Labour list MP Maryan Street has added her End of Life Choice Bill to the ballot. This tries to address controversial euthanasia issues.
I have, after 6 months’ work, finished my End of Life Choice Bill. You can find it here.
I think the social conversation has moved on from the last time such a bill was debated in 2003 and lost 60-58. The two missing votes at that time were one abstention and one voted not lodged. So that was close.
I hope I have enough specificity and enough safeguards in place for people to support it this time. I am sure it can be improved.
I am equally sure that is time that we approached this issue with compassion and gave people the right to be as self-determining at their point of death as they have been in life. It would only apply to people who were of sound mind and suffered from a terminal illness, or an irreversible condition which made their life unbearable, in their own view.
It also provides for people to register End of Life Directives in the event that these situations occur and they are unable to communicate their wishes to receive life-ending medication.
Other features include:
– the need for two medical practitioners to attest that the person is of sound mind, has the condition they say they have and have not been coerced into their decision;
– the need for counselling and a period of reflection;
– and a Review Body to examine the law after a period of time to ensure it is not being abused and is operating correctly.
It would only apply to people who were of sound mind and suffered from a terminal illness, or an irreversible condition which made their life unbearable, in their own view.
Once again when considering euthanasia legals we have the know-all approach, the controller, the do it my way, about choice of death. If I get old and tired and pissed off enough and would like to go through the process of preparation and certification so I can go when I want to, that should be my right, without some supercilious jerk telling me that I’m not sick enough.
John Key’s poor understanding of our language is an absolute indication that he is poorly read. He is not a deep man. He has little understanding of wider society. He is just a shallow dipstick with a forked tongue.
the ‘prime ministers hour’ is coming up again on radio live, starting to advertise it. the last one was very enlightening. his shallowness & blankness came out loud & clear. that day i put the radio on & heard a very serious news reporters voice saying our credit rating had been downgraded, then i hear john keys bubbly air headed radio dj blather, it was quite surreal. all that ‘how are the hobbit movies doing sir peter my freind?’, the strange way he says ‘sir’, so bad its good (but not really good, still very bad) kinda entertainment.
John Key and Paula Bennett (both)
“There are children which …”
“There’s lots of …”
John Key
“Anythink”
SIGH! 😀
I am keeping a wee note of what my late brother called ‘blutions’ on Radio NZ in particular, and some TV ones, and ‘there’s lots of’ crops up a lot!
Nucular is another one and one guy on TV3 keeps referring to the ‘Tullybin’ instead of saying Taliban…
I think the right wing and business part of NZ politics has really lost it… some examples just this morning;
1. The newly formed Heartland Bank is offering loans to its execs to buy the bank’s shares, apparently as an incentive. This is what Lachie McLeod at South Canterbury Finance got and look what it made him do – all sorts of terrible lending and carry on, ultimately hastening its demise. That Heartland has to offer such is an admission that the business model is flawed. Also, beware, Heartland is tied up with all them blu-nosed Cantabs off the last four ships such as George Kerr and they tend to make mincemeat of these things.
2. Gerry Browlee has been swiped by the High Court over his land zoning decision-making process in Christchurch. Following Skycity casino being reviewed, and the Akaroa marine reserve decision being tossed out, and others, it shows this government are cowboys with a completely cavalier attitude.
3. The welfare handouts to firstly teh NZX, a private business, in the sale of state assets to bolster the NZX’s performance is nothing short of a ripoff. I have a business that is struggling, can I please have a government handout too?
4. The looters bonus share scheme in the sale of assets is also an admission that the business model around the floats is flawed and incapable of success without the taxpayer subsidising it.
Seriously, this lot are incompetent. It feels like a last gasp for the right wing, a final grab of air before silently slipping beneath the waves for good. Not a single one of their major activities at the moment is worthy. They are not up to scratch. They are wheelers, dealers and wide boys with not a skeric of deeper understanding of the communities they live in. Fail.
You’ll probably find that those Heartland Bank loans to its execs don’t have to be repaid. In other words, it’s most likely an under the table bonus that doesn’t have to pay tax on and is also in line for untaxed capital gains.
Earthquake Recovery Minister Gerry Brownlee did not act lawfully when he used his wide ranging powers under the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act in a land zoning decision last year the High Court has found.
In a ruling released this afternoon the High Court’s Justice Lester Chisholm granted the application for a judicial review of Mr Brownlee’s decision in October last year in which he fast tracked a Christchurch land rezoning decision.
Justice Chisholm overturned Mr Brownlee’s decisions which ruled out housing development on land near Christchurch Airport owned by Independent Fisheries, supermarket operator Progressive Enterprises and other property developers.
Mr Brownlee’s decision also allowed development of land elsewhere and had the effect of terminating a number of appeals to the Environment Court.
I wonder when that higher standard of accountability thing that Key talked about is going to appear?
Ok, that goes back to cancer society, and that goes back to a CS factsheet, which references this. That gives attrib vs nonattrib rates for mortality. If you want to find out how they identified attributable deaths without hard data on pop smoking rates, it seems that they used this method. I.e. usung a function of lung cancer mortality as a proxy for smoking rates, given that the relationship between smoking and lung cancer is well travelled. Sometimes you have to put together workarounds to compare international apples with apples.
Have a read of them, in particular the age breakdowns.
In effect your accusing Smokefree New Zealand and a number of other organizations using the ”25% of all cancer deaths are caused by smoking” of spreading misinformation???…
No.
I was pointing out how you could go back to the original research and see how those percentage cuts are possible.
To make it simple, let’s use an hypothetical population of 100 (i.e. the raw number = the total population rate %) in a 1 year snapshot:
100 people.
40 cancers.
20 smokers.
80 non-smokers.
30 cancers in non-smokers.
10 cancers in smokers.
Total cancer incidence: 40%.
Non-smoker cancer incidence: 37.5% (30/80*100)
smoker cancer incidence: 50% (10/20*100) % of cancers in non-smokers: 75% % of cancers in smokers: 25%
And we can actually calculate the number of cancers attributable to smoking in this population (although HS might want to check my math if they can be bothered – I tend to put things in the wrong order when doing it manually ❓ ): smokingCancers-(smokingpop * nonsmokingIncidenceRate) = attributable cases. 10 – (20*0.375) = ac 10 – 7.5 = 2.5
So in that population of 100, each year on average 2.5 cancer deaths are attributable to smoking.
The actual numbers, if you go back to source, are the same ratios, just much bigger numbers.
Not smoking causes 75% of cancer deaths in any given year,
Smoking causes 25% of cancer deaths in any given year,
The percentage of the NZ population who do and do not smoke is 19.9% who do and the rest don’t,
So, as far as DYING from cancer goes theres just as much chance, or more,of snuffing it with cancer whether or not you have ever smoked,
The difference being, and i havn’t had my nose in the figures for this yet, is the age at which one cohort snuffs it as opposed to the non-smoking cohort right???…
So, as far as DYING from cancer goes theres just as much chance, or more,of snuffing it with cancer whether or not you have ever smoked,
No. Read it again:
Non-smoker cancer incidence: 37.5% smoker cancer incidence: 50%
By those ratios, you are 1/3 more likely to die of cancer if you smoke, than if you don’t.
50-37.5 = 12.5, 12.5 = 1/3 of 37.5, therefore smoking = 1.33*nonsmoking.
This is nowhere near “as much chance if not more”. It’s “smoking seriously increase the chance you will die of cancer”.
Your mathematical gymnastics amuse me Mc, if 25% of the cancer deaths in any given year in New Zealand are caused by smoking then 75% of the cancer deaths in any given year are caused by people who do not smoke,
Sorry you cannot grapple with that little fact, perhaps you have been educated into being unable to grasp the simple fact,
It takes no complicated mathematics, either the ‘Smoke-free’ 25% of cancer deaths a year is wrong or my outlandish assertion that ‘not smoking’ causes 75% of the yearly deaths from cancer is right…
if 25% of the cancer deaths in any given year in New Zealand are caused by smoking then 75% of the cancer deaths in any given year are caused by people who do not smoke,
Wow. That piece of stupidity actually did help me see a problem in my math. I confused incidence with attrubutable number (i.e. “caused by”). 75% occur in nonsmokers. It’s not “caused by not smoking”. I.e. if you start smoking you’re at risk of those cancer plus the tobacco cancers.
pop: 100
Smoking: 20
Nonsmoking: 80
Cancer: 40
Smoking attributable cancer: 10.
nonsmoking cancer + cancers in smokers that weren’t attributable: 30.
