“It’s abundantly clear we have to embark on deep change so we can achieve the biggest goal humankind has ever attempted. It is not to save the planet. It will survive – even if we don’t. It will adapt as it has to previous geological eras. Over tens of millions of years vastly different life-forms and ecosystems will evolve, ones shaped by prevailing conditions.
Our goal has to be to save ourselves. To do so we must give this ecosystem that gives us life the best chance it has to recover, and to continue to support us.”
Great. Anybody who accepts this(and I do ) must also accept that Capitalism, as we know it, will have to go. Capitalism is incompatible with saving the Planet.
Capitalism and consumerism as societal values and economic structures have to be defanged, declawed, and relegated to being nothing more than a minor feature of daily life.
Capitalism and consumerism as societal values and economic structures have to be defanged, declawed, and relegated to being nothing more than a minor feature of daily lifehistorical oddity.
Well, I think there is still a place for some inter-community scale, family store scale capitalism, as well as local models of self financing, but we may differ on that point.
na capitalism is just a man made tool , and like all tools if you have the right safegaurds it can be useful, it’s just that we have let the greedy use it for their purposes .
yes but with strong government it could be taken back and used just as a tool or system to get things done.
By this i mean something like.
The eu decides that all packaging will have to be biodegradable in ten years,
now some will winge , some will say it’s undoable , but some good little capitalist will see an opportunity and go to work trying to corner the market.
Two major things destroy this planet: 1/ far too many people 2/ every one of those wants what the neighbor has.
No matter what system you put in place – theoretically soviets Marxist system should have brought equal equilibrium for all but it didn’t – it is human nature that actually gets in the way. We are wired to destroy and not to build despite what some would like to belief. This is what we have to accept and learn to negotiate, our true nature. No one can say that they haven’t cotton on and by how far all is deteriorated, I would not hold my breath and unfortunately humanity will only learn when it gets a huge head clip to remind them that we are just a blip on the radar of the cosmos.
1) The richest 10% of people in the western world consume 60% of the world’s resources. This is not a question of “far too many people.” It is a question of the a few hundred million people in the rich west eating the rest of the world.
2) The only people who “wants what the neighbour has” are those who have learnt to greed, venality, jealousy and covetousness. I don’t want a yacht like my neighbour has and I don’t want a new HSV like my other neighbour has. You may think that that most people are basically venal, but perhaps that is simply only most people around your circles.
Your comments are always from the perspective that is angry and almost hateful. When you do that it becomes personal without having any grounds or indeed facts to support that. So I try to explain this differently:
1/ too many people – lets look at this globally. The greed (I want what my neighbor has) is destroying the forest and with that the reservoir for rain water exchange in the atmosphere. This in turn leads to droughts and the arable land that is available gets overused. If this continues the land we can use to feed us all will diminish even further and with that the means of sustaining the many people and growing population. Scientists have opened the Pandora’s box of gen modification and this will most likely increase the impasse in the future. We see the bees and pollinators dying already. Water: as we have seen in Hawks bay recently, water contamination will increase as aquifers are being contaminated because it is not enough to have a few cattle, it has to be more. The ground water is pumped and the lower the water table the more likely salination and contamination will occur.
2/ It is this “more” that will be humanity’s undoing.
Nature will be a great equalizer in that game of survival. This is not about money, this is about a finite world that cannot sustain an ever increasing population worldwide. I
If we wouldn’t be here, I doubt that any animal or plant would miss us. Some might be jubilant….
I agree with you Foreign Waka but what always does amuse me is – do the 10% honestly think once they have brought about complete planet collapse, that they will be able to start afresh from their bunkers or what ever and have the capacity to start again. That they cannot see that it will be their undoing as well, is just is too ridiculous for words but they are quite prepared to go over the cliff with the rest of us just for the sake of more consuming and greed. It’s like they are happy to take on a death wish for it all to occur.
I suppose in their utter selfishness they just think “well our generation will all be dead so what the hell”. Don’t they have grandchildren to have a thought for their futures and the carnage as society breaks down, that they will face.
The people who do care in this world are hopelessly powerless against the filthy rich of this world who can buy and control countries at will.
Good capitalism is an oxymoron – the model is exploitive, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but always with some, therefore it is no good. Assuming you don’t like exploitation that is.
Capitalism is neither good nor bad .we need a system to get things done , and capitalism gets things done, it just needs balancing with strong government a watchful eye and a good bit of socialism .
“Capitalism is neither good nor bad .we need a system to get things done , and capitalism gets things done, it just needs balancing with strong government a watchful eye and a good bit of socialism .”
Or shorter: Democratic Socialism. I’m a big fan of the Nordic Model.
I am nonetheless amused at CV’s opining on Capitalism while being a Trump supporter. Cognative dissonance is strong with him (or her)
aah I’ve wondered what my political label would be , it would appear that at this stage i am a democratic socialist. Which nz party fits the bill most do you think?
I wondered recently if I was right enough in perceiving a certain leakage in the levees that shore up ‘business as usual’. The first inkling came from the Guardian in a piece that not only directly quoted eminent scientists in the field expressing fairly deep misgivings about our present position and direction, but questioned this whole notion of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Previously that’s just been taken as a read by the likes of the Guardian.
And I do like that Rod characterises the need for radical action as an “adventure”…
I was at a workshop at which Rod facilitated the discussion around action on Climate Change yesterday. Rod has been active in this area for some years now. I am not surprised with his comments. He certainly understands that the economy is a subset of the environment not the other way round.
Pathetic ! On Q+A Corin Dan giving Parata the sweetest platform, like a paid ‘pretend’ interviewer. It’s disgraceful really. He just sits there watching Parata go all ‘aspirational’. FFS !
Halfcrown i used too watch Q+A when it first started and even though the late Paul Holmes was the host and always could be relied upon too give the left a good kick i stuck with it because there was no other in depth political coverage at the time.
As the media has moved away from unbiased coverage in favour of the right wing perspective Q+ A has regrettably gone the same way.
Corrin Dann indulges anyone from the government side but watch him change into a nasty scowling arrogant monster when its anyone from the left, its real hatred and i dont know why anyone from the left of politics would want to appear to be treated this way and its the viewer who wants too be informed that misses out because Dann wont allow the victim too talk and get their point across basicly its just bloody bullying.
It just angers up the blood so i dont watch any of them and have pleasant no stress Sunday as god intended.
Campbell had Key worked and looked what happened to him.
Corin Dann knows what happens to independent media people.
Paula Penfold.
John Campbell.
Jon Stephenson.
Nicky Hager.
When extremists like red delusion and ‘man in the middle’ ( never knew Genghis Khan , Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini were men in the middle) rant on about Venezuela and North Korea, maybe they should look at the state of our own media.
Open the curtains it’s a lovely day outside Paul, stop wallowing in negativity on your PC, we all have google search thus your cut and pastes while admirable from a quantitative perspective and effort is not really required
Live updates of the penultimate day of the Rio Olympics.
‘Just Bledi Awful’ – Aussie’s reaction
Girl who killed her own family set free (Canadian crime story)
‘Righto, we need to take this to the police’ (the Herald appears more concerned about the All Blacks being spied on than the whole country)
KFC’s secret recipe uncovered
All Blacks v Australia: Player ratings
Revealed: The best and worst airline food
Cold case mystery: Is he still alive? (Australian crime story)
Who is the lucky punter who won $13.3m?
Could Hamblin win rare Olympic medal?
The poisoning of 4000 New Zealand citizens?
Not as important.
More wins for the All Blacks and less money and support for the grassroots.
More medals at Olympics and less participation in sport.
Olympic swimmers. Closing school polls.
Shhhhhhh mate is their any joy in your life , suggestion stop bringing every thing back to partisan politics Just enjoy something for enjoyment sake, as the say accentuate the positive it could be life changing for you
Sport is over emphasised , overglorified and overpaid.
In the days when everyone was a sportsmen
Back then, worn out tennis balls would mysteriously appear in the gutters of our street. Finding one of these little beauties could mean only one thing: it was time for a street cricket match.
Kids’ names were called out and pretty soon you had enough players to start a game. While the batsmen, bowlers and the wicketkeeper were definitely human, most of the fieldsmen were drawn from the vast throng of free-range neighbourhood dogs.
How long does it take for a new graft on an established tree to fruit? For an Apple tree? Pears? Plums? Cherry? (I’m guessing plums and cherries are sooner).
A graft “takes” quickly, days or weeks, depending on the type of graft. I do a simple cleft graft that binds more slowly, as it’s done at the end of winter and moves with the rise of the sap. Bud grafts are done when things are cranking, and take a shorter time. In any case, grafting fruit-bearing scions onto decorative trees is fun and funny.
Fifty years ago the Gurindji people walked off Lord Vesty’s Northern Territory Wave Hill station.
.
Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this article contains images, voices and names of deceased people.
Fifty years ago, the Gurindji people of the Northern Territory made their name across Australia with the 1966 Wave Hill Walk-Off.
It was a landmark event that inspired national change: equal wages for Aboriginal workers, as well as a new Land Rights Act.
Although it took another two decades, the Gurindji also became one of the first Aboriginal groups to reclaim their traditional lands.
Many people know a small part of the walk-off story because of the song From Little Things, Big Things Grow about 200 stockmen, house servants and their families who walked off Wave Hill Station on 23 August 1966, in protest at appalling pay and living conditions.
But what is not widely known is that the walk-off followed more than 80 years of massacres and killings, stolen children and other abuses by early colonists.
Vincent Lingiari introduces the recording in his language, which he then translates into English.
My name is Vincent Lingiari, came from Daruragu, Wattie Creek station.
That means that I came down here to ask all these fella here about the land rights. What I got story from my old father or grandfather that land belongs to me, belongs to Aboriginal men before the horses and the cattle come over on that land where I am sitting now. That is what I have been keeping on my mind and I still got it on my mind. That is all the words I can tell you.
‘Gurindji Blues’
Poor bugger me, Gurindji
My name is Vincent Lingiari, came from Daruragu, Wattie Creek station.
Me bin sit down this country
Long time before the Lord Vestey
Allabout land belongin’ to we
Oh poor bugger me, Gurindji.
Poor bugger blackfeller; Gurindji
Long time work no wages, we,
Work for the good old Lord Vestey
Little bit flour; sugar and tea
For the Gurindji, from Lord Vestey
Oh poor bugger me.
Poor bugger me, Gurindji,
Man called Vincent Lingiari
Talk long allabout Gurindji
‘Daguragu place for we,
Home for we, Gurindji:
But poor bugger blackfeller, Gurindji
Government boss him talk long we
‘We’ll build you house with electricity
But at Wave Hill, for can’t you see
Wattie Creek belong to Lord Vestey’
Oh poor bugger me.
