TEPCO finally admits that the No 1 reactor melted down a mere 16 hours after the Earthguake. It also admitted that since reactor no 2 and 3 (the one with the MOX fuel) have similar damage they also may have melted down.
Pre-empting Rare earth man’s tsk,tsking for doubting the official lies the following: when asked TESCO stated that they could not have known that this was the case until they went into the reactor a couple of days ago.
Hiroaki Koide, professor of nuclear safety engineering at Kyoto University, was critical of TEPCO.
“They could have assumed that when the loss of power made it impossible to cool down the reactor, it would soon lead to a meltdown of the core. TEPCO’s persistent explanation that the damage to the fuel had been limited turned out to be wrong,” he said.
It is a well known fact that a nuclear reactor goes into meltdown within 90 minutes if it is not cooled.
So what we have is three reactors in melt down freely releasing their nuclear destruction into the Pacific ocean and the air. They have done so for the last two months and will do so until a way has been found to stop them from doing so. This will take at least 6-9 months. The reactors are much bigger and older (i.e. more radioactive) than Chernobyl.
All information about the amounts of the dispersion of radioactive particles into the atmosphere is unavailable to the general public but rest assured we will find out in a couple of years through cancer and extinction of sea life in the areas around the reactors.
Japan has announced to expand the uninhabitable areas around the reactors.
I thought the lesson was: there is always a big enough disaster to make nuclear energy a grossly stupid idea (aka there’s no such thing as safe nuclear power).
There is safe nuclear power, it just requires much more technological nous than was used in the 60’s through 80’s in designing and installing power plants. Safe nuclear power may also not be economically feasible, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.
Saying there is safe nuclear power is like saying we can build earthquake proof buildings. It’s a semantics that works for those who think the risk is acceptable but doesn’t work for those that don’t.
Well weka it seems we can build earthquake proof buildings. Not one new (current building code) high-rise building in Christchurch’s world record breaking shake collapsed or caused death. All stayed upright as intended and everyone got out. The fact of damage was always expected and known to be a big clean-up job afterwards.
Quite why the idea that we can’t build such buildings is out there I am not sure. The reality is that we can and have. It has been proved.
Depends on what you mean by quake-proof, too.
We do build quake-proof multi-storey buildings, but they are quake proof in the sense that they have a design philosophy of preserving life. Is it good enough to just preserve human life if it results in an unserviceable building, which results in a long recovery period? Or should we insist on buildings that do not kill people and continue to fully function after an earthquake?
Perhaps this is too engineering-nerd a subject for The Standard.
Fuck, just set to replty and another fucking doozy shake sets the nerves afire again. Tell ya, I’m gonna deck one of these quakes someday soon…
Anyways… from my understanding of building engineering it is near impossible to build buildings (current technology) that can withstand such a shake or ten and come out undamaged. The reason is that a completely solid structure will just blow apart under such stress and it is bettr to let the building move and bend with the ground movement.
I explained it like this once (adult rated)… imagine you have a sudden and extreme bout of the shits but your arsehole is concreted up. What’s going to happen? Obviously blow apart in some unseemly fashion. Better to blow it out and clean up the mess afterwards – at least you survive. (apologies for the less than savoury analogy)
Thanks for your analogy, as it happens I’ve just sat down for lunch.
As I understand it, buildings can be designed to withstand enormous shakes and remain serviceable. The idea is to make them light and flexible, whereas the current school of thought is to make them ductile. I was just contemplating whether this needs to be changed, and structural engineers (all of them, in training, practicing and teaching) need to update their philosophy. Designs might need to be assessed based not only on whether they will protect life, but also, if they become unusable, (because the steel in the connections between the columns and beams has yielded), how long will it take to dismantle and replace the building. And what can the building be used for, meanwhile, and what risks does it present until it is demolished, what inconvenience will be caused during the demolition etc.
Perhaps. Christhurch’s newest and tallest building happenned to be a steel frame structure (Pacific Tower) which has got away quite lightly, being lighter and more flexible, compared to the usual construction material of choice, concrete, which is heavy and brittle.
That’s not quake proof, that’s quake resistant. Are you saying those building would withstand a 9.0 quake?
The issue with nuclear power isn’t how ‘safe’ it is. It’s what are the consequences if things go wrong. Like I said, the semantics work one way if you think the risks are worth it*, but they don’t if you think the risks aren’t worth it. Most people who are against nuke power don’t believe the risks are worth it despite the benefits.
*although when used like this the word ‘safe’ implies that disaster can/will never happen. Which is ridiculous. It may be theoretically possible to build a nuclear power generator that is completely and forever safe, but once you bring in human and other real world factors, that idea of absolute safety fails again.
weka, our shake was greater than the japanese one, though the richter measure was lower (6.3 cf 8.9). So our buildings did survive an equivalent 9.0. These are the facts.
Are you sure about that? Had you had a 9.0 (richter) with the kind of geology in Chch and that fault and the way that it moved, would you not have had a much worse earthquake? Or are you saying that the Chch quake was the biggest possible for that area? Why couldn’t a bigger quake be possible?
Sorry you have having more aftershocks though, that’s a real bastard.
I aint entirely 100% positive of course. Iis mother nature. But I do know that the shake Christchurch experienced was the biggest recorded. And the new buildings went through it and out the other side with no loss of life.
and yeah cheers. the aftershocks are bastards for sure.
“But I do know that the shake Christchurch experienced was the biggest recorded. And the new buildings went through it and out the other side with no loss of life.”
That to me says that the buildings are built to the best standards we are willing to pay for and in relationship to the type of quake risk that’s been assesssed. Which is good. But it’s a different thing than saying that those buildings would definitely withstand any and all larger quakes.
This is the point about nuclear power generation. It’s about risk assessment. Using a word like safe obfuscates the downsides. Maybe a better comparison is with safe sex vs safer sex. See the difference?
They can make nuke power generators safer than the ones built decades ago. They can’t make them absolutely safe.
Yes agreed. And “risk” around nuclear power is entirely different than a natural disaster due to the ongoing effects of radiation I would have thought. A start could be made by not letting the likes of Homer Simpson near any such plants…
It wasn’t the earthquake biggest recorded, one aspect of it (peak ground acceleration) was the biggest recorded in New Zealand and one of the greatest in the world.
The peak ground acceleration (PGA) in central Christchurch exceeded 1.8g (i.e. 1.8 times the acceleration of gravity), with the highest recording 2.2g, at Heathcote Valley Primary School, a shaking intensity equivalent to MM X+. This is the highest PGA ever recorded in New Zealand; the highest reading during the September 2010 event was 1.26g, recorded near Darfield.
The PGA is also one of the greatest ever ground accelerations recorded in the world, and was unusually high for a 6.3 quake, and the highest in a vertical direction.
There are many factors that influence earthquake damage – energy released, PGA, depth, proximity, ground and faultline conditions, layering, proximity to different ground structures:
It is also likely that “seismic lensing” contributed to the ground effect, with the seismic waves rebounding off the hard basalt of the Port Hills back into the city.”
One explanation I heard was that different layers of the earth separated when initially thrust up, the upper layer came higher so tok longer to drop back down and met the underlayer coming back up on the next wave.
It seems that the Februrary quake was a bit like a “perfect storm” combination of factors in proximity to a city centre.
If the quake was higher on the Richter scale the effects and damage would have been worse. No building can be earthquake proof.
Well that sorts it than. All we have to do is get rid of those reactors build with 60’s through to the 80s technology. Oh oops, no solution for the waste created in that time.
Other than bombing Libya and other assorted countries we want to protect and liberate with it of course.
Trust but verify. If you can’t verify then the authority is illegitimate.
If the media does not have an independent authority then the media is also illegitimate.
Unless there is a damn good reason for them to lie, like panic in Toyko.
So what was lost? Was anything going to change, was there some way to
stop the meltdown? No. So any benefit from the lies was saving the
population from causing more harm. Was irradiating them was far less costly
that the alternative???
Nuclear power is too dangerous.
At the risk of threadjacking my own thread now extrapolate that sentiment to the events of 9/11.
If no steel framed buildings ever collapsed before and after the events of 9/11 than how come three steel framed buildings collapsed on that one day as a result of fossil fuel fires, one of which as the result of mere office fires, into their own footprint breaking all three of Newton’s laws of motion.
Who do you believe? Your government or your lying eyes?
DNFTT? Do not fall to this? Do not feed this T? Darn no foot turn tipsy?
Do not feed this thread? yeah that could be it.
Laws of physics don’t lie AC. They can not be broken. Your turn.
Oh, thanks Weka. It means do not feed this troll. Duh. LOL.
Yeah AC? How is my post trolling? All I do is point out an inconsistency in the official story which purports that 19 young men can defeat the entire military might, can’t fly but still manage to fly three planes into the most protected buildings in the universe and are able to break all Newton’s laws in the process.
Fukushima was an exercise in covering up the most blatant lies and all I do is ask VTO to extrapolate his new found cynicism to the events of 9/11.
OK, it was unfair of me to call you a troll, ev. I just couldn’t be arsed searching for your last major attempt (on The Standard) at convincing the masses that you are right. But I’ve done it now – the link is here.
For anyone who doesn’t know what to expect when engaging ev on this subject, have a read of the Open Mike of 9 November 2010. And expect the same again if you choose Option B.
Oh, feel free to point them to my blog AC. Just because you don’t have the mental acumen to actually read up on science doesn’t mean that others don’t either.
1. Thanks for the invitation ev. In the past I’ve considered commenting on your blog and I’ve always decided against it. Nothing you have done subsequently has made me reconsider my decision.
2. I’ve read or viewed most of the links you’ve provided and concluded that, in general, they are not credible. If that leads you to conclude I lack mental acumen, so be it. You seem to be quite fixed in your opinions, and I won’t go out of my way to try to change your mind.
“Pre-empting Rare earth man’s tsk,tsking for doubting the official lies the following”
It’s not you “doubting the official lies”, it’s you deliberately mis-contrueing what their communications said. I’ll put it simply for you: Tepco absolutely knew for 100% certain that event X had happened because they detected it with their instruments, and were fairly sure (as were all external experts) that because X had happened, it means that event Y almost certainly also happened. They put out press releases saying X happened. Then later once they had definitive proof of event Y happening, they put out press releases saying Y has happened. At no point have they actually denied that Y happened. Upon publishing of the later press releases, you accuse them of deliberately lying for initially saying only X had happened and that Y definitely did not happen – they never did any such thing. It is simply not “lying” by any definition of the word.
