74.1 per cent of Chinese voters voted National in 2014.
Chinese voter turnout in the 2014 General Elections was 78.5 per cent – higher than the national average of 76.8 per cent.
This has been a concern of mine for years now. It is not a racial problem as such , it seems to be based more about the ‘type’ of person our policy attracts.
For me it stands out most with the immigrants from a certain rugby playing nation.
I’ve noticed that our government seems to favour under educated people from countries that have high corruption and poor human rights in particular for women.
We already have high family violence rates in NZ, so as well as cutting most funding for the cause, the government has even found a way to try and make that worse in the future by adding people from worse off countries. They are like anti human rights magicians so no wonder many vote National. Or are they trying to get a cultural fit?
NZ was predicted to get a rise in GDP of 0.9% by 2030–less than 1%, in exchange for being made liable to be sued if our laws were changed and didn’t comply with TPP rules written by/for corporates.
A 20 yr old kid drove his boss’s fully laden bee truck and trailer into the back of a logging truck at 4 am, killing his workmate who was asleep in the passenger seat.
“An inspection of his work logbook and employment records revealed that Power had breached his cumulative work time and rest time hours on a regular basis between October 20 and November 21, 2015.
That included him making false statements about the start of his cumulative work day on 34 occasions, the summary of facts revealed.”
Well, either granny’s got it wrong again, or he worked 34 shifts in 32 days and regularly exceeded 14 hour days in that period. He would have been in zombie land by the time he crashed.
So, where’s the employer in all this? The boy wouldn’t be working those hours of his own volition, he would have been instructed to and the same with the log book violation.
They did mention the employer in the article – and I’m fairly sure a competent lawyer would have made sure that there was/wasn’t culpability on the part of the employer so as to mitigate the boys sentence.
Back when I used to regularly use forest roads in that area the word was they were not public roads so weight limits didn’t apply. Rumour was speed limits didn’t apply either, but that may have just been wishful thinking by young male hoons. Certainly there were some very large very heavily laden trucks (much more load than you’d ever see on state highways) going very fast.
Dunno if that was actually true back then or what the current legal status of those roads really is.
I travel between Whangarei and Auckland at least several times a month – it is becoming more and more of a safety gamble as more and more trucks clog up the roads, far too often speeding, overtaking each other and generally creating traffic mayhem. Many of these loads should, I’m sure, be on trains, and the awful state of the roads north are certainly not capable of sustaining the obvious increase of heavy vehicles. Many of the drivers are likely to be in similar situations to the young man who died – I see far too many trucks on the roads in the Waikato too when I’m there.
I drive a 5 tonne housebus and am theoretically restricted to 90kph. Very seldom am I not passed by a following juggernaut. Andre…still applies today even on main roads….the perception is that heavy vehicles have immunity from attention from the law enforcement brigade. I can’t remember the last time a roadside weighstation was having a blitz.
We travel regularly between Waikato and the Far North and can attest to the volume and the almost aggressiveness of some truck drivers. The Brynderwens, quite frankly, give me the shits when I’m trying to come down the south side of the hill with a huge truck pushing me to travel at a speed much faster than is safe. And I have a lead foot. Ken Shirley is an awesome spokeperson and lobbyist for the trucking industry and usually blames the daily accident involving a truck on the other road user.
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: WTF: this looks like some kind of stupid unexplained diversion at the top of a post. If I see you do anything like that in the near future, you will be banned until after the election. I don’t have time to deal with stupidity. ]
In Hawaii in 2000, for instance, the Supreme Court ruled that the doctrine demands “adequate provision for traditional and customary Hawaiian rights, wildlife, maintenance of ecological balance and scenic beauty, and the preservation and enhancement of the waters for various uses in the public interest”.
This kind of approach would work well in New Zealand, where public fury about the degradation of lakes, rivers, streams, springs and aquifers has reached a fever pitch. Kiwis are demanding their rights to the lawful enjoyment of these water bodies, and that their ecological health and scenic beauty are recognised.
Given these precedents, a Waterways Act that puts all water bodies in trust for future generations would be timely. As in Hawaii, this would include recognition of the relationships between iwi and their ancestral rivers, springs and lakes, within a framework that protects “te mana o te wai” and the health and wellbeing of all waterways for all citizens.
Russell and Baucher hope to fire up KiwiSavers to demand the tax system be made fairer, but also to spark a national debate about whether it is finally time for the wealthy to pay tax on their capital gains.
“When the public rebels against unfair taxation, governments can change.”
well put, it remains rather telling that no senior people in NZ Labour including President Haworth, seem to be able to bring themselves to support Jeremy Corbyn
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: I am getting tired of having these kinds of personal attacks with no actual argument. Guess where it is going. BTW: I left my carefully framed observation as a comment in an expanded version of your own style. Enjoy. ]
Personally I’m finding it hard to find anything much to support with Jeremy Corbyn either.
Quite simply having deranged lefties ranting at me with no visible intelligence saying that I should support him for unspecified reasons out of some kind of faith based religiosity isn’t exactly a way to convince me. In fact it seems to be doing exactly the opposite.
After looking at the results on the local election in the UK this morning, I suspect that much of the Labour support seems to be reacting in a similar fashion.
I noticed exactly the same thing when I looked at Saunders. I suspect that the supporters of such candidates are their oppositions best weapon against them.
Personally I’m finding it hard to find anything much to support with Jeremy Corbyn either.
Really, Lin? What is it that you find hard to support? His commitment to the National Health Service? His commitment to decent, properly funded schooling? His commitment to international law? His opposition to Britain’s insane and ruinous “defence” policies?
After looking at the results on the local election in the UK this morning, I suspect that much of the Labour support seems to be reacting in a similar fashion.
Labour is in desperate straits in the United Kingdom. That’s not Corbyn’s fault, it’s the fault of Blair and his Kool-Aid Britannia mob, and no-hopers like Ed Miliband—the same people who are busy white-anting the party leader now.
I guess you like your Labour—sorry, New Labour—politicians to be like this bloke:
The funny thing is that I never hear anyone trying to explain any of these things. And in fact you didn’t explain them in your first para either.
What I hear a lot are comments like your second – which effectively are whining.
Usually followed by your third para, which is that of the usual attacking someone for not being faithful to something that they are incapable of explaining.
FFS Morrisey. I could give a pigs arse about UK politics. But I find fundamentalist fools like you and Tiger about as useful for picking up information as Christian nutters trying to explain the bible without ever apparently ever having read it more than selected sections of it.
Needless to say, people who act like that just tend to irritate me. I share the obvious human presumption that with supporters like this, why does that politician need any enemies?
Unfortunately I suspect this is increasingly the attitude of Labour voters in the UK. Certainly the results in the local elections overnight are dispiriting. The few brighter spots in the results were even more dispiriting. It appears that political survival at that level for Labour candidates is increasingly to be very very local and have nothing to do with Westminister Labour.
Broadly, he’s been advocating a return to social democratic governance. Ironically, much in line with what the SNP are already doing in Scotland, who he keeps having to bag as a party of austerity because Kezia.
@Morrissey +1
Labour NZ yet another traditional left western political party being destroyed by it’s ‘faith based’ religious adherence to a debunked and destructive ideology.
To be fair to Corbyn though, it’s hard to see how anyone in that situation would be doing well on voting day given that (a) half the UK Labour party have openly undermined him and hence voters probably don’t trust the party to be competent in govt, and (b) the MSM have been relatively biased against him. Not that he is without fault, but there are significant factors outside of his control.
Although it’s interesting to not that since the snap election was announced, UKLabour has gone up almost 5% in the trend of polls.
The tories have gone up too, but seem to be wobbling a bit at the top, and most of their support seems to have come from UKIP.
A Labour win is still very very much in doubt, but provided they don’t falter as the effect of the localbodies kicks in, UKLabour might still be able to give the tories a bloody nose.
Seems to be bang on when the snap election was announced.
#ifthistrendcontinues (lol) 35% wouldn’t be completely out of the question. But it it flattens for the next couple of weeks it would be game over.
Also, the tories need to start losing, rather than just plateauing. Either way, I don’t expect the lines to cross over, but if they’re close then the tories might have trouble getting their hard brexit and other agenda items through.
I suspect they already do. I mean, they’re actually campaigning pretty well and have a good polling track so far, I just don’t think it’ll be enough for us to see PM Corbyn. It might be enough to see May knifed in the back, though.
I suspect that it is largely the election effect allied to a lack of parties from a FFP system. When it gets closer to actually having to vote, then voting intentions firm up.
In this case the idea about actually voting for the Conservatives for another 5 year term compared to someone that they are unsure about.
I think that Labour will do better in this early election than many political observers expect. They have had the long term issue that many of their traditional supporters are looking for something to change. They are not seeing it as coming from UK Labour after the Blair years. So they have been drifting off to the SNP or UKIP or Lib-Dems (or Brexit) and splitting the vote. But I suspect that there is a bit too much change going on now.
The problem for the conservatives as far as I can see as an outside observer, is that outside of the southern suburbs and some of the leafier semirural areas of the UK – there isn’t much solid support for the tories either. They have been doing well from the loss of support from the other side(s). But it looks like it is very soft.