Poor bugger me, Gurindji
Up come Mr: Frank Hardy
ABSCHOL too and talk long we
Givit hand long Gurindji
Buildim house and plantim tree
Longa Wattie Creek for Gurindji
But poor bugger blackfeller Gurindji
Government Law him talk long we
‘Can’t givit land long blackfeller, see
Only spoilim Gurindji’
Oh poor bugger me.
Poor bugger me, Gurindji
Peter Nixon talk long we:
‘Buy you own land, Gurindji
Buyim back from the Lord Vestey’
Oh poor bugger me, Gurindji.
Poor bugger blackfeller Gurindji
Suppose we buyim back country
What you reckon proper fee?
Might be flour, sugar and tea
From the Gurindji to Lord Vestey?
Oh poor bugger me.
Oh ngaiyu luyurr ngura-u
Sorry my country, Gurindji.
Regretfully Joe – it isn’t much better even today. The billions of dollars that are “invested” in the indigenous people of Australia mainly ends up in State administration and people getting rich at the expense of those who really need it. The land on which aboriginal communities live is State owned – not the peoples – as are the houses and all the facilities. The first aborigine ,albert namatjirato be granted Australian citizenship was in 1957.
Read a beautiful book about Aboriginal culture recently… really moving
Mutant Message Down Under is the fictional account of an American woman’s spiritual odyssey through outback Australia. An underground bestseller in its original self-published edition, Marlo Morgan’s powerful tale of challenge and endurance has a message for us all.
Summoned by a remote tribe of nomadic Aborigines to accompany them on walkabout, the woman makes a four-month-long journey and learns how they thrive in natural harmony with the plants and animals that exist in the rugged lands of Australia’s bush. From the first day of her adventure, Morgan is challenged by the physical requirements of the journey—she faces daily tests of her endurance, challenges that ultimately contribute to her personal transformation.
By traveling with this extraordinary community, Morgan becomes a witness to their essential way of being in a world based on the ancient wisdom and philosophy of a culture that is more than 50,000 years old.
Policies are not the only basis upon which voters cast their votes.
Overall credibility, able to bring along a team, general fiscal prudence, impact on rates, capability of the incumbent all bear upon the voters choice.
Fiscal prudence like a great big fuck off convention centre and rugby stadium? Or fiscal prudence involving buying up tracts of prime central city land in order to prop up land prices artificially for the governments mates? Or the environmentally prudent moves by ECan to allow shitty farmers to steal all the good water?
Democracy has failed in Canterbury, destroyed by the disaster capitalists and abetted by that waste of space Brownlee
If Minto fails to win but still performs well (making it a close race) it will send a shiver up the spine of the establishment. As it will indicate the tide is turning.
The canary used to alert miners of the presence of noxious gases. It has since become a metaphor for truth tellers in a dangerous world. We talk to the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Canary – the newest arrival in Britain’s online journalism – Kerry-Anne Mendoza.
Yeah well, what’s that quote (from some US official?) on how friends are chosen by dint of what it is that is wanting to be achieved, and not on grounds of how good or bad, or right or wrong they may be?
I’ve no doubt ‘The Guardian’ and others will do a huge mea-culpa over their ‘Boy in an Ambulance’ story and earnestly seek to redress any “rush to war” sentiments that their coverage may have produced.
Labour MP Kelvin Davies has gone public about his role in helping a mentally ill man and argues it shows a need for better services.
“I stopped a guy from killing himself last night,” Mr Davies posted on his Facebook page.
He says the man, whom he knows, texted him from Dunedin to say “he’s had enough. He’s going to end it”.
Mr Davies said he stopped on the side of the road and talked to the man for an hour.
After a stand-off and confrontation police took the man to accident and emergency services where he got medical treatment for the harm he did to himself.
But there was no treatment for “his actual problem”, and he was given a taxi chit to get home where he had no power, heat or food.
He says the man is a hard worker and he has complex issues.
Mental health services “must do their job regardless” of how complex needs are.
That yahoo article containts mistakes (Davis not Davies for a start).
Having a look at Davis’ FB page, good on him and Curran for making something happen. However he does have a bit of a hero complex and seems largely ignorant (or willfully ignorant) of why our mental health services are the way they are.
There are bloody good reasons for why the state can’t just section people willy nilly, and many of those reasons are because of serious abuses of power in the past. The big push towards community mental health in recent decades, supported by Labour, was meant to establish broader support so that it wouldn’t just be left to the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff services. Massive fail on that, and a classic example of neoliberal co-option of good ideas and well intentioned people.
Davis can bang his fist on the table over this all he likes, but until there is a govt that addresses poverty, and then works for the wellbeing of all people, then what he will get is tinkering around the edges.
Besides all that, the Southern DHB is in a mess and as a politician he should be addressing that. Blaming emergncy psych services for things that are often outside their control is not helping. Those psych services were failing under the last Labour govt too. If he is serious about this issue he needs to step up with some solid policy on what will make a difference. Making out that staff should break the law, esp where that law is designed to protect people, is just not on.
There’s a lot about caring for someone who’s unwell that isn’t as you’d expect, coming from normal society, and without wider family experience. The first few times you expect the process to more objective, like a broken arm. But it’s not, it’s this amazing, complex interaction of patient and clinician, fear rebellion and trust, liberty privacy and control, and someone who is tearing to pieces but can think everything is fine.
I’ve had to be part of catching my partner at the bottom of the cliff about every six years and am slowly learning more and more each time. I wish I knew what I know now 20 yeas ago, and I’ll learn a lot more yet. But Kelvin sounds like I did 15 years ago. We expect the process to work in a concise and determined way. It doesn’t, but it can and does work, in a patient centred way.
I hope that Kelvin will learn on from this experience to understand the process and journey that an unwell person follows to live within their world.
Thoughtful comment Graeme. I think it’s one of the downsides of the push to see mental illness as the same as physical disease. People end up thinking it should be that straightforward.
Covers quite a bit of ground, but a few main points:
Trumpism has a deep-rooted appeal in a disenfranchised blue collar right excluded by a managerial technocratic ruling class post WWII (a class championed as the face of new conservatism by William F Buckley).
What it shares with the left, and makes it attractive to some nominal or former leftists is its opposition to neoliberalism and managerialism.
However, any pretence that the racism and something involving brown shirts and silly walks or a tendency to wear bedsheets and set crosses on fire is merely incidental or an embarrassing fringe is naive at best. Reactionary racial and sexual supremacism is intrinsic to the movement and many of the founding figures and current inciters are unashamed racist nationalists. An endorsement of Trump from the leader of the American N*** Party should be no surprise.
Mention is given to the publicity-hungry trolls of the “alt-right” such as Milo Yiannopoulos, who have seized on it as a stage to act out their own narcissism.
Makes an interesting parallel with this, examining the decline of liberal democracy:
A left wing journo was invited to Milo Yiannopoulos and the Republican shitshow… what she saw should scare anyone with functioning nervous system. View at Medium.com
What’s happening to this country has happened before, in other nations, in other anxious, violent times when all the old certainties peeled away and maniacs took the wheel. It’s what happens when weaponised insincerity is applied to structured ignorance. Donald Trump is the Gordon Gekko of the attention economy, but even he is no longer in control. This culture war is being run in bad faith by bad actors who are running way off-script, and it’s barely begun, and there are going to be a lot of refugees.
While you may see Trump as a stick with which to beat the elites, that stick will beat the rest of the people too, particularly those with darker skins. That’s particularly callous schadenfreude.
Firstly, I think that under either Trump or Clinton, the multi-decades long income stagnation and collapse of the US middle class will continue.
Secondly, my point stands: if the Democratic Party wanted the stronger anti-Trump candidate, one who was polling far more strongly against Trump and carried far less questionable political baggage, they could have chosen him.
Yes I’m afraid so. Bernie and Corbyn are actually the reasonable face of a wider movement, shoving them aside will not solve anything, it will just further delay the needed reforms that WILL occur one way or another.
The Republicans could have avoided this insanity as well, instead of sucking up to the Tea Party idiots and hamming it up for fox news. It’s a party on life support, i wonder if their Wall St backers are sick of them too.
Indeed. The Democrats said of the working class that “they have nowhere else to go” and the Republicans saw them as useful shock troops in the form of the Tea Party but never imagined that they’d get up on their hind legs.
If I were voting in the American election, I’d want to vote for a unicorn, not choosing Nixon over Mussolini. We can be grateful for MMP at least allowing alternative voices in government rather than the duopoly that results from FPP.
Admittedly he described my former workplace very accurately in Dilbert…
Is this some joke that went over my head or is there a Scott Adams who is a statistician with extensive access to data and algorithms to process it and not a satirical cartoonist?
And his support for this assertion is…? Looking at his blog post on the subject, not much.
Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit” from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark :
1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
Anecdotes and claims about having to say that he supported Clinton for his own physical safety(!). No facts given, merely anecdote and gut instinct.
2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
No evidence, hence no debate.
3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
Not an expert.
4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
Vague gestures in this direction, nothing substantive, resorts to gut instinct.
5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
Hoooo boy!
6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
NOPE.
7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
Nope. Gut instinct again.
8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
Hypothesis has no evidence, supposes unexplained forces at work to an unknown degree.
9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.
Too vague to be falsifiable, contains a bit of handwaving in the manner of “I could be wrong, but…”
Sagan is simply summarising the universal scientific method. That’s how science works. It makes predictions based on the best available data at the time.
Naturally as time passes through the campaign, new events will happen, new data will be acquired. You ignore the fact that Silver is analysing polls, not measuring an invariable predetermined event. Clearly a campaign is not a static object but a process. In the early stages of the data gathering process, it is to be expected that wild results will be produced.
At this point the reasonable assumption based on quantified data and reasonable analysis and extrapolation is that Trump will still lose. There is a possibility that Trump may win, and it’s greater than the chance that a unicorn will win. However, I still think that Silver’s polling is far superior to Adam’s entrails and a Trump win is therefore very unlikely.
Rhinocrates, I ask you again, where is the evidence that using the “universal scientific method” to predict the outcome of US Presidential elections is statistically superior than any other method?
How is it that Nate Silver’s organisation can assign 6:1 odds in favour of Clinton and have that taken seriously, when he has been outright wrong about Trump relatively recently.
IMO it’s going to be an easy Trump win come November. I can accept that you believe that opinion flies in the face of all the objective scientific evidence.
