Heart of Glass is a New Wave/Disco crossover. Blondie got lots of shit for doing Disco but hey it's a great song. The original demo version had reggae influence:
Man, that’s certainly a different version from their more well-known hit version. Debbie Harry’s got the voice & the superb timing to carry it off, tho.
I like Reggae as well as Blues; in fact I learned how to combine them in one original song “Blues Done In Reggae”.
I especially like Bob & The Wailers, as well as a few UB40 songs.
My favourite UB40 song (apart from “Ivory Madonna” – not the correct name but YouTube finds it) is this one – after I witnessed it performed live by Porirua’s Whitireia University Music Class Band during their concert at the Cozzie Club in Upper Hutt. They did a fantastic job of it:
A global push for sharp cuts in methane emissions will be a major feature of the UN’s COP26 climate negotiations beginning in Glasgow in three weeks’ time. This will put a harsh spotlight on New Zealand
Rod Oram anticipates an increasing focus on methane – a political shift consequent of perceptions of increasing urgency. BAU advocates will feel even more paranoid. Having pointed out here a couple of years ago that methane breaks down into CO2, I've been mystified by the long-standing tendency to discount it, but I suppose that's just another symptom of climate change inducing mass irrationality & hysteria.
Kennedy Graham, a former NZ diplomat, UN official and Green Party MP, notes in his recent research paper for Victoria University’s Institute for Governance and Policy Studies…
“There is no valid reason to avoid identifying New Zealand’s 2050 Target in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent. There is an associated lack of clarity over the 2050 Target, discernible in the media and even in official statements by government leaders. A ‘transparency gap’ is developing between the domestic presentation of climate policy (the 2019 legislation and the 2021 Commission Report) and the international requirements of New Zealand’s reporting of the Target and progress towards it.”
Reminds us why there's a huge pakeha male deficit in the Greens & their voter base. "Huh?? What are you trying to say?" would be their typical response. Can't get political support for policy shifts without communicating in language folks are familiar with. Duh!
“Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a warming potential more than 28 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2). But when it comes to livestock and climate change, there are many other characteristics that set biogenic methane (methane from cattle) apart from CO2. Here are an important four:
* It stays in our atmosphere for about 12 years
* It’s derived from atmospheric carbon, such as CO2
* It’s part of the biogenic carbon cycle
* It eventually returns to the atmosphere as CO2, making it recycled carbon
…
Methane has a relatively short life of 12 years compared to the hundreds or even thousands of years that CO2 hangs around. After about 12 years, 80 to 89 percent of methane is removed by oxidation with tropical hydroxyl radicals (OH), a process referred to as hydroxyl oxidation. As a result of its short lifespan, methane is only significantly warming our atmosphere for those 12 years, which is why it is considered a short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP).
Its short lifespan is further relevant in regard to warming, because it means that as methane is being emitted it is also being destroyed in the atmosphere, making it a flow gas.
This illustrates that methane’s warming impact isn’t determined by how much is being emitted – since it’s destroyed relatively quickly – but by how much more or less methane is being emitted over a period of time. This is a change in the rate of emission.
What is notable about methane, is that it’s possible the amount being emitted can equal the amount being destroyed. For example, if a herd of cattle emits the same amount of methane over 12 years, they are contributing to warming for those 12 years. But afterward the same amount being emitted is the same that is being destroyed through oxidation, and thus warming is neutral.”
But afterward the same amount being emitted is the same that is being destroyed through oxidation, and thus warming is neutral.
Yeah, this neutrality thesis is what's in question. Well, that's the impression I get anyway. We await any new consensus of experts! I'll just restate my point about oxidation by pointing out that CO2 is the product. How anyone in academia can spin that into neutrality is a bit beyond me. Do they use an equation?
If it’s not shown in that article, there are others around on the web that proponents have posted to us on other blogs.
It was hard enuf to find that one, because so many “experts” who dispute or refuse to accept this methane > CO2 cycle thesis have ensured that articles talking up the methane contribution to global warming (as opposed to it being a self-neutralising process) predominate in Google searches.
Oh well, let's hope that the winds of change blown up by the climate summit dispell the fog. Disclosure of interest: I graduated BSc in physics. But that was in a bygone era. I got good at feeding back to the profs whatever line of bullshit they fished for in the design of exam questions. Worked like a charm.
Ever since, I tend to just scan stuff to get the gist of it. Going any further means taking the author seriously – usually a waste of one's valuable time!
If the farmer keeps producing the same amount each year as gets neutralised by the 12th year, that means the farmer is providing a permanent store of Methane heating the atmosphere over 28 times worse than CO2 – the whole bloody time. Bring back lynch mobs!
Well, the time for being critical of farmers is long gone really. Political focus ought to be shifting to solutions and implementation. Farmer's reps have been in the media rating farmer compliance at more than 80% during the past year. I'd like to get a reality check procedure adopted for that compliant majority, plus an enforcement procedure to apply to the remainder.
That means Lab/Nat leaders have to pull finger, eh? Laziness from politicians ought not to be tolerated further by the public. Effective politics is still possible via the use of intelligent design of decision-making processes to extend consensus on solutions & implementation method. Dumb & dumber is institutionalised by democracy, true, but we can get around that with goodwill & serious intent.
That's related. The zero-sum thinkers will do trad reductionism: "Forget about climate-fixing, we must fix BAU!" Holists will go "Please extract your head from the 19th century, we need you to help the transition to sustainability. There Is No Alternative. If humanity is to survive…"
Energy is so hard to come by right now that some provinces in China are rationing electricity, Europeans are paying sky-high prices for liquefied natural gas, power plants in India are on the verge of running out of coal, and the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States stood at $3.25 on Friday — up from $1.72 in April.
As the global economy recovers and global leaders prepare to gather for a landmark conference on climate change, the sudden energy crunch hitting the world is threatening already stressed supply chains, stirring geopolitical tensions and raising questions about whether the world is ready for the green energy revolution when it’s having trouble powering itself right now.
Our failing response to the covid pandemic, reminds me of our response to climate change.
We are told, "Well we must open up eventually, don't we?"
Well what if we didn't?
What if instead of jetting off to the Gold Coast for the weekend, at the cost of one old person catching the infection and dying, we holidayed at home at one of this country's many attractions?
Before the 60's and even into the 70's mass air travel wasn't even a thing. Air travel was a rare luxury for the wealthy, or something you saved up for that once in a lifetime vacation.
I think we need to personalise the experience of air travel in the age of covid. Before you are allowed to fly overseas for that weekend on the beach at Surfers or Bondi, you have to agree to go into an old folks home and personally euthanise one old person.
And if you think Covid is bad, the climate crisis is going to be worse.
While your high emissions lifestyle is more likely to kill someone in the Third World and not you, again I think we need to personalise the experience of air travel in the age of climate change.
Alighting at that exotic tropical holdiday destination, before you get to relax on the beach with that maitai in your hand, you have to agree to drown one local child in the nearest river.
I'll go with the principle of moral responsibility. It tends to operate as sub-text for political activists. Make it explicit & folks immediately start complaining that thinking about it makes their brain hurt.
What if it were to be incorporated into a code of ethics for economists and accountants? Then you'd get the real costs of business & policies impacting onto political decisions. Both left- and right-wingers would hate that! Since democracy was designed to privilege both tribes of wrongdoers, gonna be real hard to make progress on an ethical basis.
Yes, millions of individuals acting selfishly don't seem able to solve the big problems. Who would have thought (except 99% of mainstream economists and politicians)?
It don’t make no never mind (as US southerners might say) to the planet.
If we human apes don’t get our act together, the ecosytem & our social settings will change to make survival of the current huge numbers of our arrogant & untthinking species more difficult.
There will be other species which will likely survive better in a hotter workd, & / or new ones might arise or evolve to take advantage of the new niches, as always.
The most special thing about human apes is the danger they present to all other life forms, as well as their own.
Kim Hill uncharacteristically letting Chris Bishop, world authority on epidemiology, vaccination and nurse ICU training off the hook this morning , apparently there are 3000 nurses in the MIQ queue desperate to get home to work in ICU. Really? Just how many are only coming home to see mum and dad for a while, how many are ICU trained, a process that can take years or months just to be bought up to speed if with previous ICU experience, because techniques and equipment and drugs are constantly being upgraded. Or coming home to get the fuck away from nursing because of burnout?
Oh, and they can home isolate even if symptomatic because of an app on their phone with say, aged parents with compromised function or a sister with young, unvaxxed children, in fact all 30,000 can come home. Fuck off Bishop and take your vax avoider mate Goudie with you.
John Carter Northland Mayor?, another ex Nat railing about the two women sex workers, how about naming and shaming the Northland residents who aided and abetted the two to go to Northland in the first place? But hang on, they may be National Party donors or “ prominent in the community” , can’t have that eh. Arseholes.
Calm down, Adrian. One you got to John Carter you lost me, I’m afraid. Arseholes, I understood but the rest of it’s a bit too convoluted for me to follow, tbh. I am a bear of small brain. 🐼
There are going to be cases of people self isolating at home so they do not catch Covid. Some people are spending a lot of time in their home under level 2 even now and they are restructuring their interests.
The likes of mayors or opposition politicians do not need to tell me how to personally manage a Covid outbreak.
The urgency is in Auckland and the basics need to be provided, food, counselling, laptops and phone connections for school education, rental housing assistance, survival income and free sound business advice.
I was illustrating how easy it is to give grandstanders like Bishop and Carter room to put up straw theories that can fall apart at the first challenge. But first they must be challenged.
When Kim Hill wants to challenge or question someone’s statements, she’s usually very good at it – quite dogged & determined.
Perhaps she’s feeling off colour, or just not in the mood this morning? I’ll see if I can find the audio track when RNZ post it, & have a listen later.
How long is the Delta Covid wave likely to last in NZ?
Bishop and Carter can spit tacks all they like about individual rule breakers, once the rules are broken they cannot be reversed. The situation can only be contained and everyone is affected when rules are broken and infection control is not followed properly.
O Virus, look upon your mortal legions and despair.
1. You haven't risen beyond any other social ill. The mortality and morbidity effects are far less that car crashes per year. You're over-hyped.
2. Each crisis has made us stronger. Some of our more recent crises have rapidly accelerated human progress. Such as in global co-operation, medicine, mechanisation, and communications and information. You helped us kill you, again and again.
3. You told us nothing about the poor. Covid is eventually a disease of deprivation, but pretty much everything else is already.
