Open mike 17/06/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, June 17th, 2010 - 61 comments
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61 comments on “Open mike 17/06/2010 ”

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  1. Jenny 1
    17 June 2010 at 7:32 am

    Good bye to you Juan, good bye Rosalita.

    A disaster like no other.

    Thank God we live in the Southern Hemisphere.

    Nothing like this, should ever even be contemplated here.

    capcha – potential

    • Bored 1.1
      17 June 2010 at 8:09 am

      Jenny, the link 404ed me, does not work.

      Presume you are refering to the Gulf oil spill? Our idiot government has approved exploratory sites in water as deep but more oceanic in nature (i.e bigger seas, longer swell etc)….potential for disaster very real.

      • insider 1.1.1
        17 June 2010 at 9:35 am

        yep all that exploration has done nothing for Australia. I mean, what has oil ever given us?

      • Jenny 1.1.2
        17 June 2010 at 10:37 am

        Sorry about that Bored. Try this.

        You will be appalled I promise you.

        • Jenny 1.1.2.1
          17 June 2010 at 10:46 am

          Briefly:

          It seems there is evidence that the oil leak has breached in the bore tube itself, and the continual flow of escaping high pressure oil is eroding the seabed making the hole larger and larger.

          Basically nothing humans can do can plug this hole until the whole oilfield has emptied into the Gulf.

          • ianmac 1.1.2.1.1
            17 June 2010 at 11:02 am

            Thanks Jenny. And the fact that clean-up is ineffectual too. Catastrophic! I wonder if there is the same publicity for other oil pollution in African countries especially.

          • Lanthanide 1.1.2.1.2
            17 June 2010 at 12:04 pm

            Unlikely. The are drilling 2 relief wells that aim to stem the flow of oil before it even gets near the surface. Of course these won’t be complete until August.

          • insider 1.1.2.1.3
            17 June 2010 at 12:09 pm

            I read it yesterday and it is hard to get past the long rambling stream of consciousness and bad grammar. But that’s not quite what he is saying in my view.

            What he appeared to be saying is that the well currently has constraints which are limiting flow. These constraints will be eroded away and so the flow rate will increase and will be hard to stop. I doon’t see him saying the well will empty

            Whether the whole field depletes is conjecture. It’s almost sci fi. Oil is usually trapped in sand not in big puddles. So what’s the porosity of the sands? What pressures are there? What if the well is only connected to a small part of the reserve? It was an exploration well not a production one so placement could be quite different.

  2. Santi 2
    17 June 2010 at 7:41 am

    Jonathan Mar­shall has reveal­ed that Len Brown’s “fundraiser’ was in fact a nice night out for his birth­day. So, it turns out that the $810 charged to the mayor’s offcial credit card constituted another rort on Brown’s part.

    It should put an end to this greedy man’s political career and aspirations. He’s finished.

    • joe bloggs 2.1
      17 June 2010 at 9:12 am

      And Cam Slater’s analysis of Brown’s spending points to plenty more pork barrel politicking:

      1. a seven-fold jump in spending in the month before Brown declares as candidate for the mayoralty

      2. 42% of total expenditure is on food and drink

      3. 61% of spending is for reasons that have not been disclosed

      and as for the kanohi te kanohi and face-slapping routine – FFS, gimme a break. Brown is a skinny, middle aged white trougher, not a Maori, nor an Islander.

      Dead man walking…

      [lprent: I’m afraid you kind of shot down your own point when you wrote the words “Cam Slater’s analysis“.

      In my experience he can’t analyze. As I’ve commented before, his favorite analysis is the equivalent of 1 + 1 = 11. In other words he gets a few bits of ‘evidence’ (which is usually dodgy) and draws unwarranted conclusions. Analysis requires an ability to think logically, and that doesn’t appear to be something he is capable of. ]

      • pollywog 2.1.1
        17 June 2010 at 11:14 am

        dead man walking

        nah…you got it all twisted son.

        Browns got that same hokey, down home appeal that Key’s got which the punters seem to love while Banks has got that aloof, toffee nosed twat appeal that only the well to do get off on.