I tell you what though they just played a bit of a his last couple of his speech’s on prime news , now if i was someone who paid little attention to politics what he was saying would of grabbed my attention.
And all clinton did was tweet a sulky tweet inresponse.
Family in illegally converted garage faces eviction
A family living in a South Auckland garage faces eviction in October because the landlord converted it into a flat without a council permit.
Samoanagalo Ioelu, Nick Mah Yen and their 11-month-old son Charlie have been living in the Manurewa garage since their landlord converted it into a three-room flat just after Charlie was born.
From the street, the building still looks like a conventional garage with a roller door taking up most of the frontage.
Behind the door, the garage now boasts a small living room with a large mat covering the floor, a bedroom and a bathroom for which Ioelu and Mah Yen pay $220 a week.
“…Fukuyama writes in a recent excellent essay in Foreign Affairs: “‘Populism’ is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don’t like.” Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both.”
yes, he’s no slouch…nailed it.
“The re-emergence of class should not be confused with the labour movement. They are not synonymous: this is obvious in the US and increasingly the case in the UK. Indeed, over the last half-century, there has been a growing separation between the two in Britain. The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement.”
“If we cannot halt the emissions of carbon dioxide, what can we do?
In the end, the only hope we have is to find a way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere once it has got there. Even the IPCC has admitted that we will have to find a way to extract carbon dioxide from the air. The trouble is that they don’t just how we can do that. The most favoured scheme is known as BECCS: bio-energy with carbon capture and storage. Essentially, you plant trees and bushes over vast swaths of ground. These grow, absorbing carbon dioxide in the process. Then you burn the wood to run power plants while trapping, liquefying and storing the carbon dioxide that is released.”
Ok, so people don’t want to change their lifestyles and this makes them think they can defy physics? Some people sure, but I think mostly it’s more a process of desperation. My reply was to point out that there are better thing to do with that desperation than go to fantasty land.
Im more inclined to think its a case of not wishing to think about it or being more focused on perceived more pressing needs…..that can be considered fantasyland (or denial) but it is a prevalent state.
There’s a few other possibilities. For just one instance, currently concrete is a major climate nasty mostly due to fossil fuels burned for process heat and the CO2 released by chemical reactions in cement production, However, concrete also absorbs CO2 back out of the atmosphere as it cures.
Simply changing the process heat source to renewable electricity plus capture and storage of the CO2 released during calcination would turn conventional concrete into a small net carbon sink rather than a large emitter.
But there’s also processes that create unconventional cements suitable for concrete that absorb CO2 during manufacture, rather than releasing it. Which would be even better.
there appear to be many proposals for carbon capture, however as far as I can see those investigating the options all seem to come to same conclusion that what is currently feasible (even potentially) lack the capacity to remove the volumes required….that may not be so into the future but there is also a time constraint factor…no point in having a process in 50 -100 years time if we’re already extinct.
Personally I reckon human extinction in 50 to 100 years is very unlikely. Either massive nuclear war, or the oceans turning anoxic (apparently has happened before so non-zero probability). I reckon the sight of billions dying in the tropics will scare the rest of the planet to take enough action that there will still be habitable refuge areas in high latitudes.
if billions are dying in the tropics (or anywhere) I would suggest it will be past the point of no return…..as to anoxic oceans we may be well on the way already….when the food chain collapses the resulting extinction events will be rapid so 50 -100 years may seem hyperbolic but not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility.
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Everyone Wants To Be Fuhrer: When fascist groups are discussed, the image conjured-up in the minds of most New Zealanders is one of pathetic misfits. This negative impression is reinforced by the latter’s idiotic embrace of the swastika. Even in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the baleful legacy ...
by Philip Ferguson This weekend just past marks the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the most famous of the great 1960s music festivals. It was held over the weekend (Friday-Monday) of August 15-18, 1969. Woodstock was a highpoint of the US ‘counter-culture’, and also the beginning of its end. When exploring the ...
It looks like the government has won over the public on its vehicle feebate scheme:A feebate scheme that would transfer hundreds of millions of dollars from buyers of higher-emission cars into the pockets of people buying EVs and other more fuel-efficient vehicles has been winning favour with submitters, the Government ...
When people suggest lowering the voting age, others argue that the young are too uneducated or silly to exercise the duties of citizenship. Australian John Quiggin has just blown that argument out of the water:Looking at the array of ignorant and vindictive old men attacking Greta Thunberg and other young ...
In the previous two posts, I laid out the context and set the theoretical framework to answer a question: whether indigenous economies should take the LEAP. This final part outlines ways to conceive of practicing mana motuhake within the existing legal system by carving out special jurisdictions that enable Indigenous ...
Fully Informed? Labour’s 2017 promises raised expectations that were little short of revolutionary. Unfortunately, they were never adequately shaken through the fiscal sieve. The hard economic work was not done – and it shows. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s critics have long complained that her grasp of the way the New ...
You cannot expect to pound communities into the ground day after day, year after year, decade after decade and just expect them to take it lying down. There’s a point at which the place will explode. And we’re faced with some very big ructions on both sides of the Atlantic ...
Back in May, Destiny Church leaders Brian and Hannah Tamaki launched another political party. Despite consisting entirely of followers of their religion, they grandly called it "Coalition New Zealand", in a vain effort to suggest it was something broader. But when they applied for registration, submitters opposed the name, as ...
The following article is excerpted and translated from two articles in recent issues of Lutte de Classe (Class Struggle), the magazine of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers Struggle), the revolutionary workers group active in France. We don’t necessarily agree with everything in it – for instance, the 1956-62 war for independence involved rather more revolutionary forces than ...
The Pacific is on the front line of climate change, and if we don't cut emissions quickly, some countries are literally going to be underwater. Because of this, small Pacific states had tried to use this week's Pacific Islands Forum meeting to get Pacific countries to agree to ending coal ...
To Limit Another's Rights Is To Limit One's Own: Is it too much to expect senior members of our Government to be capable of explaining that we protect the rights of human-beings precisely because not even the most depraved act can cancel-out the fact that its perpetrator is also a ...
Going Down? Once truth and propaganda become fused in the minds of one’s followers, debate and discussion become redundant. If one’s opponents are all outrageous liars, then engaging with them in any way is pointless. Rather than waste its time, a political party should, instead, target all its messages at ...
This section builds on Part 1 of this series to provide a theoretical basis for the final instalment (part 3 – to come). Self-determination: law or resurgence — or both? International law promotes the principal of equal treatment and self-determination, which includes peoples’ rights to freely pursue their social, cultural and ...
Everyone was outraged yesterday to learn that the Christchurch shooting accused had been able to send mail from prison to his Nazi fans, apparently pushing more hate. "How could this possibly happen", people asked. Simple: because New Zealand is a civilised country, and so we let prisoners send and receive ...
If we are to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change, we need to rapidly decarbonise our transport fleet. The good news: its starting to happen:The number of electric vehicles on New Zealand's roads have nearly tripled in the past two years. There are currently 15,453 registered electric vehicles (EVs), up ...
We need to fundamentally reframe our systems settings to address the drivers causing and underpinning inequality; structural change in systems especially financial. The Equality Network Hui was held in Wellington on 27 June 2019. The hui covered important topics such as child poverty; a living wage; taxation; public health; mental ...
The views-per-page for some of my recent postings:Depressing, isn't it? Provide thoughtful and wise commentary on the mainstream of British politics and no-one notices. Make a passing reference to Tommy DICKHEAD Robinson in a thread title and you get hundreds of views. Write something about anti-Semitism and you get another ...
The government has announced plans to move the Treaty of Waitangi and other taonga to a new site. Great news! So where are they going? Right next to the old one:The new plan will see a new 22,000-square-metre archive built on the former site of Defence House - the former ...
Back in June, StatsNZ went public about a project to track population data on an hourly level by using people's cellphones. It wasn't as bad as it initially looked - they were receiving no individual data, only counts by suburb - but there was still a huge consent problem, so ...
Most economists agree that a currently slowing economy could do with some stimulus – and they would also agree that there is no shortage of infrastructure projects which could be brought to productive fruition with help from that stimulus. In view of the current practice of sub-contracting economic policy decisions ...
I did an interview on the TVNZ Breakfast Show about the situation in Hong Kong. I tried to frame the issue as a collective action problem between two sides with very different end games. The video is here. Because of time constraints we could not discuss the fact that the ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
Image Credit: Wild Rose College A new study reporting the ranges of values for kidney and liver parameters in a healthy population is being actively misrepresented by anti-fluoride campaigners. The Fluoride Action Network’s (FAN) latest ...
AN OPEN LETTER FOR SIGN ON BY ORGANISATIONS AND MOVEMENTS ACROSS THE WORLD, ALLIED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST INEQUALITY. This letter was released at the UN Political Forum on 9 July, where the Sustainable Development Goal on inequality was reviewed. The purpose of the letter is to call out the ...
We asked a young gay science student and critic of trans ideology and the trans activists’ assault on women’s and gay rights to outline his views on Redline. Thanks to him for his article. by Cian Ó Catháin Gender identity ideology (Gender ID) is ripping through western society at full ...
The Environment Committee is currently hearing submissions on the Zero Carbon Bill, and Stuff is reporting on the submissions. Today, they're covering yesterday they heard from "NZ" Steel:NZ Steel has told MPs it may be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if changes aren't made to ...
Students are striking against climate change on September 27. And this time, they're asking everyone to join them:Students are taking to the streets, beaches and parks on 27 September, and we're inviting everyone to join us. That's right, this is an intergenerational issue, and you're all invited to put pressure ...
Peter McKenzie has a piece on Newsroom this morning about how local body politics is awash with property developer cash. 70% of all the donations in the 2016 Wellington mayoral election came from property developers. And its pretty obvious what they want in exchange:That’s particularly important in local government, according ...
Source: Unknown, twitter user Recently, I wrote a (relatively) short paper titled as above, to explore what self-determination could like in a practical sense. Maybe I’m a bit of an international trade truther or something, but I absolutely believe trade is at the heart of achieving peace and self-determination. Since ...
In the 1960s, after I had graduated with a first-class Oxford postgraduate law degree, I joined the British Foreign Office as the top entrant of my year. There, I worked for a couple of years on European affairs and was eventually posted to the Embassy in Brussels. After this exposure ...
Alone, Alone. All, All Alone: Will it be a good or a bad thing, when humanity’s bright blue spacecraft is stricken by the civilisation-destroying problem of Climate Change, that no Huston Control will be standing-by to rescue the crew?“WE HAVE A PROBLEM, HUSTON.” These were the words used by the ...