4. We know better than you. Covid has been a strong positive axial point for human knowledge. It has confirmed the epistemic truth of science against social media, and simultaneously supported accelerated successful drug trials faster than we've seen in decades..
5. Our unity overcomes you. Social cohesion has remained remarkably strong – even in the United States. There is no underground lava flow of human anomie to reveal from Covid.
6. Our state is stronger than ever. Covid, even more than the GFC, has confirmed the necessity for strong and coherent government.
7. Our dominion continues to strengthen. Compared to the Spanish 'Flu a century ago, human hygiene and public health measures are vastly superior. Humans have gained power not weakened in that time. If this is one of the worst viral powers in modern operation, it's been dealt to very fast and with remarkable lack of fuss.
8 Capitalism, medicine, and government are united. Researchers invested and tested at speed. Regulators acted with appropriate speed. Few governments are afraid of debt anymore to achieve public health goals.
9. The world is re-opening and re-born. Your lessons such as they are have already been absorbed and the height of your doom has passed. You haven't had the longevity of human interest of two seasons of Days Of Our Lives.
10. You were the last of your kind, and you're done. Even Polio was stronger, Malaria more powerful and across more lives, and they too are being vaccined away. You were more than SARS, but less than most. Would you like a gold plated One Ring or something to make you feel better?
“Labour on 46 per cent (up one point from September), National on 22 per cent (down four points), Act up three points to 16 and the Greens up one at 7 per cent.”
Collins will survive until 2022 when parliament resumes. She will continue to be a liability as leader. National and Act could be neck and neck in the next Colmar Brunton poll.
All the National whingers and the ACT gossippers are not out trolling today.
After many claims that ACT was taking votes directly from labour.
Both Greens and Labour on steady ground National in more trouble those National MP's with slim majorities and lower on the list will want a new leader Pronto as business leaders say Collins is the best promoter for Labour.
How long can National keep bleeding votes to every other party.
Judith Collins is like a vulture sitting on a tree branch patiently waiting for the beautiful antelope to stumble.
Already she is preparing to swoop down on the wounded gazelle.
After health experts were sidelined in the decision to lower the Auckland Alert Level, with the resulting rise in cases they warned the government of. Some of these health experts demanded to see who's advice the government had been taking.
Despite the fact that lowering the level is what she had been demanding all along, Judith Collins has swooped down to peck at the fallen carcase of the Government's covid response. And is also now (belatedly) demanding that this policy advice be released.
Judith Collins wants advice on Auckland alert level drop released as Jacinda Ardern foreshadows 'doubling in cases'
12/10/2021
Zane Small
Auckland was shifted down from alert level 4 last month despite 22 new community cases reported the day before and against the advice of several experts. Ultimately, the Government had to consider the mental wellbeing of Aucklanders and the financial strain on businesses.
With more businesses able to operate at alert level 3, the virus has been able to transmit via food delivery, taxi services and construction workers.
"Case numbers were trending down but are now clearly on a steady rise since Auckland left level 4. When will the Prime Minister release the health advice relied on to make the decision to reduce restrictions?" Collins said on Tuesday.
I knew the picnic bubble was a bad idea. It gave people a licience to entertain inside the home. Having a nominated visitor like in L4 needed to be maintained and allowing 2 nominated visitors in L3.
As I mentioned Judith Collins was very late coming to the realisation that the government's decision to go out of Level 4 was a mistake, especially as this is just what she had been calling for.
In demanding the government release the advice they received before going down a level, Judith Collins is only echoing the Health experts' query.
New Zealand government’s pivot from Covid elimination ‘surprised’ top health experts
A number of epidemiologists and public health experts who have been central to helping chart and communicate New Zealand’s Covid response thus far say they were taken by surprise by its new direction, and not consulted by the government as it pivoted away from elimination and outlined a controversial set of “steps” out of level 3 restrictions last week.
The announcement was a shift in tack for New Zealand’s government, which has spent most of the pandemic in close to lock-step with public health professionals….
…..“I don’t know what their consultation schedule was like – I certainly was not involved,” Pacific health expert and associate professor Collin Tukuitonga, of University of Auckland. Tukuitonga is a past director of public health at the Ministry of Health, and was on the ministry’s Covid-19 Technical Advisory Group.
“A number of us were surprised at the announcement last Monday, the change that happened,” he said. “I personally thought it was premature to have gone to level 3, given the fact that we had all those new cases and unlinked cases as well, and low vaccination coverage in Auckland – so no, I was not involved and I don’t know who they consulted with.”
He said further loosening of restrictions that were previewed on Monday, including the announcement – since rolled back – that schools would be reopening on 18 October – were also out of step with the realities of a growing outbreak.
“I thought it was a fairly risky strategy – and time has proven that,” he said. “On Sunday there were 60 cases. In other words, there’s still transmission going on and I would have thought that we would have held the line with our original plan and elimination, until we had vaccination rates up, [given] the risks would be borne by Māori and Pasifika people.”
Lab/Grn a smidgeon over 50; Nat/ACT a smidgeon under 40. A 10-15% gap between the blocs – pretty much what we have been seeing for a while. The Key years in reverse.
What will be the catalyst for that advantage flipping the other way – and what can be done to pre-empt it?
"You can be really hard on them [rule breakers], but you're probably not going to ever stop them.
"We have to make sure that our cars' brakes work, we need to make sure that we're doing everything and we're following all the rules because the more we do that, the more we can slow it down."
“I think we need to take our mandatory vaccination rules much further. I think it has to be the police, it has to be supermarkets.
Chris T houses they can't build properly you mean when National threw out building quality control and put in private building inspectors in 1991 allowing the leaky building catastrophe.
The Canterbury rebuild which is costing tax payers billions because of dodgy repairs and insurance underpayment.
Kiwibuild was worth a try but because of shortages of Labour Land and materials it failed,But the number of govt funded new state houses has seen more built since the 1970's. National said it was a mistake to sell off 7,000 state houses.
Kiwibuild was a joke. A flat out bribe that they knew perfectly well was impossible, because at the time they were under 30 in the polls.
Fair play to Shearer though. To his credit he managed to not burst out laughing when he announced it. Not a lot of parties politicians would have had the ability to do that.
Kiwibuild has delivered 1500 extra homes to the market while National had a massive deficit over 9 years Nicola Willis saying it was a mistake selling off 7,000 state houses .
Labour has built nearly 4,000 state houses plus funding for nearly 1,000 NGO houses.
When you add that all up its not enough but it's way better than National.If you take the Canterbury rebuild out of Nationals figures of state houses built. you will find Nationals housing efforts even worse but not as bad as the leaky building disasters like brand new hospitals and schools etc that still need fixing and demolition in many cases.
"Kiwibuild has delivered 1500 extra homes to the market while National had a massive deficit over 9 years Nicola Willis saying it was a mistake selling off 7,000 state houses ."
"Labour has built nearly 4,000 state houses plus funding for nearly 1,000 NGO houses."
All I can say is that you're being more honest than Megan Woods. As at 27th July, the number Labour have actually built is Kainga Ora 1952 + CHP's 1009 + Transitional Housing 755. So the total permanent additions are only 2961 as at 27/7.
This was a major policy platform of Labour's, and instead of fixing the problem they have made it worse.
Might be a case of Mike H picking the expert that fits the narrative. An official from the MoH said on RNZ today that the site had been security-audited by a third party consultancy.
Did Mike try being an actual journalist and get the contending experts together in a balanced way without any pre-conceptions? Presumably not, as he has a particular ideological function to fulfill.
And God knows what's actually true – IT is the wild west and it's best to doubt everyone involved in it.
71 cases today….I heard the expert interviewed by Kim hill just before 9am who said there really needs to be a vaccine that steralises covid, like the measles vaccine. Current covid vaccines allow transmission.
I think we should eliminate covid for another year until such a vaccine becomes available. Level 4 in akl till Xmas. That is my opinion
See what comes out of the serious Covid management discussion at the Beehive today. Top scientists and medical minds will be attending. No matter how good the plan is, even under level 4 their were rule breakers.
Not happening mate. Grant made that reasonably clear at 1pm. His comment that these are rule breakers, [so therefore it would be spreading at level 4 also] means Auckland is not going to bounce back up to 4.
The time has come for us all to prepare for this virus to rip. We are now very much on the Melbourne trajectory. Numbers will double week on week from here.
Its going to be a grim few weeks heading into Christmas.
I agree, I cant see them putting Auckland back to level 4 as they know there would be a public outcry. There is enough rule breakers already. One positive is it may speed up people getting the vaccine.
Maybe not Enough is.. but if your job is getting hot and sweaty while naked with multiple clients you would have to go a long way to find a better transmission enviroment than that. And it will only get down to the South via a non- compliant arsehole from guess where?.
Seems like half the country wants them all named & shamed, and the other half doesn’t want them & their families to have to face abuse from the public.
Might have to bring back public stocks for lockdown runners, but let them wear a bag over their heads?
We seem to be getting into situations where some lockdown runners’ names are publicly known & others aren’t.
Really great to hear of Littles optimism. So we will cut off the country at the Bombays ? No schooling , shops etc open this year and potentially April 22??, no holidays, Auckland north closed for what 6 months ???
Perhaps some govt ministers should get out to Auckland, There is plenty of evidence that the public are not adhering to the level 3 rules( just look at the spread of cases), remember what Coster said in Feb 21 regarding "policing by consent". IMO this outbreak is hanging on the consent of the public, and evidence that this consent is diminishing.
"Next year, even with a 90 per cent of the eligible population vaccinated, Covid cases in the area covering Auckland and Northland could hit 5300 a week for six weeks.The Government is not worried about this. In fact, it thinks it is entirely manageable."
Even though it's rule-breaking rather than workplaces that seem to be the main source of spread, this calls for serious consideration about pushing everyone up a covid level – and explicitly blaming rulebreakers for it. This is why we can't have nice things.
Unless they can guarantee cases will plateau in a fortnight (which they can't), this is going to get very ugly indeed.
You think areseholes breaking lockdown rules care about other people, or what they may think?
Teenagers (or some of then) who haven't seen their boyfriend or mates in 60 days won't care.
People who's livlihood rely on working in the black market won't care.
Short sharp lockdows are effective. But once you get to this point (as has been shown everywhere else in the world) universal compliance becomes the issue.
Of the unvaccinated I know, they also didn't pay much attention to the rules for level 4 either. They've been quite boastful about what they got up in level 4 and still doing in level 3.