        I’m sure people would line up to buy Brown a coffee and shout him a feed cos he looks so skinny that he needn’t worry ’bout forking it out on the company card. Where as they probably wouldn’t waste urine pissing on Banks if he were on fire unless it were to jack him for his wallet and car keys.

        besides I thought whaleoil was having a mental breakdown so shouldn’t be trusted with anything he says ?

        GOVT STEALTH WARNING : DO NOT FEED THE WHALE

        http://asianinvasion2006.blogspot.com/2010/05/save-whale.html

        • NickS 2.1.1.1
          17 June 2010 at 1:57 pm

          Cthulhu damn it, why the fuck hasn’t his insurance company actually bothered to force him into counselling? Sure, it’s more expensive than screwing with Cameron’s brain chemistry by over medicating him, but from what I’ve learnt dealing with my own depression counselling plays a significant factor in managing, getting out and staying free of depression. Which means it will more effective in getting him back to semi-normal and thus possibly capable of working and so no longer will the insurance company be required to pay him.

          Not that this is any excuse for Cameron’s utter stupidity, but given his condition and his actions he probably doesn’t even realise that he can’t think straight at present 🙁

      • joe bloggs 2.1.2
        17 June 2010 at 1:35 pm

        OK I’ll “kind of” stand corrected. There is no analysis – rather it’s the simple categorisation of thousands of dollars worth of expenditure

        The numbers themselves speak volumes for Brown’s troughing – irrespective of your desire for logical thinking on another blogger’s part.

        captcha: bottle – what Brown’s been hitting too much at the expense of the public it appears

    • fraser 2.2
      17 June 2010 at 10:23 am

      “Jonathan Mar­shall has reveal­ed”

      jonathan marshall? – your going to base your comment on his journalistic integrity?

      • Santi 2.2.1
        17 June 2010 at 3:52 pm

        First it was council business.
        Then it was a fund raiser.
        Then it was a fund raiser for a local music talent.
        Now it turns out to be a table at private concert at a restaurant.
        Now it turns out his wife was in attendance.
        Now it turns out his birthday was three days off.
        Now it turns out the ‘musical talent’ was an aspiring Australian opera singer.
        Now it turns out he sang Happy Birthday for the Mayor.

        All paid for by the ratepayers of Manukau City, few of whom would earn even half his mayoral stipend, let alone the extra tens of thousands he has rorted tax free.

  3. mickysavage 3
    17 June 2010 at 8:04 am

    Interesting interview this morning on Morning Report with Georgina Te Heuheu. The PETA issue gets smellier and smellier.

    She could not answer the simple question of why the fund could not be contested for by other organisations. It also seems that Blinglish met the Pereiras to discuss the proposal.

    Plunkett did make one howler, he alleged that it is “new” money whereas I understand that various cuts in different areas have been made that allows this “new” money to be made.

    Capcha cuts!

    • jcuknz 3.1
      17 June 2010 at 9:29 am

      Seemed to me that Sean didn’t really give her much chance with all his overtalk? It is a pity they don’t give these interviews more time and leave it up to the listener to discern the garbage in the answer.
      Not everything can be answered in a two second bite, or a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’.

      • pollywog 3.1.1
        17 June 2010 at 9:38 am

        Yeah, i got a company i could use to get some funds and can do the flowery pasifikan ideals talk as good as anyone.

        Does that mean its open door policy to fund private companies to deliver social services now ?

        sweet…where do i sign up and whose ear do i have to blow into ?

        • prism 3.1.1.1
          17 June 2010 at 10:08 am

          I wonder how all the present PI community development, and business training groups feel. Bet they will be starved of funds. They need a go-go entrepreneur to go to the pollies direct, get into the money pipeline, not teeter on applying for numerous grants to just survive.

          Go for it pollywog – you’ve got what it takes, now go sell it to the pollies.
          They need a keen entrepreneur who can talk the talk like yourself. And I imagine you can walk the walk, and could do so for less than $1 million a year. The rest of that money could go into a fund that made small low interest loans to people with a good business plan, because that seed money can be hard to get. Properly sorted, the recipients are mostly successful, with rare failures.

          • pollywog 3.1.1.1.1
            17 June 2010 at 10:28 am

            Yeah i would love to prism but the Pasifikan community here in Nelson is practically non existent and the wider community is to say the least, extremely conservative and fairly well catered for.