So when it gets back to being a two horse race (now that UKIP and Lib-Dems have largely disintegrated their accumulated support), then Labour is going to do better in the two horse races outside of Scotland.
But I don’t think that Labour there looks like it can get to the point of forming a government.
Of the 300-ish seats that Labour lost, just under half were lost in Scotland (130). A fair few in Wales went to independents.
Anyone with a half an ounce of nous knew that Labour were going to get trounced in Scotland – and that’s down to Labour previously jumping into bed with the Tories and the gobsmacking ‘leadership’ of Kezia “the Blairite” Dugdale.
So Labour didn’t do too badly – certainly not as badly as msm would have people believe.
That the Tories picked up the UKIP vote and that both the Tories and Scottish Labour allowed members of the fucking Orange Order to stand as Labour and Tory candidates…that’s what would be newsworthy in my world.
But then, I’m not a liberal msm forlornly manning the trenches against inevitable change – fuk! Was that a Bob Dylan earworm I just squished? I think it was 😉
Oh I’d agree that he has had issues outside of his control. Reminds me of the way Cunliffe had problems here.
However I have largely had to make up my decision about Corbyn from sources outside his supporter community, as they seem to spend all of their time whining about those issues outside of his control.
Try finding someone amongst his ardent supporters who can coherently discuss his policy areas and why they are being applied without someone trying to accuse you of not supporting them.
Which was the point that I’m making. Incidentally, this was part of the problem that Cunliffe had as well. Their most ardent supporters seem to make their life looking for someone to blame. They are often noisier than the actual enemies and tend to put a lot of people off.
It also tends to drown out the message of what they are wanting to do in a wash of blind and usually deluded faith. Who in the hell needs enemies when left politicians have supporters like these?
apologies for bungling “reply”, my comment referred directly to sanctuary’s first comment (which included a reference to Mr Corbyn) on ADVANTAGE’s “yes for Ardern” piece
no apology though, for my views on the lack of support for Jeremy Corbyn from NZ Labour tops and their minions, and don’t bother banning me–I have banned you!–this site became increasingly unreadable, imo, during the US Primary and Election debacle; a shame as I had been a Standard supporter from the start
I’m afraid, Tiger Mountain, that Labour’s team of clever strategists—the same people who instructed Labour candidates in 2014 to recite, like a catechism, “Oh, look, Dirty Politics is a distraction”—have decreed that Corbyn’s platform of moderate, traditional Labour Party policies and a progressive, moral foreign policy is absolutely verboten.
Brilliant Labour thinkers like Stephen “I Agree With Matthew” Mills have been strenuously distancing themselves from Corbyn for some time now….
Yeh first of all we had to put up with Mike Williams on RNZ, which made Monday morning politics a complete waste of time, and now Mills, although to be fair, I guess he agrees with Hooton so often because…well because he just does, that’s centrists politics for you.
It’s like listening or reading the gibberish from Nash and Lorck around here, who would know if you where listening or reading someone from National or Labour? I sure as hell can’t tell the difference most of the time.
FFS: I’m not a Labour strategist. I am (generally) a Labour supporter. Surely even you could explain why I or NZ Labour be that interested in UK politics from here?
The last of my family left the British isles a mere 150 years ago. NZ Labour’s job here is to represent citizens of this country. As far as I am concerned Nigel Haworth wasn’t elected to opine about affairs in another country. Especially when that country is 5th or 6th on our export trade and steadily becoming less relevant to NZ all of the time.
Perhaps you should explain your reasoning rather than acting like a spoilt child demanding that other people do what you want them to do.
As a moderator, as far as I could see there was nothing in your comment that related to the post. It barely seemed to have much relationship to Sanctuary’s comment, which was at least largely on topic, unlike Gosman’s comments which were at the top of the comments.. Which is why it got shunted to here.
The comment I replied to it expressed my frustration at the myopia of the faithful who seem to care more about delineating enemies than convincing others through rational argument and facts. Basically after several years of this recently I suspect that many of you would be at home in an Inquisition torture pit ‘explaining’ in your inimitable fashion why heathens should be converting to the gentle religion of Christ.
BTW: it was a reply to Sanctuary. The shift to OpenMike removes the parenting, but carries through any child comments.
Something rotten in the state of the German Green Party
When fanatics and dilettantes like Volker Beck are allowed to dominate and bully an organization, it is doomed. The Greens in Germany look like they’re a spent force….
Pike River families never shown video of men in drift, mother says
Carol Rose, the mother of one of the Pike River 29 and took notes of all the meetings in the months following the disaster, says families were never shown footage of men in the drift.”
They can’t both be right. Surely the Police can produce a minute detailing the what when where. Should be easy to do.
After all Bill English keeps repeating the “they were shown the videos.” “My Police team told me so and they are as reliable as my friend Keating.”
On the absurdity that education is the silver bullet to relieve existing poverty and magic away inequality.
. Education is not the best anti-poverty program, argues historian Harvey Kantor, and it’s long past time we acknowledged that…
[…]
Kantor: One of the consequences of making education so central to social policy has been that we’ve ended up taking the pressure off of the state for the kinds of policies that would be more effective at addressing poverty and economic inequality. Instead we’re asking education to do things it can’t possibly do. The result has been increasing support for the kinds of market-oriented policies that make inequality worse.
If we really want to address issues of inequality and economic insecurity, there are a lot of other policies that we have to pursue besides or at least in addition to education policies, and that part of the debate has been totally lost. Raising the minimum wage, or providing a guaranteed income, which the last time we talked seriously about that was in the late 1960’s, increasing workers’ bargaining power, making tax policies more progressive—things like that are going to be much more effective at addressing inequality and economic security than education policies. That argument is often taken to mean, *schools can’t do anything unless we address poverty first.* But that’s not what we were trying to say.
Education. Compulsory. Why? Because it’s good for citizens to be literate, and numerate and know about a raft of subjects. How will it be useful to them? Well they will be able to make their way in life, know about the world , the country and its systems, manage their affairs, know about opportunities, get jobs and make their individual lifestyle, and take their full, functioning place in society.
That’s roughly how the thinking has been in everyone’s minds. What good has education actually been in helping people to become fully functioning citizens enjoying their place in society? What do we see around us today to show us how useful the education has been, received since the beginning of the 1900’s?
Let’s unpick the above beliefs and look at reality.
* The government and the comfortably off (actually the wealthy and rich but they never use such direct language), unpick society so it is fragmented going towards tatters. Education has helped them in finding their individual wealth, and then how to siphon off to themselves more that others needed to make their individual way.
* Individual lifestyle, now becoming more precarious. May be without a permanent dwelling. Many forced to live like gypsies, worse than primitive hunter, gatherers who knew where the caves were and just had to turn out the lower animals to occupy, (or co-habit)
.
Many people are treated as litter on the streets, a dessicated leaf to be stepped on, or slipped on, and a target for street thieves, muggers, haters and the cold, superiority of elites.
* Get jobs, which are offered on whim for a few hours when required by employers, but such workers not free to do anything else in between by order of the government, who want you work-ready day or night. So you can’t have an individual lifestyle, it is the chess economy, and you are a black or white pawn, with nothing to pawn when you are out of funds.
* Opportunities – if you hear of them, you probably won’t be able to get to where they are being offered. You haven’t an address so they can’t be sent to you (do hey deliver to – usually end bench at the north corner of X Park). You haven’t the means to have a shower and get clean clothes to attend a competitive interview.
Or you have children that you are nurturing, but no-one in government who has helped create this diminished situation that has left you stranded has positive thoughts for you and wants to help you and your children. There is no-one to nurture parents, and having children, a basic human, normal, natural condition, is regarded as a private hobby, that no-one else is involved with or celebrates with you.
On your own you lose hope and also your cardboard layers that you slid away to provide a clean mat along with newspapers in which you read about last week’s opportunities, now passed. Or the opportunities presented are illusory, you are advised to shift away from the big city to somewhere else where there are said to be more chances. You do, and lose your network of contacts and soup caravan and handouts till you score another cash-paying job, because there is even less for you in the new location.
* Being able to read and write and manage your affairs. Well self-management is talked about and then the means to do it are withheld. Need temporary help from WINZ? The female guard outside the doors in uniform will need to see whether the department staff deign to see you. You have had to travel a long weary way and not anticipated how long it would take and you are late! Your appointment has been cancelled, you have wasted good people’s time. You have to beg for money to get back to your starting point.
Etc etc. The privileged people give you a thousand invisible kicks and look at the end result of someone bravely still standing and criticise how your hair is untidy, your children messy, your face sour, your manner uncouth, your car (if you have one) unwarranted. Actually all this negativity is unwarranted, but actually the wealthy give themselves the right to give you a WOF with just a once-over from appearance. They don’t look in your eyes, they never look at the achievements of the person just keeping going in such an arid, punitive human climate as cold to the soul as Antarctica is. Put a little love in your hearts went a song. The cold, say what would that cost?
Education. Compulsory. Why? Because it’s good for citizens to be literate, and numerate and know about a raft of subjects.
Actually, education became compulsory because the business community demanded it. Even in the 19th century ignorant and illiterate people could not work the machines available nor do other menial tasks such as serving at the counter.