I heard a 45 minute interview with Monica Lewinsky talking to TED’s Chris Anderson on BBC Radio 4 over the weekend, and have listened to it another two times out walking. I recommend it. Highly. Man, I am so impressed with how this woman has integrated her life experiences and ...
Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, The Coddling of the American Mind: how good intentions and bad ideas are setting up a generation for failure, London, Penguin, 2019, 352pp; reviewed by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff’s book The Coddling of the American Mind is a timely book, whose ...
When the Justice Committee reported back on the Administration of Justice (Reform of Contempt of Court) Bill, free speech advocates breathed a sigh of relief. As originally introduced, the Bill reitered the ancient offence of "scandalising the court" - basicly, a special sedition law protecting judges from criticism. The select ...
Eighteen months ago, the government promised to strengthen the Bill of Rights Act, by explicitly affirming the power of the courts to issue declarations of inconsistency and requiring Parliament to formally respond to them. Since then - crickets. Which raises the obvious question: are they actually going to do this, ...
Back in March, the Ministry of Justice conducted a public consultation exercise on whether to hold a review of the Official Information Act. 285 people submitted on it. Now, Stuff has trawled through those submissions, and the case for reform is strong:The Justice Ministry asked Kiwis what they thought was ...
National's prisoner voting ban has gone down as one of the worst laws in New Zealand history. Passed after a farcical debate (including this farcial speech from ACT MP Hilary Calvert), it has subsequently been found to be inconsistent with the Bill of Rights Act by the High Court, Court ...
Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready ...
This handy Queer Theory Glossary is from thetranswidow.com In case you’ve had trouble keeping up with the spate of new queer theory terms, here’s a handy glossary for your reference. Queer – A straight person with an interesting haircut. Non-binary/genderqueer – A chubby young female, typically 16-28, who has ...
by Daphna Whitmore US social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt spoke on 1 August in Auckland to a crowd of around one thousand people. He is best known for his bookThe Coddling of the American Mind which examines the new climate of trigger warnings and acute sensitivity of Gen Z. ...
What an extraordinarily depressing experience it is to be compelled to watch, at 12,000 miles distance, the contortions and machinations of the British political class as they set about their determined attempt to overturn the decision taken by the British people that they wish to leave the European Union. The ...
The winter grazing issue is becoming a highly sensitised one that I hope will not become so politicised that it delays solutions and results in the suicides of some very stressed farmers.Winter grazing has hit the headlines after a determined campaign, including the release of a video of some very ...
by Don Franks Way back when British guitar virtuoso Joe Brown was a beginning session guy he got to back a visiting American artist. Young Joe was an able technician but had yet to learn some points of professionalism. Part way through “Five foot high and rising” Joe tired of ...
Since scientists started studying climate change, they have warned that it will reduce food production. And now, its happening:The climate crisis is damaging the ability of the land to sustain humanity, with cascading risks becoming increasingly severe as global temperatures rise, according to a landmark UN report compiled by some ...
The Abortion Legislation Bill just passed its first reading, 94-23. Its a far bigger margin than I expected, even allowing for the Winston factor, and it reflects the overwhelming support there is in this country for reform. but that support isn't a new thing - it has existed for literally ...
The Justice Committee has called for submissions on the Referendums Framework Bill. The Bill does what it says on the label - establishes a framework for referenda. Things you may want to address in your submission: Whether the bill should apply only at the 2020 election, or whether it should ...
The Thompson and Clark / MBIE spying scandal continues to result in fallout, this time in the form of a report on the implementation of MBIE's "Operation Exploration", its internal operation to enforce the infamous Anadarko Amendment which criminalised protests against the oil industry. MBIE's enforcement operation was tainted by ...
So, Winston Peters is defending his last-minute demand for a referendum on abortion by claiming he was "blindsided" by the bill. Really? The bill is a government bill. It has been working through the cabinet approval process since December last year. As part of that process, NZ First was consulted, ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
The Green Part has been accused of lack of transparency in two recent situations. The first was the claimed media lockdown during Green's annual conference and the second was Julie Ann Genter's refusal to release a letter she had sent to Phil Twyford.I do get frustrated when journalist's succumb to ...
Last week, the ongoing democracy protests in Hong Kong saw a pro-Hong Kong student assaulted at the University of Auckland. The Chinese consulate in Auckland followed this up with a press release "express[ing] its appreciation to the students for their spontaneous patriotism" - effectively condoning the assault and inciting further ...
Only those who close their eyes and minds to the evidence can still be in any doubt that we are facing a climate change crisis. The evidence is conclusive that the world is not only getting inexorably hotter, but also that the rising temperatures are creating a number of other ...
Rural communities are wailing about forestry conversions "taking land out of production" and putting it into locking up carbon. Its driven purely by economics: there's more money and lower costs in carbon than in sheep or beef, and if carbon prices rise, there'll be more net money than dairy even. ...
This week, the government introduced its (underwhelming) Abortion Legislation Bill. And despite having negotiated the text of the bill through the coalition process, Winston Peters is now suggesting that he will demand a referendum on it:NZ First leader Winston Peters has hinted that his party may only support the Government's ...
Blowing-Up The House: Is Winston Peters planning to put himself at the head of all those New Zealanders who refuse to countenance the Coalition Government caving-in to the Ihumatao protesters? The most effective way of doing this would be to issue Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with an ultimatum. If she ...
Last night the police dramatically incresed their numbers at Ihumātao, shoving over protestors and threatening them with arrest. Despite police talk about the need to maintain "public order" and prevent a "breach of the peace", there appeared to be absolutely no justification for this: the protest camp is, was, and ...
A Cult, that many actors, politicians, and those with a low IQ are joining is sweeping across civilisation, with one main intention – ending humans reign on Earth. Starting as a well meaning though deeply flawed theory, that the Earth was warming due to mankind emitting greenhouse gasses, it was ...
Today's abortion reform announcement is just the latest in a long line of disappointing decisions or outright failures from the Labour government. The 90-day law. KiwiBuild. A capital gains tax. Climate change. Every time they make one of those decisions, we hope for better next time. No repeal of the ...
The Greens used their party conference over the weekend to push for a rent-to-own scheme, where people would be able to work towards home ownership by renting from the government. Its a sensible policy, and one which could make a real difference to home ownership rates. But its also basicly ...
Opportunities to dodge tax are shrinking with the completion of a new tax agreement with Switzerland, Revenue Minister Stuart Nash announced today. Mr Nash and the Swiss Ambassador David Vogelsanger have today signed documents to update the double tax agreement (DTA). The previous DTA was signed in 1980. “Double tax ...
Small Business Minister Stuart Nash says the report of the Small Business Council will help maintain the momentum for innovation and improvements in the sector. Mr Nash has thanked the members of the Small Business Council (SBC) who this week handed over their report, Empowering small businesses to aspire, succeed ...
Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance and its nationwide sister group the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union is slamming Auckland Mayor Phil Goff for his comments today that John Tamihere would need the Government’s support to ...
A ‘one size fits all’, inflexible and punitive regulatory regime for water quality just gets backs - and costs - up and most importantly will not work, Federated Farmers says. ...
Mediation yesterday between secondary principals and the government has resulted in a deal that the principals' negotiating team is recommending to its members. ...
Clubs New Zealand welcomes the decision of Justice Minister Andrew Little to put forward a bill amending the Sale and Supply of Alcohol Act to allow all licensed premises to remain open for Rugby World Cup matches. ...
The Australia and New Zealand Ministerial Forum on Food Regulation has ordered a review looking at labelling of added sugars in food and drinks. An option under investigation is ‘a pictorial approach applied to sugary beverages / sugar-sweetened beverages’ ...
Labour market data released by Statistics New Zealand today indicates that a gender pay gap persists in New Zealand, despite improvement in some areas. ...
In the midst of the 6th Great Extinction Event the coalition, STOP Trashing Our Planet is urging voters to take full responsibility for the legacy we are leaving our children. ...
LGNZ will carefully consider the proposed National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPS-UD) to assess if it meets the Government’s aim of enabling urban development or simply adds more red tape to the planning process. ...
Statistics out today from the Government show that the gender wage imbalance, or gap, in the average wage is 11.9%, a strong 2 percentage point improvement from 13.9% last year. The gender pay imbalance in the median wage is 9.3%. ...
Newstalk ZB Drive host and Herald on Sunday columnist Heather du Plessis-Allan is taking on the challenge of keeping 2019 Auckland Mayoral contenders Phil Goff and John Tamihere in line and on point in tonight’s live NZ Herald Newstalk ZB debate. ...
After twenty years Napier residents have endured heavy sleep and health disruptive noise and air pollution from freight trucks gridlock operations to and from the Napier port and other regions. ...
The EMA says much is riding on the board and chief executive of the new National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) announced by Infrastructure Minister Hon Shane Jones today, with a difficult task ahead to deliver on its purpose. ...
The Public Service Association welcomes the introduction of workplace standards by the State Services Commission that make it clear public services should expect positive and safe workplaces. ...
The Financial Services Federation (FSF) - the voice of responsible lenders and leasing companies - and FinCap - working with consumers facing financial hardship - are signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) this Thursday 22 August in Auckland. It will ...
Wellington, 20 August 2019 — Lawyers for Vulnerable New Zealanders (LVNZ) has lent its support to the amendments proposed by MP Chris Penk to better protect vulnerable people from being coerced to end their lives under the End of Life Choice Bill, currently ...
The Government’s decision to establish and independent Parliamentary Budget Office, outside of Treasury, is a taxpayer victory and will improve democracy, says the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union . Taxpayers' Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, “It's ...
The Taxpayers’ Union can reveal that the cost-benefit analysis prepared by Ministry of Transport and used to advise Ministers on the Government’s Clean Car Standard and ‘Feebate’ policies has serious flaws which undermine justifications for the ...
The Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) welcomes new proposals for prison reform put forward by the Minister of Corrections and non-government organisations recently. ...
The New Zealand Maori Council has called on the nation to address all forms of racism and not to shy away from an honest conversation about where it’s taking hold. The call comes after the Nelson Club decided to keep a member after his comments became ...
Wellington (20 August 2019): The New Zealand Initiative enthusiastically welcomes the Coalition Government’s announcement of an Independent Parliamentary Budget Office. Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Associate Finance Minister James Shaw ...
Drs Say No agree with Chris Penk’s amendment to protect vulnerable patients from coercion, although the organisation still maintains that no safe euthanasia legislation can ever be drafted and continues to urge MPs to defeat the End of Life Choice Bill. ...