The only thing I can see that might move them are "no jab, no job" and "no jab, no entry" policies. And that's only going to affect whether they get vaccinated, not whether they comply with level 3 or 4 rules.
Worth noting that this is the most recent, with polling until Monday. The commentators interviewed their keyboards and decided last week was terrible for Ardern instead, but the voters disagreed. How dare they.
"The Greens dropped 3.2 points to 6.4 per cent." Looks like their strategy of keeping a low profile is working well. Disclosure of non-interest: I allowed my GP membership to lapse last December. Their messaging has been too underwhelming for too long. I will never abandon my support for the Green movement, of course!
Be interesting to know how many households are fracturing because of anti-vaxxers. The worry that they will get very sick if they contract covid and that families won't be able to help them. Christmas day will be fraught with angst with family members not being invited into the usual noisy rowdy train ride of a day. The simmering resentment which never goes away knowing that a loved one refuses to have the vaccine and is endangering their life and others around them.
Our PM has said often that we all need to "encourage" our loved ones who are "hesitant". In my opinion the lady hasn't got a clue what she is on about. Trying to get an anti-vaxxer to take one for the team is like painfully pulling teeth. The bloody mindedness is boundless when they have made their minds up. One can say well, you only sow what you reap but try telling that to parents who love their kids. Its heartbreaking.
Yeah, of the half-dozen unvaccinated I know, only one is showing any signs of considering getting vaxed. He's aware that there's a lot of shit on the internet, and that he may not have been getting his ideas from reliable sources.
But jeez, it's a lot of work going through every anti-vax talking point that he's bought into one by one and showing exactly how it's disinformation, and how to better interpret the actual facts of the actual situation the disinfo is built on. Something I find interesting is even after I've shown that a particular disinformation source is completely full of shit on several different topics, he still takes further ideas from that source as reliable.
"try telling that to parents who love their kids. Its heartbreaking."
Of the four there's only one.
She's joined a cluster and it's as though her whole being depends on not breaking out. Every illogical, un-founded bullshit claim or theory has been refuted with proof and still….
Oh, Ok. The headline and article have both now been updated. The guts of it is:
………………………………
"Police have taken three people into custody following a stolen-car incident where people fled the scene before a car was spiked.
Just after 2pm police said they were called to an incident after a person had their vehicle stolen in Massey.
The Eagle police helicopter located the stolen vehicle and tracked it to Westgate. A police spokesperson confirmed the offender got away in a waiting vehicle, with two others in the car.
"Eagle has continued to monitor the situation and police have been able to spike the car," the spokesperson said."
“A New Zealand journalist who has been reporting in Afghanistan’s capital since July for television network Al Jazeera has left the country amid growing concerns over safety.
Charlotte Bellis, a television reporter from Christchurch now based in Doha, Qatar, had been in Kabul covering the withdrawal of international forces as the country came under Taliban control.
Her father, Bruce Bellis, said he was unsure exactly when his daughter returned to Doha but it was “not long after the Americans left” at the end of August, marking the end of America’s involvement in the Afghanistan war.
“I believe she is now in Doha because of the Taliban’s attitude towards women … so it was safer for Al Jazeera to take her back to Doha … I understand that’s where she is,” he said.”
This is a bit strange. As the Stuff article goes on to note, Bellis had remained in Kabul & prided herself on having established good working relationships with Kabul’s Taliban leadership, which made her feel quite safe there to continue reporting.
I have noticed recently that one of Al Jazeera’s older hands, Stephanie Dekker, has taken over reporting from Kabul recently, instead of Charlotte, & wondered where she had gone to. Al Jazeera hasn’t said anything about her departure, as far as I know, on their tv news reporting.
It would not take more than a few cases of people one knows (contacts/Afghan journalists) being taken out to unnerve. Then she might have been warned to leave – her Taliban contacts were of the Doha diplomatic talks variety and there was a confrontation within the Taliban (over governing arrangements) around the time she left.
Hmmm. The Taliban has been having major problems with ISK bombings as well, this past week – in several cities, including Kabul. Altho the Taliban Security Services Interim Minister was featured on Aljaz tv news last night saying that their security services have made great progress tracking down IS fighters, given the number of bombings & people killed (mainly Shia/Hazaris) he wasn’t very convincing.
The Taliban are facing not just Islamic State attacks, but also the possible beginnings of an insurgency from other ethnic groups not represented in their government, including Masoud’s. They are discovering it’s not going to be just like the 1990s when they took control last time.
But the situation over there is now in really dire straits. There’s no funding for anything, gov’t workers have no salaries being paid (& they already hadn’t been paid for months, before the Taliban took over), there’s no work, people are selling what little they have left to buy food, over 90% of the population is on the brink of starvation.
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TL;DR: The global economy will be one fifth smaller than it would have otherwise been in 2050 as a result of climate damage, according to a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and published in the journal Nature. (See more detail and analysis below, and ...
New Zealand is said to be suffering from ‘serious populist discontent’. An IPSOS MORI survey has reported that we have an increasing preference for strong leaders, think that the economy is rigged toward the rich and powerful, and political elites are ignoring ‘hard-working people’. The data is from February this ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters is understood to be planning a major speech within the next fortnight to clear up the confusion over whether or not New Zealand might join the AUKUS submarine project. So far, there have been conflicting signals from the Government. RNZ reported the Prime Minister yesterday in ...
Life throws curveballs, and sometimes, those curveballs necessitate wiping your iPhone clean and starting anew. Whether you’re facing persistent software glitches, preparing to sell your device, or simply wanting a fresh start, knowing how to factory reset iPhone without a computer is a valuable skill. While using a computer with ...
Gone are the days when communication was limited to landline phones and physical proximity. Today, computers have become powerful tools for connecting with people across the globe through voice and video calls. But with a plethora of applications and methods available, how to call someone on a computer might seem ...
Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications:Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control ...
The operating system (OS) is the heart and soul of a computer, orchestrating every action and interaction between hardware and software. But have you ever wondered where on a computer is the operating system generally stored? The answer lies in the intricate dance between hardware and software components, particularly within ...
Laptops have become essential tools for work, entertainment, and communication, offering portability and functionality. However, with rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns, understanding a laptop’s power consumption is more important than ever. So, how many watts does a laptop use? The answer, unfortunately, isn’t straightforward. It depends on several ...
Screen recording has become an essential tool for various purposes, such as creating tutorials, capturing gameplay footage, recording online meetings, or sharing information with others. Fortunately, Dell laptops offer several built-in and external options for screen recording, catering to different needs and preferences. This guide will explore various methods on ...
A cracked or damaged laptop screen can be a frustrating experience, impacting productivity and enjoyment. Fortunately, laptop screen repair is a common service offered by various repair shops and technicians. However, the cost of fixing a laptop screen can vary significantly depending on several factors. This article delves into the ...
Gaming laptops represent a significant investment for passionate gamers, offering portability and powerful performance for immersive gaming experiences. However, a common concern among potential buyers is their lifespan. Unlike desktop PCs, which allow for easier component upgrades, gaming laptops have inherent limitations due to their compact and integrated design. This ...
The annual inventory report of New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions has been released, showing that gross emissions have dropped for the third year in a row, to 78.4 million tons: All-told gross emissions have decreased by over 6 million tons since the Zero Carbon Act was passed in 2019. ...
Experiencing a locked computer can be frustrating, especially when you need access to your files and applications urgently. The methods to unlock your computer will vary depending on the specific situation and the type of lock you encounter. This guide will explore various scenarios and provide step-by-step instructions on how ...
While the world has largely transitioned to digital communication, faxing still holds relevance in certain industries and situations. Fortunately, gone are the days of bulky fax machines and dedicated phone lines. Today, you can easily send and receive faxes directly from your computer, offering a convenient and efficient way to ...
In our increasingly digital world, home computers have become essential tools for work, communication, entertainment, and more. However, this increased reliance on technology also exposes us to various cyber threats. Understanding these threats and taking proactive steps to protect your home computer is crucial for safeguarding your personal information, finances, ...
In the ever-evolving world of technology, server-based computing has emerged as a cornerstone of modern digital infrastructure. This article delves into the concept of server-based computing, exploring its various forms, benefits, challenges, and its impact on the way we work and interact with technology. Understanding Server-Based Computing: At its core, ...
The absolute brass neck of this guy.We want more medical doctors, not more spin doctors, Luxon was saying a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re told the guy has seven salaried adults on TikTok duty. Sorry, doing social media. The absolute brass neck of it. The irony that the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones relishes spatting and eagerly takes issue with environmentalists who criticise his enthusiasm for resource development. He relishes helping the fishing industry too. And so today, while the media are making much of the latest culling in the public service to ...
Having written, taught and worked for the US government on issues involving unconventional warfare and terrorism for 30-odd years, two things irritate me the most when the subject is discussed in public. The first is the Johnny-come-lately academics-turned-media commentators who … Continue reading → ...
Eric Crampton writes – Kainga Ora is the government’s house building agency. It’s been building a lot of social housing. Kainga Ora has its own (but independent) consenting authority, Consentium. It’s a neat idea. Rather than have to deal with building consents across each different territorial authority, Kainga Ora ...
Muriel Newman writes – The Coalition Government says it is moving with speed to deliver campaign promises and reverse the damage done by Labour. One of their key commitments is to “defend the principle that New Zealanders are equal before the law.” To achieve this, they have pledged they “will not advance ...
Chris Trotter writes – The absence of anything resembling a fightback from the public servants currently losing their jobs is interesting. State-sector workers’ collective fatalism in the face of Coalition cutbacks indicates a surprisingly broad acceptance of impermanence in the workplace. Fifty years ago, lay-offs in the thousands ...
Mariupol, on the Azov Sea coast, was one of the first cities to suffer almost complete destruction after the start of the Ukraine War started in late February 2022. We remember the scenes of absolute destruction of the houses and city structures. The deaths of innocent civilians – many of ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – Ten years ago, I wrote the following in a Listener column: Every year around one in five new-born babies will be reliant on their caregivers benefit by Christmas. This pattern has persisted from at least 1993. For Maori the number jumps to over one in three. ...
Climate change is expected to generate more and more extreme events, delivering a sort of structural shock to inflation that central banks will have to react to as if they were short-term cyclical issues. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāMy pick of the six newsey things to know from Aotearoa’s ...
