Open mike 20/08/2016

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, August 20th, 2016 - 44 comments
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openmikeOpen mike is your post.

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44 comments on “Open mike 20/08/2016 ”

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  1. marty mars 1
    20 August 2016 at 8:02 am

    Nice story in alignment with many comments on here over recent weeks.

    “Urban Food Street began in 2009 in the leafy green Sunshine Coast suburb of Buderim, and now acts as a blueprint for the nation to give purpose to the great Australian nature strip.

    “It started with us deciding to plant limes, and then it evolved into this notion that if we put the limes out on the nature strip people could pick a lime for whatever they need it for,” graduate architect and one of the masterminds behind Urban Food Street, Caroline Kemp said.

    What began with one citrus-lined street has grown into an 11-street suburban enclave, paved with seasonal fruits, vegetables, herbs and spices, that encourages growing, sourcing and eating fresh food in the public realm.”

    http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-22/food-street-feeding-off-the-kerbside-creates-close-community/7343456

  2. marty mars 2
    20 August 2016 at 8:09 am

    This could be a biggie.

    “A national day to commemorate the battles of the New Zealand Wars 150 years ago has been approved by the government.

    Deputy Prime Minister Bill English made the announcement at Turangawaewae Marae today, where he and Arts, Culture and Heritage and Conservation Minister Maggie Barry handed back the land titles to Rangiriri Pa and Te Wheoro’s Redoubt in a special ceremony to the Māori King today.

    Children from local schools in the Waikato area were witness to Waikato-Tainui and the Kiingitanga being gifted back the land titles to the two significant sites.

    One of the bloodiest battles between Māori and colonial soldiers took place at Rangiriri Pa in 1863. It was the start of a series of battles in Waikato, which would lead to over 1 million acres of land being confiscated.”

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/311414/govt-backs-national-day-to-mark-nz-wars

    IF this was done correctly with consultation and so on then it could actually be a turning point. I am hopeful but not confident that that will occur.

    • mauī 2.1
      20 August 2016 at 9:04 am

      Yeah this could be really poignant, but I guess we need to see how serious the Government takes it or if they take a more hands off approach.

      I’m also interested to see if the day chosen favours Waikato-Tainui.

  3. Robert Guyton 3
    20 August 2016 at 8:15 am

    Edible fruits in the nature strip! Citrus too, fantastic! It’s pip and stone fruits for us, a little too cold for lemons and oranges to survive down here without special provisions. Mind you, the changing climate is presenting all sorts of possibilities for the South, at least in the short term 🙂

    • Cricklewood 3.1
      20 August 2016 at 8:48 am

      As much as I like natives I find the lack of diversity in nature strip disappointing not to mention that our streets have the potential to be a most diverse arboretum if only the powers that be had some imagination…

      • Robert Guyton 3.1.1
        20 August 2016 at 9:02 am

        We, Cricklewood, are the powers that be. Let’s get planting! Those who have appointed authority will just have to accommodate us 🙂

        • weka 3.1.1.1
          20 August 2016 at 9:29 am

          Aren’t we the ones who appointed authority? 😉

          Using garden-designed native town plantings to nursery fruit and nut trees, now there’s a plan 😀 A whole body of knowledge to develop there. I’ve seen wild apples amongst kanuka.

          • Robert Guyton 3.1.1.1.1
            20 August 2016 at 10:36 am

            We voted them in but are negligent if we don’t continue to press them to do what we want and respond to new situations as they arise. A vote at the start of a three year term isn’t the only input we can have, by any means.

            The separation of native trees from useful exotics is a mistake, in my view. Too late now, for purity.

            • weka 3.1.1.1.1.1
              20 August 2016 at 10:49 am

              Completely agreed on the democracy thing.

              I like native only spaces, and support the protection of them where that’s doable and makes sense. No reason we can’t have native, exotic, and mixed spaces.

              • Robert Guyton …
                20 August 2016 at 10:55 am

                Ka pai ki ahau i te ngahere tūturu , weka, – I was meaning spaces planted by humans.

                Lawrence is fronting the resistance to National’s most recent and most serious attack on local government.

                • weka …
                  20 August 2016 at 11:01 am

                  Ooh, what are Lawrence up to?

                  Planted spaces, I would largely agree, although I know lots of people/spaces that are focussed on natives and I enjoy that too. The ones that trouble me are the eradicate for the sake of it ones eg wilding pines. Or councils planting natives instead of food plants.

  4. Robert Guyton 4
    20 August 2016 at 8:18 am

    Loaded question of the Day: What has Lawrence Yule done to upset the powers that be?

    • Sanctuary 4.1
      20 August 2016 at 8:25 am

      Well, his arrogance in the Napier-Hastings amalgamation debate got up a lot of people’s noses. Yule has probably just been in the job to long.

    • Muttonbird 4.2
      20 August 2016 at 8:39 am

      What happened today?

      Yesterday he released the finding of an interim report stating the contamination came from “ruminants”, i.e dairy runoff.

      http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/311415/campylobacter-most-likely-from-livestock-yule

      I imagine the farming lobby is livid that the appropriate spin hadn’t been applied by the National government first!

      • b waghorn 4.2.1
        20 August 2016 at 8:51 am

        I doubt there is much dairy in that part of the hawkes bay , it’s a very dry climate ,
        and how a rain event caused it when their water comes from a deep aquifer with 50 year old water is hard to fathom.

        • Colonial Viper 4.2.1.1
          20 August 2016 at 9:55 am

          Canterbury is dry as and is full of dairy.

          It is also massively full of irrigation schemes.

        • Draco T Bastard 4.2.1.2
          20 August 2016 at 10:11 am

          Livestock is not always dairy.