You’re allowed to be as sceptical as you want about tepco and their communications strategy, but accusing them of ‘lying’ is just grossly wrong.
“It is a well known fact that a nuclear reactor goes into meltdown within 90 minutes if it is not cooled.”
And yet it took 16 hours, funny that.
“So what we have is three reactors in melt down freely releasing their nuclear destruction into the Pacific ocean and the air.”
“freely releasing” nuclear destruction into the air is what Chernobyl did. Fukushima is a significantly different failure mode.
While independent experts have been saying for ages now that there is evidence of nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, the confirmation by Japanese officials has until very recently been missing from the official story. This information has seen no coverage from mainstream media, who’ve largely forgotten the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
I don’t see anything objectionable in that post, except this:
“After levels of radiation had been measured as high as 700 millisieverts* per hour last week”
“*Exposure to this level of radiation will cause death. According to the NIH radiation levels of 4 sieverts per hour will cause fatality in 50% of people and at 6 sieverts per hour death is almost certain. 100 sieverts per hour is far above the 100% lethal dosage amount of 6 sieverts per hour.”
You do know the difference between a millisievert and a sievert, right? Everything is fine until the final sentence, which says “100 sieverts per hour is far above the 100% lethal dosage amount of 6 sieverst per hour”. Sure, it is, but they haven’t found 100 sieverts/hour anywhere, so this statement is completely irrelevant. It’s like saying: “water boils at 100 degrees, and the melting point of tungsten at 2770 degrees is far above the boiling point of water” – factually true, but irrelevant to the case at hand.
I suspect you simply made a mistake here and confused millisieverts for sieverts. But if you’re going to specifically include a footnote about something like this, you really need to get it correct.
No L,
It did not take 16 hours. the power went down after the Tsunami not the earthquake for starters and as far as I am concerned TEPCO can not even be relied upon to get the 16 hours straight.
The issue is not if and when the meltdown occurred. The issue is that TESCO which was running these horrors could have reasonably known that since the reactors were not cooled meltdown was unavoidable.
No power= meltdown.
Meltdowns prevents cold shut down. Since they have not been able one way or another to do a cold shut down since the 11th of March we are looking at a meltdown which has been allowed (Since there simply is no solution for it) to emit huge amounts of radioactive material to spread through our oceans and atmosphere.
It isn’t rocket science.
Since TESPCO as the owner of these monstrosities has denied these events since the beginning until it could no longer be denied it is reasonable to assume they either lied or are so incompetent they should not be allowed to go near a reactor let alone own them.
As TEPCO has a history of obfuscation and lying I don’t think that it is unreasonable to assume they did so on this occasion.
Now run along and go play outside with your mates. Oh no, you can’t any more. If it rains you might get contaminated. Well you might still be able here in New Zealand but it is down right hazardous in an 80 miles radius around Fukushima.
For those of you wanting to know about the size of that; think basically the entire centre of the North Island. No more Taupo, Cambridge, Rotorua, king country, te Awamutu and everything in between.
Untouchable for the rest of times and that is just were it begins.
You are right L,
Fukushima is a different cattle of fish altogether. Chernobyl was a relatively small newish reactor (at the time). Compared with Fukushima, Chernobyl was a walk in the park.
So basically the Fukushima incident resulted in a release of a huge amount of radioactive material into the environment because there was a meltdown and meltdowns always mean that radioactive material will be released environment? And we don’t know about this because Tepco/the Japanese government/whoever are controlling the release of information from all the detectors of radiation in the whole world in a giant conspiracy (just like 9/11 I guess)? Even though radiation is relatively easy to detect and there are numerous detectors worldwide? And this poses a huge risk to the whole world (not just the immediately surrounding area where the material would be most concentrated) because we are all going to get cancer, after all its not as if the release of radioactive material across a huge area such as the Pacific ocean/the whole world would have resulted in the radioactive material being diluted at all?
Why has there not been more comment about the gross invasion of privacy, to suit commercial interests, involved in the credit reporting changes.
Do not make the mistake of thinking it is about responsible lending. It will have adverse effects on any one who has had a period of illness or hard luck.
Right – Keep profits flowing offshore to maintain power in base support/contributors.
Left – Counter Right in opposition but do little to stand up (in the way) of big offshoring of profits.
Greens – Grow up already, never be a debtor be, planet, credit cards, mortgage
(unless absolutely necessary when you are impelled to pay back and rewarded for
it in a timely fashion).
For some astounding reason the government of NZ believes that kiwis who
spent spent spent, and now are paying paying paying, and see prices hiking
on food and oil for the foreseeable future, will rush back to open their wallets
and invest in housing or buying crap again. They are living on the whiff of
of a empty barrel of petroleum.
Any bounce in the economy will be short lived, the population was bullish
when oil was cheap and credit easy to come by, now its bearish. Until
NZ changes its tax gearing to support the retention of capital in NZ,
by valuing capital gains by taxing it, we are going to continue to work
very hard making profits, and pushing those who take the risk into
debt. A NZ farm on average is carrying 2.8 million in debt.
Brash lied, worse he distracted the debate, targeting public debt in the
future rather than the real present private debt the credit agencies are
so concerned about. Until we have honest politicians who can hold
themselves from telling lies to muding the debate we with continue to
have an economy that gets worse. And that’s the surprise people, why
the credit agencies haven’t yet figured that out. That shit debate in
the public political forums led by shit politicians who openly distort the
debate means shit policy and more dithering and ineptitude.
Everyone who will vote Brash ACT knows nothing about the economy,
or politics, or how to make a dollar that they can retain legitimately,
retards.
‘millsy’ that sort of insightful, highly intelligent ‘comment’ sums up why the Left remains where it is in the polls. Suggest turning some of the opposition anger that is written here into some internal change and growth. Many voters currently see it the other way around.
The Horizon poll suggests the left is only a couple of points behind the right, Chris, and closing fast. It’ll be interesting if Thursday’s Roy Morgan poll confirms the trend, because the budget isn’t going to win the Government any friends and once the slide starts, it’s hard to stop.
Lets hope you are correct Voice. That is the ‘closing of the gaps’ we really want to see!
Chris, you seem unable to recognise a sound bite (aka Millsys nutshell) today. Your sarcasm has prompted me to make any of my posts today in the style of ‘Spud’ on Red Alert.
• Natzional/ACT working for the clampdown-bastards
• Go Labour Green Te Mana!
Another excellent Julian interview on Native Affairs last night, Maori TV. This time with Tariana Turia. She tried hard to be upbeat but her words sounded sort of hollow. A bit evasive about funding and success of MP. Wish I could figure out the replay.
Let us know what you find out. The numbering didn’t make sense to me either, but their latest video is speculating on when Hone Harawira might resign, so it’s from last Monday presumably.
Yes Macca, interesting bit was the “wait till the public see how much money has been won by the MP, they’ll be amazed” – type statement from Turia. Confirms the suspicion of truckloads of blankets and beads under the radar over the past two years – and even more interesting will be to see where it’s ended up.
The chickens of contradiction are coming home to roost: Turia forced to claim credit for “Maori gains under National” and Brash poised to scream “special privilege” the second she does.
Too little too late for the MP, and thursday’s poll will tell us whether NZ is still susceptible to the Right’s race-baiting poison. Anything but a major boost for ACT indicates another premature hatemongering ejaculation and doom for the nasties. Another rancid Epsom rort may not be an option for Mr Nice.
Also of extreme pertinence was Turia’s repeated “whichever main party leads govt” indication of a willingness to ditch NAT: on top of the Horizon poll, wee Johnny suddenly looks very cold and lonely.
Bomber Bradbury’s ignorance about the word “Redneck”
The normally excellent Bomber Bradbury wrote a piece on his Tumeke! blog yesterday, about the campaign against Hone Harawira. Foolishly, however, he chose to entitle it The redneck hate of Hone and the Auckland Uni protest, which implies it’s hard-working Pakeha farmers, truck-drivers and road workers who are spouting all the racist bilge in the media.
Bradbury uses the term “redneck” repeatedly throughout the article. So he describes racist engineering students in the 1970s as “predominately white provincial and rednecked”, and now, at Auckland University in 2011, Hone is “once again…facing off against rednecks”.
I posted a response on the Tumeke! blogsite, but so far, Bradbury has not deigned to publish it. In case he doesn’t publish it, here is what I wrote:
Bomber, please stop using the term “redneck” when you really mean “bigot”. Some of the hardest-working, most serious and socially concerned people I know are rednecks—i.e., farmers, truck drivers, road-workers and manual workers of all kinds.
“Redneck” is an American term of condescension and abuse used by eastern establishment “liberals” in the 1960s to sneer at white working people in the southern states.
In our country, the most extreme bigots and race-baiters operate in the comfort of talkback radio studios (Michael Laws, Leighton Smith, Paul Holmes) and university offices (David Round, Michael Bassett, Dov Bing); not a red neck among them.
Your use of this term is unreflective—and unfair on working people.
No, he’s using the word in blissful ignorance. The term was originally, and remains, a sniffy and elitist term of contempt for poor white southerners. As I pointed out, the worst, most vicious racists and bigots are comfortably off, well-remunerated talkback hosts and academics. It is also imprecise; some of the worst, most disgraceful bigots—both here and overseas—are Indian, Maori and Chinese.
“Bomber, please stop using the term “redneck” when you really mean “bigot”. Some of the hardest-working, most serious and socially concerned people I know are rednecks—i.e., farmers, truck drivers, road-workers and manual workers of all kinds. ”
I’m in two minds about this. I understand a bit of the history of the word and so take your point. But I wouldn’t call evey NZ farmer, truckdriver, roadworker etc a redneck, and most of the people I know that do those things aren’t rednecks in the way that Bomber uses the term either. What is your definition of redneck in a NZ context? When would you use the word? The way you’ve used it here is too generic.
But I wouldn’t call every NZ farmer, truckdriver, roadworker etc a redneck…
Fair enough—it’s really an American term. Working people in the States cheerfully call themselves rednecks—it’s only a term of abuse when the (ignorant) elites use it.
…and most of the people I know that do those things aren’t rednecks in the way that Bomber uses the term either.
No, but Bomber should not be using the word as a term of opprobrium. I know Hone Harawira often flings it around, too—he has obviously given it no more thought than Bomber.
What is your definition of redneck in a NZ context? When would you use the word? The way you’ve used it here is too generic.
I don’t think it should ever be used as a term of abuse. Rednecks—i.e., working men—are the very people who the left should be allying with against this rotten government; instead, the likes of Hone and Bomber are invoking them as a term of abuse.