I’m pretty sure that many capitalists at that time (I’m really not sure about to day – they really do seem to believe the myth of special people) realised that innovation is a numbers game. The more ideas you have that can be worked upon at the same time increases the number that will actually bring about something useful and educated people have more ideas.
In other words, free compulsory education was brought about as a massive subsidy to business who didn’t want to pay for all that training themselves.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that people being educated is a bad thing. In fact, I’d say that it was a positively good thing. The problem is that all the benefits of it are going to the bludging rich – exactly as designed.
Most of the education now needs to be spent on devising theories and then trying to make practical models of them, and then reviewing them to see what effect they will have on people, and the environment. Also learning civics and how hard it is to get people working together, and the goldilocks lesson of law making and supervision of behaviour; getting it at the right level isn’t easy.
And learning more manual stuff, how to do things for yourself instead of passively waiting for a machine to do it.
Human psychology and sociology should come first, along with literacy and basic numeracy. Everything else can be learned at tertiary level of polytechnic style. The intermediate level would take on the above matters and extend to four years, so up to the old fourth form level. Then the tertiary and career training. Learning about detail, say in geography later than earlier etc.
It’s no use to learn the facts of the world and not understand what being human is about. That is what is important in this technological age, with robots and AI looming. To be able to critique what are facts would be good!
And to sort out in one’s mind what things are interesting and what are just froth and conformism and escapism that isolates from the real and important for ‘good’ living. So there would be fewer car, gun and war and fewer men’s women’s magazines filled with photos of people elevated to Objects of Interest, objects of materialism, expensive watches, sophisticated booze, clothes, makeup techniques, feelings, exotic and rare animals, house decoration etc.
Yes, instead of becoming the bulwark of an informed and healthily functioning democracy, education, a few steps behind the fourth estate, is being slowly forced to tread the same path as the fourth estate: erosion of independent state-funded quality outlets; encouragement of privatisation and forced reliance upon commercialism, with the total exclusion from debate of any other (superior) forms of funding .
Some commentators now blatantly assume that commercial advertising is the only way that any news media should be funded. Blinkered idiots.
What struck me was the statement “Take the failed Whangaruru charter schools decision to spend most of their upfront funding purchasing a farm. Since Hekia Parata finally decided to close them down, as the Ministry of Education repeatedly recommended, that huge investment of public money was lost forever.”
I recall this being raised as a possibility right back when the charter schools initiative was getting underway, but from memory was dismissed as just partisan hyperbole. Is this true? Did anything get recovered from the private owners (furniture, office equipment, AV equipment, playground fittings, etc, etc)? Or is it all just a huge windfall for the private owners – being rewarded for an education failure?
Is it possible to find out how much the total spending from taxpayer funds was, and of that how much was spent on operating costs other than management fees, and how much recovered when the school was closed?
It astounds me that the operators of the failed Whangaruru School were allowed to keep their choice of school, a farm. I’m not sure if I should be protesting or starting a Cabin Crew school, I’d need a Boeing Dreamliner. Fortunately I know absolutely nothing about training cabin crew and I’m excellent at international travel.
It failed, ok. Why on earth are the assets not returned to the people that provided them. You and me.
The bloke next to me works long long hours, he’ll knock up homes for 10 families this year. I see his office light burning at 1am. He makes lots more money than I do, he’s what I’d call wealthy.
I don’t work many hours. I spend lots of time fishing, surfing, drinking, travelling around and entertaining myself commenting on blogs.
If the bloke next door and I were paid the same money, had the same boat, sqm of house etc…..why the hell would he work 100 hours a week? He’d be nuts not to hang out with me and cruise.
What a hoot we’d have. Alas, the Jones, Smiths, Browns and Black families will have to make do with a tarpaulin stretched between trees…and since we averaged things out, there’s only room on our boats for 2.
I’m a huge fan of equality. Splitting all the $ up so we have equal shares is ridiculous. If we do it on a global scale, it’s about $7.50 each. We’d all be surfing and eating feijoa jam, nothing would get done. I think the equality we need to be concerned with is an equality of opportunity and the associated benefits of embracing them.
Can you rephrase that in a way that it makes sense?
If the bloke next door and I were paid the same money, had the same boat, sqm of house etc…..why the hell would he work 100 hours a week?
Why is he working 100 hour weeks? That’s enough for two or even three full time jobs. And that amount of time at work is decreasing his productivity and probably to the point that he isn’t getting anywhere near as much done as actually needs to be done. He’s probably wasting 20 hours or more.
Define: Paid the same money
What a hoot we’d have. Alas, the Jones, Smiths, Browns and Black families will have to make do with a tarpaulin stretched between trees…and since we averaged things out, there’s only room on our boats for 2.
There’s quite a few people available who could be employed to ensure that everyone has a home but the capitalists, like your hero there, would complain because wages would go up.
Splitting all the $ up so we have equal shares is ridiculous.
And where have I ever suggested such a thing?
you seem to have this delusional idea that people are solely motivated by money whereas most people are motivated by anything but. In fact, it seems to me that only the sociopathic types are motivated by money and then there’s the reality of motivation and how paying people too much causes them fail badly:
Can you rephrase that in a way that it makes sense?
It is natural that the rewards, whatever form they take, gravitate towards the productive. I don’t think the guy next door is pushed along by money these days. He has a comfortable buffer. These days I think he just likes making homes for families and teaching kids to build. He’s in the habit of getting up with the sun.
You see his assets as a problem, a product of his greed. We are all guilty of greed, who the hell can have just 2 Toffee Pops and put the packet away? Yep you’re right, I see his fair and square rewards as a ‘Good on ya mate.’ I think most Kiwis would.
Of course we’re all motivated by money. To a degree. Few of us can do without electricity or clothing. I get the feeling you’d like to limit how productive/rewarded I’m allowed to be. I think to remove that choice from people severely hobbles aspiration and motivation.
It is natural that the rewards, whatever form they take, gravitate towards the productive.
The problem with that is that the majority of rich people aren’t productive at all – they’re just parasites living off the work of those who are. in other words, they’re nothing but bludgers. Probably more accurately called parasites as they will kill the host.
In other words, that sentence is pure bollocks. In fact, I’d call it an outright lie.
You see his assets as a problem, a product of his greed.
And they are on both counts. Excessive assets owned by one person leaves less for everyone else. That’s why capitalism always results first in ever increasing poverty and finally the collapse of the society that it arose in.
I get the feeling you’d like to limit how productive/rewarded I’m allowed to be.
And in that you’d be wrong. In fact what i want is to increase everyone’s creativity but to do that requires removing the nations resources from the control of the few.
Yeah…I think we could bounce a ping-pong ball between us all night Draco and be no closer to common ground. I like you all the same. I think you bring colour and thought provoking comments to this blog.
These fat neo-liberal huas you refer to Draco. Yep, unnecessary exploitive parasites of the highest order, I agree. They are a hindrance on us all leading rounded colourful lives. But there are only 100’s of them. The bogeyman is very thin. I don’t know any neo liberal life sucking bastards but I know quite a few people that are comfortable by way of applying themselves and getting stuck in.
There is no limit on opportunity Draco. There is not a defined quota out there for us to share between us. One person having what you deem too much is not hogging your share. There is plenty for everyone, but putting a bucket next to my couch and expecting it to fill up with money as I watch TV is an unrealistic expectation.
I thought I’d seen you make a comment along the lines of “Yep, everything over 100k is greed, anything over $100k pa, 100% tax on the excess.
Yeah, I don’t think those bogeymen are that thin and they really are causing serious problems. The same problems that feudalism caused in fact because that’s what capitalism is.
There is no limit on opportunity Draco.
Yes there is. If someone doesn’t have access to the resources to be creative then they have no opportunity.
And that true for most of the population of the world and it’s that way because so few people control all of the resources of the world.
There is plenty for everyone, but putting a bucket next to my couch and expecting it to fill up with money as I watch TV is an unrealistic expectation.
And yet rich people do that all the time through their ownership of resources and factories.
And I’m pretty sure you also do exactly the same thing with your savings account. you know, put money in the savings account and expect it to grow with no productive activity on your part at all.
Wow, conviction and discharge. Cool. We are taking a different line to criminality are we, public admission then put in stocks for a day in a public place? Having to clean public toilets with a toothbrush. Go and work at seasonal work and picking vegetables – that would be good, up early in the morning cutting lettuces for the supermarkets?
I wonder what punishment, retribution, re-education, sanctions have been imposed on him and Cameron Slater, who as everyone knows has a hard, grey shell and scuttles around in ingenious places. However I understand that beer is a favourite for pulling him from his hideyhole under decaying detritus.
Visit Southern Man at #16 above and look at that link. Slater is a pimple on a very large smelly backside. Wot me worry?!
“Cyclone Donna is now the strongest tropical storm to hit the South Pacific in May after reaching Category 5 this morning….
Weatherwatch.co.nz said Donna now had sustained winds of 215km/h gusting up to a ferocious 260km/h, making it the strongest May cyclone recorded in the Southern Hemisphere”.
“A climate scientist said Cyclone Donna’s lateness and intensity was a direct result of a changing climate.
Jim Salinger, from Otago University, said late cyclones such as Donna were rare, but not unheard of.