            Besides, I’m a full time house husband looking after littlies while my lady works fulltime. Maybe once the 2 youngest start school i can spare some time. Otherwise I’ve got a few Samoan cousins in Christchurch working in health, education, justice and social services who could do with funding but, well, you know the ol’ story about going into business with family.

            As for the other organizations cut out by PEDA’s proposal. I would say they’d be required to humble themselves and line up to service PEDA’s contract in exchange for getting their ticket clipped, thus making PEDA a psuedo gov’t funding agency operating under the auspices of a privately owned company.

            nice work if you can get it 🙂

            • prism 3.1.1.1.1.1
              17 June 2010 at 10:44 am

              Busy man, parenting keeps you on your toes.
              Guess tourism would be a solid business there, art and craft, music – would PI people be drawn to those areas if looking to get into family business?

              • pollywog …
                17 June 2010 at 10:56 am

                Yeah, tourism would be cool. Maybe I could hook up with an iwi here build a double hulled traditional styled Pasifikan voyaging canoe with a few mod cons and run workshops for youth with tourist jaunts to Golden Bay for the fatcats to offset the costs.

                Know any fatcat venture capitalists with a social conscience 🙂

                • prism …
                  17 June 2010 at 11:22 am

                  Don’t think you should downgrade the potential for profit that could make this a solid earner. The Warehouse guy has a social conscience. There is a (small?) group of businessmen who are entrepreneurs and talk about thinking beyond just profit. Do they call it the triple bottom line?

                  Are there wakas there already though? Hec Busby up north knows a lot about this sort of thing. Was he the lead guy on the one that sailed to Rarotonga? Venice has its gondolas we could have our ethnic vessels. Handsome young men and women with tourists sitting between them joining in the paddling. Could be a goer – in summer. Winter??

                  • pollywog …
                    17 June 2010 at 2:14 pm

                    Nah theres no big ol time sailing waka down here. I’m thinking more of the style and grace of a traditional Pasifikan double huller but made from hi tech materials with all the bells and whistles.

                    I suppose i could get in touch with Rawiri Taonui, head of Maori at Canbterbury Uni. He did his masters thesis in polynesian navigation and was a commited paddler in Auckland a few years ago.

                    And then theres the Tamaki brothers who i think are still doing their Maori village tourist thing in Christchurch ?

                    Also my oldest boy is at Nelson boys college so they could crew the thing plus there’s a few well to do ‘old boys’ who might be looking to put something back into the community, for a profit of course

                    yup…i reckon people would be lining up for an old school paddle and sail around Golden Bay.

  4. Lanthanide 4
    17 June 2010 at 8:57 am

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3820912/They-ve-destroyed-150-years-of-our-heritage

    This is disgusting, absolutely appalling. No where else in the country could such a tree carnage take place.

    What I want to know is why is the media raising the story now that it is too late to do anything about it. If this story had been on Close Up or Campbell Live a week ago, the tree would still be standing today.

  5. joe90 5
    17 June 2010 at 10:26 am

    Who’s in charge of BP’s oil rig safety? Not the USA.

    • prism 5.1
      17 June 2010 at 11:12 am

      Good link thanks.
      The USA government seems to wash its hands of responsibility for anything nasty. It stands on the edge of pollution ruining large areas of its country and rails at BP which is fortunately a foreign company, so the USA feels it doesn’t have to get stuck in and spend money itself.
      It sends prisoners on rendition to other countries who can be pressured into doing its nasty interrogations. It carries out nasty scientific experiments on little countries with no political standing. It hives off its regulatory problems to those dependent islands to what are happy-hour havens for USA business. The regulations that you appear to have, but in reality are no probs.

      The little Marshall Islands. Where and what are they? Think bikinis. The Bikini Atoll where USA carried out nasty experiments is in the Marshall Islands also badly affected were Rongelap and Rongerik.
      Between 1946 and 1958, twenty-three nuclear devices were detonated at Bikini Atoll, beginning with the Operation Crossroads series in the summer of 1946. The March 1st, 1954 detonation codenamed Castle Bravo, was the first test of a practical hydrogen bomb. The largest nuclear explosion ever set off by the United States, it was much more powerful than predicted, and created widespread radioactive contamination.[
      The Micronesian inhabitants, who numbered about 200 before the United States relocated them after World War II, ate fish, shellfish, bananas, and coconuts. A large majority of the Bikinians were moved to a single island named Kili … http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bikini_Atoll
      captcha – us WTF

      • joe90 5.1.1
        17 June 2010 at 11:49 am

        They’re shitting in their own back yard too Prism, well, Alaska.