The all-purpose word for a boor like Garth McVicar, a canting hypocrite like Stephen Franks and a ranting racist like Paul Holmes is not “redneck” but a far more accurate word: bigot.
I think the problem is we don’t have a non-perjorative use of ‘redneck’ here, so it’s too easy for people to fling around. I agree bigot is a better word to use though. It’s less divisive and much more accurate for what they’re talking about.
I think the problem is we don’t have a non-perjorative use of ‘redneck’ here, so it’s too easy for people to fling around.
It’s not a pejorative word unless used with contempt and ignorance, as Bomber Bradbury and Hone Harawira unwittingly do.
I agree bigot is a better word to use though. It’s less divisive and much more accurate for what they’re talking about.
Other appropriate words for the likes of Holmes, Franks, McVicar, Leighton Smith, Murray Deaker, David Round, etc. might be: chauvinist, dogmatist, extremist, hypocrite, racist. But they do not deserve the label “redneck”—my uncle was a “redneck”; he read books, was unfailingly polite to all kinds of people, worked hard on his farm all his life—and he despised bigots and racists.
Has your comment turned up on Tumeke?
No it hasn’t. I definitely sent it, and I can’t imagine that Bomber has censored it. Maybe something went wrong.
The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and rival miners’ unions appropriated both the term redneck and its literal manifestation, the red bandana, in order to build multiracial unions of white, black, and immigrant miners in the strike-ridden coalfields of northern and central Appalachia between 1912 and 1936.
Language evolves over time. He may not be using ‘redneck’ in it’s original definition, but he’s using it with the commonly accepted definition.
Sorry, Lanthanide, I am really unimpressed by the “language changes” argument. You talk about the “commonly accepted” definition, but who knows what that is? (It’s not a commonly used term) Granted, here in NZ we now ‘speak American’ as some guy rather smugly and hostilely predicted we would, in the Listener in 1984.(I remember his saying “Only the elderly and the Brits will object). I put my hand up to being one-half of each of those things, and it’s all rather rough on those of who don’t and would frankly rather die than speak American. The change has not wholly taken place yet.
It’s not the term “redneck” that I find problematic—it’s the use of it as a term of abuse. I note that that groveling, sniveling little creep Kevin Rudd used the word to denigrate Texans in his cringe-inducing contre-temps with Robin Williams a few months ago.
Over the weekend the NZ and Australian Police conducted their fourth operation under the banner of Operation Unite supposedly ‘A police blitz on drunken violence’
A campaign against alcohol abuse and how it manifests during a typical weekend in NZ is on the surface not something that a reasonable person would complain about or comment on except to praise. The coordinated international approach adopted by our police force however is quite a different beast.
In 2007 the Australian and New Zealand Police Ministers and Commissioners formed ANZPAA – the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency http://www.anzpaa.org.au/
Its stated goal of achieving in Australian and New Zealand Policing excellence is once again a very reasonable sounding proposition- on the surface.
Collaboration between NZ and Aussie in certain areas of Policing such as forensic and investigative techniques would seem to achieve some of the efficiencies, or effective use of resource that the ANZAA points to as a rationale for its existence.
Why be worried? Because it doesn’t stop there.
After the recent Canterbury earthquake Australian police officers were deployed in Christchurch. The presence of foreign Police operating inside another Country, even under supervision, is a very rare sight indeed – something only usually seen when a country is occupied by a foreign power or a peacekeeping force. The government pointed to the earthquake and invoked the ‘extraordinary circumstance’ clause – but at this point I will be quite clear – It is NOT normal for foreign Police to patrolling in another country.
It seems that not everyone agrees that this should remain so – despite that fact that citizens have a fundamental right to be policed by their own countrymen.
The Rugby World Cup will likely be the next instalment of ‘Introducing World Police – Phase one – A/NZ amalgamation’ – the unstated goal – to get us to accept being policed by an international or multinational force.
Despite the clear and rational focus on harm reduction and equally appropriate suggestions that would help us to avoid pointlessly criminalising people our Government is poised to reject these suggestions. Why? Not because the suggestions are inappropriate – these suggestions will be rejected because if adopted we would be not be ‘in alignment’ with Australia and the US.
The ‘Operation Unite’ initiative began in the United States – a country where almost 10% of the population are in prison. In fact, the business (and it is a business because they are privately run) is such a large part of their economy that if the US was to go back to the imprisonment rates that it had in the 70’s close to a million people who work at the these prison franchises would lose their jobs and the economy as a whole would take a significant hit.
This is utterly shameful. The intrusion of the profit motive into the provision of prisons opens up a Pandora’s box of conflicting interests and give rise to situations such as have occurred in the US where a Judge was caught taking bribes from a prison operator in return for handing down longer sentences.
Operation unite, in NZ/Australia and the US, is anti-drug and focussed on increased enforcement – or as they term it here ‘stronger policing’. This ideological preference for punitive measures and enforcement over education and harm reduction is not an accident – in any country where there is profit to be made from prisons there is a motive for putting people there.
This is about sovereignty – New Zealand should be heeding the advice of its own experts and developing an approach that actually works rather that following the flawed, unjust and essentially immoral approach of the US.
Correction: the actual percentage of people in prison, when taken across the population as a whole is around 3 percent. However one in nine black males between the ages of 20 and 30 are imprisoned in the US.
Nationals recent announcement calling ‘prisons a moral and fiscal failure’ and asserting that no new prisons will be built cannot be viewed as a turnaround in their stance on law and order. The grouping of fiscal considerations with the corrections dept is no accident – the privatization of prisons is still firmly on the agenda – now to be rationalized as a cost saving measure.
Be prepared for a roll out of the double bunking and other such ill advised measures which will enable the private operators to make a tidy profit by sacrificing any attempt at education and real reform.
I think he just wondered if that was what she was up to. Whatever it might be.
Without naming the place, b/c for all I know they have dropped the policy, but when bookie jr was at that age there was a cafe in central wellington that said mothers were welcome to breast-feed their children, but that there was a corkage fee of 2$. True story.
I thought corkage was supposed to recompense staff from the arduous tax of taking the cork out of the bottle (what about screw-caps?) and providing the glassware and table service. And also a token gratuity because you probably won’t be buying as much, or any, alcohol from them.
Maybe corkage might apply to breastfeeding if the wait staff came and manually pumped it out of you and put it into a bottle so it didn’t spill or something?
Yes he did. And neither Brian Edwards nor Michele Boag picked him up on it. In fact, Boag scoffed at the idea that women needed to organise themselves into a pro-breastfeeding organisation.
On Friday’s programme, another complacent and self-satisfied ideologue, Deborah Hill Cone, indignantly challenged the idea that people might be struggling to get by in this country. “Struggle is a very relative term,” she lectured. “If you compare us to the 1930s we’re a LOT better off!” A dubious Jim Mora said thoughtfully: “Mmmmmmmmm….but…mmmmmm.”
A few minutes later, Hill Cone was equally impatient with the do-gooder notion that poor people get very sick because they cannot afford to get their teeth fixed: “But DO people die with bad teeth? I’d like to see FIRM FIGURES on that.”
When Joky Hen admitted in his flippant and endearing way that he had had the snip, what did he really mean by the statement quote… ‘All I can say is it’s been highly successful, but we won’t get into that either.’ …unquote. ?
It seems that there was probably a bit more of a story there, and having quipped he then wished he hadn’t. Many a slip twixt cup and the lip perhaps. What a shame the Hardtalk host couldn’t have followed that up for us.
I wonder if it was this kind of privatisation by stealth that John Key was interested in speaking to David Cameron about at their recent meeting? Sounds like he should have had a chat with Tony Blair instead (maybe he did?).
Not that I think that the health system is the primary target – at the moment.
That’s the road that National tried in the 1990s – it failed then but I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried again. They’re always after more ways to channel our wealth to themselves and their rich mates.
Up until a few weeks ago, I had never heard of "Climate Fresk" and at a guess, this will also be the case for many of you. I stumbled upon it in the self-service training catalog for employees at the company I work at in Germany where it was announced ...
Japan and Australia talk of ‘collective deterrence,’ but they don’t seem to have specific objectives. The relationship needs a clearer direction. The two countries should identify how they complement each other. Each country has two ...
The NZCTU strongly supports the OPC’s decision to issue a code of practice for biometric processing. Our view is that the draft code currently being consulted on is stronger and will be more effective than the exposure code released in early 2024. We are pleased that some of the revisions ...
Australia’s export-oriented industries, particularly agriculture, need to diversify their markets, with a focus on Southeast Asia. This could strengthen economic security and resilience while deepening regional relationships. The Trump administration’s decision to impose tariffs on ...
Minister Shane Jones is introducing fastrack ‘reforms’ to the our fishing industry that will ensure the big players squeeze out the small fishers and entrench an already bankrupt quota system.Our fisheries are under severe stress: the recent decision by theHigh Court ruling that the ...
In what has become regular news, the quarterly ETS auction has failed, with nobody even bothering to bid. The immediate reason is that the carbon price has fallen to around $60, below the auction minimum of $68. And the cause of that is a government which has basically given up ...
US President Donald Trump’s tariff threats have dominated headlines in India in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Trump announced that his reciprocal tariffs—matching other countries’ tariffs on American goods—will go into effect on 2 April, ...
Hi,Back in June of 2021, James Gardner-Hopkins — a former partner at law firm Russell McVeagh — was found guilty of misconduct over sexually inappropriate behaviour with interns.The events all related to law students working as summer interns at Russell McVeagh:As well as intimate touching with a student at his ...
Climate sceptic MP Mark Cameron has slammed National for being ‘out of touch’ by sticking to our climate commitments. Photo: Lynn GrievesonMōrena. Long stories shortest:ACT’s renowned climate sceptic MP Mark Cameron has accused National of being 'out of touch' with farmers by sticking with New Zealand’s Paris accord pledges ...
Now I've heard there was a secret chordThat David played, and it pleased the LordBut you don't really care for music, do you?It goes like this, the fourth, the fifthThe minor falls, the major liftsThe baffled king composing HallelujahSongwriter: Leonard CohenI always thought the lyrics of that great song by ...
People are getting carried away with the virtues of small warship crews. We need to remember the great vice of having few people to run a ship: they’ll quickly tire. Yes, the navy is struggling ...
Mōrena. Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom/$3, NZ Herald/$, Stuff, BusinessDesk/$, Politik-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT/$, WSJ/$, Bloomberg/$, New York Times/$, The Atlantic-$, ...