The Chief Ombudsman Peter Boshier says the Northland Regional Corrections Facility is persisting with policies that are preventing it from achieving its full potential. ...
The second national hui in the Māori-led Inquiry into Oranga Tamariki concluded yesterday ahead of schedule after a capacity audience formally ratified the terms of reference that determines the scope and purpose of the independent investigation ...
Forest & Bird says WWF-NZ's plan for protecting Māui dolphins is based on testing unproven methods on a species that is almost extinct, and is urging the Government to reject the proposal. ...
Primary and intermediate school principals have voted to accept a new settlement from the Ministry of Education, which includes entrenched pay parity with secondary principals. ...
Police acknowledge the findings of the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) report into the 2014 search of a property belonging to Nicky Hager. ...
The Independent Police Conduct Authority has found that the Police's unlawful search of Nicky Hager's property in October 2014 resulted from an unwitting neglect of duty and did not amount to misconduct by any individual officer. Police policy at the ...
Tuesday, August 20: Greenpeace has labeled an overnight announcement by fishing company Sanford as a danger to Māui and Hector’s dolphins, and is calling on the Government to reject the ‘Sanford Plan’ immediately. ...
World Animal Protection describes an overnight announcement (19 August, embargoed until 6am 20 August), by fishing company Sanford as a cynical move to undermine growing support for full habitat protection for Māui and Hector’s dolphins. They called ...
When the combined tax on fuel hits over 50 percent in some parts of the country, it is hypocritical for the Government to blame corporates, says the New Zealand Taxpayers' Union . ...
A leading expert in suicide prevention has urged MPs not to confuse suicide with assisted dying as they consider the second reading of the End of Life Choice Bill. ...
Over the weekend Māoridom arrived in the Waikato for the annual Koroneihana Celebrations. Yesterday almost 300 attended a Hui in Hamilton to continue the Oranga Tamariki Review led by an independent Māori panel to coincide with the Koroneihana. The Hui confirmed ...
The Council of Licenced Firearm Owners (COLFO) says the newly issued ‘price list’ for compensation of banned firearms reveals that haste in preparing the ban has led to an underestimation of the number of affected firearms and their value. ...
Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis has admitted parts of the prison system are “extremely racist” and says that’s why the Government is asking Māori to work with it to make changes. ...
Ongoing drug-test sanctions contradicts Government’s rhetoric on drugs Reports that two-thirds of beneficiaries who fail drug tests are still having their benefit sanctioned contradicts the Government’s so-called health approach to drugs. Auckland ...
An Auckland Homelessness Collective is optimistic extra government support for sustaining tenancies signals a commitment to a multi-pronged approach to tackling homelessness. ...
Wanaka-based trust ONE New Zealand will be hosting six days of talks, workshops and hands-on activities with local and national experts to educate, inspire and enable grassroots action towards a sustainable future. ...
In last week’s episode of Politics in Full Sentences, David, Brooke and Ruwan discussed why Jacinda Ardern has been lecturing our friends overseas, why Andrew Little called ACT's three strikes law “fascism”, whether he will give prisoners the right to ...
“Community safety must be the paramount consideration when releasing an offender, and the only way for that to be achieved is for the offender to acknowledge their crimes.” ...
“District Health Boards are failing to foster a culture of distributed clinical leadership, despite its demonstrated benefits to the sector,” says Ian Powell, Executive Director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS). ...
Ratepayers around Auckland were spitting out their morning coffees listening to Phil Goff’s incredible claims on breakfast radio today that this election is about ‘honesty’ and that Aucklanders can trust him on his promises. Auckland Ratepayers’ ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Natalie Klein, Professor, UNSW Prime Minister Scott Morrison has confirmed that Australia will lend military support to protect shipping in the Middle East. The commitment has been long expected, with Australia sending a frigate, an aircraft and some headquarters staff as part ...
By Johnny Blades of RNZ Pacific Protests are spreading in Indonesia-ruled West Papua in response to harassment of Papuans during explosive incidents in Javanese cities last week. Indonesia’s president has urged calm after some of the protests turned violent, but he’s been criticised for not directly addressing a festering ...
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the karaoke game that introduced an entire generation to the horrors of ‘Downtown’ by Petula Clark. Jordan Hamel ranks all 30 songs from SingStar v1, from worst to best.Before my generation was old enough to get smashed on reasonably priced Merlot and wander ...
After a decade of making music, Sons of Zion are still refusing to settle into a genre. They sit down to talk about the joys of pop music and te reo Māori, and why a “reggae” band can do both.In 2009 Sons of Zion released their debut album, a self-titled ...
The government is directing councils to loosen up their planning rules, allowing cities to grow both up and out, in a bid to solve the housing crisis. ...
New Zealand’s largest construction company and controversial owner of the disputed Ihumātao land near Auckland airport has made a $164m profit, a big turnaround from its losses last year. Business editor Maria Slade analyses what it all means.What has Fletcher Building announced?The construction and building products company with operations on ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Australia will commit a frigate, an aircraft and some headquarters staff to an American-led freedom of navigation operation in the Middle East. Scott Morrison, announcing the long-expected commitment at a Canberra news conference on Wednesday, ...
The local sharemarket has taken an unexpected beating this morning driven by investor disappointment about the performance of the top stock - A2 Milk. ...
Sometimes, less is more. Even when it comes to Quentin Tarantino (Warning: Contains mild spoilers).Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is an impressive film. It’s got great acting, stunning visuals, and a twist ending, all laced with the sort of attention to detail you’d expect from the nuttiest of film ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Beeson, Professor of International Politics, University of Western Australia Populism and environmentalism are words seldom seen in the same sentence. One is associated predominantly with nationalists and charismatic leaders of “real people”, the other with broadly-based collective action to address the ...
Who makes up the royal ‘we’? Lana Lopesi reviews a massive show at ST PAUL St Gallery in Auckland that investigates questions of community, culture and conflict.How to Live Together at ST PAUL St Gallery could hardly have been better timed, opening just days before the protection of Ihumātao in ...
The first week of Celebrity Treasure Island had it all – mud, vomit and coconut brassieres. Alex Casey ranks the celebrity contestants vying to win $100,000 for their chosen charity. It’s 2019 and mostly everything is bad, so I am choosing to focus on the positives of Celebrity Treasure Island NZ. ...
The government is directing councils to loosen up their planning rules, allowing cities to grow both up and out, in a bid to solve the housing crisis. ...
Australia's big banks may have to make do with less money from their New Zealand operations, as Australia's banking regulator moves to improve their financial strength. ...
The anti-1080 lobby has made a martyr out of kea, but that ignores another salient fact: kea survival in large part depends on pest control. Dave Hansford explores on the challenge to balance pest control with conservation.In April this year, Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP) announced that two kea had died ...
Fletcher Building has posted a solid full year profit but continues to be dogged by a weak Australian housing market and underperformance in some of its businesses there. ...
Work obsessed drone Alex Braae assesses whether shutting himself up in a dark room will allow some semblance of normality on a day off.It is a sad fact of life that many of us spend alarmingly large chunks of it working. The relationship is like quicksand: as we spend more ...
Inspired by the ethos of food-rescue organisation Kaibosh, chef Kelda Hains looked to the past to champion unloved ingredients and showcase clever waste-minimising techniques at her All Taste, No Waste dinner during Visa Wellington On a Plate. Ever glanced at those supermarket bags of pre-cut broccoli florets and wondered what happens ...
Dr Bryce EdwardsCould the most interesting aspect of the current local government elections turn out to be generational change? At the moment, there is a surge of media and activist focus on younger candidates standing for office. It suddenly seems to be “cool” again to want to be a ...
Editor’s Note: Here below is a list of the main issues currently under discussion in New Zealand and links to media coverage.New Zealand Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand.Today’s content by Dr Bryce Edwards.Petrol prices Tom Pullar-Strecker (Stuff): Don’t be surprised if petrol study ends in a deal, ...
Jacinda Ardern’s election campaign was high on hope but this Government should remember that those who encourage what cannot be achieved are quickly found out. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Professor Tim Bentley, Director of Research, professor of Work and Organisation, Massey University According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the workplace can be a positive force for improving mental health. But many workers are exposed to work environments that are damaging ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Denis Muller, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Advancing Journalism, University of Melbourne Alan Jones’s political power is to a large extent based on a self-fulfilling prophecy: politicians believe he can shift votes, so they pay homage to him, which adds ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rosemary Stanton, Visiting Fellow, School of Medical Sciences, UNSW Research Checks interrogate newly published studies and how they’re reported in the media. The analysis is undertaken by one or more academics not involved with the study, and reviewed by another, to make ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Associate Professor Ralph Brougham Chapman, Director, Environmental Studies, Victoria University of Wellington CC BY-NDClimate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change.If you have a question you’d ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Salvatore Babones, Associate Professor, University of Sydney Australia’s leading universities are now looking to India in search of new sources of international students. This comes amid worries they may have reached a “China max” – no more room for growth in Chinese ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Couch, Senior Lecturer – Youth Work and International Development, Australian Catholic University One of the biggest challenges young people of refugee background face in their new country is finding safe, affordable and appropriate housing. Yet this is central to social inclusion ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christopher Sheil, Visiting Senior Fellow in History, UNSW The results of the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics biennial survey of income and wealth met have met with an uneven response, perhaps in part due to a slipshod press release. Released with the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Christina Lee, Senior Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Studies, Curtin University This story contains spoilers for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. While promoting Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at the Cannes Film Festival, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was asked why Margot ...
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: National cries foul over parliamentary costing unit idea, Ngawha Prison heavily criticised in report, and fuel market study confirms prices are high.The government have announced a recommendation to create an official, independent parliamentary costing unit, reports the NZ Herald.The aim is to ...
Phil Goff and John Tamihere are into round 10 of 23 debates planned before the mayoral election in October, and they're punching hard, not resting on the ropes or pulling eachother into dull political clinches. ...
So who is Jennie Wyllie, thrust into the spotlight in New Zealand netball’s darkest hour, and now holding the key to the cabinet storing the sport’s three greatest prizes? ...
The fundamental problem with silver bullets is they permit a ‘business as usual’ approach to farming when that is neither ecologically sustainable nor economically desirable. ...
Open mike 21/08/2016 
Open mike is your post.