        • weka 4.2.1.3
          20 August 2016 at 12:14 pm

          Yeah I think Yule said sheep and cattle. I took that to mean not dairy (and someone on ts said the other day there is only one dairy farm in the area).

        • mauī 4.2.1.4
          20 August 2016 at 2:21 pm

          Somehow the Tukituki and Ngaruroro rivers, I mean drains, got heavily polluted, and now we wonder why the aquifers below are potentially fucked…

        • Macro 4.2.1.5
          20 August 2016 at 8:30 pm

          The closest agriculture upstream of the affected bore is a piggery and a mushroom farm (which could use animal manure in its compost). The most likely event appears to have been the very recent heavy rains and the likelihood that the infection entered into the aquifer during that event.
          These factors were discussed on Katheryn Ryan’s programme earlier in the week.
          The other bores are around 200 and 400 m away from the initially affected bore. A microbiologist who studied these aquifers wrt to water borne infections noted that the bacteria could survive up to 3 days in the aquifer and could travel up to 1 km from the initial infection entry site over that time.

  5. Colonial Viper 5
    20 August 2016 at 9:52 am

    US Army cannot account for several trillion dollars in previous spending – has had to make US$6.5B of poorly substantiated ‘accounting adjustments’ to its books this year.

    Making tax payers money which could otherwise go into schools, healthcare or welfare disappear is the strategic objective of the massive military industrial complex, of course.

    In other words, it is effectively impossible to account how the US government has spent trillions in taxpayer funds over the years. It also means that since the money can not be accounted for, a substantial part of it may have been embezzled.

    “Where is the money going? Nobody knows,” said Franklin Spinney, a retired military analyst for the Pentagon and critic of Defense Department planning, cited by Reuters.

    The significance of the accounting problem goes beyond mere concern for balancing books, Spinney said. Both presidential candidates have called for increasing defense spending amid current global tension; the only issue is that more spending may not be necessary – all that is needed is less government corruption and theft.

    …What’s worse is that the “fudging” of the numbers is well known to everyone in the government apparatus. For years, the Inspector General – the Defense Department’s official auditor – has inserted a disclaimer on all military annual reports. The accounting is so unreliable that “the basic financial statements may have undetected misstatements that are both material and pervasive.”

    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-19/government-report-finds-65-trillion-taxpayer-funds-unaccounted

  6. aj 6
    20 August 2016 at 9:57 am

    Helen Kelly has more guts and compassion in her little finger than the national government put together

  8. Ben 8
    20 August 2016 at 10:18 am

    A good ten days for Andrew Little:

    10 out of 10

    [The link goes to a WO trolling post about Andrew Little. Ben, the usual go round here when posting links is to give a reasonably clear explanation of what readers can expect to find if they click on it. And it’s preferred if readers are warned if the link is to the sewer. Cheers. TRP]

  9. The Chairman 9
    20 August 2016 at 10:19 am

    Great interview with Helen Kelly on the Nation today.

  10. Rodel 10
    20 August 2016 at 10:40 am

    Last week:
    ‘U.S. Justice Department says it will end use of private prisons The Justice Department plans to phase out its use of private prisons after they were determined to be less safe and less effective that …’

    Next week?
    ‘U.S. Education Department says it will end use of charter schools The Education Department plans to phase out its use of charter schools after they were determined to be less safe and less effective that …’

  11. adam 11
    20 August 2016 at 12:06 pm

    Oh look we are following the USA in medicine so much, at least our doctors don’t cut off the supply…

    p.s. I’m going to miss Larry Wilmore so much- is his axing revenge for the whole dinner thing?

  12. amirite 12
    20 August 2016 at 1:34 pm

    All Blacks bugged in hotel ahead of Wallabies Bledisloe Cup test in Sydney http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11697828

    Nothing to hide, nothing to fear – right?

    • mpledger 12.1
      20 August 2016 at 1:52 pm

      My first guess was that it was there to overhear previous occupants and not the All Blacks.

      But then I remembered the Aussies are pretty despondent about their Olympic team and how they are doing so maybe they wanted a win over the All Blacks as a diversion.

    • North 12.2
      20 August 2016 at 2:32 pm

      That bloody Tony Abbott !

  13. mauī 13
    20 August 2016 at 3:09 pm

    Hastings and Flaxmere water supplies also contaminated:
    https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/hastings-flaxmere-water-supply-found-contaminated-infections-rise

    Edit : Council says water was already being chlorinated so is safe

    • dv 13.1
      20 August 2016 at 4:57 pm

      I assume the tests for ecoli are before it is chlorinated.

    • marty mars 13.2
      20 August 2016 at 5:05 pm

      Yes I’m very concerned about these contamination’s, plus

      “Scientists are warning that our aquifers, the reserves of water under New Zealand’s land surface, are being poisoned by intensive farming…

      Although some aquifers are already contaminated, they say the worst is yet to hit because pollutants like nitrate, can take decades to get down to the drinking supply…

      Pregnant women and mums with young babies on private bores around Ashburton are advised to use bottled water as high nitrate levels can block oxygen in babies and cause the potentially fatal blue baby syndrome…

      Dr Webster-Brown says with the dairy industry now using nitrogen, levels will rise distinctly. “We know that dairy as an industry tends to leach more nitrogen into the groundwater systems,” she said. “So we fully expect to see the nitrate in the groundwaters increasing markedly.”

      https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/scientists-warn-nz-aquifers-being-poisoned-farming

      Yes we worry about the earthquakes, the storms, the tsunamis – and maybe it will be the contaminated water that sneaks under the radar.

    • joe90 15.1
      20 August 2016 at 7:16 pm

      grrr, mods, left an open tag and the machine won’t let me edit, could someone close the damn thing for me