US President Donald Trump’s hostile regime has finally forced Europe to wake up. With US officials calling into question the transatlantic alliance, Germany’s incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, recently persuaded lawmakers to revise the country’s debt ...
We need to establish clearer political boundaries around national security to avoid politicising ongoing security issues and to better manage secondary effects. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) revealed on 10 March that the Dural caravan ...
The NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi have reiterated their call for Government to protect workers by banning engineered stone in a submission on MBIE’s silica dust consultation. “If Brooke van Velden is genuine when she calls for an evidence-based approach to this issue, then she must support a full ban on ...
The Labour Inspectorate could soon be knocking on the door of hundreds of businesses nation-wide, as it launches a major crackdown on those not abiding by the law. NorthTec staff are on edge as Northland’s leading polytechnic proposes to stop 11 programmes across primary industries, forestry, and construction. Union coverage ...
It’s one thing for military personnel to hone skills with first-person view (FPV) drones in racing competitions. It’s quite another for them to transition to the complexities of the battlefield. Drone racing has become a ...
Seymour says there will be no other exemptions granted to schools wanting to opt out of the Compass contract. Photo: Lynn GrievesonLong stories shortest:David Seymour has denied a request from a Christchurch school and any other schools to be exempted from the Compass school lunch programme, saying the contract ...
Russian President Boris Yeltsin, U.S. President Bill Clinton, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, and British Prime Minister John Major signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in ...
Edit: The original story said “Palette Cleanser” in both the story, and the headline. I am never, ever going to live this down. Chain me up, throw me into the pit.Hi,With the world burning — literally and figuratively — I felt like Webworm needed a little palate cleanser at the ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Sarah Wesseler(Image credit: Antonio Huerta) Growing up in suburban Ohio, I was used to seeing farmland and woods disappear to make room for new subdivisions, strip malls, and big box stores. I didn’t usually welcome the changes, but I assumed others ...
Myanmar was a key global site for criminal activity well before the 2021 military coup. Today, illicit industry, especially heroin and methamphetamine production, still defines much of the economy. Nowhere, not even the leafiest districts ...
What've I gotta do to make you love me?What've I gotta do to make you care?What do I do when lightning strikes me?And I wake up and find that you're not thereWhat've I gotta do to make you want me?Mmm hmm, what've I gotta do to be heard?What do I ...
Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, The Economist-$ ...
Whenever Christopher Luxon drops a classically fatuous clanger or whenever the government has a bad poll – i.e. every week – the talk resumes that he is about to be rolled. This is unlikely for several reasons. For starters, there is no successor. Nicola Willis? Chris Bishop? Simeon Brown? Mark ...
Australia, Britain and European countries should loosen budget rules to allow borrowing to fund higher defence spending, a new study by the Kiel Institute suggests. Currently, budget debt rules are forcing governments to finance increases ...
The NZCTU remains strongly committed to banning engineered stone in New Zealand and implementing better occupational health protections for all workers working with silica-containing materials. In this submission to MBIE, the NZCTU outlines that we have an opportunity to learn from Australia’s experience by implementing a full ban of engineered ...
The Prime Minister has announced a big win in trade negotiations with India.It’s huge, he told reporters. We didn't get everything we came for but we were able to agree on free trade in clothing, fabrics, car components, software, IT consulting, spices, tea, rice, and leather goods.He said that for ...
I have been trying to figure out the logic of Trump’s tariff policies and apparent desire for a global trade war. Although he does not appear to comprehend that tariffs are a tax on consumers in the country doing the tariffing, I can (sort of) understand that he may think ...
As Syria and international partners negotiate the country’s future, France has sought to be a convening power. While France has a history of influence in the Middle East, it will have to balance competing Syrian ...
One of the eternal truths about Aotearoa's economy is that we are "capital poor": there's not enough money sloshing around here to fund the expansion of local businesses, or to build the things we want to. Which gets used as an excuse for all sorts of things, like setting up ...
National held its ground until late 2023 Verion, Talbot Mills & Curia Polls (Red = Labour, Blue = National)If we remove outlier results from Curia (National Party November 2023) National started trending down in October 2024.Verion Polls (Red = Labour, Blue = National)Verian alone shows a clearer deterioration in early ...
In a recent presentation, I recommended, quite unoriginally, that governments should have a greater focus on higher-impact, lower-probability climate risks. My reasoning was that current climate model projections have blind spots, meaning we are betting ...
Daddy, are you out there?Daddy, won't you come and play?Daddy, do you not care?Is there nothing that you want to say?Songwriters: Mark Batson / Beyonce Giselle Knowles.This morning, a look at the much-maligned NZ Herald. Despised by many on the left as little more than a mouthpiece for the National ...
Employers, unions and health and safety advocates are calling for engineered stone to be banned, a day before consultation on regulations closes. On Friday the PSA lodged a pay equity claim for library assistants with the Employment Relations Authority, after the stalling of a claim lodged with six councils in ...
Long stories shortest in Aotearoa’s political economy:Christopher Luxon surprises by announcing trade deal talks with India will start next month, and include beef and dairy. Napier is set to join Whakatane, Dunedin and Westport in staging a protest march against health spending restraints hitting their hospital services. Winston Peters ...
At a time of rising geopolitical tensions and deepening global fragmentation, the Ukraine war has proved particularly divisive. From the start, the battle lines were clearly drawn: Russia on one side, Ukraine and the West ...
Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, Newsroom-$, Politik-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, ...
A listing of 26 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, March 9, 2025 thru Sat, March 15, 2025. This week's roundup is again published by category and sorted by number of articles included in each. We are still interested ...
Max Harris and Max Rashbrooke discuss how we turn around the right wing slogans like nanny state, woke identity politics, and the inefficiency of the public sector – and how we build a progressive agenda. From Donald Trump to David Seymour, from Peter Dutton to Christopher Luxon, we are subject to a ...
The Government dominated the political agenda this week with its two-day conference pitching all manner of public infrastructure projects for Public Private Partnerships (PPPs). Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories shortest in our political economy this week: The Government ploughed ahead with offers of PPPs to pension fund managers ...
You know that it's a snake eat snake worldWe slither and serpentine throughWe all took a bite, and six thousand years laterThese apples getting harder to chewSongwriters: Shawn Mavrides.“Please be Jack Tame”, I thought when I saw it was Seymour appearing on Q&A. I’d had a guts full of the ...
So here we are at the wedding of Alexandra Vincent Martelli and David Seymour.Look at all the happy prosperous guests! How proud Nick Mowbray looks of the gift he has made of a mountain of crap plastic toys stuffed into a Cybertruck.How they drink, how they laugh, how they mug ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is waste heat from industrial activity the reason the planet is warming? Waste heat’s contribution to global warming is a small fraction of ...
Some continue to defend David Seymour on school lunches, sidestepping his errors to say:“Well the parents should pack their lunch” and/or “Kids should be grateful for free food.”One of these people is the sitting Prime Minister.So I put together a quick list of why complaint is not only appropriate - ...
“Bugger the pollsters!”WHEN EVERYBODY LIVED in villages, and every village had a graveyard, the expression “whistling past the graveyard” made more sense. Even so, it’s hard to describe the Coalition Government’s response to the latest Taxpayers’ Union/Curia Research poll any better. Regardless of whether they wanted to go there, or ...
Prof Jane Kelsey examines what the ACT party and the NZ Initiative are up to as they seek to impose on the country their hardline, right wing, neoliberal ideology. A progressive government elected in 2026 would have a huge job putting Humpty Dumpty together again and rebuilding a state that ...
See I try to make a differenceBut the heads of the high keep turning awayThere ain't no useWhen the world that you love has goneOoh, gotta make a changeSongwriters: Arapekanga Adams-Tamatea / Brad Kora / Hiriini Kora / Joel Shadbolt.Aotearoa for Sale.This week saw the much-heralded and somewhat alarming sight ...
Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, The Economist-$ ...
By international standards the New Zealand healthcare system appears satisfactory – certainly no worse generally than average. Yet it is undergoing another redisorganisation.While doing some unrelated work, I came across some international data on the healthcare sector which seemed to contradict my – and the conventional wisdom’s – view of ...
When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he knew that he was upending Europe’s security order. But this was more of a tactical gambit than a calculated strategy ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Over the last year, I’ve been warning about Luxon’s pitch to privatise our public assets.He had told reporters in October that nothing was off the cards:Schools, hospitals, prisons, and ...
When ASPI’s Cyclone Tracy: 50 Years On was published last year, it wasn’t just a historical reflection; it was a warning. Just months later, we are already watching history repeat itself. We need to bake ...
1. Why was school lunch provider The Libelle Group in the news this week?a. Grand Winner in Pie of The Yearb. Scored a record 108% on YELP c. Bought by Oravida d. Went into liquidation2. What did our Prime Minister offer prospective investors at his infrastructure investment jamboree?a. The Libelle ...
South Korea has suspended new downloads of DeepSeek, and it was were right to do so. Chinese tech firms operate under the shadow of state influence, misusing data for surveillance and geopolitical advantage. Any country ...
Previous big infrastructure PPPs such as Transmission Gully were fiendishly complicated to negotiate, generated massive litigation and were eventually rewritten anyway. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesLong stories shortest: The Government’s international investment conference ignores the facts that PPPs cost twice as much as vanilla debt-funded public infrastructure, often take ...
Woolworths has proposed a major restructure of its New Zealand store operating model, leaving workers worried their hours and pay could be cut. Public servants are being asked how productive their office is, how much they use AI, and whether they’re overloaded with meetings as part of a “census”. An ...
Robert Kaplan’s book Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis paints a portrait of civilisation in flux. Drawing insights from history, literature and art, he examines the effect of modern technology, globalisation and urbanisation on ...
Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and freeSexuality - Your laws do not apply to meSexuality - Don't threaten me with miserySexuality - I demand equalitySong: Billy Bragg.First, thank you to everyone who took part in yesterday’s survey. Some questions worked better than others, but I found them interesting, ...
Hi,I just got back from a week in Japan thanks to the power of cheap flights and years of accumulated credit card points.The last time I was in Japan the government held a press conference saying they might take legal action against me and Netflix, so there was a little ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on the week in geopolitics, including Donald Trump’s wrecking of the post-WW II political landscape; andHealth Coalition Aotearoa co-chair Lisa ...
Hi,I just got back from a short trip to Japan, mostly spending time in Tokyo.I haven’t been there since we shot Dark Tourist back in 2017 — and that landed us in a bit of hot water with the Japanese government.I am glad to report I was not thrown into ...