It’s a simple deal. We pay taxes in order to finance the social services we want and need. The carnage now occurring across the public sector though, is breaking that contract. Over 3,000 jobs have been lost so far. Many are in crucial areas like Education where the impact of ...
Hi,A friend had their 40th over the weekend and decided to theme it after Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion icon Susie Greene. Captured in my tiny kitchen before I left the house, I ending up evoking a mix of old lesbian and Hillary Clinton — both unintentional.Me vs Hillary ClintonIf you’re ...
This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blogIn 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something ...
The schools are on holiday and the sun is shining in the seaside village and all day long I have been seeing bunches of bikes; Mums, Dads, teens and toddlers chattering, laughing, happy, having a bloody great time together. Cheers, AT, for the bits of lane you’ve added lately around the ...
Today in our National-led authoritarian nightmare: Shane Jones thinks Ministers should be above the law: New Zealand First MP Shane Jones is accusing the Waitangi Tribunal of over-stepping its mandate by subpoenaing a minister for its urgent hearing on the Oranga Tamariki claim. The tribunal is looking into the ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. ...
Citizen Science writes – Last week saw two significant developments in the debate over the treatment of trans-identifying children and young people – the release in Britain of the final report of Dr Hilary Cass’s review into gender healthcare, and here in New Zealand, the news that the ...
One night while sleeping in my bed I had a beautiful dreamThat all the people of the world got together on the same wavelengthAnd began helping one anotherNow in this dream, universal love was the theme of the dayPeace and understanding and it happened this wayAfter such an eventful day ...
This is a guest post by Oscar Simms who is a housing activist, volunteer for the Coalition for More Homes, and was the Labour Party candidate for Auckland Central at the last election. ...
Turning what Labour called the “holiday highway” into a four-lane expressway from Auckland to Whangarei could bring at least an economic benefit of nearly two billion a year for Northland each year. And it could help bring an end to poverty in one of New Zealand’s most deprived regions. The ...
Tonight’s six-stack includes: launching his substack with a bunch of his previous documentaries, including this 1992 interview with Dame Whina Cooper. and here crew give climate activists plenty to do, including this call to submit against the Fast Track Approvals bill. writes brilliantly here on his substack ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
You're in the mall when you hear it: some kind of popping sound in the distance, kids with fireworks, maybe. But then a moment of eerie stillness is followed by more of the fireworks sound and there’s also screaming and shrieking and now here come people running for their lives.Does ...
Karl du Fresne writes – There’s a crisis in the news media and the media are blaming it on everyone except themselves. Culpability is being deflected elsewhere – mainly to the hapless Minister of Communications, Melissa Lee, and the big social media platforms that are accused of hoovering ...
I don’t normally send out two newsletters in a day but I figured I’d say something about… the news. If two newsletters is a bit much then maybe just skip one, I don’t want to overload people. Alternatively if you’d be interested in sometimes receiving multiple, smaller updates from me, ...
Buzz from the Beehive David Seymour and Winston Peters today signalled that at least two ministers of the Crown might be in Wellington today. Seymour (as Associate Minister of Education) announced the removal of more red tape, this time to make it easier for new early learning services to be ...
Politicians across the political spectrum are implicated in the New Zealand media’s failing health. Either through neglect or incompetent interventions, successive governments have failed to regulate, foster, and allow a healthy Fourth Estate that can adequately hold politicians and the powerful to account. Our political system is suffering from the ...
David Farrar writes – The Broadcasting Standards Authority ruled: Comments by radio host Kate Hawkesby suggesting Māori and Pacific patients were being prioritised for surgery due to their ethnicity were misleading and discriminatory, the Broadcasting Standards Authority has found. It is a fact such patients are prioritised. ...
PRC and its proxies in Solomons have been preparing for these elections for a long time.A lot of money, effort and intelligence have gone into ensuring an outcome that won’t compromise Beijing’s plans. Cleo Paskall writes – On April 17th the Solomon Islands, a country of ...
Is speeding up the trip to and from Wellington airport by 12 minutes worth spending up more than $10 billion? Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me in the last day to 8:26 am today are:The Lead: Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced ...
You're a fraud, and you know itBut it's too good to throw it all awayAnyone would do the sameYou've got 'em goingAnd you're careful not to show itSometimes you even fool yourself a bitIt's like magicBut it's always been a smoke and mirrors gameAnyone would do the sameForty six billion ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The June general election in Mexico could mark a turning point in ensuring that the country’s climate policies better reflect the desire of its citizens to address the climate crisis, with both leading presidential candidates expressing support for renewable energy. Mexico is the ...
2024, it feels, keeps presenting us with ever more challenges, ever more dismay.Do you give up yet? It seems to ask.No? How about this? Or this?How about this?When I say 2024 I really mean the state of humanity in 2024.Saturday night, we watched Civil War because that is one terrifying cliff we've ...
Buzz from the Beehive A pet project and governmental tunnel vision jump out from the latest batch of ministerial announcements. The government is keen to assure us of its concern for the wellbeing of our pets. It will be introducing pet bonds in a change to the Residential Tenancies Act ...
A recent report generated from a Growing Up in New Zealand (GUiNZ) survey of 1,224 rangatahi Māori aged 11-12 found: Cultural connectedness was associated with fewer depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms and better quality of life. That sounds cut and dry. But further into the report the following appears: Cultural connectedness is ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: From the gory details of job-cuts news, you’d think the public service was being eviscerated. While the media’s view of the cuts is incomplete, it’s also true that departments have been leaking the particulars faster than a Wellington ...
Remember the good old days, back when New Zealand had a PM who could think and speak calmly and intelligently in whole sentences without blustering? Even while Iran’s drones and missiles were still being launched, Helen Clark was live on TVNZ expertly summing up the latest crisis in the Middle ...
Costello did not pass on analysis of the benefits of the smokefree reforms to Cabinet, emphasising instead the extra tax revenues of repealing them. Photo: Hagen Hopkins, Getty Images TL;DR: The six news items that stood out to me at 7:26 am today are:The Lead: Casey Costello never passed on ...
True loveYou're the one I'm dreaming ofYour heart fits me like a gloveAnd I'm gonna be true blueBaby, I love youI’ve written about the job cuts in our news media last week. The impact on individuals, and the loss to Aotearoa of voices covering our news from different angles.That by ...
While commentators, including former Prime Minister Helen Clark, are noting a subtle shift in New Zealand’s foreign policy, which now places more emphasis on the United States, many have missed a key element of the shift. What National said before the election is not what the government is doing now. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
A significant milestone has been reached in the fight to strike an anti-Pasifika and unfair law from the country’s books after Teanau Tuiono’s members’ bill passed its first reading. ...
New Zealand has today missed the opportunity to uphold the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, says James Shaw after his member’s bill was voted down in its first reading. ...
Today’s advice from the Climate Change Commission paints a sobering reality of the challenge we face in combating climate change, especially in light of recent Government policy announcements. ...
Minister for Disability Issues Penny Simmonds appears to have delayed a report back to Cabinet on the progress New Zealand is making against international obligations for disabled New Zealanders. ...
The Government’s newly announced review of methane emissions reduction targets hints at its desire to delay Aotearoa New Zealand’s urgent transition to a climate safe future, the Green Party said. ...
The Government must commit to the Maitai School building project for students with high and complex needs, to ensure disabled students from the top of the South Island have somewhere to learn. ...
Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey and his Government colleagues have made a meal of their mental health commitments, showing how flimsy their efforts to champion the issue truly are, says Labour Mental Health spokesperson Ingrid Leary. ...
Māori are yet to see anything from this Government except cuts, reversals and taking our people backwards, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson said. ...
The Coalition Government’s refusal to commit to ongoing funding for social housing is seeing the sector pull back on developments and families watch their dreams of securing a home fade away, says Labour Housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty. ...
Changes to minimum wage and benefit indexation means many New Zealanders will get less this year, as the Government gives a big tax break to landlords instead. ...
New Zealand is demonstrating its commitment to reducing global greenhouse emissions, and supporting clean energy transition in South East Asia, through a contribution of NZ$41 million (US$25 million) in climate finance to the Asian Development Bank (ADB)-led Energy Transition Mechanism (ETM). Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Climate Change Minister Simon Watts announced ...
The Government is today releasing a list of organisations who received letters about the Fast-track applications process, says RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop. “Recently Ministers and agencies have received a series of OIA requests for a list of organisations to whom I wrote with information on applying to have a ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today announced the appointment of Wellington Barrister David Jonathan Boldt as a Judge of the High Court, and the Honourable Justice Matthew Palmer as a Judge of the Court of Appeal. Justice Boldt graduated with an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington in 1990, and also holds ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford will lead the New Zealand delegation at the 2024 International Summit on the Teaching Profession (ISTP) held in Singapore. The delegation includes representatives from the Post Primary Teachers’ Association (PPTA) Te Wehengarua and the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) Te Riu Roa. The summit is co-hosted ...
A stopbank upgrade project in Tairawhiti partly funded by the Government has increased flood resilience for around 7000ha of residential and horticultural land so far, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones today attended a dawn service in Gisborne to mark the end of the first stage of the ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters will represent the Government at Anzac Day commemorations on the Gallipoli Peninsula next week and engage with senior representatives of the Turkish government in Istanbul. “The Gallipoli campaign is a defining event in our history. It will be a privilege to share the occasion ...
Science, Innovation and Technology and Defence Minister Judith Collins will next week attend the OECD Science and Technology Ministerial conference in Paris and Anzac Day commemorations in Belgium. “Science, innovation and technology have a major role to play in rebuilding our economy and achieving better health, environmental and social outcomes ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with the President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The Prime Minister was accompanied by MP Paulo Garcia, the first Filipino to be elected to a legislature outside the Philippines. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon and President Marcos Jr discussed opportunities to ...
The Government has announced that $20 million in funding will be made available to Westport to fund much needed flood protection around the town. This measure will significantly improve the resilience of the community, says Local Government Minister Simeon Brown. “The Westport community has already been allocated almost $3 million ...
The Government is proud to support the first ever Repco Supercars Championship event in Taupō as up to 70,000 motorsport fans attend the Taupō International Motorsport Park this weekend, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. “Anticipation for the ITM Taupō Super400 is huge, with tickets and accommodation selling out weeks ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced an increase to the Rates Rebate Scheme, putting money back into the pockets of low-income homeowners. “The coalition Government is committed to bringing down the cost of living for New Zealanders. That includes targeted support for those Kiwis who are doing things tough, such ...