That's the only way to describe the government's plans for a Parliamentary Budget Office to allow opposition parties to get an independent costing of their policies. When the idea was first floated back in 2016 as an office within Treasury, I thought that wasn't independent enough and argued that it ...6 hours ago
Television advertising has a huge impact on our lives. Even if we don’t recognise that, we know it has to be true, since otherwise why would advertisers spend so much on it? Its significance, however, is greater than simply the influence it has on what we purchase and consume. It ...12 hours ago
by Jan Rivers More than 30 years ago a Commission of Inquiry was held in New Zealand to investigate, amongst other things, whether women with cervical cancer were aware that they had been part of a research project and whether they were properly informed of the treatment options ...1 day ago
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Rod Oram – earth’s hopeful future
“It’s abundantly clear we have to embark on deep change so we can achieve the biggest goal humankind has ever attempted. It is not to save the planet. It will survive – even if we don’t. It will adapt as it has to previous geological eras. Over tens of millions of years vastly different life-forms and ecosystems will evolve, ones shaped by prevailing conditions.
Our goal has to be to save ourselves. To do so we must give this ecosystem that gives us life the best chance it has to recover, and to continue to support us.”
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/83327044/rod-oram-earths-hopeful-future
Great to see someone Oram’s position saying this.
(ecosystem recovery and assistance from humans in that IS saving the planet 😉 ).
Great. Anybody who accepts this(and I do ) must also accept that Capitalism, as we know it, will have to go. Capitalism is incompatible with saving the Planet.
CORRECT
Capitalism and consumerism as societal values and economic structures have to be defanged, declawed, and relegated to being nothing more than a minor feature of daily life.
FTFY
Well, I think there is still a place for some inter-community scale, family store scale capitalism, as well as local models of self financing, but we may differ on that point.
Capitalism is incompatible with Life.
na capitalism is just a man made tool , and like all tools if you have the right safegaurds it can be useful, it’s just that we have let the greedy use it for their purposes .
Capitalism and consumerism today is not just a “man made tool”.
It has been deliberately engineered to become the fundamental societal value system, driver for activity and international priority.
yes but with strong government it could be taken back and used just as a tool or system to get things done.
By this i mean something like.
The eu decides that all packaging will have to be biodegradable in ten years,
now some will winge , some will say it’s undoable , but some good little capitalist will see an opportunity and go to work trying to corner the market.
I don’t think you understand the life destroying nature of capitalism.
The way to reduce the problem of packaging and pollution is to reduce the amount of things people buy and use in the west by 80%.
Not make new types of packaging for the 2020s.
Two major things destroy this planet: 1/ far too many people 2/ every one of those wants what the neighbor has.
No matter what system you put in place – theoretically soviets Marxist system should have brought equal equilibrium for all but it didn’t – it is human nature that actually gets in the way. We are wired to destroy and not to build despite what some would like to belief. This is what we have to accept and learn to negotiate, our true nature. No one can say that they haven’t cotton on and by how far all is deteriorated, I would not hold my breath and unfortunately humanity will only learn when it gets a huge head clip to remind them that we are just a blip on the radar of the cosmos.
1) The richest 10% of people in the western world consume 60% of the world’s resources. This is not a question of “far too many people.” It is a question of the a few hundred million people in the rich west eating the rest of the world.
2) The only people who “wants what the neighbour has” are those who have learnt to greed, venality, jealousy and covetousness. I don’t want a yacht like my neighbour has and I don’t want a new HSV like my other neighbour has. You may think that that most people are basically venal, but perhaps that is simply only most people around your circles.
Your comments are always from the perspective that is angry and almost hateful. When you do that it becomes personal without having any grounds or indeed facts to support that. So I try to explain this differently:
1/ too many people – lets look at this globally. The greed (I want what my neighbor has) is destroying the forest and with that the reservoir for rain water exchange in the atmosphere. This in turn leads to droughts and the arable land that is available gets overused. If this continues the land we can use to feed us all will diminish even further and with that the means of sustaining the many people and growing population. Scientists have opened the Pandora’s box of gen modification and this will most likely increase the impasse in the future. We see the bees and pollinators dying already. Water: as we have seen in Hawks bay recently, water contamination will increase as aquifers are being contaminated because it is not enough to have a few cattle, it has to be more. The ground water is pumped and the lower the water table the more likely salination and contamination will occur.
2/ It is this “more” that will be humanity’s undoing.
Nature will be a great equalizer in that game of survival. This is not about money, this is about a finite world that cannot sustain an ever increasing population worldwide. I
If we wouldn’t be here, I doubt that any animal or plant would miss us. Some might be jubilant….
I agree with you Foreign Waka but what always does amuse me is – do the 10% honestly think once they have brought about complete planet collapse, that they will be able to start afresh from their bunkers or what ever and have the capacity to start again. That they cannot see that it will be their undoing as well, is just is too ridiculous for words but they are quite prepared to go over the cliff with the rest of us just for the sake of more consuming and greed. It’s like they are happy to take on a death wish for it all to occur.
I suppose in their utter selfishness they just think “well our generation will all be dead so what the hell”. Don’t they have grandchildren to have a thought for their futures and the carnage as society breaks down, that they will face.
The people who do care in this world are hopelessly powerless against the filthy rich of this world who can buy and control countries at will.
Good capitalism is an oxymoron – the model is exploitive, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but always with some, therefore it is no good. Assuming you don’t like exploitation that is.
+1
Capitalism is neither good nor bad .we need a system to get things done , and capitalism gets things done, it just needs balancing with strong government a watchful eye and a good bit of socialism .
No sorry mate that is incorrect imo
“Capitalism is neither good nor bad .we need a system to get things done , and capitalism gets things done, it just needs balancing with strong government a watchful eye and a good bit of socialism .”
Or shorter: Democratic Socialism. I’m a big fan of the Nordic Model.
I am nonetheless amused at CV’s opining on Capitalism while being a Trump supporter. Cognative dissonance is strong with him (or her)
Yeah I like the various scandinavian models. There’s a lot we can learn in everything from criminal justice to post-natal care.
And it’s no coincidence that the Nordic countries appear at the top of all metrics relating to happiness, health and equality.
where we used to be before the 1970s.
aah I’ve wondered what my political label would be , it would appear that at this stage i am a democratic socialist. Which nz party fits the bill most do you think?
Will label improve you as a human being?
Attachement to politics or labels is not something to aspire to
I wont be getting a t shirt printed any time soon .
Well, NZ Labour espouses the values of democratic socialism, according to its constitution.
Guffffaw
I wondered recently if I was right enough in perceiving a certain leakage in the levees that shore up ‘business as usual’. The first inkling came from the Guardian in a piece that not only directly quoted eminent scientists in the field expressing fairly deep misgivings about our present position and direction, but questioned this whole notion of removing carbon from the atmosphere. Previously that’s just been taken as a read by the likes of the Guardian.
And I do like that Rod characterises the need for radical action as an “adventure”…
I shared a meal with Rod Oram 2 years ago and we talked about the very thing he wrote about today. Great oaks, little acorns, etc 🙂
Heh, nice one Robert.
I was at a workshop at which Rod facilitated the discussion around action on Climate Change yesterday. Rod has been active in this area for some years now. I am not surprised with his comments. He certainly understands that the economy is a subset of the environment not the other way round.
Good activity
http://inhabitat.com/guerrilla-grafters-secretly-graft-fruit-bearing-branches-onto-san-francisco-trees/?newinfinitescroll=false
Pathetic ! On Q+A Corin Dan giving Parata the sweetest platform, like a paid ‘pretend’ interviewer. It’s disgraceful really. He just sits there watching Parata go all ‘aspirational’. FFS !
I have always refused to watch “A Political Party Broadcast on behalf of the National Party” called Q&A
Halfcrown i used too watch Q+A when it first started and even though the late Paul Holmes was the host and always could be relied upon too give the left a good kick i stuck with it because there was no other in depth political coverage at the time.
As the media has moved away from unbiased coverage in favour of the right wing perspective Q+ A has regrettably gone the same way.
Corrin Dann indulges anyone from the government side but watch him change into a nasty scowling arrogant monster when its anyone from the left, its real hatred and i dont know why anyone from the left of politics would want to appear to be treated this way and its the viewer who wants too be informed that misses out because Dann wont allow the victim too talk and get their point across basicly its just bloody bullying.
It just angers up the blood so i dont watch any of them and have pleasant no stress Sunday as god intended.
Campbell had Key worked and looked what happened to him.
Corin Dann knows what happens to independent media people.
Paula Penfold.
John Campbell.
Jon Stephenson.
Nicky Hager.
When extremists like red delusion and ‘man in the middle’ ( never knew Genghis Khan , Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini were men in the middle) rant on about Venezuela and North Korea, maybe they should look at the state of our own media.
Here are some starters for them.
Holding power to account? Or playing along for fun?http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201811741
Is the weakening of our news media fuelling a democratic deficit? If so, what should the media do? Kicking against complacency
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=201811741
John Oliver’s show on Journalism could easily refer to NZ media as well.
And listen to Bomber in his show from Friday.
His final word at 26:10
Also from America and the parallels here are so striking.
Shadows of Liberty.
Open the curtains it’s a lovely day outside Paul, stop wallowing in negativity on your PC, we all have google search thus your cut and pastes while admirable from a quantitative perspective and effort is not really required
& meanwhile we have one of the highest suicide rates for children under 12, go figure huh?
+ 1 Yep he’s got the delusion bit correct.
it’s lovely for the nat supporting 30% but for the rest of us the social fabric is rotten and falling apart
45% last poll.
if you’re happy to ignore the vast underclass of non voters that the “brighter future” has created
How did polling work out in relation to actual votes from registered voters?
Non voters who do not support Labour or Greens either.
Complacent Nation.
Epitomised by the Herald.
Today’s top 10 online headings……………
Live updates of the penultimate day of the Rio Olympics.
‘Just Bledi Awful’ – Aussie’s reaction
Girl who killed her own family set free (Canadian crime story)
‘Righto, we need to take this to the police’ (the Herald appears more concerned about the All Blacks being spied on than the whole country)
KFC’s secret recipe uncovered
All Blacks v Australia: Player ratings
Revealed: The best and worst airline food
Cold case mystery: Is he still alive? (Australian crime story)
Who is the lucky punter who won $13.3m?
Could Hamblin win rare Olympic medal?
The poisoning of 4000 New Zealand citizens?
Not as important.
By the way A great win by ab last night, more meritorious they can achieve such high standards living in such a neo liberal hell hole
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Au contraire Redelusion. The All Blacks do well because of this neolib hellhole. Sport is over emphasised , overglorified and overpaid.
Neoliberalism and sport.
More wins for the All Blacks and less money and support for the grassroots.
More medals at Olympics and less participation in sport.