        • ianmac 5.1.1.1
          17 June 2010 at 12:35 pm

          It does seem that in USA it only matters if it is close to home. I wonder if the MSM bothers to tell the population of overseas disasters?

          • joe90 5.1.1.1.1
            17 June 2010 at 8:16 pm

            The stupidity burns.

            The president just called for creating a fund that would be administered by outsiders, which would be more of a redistribution-of-wealth fund. And now it appears like we’ll be looking at one more gateway for more government control, more money to government. If there is a disaster, why is it that government is the one who always seems to benefit after a disaster, and that’s of course what cap-and-trade would be.

            • NickS 5.1.1.1.1.1
              17 June 2010 at 9:06 pm

              Hah, she’s well known for being completely, utterly nonsensical and incredibly dumb, even by US standards.

              Heck, she can’t even grasp the fact the USA government is likely going to have to foot a part of the clean up bill, since BP will likely try and do it on the cheap, and then there’s the welfare for those left unemployed.

  6. Olwyn 6
    17 June 2010 at 11:39 am

    I would like someone from the right to tell me, what, if any, moral position does the modern right hold? The two things they bleat about are self-reliance and accountability, which offers them loose grounds for directing contempt and accusation at others, but there no longer seems to be any good that they are defending. They are more like a debating team that represents the rich because of their being rich, and not because any class of good is expected to come of it. They no longer offer arguments for their position, only arguments from within it, as if it was a foregone conclusion. At the same time, they seem to feel obliged to campaign relentlessly, despite the claimed believe in some quarters that their side has won the class war. Surely if you were that confident, you would stop campaigning, and assume that everyone accepted the good you had to offer. Except, there doesn’t seem to be such a good.

    • Mac1 6.1
      17 June 2010 at 12:16 pm

      There is a brand of christianity, if I remember my European history based on beliefs of such theologians as Calvin, which says that God blesses the good and visits calamity on the wicked.

      Therefore, if you are rich, God has blessed you. Easy to make into a very comfortable, circular argument- and since I am rich I must be good. Since I am good, demonstrated by God’s favour, what I do must be good.

      The converse of this is the blaming of the poor who must be in some way morally degenerate and sinful.

      This belief is still about- how much amongst the Right I could only speculate, but it is there in the religious Right.

      Then other aspect that I which to comment on, as a very much lay person in these matters and as in the first comment on Calvinism above seeking further comment and enlightenment, is that there is a psychological driver to being financial successful as a businessman. My education tutor forty years ago now, explained that forms of sociopathy or psychopathy, based on the loss of mother figures in childhood, led to behaviour ranging from absolute psychopathy (very early loss of mother figure) to the ruthless businessman (suffering the same loss from about 6 years old from memory).

      So moral positioning in the right might be based in religious conviction or even amoral from being based in psychopathy.

      How much old age bunkum, how much truth in all this? Anyway, good question, Olwyn.

      • Bored 6.1.1
        17 June 2010 at 12:42 pm

        Well said Mac, God as we know favours whoever is talking for him at the time. He is very useful in defending the indefensible on the basis of the divine word overiding the earthly. The only reason God (whose word is delivered by the wealthy) has not commanded the extermination of the poor is because Gods representatives want to collect the pennys of the poor in their collection plates.

    • Bob Stanforth 6.2
      17 June 2010 at 2:43 pm

      Can I ask, you use the term ‘rich’ – how are you defining that? Does that label mean, as I take it from your statement, that everyone who votes ‘right’ is thereby deemed rich?

      • Mac1 6.2.1
        17 June 2010 at 5:22 pm

        Bob S, there are some rich, according to the Calvinist notion, who regard themselves as God’s blessed and this brings with it a view of the world, as I outlined. I don’t think that I said that all rich people are right wingers nor did I say that all right wingers are rich.

        That would be a bit rich of me to say that.

        It would be safe to say that most rich people vote for the status quo and are therefore conservative.