The Coalition Government is investing in a project to boost survival rates of New Zealand mussels and grow the industry, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones has announced. “This project seeks to increase the resilience of our mussels and significantly boost the sector’s productivity,” Mr Jones says. “The project - ...
Benefit figures released today underscore the importance of the Government’s plan to rebuild the economy and have 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “Benefit numbers are still significantly higher than when National was last in government, when there was about 70,000 fewer ...
The Government’s commitment to doubling New Zealand’s renewable energy capacity is backed by new data showing that clean energy has helped the country reach its lowest annual gross emissions since 1999, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. New Zealand’s latest Greenhouse Gas Inventory (1990-2022) published today, shows gross emissions fell ...
The Government is bringing the earthquake-prone building review forward, with work to start immediately, and extending the deadline for remediations by four years, Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk says. “Our Government is focused on rebuilding the economy. A key part of our plan is to cut red tape that ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and his Thai counterpart, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, have today agreed that New Zealand and the Kingdom of Thailand will upgrade the bilateral relationship to a Strategic Partnership by 2026. “New Zealand and Thailand have a lot to offer each other. We have a strong mutual desire to build ...
RMA Reform Minister Chris Bishop and Transport Minister Simeon Brown have today announced the Coalition Government’s intention to extend port coastal permits for a further 20 years, providing port operators with certainty to continue their operations. “The introduction of the Resource Management Act in 1991 required ports to obtain coastal ...
Today’s announcement that inflation is down to 4 per cent is encouraging news for Kiwis, but there is more work to be done - underlining the importance of the Government’s plan to get the economy back on track, acting Finance Minister Chris Bishop says. “Inflation is now at 4 per ...
Refreshed health guidance released today will help parents and schools make informed decisions about whether their child needs to be in school, addressing one of the key issues affecting school attendance, says Associate Education Minister David Seymour. In recent years, consistently across all school terms, short-term illness or medical reasons ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is streamlining high-level oceans management while maintaining a focus on supporting the sector’s role in the export-led recovery of the economy. “I am working to realise the untapped potential of our fishing and aquaculture sector. To achieve that we need to be smarter with ...
Associate Agriculture Minister Mark Patterson is speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide, promoting New Zealand wool, and outlining the coalition Government’s support for the revitalisation the sector. "New Zealand’s wool exports reached $400 million in the year to 30 June 2023, and the coalition Government ...
The Government is making legislative changes to make it easier for new early learning services to be established, and for existing services to operate, Associate Education Minister David Seymour says. The changes involve repealing the network approval provisions that apply when someone wants to establish a new early learning service, ...
Changes to the Resource Management Act will align consenting for coal mining to other forms of mining to reduce barriers that are holding back economic development, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The inconsistent treatment of coal mining compared with other extractive activities is burdensome red tape that fails to acknowledge ...
Trade, Agriculture and Forestry Minister Todd McClay has concluded productive discussions with ministerial counterparts in Beijing today, in support of the New Zealand-China trade and economic relationship. “My meeting with Commerce Minister Wang Wentao reaffirmed the complementary nature of the bilateral trade relationship, with our Free Trade Agreement at its ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon today paid tribute to Singapore’s outgoing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Meeting in Singapore today immediately before Prime Minister Lee announced he was stepping down, Prime Minister Luxon warmly acknowledged his counterpart’s almost twenty years as leader, and the enduring legacy he has left for Singapore and South East ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon held a bilateral meeting today with Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While in Singapore as part of his visit to South East Asia this week, Prime Minister Luxon also met with Singapore President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and will meet with Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong. During today’s meeting, Prime Minister Luxon ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has made further appointments to the Board of Antarctica New Zealand as part of a continued effort to ensure the Scott Base Redevelopment project is delivered in a cost-effective and efficient manner. The Minister has appointed Neville Harris as a new member of the Board. Mr ...
Finance Minister Nicola Willis will travel to the United States on Tuesday to attend a meeting of the Five Finance Ministers group, with counterparts from Australia, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. “I am looking forward to meeting with our Five Finance partners on how we can work ...
The coalition Government has today announced purrfect and pawsitive changes to the Residential Tenancies Act to give tenants with pets greater choice when looking for a rental property, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Pets are important members of many Kiwi families. It’s estimated that around 64 per cent of New ...
State Highway 1 (SH1) through Wellington City is heavily congested at peak times and while planning continues on the duplicate Mt Victoria Tunnel and Basin Reserve project, the Government has also asked NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) to consider and provide advice on a Long Tunnel option, Transport Minister Simeon Brown ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters have condemned Iran’s shocking and illegal strikes against Israel. “These attacks are a major challenge to peace and stability in a region already under enormous pressure," Mr Luxon says. "We are deeply concerned that miscalculation on any side could ...
Hundreds of people in little over a week have turned out in Northland to hear Regional Development Minister Shane Jones speak about plans for boosting the regional economy through infrastructure. About 200 people from the infrastructure and associated sectors attended an event headlined by Mr Jones in Whangarei today. Last ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti has today thanked outgoing Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora Chair Dame Karen Poutasi for her service on the Board. “Dame Karen tendered her resignation as Chair and as a member of the Board today,” says Dr Reti. “I have asked her to ...
The NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has signalled their proposed delivery approach for the Government’s 15 Roads of National Significance (RoNS), with the release of the State Highway Investment Proposal (SHIP) today, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Boosting economic growth and productivity is a key part of the Government’s plan to ...
New Zealand is renewing its connections with a world facing urgent challenges by pursuing an active, energetic foreign policy, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “Our country faces the most unstable global environment in decades,” Mr Peters says at the conclusion of two weeks of engagements in Egypt, Europe and the United States. “We cannot afford to sit back in splendid ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has announced the Australian Governor-General, His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley and his wife Her Excellency Mrs Linda Hurley, will make a State visit to New Zealand from Tuesday 16 April to Thursday 18 April. The visit reciprocates the State visit of former Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced that Medsafe has approved 11 cold and flu medicines containing pseudoephedrine. Pharmaceutical suppliers have indicated they may be able to supply the first products in June. “This is much earlier than the original expectation of medicines being available by 2025. The Government recognised ...
New Zealand and the United States have recommitted to their strategic partnership in Washington DC today, pledging to work ever more closely together in support of shared values and interests, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “The strategic environment that New Zealand and the United States face is considerably more ...
April 11, 2024 Joint Declaration by United States Secretary of State the Honorable Antony J. Blinken and New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs the Right Honourable Winston Peters We met today in Washington, D.C. to recommit to the historic partnership between our two countries and the principles that underpin it—rule ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced further New Zealand cooperation with the United States in the Pacific Islands region through $16.4 million in funding for initiatives in digital connectivity and oceans and fisheries research. “New Zealand can achieve more in the Pacific if we work together more urgently and ...
Kia Ora Gaza A passionate haka reverberated through Auckland International Airport as a medical team of three New Zealand doctors received an emotional farewell from a big crowd of supporters before flying to Turkey to join the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. The doctors, who left Auckland yesterday, hope to ...
With submissions closing today, Macassey-Pickard says groups around the country have been supporting a huge range of people to make their submissions. ...
Our response to the new legislation is informed by targeted conversations with practitioners working in the system and through an implementation lens. ...
The new ‘Fast-track Approvals Bill’ would give just three Ministers the power to approve or deny development projects. They would avoid the usual checks and balances that are in place to protect rivers, land, the ocean, and communities. ...
COMMENTARY:By Eugene Doyle Helen Clark, how I miss you. The former New Zealand Prime Minister — the safest pair of hands this country has had in living memory — gave a masterclass on the importance of maintaining an independent foreign policy when she spoke at an AUKUS symposium held ...
The government's released the list of organisations provided with information on how to apply - just hours before public submissions on the bill close. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Milton Speer, Visiting Fellow, School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, University of Technology Sydney Before climate change really got going, eastern Australia’s flash floods tended to concentrate on our coastal regions, east of the Great Dividing Range. But that’s changing. Now ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elizabeth Finkel, Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, La Trobe University Sia Duff / South Australian Museum In February, the South Australian Museum “re-imagined” itself. In the face of rising costs and inadequate government funds, CEO David Gaimster, who took the reins last June, declared ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alan Pearce, Professor, School of Allied Heath, Human Services & Sport, La Trobe University, La Trobe University This week, Collingwood AFL player Nathan Murphy announced his retirement, brought on by his concussion history and ongoing issues. The 24-year-old’s seemingly sudden retirement, ...
The Mental Health Foundation provides support and resources for those facing the loss of their job, so it’s wrong in the very week the Government adds another 1000 jobs to its tally of cuts, that this is happening. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Alexander Howard, Senior Lecturer, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney Daniel Boud/Sydney Theatre Company Decay, terror, revulsion. These are three of the central themes of Thomas Bernhard’s rarely performed play The President. The Austrian is one of the greatest ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ye In (Jane) Hwang, Postdoctoral Research Associate at School of Population Health, UNSW Sydney Shutterstock You’d be hard pressed to find any aspect of daily life that doesn’t require some form of digital literacy. We need only to look back ten ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says threats by ministers Shane Jones and David Seymour to reform or close down the Waitangi Tribunal were “ill-considered”, as legal experts say the ministers may have breached Cabinet Manual conventions. “I think those comments are ill-considered and we expect all ministers to actually exercise good ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rob Newton, Professor of Exercise Medicine, Edith Cowan University Pexels/RDNE stock project You’re not in your 20s or 30s anymore and you know regular health checks are important. So you go to your GP. During the appointment they measure your waist. ...
A new poem by Evangeline Riddiford Graham. Mitochondrial Problem I. It was long drive to Kansas for the man and his dog but you have to understand he said She doesn’t fly. Which calls to mind not carsick shitting barking or whining but a dog who chooses not to as ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1 Hemingway’s Goblet by Dermot Ross (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)Hot off the press, this debut ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Laura Wajnryb McDonald, PhD candidate in Criminology, University of Sydney Less than 24 hours after Ashlee Good was murdered in Bondi Junction, her family released a statement requesting the media take down photographs they had reproduced of Ashlee and her family without ...
Chief executive Shaun Robinson said it has not had any government funding cut, but government-funded contracts have not kept pace with rising costs. ...
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11th March 2018, 7.20 am.
Thump, thump, thump, on my roof. What the hell?
Oh. “Morning Aspen. God, you’re a character!” 😀
https://i.imgur.com/nQbokDe.gif
.