I’ve been on Substack for almost 8 months now.It’s been good in terms of the many great individuals that populate its space. So much variety and intelligence and humour and depth.I joined because someone suggested I should ‘start a Substack,’ whatever that meant.So I did.Turning on payments seemed like the ...
Open access notables Would Adding the Anthropocene to the Geologic Time Scale Matter?, McCarthy et al., AGU Advances:The extraordinary fossil fuel-driven outburst of consumption and production since the mid-twentieth century has fundamentally altered the way the Earth System works. Although humans have impacted their environment for millennia, justification for ...
Australia should buy equipment to cheaply and temporarily convert military transport aircraft into waterbombers. On current planning, the Australian Defence Force will have a total of 34 Chinook helicopters and Hercules airlifters. They should be ...
Photo by Gareth Davies on UnsplashKia oraCome and join us for our weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm today.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream for our chat about the week’s news with myself , plus regular guest , and special ...
Indonesia’s government has slashed its counterterrorism (CT) budgets, despite the persistent and evolving threat of violent extremism. Australia can support regional CT efforts by filling this funding void. Reducing funding to the National Counterterrorism Agency ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Resource Management (Prohibition on Extraction of Freshwater for On-selling) Amendment Bill (Debbie Ngarewa-Packer) The bill does exactly what it says on the label, and would effectively end the rapacious water-bottling industry ...
Twilight Time Lighthouse Cuba, Wigan Street, Wellington, Sunday 6 April, 5:30pm for 6pm start. Twilight Time looks at the life and work of Desmond Ball, (1947-2016), a barefooted academic from ‘down under’ who was hailed by Jimmy Carter as “the man who saved the world”, as he proved the fallacy ...
The Green Party is calling for the compassionate release of Dean Wickliffe, a 77-year-old kaumātua on hunger strike at the Spring Hill Corrections Facility, after visiting him at the prison. ...
The Green Party is calling on Government MPs to support Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence and illegal actions in Palestine, following another day of appalling violence against civilians in Gaza. ...
The Green Party stands in support of volunteer firefighters petitioning the Government to step up and change legislation to provide volunteers the same ACC coverage and benefits as their paid counterparts. ...
At 2.30am local time, Israel launched a treacherous attack on Gaza killing more than 300 defenceless civilians while they slept. Many of them were children. This followed a more than 2 week-long blockade by Israel on the entry of all goods and aid into Gaza. Israel deliberately targeted densely populated ...
Living Strong, Aging Well There is much discussion around the health of our older New Zealanders and how we can age well. In reality, the delivery of health services accounts for only a relatively small percentage of health outcomes as we age. Significantly, dry warm housing, nutrition, exercise, social connection, ...
Shane Jones’ display on Q&A showed how out of touch he and this Government are with our communities and how in sync they are with companies with little concern for people and planet. ...
Labour does not support the private ownership of core infrastructure like schools, hospitals and prisons, which will only see worse outcomes for Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is disappointed the Government voted down Hūhana Lyndon’s member’s Bill, which would have prevented further alienation of Māori land through the Public Works Act. ...
The Labour Party will support Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill which would allow sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories. ...
The Government’s new procurement rules are a blatant attack on workers and the environment, showing once again that National’s priorities are completely out of touch with everyday Kiwis. ...
With Labour and Te Pāti Māori’s official support, Opposition parties are officially aligned to progress Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in Palestine. ...
Te Pāti Māori extends our deepest aroha to the 500 plus Whānau Ora workers who have been advised today that the govt will be dismantling their contracts. For twenty years , Whānau Ora has been helping families, delivering life-changing support through a kaupapa Māori approach. It has built trust where ...
Labour welcomes Simeon Brown’s move to reinstate a board at Health New Zealand, bringing the destructive and secretive tenure of commissioner Lester Levy to an end. ...
This morning’s announcement by the Health Minister regarding a major overhaul of the public health sector levels yet another blow to the country’s essential services. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill that will ensure employment decisions in the public service are based on merit and not on forced woke ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ targets. “This Bill would put an end to the woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets in the public sector. ...
Police have referred 20 offenders to Destiny Church-affiliated programmes Man Up and Legacy as ‘wellness providers’ in the last year, raising concerns that those seeking help are being recruited into a harmful organisation. ...
Te Pāti Māori welcomes the resignation of Richard Prebble from the Waitangi Tribunal. His appointment in October 2024 was a disgrace- another example of this government undermining Te Tiriti o Waitangi by appointing a former ACT leader who has spent his career attacking Māori rights. “Regardless of the reason for ...
Police Minister Mark Mitchell is avoiding accountability by refusing to answer key questions in the House as his Government faces criticism over their dangerous citizen’s arrest policy, firearm reform, and broken promises to recruit more police. ...
The number of building consents issued under this Government continues to spiral, taking a toll on the infrastructure sector, tradies, and future generations of Kiwi homeowners. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Prime Minister to rule out joining the AUKUS military pact in any capacity following the scenes in the White House over the weekend. ...
The Green Party is appalled by the Government’s plan to disestablish Resource Teachers of Māori (RTM) roles, a move that takes another swing at kaupapa Māori education. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
Asia Pacific Report At least 400 people have been killed after a surprise Israeli attack on Gaza in the early hours of Tuesday. The Israeli government vows to continue escalating these military attacks, claiming it is in response to Hamas’ refusal to extend the ceasefire, which has been in place ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jon Richardson, Visiting Fellow, Centre for European Studies, Australian National University US President Donald Trump’s phone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, didn’t take a tangible step towards ending the hostilities in Ukraine, let alone finding an enduring peace. Rather, it ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University Popovo Bros/Shutterstock You might’ve heard too many eggs make you constipated. Influencers on Instagram claim it too. The United Kingdom has slang for it – being “egg bound”. Eggs were ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Associate Professor in Climate Science, ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, The University of Melbourne Climate change is the most pressing problem humanity will face this century. Tracking how the climate is actually changing has never been more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anne Tiedemann, Professor of Physical Activity and Health, University of Sydney shurkin_son/Shutterstock We all recognise the benefits of regular aerobic or cardiovascular exercise to support our heart and lung health. Being active is also good for our social and mental health. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Thomas Moran, Lecturer in the Department of English, Creative Writing and Film, University of Adelaide MK2 Films Chinese independent director Jia Zhangke’s new film Caught by the Tides, now in select Australian cinemas, provides a unique vision of China’s rapid social ...
RNZ News New Zealand opposition Labour leader Chris Hipkins is accusing the prime minister of reversing a long-held foreign policy during his current trip to India to help secure a free trade agreement between the two countries. “It seems our foreign policy is up for grabs at the moment,” he ...
A fortnight of mixed fortunes for the prime minister. After a drum beat of conjecture about his job security, the prime minister enjoyed something of an elixir in the investment summit and a trip to India that began with a breakthrough announcement: the launch of talks on a comprehensive ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Luke Beck, Professor of Constitutional Law, Monash University Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has floated the idea of amending the Australian Constitution to allow government ministers to strip dual citizens of their Australian citizenship if they commit serious crimes related to terrorism. Almost ...
Alex Casey talks to James Ashcroft about making his new rest home chiller The Rule of Jenny Pen, and finding an early fan in Stephen King. James Ashcroft was browsing the horror section of a Hollywood bookshop when he got the email from Stephen King. He’d sent the godfather of ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Chris Gaviglio, Lecturer Strength and Conditioning, University of Southern Queensland Dziurek/Shutterstock During Australia’s winter sports seasons, hundreds of thousands of children will take to the field in contact sports like rugby league, rugby union, Australian rules and soccer. With ...
Israel says President Donald Trump green lit a scorched-earth bombing of Gaza that wiped out entire families and killed dozens of infants and other children.By Abubaker Abed in Deil Al-Balah, Gaza, and Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News The US-backed Israeli government resumed its intense genocidal attacks on Gaza ...
Each of the past eight years has set a new record for ocean heat and ice cover is shrinking to new lows, the State of the Global Climate Report says. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yuhao Dai, Research Fellow in Earth Sciences, Australian National University N-2-s/Shutterstock Between 18,000 and 11,000 years ago, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere suddenly shot up. This caused rapid global warming, the mass melting of glaciers, and the end ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Toone, Lecturer in Social Work, University of South Australia Nine Married at First Sight Australia (colloquially known as “MAFS”) is one of Australia’s most popular reality TV shows, averaging two million viewers an episode. But this year’s season has come ...
Asia Pacific Report A West Papuan liberation advocacy group has condemned the arrest of 12 activists by Indonesian police and demanded their immediate release. The West Papuan activists from the West Papua People’s Liberation Movement (GR-PWP) were arrested for handing out pamphlets supporting the new “Boycott Indonesia” campaign. The GR-PWP ...
Welcome to The Spinoff Books Confessional, in which we get to know the reading habits of Aotearoa writers, and guests. This week: the minister of finance, Nicola Willis. This week’s confessional is slightly different in that books editor Claire Mabey interviewed Willis via phone and took the opportunity to expand ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Marie Brennan, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Waikato Getty Images Now back on Earth thanks to Space X’s Dragon capsule, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will be breathing fresh air again after a gruelling nine months onboard the ...
Lots of councils find reasons to stop construction. Few do it with as much panache as Auckland.When the developer James Kirkpatrick Group ordered a design for an 11-storey building on Karangahape Road, it probably believed resource consent would be a formality. The commercial building, with offices up top and ...
The anniversary of New Zealand’s worst mass shooting—which the United Nations designated in 2022 as an International Day to Combat Islamophobia—attracted minimal media coverage. ...
Voters who find themselves disappointed in the current government should realise that these parties are actually delivering what they promised – for all the talk of efficiency, they never promised real change. ...
While zoomers are skewering millennials online, the results of market research are damning: copious amounts of optimism, superfanning and fairy smut define Gen Z. Hello. It’s a 1991 baby here, a millennial. I’ve been happily scrolling on Instagram, trying to dodge algorithmic exposure to cortisol bellies, body transformations and how-to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sharha Sharha, PhD Candidate in Kamasutra Feminism, Cardiff Metropolitan University A carved erotic scene on the outer wall of temple in Khajuraho complex, India.Cortyn/Shutterstock For some people, the Kamasutra is little more than a name associated with condom brands, scented oils ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Cantrell, Senior Lecturer – Writing, Editing, and Publishing, University of Southern Queensland Netflix Filmed in a one-take style, Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham’s new crime drama Adolescence is being hailed by critics as a technical masterpiece. Out now on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Yucong Wang, Lecturer, School of Law and Justice, University of Newcastle In the first few months of 2025, there’s been a flurry of private venture space missions. Some have been successful, such as American company Firefly Aerospace landing its spacecraft Blue Ghost ...