However, he said this one was unusual as the sea temperatures around Vanuatu and New Caledonia are what they would normally be in March.
“Well we’re not in an El Niño and we’re not in a La Niña, so you would not expect temperatures to be that warm, though they can be on occasions. So what we’re seeing happening here is, I’d say, there’s a bit of global warming going on,” Dr Salinger says.
Dr Salinger said scientific predictions of stronger, more intense cyclones over a longer season as a result of climate change were starting to be borne out”.
Personally, I think the precession of the earths’ axis, doing as it always does, has far more impact on the seasonal changes we are experiencing. After all, 26500 years happens gradually, so it’s not complete idiocy to imagine that seasonal changes would happen imperceptibly.
20 years ago, wouldn’t have had any issue planting out tomatoes on Labour Weekend. Now, it’s more likely to be first weekend of December such is the change in the seasonal patterns that have been experienced. Summer hasn’t followed the 1 December – 1 March “cycle” for nearly a decade now – it’s been more like March when Summer really hits it’s stride. Winter seems to be occurring from mid July – October.
I’m sure I’ll be howled down by the earth sciences graduates claiming that seasons never change and are completely immutable.
Bill English: …. ‘irresponsible’, ‘misleading’ Pike River families..
Playing the Blame game..
Speaking on NewsHub AM Show today “he continued to defend the Government’s reluctance to allow manned entry to the mine, where 29 people lost their lives in a 2010 explosion.
“It could be putting a significant number of lives in danger…and doing so for the worst of reasons – and that’s political reasons”.
And yet he would still not rule out agreeing to manned entry as a part of post-election coalition talks….
Bullshit. For most plants worldwide, their growth is limited by something else essential. For those plants, increased CO2 makes no difference or may even be a stressor. In a very few rare circumstances, almost always in controlled environments like greenhouses, CO2 will be the constraint to growth, so increasing CO2 will lead to increased growth. This an an example of the denier’s attempt to sow confusion by claiming a very rare specific case applies to the general case.
And if the oceans lose productivity due to increased acidification from increased CO2, then that loss will likely swamp any tiny increase from extra plant growth.
“For most plants worldwide, their growth is limited by something else essential. For those plants, increased CO2 makes no difference or may even be a stressor.”
Yet, satellite imaging shows the Earth has been getting greener.
“This an an example of the denier’s attempt to sow confusion by claiming a very rare specific case applies to the general case.”
Alternatively, it could just be an upside to the downside.
You appear to be genius at useless aphorisms. I guess that is what glib but scientifically ignorant are good at.
The world got gets ‘greener’ when we have green algae growing on oceans and waterways. It gets ‘greener’ when grassland replaces forest or swamp. It gets greener when snow and ice cover is replaced by plants.
However none of these mean nothing to providing increased sequestration on additional fossil carbon – they do the opposite. They don’t compensate for the increased adsorption of heat inside our planets volatiles that is performing the fastest climate change that this world has seen since the last major asteroid sea strike.
But I guess that saying such stupid aphorisms they satisfy your tongue and reduce your need to have have to use your brain for actual science eh?.
The article stated it (greening in the satellite imaging) was a consequence of the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration measured by the leaf area index. Therefore, I don’t see how algae and grass fall into that category. Nevertheless, one would assume those occurrences (along with snow and ice cover over the period) would be accounted for.
Edmeades doesn’t appear to cite where those claims of increased leaf area index came from, so it’s hard to comment on how accurately he’s representing the source data and how credible that source is.
On the off chance it’s from his main cite, CO2 Science, here’s a backgrounder on them. They’re another one of these fossil-fuel funded organisations set up to sow confusion.
So it does at least include grass, then, and they expect the “upside” to be temporary anyway. And a lot of the dark green seems to be around the north pole, which has its own problems.
+1. Fat lot of good it will do once the droughts kick in too. And the big rains. And gale force winds. I guess when the forest gets knocked over the grass will grow there faster. Yay.
No, leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees.
They say the benefits ‘may’ also be limited as plants have shown to acclimatize overtime, but no time frame was given. And given the use of the word ‘may’, it sounds as if that is still inconclusive.
Moreover, this study goes back 35 years, therefore it could be several decades before benefits cease, if the cease at all.
Tell me Chairman, since you look for encouraging news in those satellite pictures, how is the glacier retreat problem going? Any reports of glaciers generally making up their losses from over the recent 5 decades?
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 17, 2021 through Sat, Jan 23, 2021Editor's Choice12 new books explore fresh approaches to act on climate changeAuthors explore scientific, economic, and political avenues for climate action ...
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The Treasury forecasts suggest the economy is doing better than expected after the Covid Shock. John Kenneth Galbraith was wont to say that economic forecasting was designed to make astrology look good. Unfair, but it raises the question of the purpose of economic forecasts. Certainly the public may treat them ...
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Joe Biden seems to be everything that Donald Trump was not – decent, straightforward, considerate of others, mindful of his responsibilities – but none of that means that he has an easy path ahead of him. The pandemic still rages, American standing in the world is grievously low, and the ...
Keana VirmaniFrom healthcare robots to data privacy, to sea level rise and Antarctica under the ice: in the four years since its establishment, the Aotearoa New Zealand Science Journalism Fund has supported over 30 projects.Rebecca Priestley, receiving the PM Science Communication Prize (Photo by Mark Tantrum) Associate Professor ...
Nothing more from me today - I'm off to Wellington, to participate in the city's annual roleplaying convention (which has also eaten my time for the whole week, limiting blogging despite there being interesting things happening). Normal bloggage will resume Tuesday. ...
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weaponscame into force today, making the development, possession, use or threat of use of nuclear weapons illegal in international law. Every nuclear-armed state is now a criminal regime. The corporations and scientists who design, build and maintain their illegal weapons are now ...
"Come The Revolution!" The key objective of Bernard Hickey’s revolutionary solution to the housing crisis is a 50 percent reduction in the price of the average family home. This will be achieved by the introduction of Capital Gains, Land, and Wealth taxes, and by the opening up of currently RMA-protected ...
by Daphna Whitmore Twitter and Facebook shutting down Trump’s accounts after his supporters stormed Capitol Hill is old news now but the debates continue over whether the actions against Trump are a good thing or not. Those in favour of banning Trump say Twitter and Facebook are private companies and ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Democrats now control the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives for the first time in a decade, albeit with razor thin Congressional majorities. The last time, in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), House Democrats passed a carbon cap and trade bill, but it died ...
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Last night I stayed up till 3am just to see then-President Donald Trump leave the White House, get on a plane, and fly off to Florida, hopefully never to return. And when I woke up this morning, America was different. Not perfect, because it never was. Probably not even good, ...
Watching today’s inauguration of Joe Biden as the United States’ 46th president, there’s not a lot in common with the inauguration of Donald Trump just four destructive years ago. Where Trump warned of carnage, Biden dared to hope for unity and decency. But the one place they converge is that ...
Dan FalkBritons who switched on their TVs to “Good Morning Britain” on the morning of Sept. 15, 2020, were greeted by news not from our own troubled world, but from neighboring Venus. Piers Morgan, one of the hosts, was talking about a major science story that had surfaced the ...
Sara LutermanGrowing up autistic in a non-autistic world can be very isolating. We are often strange and out of sync with peers, despite our best efforts. Autistic adults have, until very recently, been largely absent from media and the public sphere. Finding role models is difficult. Finding useful advice ...
Doug JohnsonThe alien-like blooms and putrid stench of Amorphophallus titanum, better known as the corpse flower, draw big crowds and media coverage to botanical gardens each year. In 2015, for instance, around 75,000 people visited the Chicago Botanic Garden to see one of their corpse flowers bloom. More than ...
Getting to Browser Tab Zero so I can reboot the computer is awfully hard when the one open tab is a Table of Contents for the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and every issue has more stuff I want to read. A few highlights: Gugler et al demonstrating ...
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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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$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 ...
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by Andi Cockroft Chairman Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of NZ An Otago Daily Times report (23 January) that nearly two-thirds of Dunedin residents think public consultation is lacking at the Dunedin City Council, according to the latest ...
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E tū Lifewise homecare members have been taking strike and picket action since December 2020 for basic improvements in their working conditions. Members are asking for increased sick and bereavement leave, a collective agreement, and more guaranteed ...
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We’re only a few weeks into the year, and already there are two new seasons of Drag Race. Are we in danger of reaching peak Drag Race? In the first month of this year, there’s been more RuPaul’s Drag Race than ever. The 13th season of the flagship US version debuted ...
In her first years of adulthood, Jai Breitnauer found herself living in a bold and hopeful nation. More than two decades on, she laments on how the Britain we know now came to be.Apparently, fish off the coast of the United Kingdom are happier because they’re British. This is what ...
Dunedin writer Victor Billot resumes his weekly odes to New Zealanders in the news. This week: the blogging firm of Michael Bassett, Don Brash and Rodney HideThree Men in a BoatIt sounds like a conveyancing firm in Levin.It sounds like TV funny guys who’ll ...
Under a thick layer of concrete at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacramentin Christchurch is a metal box likely containing hundreds of holy relics – a historical treasure trove set to be uncovered after 50 years of near total obscurity.As the earth shook and buildings crumbled, a statue of ...