Giving a free Blues concert for the stream’s waterbirds:
https://i.imgur.com/c0hbO8E.gif
"I'd rather drink muddy water or sleep in a hollow log."
"If the river ran whisky and I was a diving duck"
"Good morning blues, blues how do you do? x2 well I feel alright good morning how are you?"
I wouldn't suggest any Howlin' Wolf, though.
the wolf is always worth the listen.
Oh yes. Yes indeed❗️ 👍🏼
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3gXpqpcnfIQ
Alan Lomax's archive.
https://archive.culturalequity.org/solr-search/content/grid?search_api_fulltext=Chester%20Burnett
https://archive.culturalequity.org/collections
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCInpAOuv6nqdf6EheU4Wfjg
You might like this then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOYZaiDZ7BM
Nah, that’s not Da Blues. That’s … I dunno …. White Boy Punk Country, or something.
I prefer the minimalist style of Ravi Shankar’s little girl & her lead guitarist on this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBseZ6y7hDQ
Heart of Glass is a New Wave/Disco crossover. Blondie got lots of shit for doing Disco but hey it's a great song. The original demo version had reggae influence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkjeAt0KrL8
My dog always sings along to both versions.
Blondie was also the first Rock band to do Rap.
Man, that’s certainly a different version from their more well-known hit version. Debbie Harry’s got the voice & the superb timing to carry it off, tho.
She certainly has, my dog not so much.
.
😄
Might just be the wrong song for your doggie:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k3u5E8XKPjg
My favorite Floyd album. But no that one doesn't do anything for her.
This one however:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jShX2lBwWfM
I like Reggae as well as Blues; in fact I learned how to combine them in one original song “Blues Done In Reggae”.
I especially like Bob & The Wailers, as well as a few UB40 songs.
My favourite UB40 song (apart from “Ivory Madonna” – not the correct name but YouTube finds it) is this one – after I witnessed it performed live by Porirua’s Whitireia University Music Class Band during their concert at the Cozzie Club in Upper Hutt. They did a fantastic job of it:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hgwr6eyLDlI
In a past life I had a small town pub.
We had Ronnie Taylor play on a Saturday night. His backing band Tainui Funk had finished setting up when Ronnie arrived.
He walked straight up to the bar and asked for a double Jack Daniels. I asked if he wanted ice in it. He replied "Don't start a fire then put it out".
😀 👍🏼 ☘ 🍺
Rod Oram anticipates an increasing focus on methane – a political shift consequent of perceptions of increasing urgency. BAU advocates will feel even more paranoid. Having pointed out here a couple of years ago that methane breaks down into CO2, I've been mystified by the long-standing tendency to discount it, but I suppose that's just another symptom of climate change inducing mass irrationality & hysteria.
Reminds us why there's a huge pakeha male deficit in the Greens & their voter base. "Huh?? What are you trying to say?" would be their typical response. Can't get political support for policy shifts without communicating in language folks are familiar with. Duh!
“Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a warming potential more than 28 times that of carbon dioxide (CO2). But when it comes to livestock and climate change, there are many other characteristics that set biogenic methane (methane from cattle) apart from CO2. Here are an important four:
* It stays in our atmosphere for about 12 years
* It’s derived from atmospheric carbon, such as CO2
* It’s part of the biogenic carbon cycle
* It eventually returns to the atmosphere as CO2, making it recycled carbon
…
Methane has a relatively short life of 12 years compared to the hundreds or even thousands of years that CO2 hangs around. After about 12 years, 80 to 89 percent of methane is removed by oxidation with tropical hydroxyl radicals (OH), a process referred to as hydroxyl oxidation. As a result of its short lifespan, methane is only significantly warming our atmosphere for those 12 years, which is why it is considered a short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP).
Its short lifespan is further relevant in regard to warming, because it means that as methane is being emitted it is also being destroyed in the atmosphere, making it a flow gas.
This illustrates that methane’s warming impact isn’t determined by how much is being emitted – since it’s destroyed relatively quickly – but by how much more or less methane is being emitted over a period of time. This is a change in the rate of emission.
What is notable about methane, is that it’s possible the amount being emitted can equal the amount being destroyed. For example, if a herd of cattle emits the same amount of methane over 12 years, they are contributing to warming for those 12 years. But afterward the same amount being emitted is the same that is being destroyed through oxidation, and thus warming is neutral.”
https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/why-methane-cattle-warms-climate-differently-co2-fossil-fuels
Yeah, this neutrality thesis is what's in question. Well, that's the impression I get anyway. We await any new consensus of experts! I'll just restate my point about oxidation by pointing out that CO2 is the product. How anyone in academia can spin that into neutrality is a bit beyond me. Do they use an equation?
It’s physics, so I imagine they do, Dennis.
If it’s not shown in that article, there are others around on the web that proponents have posted to us on other blogs.
It was hard enuf to find that one, because so many “experts” who dispute or refuse to accept this methane > CO2 cycle thesis have ensured that articles talking up the methane contribution to global warming (as opposed to it being a self-neutralising process) predominate in Google searches.
Oh well, let's hope that the winds of change blown up by the climate summit dispell the fog. Disclosure of interest: I graduated BSc in physics. But that was in a bygone era. I got good at feeding back to the profs whatever line of bullshit they fished for in the design of exam questions. Worked like a charm.
Ever since, I tend to just scan stuff to get the gist of it. Going any further means taking the author seriously – usually a waste of one's valuable time!
If the farmer keeps producing the same amount each year as gets neutralised by the 12th year, that means the farmer is providing a permanent store of Methane heating the atmosphere over 28 times worse than CO2 – the whole bloody time. Bring back lynch mobs!
Well, the time for being critical of farmers is long gone really. Political focus ought to be shifting to solutions and implementation. Farmer's reps have been in the media rating farmer compliance at more than 80% during the past year. I'd like to get a reality check procedure adopted for that compliant majority, plus an enforcement procedure to apply to the remainder.
That means Lab/Nat leaders have to pull finger, eh? Laziness from politicians ought not to be tolerated further by the public. Effective politics is still possible via the use of intelligent design of decision-making processes to extend consensus on solutions & implementation method. Dumb & dumber is institutionalised by democracy, true, but we can get around that with goodwill & serious intent.
The climate summit is being pushed into the corner by the reality of the global energy crisis.
Europe has a significant energy crisis going into winter,due to high prices and supply shortages (due to under investment).
interim measures such as subsidies are being implemented and discussion are underway to remove taxation on FF generators.
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1448243868072386564?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1448243868072386564%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2FJavierBlas2Fstatus2F1448243868072386564widget%3DTweet
https://www.dw.com/en/eu-unveils-toolbox-against-high-energy-prices/a-59488520
https://www.dw.com/en/europeans-brace-for-hard-winter-as-energy-price-surge-hits-households/a-59246714
That's related. The zero-sum thinkers will do trad reductionism: "Forget about climate-fixing, we must fix BAU!" Holists will go "Please extract your head from the 19th century, we need you to help the transition to sustainability. There Is No Alternative. If humanity is to survive…"
Flunk the challenge or engage it? Suit-wearers of the left & right would cope better if they stop wearing their 19th century uniform.
Our failing response to the covid pandemic, reminds me of our response to climate change.
We are told, "Well we must open up eventually, don't we?"
Well what if we didn't?
What if instead of jetting off to the Gold Coast for the weekend, at the cost of one old person catching the infection and dying, we holidayed at home at one of this country's many attractions?
Before the 60's and even into the 70's mass air travel wasn't even a thing. Air travel was a rare luxury for the wealthy, or something you saved up for that once in a lifetime vacation.
I think we need to personalise the experience of air travel in the age of covid. Before you are allowed to fly overseas for that weekend on the beach at Surfers or Bondi, you have to agree to go into an old folks home and personally euthanise one old person.
And if you think Covid is bad, the climate crisis is going to be worse.
While your high emissions lifestyle is more likely to kill someone in the Third World and not you, again I think we need to personalise the experience of air travel in the age of climate change.
Alighting at that exotic tropical holdiday destination, before you get to relax on the beach with that maitai in your hand, you have to agree to drown one local child in the nearest river.
I'll go with the principle of moral responsibility. It tends to operate as sub-text for political activists. Make it explicit & folks immediately start complaining that thinking about it makes their brain hurt.
What if it were to be incorporated into a code of ethics for economists and accountants? Then you'd get the real costs of business & policies impacting onto political decisions. Both left- and right-wingers would hate that! Since democracy was designed to privilege both tribes of wrongdoers, gonna be real hard to make progress on an ethical basis.
Yes, millions of individuals acting selfishly don't seem able to solve the big problems. Who would have thought (except 99% of mainstream economists and politicians)?
It don’t make no never mind (as US southerners might say) to the planet.
If we human apes don’t get our act together, the ecosytem & our social settings will change to make survival of the current huge numbers of our arrogant & untthinking species more difficult.
There will be other species which will likely survive better in a hotter workd, & / or new ones might arise or evolve to take advantage of the new niches, as always.
The most special thing about human apes is the danger they present to all other life forms, as well as their own.
Kim Hill uncharacteristically letting Chris Bishop, world authority on epidemiology, vaccination and nurse ICU training off the hook this morning , apparently there are 3000 nurses in the MIQ queue desperate to get home to work in ICU. Really? Just how many are only coming home to see mum and dad for a while, how many are ICU trained, a process that can take years or months just to be bought up to speed if with previous ICU experience, because techniques and equipment and drugs are constantly being upgraded. Or coming home to get the fuck away from nursing because of burnout?
Oh, and they can home isolate even if symptomatic because of an app on their phone with say, aged parents with compromised function or a sister with young, unvaxxed children, in fact all 30,000 can come home. Fuck off Bishop and take your vax avoider mate Goudie with you.
John Carter Northland Mayor?, another ex Nat railing about the two women sex workers, how about naming and shaming the Northland residents who aided and abetted the two to go to Northland in the first place? But hang on, they may be National Party donors or “ prominent in the community” , can’t have that eh. Arseholes.
It's alright Adrian, I'll get Chris Faafoi to look into it for you.
Calm down, Adrian. One you got to John Carter you lost me, I’m afraid. Arseholes, I understood but the rest of it’s a bit too convoluted for me to follow, tbh. I am a bear of small brain. 🐼
🙄 *Once you got to John Carter…
There are going to be cases of people self isolating at home so they do not catch Covid. Some people are spending a lot of time in their home under level 2 even now and they are restructuring their interests.