Comment: It was all going so well. Then Christopher Luxon threatened to get in his own way.Luxon went into his India trip hoping to accumulate a few singles and keep the scoreboard ticking over, but ended up clearing the boundary.Launching free trade negotiations, deepening his leader-to-leader ties with Indian Prime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Grant Duncan, Teaching Fellow in Politics and International Relations, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Getty Images We’re roughly half way through this parliamentary term, and it looks as though the 2026 election could deliver “Christopher vs Chris: the sequel”. Neither ...
After months of bad headlines, Chris Luxon’s trip to India seems to be reaping dividends – and not just economically, writes Catherine McGregor in today’s extract from The Bulletin. To receive The Bulletin in full each weekday, sign up here. PM puts wins on the board Christopher Luxon is having a ...
TEPCO finally admits that the No 1 reactor melted down a mere 16 hours after the Earthguake. It also admitted that since reactor no 2 and 3 (the one with the MOX fuel) have similar damage they also may have melted down.
Pre-empting Rare earth man’s tsk,tsking for doubting the official lies the following: when asked TESCO stated that they could not have known that this was the case until they went into the reactor a couple of days ago.
Hiroaki Koide, professor of nuclear safety engineering at Kyoto University, was critical of TEPCO.
It is a well known fact that a nuclear reactor goes into meltdown within 90 minutes if it is not cooled.
So what we have is three reactors in melt down freely releasing their nuclear destruction into the Pacific ocean and the air. They have done so for the last two months and will do so until a way has been found to stop them from doing so. This will take at least 6-9 months. The reactors are much bigger and older (i.e. more radioactive) than Chernobyl.
All information about the amounts of the dispersion of radioactive particles into the atmosphere is unavailable to the general public but rest assured we will find out in a couple of years through cancer and extinction of sea life in the areas around the reactors.
Japan has announced to expand the uninhabitable areas around the reactors.
The lesson is simple (like any more such lessons should be needed..)..
Do not trust authority.
I thought the lesson was: there is always a big enough disaster to make nuclear energy a grossly stupid idea (aka there’s no such thing as safe nuclear power).
There is safe nuclear power, it just requires much more technological nous than was used in the 60’s through 80’s in designing and installing power plants. Safe nuclear power may also not be economically feasible, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.
Saying there is safe nuclear power is like saying we can build earthquake proof buildings. It’s a semantics that works for those who think the risk is acceptable but doesn’t work for those that don’t.
Well weka it seems we can build earthquake proof buildings. Not one new (current building code) high-rise building in Christchurch’s world record breaking shake collapsed or caused death. All stayed upright as intended and everyone got out. The fact of damage was always expected and known to be a big clean-up job afterwards.
Quite why the idea that we can’t build such buildings is out there I am not sure. The reality is that we can and have. It has been proved.
Depends on what you mean by quake-proof, too.
We do build quake-proof multi-storey buildings, but they are quake proof in the sense that they have a design philosophy of preserving life. Is it good enough to just preserve human life if it results in an unserviceable building, which results in a long recovery period? Or should we insist on buildings that do not kill people and continue to fully function after an earthquake?
Perhaps this is too engineering-nerd a subject for The Standard.
Fuck, just set to replty and another fucking doozy shake sets the nerves afire again. Tell ya, I’m gonna deck one of these quakes someday soon…
Anyways… from my understanding of building engineering it is near impossible to build buildings (current technology) that can withstand such a shake or ten and come out undamaged. The reason is that a completely solid structure will just blow apart under such stress and it is bettr to let the building move and bend with the ground movement.
I explained it like this once (adult rated)… imagine you have a sudden and extreme bout of the shits but your arsehole is concreted up. What’s going to happen? Obviously blow apart in some unseemly fashion. Better to blow it out and clean up the mess afterwards – at least you survive. (apologies for the less than savoury analogy)
Thanks for your analogy, as it happens I’ve just sat down for lunch.
As I understand it, buildings can be designed to withstand enormous shakes and remain serviceable. The idea is to make them light and flexible, whereas the current school of thought is to make them ductile. I was just contemplating whether this needs to be changed, and structural engineers (all of them, in training, practicing and teaching) need to update their philosophy. Designs might need to be assessed based not only on whether they will protect life, but also, if they become unusable, (because the steel in the connections between the columns and beams has yielded), how long will it take to dismantle and replace the building. And what can the building be used for, meanwhile, and what risks does it present until it is demolished, what inconvenience will be caused during the demolition etc.
Perhaps. Christhurch’s newest and tallest building happenned to be a steel frame structure (Pacific Tower) which has got away quite lightly, being lighter and more flexible, compared to the usual construction material of choice, concrete, which is heavy and brittle.
Hang in there vto.
+1. Thoughts are with vto and family
That’s not quake proof, that’s quake resistant. Are you saying those building would withstand a 9.0 quake?
The issue with nuclear power isn’t how ‘safe’ it is. It’s what are the consequences if things go wrong. Like I said, the semantics work one way if you think the risks are worth it*, but they don’t if you think the risks aren’t worth it. Most people who are against nuke power don’t believe the risks are worth it despite the benefits.
*although when used like this the word ‘safe’ implies that disaster can/will never happen. Which is ridiculous. It may be theoretically possible to build a nuclear power generator that is completely and forever safe, but once you bring in human and other real world factors, that idea of absolute safety fails again.
weka, our shake was greater than the japanese one, though the richter measure was lower (6.3 cf 8.9). So our buildings did survive an equivalent 9.0. These are the facts.
Are you sure about that? Had you had a 9.0 (richter) with the kind of geology in Chch and that fault and the way that it moved, would you not have had a much worse earthquake? Or are you saying that the Chch quake was the biggest possible for that area? Why couldn’t a bigger quake be possible?
Sorry you have having more aftershocks though, that’s a real bastard.
I aint entirely 100% positive of course. Iis mother nature. But I do know that the shake Christchurch experienced was the biggest recorded. And the new buildings went through it and out the other side with no loss of life.
and yeah cheers. the aftershocks are bastards for sure.
“But I do know that the shake Christchurch experienced was the biggest recorded. And the new buildings went through it and out the other side with no loss of life.”
That to me says that the buildings are built to the best standards we are willing to pay for and in relationship to the type of quake risk that’s been assesssed. Which is good. But it’s a different thing than saying that those buildings would definitely withstand any and all larger quakes.
This is the point about nuclear power generation. It’s about risk assessment. Using a word like safe obfuscates the downsides. Maybe a better comparison is with safe sex vs safer sex. See the difference?
They can make nuke power generators safer than the ones built decades ago. They can’t make them absolutely safe.
Yes agreed. And “risk” around nuclear power is entirely different than a natural disaster due to the ongoing effects of radiation I would have thought. A start could be made by not letting the likes of Homer Simpson near any such plants…
It wasn’t the earthquake biggest recorded, one aspect of it (peak ground acceleration) was the biggest recorded in New Zealand and one of the greatest in the world.
There are many factors that influence earthquake damage – energy released, PGA, depth, proximity, ground and faultline conditions, layering, proximity to different ground structures:
One explanation I heard was that different layers of the earth separated when initially thrust up, the upper layer came higher so tok longer to drop back down and met the underlayer coming back up on the next wave.
It seems that the Februrary quake was a bit like a “perfect storm” combination of factors in proximity to a city centre.
If the quake was higher on the Richter scale the effects and damage would have been worse. No building can be earthquake proof.
The Japanese reactors were Gen 1 – built in the era of the sliderule. The new gen reactors, are, one presumes, much safer.
Thorium power looks much more promising as the waste is non-toxic, and the reactors can be turned off – they do not go into meltdown
Well that sorts it than. All we have to do is get rid of those reactors build with 60’s through to the 80s technology. Oh oops, no solution for the waste created in that time.
Other than bombing Libya and other assorted countries we want to protect and liberate with it of course.
So Lanth where DO you HIDE the waste ? Weapons grade depleted uranium anyone ? The Iraqis no all about the repercussions of that .
Trust but verify. If you can’t verify then the authority is illegitimate.
If the media does not have an independent authority then the media is also illegitimate.
Unless there is a damn good reason for them to lie, like panic in Toyko.
So what was lost? Was anything going to change, was there some way to
stop the meltdown? No. So any benefit from the lies was saving the
population from causing more harm. Was irradiating them was far less costly
that the alternative???
Nuclear power is too dangerous.
At the risk of threadjacking my own thread now extrapolate that sentiment to the events of 9/11.
If no steel framed buildings ever collapsed before and after the events of 9/11 than how come three steel framed buildings collapsed on that one day as a result of fossil fuel fires, one of which as the result of mere office fires, into their own footprint breaking all three of Newton’s laws of motion.
Who do you believe? Your government or your lying eyes?
Option A: DNFTT
Option B: Here we go, again…..
DNFTT? Do not fall to this? Do not feed this T? Darn no foot turn tipsy?
Do not feed this thread? yeah that could be it.
Laws of physics don’t lie AC. They can not be broken. Your turn.
At this stage I’m picking Option A, ev.
How is that trolling?
Oh, thanks Weka. It means do not feed this troll. Duh. LOL.
Yeah AC? How is my post trolling? All I do is point out an inconsistency in the official story which purports that 19 young men can defeat the entire military might, can’t fly but still manage to fly three planes into the most protected buildings in the universe and are able to break all Newton’s laws in the process.
Fukushima was an exercise in covering up the most blatant lies and all I do is ask VTO to extrapolate his new found cynicism to the events of 9/11.
OK, it was unfair of me to call you a troll, ev. I just couldn’t be arsed searching for your last major attempt (on The Standard) at convincing the masses that you are right. But I’ve done it now – the link is here.
For anyone who doesn’t know what to expect when engaging ev on this subject, have a read of the Open Mike of 9 November 2010. And expect the same again if you choose Option B.
The internet, and this blog, is full of people trying to convince everyone else they are right
Oh, feel free to point them to my blog AC. Just because you don’t have the mental acumen to actually read up on science doesn’t mean that others don’t either.
1. Thanks for the invitation ev. In the past I’ve considered commenting on your blog and I’ve always decided against it. Nothing you have done subsequently has made me reconsider my decision.
2. I’ve read or viewed most of the links you’ve provided and concluded that, in general, they are not credible. If that leads you to conclude I lack mental acumen, so be it. You seem to be quite fixed in your opinions, and I won’t go out of my way to try to change your mind.