Bananas are unequivocally the best fruit in the world, and there’s nothing you can say to change my mind, writes Alice Webb-Liddall.I was about 15 when I realised that halftime banana cake wasn’t a tradition outside of my family. On the day of an All Blacks game a banana cake ...
Summer reissue: Join Michèle A’Court, Alex Casey and Leonie Hayden as On the Rag looks at how the world around us has been built by men, for men. First published December 7, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members ...
At an antagonistic hearing yesterday, the internet giant laid out the ‘worst case scenario’. And Facebook is also considering an ‘amputation’. Hal Crawford was watching.Google is poised to hit self-destruct in Australia according to a fractious Senate hearing into an unprecedented law that will force digital giants to pay money ...
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 ...
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Some facts for your consideration.
74.1 per cent of Chinese voters voted National in 2014.
Chinese voter turnout in the 2014 General Elections was 78.5 per cent – higher than the national average of 76.8 per cent.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11851380
Yep – if you want to know why Natz still are in power… they are importing in voters in record numbers.
This has been a concern of mine for years now. It is not a racial problem as such , it seems to be based more about the ‘type’ of person our policy attracts.
For me it stands out most with the immigrants from a certain rugby playing nation.
And your comment could easily be referencing immigrants from Australia, the United Kingdom, South Africa…
I’ve noticed that our government seems to favour under educated people from countries that have high corruption and poor human rights in particular for women.
We already have high family violence rates in NZ, so as well as cutting most funding for the cause, the government has even found a way to try and make that worse in the future by adding people from worse off countries. They are like anti human rights magicians so no wonder many vote National. Or are they trying to get a cultural fit?
Who is Barry Soper paid by ?
Supporters of the TPP I sense.
And he calls himself a journalist.
‘Barry Soper: The days when people knew how to protest’
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=11850972
And who is Stephen Jacobi paid by? The International Business Forum?
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/201842970/trade-group-uses-videos-to-try-gain-public-backing-for-new-tpp
NZ was predicted to get a rise in GDP of 0.9% by 2030–less than 1%, in exchange for being made liable to be sued if our laws were changed and didn’t comply with TPP rules written by/for corporates.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11848118
A 20 yr old kid drove his boss’s fully laden bee truck and trailer into the back of a logging truck at 4 am, killing his workmate who was asleep in the passenger seat.
“An inspection of his work logbook and employment records revealed that Power had breached his cumulative work time and rest time hours on a regular basis between October 20 and November 21, 2015.
That included him making false statements about the start of his cumulative work day on 34 occasions, the summary of facts revealed.”
Well, either granny’s got it wrong again, or he worked 34 shifts in 32 days and regularly exceeded 14 hour days in that period. He would have been in zombie land by the time he crashed.
So, where’s the employer in all this? The boy wouldn’t be working those hours of his own volition, he would have been instructed to and the same with the log book violation.
They didn’t even mention the employer in the article!
I’m sure there was a great deal of pressure to work those hours too.
Employer was / is Arataki Honey Rotorua, mentioned in article, but nothing about prosecution of
They did mention the employer in the article – and I’m fairly sure a competent lawyer would have made sure that there was/wasn’t culpability on the part of the employer so as to mitigate the boys sentence.
The number that popped out for me from that article was the weight of the logging truck the lad rear ended…134 tonnes.
More than twice the legal limit.
Back when I used to regularly use forest roads in that area the word was they were not public roads so weight limits didn’t apply. Rumour was speed limits didn’t apply either, but that may have just been wishful thinking by young male hoons. Certainly there were some very large very heavily laden trucks (much more load than you’d ever see on state highways) going very fast.
Dunno if that was actually true back then or what the current legal status of those roads really is.
I travel between Whangarei and Auckland at least several times a month – it is becoming more and more of a safety gamble as more and more trucks clog up the roads, far too often speeding, overtaking each other and generally creating traffic mayhem. Many of these loads should, I’m sure, be on trains, and the awful state of the roads north are certainly not capable of sustaining the obvious increase of heavy vehicles. Many of the drivers are likely to be in similar situations to the young man who died – I see far too many trucks on the roads in the Waikato too when I’m there.
I drive a 5 tonne housebus and am theoretically restricted to 90kph. Very seldom am I not passed by a following juggernaut. Andre…still applies today even on main roads….the perception is that heavy vehicles have immunity from attention from the law enforcement brigade. I can’t remember the last time a roadside weighstation was having a blitz.
We travel regularly between Waikato and the Far North and can attest to the volume and the almost aggressiveness of some truck drivers. The Brynderwens, quite frankly, give me the shits when I’m trying to come down the south side of the hill with a huge truck pushing me to travel at a speed much faster than is safe. And I have a lead foot. Ken Shirley is an awesome spokeperson and lobbyist for the trucking industry and usually blames the daily accident involving a truck on the other road user.
Fortunately there a some in the industry that know better…and are willing to speak out…http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/305027/truck-crashes-blamed-on-fatigue-and-inexperience
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/90752541/Linehaul-drivers-quit-due-to-dangerous-conditions-and-inexperienced-drivers
David Corbyn???
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: WTF: this looks like some kind of stupid unexplained diversion at the top of a post. If I see you do anything like that in the near future, you will be banned until after the election. I don’t have time to deal with stupidity. ]
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=11851348
Put waterways in trust for all New Zealanders
Do you remember the Foreshore and Seabed Act?
Seems reasonable.
Sowing the seeds of tax reform
Russell and Baucher hope to fire up KiwiSavers to demand the tax system be made fairer, but also to spark a national debate about whether it is finally time for the wealthy to pay tax on their capital gains.
“When the public rebels against unfair taxation, governments can change.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/92207613/kiwisavers-harshly-taxed-compared-to-property-investors-book-claims
well put, it remains rather telling that no senior people in NZ Labour including President Haworth, seem to be able to bring themselves to support Jeremy Corbyn
[TheStandard: A moderator moved this comment to Open Mike as being off topic or irrelevant in the post it was made in. Be more careful in future.]
[lprent: I am getting tired of having these kinds of personal attacks with no actual argument. Guess where it is going. BTW: I left my carefully framed observation as a comment in an expanded version of your own style. Enjoy. ]
Personally I’m finding it hard to find anything much to support with Jeremy Corbyn either.
Quite simply having deranged lefties ranting at me with no visible intelligence saying that I should support him for unspecified reasons out of some kind of faith based religiosity isn’t exactly a way to convince me. In fact it seems to be doing exactly the opposite.
After looking at the results on the local election in the UK this morning, I suspect that much of the Labour support seems to be reacting in a similar fashion.
I noticed exactly the same thing when I looked at Saunders. I suspect that the supporters of such candidates are their oppositions best weapon against them.
Personally I’m finding it hard to find anything much to support with Jeremy Corbyn either.
Really, Lin? What is it that you find hard to support? His commitment to the National Health Service? His commitment to decent, properly funded schooling? His commitment to international law? His opposition to Britain’s insane and ruinous “defence” policies?
After looking at the results on the local election in the UK this morning, I suspect that much of the Labour support seems to be reacting in a similar fashion.
Labour is in desperate straits in the United Kingdom. That’s not Corbyn’s fault, it’s the fault of Blair and his Kool-Aid Britannia mob, and no-hopers like Ed Miliband—the same people who are busy white-anting the party leader now.
I guess you like your Labour—sorry, New Labour—politicians to be like this bloke:
The funny thing is that I never hear anyone trying to explain any of these things. And in fact you didn’t explain them in your first para either.
What I hear a lot are comments like your second – which effectively are whining.
Usually followed by your third para, which is that of the usual attacking someone for not being faithful to something that they are incapable of explaining.
FFS Morrisey. I could give a pigs arse about UK politics. But I find fundamentalist fools like you and Tiger about as useful for picking up information as Christian nutters trying to explain the bible without ever apparently ever having read it more than selected sections of it.
Needless to say, people who act like that just tend to irritate me. I share the obvious human presumption that with supporters like this, why does that politician need any enemies?
Unfortunately I suspect this is increasingly the attitude of Labour voters in the UK. Certainly the results in the local elections overnight are dispiriting. The few brighter spots in the results were even more dispiriting. It appears that political survival at that level for Labour candidates is increasingly to be very very local and have nothing to do with Westminister Labour.
Maybe when the actual policies are released…
You could sign up here if you’ve the interest beyond a pigs arse.
http://www.labour.org.uk/index.php/manifesto/2017
Broadly, he’s been advocating a return to social democratic governance. Ironically, much in line with what the SNP are already doing in Scotland, who he keeps having to bag as a party of austerity because Kezia.
I have to admit, Mr Prent, you’ve broken down my modus operandi in a compelling and scholarly fashion.
http://www.teacher-stamps.co.uk/image/cache/data/Bowtie-Cat-Well-Done-500×500.jpg
@Morrissey +1
Labour NZ yet another traditional left western political party being destroyed by it’s ‘faith based’ religious adherence to a debunked and destructive ideology.