Olympic swimmers. Closing school polls.
http://snpa.photoshelter.com/gallery-image/CARTOONS-by-Jim-Hubbard/G0000MGcw3HsyXeA/I0000uX0HbRxXL50
Shhhhhhh mate is their any joy in your life , suggestion stop bringing every thing back to partisan politics Just enjoy something for enjoyment sake, as the say accentuate the positive it could be life changing for you
Of course you have not read or listened to one of the articles I have posted.
Yet you feel qualified to comment.
look the sun is really beaming out of FJK’s arse today.
Simply questioning the paradise that is Planet Key attracts a lot of flak from rd and other trolls.
Sport is over emphasised , overglorified and overpaid.
In the days when everyone was a sportsmen
Back then, worn out tennis balls would mysteriously appear in the gutters of our street. Finding one of these little beauties could mean only one thing: it was time for a street cricket match.
Kids’ names were called out and pretty soon you had enough players to start a game. While the batsmen, bowlers and the wicketkeeper were definitely human, most of the fieldsmen were drawn from the vast throng of free-range neighbourhood dogs.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/this-cricketing-life/news-story/4630e4486fa52366f349481e00980639
The art of a great yarn is still very australian.
Your posts should be accompanied by violins Paul
Don’t you care about the decline of democracy in this country?
Or is Venezuela’s democracy your only concern?
What’s with Venezuela this morning that has you so agitated ?
‘man in the middle’ gets his name because of where his nose is, in relation to John Keys cheeks.
“Corin Dann knows what happens to independent media people.
Paula Penfold.
John Campbell.
Jon Stephenson.
Nicky Hager”
Independent media people, John Cambell and Nicky Hager, for fucks sake Paul
you really are delusional. You win most stupid comment of the week.
zzzzzz
That’s great, Marty. If anyone wants to learn how to graft, I’ll teach you 🙂
How long does it take for a new graft on an established tree to fruit? For an Apple tree? Pears? Plums? Cherry? (I’m guessing plums and cherries are sooner).
Cool link marty.
A graft “takes” quickly, days or weeks, depending on the type of graft. I do a simple cleft graft that binds more slowly, as it’s done at the end of winter and moves with the rise of the sap. Bud grafts are done when things are cranking, and take a shorter time. In any case, grafting fruit-bearing scions onto decorative trees is fun and funny.
How long until it fruits?
2 years…depends a little on circumstance, but, 2 years. Pears though, are difficult to do. I wouldn’t bother.
ta!
Fifty years ago the Gurindji people walked off Lord Vesty’s Northern Territory Wave Hill station.
.
Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers should be aware that this article contains images, voices and names of deceased people.
Fifty years ago, the Gurindji people of the Northern Territory made their name across Australia with the 1966 Wave Hill Walk-Off.
It was a landmark event that inspired national change: equal wages for Aboriginal workers, as well as a new Land Rights Act.
Although it took another two decades, the Gurindji also became one of the first Aboriginal groups to reclaim their traditional lands.
Many people know a small part of the walk-off story because of the song From Little Things, Big Things Grow about 200 stockmen, house servants and their families who walked off Wave Hill Station on 23 August 1966, in protest at appalling pay and living conditions.
But what is not widely known is that the walk-off followed more than 80 years of massacres and killings, stolen children and other abuses by early colonists.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-19/the-untold-story-being-the-1966-wave-hill-walk-off/7764524
[audio src="http://indigenousrights.net.au/__data/assets/mp3_file/0018/413550/f56.mp3" /]
Vincent Lingiari introduces the recording in his language, which he then translates into English.
My name is Vincent Lingiari, came from Daruragu, Wattie Creek station.
That means that I came down here to ask all these fella here about the land rights. What I got story from my old father or grandfather that land belongs to me, belongs to Aboriginal men before the horses and the cattle come over on that land where I am sitting now. That is what I have been keeping on my mind and I still got it on my mind. That is all the words I can tell you.
Ted Egan
Thanks Joe 90. Makes ya weep.
Regretfully Joe – it isn’t much better even today. The billions of dollars that are “invested” in the indigenous people of Australia mainly ends up in State administration and people getting rich at the expense of those who really need it. The land on which aboriginal communities live is State owned – not the peoples – as are the houses and all the facilities. The first aborigine ,albert namatjirato be granted Australian citizenship was in 1957.
Read a beautiful book about Aboriginal culture recently… really moving
John Minto (The Keep Our Assets Canterbury Mayoral candidate) outlined his six key policies at a campaign launch on Saturday.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/83384157/john-minto-says-he-will-fight-widespread-homelessness-in-chch-if-he-becomes-mayor
On the mayoral front, Christchurch has three candidates. How will Minto fare?
Thoughts?
Poorly
Your posts should be accompanied by barrel organ music, Reddelusion.
Maybe the Lego song “everything is awesome“
The latter please 😀
Minto is giving voters of Christchurch the opportunity to keep their assets.
It will be interesting to see if the people of Christchurch will support him.
Policies are not the only basis upon which voters cast their votes.
Overall credibility, able to bring along a team, general fiscal prudence, impact on rates, capability of the incumbent all bear upon the voters choice.
Lianne will get back in easily.
Fiscal prudence like a great big fuck off convention centre and rugby stadium? Or fiscal prudence involving buying up tracts of prime central city land in order to prop up land prices artificially for the governments mates? Or the environmentally prudent moves by ECan to allow shitty farmers to steal all the good water?
Democracy has failed in Canterbury, destroyed by the disaster capitalists and abetted by that waste of space Brownlee
Indeed Wayne, policies are not the only basis upon which voters cast their votes.
However, you seem to be implying Minto lacks fiscal prudence and a number of other traits required.
Minto has far more credibility than the current ex Labour incumbent that seems to support the corporate agenda status quo.
This local election is going to be a battle between an alternative left-fielder and the corporate status quo.
Minto winning will be akin to Peters taking Northland. And we all know the right didn’t think he had a show.
It will be an interesting one to watch. Do Christchurch voters have an similar appetite for change – or will they cement in the corporate status quo?
You don’t need to wait, they won’t
Pity he is not in Auckland – at least then I would have someone to vote for.
+1
Second. He’s unlikely to beat Lianne Dalziel, and the other candidate is a joke candidate.
If Minto fails to win but still performs well (making it a close race) it will send a shiver up the spine of the establishment. As it will indicate the tide is turning.
The best news source in the UK.
Just watched that interview, it is excellent, thanks for highlighting this Paul.
And thanks to you for all the interesting sources you provide!
About that photo.
MSM using pro-al Nusra “media center” as source for war-propaganda
https://off-guardian.org/2016/08/18/media-using-pro-al-nusra-media-center-as-source-for-war-propaganda/
Yeah well, what’s that quote (from some US official?) on how friends are chosen by dint of what it is that is wanting to be achieved, and not on grounds of how good or bad, or right or wrong they may be?
I’ve no doubt ‘The Guardian’ and others will do a huge mea-culpa over their ‘Boy in an Ambulance’ story and earnestly seek to redress any “rush to war” sentiments that their coverage may have produced.
No doubt. No doubt at all. Oh look!
Flying pig!
In addition to Paul’s link, here’s another one with a bit more contextual depth.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/08/the-wounded-boy-in-orange-seat-another-staged-white-helmets-stunt.html#more
And the full 2 min video that the piece I’ve linked to references.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/08/17/the-stunned-bloodied-face-of-a-child-survivor-sums-up-the-horror-of-aleppo/?tid=pm_world_pop_b
Davies highlights case of mentally ill man
Labour MP Kelvin Davies has gone public about his role in helping a mentally ill man and argues it shows a need for better services.
“I stopped a guy from killing himself last night,” Mr Davies posted on his Facebook page.
He says the man, whom he knows, texted him from Dunedin to say “he’s had enough. He’s going to end it”.
Mr Davies said he stopped on the side of the road and talked to the man for an hour.
After a stand-off and confrontation police took the man to accident and emergency services where he got medical treatment for the harm he did to himself.
But there was no treatment for “his actual problem”, and he was given a taxi chit to get home where he had no power, heat or food.
He says the man is a hard worker and he has complex issues.
Mental health services “must do their job regardless” of how complex needs are.
<a href="https://nz.news.yahoo.com/top-stories/a/32395190/davies-highlights-case-of-mentally-ill-man/#page1
That yahoo article containts mistakes (Davis not Davies for a start).
Having a look at Davis’ FB page, good on him and Curran for making something happen. However he does have a bit of a hero complex and seems largely ignorant (or willfully ignorant) of why our mental health services are the way they are.
There are bloody good reasons for why the state can’t just section people willy nilly, and many of those reasons are because of serious abuses of power in the past. The big push towards community mental health in recent decades, supported by Labour, was meant to establish broader support so that it wouldn’t just be left to the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff services. Massive fail on that, and a classic example of neoliberal co-option of good ideas and well intentioned people.
Davis can bang his fist on the table over this all he likes, but until there is a govt that addresses poverty, and then works for the wellbeing of all people, then what he will get is tinkering around the edges.
Besides all that, the Southern DHB is in a mess and as a politician he should be addressing that. Blaming emergncy psych services for things that are often outside their control is not helping. Those psych services were failing under the last Labour govt too. If he is serious about this issue he needs to step up with some solid policy on what will make a difference. Making out that staff should break the law, esp where that law is designed to protect people, is just not on.
There’s a lot about caring for someone who’s unwell that isn’t as you’d expect, coming from normal society, and without wider family experience. The first few times you expect the process to more objective, like a broken arm. But it’s not, it’s this amazing, complex interaction of patient and clinician, fear rebellion and trust, liberty privacy and control, and someone who is tearing to pieces but can think everything is fine.
I’ve had to be part of catching my partner at the bottom of the cliff about every six years and am slowly learning more and more each time. I wish I knew what I know now 20 yeas ago, and I’ll learn a lot more yet. But Kelvin sounds like I did 15 years ago. We expect the process to work in a concise and determined way. It doesn’t, but it can and does work, in a patient centred way.
I hope that Kelvin will learn on from this experience to understand the process and journey that an unwell person follows to live within their world.
Thoughtful comment Graeme. I think it’s one of the downsides of the push to see mental illness as the same as physical disease. People end up thinking it should be that straightforward.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/16/secret-history-trumpism-donald-trump
Covers quite a bit of ground, but a few main points:
Trumpism has a deep-rooted appeal in a disenfranchised blue collar right excluded by a managerial technocratic ruling class post WWII (a class championed as the face of new conservatism by William F Buckley).
What it shares with the left, and makes it attractive to some nominal or former leftists is its opposition to neoliberalism and managerialism.