        There are poor who vote conservative. There is a link with conservatism and rurality. Most of the farm workers I worked with were conservative- they identified with their employers’ politics and wanted to be farmers themselves. Those workers were not rich, in economic terms.

        I think the term rich here would be defined by the people themselves. “I am well off. God has blessed me. The poor man down the road is dirty, underfed and lazy. He is that way because he has transgressed and deserves to be poor.”

        It’s in a way the opposite of “rich pricks”!

        Capcha “views’!

        • Bob Stanforth 6.2.1.1
          17 June 2010 at 5:35 pm

          Thanks Mac1, and an apology, my question was to Olwyn. I hear a lot of this ‘rich prick’ comment from the left leaning, but no one ever seems to either be able to quantify, or even discuss. And as such for me, its an emotive throw away piece of crapulence from people too lazy to formulate a decent argument. Thats not directed at you BTW. 🙂

          For example, take me. Mortgage of around 30% of my house value. Company director, two car family, 3 children under 10, income probably around the $90K mark, depending on business growth, customers, competition etc. There have been years where Ive earnt less than $50K, and I have always chosen to live within my means than take money from the state. Again, the rider, Im not denigrating those that do with that statement of fact, merely outlining my own personal choice – thats the way I was raised, its my value set, and it works and sits well for me.

          So, does that make me a rich person?

          • felix 6.2.1.1.1
            17 June 2010 at 6:12 pm

            “I hear a lot of this ‘rich prick’ comment from the left leaning, but no one ever seems to either be able to quantify, or even discuss.”

            Weird. Around here it’s used almost exclusively by righties, usually misquoting Michael Cullen’s reference to John Key being a “rich prick”.

            Where have you been hearing the term?

    • seth 6.3
      17 June 2010 at 5:32 pm

      Let me turn that around on the left:

      Its hardly moral taking as much money off the most productive part of society and distributing it without accountability. Don’t you see that all that leads to is society itself collapsing on itself? How is that moral? Its short term greed for long term disastrous consequences.

      Name an economy where rampant socialism and making as many people dependent on the government as possible (> 50% of families reliant on WFF benefits/rebates/whatever) has acutally had long term success?

      Tell me how the government spending as much of my money as they can because they know better than me is moral in any way?

      Explain to me how the left’s high taxes and huge safety nets will ever grow an economy? When your so called “hard-working”, salt of the earth, working class Kiwi’s, who the left claim to represent have no incentive to work or to improve their lot because their benefits and income redistribution payments will be cut, how the hell is that going to grow the economy? Where is the incentive for people to actually better themselves without being penalised?

      • felix 6.3.1
        17 June 2010 at 6:18 pm

        “Its hardly moral taking as much money off the most productive part of society and distributing it without accountability.”

        I agree 100%.

        Unfortunately you’ve completely mis-identified the “most productive part of society”, rendering the rest of your comment complete tosh.

    • jcuknz 6.4
      18 June 2010 at 9:39 am

      Without claiming to be of the right I would ask “why does the left protest so mcuh?” They protest just as much as the right and when it comes down to the nity-grity just as strongly as those of the right and with the same amount of rightious indignation. The good position is somewhere along the middle and that is where most people are, and most don’t bother writing to political blogs. The reason Labour has moved to the right and the National have moved to the left is to fight over the centre. But of course there are extremists on both sides, visible these days with the Greens and ACT. Even ACT when it was formed seemed to me to be in the centre between Labour and National, though as one person described it to me … a triangle with ACT out somewhere from the other two.

  7. just saying 7
    17 June 2010 at 12:36 pm

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

    There seems to be a strong element of ‘belief in a just world’.
    Unfortunately it is a fallacy that undermines the confidence of the unfortunate as well.

    And of course ‘prosperity theology’ – a disturbing religious form of the above in which the unfortunate just aren’t godly enough and/or aren’t saying the right prayers to the right god.