But then that’s what you get with fundamentalists…just check out Helen Clark’s ‘no looking back’ rave yesterday on rnz.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/programmes/the-9th-floor/story/201842639/the-commander-helen-clark
To be fair to Corbyn though, it’s hard to see how anyone in that situation would be doing well on voting day given that (a) half the UK Labour party have openly undermined him and hence voters probably don’t trust the party to be competent in govt, and (b) the MSM have been relatively biased against him. Not that he is without fault, but there are significant factors outside of his control.
Although it’s interesting to not that since the snap election was announced, UKLabour has gone up almost 5% in the trend of polls.
The tories have gone up too, but seem to be wobbling a bit at the top, and most of their support seems to have come from UKIP.
A Labour win is still very very much in doubt, but provided they don’t falter as the effect of the localbodies kicks in, UKLabour might still be able to give the tories a bloody nose.
That’s a reasonably sharp swing up for Labour, what’s prompted that?
Seems to be bang on when the snap election was announced.
#ifthistrendcontinues (lol) 35% wouldn’t be completely out of the question. But it it flattens for the next couple of weeks it would be game over.
Also, the tories need to start losing, rather than just plateauing. Either way, I don’t expect the lines to cross over, but if they’re close then the tories might have trouble getting their hard brexit and other agenda items through.
Maybe UK Labour should have
“send the government a message’ slogan.
I suspect they already do. I mean, they’re actually campaigning pretty well and have a good polling track so far, I just don’t think it’ll be enough for us to see PM Corbyn. It might be enough to see May knifed in the back, though.
I suspect that it is largely the election effect allied to a lack of parties from a FFP system. When it gets closer to actually having to vote, then voting intentions firm up.
In this case the idea about actually voting for the Conservatives for another 5 year term compared to someone that they are unsure about.
I think that Labour will do better in this early election than many political observers expect. They have had the long term issue that many of their traditional supporters are looking for something to change. They are not seeing it as coming from UK Labour after the Blair years. So they have been drifting off to the SNP or UKIP or Lib-Dems (or Brexit) and splitting the vote. But I suspect that there is a bit too much change going on now.
The problem for the conservatives as far as I can see as an outside observer, is that outside of the southern suburbs and some of the leafier semirural areas of the UK – there isn’t much solid support for the tories either. They have been doing well from the loss of support from the other side(s). But it looks like it is very soft.
So when it gets back to being a two horse race (now that UKIP and Lib-Dems have largely disintegrated their accumulated support), then Labour is going to do better in the two horse races outside of Scotland.
But I don’t think that Labour there looks like it can get to the point of forming a government.
Of the 300-ish seats that Labour lost, just under half were lost in Scotland (130). A fair few in Wales went to independents.
Anyone with a half an ounce of nous knew that Labour were going to get trounced in Scotland – and that’s down to Labour previously jumping into bed with the Tories and the gobsmacking ‘leadership’ of Kezia “the Blairite” Dugdale.
So Labour didn’t do too badly – certainly not as badly as msm would have people believe.
That the Tories picked up the UKIP vote and that both the Tories and Scottish Labour allowed members of the fucking Orange Order to stand as Labour and Tory candidates…that’s what would be newsworthy in my world.
But then, I’m not a liberal msm forlornly manning the trenches against inevitable change – fuk! Was that a Bob Dylan earworm I just squished? I think it was 😉
Oh I’d agree that he has had issues outside of his control. Reminds me of the way Cunliffe had problems here.
However I have largely had to make up my decision about Corbyn from sources outside his supporter community, as they seem to spend all of their time whining about those issues outside of his control.
Try finding someone amongst his ardent supporters who can coherently discuss his policy areas and why they are being applied without someone trying to accuse you of not supporting them.
Which was the point that I’m making. Incidentally, this was part of the problem that Cunliffe had as well. Their most ardent supporters seem to make their life looking for someone to blame. They are often noisier than the actual enemies and tend to put a lot of people off.
It also tends to drown out the message of what they are wanting to do in a wash of blind and usually deluded faith. Who in the hell needs enemies when left politicians have supporters like these?
apologies for bungling “reply”, my comment referred directly to sanctuary’s first comment (which included a reference to Mr Corbyn) on ADVANTAGE’s “yes for Ardern” piece
no apology though, for my views on the lack of support for Jeremy Corbyn from NZ Labour tops and their minions, and don’t bother banning me–I have banned you!–this site became increasingly unreadable, imo, during the US Primary and Election debacle; a shame as I had been a Standard supporter from the start
I’m afraid, Tiger Mountain, that Labour’s team of clever strategists—the same people who instructed Labour candidates in 2014 to recite, like a catechism, “Oh, look, Dirty Politics is a distraction”—have decreed that Corbyn’s platform of moderate, traditional Labour Party policies and a progressive, moral foreign policy is absolutely verboten.
Brilliant Labour thinkers like Stephen “I Agree With Matthew” Mills have been strenuously distancing themselves from Corbyn for some time now….
Yeh first of all we had to put up with Mike Williams on RNZ, which made Monday morning politics a complete waste of time, and now Mills, although to be fair, I guess he agrees with Hooton so often because…well because he just does, that’s centrists politics for you.
It’s like listening or reading the gibberish from Nash and Lorck around here, who would know if you where listening or reading someone from National or Labour? I sure as hell can’t tell the difference most of the time.
FFS: I’m not a Labour strategist. I am (generally) a Labour supporter. Surely even you could explain why I or NZ Labour be that interested in UK politics from here?
The last of my family left the British isles a mere 150 years ago. NZ Labour’s job here is to represent citizens of this country. As far as I am concerned Nigel Haworth wasn’t elected to opine about affairs in another country. Especially when that country is 5th or 6th on our export trade and steadily becoming less relevant to NZ all of the time.
Perhaps you should explain your reasoning rather than acting like a spoilt child demanding that other people do what you want them to do.
As a moderator, as far as I could see there was nothing in your comment that related to the post. It barely seemed to have much relationship to Sanctuary’s comment, which was at least largely on topic, unlike Gosman’s comments which were at the top of the comments.. Which is why it got shunted to here.
The comment I replied to it expressed my frustration at the myopia of the faithful who seem to care more about delineating enemies than convincing others through rational argument and facts. Basically after several years of this recently I suspect that many of you would be at home in an Inquisition torture pit ‘explaining’ in your inimitable fashion why heathens should be converting to the gentle religion of Christ.
BTW: it was a reply to Sanctuary. The shift to OpenMike removes the parenting, but carries through any child comments.
Something rotten in the state of the German Green Party
When fanatics and dilettantes like Volker Beck are allowed to dominate and bully an organization, it is doomed. The Greens in Germany look like they’re a spent force….
http://normanfinkelstein.com/2017/05/07/finkelstein-under-attack-by-german-parliamentarian-and-self-styled-friend-of-israel-volker-beck-green-party-update/
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/201842837/pike-river-families-never-shown-video-of-men-in-drift-mother-says
Pike River families never shown video of men in drift, mother says
Carol Rose, the mother of one of the Pike River 29 and took notes of all the meetings in the months following the disaster, says families were never shown footage of men in the drift.”
So who is telling lies!!
They can’t both be right. Surely the Police can produce a minute detailing the what when where. Should be easy to do.
After all Bill English keeps repeating the “they were shown the videos.” “My Police team told me so and they are as reliable as my friend Keating.”
Painted themselves into a corner me thinks
The future of farming.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sponsored-stories/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503708&objectid=11842004
yep and then we will have enclaves of unwanted foreign labourers ,
Yep, and we can’t have that, so Natz will save, goodbye welfare system.
To the 19th century workhouse we go.
Veolia causing a stink in Wellington
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/92202533/stench-of-wellingtons-sewage-wafts-through-suburbia
Another day in a country gripped by neoliberalism. But literally the stench is starting to show.
Indeed. And when the stink hits the fan, it’s locals (not the offshore operators) that have to put up with the stench.
The no.1 threat to farming communities.
what is?
On the absurdity that education is the silver bullet to relieve existing poverty and magic away inequality.
.
Education is not the best anti-poverty program, argues historian Harvey Kantor, and it’s long past time we acknowledged that…
[…]
Kantor: One of the consequences of making education so central to social policy has been that we’ve ended up taking the pressure off of the state for the kinds of policies that would be more effective at addressing poverty and economic inequality. Instead we’re asking education to do things it can’t possibly do. The result has been increasing support for the kinds of market-oriented policies that make inequality worse.
If we really want to address issues of inequality and economic insecurity, there are a lot of other policies that we have to pursue besides or at least in addition to education policies, and that part of the debate has been totally lost. Raising the minimum wage, or providing a guaranteed income, which the last time we talked seriously about that was in the late 1960’s, increasing workers’ bargaining power, making tax policies more progressive—things like that are going to be much more effective at addressing inequality and economic security than education policies. That argument is often taken to mean, *schools can’t do anything unless we address poverty first.* But that’s not what we were trying to say.
http://haveyouheardblog.com/thepovertyfix/
Education. Compulsory. Why? Because it’s good for citizens to be literate, and numerate and know about a raft of subjects. How will it be useful to them? Well they will be able to make their way in life, know about the world , the country and its systems, manage their affairs, know about opportunities, get jobs and make their individual lifestyle, and take their full, functioning place in society.