“Pre-empting Rare earth man’s tsk,tsking for doubting the official lies the following”
It’s not you “doubting the official lies”, it’s you deliberately mis-contrueing what their communications said. I’ll put it simply for you: Tepco absolutely knew for 100% certain that event X had happened because they detected it with their instruments, and were fairly sure (as were all external experts) that because X had happened, it means that event Y almost certainly also happened. They put out press releases saying X happened. Then later once they had definitive proof of event Y happening, they put out press releases saying Y has happened. At no point have they actually denied that Y happened. Upon publishing of the later press releases, you accuse them of deliberately lying for initially saying only X had happened and that Y definitely did not happen – they never did any such thing. It is simply not “lying” by any definition of the word.
You’re allowed to be as sceptical as you want about tepco and their communications strategy, but accusing them of ‘lying’ is just grossly wrong.
“It is a well known fact that a nuclear reactor goes into meltdown within 90 minutes if it is not cooled.”
And yet it took 16 hours, funny that.
“So what we have is three reactors in melt down freely releasing their nuclear destruction into the Pacific ocean and the air.”
“freely releasing” nuclear destruction into the air is what Chernobyl did. Fukushima is a significantly different failure mode.
Fukushima Cover-Up
While independent experts have been saying for ages now that there is evidence of nuclear meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, the confirmation by Japanese officials has until very recently been missing from the official story. This information has seen no coverage from mainstream media, who’ve largely forgotten the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.
I don’t see anything objectionable in that post, except this:
“After levels of radiation had been measured as high as 700 millisieverts* per hour last week”
“*Exposure to this level of radiation will cause death. According to the NIH radiation levels of 4 sieverts per hour will cause fatality in 50% of people and at 6 sieverts per hour death is almost certain. 100 sieverts per hour is far above the 100% lethal dosage amount of 6 sieverts per hour.”
You do know the difference between a millisievert and a sievert, right? Everything is fine until the final sentence, which says “100 sieverts per hour is far above the 100% lethal dosage amount of 6 sieverst per hour”. Sure, it is, but they haven’t found 100 sieverts/hour anywhere, so this statement is completely irrelevant. It’s like saying: “water boils at 100 degrees, and the melting point of tungsten at 2770 degrees is far above the boiling point of water” – factually true, but irrelevant to the case at hand.
I suspect you simply made a mistake here and confused millisieverts for sieverts. But if you’re going to specifically include a footnote about something like this, you really need to get it correct.
No L,
It did not take 16 hours. the power went down after the Tsunami not the earthquake for starters and as far as I am concerned TEPCO can not even be relied upon to get the 16 hours straight.
The issue is not if and when the meltdown occurred. The issue is that TESCO which was running these horrors could have reasonably known that since the reactors were not cooled meltdown was unavoidable.
No power= meltdown.
Meltdowns prevents cold shut down. Since they have not been able one way or another to do a cold shut down since the 11th of March we are looking at a meltdown which has been allowed (Since there simply is no solution for it) to emit huge amounts of radioactive material to spread through our oceans and atmosphere.
It isn’t rocket science.
Since TESPCO as the owner of these monstrosities has denied these events since the beginning until it could no longer be denied it is reasonable to assume they either lied or are so incompetent they should not be allowed to go near a reactor let alone own them.
As TEPCO has a history of obfuscation and lying I don’t think that it is unreasonable to assume they did so on this occasion.
Now run along and go play outside with your mates. Oh no, you can’t any more. If it rains you might get contaminated. Well you might still be able here in New Zealand but it is down right hazardous in an 80 miles radius around Fukushima.
For those of you wanting to know about the size of that; think basically the entire centre of the North Island. No more Taupo, Cambridge, Rotorua, king country, te Awamutu and everything in between.
Untouchable for the rest of times and that is just were it begins.
No, it’s not – it’s far more complex.
You are right L,
Fukushima is a different cattle of fish altogether. Chernobyl was a relatively small newish reactor (at the time). Compared with Fukushima, Chernobyl was a walk in the park.
So basically the Fukushima incident resulted in a release of a huge amount of radioactive material into the environment because there was a meltdown and meltdowns always mean that radioactive material will be released environment? And we don’t know about this because Tepco/the Japanese government/whoever are controlling the release of information from all the detectors of radiation in the whole world in a giant conspiracy (just like 9/11 I guess)? Even though radiation is relatively easy to detect and there are numerous detectors worldwide? And this poses a huge risk to the whole world (not just the immediately surrounding area where the material would be most concentrated) because we are all going to get cancer, after all its not as if the release of radioactive material across a huge area such as the Pacific ocean/the whole world would have resulted in the radioactive material being diluted at all?
Why has there not been more comment about the gross invasion of privacy, to suit commercial interests, involved in the credit reporting changes.
Do not make the mistake of thinking it is about responsible lending. It will have adverse effects on any one who has had a period of illness or hard luck.
In a nutshell:
National (and ACT) want to TEAR THINGS DOWN.
Labour (and the Greens) want to BUILD THINGS UP.
What do you want, NZ?
Right – Keep profits flowing offshore to maintain power in base support/contributors.
Left – Counter Right in opposition but do little to stand up (in the way) of big offshoring of profits.
Greens – Grow up already, never be a debtor be, planet, credit cards, mortgage
(unless absolutely necessary when you are impelled to pay back and rewarded for
it in a timely fashion).
For some astounding reason the government of NZ believes that kiwis who
spent spent spent, and now are paying paying paying, and see prices hiking
on food and oil for the foreseeable future, will rush back to open their wallets
and invest in housing or buying crap again. They are living on the whiff of
of a empty barrel of petroleum.
Any bounce in the economy will be short lived, the population was bullish
when oil was cheap and credit easy to come by, now its bearish. Until
NZ changes its tax gearing to support the retention of capital in NZ,
by valuing capital gains by taxing it, we are going to continue to work
very hard making profits, and pushing those who take the risk into
debt. A NZ farm on average is carrying 2.8 million in debt.
Brash lied, worse he distracted the debate, targeting public debt in the
future rather than the real present private debt the credit agencies are
so concerned about. Until we have honest politicians who can hold
themselves from telling lies to muding the debate we with continue to
have an economy that gets worse. And that’s the surprise people, why
the credit agencies haven’t yet figured that out. That shit debate in
the public political forums led by shit politicians who openly distort the
debate means shit policy and more dithering and ineptitude.
Everyone who will vote Brash ACT knows nothing about the economy,
or politics, or how to make a dollar that they can retain legitimately,
retards.
‘millsy’ that sort of insightful, highly intelligent ‘comment’ sums up why the Left remains where it is in the polls. Suggest turning some of the opposition anger that is written here into some internal change and growth. Many voters currently see it the other way around.
The Horizon poll suggests the left is only a couple of points behind the right, Chris, and closing fast. It’ll be interesting if Thursday’s Roy Morgan poll confirms the trend, because the budget isn’t going to win the Government any friends and once the slide starts, it’s hard to stop.
Lets hope you are correct Voice. That is the ‘closing of the gaps’ we really want to see!
Chris, you seem unable to recognise a sound bite (aka Millsys nutshell) today. Your sarcasm has prompted me to make any of my posts today in the style of ‘Spud’ on Red Alert.
• Natzional/ACT working for the clampdown-bastards
• Go Labour Green Te Mana!
Another excellent Julian interview on Native Affairs last night, Maori TV. This time with Tariana Turia. She tried hard to be upbeat but her words sounded sort of hollow. A bit evasive about funding and success of MP. Wish I could figure out the replay.
Doesn’t look like it’s up on their site yet. All the video is from last week.
I have emailed MTV to ask how to access. The numbering underneath each item doesn’t make sense to me.
Let us know what you find out. The numbering didn’t make sense to me either, but their latest video is speculating on when Hone Harawira might resign, so it’s from last Monday presumably.
It seems to take at least a week for them to get it up.
Yes Macca, interesting bit was the “wait till the public see how much money has been won by the MP, they’ll be amazed” – type statement from Turia. Confirms the suspicion of truckloads of blankets and beads under the radar over the past two years – and even more interesting will be to see where it’s ended up.
The chickens of contradiction are coming home to roost: Turia forced to claim credit for “Maori gains under National” and Brash poised to scream “special privilege” the second she does.
Too little too late for the MP, and thursday’s poll will tell us whether NZ is still susceptible to the Right’s race-baiting poison. Anything but a major boost for ACT indicates another premature hatemongering ejaculation and doom for the nasties. Another rancid Epsom rort may not be an option for Mr Nice.
Also of extreme pertinence was Turia’s repeated “whichever main party leads govt” indication of a willingness to ditch NAT: on top of the Horizon poll, wee Johnny suddenly looks very cold and lonely.
Bomber Bradbury’s ignorance about the word “Redneck”
The normally excellent Bomber Bradbury wrote a piece on his Tumeke! blog yesterday, about the campaign against Hone Harawira. Foolishly, however, he chose to entitle it The redneck hate of Hone and the Auckland Uni protest, which implies it’s hard-working Pakeha farmers, truck-drivers and road workers who are spouting all the racist bilge in the media.
Bradbury uses the term “redneck” repeatedly throughout the article. So he describes racist engineering students in the 1970s as “predominately white provincial and rednecked”, and now, at Auckland University in 2011, Hone is “once again…facing off against rednecks”.
I posted a response on the Tumeke! blogsite, but so far, Bradbury has not deigned to publish it. In case he doesn’t publish it, here is what I wrote:
Bomber, please stop using the term “redneck” when you really mean “bigot”. Some of the hardest-working, most serious and socially concerned people I know are rednecks—i.e., farmers, truck drivers, road-workers and manual workers of all kinds.
“Redneck” is an American term of condescension and abuse used by eastern establishment “liberals” in the 1960s to sneer at white working people in the southern states.
In our country, the most extreme bigots and race-baiters operate in the comfort of talkback radio studios (Michael Laws, Leighton Smith, Paul Holmes) and university offices (David Round, Michael Bassett, Dov Bing); not a red neck among them.
Your use of this term is unreflective—and unfair on working people.
Yours sincerely, Morrissey Breen (Northcote Point)
——————————————-
Read the original piece by Bomber Bradbury, complete with its thoughtless elitist stereotyping, HERE….
http://www.tumeke.blogspot.com/
Language evolves over time. He may not be using ‘redneck’ in it’s original definition, but he’s using it with the commonly accepted definition.
No, he’s using the word in blissful ignorance. The term was originally, and remains, a sniffy and elitist term of contempt for poor white southerners. As I pointed out, the worst, most vicious racists and bigots are comfortably off, well-remunerated talkback hosts and academics. It is also imprecise; some of the worst, most disgraceful bigots—both here and overseas—are Indian, Maori and Chinese.