    • Olwyn 7.1
      17 June 2010 at 2:02 pm

      I am not sure if Rex (below) is responding to my post, neither am I sure if the man he is referring to is a typical anything – more sui generis with a few identifiable right-wing characteristics. However, as to the Christian or Calvinist background of the right wing, I think that both left and right have a strong religious element among their roots. Michael Joseph Savage, for example, described socialism as something like practical Christianity (I might have the wrong adjective here, but it is at least a similar one). The left, however, seem to have retained notions like social justice, etc, even if they do not always agree on its relevant features. The right, when they were actually Calvinists, no doubt did take comfort from the circular argument you suggest Mac1, but Calvinism, being a Christian movement, made other demands as well: stay off the booze, don’t cheat on your wife, go to church, etc. What I am asking is, stripped of its Christian history and its conservatism, is there anything more to the right now than a simple will to power? If there is, will someone tell me what?

      • Rex Widerstrom 7.1.1
        17 June 2010 at 5:07 pm

        No Olwyn, the person to whom I am referring is – thankfully – unique. If any of his like exist elsewhere, I presume it is somewhere where their condition is adequately medicated 😉

  8. Rex Widerstrom 8
    17 June 2010 at 1:34 pm

    A hypothetical.

    You’re a twisted piece of work, seething with a host of barely repressed prejudices and hatreds. Mostly it’s against groups who are “different” but often your hatred of humanity – rooted in a deep-seated insecurity – comes bubbling forth against even those who are not dissimilar to yourself.

    An unusually high level of narcissism coupled with a lack of physical robustness reuslts in your being obsessed with your own appearance; constantly exercising (and being sure to let others know you do). However this same lack of physicality means you’re unable to morph into a typical bully.

    Instead, you constantly verbally lash out at anyone and everyone whose paths you cross, insulting everyone from schoolchildren to the grieving parents of a dead child.

    Your behaviour makes you reviled by most people, but there’s a group of those very similar to yourself who admire what they see as your “bravery” because they not only harbour the same irrational prejudices but secretly wish they were like you.

    However your latest outburts, insulting the parents of a dead 11 year old, have got you into trouble. Because you made these comments while perfoming your work duties – let’s say, pumping gas – the service station owner has had to pay the couple $35,000.

    Wouldn’t the owner expect it to come out of your wages? Would you keep your job? Is there any job you should keep, given the fact you’re not really suited to anything involving interaction with the rest of humanity?

    • Bored 8.1
      17 June 2010 at 1:41 pm

      Hi Rex,

      Are you hypothetically having a dig at L(h)aws? If so qui bono?

      • Rex Widerstrom 8.1.1
        17 June 2010 at 2:27 pm

        Everyone needs a hobby, Bored 😀

        I just found this latest effort – attacking the parents of an 11 year old tragically killed in a farm accident – particularly reprehensible, given that Lhaws has come very close to being a grieving parent himself and so surely must truly realise what the boy’s parents were feeling.

        And the excuse: “I’d have shut my gob if I’d realised it was a two wheel motorbike… it’s all the media and the police’s fault for saying it had four wheels” as particularly pathetic, even by his usual standards of post-insult backpedalling.

        If I were a shareholder in CanWest (or whoever owns Radio Dead-from-the-neck-up these days) I’d be asking management why we were incurring $35k additional expenses off the bottom line.

        • Bored 8.1.1.1
          17 June 2010 at 3:18 pm

          He has always struck me as a person whose mouth engages before his brain. And the brain appears to be missing some vital components like the introspection bits. Yeah, give it a go.

  9. NickS 9
    17 June 2010 at 1:42 pm

    And I’ll just repost this here (with minor edits), since I only came across it late last night, and ask for references and ye shall receive, at least when I remember which folder and search terms I need + have the motivation to do so;
    _____________________________
    http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/maori-mp-draft-bill-banning-1080-3591117
    /facepalm

    Well, looks like my idea of getting a post published here on anti-1080 stupidity keeps becoming even more topical 🙁

    Oh, and why is MP Rahui Katene sounding like a moron to me? It’s down to economics, mainly as it is far cheaper and much more easier to cover large areas via helicopter 1080 drops than it is with paying people to lay and maintain trapping lines, especially in the more remote areas, and even in the closer to home, rugged as hell terrain that our geological history has given us.

    On top of this is the ye olde “it builds up in teh soil!’ canard (that’s DDT with it’s poly aromatic rings you nitwits, 1080 isn’t exactly chemically stable given the acetate it’s built from + the reactivity of fluorine/it makes a good leaving group *) and a failure to understand that by timing pest control to mainly coincide with breeding season, any bird kill is typically mitigated by very statistically significant increases in chick hatching and survival for threaten species**.