That’s roughly how the thinking has been in everyone’s minds. What good has education actually been in helping people to become fully functioning citizens enjoying their place in society? What do we see around us today to show us how useful the education has been, received since the beginning of the 1900’s?
Let’s unpick the above beliefs and look at reality.
* The government and the comfortably off (actually the wealthy and rich but they never use such direct language), unpick society so it is fragmented going towards tatters. Education has helped them in finding their individual wealth, and then how to siphon off to themselves more that others needed to make their individual way.
* Individual lifestyle, now becoming more precarious. May be without a permanent dwelling. Many forced to live like gypsies, worse than primitive hunter, gatherers who knew where the caves were and just had to turn out the lower animals to occupy, (or co-habit)
.
Many people are treated as litter on the streets, a dessicated leaf to be stepped on, or slipped on, and a target for street thieves, muggers, haters and the cold, superiority of elites.
* Get jobs, which are offered on whim for a few hours when required by employers, but such workers not free to do anything else in between by order of the government, who want you work-ready day or night. So you can’t have an individual lifestyle, it is the chess economy, and you are a black or white pawn, with nothing to pawn when you are out of funds.
* Opportunities – if you hear of them, you probably won’t be able to get to where they are being offered. You haven’t an address so they can’t be sent to you (do hey deliver to – usually end bench at the north corner of X Park). You haven’t the means to have a shower and get clean clothes to attend a competitive interview.
Or you have children that you are nurturing, but no-one in government who has helped create this diminished situation that has left you stranded has positive thoughts for you and wants to help you and your children. There is no-one to nurture parents, and having children, a basic human, normal, natural condition, is regarded as a private hobby, that no-one else is involved with or celebrates with you.
On your own you lose hope and also your cardboard layers that you slid away to provide a clean mat along with newspapers in which you read about last week’s opportunities, now passed. Or the opportunities presented are illusory, you are advised to shift away from the big city to somewhere else where there are said to be more chances. You do, and lose your network of contacts and soup caravan and handouts till you score another cash-paying job, because there is even less for you in the new location.
* Being able to read and write and manage your affairs. Well self-management is talked about and then the means to do it are withheld. Need temporary help from WINZ? The female guard outside the doors in uniform will need to see whether the department staff deign to see you. You have had to travel a long weary way and not anticipated how long it would take and you are late! Your appointment has been cancelled, you have wasted good people’s time. You have to beg for money to get back to your starting point.
Etc etc. The privileged people give you a thousand invisible kicks and look at the end result of someone bravely still standing and criticise how your hair is untidy, your children messy, your face sour, your manner uncouth, your car (if you have one) unwarranted. Actually all this negativity is unwarranted, but actually the wealthy give themselves the right to give you a WOF with just a once-over from appearance. They don’t look in your eyes, they never look at the achievements of the person just keeping going in such an arid, punitive human climate as cold to the soul as Antarctica is. Put a little love in your hearts went a song. The cold, say what would that cost?
Actually, education became compulsory because the business community demanded it. Even in the 19th century ignorant and illiterate people could not work the machines available nor do other menial tasks such as serving at the counter.
I’m pretty sure that many capitalists at that time (I’m really not sure about to day – they really do seem to believe the myth of special people) realised that innovation is a numbers game. The more ideas you have that can be worked upon at the same time increases the number that will actually bring about something useful and educated people have more ideas.
In other words, free compulsory education was brought about as a massive subsidy to business who didn’t want to pay for all that training themselves.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that people being educated is a bad thing. In fact, I’d say that it was a positively good thing. The problem is that all the benefits of it are going to the bludging rich – exactly as designed.
Educate in the “Right” way though. Respect and obey authority and don’t tolerate original thought.
Most of the education now needs to be spent on devising theories and then trying to make practical models of them, and then reviewing them to see what effect they will have on people, and the environment. Also learning civics and how hard it is to get people working together, and the goldilocks lesson of law making and supervision of behaviour; getting it at the right level isn’t easy.
And learning more manual stuff, how to do things for yourself instead of passively waiting for a machine to do it.
Human psychology and sociology should come first, along with literacy and basic numeracy. Everything else can be learned at tertiary level of polytechnic style. The intermediate level would take on the above matters and extend to four years, so up to the old fourth form level. Then the tertiary and career training. Learning about detail, say in geography later than earlier etc.
It’s no use to learn the facts of the world and not understand what being human is about. That is what is important in this technological age, with robots and AI looming. To be able to critique what are facts would be good!
And to sort out in one’s mind what things are interesting and what are just froth and conformism and escapism that isolates from the real and important for ‘good’ living. So there would be fewer car, gun and war and fewer men’s women’s magazines filled with photos of people elevated to Objects of Interest, objects of materialism, expensive watches, sophisticated booze, clothes, makeup techniques, feelings, exotic and rare animals, house decoration etc.
Yes, instead of becoming the bulwark of an informed and healthily functioning democracy, education, a few steps behind the fourth estate, is being slowly forced to tread the same path as the fourth estate: erosion of independent state-funded quality outlets; encouragement of privatisation and forced reliance upon commercialism, with the total exclusion from debate of any other (superior) forms of funding .
Some commentators now blatantly assume that commercial advertising is the only way that any news media should be funded. Blinkered idiots.
I think Lottery games are vulgar and hurt poorer communities.
If that too confronting. Try cracked, they can sell you the idea
Ha, that was good 😈
Chris Hipkins has set out a reasonable response to Nat/ACT’s Charter Schools here:
http://www.chrishipkins.org.nz/labour_s_position_on_charter_schools
What struck me was the statement “Take the failed Whangaruru charter schools decision to spend most of their upfront funding purchasing a farm. Since Hekia Parata finally decided to close them down, as the Ministry of Education repeatedly recommended, that huge investment of public money was lost forever.”
I recall this being raised as a possibility right back when the charter schools initiative was getting underway, but from memory was dismissed as just partisan hyperbole. Is this true? Did anything get recovered from the private owners (furniture, office equipment, AV equipment, playground fittings, etc, etc)? Or is it all just a huge windfall for the private owners – being rewarded for an education failure?
Is it possible to find out how much the total spending from taxpayer funds was, and of that how much was spent on operating costs other than management fees, and how much recovered when the school was closed?
It astounds me that the operators of the failed Whangaruru School were allowed to keep their choice of school, a farm. I’m not sure if I should be protesting or starting a Cabin Crew school, I’d need a Boeing Dreamliner. Fortunately I know absolutely nothing about training cabin crew and I’m excellent at international travel.
It failed, ok. Why on earth are the assets not returned to the people that provided them. You and me.
exactly David Mac.
Robbing from the kids though is easy prey so a wonderful business opportunity for the smooth taking greedy.
To those wondering why Peter Thiel’s application for citizenship was fast tracked, the following article might provide some clues.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great-british-brexit-robbery-hijacked-democracy?
The rich are the problem, not the solution.
We need the productive, the dollars chase them.
The bloke next to me works long long hours, he’ll knock up homes for 10 families this year. I see his office light burning at 1am. He makes lots more money than I do, he’s what I’d call wealthy.
I don’t work many hours. I spend lots of time fishing, surfing, drinking, travelling around and entertaining myself commenting on blogs.
If the bloke next door and I were paid the same money, had the same boat, sqm of house etc…..why the hell would he work 100 hours a week? He’d be nuts not to hang out with me and cruise.
What a hoot we’d have. Alas, the Jones, Smiths, Browns and Black families will have to make do with a tarpaulin stretched between trees…and since we averaged things out, there’s only room on our boats for 2.
I’m a huge fan of equality. Splitting all the $ up so we have equal shares is ridiculous. If we do it on a global scale, it’s about $7.50 each. We’d all be surfing and eating feijoa jam, nothing would get done. I think the equality we need to be concerned with is an equality of opportunity and the associated benefits of embracing them.
Can you rephrase that in a way that it makes sense?
Why is he working 100 hour weeks? That’s enough for two or even three full time jobs. And that amount of time at work is decreasing his productivity and probably to the point that he isn’t getting anywhere near as much done as actually needs to be done. He’s probably wasting 20 hours or more.
Define: Paid the same money
There’s quite a few people available who could be employed to ensure that everyone has a home but the capitalists, like your hero there, would complain because wages would go up.
And where have I ever suggested such a thing?
you seem to have this delusional idea that people are solely motivated by money whereas most people are motivated by anything but. In fact, it seems to me that only the sociopathic types are motivated by money and then there’s the reality of motivation and how paying people too much causes them fail badly:
“We need the productive, the dollars chase them.”
Can you rephrase that in a way that it makes sense?
It is natural that the rewards, whatever form they take, gravitate towards the productive. I don’t think the guy next door is pushed along by money these days. He has a comfortable buffer. These days I think he just likes making homes for families and teaching kids to build. He’s in the habit of getting up with the sun.
You see his assets as a problem, a product of his greed. We are all guilty of greed, who the hell can have just 2 Toffee Pops and put the packet away? Yep you’re right, I see his fair and square rewards as a ‘Good on ya mate.’ I think most Kiwis would.
Of course we’re all motivated by money. To a degree. Few of us can do without electricity or clothing. I get the feeling you’d like to limit how productive/rewarded I’m allowed to be. I think to remove that choice from people severely hobbles aspiration and motivation.