The likes of mayors or opposition politicians do not need to tell me how to personally manage a Covid outbreak.
The urgency is in Auckland and the basics need to be provided, food, counselling, laptops and phone connections for school education, rental housing assistance, survival income and free sound business advice.
That's not fair on John Carter. He is genuinely angry about this.
He is not like Goudie.
In regards to Bisflap, it could be an example of 'Give 'em enough rope…'
I was illustrating how easy it is to give grandstanders like Bishop and Carter room to put up straw theories that can fall apart at the first challenge. But first they must be challenged.
As good as Kim can be she does operate within the RNZ ecosystem which got hobbled long ago by….3 guesses no prizes.
When Kim Hill wants to challenge or question someone’s statements, she’s usually very good at it – quite dogged & determined.
Perhaps she’s feeling off colour, or just not in the mood this morning? I’ll see if I can find the audio track when RNZ post it, & have a listen later.
How long is the Delta Covid wave likely to last in NZ?
Bishop and Carter can spit tacks all they like about individual rule breakers, once the rules are broken they cannot be reversed. The situation can only be contained and everyone is affected when rules are broken and infection control is not followed properly.
Two of them are Richard Griffin and Paul Thompson. The name of the newest rightie on the board escapes me.
Difficult reading over breakfast.
https://twitter.com/normanswan/status/1447891570934444033
Interesting tho. 👍🏼
O Virus, look upon your mortal legions and despair.
1. You haven't risen beyond any other social ill. The mortality and morbidity effects are far less that car crashes per year. You're over-hyped.
2. Each crisis has made us stronger. Some of our more recent crises have rapidly accelerated human progress. Such as in global co-operation, medicine, mechanisation, and communications and information. You helped us kill you, again and again.
3. You told us nothing about the poor. Covid is eventually a disease of deprivation, but pretty much everything else is already.
4. We know better than you. Covid has been a strong positive axial point for human knowledge. It has confirmed the epistemic truth of science against social media, and simultaneously supported accelerated successful drug trials faster than we've seen in decades..
5. Our unity overcomes you. Social cohesion has remained remarkably strong – even in the United States. There is no underground lava flow of human anomie to reveal from Covid.
6. Our state is stronger than ever. Covid, even more than the GFC, has confirmed the necessity for strong and coherent government.
7. Our dominion continues to strengthen. Compared to the Spanish 'Flu a century ago, human hygiene and public health measures are vastly superior. Humans have gained power not weakened in that time. If this is one of the worst viral powers in modern operation, it's been dealt to very fast and with remarkable lack of fuss.
8 Capitalism, medicine, and government are united. Researchers invested and tested at speed. Regulators acted with appropriate speed. Few governments are afraid of debt anymore to achieve public health goals.
9. The world is re-opening and re-born. Your lessons such as they are have already been absorbed and the height of your doom has passed. You haven't had the longevity of human interest of two seasons of Days Of Our Lives.
10. You were the last of your kind, and you're done. Even Polio was stronger, Malaria more powerful and across more lives, and they too are being vaccined away. You were more than SARS, but less than most. Would you like a gold plated One Ring or something to make you feel better?
Nothing can stop us.
For some reason my computer isn't copying, but here's the latest Talbot Mills (UMR) polling:
Labour 46
National 22
Act 16
Greens 7
What were the previous results?
Some details in the Herald:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/new-political-poll-act-six-points-behind-national-while-david-seymours-popularity-climbs-talbot-mills-research/
“Labour on 46 per cent (up one point from September), National on 22 per cent (down four points), Act up three points to 16 and the Greens up one at 7 per cent.”
That’s what I wanted. Thank you. 👍🏼
Collins will survive until 2022 when parliament resumes. She will continue to be a liability as leader. National and Act could be neck and neck in the next Colmar Brunton poll.
All the National whingers and the ACT gossippers are not out trolling today.
After many claims that ACT was taking votes directly from labour.
Both Greens and Labour on steady ground National in more trouble those National MP's with slim majorities and lower on the list will want a new leader Pronto as business leaders say Collins is the best promoter for Labour.
How long can National keep bleeding votes to every other party.
National is in limbo until 2022.
Judith Collins is not going anywhere.
Judith Collins is like a vulture sitting on a tree branch patiently waiting for the beautiful antelope to stumble.
Already she is preparing to swoop down on the wounded gazelle.
After health experts were sidelined in the decision to lower the Auckland Alert Level, with the resulting rise in cases they warned the government of. Some of these health experts demanded to see who's advice the government had been taking.
Despite the fact that lowering the level is what she had been demanding all along, Judith Collins has swooped down to peck at the fallen carcase of the Government's covid response. And is also now (belatedly) demanding that this policy advice be released.
I knew the picnic bubble was a bad idea. It gave people a licience to entertain inside the home. Having a nominated visitor like in L4 needed to be maintained and allowing 2 nominated visitors in L3.
Contact tracing would have been much easier.
John Key would be happy with labour opening the economy.
As I mentioned Judith Collins was very late coming to the realisation that the government's decision to go out of Level 4 was a mistake, especially as this is just what she had been calling for.
In demanding the government release the advice they received before going down a level, Judith Collins is only echoing the Health experts' query.
With the Auckand Nat MPs not returning to Wellington until the new year how long will they hold off?
Judith must be quietly hoping the lockdown lasts 2 years
Right track: 63
Wrong track: 30
As usual, the people disagree with those who are paid to tell the people what the people think.
Lab/Grn a smidgeon over 50; Nat/ACT a smidgeon under 40. A 10-15% gap between the blocs – pretty much what we have been seeing for a while. The Key years in reverse.
What will be the catalyst for that advantage flipping the other way – and what can be done to pre-empt it?
I'll be surprised in Labour still hold up their vote after the abandonment of elimination and the imminent overwhelming of our hospital services.
Rod Jackson speaking sense.
"You can be really hard on them [rule breakers], but you're probably not going to ever stop them.
"We have to make sure that our cars' brakes work, we need to make sure that we're doing everything and we're following all the rules because the more we do that, the more we can slow it down."
“I think we need to take our mandatory vaccination rules much further. I think it has to be the police, it has to be supermarkets.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018816323
Meanwhile from anti-vaxxer land:
'Despite having brakes, some cars still crash. Therefore I choose not to have any brakes'
Brakes make it less likely to cause serious harm, that is why cars need brakes.
Scroll down for the kicker.
https://twitter.com/Te_Taipo/status/1448223319161860097
Labour again showing it is not just houses that they can't build properly
New My Covid website full of security holes.
Link has the interview with the ITguy
https://www.newstalkzb.co.nz/on-air/mike-hosking-breakfast/audio/daniel-ayers-it-security-expert-finds-issues-with-my-covid-website-within-a-few-minutes/
"IT expert finds issues with My Covid website 'within a few minutes'
A Christchurch IT expert has found security issues with the Government's My Covid website.
The My Covid Record website is now accessible to the public, initially just allowing people to view their vaccination record.
However, members of the public have reported the new site seems overloaded.
IT security expert Daniel Ayers told Mike Hoskin a brand new website shouldn't have….." issues like these.
Chris T houses they can't build properly you mean when National threw out building quality control and put in private building inspectors in 1991 allowing the leaky building catastrophe.
The Canterbury rebuild which is costing tax payers billions because of dodgy repairs and insurance underpayment.
Kiwibuild was worth a try but because of shortages of Labour Land and materials it failed,But the number of govt funded new state houses has seen more built since the 1970's. National said it was a mistake to sell off 7,000 state houses.
Are you wearing your whataboutism t-shirt today?
Kiwibuild was a joke. A flat out bribe that they knew perfectly well was impossible, because at the time they were under 30 in the polls.
Fair play to Shearer though. To his credit he managed to not burst out laughing when he announced it. Not a lot of parties politicians would have had the ability to do that.
Kiwibuild has delivered 1500 extra homes to the market while National had a massive deficit over 9 years Nicola Willis saying it was a mistake selling off 7,000 state houses .
Labour has built nearly 4,000 state houses plus funding for nearly 1,000 NGO houses.
When you add that all up its not enough but it's way better than National.If you take the Canterbury rebuild out of Nationals figures of state houses built. you will find Nationals housing efforts even worse but not as bad as the leaky building disasters like brand new hospitals and schools etc that still need fixing and demolition in many cases.
"Kiwibuild has delivered 1500 extra homes to the market while National had a massive deficit over 9 years Nicola Willis saying it was a mistake selling off 7,000 state houses ."
Kiwibuild is arguably the greatest policy failure in the history of NZ politics.
"Labour has built nearly 4,000 state houses plus funding for nearly 1,000 NGO houses."
All I can say is that you're being more honest than Megan Woods. As at 27th July, the number Labour have actually built is Kainga Ora 1952 + CHP's 1009 + Transitional Housing 755. So the total permanent additions are only 2961 as at 27/7.
This was a major policy platform of Labour's, and instead of fixing the problem they have made it worse.
Might be a case of Mike H picking the expert that fits the narrative. An official from the MoH said on RNZ today that the site had been security-audited by a third party consultancy.
Did Mike try being an actual journalist and get the contending experts together in a balanced way without any pre-conceptions? Presumably not, as he has a particular ideological function to fulfill.
And God knows what's actually true – IT is the wild west and it's best to doubt everyone involved in it.
2021 is…
Updating the security photo on your cell phone to one where you are wearing a mask.
Haha, I just tried that, and phone says "no face identified".
National has moderated its criticism trying to look mature. A bit late in the day a lot of work to do.
Unfortunately Collins has taken herself well beyond mature & is now ripe for cropping.
71 cases today….I heard the expert interviewed by Kim hill just before 9am who said there really needs to be a vaccine that steralises covid, like the measles vaccine. Current covid vaccines allow transmission.
I think we should eliminate covid for another year until such a vaccine becomes available. Level 4 in akl till Xmas. That is my opinion
See what comes out of the serious Covid management discussion at the Beehive today. Top scientists and medical minds will be attending. No matter how good the plan is, even under level 4 their were rule breakers.
The rule breakers are harming the community.
Not happening mate. Grant made that reasonably clear at 1pm. His comment that these are rule breakers, [so therefore it would be spreading at level 4 also] means Auckland is not going to bounce back up to 4.
The time has come for us all to prepare for this virus to rip. We are now very much on the Melbourne trajectory. Numbers will double week on week from here.