However, any pretence that the racism and something involving brown shirts and silly walks or a tendency to wear bedsheets and set crosses on fire is merely incidental or an embarrassing fringe is naive at best. Reactionary racial and sexual supremacism is intrinsic to the movement and many of the founding figures and current inciters are unashamed racist nationalists. An endorsement of Trump from the leader of the American N*** Party should be no surprise.
Mention is given to the publicity-hungry trolls of the “alt-right” such as Milo Yiannopoulos, who have seized on it as a stage to act out their own narcissism.
Makes an interesting parallel with this, examining the decline of liberal democracy:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/08/the_week_democracy_died_how_brexit_nice_turkey_and_trump_are_all_connected.html
A left wing journo was invited to Milo Yiannopoulos and the Republican shitshow… what she saw should scare anyone with functioning nervous system.
View at Medium.com
The Democratic Party could have easily avoided all of this by picking Bernie Sanders.
Instead they picked the weaker candidate, Clinton, who always polled much more weakly against Donald Trump.
So the US elite will reap the results of what they have sown.
While you may see Trump as a stick with which to beat the elites, that stick will beat the rest of the people too, particularly those with darker skins. That’s particularly callous schadenfreude.
Firstly, I think that under either Trump or Clinton, the multi-decades long income stagnation and collapse of the US middle class will continue.
Secondly, my point stands: if the Democratic Party wanted the stronger anti-Trump candidate, one who was polling far more strongly against Trump and carried far less questionable political baggage, they could have chosen him.
They didn’t.
Yes I’m afraid so. Bernie and Corbyn are actually the reasonable face of a wider movement, shoving them aside will not solve anything, it will just further delay the needed reforms that WILL occur one way or another.
The Republicans could have avoided this insanity as well, instead of sucking up to the Tea Party idiots and hamming it up for fox news. It’s a party on life support, i wonder if their Wall St backers are sick of them too.
Indeed. The Democrats said of the working class that “they have nowhere else to go” and the Republicans saw them as useful shock troops in the form of the Tea Party but never imagined that they’d get up on their hind legs.
If I were voting in the American election, I’d want to vote for a unicorn, not choosing Nixon over Mussolini. We can be grateful for MMP at least allowing alternative voices in government rather than the duopoly that results from FPP.
Analysis of polling by Nate Silver’s organisation, continually updated with useful explanations of its implications for the electoral college etc.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
Scott Adams has a far better grip on what is actually going on vis a vis Trump/Clinton than Nate Silver does.
Admittedly he described my former workplace very accurately in Dilbert…
Is this some joke that went over my head or is there a Scott Adams who is a statistician with extensive access to data and algorithms to process it and not a satirical cartoonist?
Well, Adams isn’t a statistician or pollster, you are correct in that.
But I think his rationale that a lot of people are refusing to interpersonally admit their support for Trump is worthy of note.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChKFeh8WMAIbMte.jpg
And his support for this assertion is…? Looking at his blog post on the subject, not much.
Carl Sagan’s “Baloney Detection Kit” from The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark :
1. Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the “facts.”
Anecdotes and claims about having to say that he supported Clinton for his own physical safety(!). No facts given, merely anecdote and gut instinct.
2. Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view.
No evidence, hence no debate.
3. Arguments from authority carry little weight — “authorities” have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.
Not an expert.
4. Spin more than one hypothesis. If there’s something to be explained, think of all the different ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might systematically disprove each of the alternatives. What survives, the hypothesis that resists disproof in this Darwinian selection among “multiple working hypotheses,” has a much better chance of being the right answer than if you had simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy.
Vague gestures in this direction, nothing substantive, resorts to gut instinct.
5. Try not to get overly attached to a hypothesis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way station in the pursuit of knowledge. Ask yourself why you like the idea. Compare it fairly with the alternatives. See if you can find reasons for rejecting it. If you don’t, others will.
Hoooo boy!
6. Quantify. If whatever it is you’re explaining has some measure, some numerical quantity attached to it, you’ll be much better able to discriminate among competing hypotheses. What is vague and qualitative is open to many explanations. Of course there are truths to be sought in the many qualitative issues we are obliged to confront, but finding them is more challenging.
NOPE.
7. If there’s a chain of argument, every link in the chain must work (including the premise) — not just most of them.
Nope. Gut instinct again.
8. Occam’s Razor. This convenient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypotheses that explain the data equally well to choose the simpler.
Hypothesis has no evidence, supposes unexplained forces at work to an unknown degree.
9. Always ask whether the hypothesis can be, at least in principle, falsified. Propositions that are untestable, unfalsifiable are not worth much. Consider the grand idea that our Universe and everything in it is just an elementary particle — an electron, say — in a much bigger Cosmos. But if we can never acquire information from outside our Universe, is not the idea incapable of disproof? You must be able to check assertions out. Inveterate skeptics must be given the chance to follow your reasoning, to duplicate your experiments and see if they get the same result.
Too vague to be falsifiable, contains a bit of handwaving in the manner of “I could be wrong, but…”
So, I’ll have mine on rye with mustard.
Where’s the evidence that any of Sagan’s assertions and heuristics are relevant to and valid for predicting election results?
OK that’s just me being smartarse but Nate Silver’s organisation and algorithms also gave Trump a near zero percent chance of being where he is now.
NS was not even wrong on Trump.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cn5OAX4WgAQb5S7.jpg:large
He does not understand stochastic probability.
Sagan is simply summarising the universal scientific method. That’s how science works. It makes predictions based on the best available data at the time.
Naturally as time passes through the campaign, new events will happen, new data will be acquired. You ignore the fact that Silver is analysing polls, not measuring an invariable predetermined event. Clearly a campaign is not a static object but a process. In the early stages of the data gathering process, it is to be expected that wild results will be produced.
At this point the reasonable assumption based on quantified data and reasonable analysis and extrapolation is that Trump will still lose. There is a possibility that Trump may win, and it’s greater than the chance that a unicorn will win. However, I still think that Silver’s polling is far superior to Adam’s entrails and a Trump win is therefore very unlikely.
Thanks Poisson.
Rhinocrates, I ask you again, where is the evidence that using the “universal scientific method” to predict the outcome of US Presidential elections is statistically superior than any other method?
How is it that Nate Silver’s organisation can assign 6:1 odds in favour of Clinton and have that taken seriously, when he has been outright wrong about Trump relatively recently.
IMO it’s going to be an easy Trump win come November. I can accept that you believe that opinion flies in the face of all the objective scientific evidence.
Good read though tough – shows what is really happening and it is scarey. Trump and his minions a true horror story.
How the world sees Trump –
Ireland
Bulgaria
Canada
Austria
Australia
Scotland
UAE
I tell you what though they just played a bit of a his last couple of his speech’s on prime news , now if i was someone who paid little attention to politics what he was saying would of grabbed my attention.
And all clinton did was tweet a sulky tweet inresponse.
The Labour Mayor of London tells Corbyn to leave.
Even though Corbyn will win against Owens.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/20/ditch-jeremy-corbyn-before-too-late-sadiq-khan-tells-labour
Khan is putting his mark in as Corbyn’s successor.
Once the inevitable purge and split occurs, of course.
What a little shit head Khan is.
Apparently Corbyn makes Labour so unelectable that Khan went on to win the Mayoralty. Oh wait.
Another Labour 1%’er shit head.
Brighter future.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11698404
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/21/death-of-neoliberalism-crisis-in-western-politics
brilliant stuff
“…Fukuyama writes in a recent excellent essay in Foreign Affairs: “‘Populism’ is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don’t like.” Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both.”
yes, he’s no slouch…nailed it.
“The re-emergence of class should not be confused with the labour movement. They are not synonymous: this is obvious in the US and increasingly the case in the UK. Indeed, over the last half-century, there has been a growing separation between the two in Britain. The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement.”
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/destiny-church-co-founder-splashes-150k-mercedes-her-second-2016
‘Imelda’ Tamaki…….a disgustingly malodorous nugget of over-coiffed shit.
“If we cannot halt the emissions of carbon dioxide, what can we do?
In the end, the only hope we have is to find a way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere once it has got there. Even the IPCC has admitted that we will have to find a way to extract carbon dioxide from the air. The trouble is that they don’t just how we can do that. The most favoured scheme is known as BECCS: bio-energy with carbon capture and storage. Essentially, you plant trees and bushes over vast swaths of ground. These grow, absorbing carbon dioxide in the process. Then you burn the wood to run power plants while trapping, liquefying and storing the carbon dioxide that is released.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/21/arctic-will-be-ice-free-in-summer-next-year
We can halt emissions. And even if we did have CCS tech we’d still need to do that. What part of finite planet do people not get?
the part where they have to change their lifestyle.
Ok, so people don’t want to change their lifestyles and this makes them think they can defy physics? Some people sure, but I think mostly it’s more a process of desperation. My reply was to point out that there are better thing to do with that desperation than go to fantasty land.
Im more inclined to think its a case of not wishing to think about it or being more focused on perceived more pressing needs…..that can be considered fantasyland (or denial) but it is a prevalent state.
There’s a few other possibilities. For just one instance, currently concrete is a major climate nasty mostly due to fossil fuels burned for process heat and the CO2 released by chemical reactions in cement production, However, concrete also absorbs CO2 back out of the atmosphere as it cures.
Simply changing the process heat source to renewable electricity plus capture and storage of the CO2 released during calcination would turn conventional concrete into a small net carbon sink rather than a large emitter.
But there’s also processes that create unconventional cements suitable for concrete that absorb CO2 during manufacture, rather than releasing it. Which would be even better.
http://arizonaenergy.org/News_10/News_Feb10/Calera%20and%20Novacem%20use%20concrete%20to%20capture%20CO2.htm
Sorry, that was intended to be a reply to Pat at 17.
there appear to be many proposals for carbon capture, however as far as I can see those investigating the options all seem to come to same conclusion that what is currently feasible (even potentially) lack the capacity to remove the volumes required….that may not be so into the future but there is also a time constraint factor…no point in having a process in 50 -100 years time if we’re already extinct.
Personally I reckon human extinction in 50 to 100 years is very unlikely. Either massive nuclear war, or the oceans turning anoxic (apparently has happened before so non-zero probability). I reckon the sight of billions dying in the tropics will scare the rest of the planet to take enough action that there will still be habitable refuge areas in high latitudes.
if billions are dying in the tropics (or anywhere) I would suggest it will be past the point of no return…..as to anoxic oceans we may be well on the way already….when the food chain collapses the resulting extinction events will be rapid so 50 -100 years may seem hyperbolic but not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility.