indigenous and northern ...
Susan St John makes the case for taxing a deemed rate of return on excessive real estate holdings (after a family home exemption), to redirect scarce housing resources to where they are needed most. Read the full article here ...
I’m less than convinced by arguments that platforms like Twitter should be subject to common carrier regulation preventing them from being able to decide who to keep on as clients of their free services, and who they would not like to serve. It’s much easier to create competition for the ...
The hypocritical actions of political leaders throughout the global Covid pandemic have damaged public faith in institutions and governance. Liam Hehir chronicles the way in which contemporary politicians have let down the public, and explains how real leadership means walking the talk. During the Blitz, when German bombs were ...
Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
A growing public housing waiting list and continued increase of house prices must be urgently addressed by Government, Green Party Co-leader Marama Davidson said today. ...
[Opening comments, welcome and thank you to Auckland University etc] It is a great pleasure to be here this afternoon to celebrate such an historic occasion - the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This is a moment many feared would never come, but ...
The Government is providing $3 million in one-off seed funding to help disabled people around New Zealand stay connected and access support in their communities, Minister for Disability Issues, Carmel Sepuloni announced today. The funding will allow disability service providers to develop digital and community-based solutions over the next two ...
Border workers in quarantine facilities will be offered voluntary daily COVID-19 saliva tests in addition to their regular weekly testing, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. This additional option will be rolled out at the Jet Park Quarantine facility in Auckland starting on Monday 25 January, and then to ...
The next steps in the Government’s ambitious firearms reform programme to include a three-month buy-back have been announced by Police Minister Poto Williams today. “The last buy-back and amnesty was unprecedented for New Zealand and was successful in collecting 60,297 firearms, modifying a further 5,630 firearms, and collecting 299,837 prohibited ...
The Government has released its Public Housing Plan 2021-2024 which outlines the intention of where 8,000 additional public and transitional housing places announced in Budget 2020, will go. “The Government is committed to continuing its public house build programme at pace and scale. The extra 8,000 homes – 6000 public ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has congratulated President Joe Biden on his inauguration as the 46th President of the United States of America. “I look forward to building a close relationship with President Biden and working with him on issues that matter to both our countries,” Jacinda Ardern said. “New Zealand ...
A major investment to tackle wilding pines in Mt Richmond will create jobs and help protect the area’s unique ecosystems, Biosecurity Minister Damien O’Connor says. The Mt Richmond Forest Park has unique ecosystems developed on mineral-rich geology, including taonga plant species found nowhere else in the country. “These special plant ...
To further protect New Zealand from COVID-19, the Government is extending pre-departure testing to all passengers to New Zealand except from Australia, Antarctica and most Pacific Islands, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “The change will come into force for all flights arriving in New Zealand after 11:59pm (NZT) on Monday ...
Bay Conservation Cadets launched with first intake Supported with $3.5 million grant Part of $1.245b Jobs for Nature programme to accelerate recover from Covid Cadets will learn skills to protect and enhance environment Environment Minister David Parker today welcomed the first intake of cadets at the launch of the Bay ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
It’s great to hear Phil Twyford celebrating a success. Not a personal ministerial success, it’s fair to say, but a success nevertheless related to arms control. The arms on which Twyford is focused, it should be noted, will make quite a mess if they are triggered. They tend to be ...
Duncan Greive and Leonie Hayden were young hip hop heads and music journalists during the era captured in a new documentary about the rise and fall of South Auckland hip hop label Dawn Raid. Here they discuss the film and their memories (what’s left of them) of that time. Warning: contains ...
Houses might be the most popular and inflated purchases in New Zealand, but there are plenty of other products that are seeing soaring demand and prices over the past few months. Here’s a list of what New Zealanders are spending their money on with international travel out of the picture.Used ...
"The young boy leaps, the muscles in his thighs tensing and twisting as he lifts from the handrail": the noble art of bombing, by Pātea writer Airana Ngarewa A beautifully muscled boy is posted on the side of a pool, his feet fixed to the top of a pair of ...
How Waiwera Hot Pools went from New Zealand’s most visited water park to dereliction and decay. Many who grew up in Auckland likely have fond memories of Waiwera Hot Pools. Like me, they remember summer days spent racing down the slides and playing in the naturally hot pools. But how did ...
A government contract for a P rehab programme was canned after half a million dollars of taxpayer money was given out. Aaron Smale investigates. The Ministry of Health spent over half a million dollars on a P Rehab contract before pulling the pin because there were no results or progress reports. ...
Kia Koropp and her husband John Daubeny have been cruising the Pacific, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean over the past decade with their two children onboard their 50ft yacht, Atea. Starting in 2011 from Auckland, New Zealand, they have sailed more than 64,000 kilometres and just completed their longest ...
We are drowning out the natural world with synthetic sounds, and it’s getting worse, writes Michelle Langstone.It used to be quiet once. Remember that? Remember the hush that settled over the cities like the silence that comes down in a snowstorm? It’s less than a year since Aotearoa first locked ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden in the latest episode of On the Rag as they examine the topic of boobs from every possible angle. First published November 16, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Seventy-five years after the US detonated the first nuclear tests in the Pacific, New Zealand pledges its support to Joe Biden's first tentative step towards disarmament. Today, the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons comes into effect, making it illegal for New Zealand and the 50 other ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Terry, Professor of Psychology, University of Southern Queensland The challenge of bringing the world’s best tennis players and support staff, about 1,200 people in all, from COVID-ravaged parts of the world to our almost pandemic-free shores was always going to be ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Geoffrey Browne, Research Fellow in International Urban Development, University of Melbourne The Victorian government has committed to removing 75 road/rail level crossings across Melbourne by 2025. That’s the fastest rate of removal in the city’s history. The scale of the investment — ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW In an age of hyperpartisan politics, the Biden presidency offers a welcome centrism that might help bridge the divides. But it is also Biden’s economic centrism that offers a chance to cut through what has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Stevens, Lecturer in History, University of Waikato In a year of surprises, one of the more pleasant was the recent runaway viral popularity of 19th century sea shanties on TikTok. A collaborative global response to pandemic isolation, it saw singers and ...