Its going to be a grim few weeks heading into Christmas.
I agree, I cant see them putting Auckland back to level 4 as they know there would be a public outcry. There is enough rule breakers already. One positive is it may speed up people getting the vaccine.
Oh great. Sounds like this was a lucky escape for the South Island.
Women who travelled to Blenheim have returned negative Covid results | Stuff.co.nz
Not surprising though. Just because someone is from Auckland, it doesn't mean they have COVID.
Problem being there seems to be more and more rule breakers!
True, still a tiny number of Aucklanders have the disease though, so the South would be very unlucky if one of the very few peole travelling had it.
But its going to get down there at some stage over the coming week.s Numbers are about to explode which will means its heading south before Christmas.
Maybe not Enough is.. but if your job is getting hot and sweaty while naked with multiple clients you would have to go a long way to find a better transmission enviroment than that. And it will only get down to the South via a non- compliant arsehole from guess where?.
Seems like half the country wants them all named & shamed, and the other half doesn’t want them & their families to have to face abuse from the public.
Might have to bring back public stocks for lockdown runners, but let them wear a bag over their heads?
We seem to be getting into situations where some lockdown runners’ names are publicly known & others aren’t.
The odds are still very low.
Working person first needs to have got hot and sweaty with someone who had covid to then start spreading it. Thats about a 1 in 1000 chance.
Good to hear Minister Little so optimistic about New Zealand getting to the 90% vaccinated rate nationwide.
At 71 cases and rising, there aren't many more reasons to be optimistic.
Let’s hope he’s right. Little has never inspired optimism in me.
Really great to hear of Littles optimism. So we will cut off the country at the Bombays ? No schooling , shops etc open this year and potentially April 22??, no holidays, Auckland north closed for what 6 months ???
Perhaps some govt ministers should get out to Auckland, There is plenty of evidence that the public are not adhering to the level 3 rules( just look at the spread of cases), remember what Coster said in Feb 21 regarding "policing by consent". IMO this outbreak is hanging on the consent of the public, and evidence that this consent is diminishing.
"Next year, even with a 90 per cent of the eligible population vaccinated, Covid cases in the area covering Auckland and Northland could hit 5300 a week for six weeks.The Government is not worried about this. In fact, it thinks it is entirely manageable."
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/politics/covid-19-delta-outbreak-next-year-thousands-of-people-will-get-covid-most-will-stay-at-home/LQZ3WPSZD5WQKTQNOZ4YHHQZXE/
For a lifetime, not a person of good character.
Reckon the Aussies will deport him? Brown people who own motorbikes have been sent back for less than his "hoarding disorder".
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/126675998/ron-brierley-sentenced-to-14-months-in-jail-over-childabuse-images
$200 million buys him an easy seven months in the kid-fuckers wing and someone to fold the sheets down when he arrives home in Wunulla Rd.
A slow moving nightmare comin' down the track.
https://twitter.com/radionz/status/1448440481642266629
https://twitter.com/RawiriTaonui/status/1448440496674652163
Why did she say the numbers were not unexpected?
I am trying to look back and can't find where they said they were expecting these numbers
Well, they've said today they expect numbers to double in a couple of weeks.
Even though it's rule-breaking rather than workplaces that seem to be the main source of spread, this calls for serious consideration about pushing everyone up a covid level – and explicitly blaming rulebreakers for it. This is why we can't have nice things.
Unless they can guarantee cases will plateau in a fortnight (which they can't), this is going to get very ugly indeed.
I do not want NZ crematoria running overtime.
I think the point being made is rule breakers don't care what level we are at. If they don't stay home at 3 why would they stay home at 4.
Because even most rule breakers would care about what someone thinks.
And those someones getting pissed at rulebreakers because they're the ones responsible for the lockdown, that might work.
You think areseholes breaking lockdown rules care about other people, or what they may think?
Teenagers (or some of then) who haven't seen their boyfriend or mates in 60 days won't care.
People who's livlihood rely on working in the black market won't care.
Short sharp lockdows are effective. But once you get to this point (as has been shown everywhere else in the world) universal compliance becomes the issue.
Most people have someone – flatmate, family member, friend.
And most people have neighbours, flatmates or exes who might be fucked off about rulebreaking keeping them in L4.
What's your solution – abandon levels and watch the cases rise?
Of the unvaccinated I know, they also didn't pay much attention to the rules for level 4 either. They've been quite boastful about what they got up in level 4 and still doing in level 3.
The only thing I can see that might move them are "no jab, no job" and "no jab, no entry" policies. And that's only going to affect whether they get vaccinated, not whether they comply with level 3 or 4 rules.
Cases are going to rise. That's inevitible. We can't put the genie back in the bottle now.
My solution, encourage everyone I know, friends, family collegues, neighbours to get the jab, because the virus is coming.
It is simply wishful thinking that we can have a COVID free New Zealand agian. That is a waste of energy as it will never be the case again.
By that logic, it was always a waste of energy.
But I'd rather live in Auckland than Melbourne or Sydney right now.
Not really – Delta is a new beast. We gave it a good crack, which was the right thing to do, but we are now onto the next stage of this fight.
No, really. I have family over there. fuck that.
There will be a few weeks of more initial doses of vaccine, but then there's a few more weeks before the second dose.
The next stage of this fight can be overloaded hospitals, or if folks can stick it out for a few more weeks we might be able to avoid that.
The main marathon's end is in sight, but don't fall over before we get there.
The latest poll only confirms the terrible results for National:
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/new-taxpayers-union-poll-has-national-just-six-points-ahead-of-act/
Worth noting that this is the most recent, with polling until Monday. The commentators interviewed their keyboards and decided last week was terrible for Ardern instead, but the voters disagreed. How dare they.
"The Greens dropped 3.2 points to 6.4 per cent." Looks like their strategy of keeping a low profile is working well. Disclosure of non-interest: I allowed my GP membership to lapse last December. Their messaging has been too underwhelming for too long. I will never abandon my support for the Green movement, of course!
Be interesting to know how many households are fracturing because of anti-vaxxers. The worry that they will get very sick if they contract covid and that families won't be able to help them. Christmas day will be fraught with angst with family members not being invited into the usual noisy rowdy train ride of a day. The simmering resentment which never goes away knowing that a loved one refuses to have the vaccine and is endangering their life and others around them.
Our PM has said often that we all need to "encourage" our loved ones who are "hesitant". In my opinion the lady hasn't got a clue what she is on about. Trying to get an anti-vaxxer to take one for the team is like painfully pulling teeth. The bloody mindedness is boundless when they have made their minds up. One can say well, you only sow what you reap but try telling that to parents who love their kids. Its heartbreaking.
Yeah, of the half-dozen unvaccinated I know, only one is showing any signs of considering getting vaxed. He's aware that there's a lot of shit on the internet, and that he may not have been getting his ideas from reliable sources.
But jeez, it's a lot of work going through every anti-vax talking point that he's bought into one by one and showing exactly how it's disinformation, and how to better interpret the actual facts of the actual situation the disinfo is built on. Something I find interesting is even after I've shown that a particular disinformation source is completely full of shit on several different topics, he still takes further ideas from that source as reliable.
"try telling that to parents who love their kids. Its heartbreaking."
Of the four there's only one.
She's joined a cluster and it's as though her whole being depends on not breaking out. Every illogical, un-founded bullshit claim or theory has been refuted with proof and still….
I just don't know how to fix it.
Oh Brigid, my heart goes out to you. Keep loving and talking with, but decide on your rules. All the best to you both. xx
Christ. More sht goin' down in Tamaki Makaurau?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/armed-police-chase-man-at-western-springs/GHHL4OW2XCUF3HRWJPM623GM34/
Looking foward to an update…
Oh, Ok. The headline and article have both now been updated. The guts of it is:
………………………………
"Police have taken three people into custody following a stolen-car incident where people fled the scene before a car was spiked.
Just after 2pm police said they were called to an incident after a person had their vehicle stolen in Massey.
The Eagle police helicopter located the stolen vehicle and tracked it to Westgate. A police spokesperson confirmed the offender got away in a waiting vehicle, with two others in the car.
"Eagle has continued to monitor the situation and police have been able to spike the car," the spokesperson said."
“A New Zealand journalist who has been reporting in Afghanistan’s capital since July for television network Al Jazeera has left the country amid growing concerns over safety.
Charlotte Bellis, a television reporter from Christchurch now based in Doha, Qatar, had been in Kabul covering the withdrawal of international forces as the country came under Taliban control.
Her father, Bruce Bellis, said he was unsure exactly when his daughter returned to Doha but it was “not long after the Americans left” at the end of August, marking the end of America’s involvement in the Afghanistan war.
“I believe she is now in Doha because of the Taliban’s attitude towards women … so it was safer for Al Jazeera to take her back to Doha … I understand that’s where she is,” he said.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/126677293/kiwi-journalist-charlotte-bellis-leaves-afghanistan-amid-heightened-taliban-tension
…………………………………
This is a bit strange. As the Stuff article goes on to note, Bellis had remained in Kabul & prided herself on having established good working relationships with Kabul’s Taliban leadership, which made her feel quite safe there to continue reporting.
I have noticed recently that one of Al Jazeera’s older hands, Stephanie Dekker, has taken over reporting from Kabul recently, instead of Charlotte, & wondered where she had gone to. Al Jazeera hasn’t said anything about her departure, as far as I know, on their tv news reporting.
It would not take more than a few cases of people one knows (contacts/Afghan journalists) being taken out to unnerve. Then she might have been warned to leave – her Taliban contacts were of the Doha diplomatic talks variety and there was a confrontation within the Taliban (over governing arrangements) around the time she left.
Hmmm. The Taliban has been having major problems with ISK bombings as well, this past week – in several cities, including Kabul. Altho the Taliban Security Services Interim Minister was featured on Aljaz tv news last night saying that their security services have made great progress tracking down IS fighters, given the number of bombings & people killed (mainly Shia/Hazaris) he wasn’t very convincing.
The Taliban are facing not just Islamic State attacks, but also the possible beginnings of an insurgency from other ethnic groups not represented in their government, including Masoud’s. They are discovering it’s not going to be just like the 1990s when they took control last time.
But the situation over there is now in really dire straits. There’s no funding for anything, gov’t workers have no salaries being paid (& they already hadn’t been paid for months, before the Taliban took over), there’s no work, people are selling what little they have left to buy food, over 90% of the population is on the brink of starvation.