    And then there’s the massive damage possums cause to the canopy, which I saw quite starkly last year east of Hokitika, in which the DoC admined reserve had few skeletons in the canopy, compared to the other ones we saw with abundant dead trees. Plus deer and pigs significantly alter the under-story structure, removing habitat for natives and altering future forest structure by eating seedlings. And it doesn’t take a massive population density to do this either.

    Oh, and I’ll have a nice crop of references for the full post, also, as it’s 10:26pm, and I still haven’t used Mendeley to organise my pdf library, so complaining about “lack of references’ for the above will get you snarked to death.

    Also, if anyone has a copy of “Poisoning Paradise’ they can loan me (I can pick it up if you’re in Christchurch) I’d like to know, as I’m slowly gearing up to get into this properly, and by properly I mean 3 windows of firefox + multiple tabs + pdfs + word docs and Whittaker’s dark chocolate as I go into OCD research mode.

    *I did organic chem for two years /shudder

    **And yes, I know about the issues with Kea, but that is why science is so “fun’ at times, due to things coming up and biting you on the arse and making you realise your bait design needs some further work

  10. Odysseus 10
    17 June 2010 at 2:02 pm

    I wonder if anyone can tell me whether there has been any serious consideration for the implementation of a wealth tax in NZ? This is a common method of taxation in a number of European countries; I doubt if it is a coincidence that it tends to be in those countries that we would consider to have lower levels of inequality eg Norway, Netherlands, Luxembourg etc. The basic pros and cons can be wikied, but on the basis of reducing inequalities alone, it looks well worth consideration. After all, it is a little absurd that though we have a progressive taxation system so that those who can afford it the most, theoretically pay the most, but accumulated wealth is excluded.
    Any comments ? Are our friends in the LP looking at it?

  11. Nick 11
    17 June 2010 at 2:42 pm

    “And the excuse: “I’d have shut my gob if I’d realised it was a two wheel motorbike it’s all the media and the police’s fault for saying it had four wheels’ as particularly pathetic, even by his usual standards of post-insult backpedalling.”

    I have to agree with you 100% there Rex, I am coming around to the view that Laws is a preening hollow narcissist. No different to the average thug one encountered on a school playground shaking down people for their lunch money.

  12. freedom 12
    17 June 2010 at 6:46 pm

    As the mainstream media has joined the hunt for Julian Assange, the head of Wikileaks
    i thought i would post this little ‘govt. how-to’ for those that missed it back in March.

    http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf

  13. Pascal's bookie 13
    17 June 2010 at 8:29 pm

    There’s been a bit of talk lately about the media, and it’s various problems.

    Those interested might find NYU Professor of Journalism Jay Rosen’s blog useful. He’s highly critical of modern political journalism in a way that goes beyond some of the more simplistic and easily dismissed criticisms that get thrown around.

    Here’s a snippet from his latest post, (as always, read the rest), but there’s plenty more there in the sidebars on both what’s wrong with what we’ve got, and what would be better.

    Rosen on press bias

    The conceit of Milbank’s column is that he had never read the comments before, but on the advice of an editor he finally went sewer diving. “As a sociological experiment, it was fascinating.’ He discovered that everyone’s a bitter ideologue— except him, the columnist who by duty observes the foibles and excesses and pure BS of the hotheaded believers on both sides. What I mean by an “extreme’ ideologue, then, is that Milbank is extremely likely to see the world is this hyper-symmetrical and self-congratulatory way.

    In political journalism there are almost always two sides, not two-and-a-half, three or four. Inhabitants of the “it’s complicated’ camp place a good deal of importance on this maniacal two-ness. The two party system and the journalist’s method of pushing off from both sides to generate authority fit perfectly together. That’s ideological.

  14. The Voice of Reason 14
    17 June 2010 at 9:55 pm

    John Key isn’t the only one to find cannibalism humorous. The difference between Key and this former footballer is that the Aussie knows what that makes him:

    http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/no-malice-in-cannibal-remarks-says-brown-20100617-yhge.html?autostart=1

  15. Irmintraud 15
    18 June 2010 at 4:52 pm

    Yeah, it’s good, very useful, thanks 🙂

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