The sudden departure of Graine Moss from her Chief Executive role at Oranga Tamariki is a vital first step in a sequence of changes that must take place at the Ministry according to a group of wahine Māori leaders. Dame Naida Glavish, Dame Tariana Turia, ...
A new poem from Dunedin poet Jenny Powell.Her uncle’s eyeShe introduced us to her uncle’s eye floating in a jar.Lost in an accident, he hadn’t wanted to lose it again. He left it to her in his will.We must have looked shocked. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I turn him to ...
The chief executive of Oranga Tamariki is quitting, leaving behind an agency she’s admitted suffers from structural racism. Justin Giovannetti looks at the future of Oranga Tamariki.Grainne Moss’s tenure as head of Oranga Tamariki has been untenable since November when the government’s senior Māori minister wouldn’t express any confidence in ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Sainsbury, Senior Lecturer Composition, Australian National University Despite having different cultural backgrounds and experiences — Indigenous composers with an Indigenous mentor, and a pianist descended from Anglo-colonial history — it is nevertheless possible to create a project that can serve as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Plank, Professor in Applied Mathematics, University of Canterbury With new, more infectious variants of COVID-19 detected around the world, and at New Zealand’s border, the risk of further level 3 or 4 lockdowns is increased if those viruses get into the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachel Hogg, Lecturer in Psychology, Charles Sturt University Horse racing is an ethical hotbed in Australia. The Melbourne Cup alone has seen seven horses die after racing since 2013, and animal cruelty protesters have become a common feature at carnivals. The latest ...
Right now, our most fiery national debate is over whether New Zealanders were nice to the singer Amanda Palmer in a café. Desperate to restore peace in our nation, Hayden Donnell went in search of the truth.Joe Biden had barely finished calling for unity when Amanda Palmer posted a tweet ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut (Pushkin Press, $37)Maths, cyanide, suicide, gardening; ye ...
Wellington artist Estère isn’t just breaking boundaries, she’s dissecting them. Maddi Rowe spoke to her about her new album, Archetypes.“That’s the story of pelicans, they’ll stab themselves in the heart to feed their young.”Despite the somewhat dark subject matter, Estère Dalton’s eyes sparkle with fascination. We’ve met to discuss Archetypes, ...
Cycling advocates are welcoming new advice from the Transport Agency on safe cycling. "Cyclists hate it when drivers pass too close. That's scary and dangerous," said Patrick Morgan from Cycling Action Network. "So it's encouraging to see ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tilman Ruff, Honorary Principal Fellow, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne Today, many around the world will celebrate the first multilateral nuclear disarmament treaty to enter into force in 50 years. The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear ...
The Public Service Association welcomes the creation of a Chief Executive role to lead the public service’s pay equity work, and the appointment of Grainne Moss to this position. "Unions and public service employers are currently working ...
The Council of Trade Unions is warning that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) figures out today illustrate that the cost of living is increasing disproportionately for those on lower incomes; resulting in the poor getting poorer. CTU Economist Craig ...
Why are there so many offensive comments on the New Zealand Police Facebook page and are they breaking the law? Janaye Henry investigates. New Zealand Police Facebook pages – there are a number of them, for different regional police districts around the country – are an interesting place to spend ...
Our guide to stopping procrastinating and actually (finally) getting on top of investing. Because there’s a good chance that if you’re reading this, you don’t know a single thing about it.In part one, we covered some of the basic things you need to know about investing – why do it? ...
Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft acknowledges the huge effort and commitment of departing Oranga Tamariki Chief Executive Grainne Moss and says her decision to resign today was principled. “The issues facing Oranga Tamariki are beyond individual ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Two Large Waves versus One Tsunami. Chart by Keith Rankin. Two Large Waves versus One Tsunami. Chart by Keith Rankin. With Covid19, Italy shows the classic European pattern, with its early outbreak, substantial recovery thanks to lockdowns and other public health measures, and resurgence thanks to complacency ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gabrielle Appleby, Professor, UNSW Law School, UNSW This year has already seen significant progress in the government’s commitment to establish a body – a “Voice” – that would allow Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to have a say when the government ...
Northland farmer Derek Robinson was sentenced earlier today by the District Court in Whangarei for two offences of ill-treating animals at rodeo events. Mr Robinson was found guilty in November last year, following a defended hearing. The charges ...
Under fire Oranga Tamariki chief executive Grainne Moss has announced she will resign, effective February 28, Marc Daalder reports After four and a half years at the helm of child protection agency Oranga Tamariki, chief executive Grainne Moss has announced she will be leaving the position at the end of ...
The Department of Internal Affairs and New Zealand Police acknowledge the sentencing of 36-year-old Aaron Joseph Hutton on charges relating to the possession of child sexual exploitation material, and entering into a dealing involving the sexual exploitation ...
Ngā Tāngata Microfinance (NTM) is calling for tougher penalties for those caught promoting pyramid schemes. Such business models are illegal under the Fair Trading Act 1986. This call comes after the Commerce Commission issued a ‘stop now’ notice ...
British High Commissioner to New Zealand Laura Clarke is calling on young women aged 17 to 25 to apply for the annual ‘Be British High Commissioner for the Day’ competition. The winner will have the opportunity to become an ‘honorary High Commissioner’, ...
The Māori Party is welcoming the resignation of Oranga Tamariki chief executive Grainne Moss after sustained pressure from leading figures within the Māori Party. This resignation is the result of the continued strong pressure of the Māori Party ...
In a historic corner of Dunedin, startup culture is thriving. Catherine McGregor visited the city’s Warehouse Precinct to meet the people driving the movement. When Jason and Kate Lindsey bought the four storey building now known as Petridish, it was an absolute wreck. Once home to a thriving hat and textiles ...
Summer reissue: The Fold’s very first guest is back to tell Duncan Greive how she pulled off the media deal of the year.The chaotic couple of weeks which finally saw the end of the Stuff-NZME saga were riveting and strange, replete with stock exchange announcements, legal challenges and finally the ...
Chris Liddell has dropped his candidacy to become director-general of the Paris-based OECD. Without support from the Ardern government and vilified in the media as somehow being involved in the encouragement by Donald Trump of the Washington riots, he plainly saw he had little chance of crowning his stellar career ...
Tara Ward hands out her first impression roses as she dives deep into the sea of single men vying to win The Bachelorette NZ’s heart. While the world burns in a searing fireball of unpredictability, we can take comfort in the fact that some things never change. The heart still yearns, ...
People from all around New Zealand will be converging on the super-secret Waihopai satellite interception spybase, in Marlborough, on Saturday January 30th. ...
In its Thursday editorial the NZ Herald speaks an important truth: “Investment important to stay on track”. This won’t have startled its more literate readers but in its text it notes the strong result in the latest Global Dairy Trade auction, which prompted Westpac to raise its forecast for dairy ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Craig Mark, Professor, Faculty of International Studies, Kyoritsu Women’s University With the spread of COVID-19 steadily worsening in Japan since the onset of winter — daily records for infections and deaths continue to be broken — the fate of the Tokyo Summer ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adam Taylor, Early Career Research Leader, Emerging Viruses, Inflammation and Therapeutics Group, Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University All eyes are on COVID-19 vaccines, with Australia’s first expected to be approved for use shortly. But their development in record time, without compromising ...
Yesterday’s government announcement on new state housing is a pathetic response to the biggest housing crisis in New Zealand since the 1940s. At a time when the country needs an industrial-scale state house building programme, the government ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Obadiah Mulder, PhD Candidate in Computational Biology, University of Southern California Australia is in the midst of tropical cyclone season. As we write, a cyclone is forming off Western Australia’s Pilbara coast, and earlier in the week Queenslanders were bracing for a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Lynette Vernon, School of Education – VC Research Fellow, Edith Cowan University When the holidays end, barring a fresh outbreak of COVID-19, teenagers across Australia will head back to school. Some will bounce out of bed well before the alarm goes off, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Richard Holden, Professor of Economics, UNSW In an age of hyperpartisan politics, the Biden presidency offers a welcome centrism that might help bridge the divides. But it is also Biden’s economic centrism that offers a chance to cut through what has become ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gary Mortimer, Professor of Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Queensland University of Technology Twenty years ago, on January 25 2001, a virtually unknown German supermarket chain quietly opened its first stores in Australia. The two stores – one in Sydney’s inner-west suburb of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Liz Giuffre, Senior Lecturer in Communication, University of Technology Sydney Bluey is easily the most successful Australian television show of the last decade. A record-breaking success for its local broadcaster the ABC, as well as production partners BBC Studios and Screen Australia, ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permissionIt will take $3 million to clean up 1 million litres of abandoned toxic waste from a property in Ruakaka - three times more than the last big chemical clean-up undertaken by government agencies A two-year mission to clean up 1 million ...
*This article first appeared on RNZ and is republished with permission. The action Biden took on just his first afternoon in office demonstrates a radical shift in priority for the US when it comes to its efforts to combat the climate crisis. It could put more pressure on New Zealand to step up. ...
Ban Bomb Day event at the New Brighton Pier, 9am, on January 22nd, 2021 January 22nd, 2021, marks the first day the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) Enters into Force and becomes international law. Aotearoa NZ is one of the ...
Our approach so far in trying to end what Dr Collin Tukuitonga describes as a 'racist' disease - rheumatic fever - has not worked. It's time we try something new, he writes. Acute rheumatic fever and the rheumatic heart disease it causes, long-known as a disease of poverty, is a blight on ...
New Zealand triple-code star, Anna Harrison, can't stop returning to the courts - whether it's netball or beach volleyball. She tells Ashley Stanley what keeps drawing her back. The day before Anna Harrison leaps back into netball, she will have one more hit-out at another of her favourite old sports ...
The lights are burning into the night at the New York Yacht Club's America's Cup base as they race to fix their damaged boat. And Suzanne McFadden discovers something surprising may emerge. Out of American Magic’s calamity may come opportunity - for even more speed. While the lights burn bright ...
This week's biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve BrauniasFICTION 1 Tell Me Lies by J.P. Pomare (Hachette, $29.99) Every January, there's a new best-selling crime thriller by the New Zealand-born author who lives in Melbourne. Pomare is ...
New to sailing? With the Prada Cup resuming this weekend, here’s how to bluff your way into sounding like a pro. When I was 10, my mum made my brother and I join the local sailing club. It was a favourite pastime of families in Kerikeri, and my brother was actually ...
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BREAKING NEWS: Bernie Sanders Hospitalized
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/10/2/1889514/-BREAKING-Bernie-Sanders-hospitalized-in-Vegas
as a longtime 'bernie-boy' – all i can say is 'bugger..!'…
and to wish him a speedy recovery..
one of the main reasons i like bernie is that he will not take financial support from the billionaire class..(warren and the others..?..not so much..)
and yet in the last fundraising quarter he pulled in the most of any democrat contendor..($25+ million..)
the average size of those donations was $18..
he truly is a man of the people…
and i am still holding out for my international 'dream'-scenario..
bernie in the white house..
and corbyn leading britain…
Bernie is hanging in there as an arterial blockage is being dealt to, and perhaps a stint will be placed in his partial blockage as the US media says he is expected to be back in operation before to long so we hope they are correct there.
Elizabeth Warren is rising in the polls and nearing equal to Biden now we hear.
I think Sanders is doing just fine in this election cycle….
"Bernie Sanders announces massive $25.3 million third quarter fundraising haul"
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/01/politics/bernie-sanders-25-million-fundraising-third-quarter-2019/index.html
Bernie Sanders hits 1 million donors
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/19/bernie-sanders-1-million-donors-1504970
I wouldn't take to much notice of the mainly negative MSM spin on Bernie..I like this by Norman Soloman when talking about some liberal media in regards to it's coverage of Sanders.. "Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip." —George Orwell"
The media seem to have coalesced around Warren now, personally I would be very disappointed if Warren wins the nomination, she would be for the US what Helen Clark was to NZ..nothing much, and even her most ardent supporters couldn't make that case that she was at all transformative…and that is exactly what the world needs right now, and we all know what candidate that is.
The time has long past for the world to sit and wait for the centrist liberal/capitalist project and it's bullshit incrementalism to make any meaningful changes, we all know now that those changes will never happen, we all know now that liberal capitalists would rather lose everything than concede anything on their bottom line or capital gains or any of the power..that is exactly why the unified single chant that can be heard loud and clear from the board rooms of big business, corporate media and establishment political think tanks across the States is…Anyone One But Bernie!, why?.. because he is the only one who threatens them and their system of exploitative extraction of workers, the environment and the planet..not Biden and not Warren, Bernie Sanders.
Get well Bernie…the only transformative candidate in 2020.
"she would be for the US what Helen Clark was to NZ..nothing much,.."
Labour was a minority party during those years…remember MMP was designed to stop big changes from a major party , and its works still.
Sanders would have to try to get separately elected House AND Senate to pass any of his agenda…and you could say he would be in a more difficult situation than Boris Johnson is now and Clark was over a decade ago.
You should really follow US politics more to see how it really works.
Lyndon Johnson was a master legislator – even though he was personally quite corrupt – as he had been the leader of the Senate for some years and knew every trick to get legislators to back him, as happened to the Civil rights laws.
Even Bill Clinton was a well persuader and could work to get things passed by difficult House and Senate.
Sanders is a mediocre legislator based on his record, he has nowhere near the ability or long background of even say Biden or someone like Warren who has had a major impact in her short time.
His committee is Veteran Affairs ….. that changed
everythingvery little“While sitting down with then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who was meeting with members of his conference one on one during the difficult days in 2009, Sanders told the then-Senate majority leader not to worry: He was going to vote for Obamacare, though he would continue speaking publicly as if he wouldn’t so he could continue to rail against the absence of a public option.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/bernies-record-220508
Wow Bernie… be the worst sort of Politician…
Monmouth and Economist/Yougov polls from 2/10 have Warren ahead in both.
Warren 28, Biden 25, Saunders 15
Warren 28, Biden 22, Saunders 13
+100
( that +100 to Phillip)
Warren also is reported as not taking the 'big money' either.
Biden as well says his 'average' is $46.
Its about 2 weeks to go when the full details are made public. So we can see the 'mean' and see what the big donors numbers are.
As those terrible debate rules that rules out some candidates last month ?
Gabbard makes this debate Oct 12 under the rules , which have been getting progressively harder , so some of the minnows will be dropped for the Nov debate
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/us/politics/democratic-debate-lineup.html
"Warren also is reported as not taking the 'big money' either."
Everything is not quite as it seems there…
"Don’t Trust Elizabeth Warren’s Big-Donor Ban"
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/09/elizabeth-warren-2020-big-donor-ban-bernie-sanders-corporate-money
Well guess what Sanders made a $10 mill transfer too
"Sanders had raised $46.3 million by the end of the second quarter, according to Federal Election Commission records. That includes $10.1 million transferred from previous campaigns.
Spot the differences..if you can…hahahaha
"Sanders doesn’t hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions and doesn’t accept money from corporate PACs or super PACs, or from fossil fuel, drug or insurance companies.
Warren doesn’t hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions and doesn’t accept money from federal lobbyists or PACs, or fossil fuel or pharmaceutical executives.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/30/are-sanders-warren-grassroots-funded/
You werent being balanced Adrian
“Time magazine reported in December 2015: “Sanders has hosted at least nine medium- to high-dollar, closed-door fundraisers in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere to directly fund his own presidential campaign. Even though Sanders’ efforts sometimes have a proletarian flair — he held one $200-per-ticket fundraiser at a dive bar near a grungy Seattle park — some aspects of the Democratic insurgent’s fundraising are similar to the candidates he condemns.”
i don't have the link but i have seen the names of the billionaires all the candidates (even my fave for v.p. – tulsi gabbard) have taken money from..
and bernie is not on that list – he is the only one..
and heh..!..a '$200 fundraising dinner'…well..they will all own him won't they..
is that the worst you can sling at bernie..?..'$200 dinner'….heh..!..that's fucken funny..!
the man who terrifies both the republicans – and the democrat establishment..
'cos he owes both nothing – he owes vested-interests nothing..
and they know he will remake america more than roosevelt did with his new deal..
bring it on..!..bernie..!
get well soon.!..buddy..!
(this is why it matters that bernie is the candidate..)
and really..!..a.b.b…eh..?..anyone but biden..
we don't need another war-criminal in the white house..
we/the world – needs bernie sanders…
@phillip ure..+1
Those 'little' Bernie Donations last time
"For months,(2016) the Federal Election Commission has been writing to the Sanders campaign with warnings that hundreds of his donors have exceeded the $2,700 contribution limit and that hundreds more may be foreign nationals illegally giving Sanders money.
hell $2700 is a huge amount , as that limit applies to everyone. Wheter you are Mark Zuckerberg or of Vera from Vermont.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/the-bernie-sanders-donors-who-are-giving-too-much/482418/
I bet he is still saying 4 years later " my average donation is $27"
Hasn't Warren already stated that if given the nomination she will accept money from anyone?