“Bomber, please stop using the term “redneck” when you really mean “bigot”. Some of the hardest-working, most serious and socially concerned people I know are rednecks—i.e., farmers, truck drivers, road-workers and manual workers of all kinds. ”
I’m in two minds about this. I understand a bit of the history of the word and so take your point. But I wouldn’t call evey NZ farmer, truckdriver, roadworker etc a redneck, and most of the people I know that do those things aren’t rednecks in the way that Bomber uses the term either. What is your definition of redneck in a NZ context? When would you use the word? The way you’ve used it here is too generic.
That’s weird that Tumeke doesn’t allow you to link to a specific post. Why is that?
But I wouldn’t call every NZ farmer, truckdriver, roadworker etc a redneck…
Fair enough—it’s really an American term. Working people in the States cheerfully call themselves rednecks—it’s only a term of abuse when the (ignorant) elites use it.
…and most of the people I know that do those things aren’t rednecks in the way that Bomber uses the term either.
No, but Bomber should not be using the word as a term of opprobrium. I know Hone Harawira often flings it around, too—he has obviously given it no more thought than Bomber.
What is your definition of redneck in a NZ context? When would you use the word? The way you’ve used it here is too generic.
I don’t think it should ever be used as a term of abuse. Rednecks—i.e., working men—are the very people who the left should be allying with against this rotten government; instead, the likes of Hone and Bomber are invoking them as a term of abuse.
The all-purpose word for a boor like Garth McVicar, a canting hypocrite like Stephen Franks and a ranting racist like Paul Holmes is not “redneck” but a far more accurate word: bigot.
I think the problem is we don’t have a non-perjorative use of ‘redneck’ here, so it’s too easy for people to fling around. I agree bigot is a better word to use though. It’s less divisive and much more accurate for what they’re talking about.
Has your comment turned up on Tumeke?
I think the problem is we don’t have a non-perjorative use of ‘redneck’ here, so it’s too easy for people to fling around.
It’s not a pejorative word unless used with contempt and ignorance, as Bomber Bradbury and Hone Harawira unwittingly do.
I agree bigot is a better word to use though. It’s less divisive and much more accurate for what they’re talking about.
Other appropriate words for the likes of Holmes, Franks, McVicar, Leighton Smith, Murray Deaker, David Round, etc. might be: chauvinist, dogmatist, extremist, hypocrite, racist. But they do not deserve the label “redneck”—my uncle was a “redneck”; he read books, was unfailingly polite to all kinds of people, worked hard on his farm all his life—and he despised bigots and racists.
Has your comment turned up on Tumeke?
No it hasn’t. I definitely sent it, and I can’t imagine that Bomber has censored it. Maybe something went wrong.
i find the term cracka ass cracka wayyyy more endearing…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck#Coal_miners
The United Mine Workers of America (UMW) and rival miners’ unions appropriated both the term redneck and its literal manifestation, the red bandana, in order to build multiracial unions of white, black, and immigrant miners in the strike-ridden coalfields of northern and central Appalachia between 1912 and 1936.
Sorry, Lanthanide, I am really unimpressed by the “language changes” argument. You talk about the “commonly accepted” definition, but who knows what that is? (It’s not a commonly used term) Granted, here in NZ we now ‘speak American’ as some guy rather smugly and hostilely predicted we would, in the Listener in 1984.(I remember his saying “Only the elderly and the Brits will object). I put my hand up to being one-half of each of those things, and it’s all rather rough on those of who don’t and would frankly rather die than speak American. The change has not wholly taken place yet.
Interesting, Morrissey.
As I often point out, using the American term for things, is a mistake – because they’re trendy, doesn’t make them applicable!
It’s not the term “redneck” that I find problematic—it’s the use of it as a term of abuse. I note that that groveling, sniveling little creep Kevin Rudd used the word to denigrate Texans in his cringe-inducing contre-temps with Robin Williams a few months ago.
http://tumeke.blogspot.com/2011/05/dear-don-in-response-to-your-dear-john.html
Trump fires self, hair to go it alone?
The hair has always gone with corporate welfare, never alone.
Operation Unite – Why we should be worried.
Over the weekend the NZ and Australian Police conducted their fourth operation under the banner of Operation Unite supposedly ‘A police blitz on drunken violence’
A campaign against alcohol abuse and how it manifests during a typical weekend in NZ is on the surface not something that a reasonable person would complain about or comment on except to praise. The coordinated international approach adopted by our police force however is quite a different beast.
In 2007 the Australian and New Zealand Police Ministers and Commissioners formed ANZPAA – the Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency http://www.anzpaa.org.au/
Its stated goal of achieving in Australian and New Zealand Policing excellence is once again a very reasonable sounding proposition- on the surface.
Collaboration between NZ and Aussie in certain areas of Policing such as forensic and investigative techniques would seem to achieve some of the efficiencies, or effective use of resource that the ANZAA points to as a rationale for its existence.
Why be worried? Because it doesn’t stop there.
After the recent Canterbury earthquake Australian police officers were deployed in Christchurch. The presence of foreign Police operating inside another Country, even under supervision, is a very rare sight indeed – something only usually seen when a country is occupied by a foreign power or a peacekeeping force. The government pointed to the earthquake and invoked the ‘extraordinary circumstance’ clause – but at this point I will be quite clear – It is NOT normal for foreign Police to patrolling in another country.
It seems that not everyone agrees that this should remain so – despite that fact that citizens have a fundamental right to be policed by their own countrymen.
The Rugby World Cup will likely be the next instalment of ‘Introducing World Police – Phase one – A/NZ amalgamation’ – the unstated goal – to get us to accept being policed by an international or multinational force.
The ANZPAA is promoting an alignment of policy, practice and resource implementation that is already influencing government policy in New Zealand. The recently released Law Commission report recommended a change in approach to drug offences.
http://www.lawcom.govt.nz/project/review-misuse-drugs-act-1975?quicktabs_23=report
Despite the clear and rational focus on harm reduction and equally appropriate suggestions that would help us to avoid pointlessly criminalising people our Government is poised to reject these suggestions. Why? Not because the suggestions are inappropriate – these suggestions will be rejected because if adopted we would be not be ‘in alignment’ with Australia and the US.
The ‘Operation Unite’ initiative began in the United States – a country where almost 10% of the population are in prison. In fact, the business (and it is a business because they are privately run) is such a large part of their economy that if the US was to go back to the imprisonment rates that it had in the 70’s close to a million people who work at the these prison franchises would lose their jobs and the economy as a whole would take a significant hit.
This is utterly shameful. The intrusion of the profit motive into the provision of prisons opens up a Pandora’s box of conflicting interests and give rise to situations such as have occurred in the US where a Judge was caught taking bribes from a prison operator in return for handing down longer sentences.
Operation unite, in NZ/Australia and the US, is anti-drug and focussed on increased enforcement – or as they term it here ‘stronger policing’. This ideological preference for punitive measures and enforcement over education and harm reduction is not an accident – in any country where there is profit to be made from prisons there is a motive for putting people there.
This is about sovereignty – New Zealand should be heeding the advice of its own experts and developing an approach that actually works rather that following the flawed, unjust and essentially immoral approach of the US.
I can’t think of another country that is so close that a citizen can
immediately move to the other country without any restrictions.
Correction: the actual percentage of people in prison, when taken across the population as a whole is around 3 percent. However one in nine black males between the ages of 20 and 30 are imprisoned in the US.
Nationals recent announcement calling ‘prisons a moral and fiscal failure’ and asserting that no new prisons will be built cannot be viewed as a turnaround in their stance on law and order. The grouping of fiscal considerations with the corrections dept is no accident – the privatization of prisons is still firmly on the agenda – now to be rationalized as a cost saving measure.
Be prepared for a roll out of the double bunking and other such ill advised measures which will enable the private operators to make a tidy profit by sacrificing any attempt at education and real reform.
This has probably been shared already, but for anyone else that missed it:
Bryan Gould’s amusing piece on concerns for John Key after it has been more than 2 hours between photo opportunities is here.
Did Jim Moira really just criticise a woman for ‘breastfeeding militantly’?
I think he just wondered if that was what she was up to. Whatever it might be.
Without naming the place, b/c for all I know they have dropped the policy, but when bookie jr was at that age there was a cafe in central wellington that said mothers were welcome to breast-feed their children, but that there was a corkage fee of 2$. True story.
Lol.
I thought corkage was supposed to recompense staff from the arduous tax of taking the cork out of the bottle (what about screw-caps?) and providing the glassware and table service. And also a token gratuity because you probably won’t be buying as much, or any, alcohol from them.
Maybe corkage might apply to breastfeeding if the wait staff came and manually pumped it out of you and put it into a bottle so it didn’t spill or something?
That’s a bizarre bit of profiteering! It’s also funny, sorry..
Yes he did. And neither Brian Edwards nor Michele Boag picked him up on it. In fact, Boag scoffed at the idea that women needed to organise themselves into a pro-breastfeeding organisation.
On Friday’s programme, another complacent and self-satisfied ideologue, Deborah Hill Cone, indignantly challenged the idea that people might be struggling to get by in this country. “Struggle is a very relative term,” she lectured. “If you compare us to the 1930s we’re a LOT better off!” A dubious Jim Mora said thoughtfully: “Mmmmmmmmm….but…mmmmmm.”
A few minutes later, Hill Cone was equally impatient with the do-gooder notion that poor people get very sick because they cannot afford to get their teeth fixed: “But DO people die with bad teeth? I’d like to see FIRM FIGURES on that.”
When Joky Hen admitted in his flippant and endearing way that he had had the snip, what did he really mean by the statement quote… ‘All I can say is it’s been highly successful, but we won’t get into that either.’ …unquote. ?
It seems that there was probably a bit more of a story there, and having quipped he then wished he hadn’t. Many a slip twixt cup and the lip perhaps. What a shame the Hardtalk host couldn’t have followed that up for us.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1282816/New-Zealand-PM-John-Keys-vasectomy-admission-Ive-snip.html#ixzz1MakpPov5
I wonder if it was this kind of privatisation by stealth that John Key was interested in speaking to David Cameron about at their recent meeting? Sounds like he should have had a chat with Tony Blair instead (maybe he did?).
Not that I think that the health system is the primary target – at the moment.
That’s the road that National tried in the 1990s – it failed then but I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried again. They’re always after more ways to channel our wealth to themselves and their rich mates.