The problem with that is that the majority of rich people aren’t productive at all – they’re just parasites living off the work of those who are. in other words, they’re nothing but bludgers. Probably more accurately called parasites as they will kill the host.
In other words, that sentence is pure bollocks. In fact, I’d call it an outright lie.
And they are on both counts. Excessive assets owned by one person leaves less for everyone else. That’s why capitalism always results first in ever increasing poverty and finally the collapse of the society that it arose in.
And in that you’d be wrong. In fact what i want is to increase everyone’s creativity but to do that requires removing the nations resources from the control of the few.
Yeah…I think we could bounce a ping-pong ball between us all night Draco and be no closer to common ground. I like you all the same. I think you bring colour and thought provoking comments to this blog.
These fat neo-liberal huas you refer to Draco. Yep, unnecessary exploitive parasites of the highest order, I agree. They are a hindrance on us all leading rounded colourful lives. But there are only 100’s of them. The bogeyman is very thin. I don’t know any neo liberal life sucking bastards but I know quite a few people that are comfortable by way of applying themselves and getting stuck in.
There is no limit on opportunity Draco. There is not a defined quota out there for us to share between us. One person having what you deem too much is not hogging your share. There is plenty for everyone, but putting a bucket next to my couch and expecting it to fill up with money as I watch TV is an unrealistic expectation.
I thought I’d seen you make a comment along the lines of “Yep, everything over 100k is greed, anything over $100k pa, 100% tax on the excess.
Richest 62 people as wealthy as half of world’s population, says Oxfam
World’s eight richest people have same wealth as poorest 50%
Yeah, I don’t think those bogeymen are that thin and they really are causing serious problems. The same problems that feudalism caused in fact because that’s what capitalism is.
Yes there is. If someone doesn’t have access to the resources to be creative then they have no opportunity.
And that true for most of the population of the world and it’s that way because so few people control all of the resources of the world.
And yet rich people do that all the time through their ownership of resources and factories.
And I’m pretty sure you also do exactly the same thing with your savings account. you know, put money in the savings account and expect it to grow with no productive activity on your part at all.
Rachinger convicted of obtaining money by deception, claiming he was going to
infiltratehack the Standard and discharged.The judge was kind to him, I hope Rachinger sorts himself out and does something more constructive in future.
Wow, conviction and discharge. Cool. We are taking a different line to criminality are we, public admission then put in stocks for a day in a public place? Having to clean public toilets with a toothbrush. Go and work at seasonal work and picking vegetables – that would be good, up early in the morning cutting lettuces for the supermarkets?
I wonder what punishment, retribution, re-education, sanctions have been imposed on him and Cameron Slater, who as everyone knows has a hard, grey shell and scuttles around in ingenious places. However I understand that beer is a favourite for pulling him from his hideyhole under decaying detritus.
Visit Southern Man at #16 above and look at that link. Slater is a pimple on a very large smelly backside. Wot me worry?!
And now for the Weather…
“Cyclone Donna is now the strongest tropical storm to hit the South Pacific in May after reaching Category 5 this morning….
Weatherwatch.co.nz said Donna now had sustained winds of 215km/h gusting up to a ferocious 260km/h, making it the strongest May cyclone recorded in the Southern Hemisphere”.
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/national/strongest-may-cyclone-hit-south-pacific
“A climate scientist said Cyclone Donna’s lateness and intensity was a direct result of a changing climate.
Jim Salinger, from Otago University, said late cyclones such as Donna were rare, but not unheard of.
However, he said this one was unusual as the sea temperatures around Vanuatu and New Caledonia are what they would normally be in March.
“Well we’re not in an El Niño and we’re not in a La Niña, so you would not expect temperatures to be that warm, though they can be on occasions. So what we’re seeing happening here is, I’d say, there’s a bit of global warming going on,” Dr Salinger says.
Dr Salinger said scientific predictions of stronger, more intense cyclones over a longer season as a result of climate change were starting to be borne out”.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/330274/still-fierce,-cyclone-donna-moving-towards-new-caledonia
Personally, I think the precession of the earths’ axis, doing as it always does, has far more impact on the seasonal changes we are experiencing. After all, 26500 years happens gradually, so it’s not complete idiocy to imagine that seasonal changes would happen imperceptibly.
20 years ago, wouldn’t have had any issue planting out tomatoes on Labour Weekend. Now, it’s more likely to be first weekend of December such is the change in the seasonal patterns that have been experienced. Summer hasn’t followed the 1 December – 1 March “cycle” for nearly a decade now – it’s been more like March when Summer really hits it’s stride. Winter seems to be occurring from mid July – October.
I’m sure I’ll be howled down by the earth sciences graduates claiming that seasons never change and are completely immutable.
James … personally I think you need to plant different Tomatoes.. Here’s some reading fyi in the meantime…
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/88224605/new-zealand-was-hotter-than-ever-in-2016-niwa-climate-summary-says
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/RisingCost/rising_cost5.php
Bill English: …. ‘irresponsible’, ‘misleading’ Pike River families..
Playing the Blame game..
Speaking on NewsHub AM Show today “he continued to defend the Government’s reluctance to allow manned entry to the mine, where 29 people lost their lives in a 2010 explosion.
“It could be putting a significant number of lives in danger…and doing so for the worst of reasons – and that’s political reasons”.
And yet he would still not rule out agreeing to manned entry as a part of post-election coalition talks….
FFS! How’s that for irresponsible and misleading!
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2017/05/bill-english-winston-peters-irresponsible-misleading-pike-river-families.html
The upside to increasing C02
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/opinion/92324200/doug-edmeades-carbon-dioxide–friend-or-foe
Bullshit. For most plants worldwide, their growth is limited by something else essential. For those plants, increased CO2 makes no difference or may even be a stressor. In a very few rare circumstances, almost always in controlled environments like greenhouses, CO2 will be the constraint to growth, so increasing CO2 will lead to increased growth. This an an example of the denier’s attempt to sow confusion by claiming a very rare specific case applies to the general case.
https://skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm
And if the oceans lose productivity due to increased acidification from increased CO2, then that loss will likely swamp any tiny increase from extra plant growth.
https://skepticalscience.com/ocean-acidification-global-warming.htm
“For most plants worldwide, their growth is limited by something else essential. For those plants, increased CO2 makes no difference or may even be a stressor.”
Yet, satellite imaging shows the Earth has been getting greener.
“This an an example of the denier’s attempt to sow confusion by claiming a very rare specific case applies to the general case.”
Alternatively, it could just be an upside to the downside.
You appear to be genius at useless aphorisms. I guess that is what glib but scientifically ignorant are good at.
The world got gets ‘greener’ when we have green algae growing on oceans and waterways. It gets ‘greener’ when grassland replaces forest or swamp. It gets greener when snow and ice cover is replaced by plants.
However none of these mean nothing to providing increased sequestration on additional fossil carbon – they do the opposite. They don’t compensate for the increased adsorption of heat inside our planets volatiles that is performing the fastest climate change that this world has seen since the last major asteroid sea strike.
But I guess that saying such stupid aphorisms they satisfy your tongue and reduce your need to have have to use your brain for actual science eh?.
The article stated it (greening in the satellite imaging) was a consequence of the increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration measured by the leaf area index. Therefore, I don’t see how algae and grass fall into that category. Nevertheless, one would assume those occurrences (along with snow and ice cover over the period) would be accounted for.
Edmeades doesn’t appear to cite where those claims of increased leaf area index came from, so it’s hard to comment on how accurately he’s representing the source data and how credible that source is.
On the off chance it’s from his main cite, CO2 Science, here’s a backgrounder on them. They’re another one of these fossil-fuel funded organisations set up to sow confusion.
https://www.desmogblog.com/center-study-carbon-dioxide-and-global-change
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth
So it does at least include grass, then, and they expect the “upside” to be temporary anyway. And a lot of the dark green seems to be around the north pole, which has its own problems.
Yay. /sarc
+1. Fat lot of good it will do once the droughts kick in too. And the big rains. And gale force winds. I guess when the forest gets knocked over the grass will grow there faster. Yay.
“So it does at least include grass”
No, leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees.
They say the benefits ‘may’ also be limited as plants have shown to acclimatize overtime, but no time frame was given. And given the use of the word ‘may’, it sounds as if that is still inconclusive.
Moreover, this study goes back 35 years, therefore it could be several decades before benefits cease, if the cease at all.
Grass is a plant.
The only grass I know with leaf cover is a noxious prohibited weed.
A blade of grass is a leaf.
A slightly broader view of what that study means…
http://grist.org/climate-energy/earth-is-getting-greener-heres-why-thats-a-problem/
Thanks.
Tell me Chairman, since you look for encouraging news in those satellite pictures, how is the glacier retreat problem going? Any reports of glaciers generally making up their losses from over the recent 5 decades?
Jail This Thug
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/330300/women-describe-'horror'-as-mp's-vehicle-struck
Even if he is found guilty I can’t see what purpose that would serve.
Surely it would deter other National Party thugs from driving their cars into people?
This lout—another National M.P.—should also have been jailed….
https://fmacskasy.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/shane-ardern-tractor-parliament-steps-september-2003.jpeg
Pie describes our world….