Spot the difference and who said what ?
….doesn’t hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions and doesn’t accept money from corporate PACs or super PACs, or from fossil fuel, drug or insurance companies.
….. doesn’t hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions and doesn’t accept money from federal lobbyists or PACs, or fossil fuel or pharmaceutical executives.
The maximum individual limit is $2700 and we know that Bernie got plenty of those last time ( and even exceeded it)
However both have used slightly deceptive wording:
..hold closed-door fundraisers to solicit high-dollar contributions..
Which still allows max $ contributions from almost anyone
Well, dreams are free, but accurate predictions they aren't. Neither of those two things will happen, and both, that's so far removed from reality it more like fantasy politics.
Best wishes to Bernie. Hey, Mick Jagger had a heart op and finished the Stones tour, Mr Sanders is ornery and committed enough to do similar. He would likely have one good term in him at least, and make a number of changes future Pressies would find hard to roll back.
"make a number of changes future Pressies would find hard to roll back."
Look what happened to Obamas executive actions – Trump just rolled them back like you seem to think wont happen.
What can stick is legislation passed in Congress , and Sanders doesnt have much of a record working on that while in Congress and Senate.
The Person with the most legislative experience is Biden…but having a 'history; is supposed to be a bad thing.
i am talking about congressional changes..
and yes – biden has a 'history'..of being owned by the establishment/vested-interests..
and of course you wd support biden – no surprises there…
after all he is one of your crew..eh..?
bernie is fit – physically and mentally..and cd well see out two terms..
but with gabbard as v.p..she wd then be able to step up in 2024..if needed…
and yes…the changes he will bring will be massive..and largely unable to be rolled back..
universal healthcare for americans being just one of a brace of seachange policies…
hes in hospital with heart issues …havent read any real news?
What Congress changes are you suggesting Sanders will make- Ive said hes a useless legislator and thats based on his record.
Sanders is a prodigious fund raiser, is his only claim to fame, so he should be able to get his campaign themes out there no problem. Yet the primaries where democrats can vote show him as a runner up in 2016 and will happen gain in 2020
He had two arterial stents put in. This is about as basic as it gets for heart surgery.
It's the precursor to a death knell for his campaign, as are Biden's frequent and growing tally of gaffs.
you neolibs are terrified of sanders..eh..?
between him and corbyn – yr pox of an (there-is-no-alternative) ideology cd well end in the garbage bin..eh..?
and sanders has always been..like corbyn – an outsider in those neoliberal decades we have just passed thru..
he is a member of no party – he is an independent..
an independent in both thought and action…
so this congressional record you keep citing as some evidence of incompetence on his part..is just more neolib bullshit..eh..?
Fortunately, he hasn't got pneumonia.
/
And the rest:
Aphasia
Autism
Brain cancer
Heart disease
Multiple sclerosis
Obesity, diabetes and hypertension
Parkinson's disease
Post-concussion syndrome
Radiation poisoning
Seizures- said zerohedge
Stroke
Tongue cancer
her medical records said : hypothyroidism, She takes a prescription blood thinner to guard against clots,fainted four years ago after becoming dehydrated and suffered a concussion
ttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/08/23/a-guide-to-hillary-clintons-many-illnesses-as-diagnosed-in-the-conservative-media/
Watch the same play being used against Ardern next year, its because women politicians are susceptible to false rumours of all kinds but medical ones get traction.
Good debate on impeachment..
"To Impeach or Not to Impeach? Chris Hedges & John Bonifaz Debate What Congress Should Do Next"
Yes that was a good discussion. Hedge's comments starting about 20 minutes in, about the liberal church and christian fascists as represented by Pence, were right on the mark as well.
So Trump who has been accused of using fake news throughout his political meanderings is now accusing others of using fake news to impeach him. What a hoot. What delicious irony.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12273218
Whats's up Doc?
He wishes to focus on his Tear Ranga Council bid and bizzniss activities?
He seems "passionate" about us and our, and as a "strategic thinker" he might be seeing the writing on the wall.
Or maybe since he had pulled himself up by the bootstraps to "the heights of the Corporate world" ( no doubt with the help of his good lady woif -who also no doubt had to make so many sacrifices), his ambitions lay outside of centril gummint.
Next
Not standing for Council
Thank God for that
Yes the Herald called it "mysterious" but the original release earlier on Politik clearly referred to possible health issues, personal issues etc. Why is it now that the minute details of what may effect someone in this position or similar are open to such innuendo and scrutiny if they are not highly critical to operations of some sort? Things happen to and for people. He had already had clearance weeks back from NZFirst for leave and has reached this decision. The most mysterious thing is NZ media currently, they are determined to make every event an "issue", this is the normal passage of life people encounter.
Good to see more and more companies using packaging that is home compostable (not just compostable in an industrial facility)
http://www.propercrisps.co.nz/giving-back
Helpful stuff weka. So much to get head around. Looking at my blue plastic bag this morning. What can I use that reduces those bits, already less than used to be. Have an idea. Will pursue.
Sorry for the pessimism, but i am very very careful with these sudden 'feel' good 'compostable, natural, etc 'plant based meat' solution that essentially allow us to continue with our bad food habits of eating crap mass produced 'cheap' food, that allow us to continue to mindlessly consume cause its is all 'environmentally friendly' and above all we don't actually have to change a thing we do. Ergo, nothing changes and in a few years time we will learn that the stuff that was sold to us as a miracle solution was neither a miracle nor a solution.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/104220912/compostable-packaging-could-do-more-harm-than-good
http://theconversation.com/why-compostable-plastics-may-be-no-better-for-the-environment-100016
or from 2009
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/cif-green/2009/jun/18/greenwash-biodegradeable-plastic-bags
I generally agree. But short of a way to get everyone to change to low consumption in one go and pretty quick, this is a useful step in the right direction. It reduces plastic pollution, and at the same time points to zero waste as well as creating path out of consumption (when we start thinking about home composting, our relationship to the world changes).
2009 is well outdated in terms of the greenwashing issues. We went through all that bollocks about being sold degradable plastics, and we pushed back, likewise industrial compostable, and now we have companies that are working with actually useful plastic replacements instead of trying to hide the pollution.
Fake meat, don't get me started. That's the big one at the moment imo, because so many people who care about climate change don't seem to be making the connections between industrial processes and environmental damage and appear to believe that it's a reductionist issue – replace cow burps with soy and we'll be fine. This misses the issues around consumption, and ignores the vital importance of relocalising food supply.
I don't eat a lot of crisps, but if I am in town and hungry and this is what I can eat to get me through the shopping list until I get home, then I will buy the crisps in the packaging that I can put in the compost. This is a good thing.
@ weka…
'Fake meat, don't get me started. That's the big one at the moment imo, because so many people who care about climate change don't seem to be making the connections between industrial processes and environmental damage and appear to believe that it's a reductionist issue – replace cow burps with soy and we'll be fine. This misses the issues around consumption, and ignores the vital importance of relocalising food supply'
ok..there are two types of fake-meat – one grown in lab – one plant-based – neither of which has soy as an essential ingredient..it cd be used..but is not integral..
and interesting how you reference cows and soy – as 85% of the soy grown on the planet is feed to animals..that are then eaten..so unsure what the point is you are trying to make there..
and of course one of the reasons our animal-extraction industries are threatened..is because both of those fake-meat alternatives can be made locally..no need to ship from other side of world…so that fits with yr 'local' imperative..eh..?
hope that clarifies those three points for you..
(knowledge is a wonderful thing..eh…?..)
Macdonald's chopped down Amazon rainforest to grow meat patties for their burgers and they'll do the same to grow soy burgers or pea protein fake meat. I support animal welfare, but the idea that going vegan is better for the environment only makes sense if you want a bit less damage instead of doing right by nature.
If you think this is about monsanto soy (or whatever) for vegans, I'm sorry to hear that that is how you eat. I will continue to point out that CC action on food has to be relocalised and regenag, and that best practice food growing can easily include animals as a positive thing. It's not a hard argument to follow.
what did you not understand about 85% of soy is grown for animal-feed..?
that is an irrefutable fact..not an opinion..
how does yr alarmist soy claim make any sense..?
and you 'support animal wefare'..but you eat them..
you cannot see the incongruities in yr 'welfare' claim..?
(and..)
'the idea that going vegan is better for the environment only makes sense if you want a bit less damage instead of doing right by nature.'
i have read that several times..and i cannot understand what you are saying..i cannot make it make any sense..
and who mentioned monsanto..??
and actually the suffering of those animals you claim to care about – doesn't bother you in the slightest..does it..?
"going vegan is better for the environment only makes sense if you want a bit less damage"
I’m trying to decrease my consumption of meat and dairy (the dairy is a real struggle), and am interested in this idea that going vegan might be a bit less damaging to the environment. Specifically I'd be interested to know if there are any estimates of the magnitude of "a bit less", and in particular what range these estimates might span.
If "a bit less damage" is code for 'a tiny bit less damage', why bother? If, however, "a bit less damage" turned out to be 'quite a bit less damage', then I would be less dismissive of plant-based diet initiatives.
And we would've gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling UN activists… https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/
there's a world of difference between reducing meat/dairy consumption and going vegan. For instance, there are small scale dairy farmers in NZ doing regenerative agriculture. If you reduce your dairy consumption and buy their products instead of Fonterra dairy, then you are helping reduce NZ's methane emissions, supporting local economies, and promoting regenerative ag which has multiple very important ecological benefits including being a carbon sink.
If on the other hand you go vegan, and need to get protein from plant sources alone, what are you planning to eat? Monocropping causes multiple environmental issues, and for NZ a lot of legume protein is imported, thus increasing food miles and GHGs. There are ways around that, but they're not particularly easy and they lead to things like fake animal products with high enviro impacts in cafes because that is easier than them cooking whole legumes. Further, the more people who chose not to eat the regenag dairy, the less conversion to regenag we will see and people will simply choose whatever even if it has high food miles. Transport is significant part of NZ's eco footprint (esp within NZ).
The go vegan messages I see from say the Guardian are based on global industrial food supply chains, which themselves are polluting, and not particularly relevant to NZ eg cattle in NZ are still raised on pastures not in CAFO feed lots. So sure, eat less meat if you can (which really depends on how much you eat now), but eat local whether it's meat, dairy, nuts or beans.
"Better land use, less-meat-intensive diets and eliminating food waste should be priorities to help forestall a climate catastrophe, the authors say."
Yep. Go look up what they mean by better land use. Afaik they're saying regenag (which includes animals).
Again, less meat intensive doesn't mean vegan. Veganism is primarily an animal rights movement where you have to use no animals at all. It prioritises the welfare of certain animals over ecologies and eating local, and it's philosophically against much of the regenag we desperately need.
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/08/2f.-Chapter-5_FINAL.pdf
If you scroll up from that section you can read the bit about agroecology.
Monocropping grains and legumes is one of the least resilient options we have in climate change scenarios.
"there's a world of difference between reducing meat/dairy consumption and going vegan"
Absolutely true at the level of the individual; at a population level not so much, unless (of course) everyone adopts a vegan diet. Can't see that happening in NZ, where the per capita consumption of meat is relatively high. Consumption is reducing though, which is good for almost everything and everyone except perhaps meat farmers.
Doubt I could ever 'go vegan'; even ‘going vegetarian’ would be a challenge. But for those in our relatively healthy and wealthy society who make that choice for themselves, I say 'hear hear, good choice, well done'. And not just NZ society – kudos to Greta Thunberg, and to anyone else with the fortitude and commitment to 'go vegan'.
https://www.livekindly.co/greta-thunberg-esther-wonder-pig-save-the-world/
Bit hypocritical on my part, but every little bit helps – don't lose hope.
“Vegetarians should take some solace from the fact that meat consumption is declining in half of the countries listed above. Between 2002 and 2009 the amount consumed by US residents fell from 124.8 kilos per person to 120.2, for example, in Luxembourg from 141.7 to 107.9, in New Zealand from 142.1 to 106.7 [kilos per person per year] and in Denmark (previously the world’s biggest consumers of meat) from 145.9kg to 95.2kg.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/world-according-to-meat-consumption/
@
weka…
3 October 2019 at 11:35 pm
this i agree with
+1
see this is where you and i disagree,
i don't think it changes everything all this 'feel good environmentally packaging/bullshit'. It changes nothing, worse even it allows us to stay in our little bubble were we can fool ourselfs that we are doing something. LOOK, my packaging is labelled 'biodegradable', 'compostable', 'reusable', LOOK, i am doing my part.
In the meantime we don't actually have any recycling facilities in this country worse calling it 'recycling facilities'. We don't actually properly seperate our rubbish, it all ends up in the same Landfill facility.
We still continue to buy rubbish junk food – albeit 'plant derived'!! YEI, me see how i am saving hte world? \
We still lie to ourself every day in order to continue doing what we do namely stop consuming like mindless idiots, stop eating crap (and that includes chemically derived fibres resembling meat from unidentified plant material), stop living desperate lives so empty that filling it with junk is what we call success.
I'm not sure we do disagree. I mean, I agree with what you are saying there. If it were up to me, and maybe you too, I'd have us powering down (with all the shift in culture that goes with that) so we don't need home compostable packaging for crisps. But we are a small minority and I don't see many progressives yet seeing the need to stop consuming, let alone people in positions of power. There's more than there used to be, but not so many that would commit to doing so now.
I think it's likely we will be forced to powerdown, but in the meantime I'd like capitalism to do less damage.
https://i.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/116265851/climate-lessons-how-creative-science-can-be
This is the sort of thing any carbon tax should be spent on.
Edit
Latest comment on Brexit. Good report from Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu/pm-johnson-to-submit-brexit-grand-bargain-but-ireland-sceptical-idUSKBN1WG309
Johnson says that if possible he wants to secure an amended agreement at an EU summit on Oct. 17-18, and that both sides are keen on a deal to allow an orderly Brexit. Many EU diplomats doubt a breakthrough is possible by the summit.
“We are sitting here every day ready to negotiate, the kamikaze way in which it is being treated by the UK government is not something we have chosen,” one EU diplomat said.
Another said a move “half an inch” from the current proposal to keep open the sensitive border between Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland would make a deal difficult.
Brexit kamikaze pilot Boorish! The EU must be watching with sourness and anger as Britain throws its wobbly. All that fighting in WW2 which has settled down to a relatively stable co-operative bloc is to be abandoned. The Irish Troubles and their settlement to a workable system, to be abandoned. Probably because Germany is perceived as doing better than Britain. So Britain wants to turn away from being the UK, and return to the old Britain relying on the USA to be its partner and collaborator. This from this reference repeated below. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/battle-of-britain/aftermath
Irresponsible, determinedly ignorant public school boys and girls enveloping the whole country in their persiflage. (Try reading Vintage Stuff and the adventures of Peregrine Clyde-Brown where the type is lampooned by Tom Sharpe.)
I recall thinking of grand action that arose during the Battle FOR Britain. Air Marshall Dowding planned night and day, and was cognisant of all the resources, and ensuring new ones, and conserved what Britain had. And looked at cost efficiency closely both for finances, built resources and humans, pilots and crew in particular. Against his careful implementation of calculated risks and also that of Air Vice Marshall Keith Park, a New Zealander, were the fly-boys who wanted to dash in shouting 'Follow Me Chaps, Death or Glory', (the so-called Big Wing approach, advocated by Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory).
Britain was saved from German invasion by Dowding and Park who spoke later – With benefit of experience in later commands, Park was convinced that ‘we would have lost the Battle of Britain if I had adopted the “withholding” tactics of No. 12 Group’. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/battle-of-britain/the-battle-september-october
This piece on the aftermath of WW2 points out how in supporting Britain, the USA also gained a stepping stone as a world power. Britain is now advancing that by withdrawing from the EU and 'paling up' with USA, and late-stage, crony capitalism. https://nzhistory.govt.nz/war/battle-of-britain/aftermath
The Battle of Britain was the first serious setback experienced by the Germans during the Second World War. This in itself was significant at a time when the German military forces seemed to be unstoppable, and it gave hope to conquered Europeans.
But the long-term significance was even greater: Britain was preserved as a base for offensive action against Germany. Bombers operating from its bases would devastate German industry and infrastructure later in the war.
As a springboard for the deployment of American power, it was vital to the eventual liberation of Western Europe.
And now the American power is to be given deference by the UK as an expedient by its hungry capital-accreting Right Wing. Will the ordinary citizens look on bemused and rudderless?
" The Irish Troubles and their settlement to a workable system, to be abandoned. "
No it doesnt. have you even read 1 page of the Good Friday agreement. Its hundred or more pages , hardly mentions the border ( apart from removing military army/police posts)
meanwhile plenty of chapters on the shared power arrangements for the NI Assembly and its 'compulsory coalitions and parallel consent' for both Unionist and Nationalist blocs.
Havent you noticed but the Assembly hasnt been working since Jan 2017.
Has the 'troubles' returned because of this major collapse of the GFA ?
Its a complete nonsense to suggest that a customs border but still retain freedom of movement ( since 1922) between North and South will cause any strife.
Remember Ireland joined Britain outside of the Schengen agreement to retain freedom of movement with UK,
Well the reports finally out, recommends shifting Ports of Auckland to Northland in stages. Would be biggest infrastructure spend in modern NZ history. Great stuff so long as the self interested Auckland politicians dont scuttlebit.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12273168
So, lots of new jobs in Northland and the Auckland land stays in Aucklanders' hands, no contracting out to private interests, or wealthy apartment dwellers, who will do everything they can to shut the rest of us out. Happens all the time.
Maybe we can then compete with Wellington's waterfront people spaces.
Yes, Auckland foreshore probably could be the most beautiful recreational space in NZ. And the net benefit Auckland ratepayers will receive would be almost twice as much than the current dividend gives.
Sadly, I doubt it will happen. Too many vested interests in maintaining the status quo.
Auckland has hundreds of miles of foreshore for the public, whether its from Ihumatao or Long Bay.
Its a weird concept pushed by Northland and Jones. They now want of 4 land motorway all the way to Whangarei… so everything can be trucked back to Auckland.
As Tauranga is an export port and Auckland an Import one, what will happen is container ships will make one stop at Mt Maunganui instead of Marsden Pt.
The good news is that its a one sided report so will be ignored like all the others of that ilk
Some fools want people living in the lower half of New Zealand to keep in the dark until after 9am on winter days. School kids walking or cycling to school in the dark!
Sunrise isn't till about 0840NZST in mid-winter in the south and their idea to keep NZDT would have sunrise at 0940 local.
Stupid, and then I read this: "Houlbrooke worked for Seymour before taking on his current role at the Taxpayers' Union" so it figures.
https://twitter.com/TakeBackClocks/status/1179467150899040256
Yep, ridiculous. The likes of Houlbrooke just oppose anything that even slightly smacks of social responsibility, all under the guise of 'personal freedom'.
Such people want what they want to be what we should do. It is obviousthat his way is the best way. Is he a born NZr or a newish one changing a few things in the country to make it perfect for him.
A good law exam question:
https://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/116288238/law-lecturer-outs-himself-as-subject-of-unjustified-harassment-complaint
Vaping cannabis kills eight people
Sensational tagline? perhaps, but news from the u.s warns people not to vape cannabis oil
NZ experts, however, suggest caution not concern.
Dr Penny Truman, Massey University School of Health Sciences
Well, unregulated cannabis extracts cut with vitamin E acetate. There are hipsters all over the world, not just a loose area of continental US.
I figure we've got another ten years at least before we can start calling the long term effects of vaping with/without cannabis.
As Dr Truman says, ten years so far without obvious problems, so another decade to quit nicotine sounds good to me.
Actually I've just been researching how to make those cannabis vape liquids, and as there are no doubt tens of thousands of legit vaping users in the states, and mostly medical by the looks, having this crop of deaths does point to the batches used or a badly made product at fault and not the delivery device in itself.
Ten years is pretty tight to even measure the negative effects of smoking, and I haven't seen any studies at close to the scale of many of the smoking harm studies.
Even when things like the doctor's study were delivering their results, that was based on the observed outcome after 40 years of endemic smoking. I'e' they had a lot of 60y.o. doctors who had been smoking all their lives, rather than everyone only having started ten years ago.
But the short term harm, as you point out, looks like being the joys of unregulated capitalism rather than a problem with vaping itself. Contrast would be the immediate and sustained effects of crack or meth, which are shit products even without unregulated capitalism.
But I'm still pretty cautious about vaping.
Well the media hysteria over vaping we saw after the first deaths in the u.s is somewhat put to bed (not that vapers didn't know it was mostly bs), and despite the caution, which I also share as anything but fresh air in your lungs isn't good, vaping is still much safer than actually lighting up and inhaling toxic smoke.
In some respects, it likely is. ~0ppm tar, for example. But until the long term data comes in, we won't know by how much. If it's only a quarter (or even a sixteenth) as harmful as smoking, would we have been better off trying to suppress vaping as well as smoking? A rhetorical question to illustrate the public health balancing act.
Well I wouldn't promote it to anyone other than a smoker because even a rhetorical 25% better is still better, and there's the cost savings too.
All depends on what the math turns out to be. Even for the smokers, if the vape plateau that stops them actually addressing their addiction ends up in significantly fewer people stopping their nicotine use, that might offset the benefit of fewer people actually smoking. Whereas the clear harm of smoking is an incentive to break the habit.
But we don't even know that vaping is actually safer, yet. It's a fair guess, but surprises happen.
It's true I wouldn't ever go back to smoking if vapes were banned, though I did read one reason for wanting to get rid of them is that a number of kids go on to cigarettes after vaping, which I find really odd.
Gordon Campbell looking at the swing in the world back to government involvement in infrastructure spending to kickstart a sluggish economy.
(And other matters.)
he IMF paper attributes the sluggish response of investment to the prevalence of market power. The authors find that investment rose less for companies with higher price mark-ups — a standard measure of a company’s power to dominate a market. This fits with the thesis that monopoly power is increasingly making the U.S. economy unresponsive to standard market forces. The benefit of corporate tax cuts might simply be one more piece of conventional economic wisdom that no longer applies. In any case, Trump’s tax cut looks like it underperformed in 2018. The effect in the long run might be more positive, but given the drag from the trade war and other events, that will be hard to know. The most reasonable conclusion seems to be that corporate tax cuts are not a particularly powerful tool for boosting economic growth in the U.S. The Trump tax cuts should be the last piece of evidence needed to end the illusion of supply-side economics.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1910/S00021/gordon-campbell-on-british-apologies-and-interest-rates.htm