Nonsmoking cancer rate: 30%
# Smokers with non-attributable cancer: 30% of 20 = 6.
# nonsmokers with NAC: 30% of 80 = 24.
NAC = 6+24 = 30
AC = 10.
Cancer number in smokers = smokers’ NAC + AC = 6+10 = 16.
Smoker’s cancer rate = 16/20*100
Fuck I hate doing it manually. But at least it doesn’t involve confidence intervals or p-values 🙂
Rosy, yeah i can,at 75% of the deaths from cancer each year that are not linked to tobacco you would have to say fresh air figures way above the 25% attributed to tobacco use…
Mc, good one,more mathematical gymnastics, BUT,as you figured it that way,(to suit how or what your thinking), then surely you can see that from the other,
IF 75% of cancer deaths have no link to tobacco use then it is obvious that even if they DID NOT use tobacco products 75% of those 25% of tobacco cancers would in fact get and die of cancer,
Do some rithmatic and tell us the answer to that one…
I guess you might have a point Bad12, seeing as cancer rates increase with age, so the longer you breathe….
Still that’s a pretty fatalistic attitude (pardon the pun) given the health experts know there are risk factors for particular cancers e.g. smoking and lung cancer, alcohol and breast cancer, cured meats and stomach cancer and so on.
Mc, i got that a little wrong,it should read that if the 25% of smokers didnt, their number would still be decimated by cancer deaths as the same rate as the % of the population that now die of non-smoking related cancer,
So,25% of cancer deaths a year down to just tobacco use, nah not even…
What’s your point? Everyone will eventually die? Agreed.
The issue is whether people drop dead of cancer or heart disease at 40 or 50, or heart disease or azheiners at 80 or 90. At the moment we have more of the former thqan the latter.
Thanks rosy i will take that point,as i need a few Mc keeps beating up on my brain wiff His rithmatic,
Gee i see that kids author, Margret Mahy, cancer got Her,i threw this one into the debate the other week,the biggest cause of death for us all is living, tick tock and one day the battery stops,
The problem with having such closed minds surrounding the supposedly iron clad statistics around cancers is that things might just get missed, fifty year old studies there might be, but, they didn’t have the study of genes back then,
As i pointed out in the debate the other week, there is one small gene study that shows that lung cancer at least is down to ‘genetic propensity’ where those who get the lung variety, both non and smokers, have a genetic anomaly at number 15 on the genome,(i think that’s how its described),
But how do those studying genetics gain the funding to do the really broad ranging research into such cancers where the shop is effectively closed by the medical fraternity and the politicians pushing their barrows,
My point there is IF the genetic anomaly is where lung cancer starts there is some small or large chance that such anomaly’s exist elsewhere on the genome which account for the other cancers,(and why we all don’t get em), once identified we are half way to the next step of looking for the treatment which stops those genetic anomaly’s from being able to produce cancers…
Sigh, It’s maths not math.. This is not America!
(Every time some careless idiot says “math”, or “center” or “theater” or “gotten”, David Bowie cries, and my father spins in his grave. He’s halfway to Italy by now, with all the careless stupid people who can’t spell, or who wish they lived in Oakland, Warshington, Denver or Connecticut!
No, there is a higher risk of dying from many cancers if you are a smoker.
Most notably cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx, mouth, throat, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia.
The immediate health benefits of quitting smoking are substantial:
Heart rate and blood pressure, which can be abnormally high while smoking, begin to return to normal. Within a few hours, the level of carbon monoxide in the blood begins to decline.
Within a few weeks, people who quit smoking have improved circulation, produce less phlegm, and don’t cough or wheeze as often.
Within several months of quitting, people can expect substantial improvements in lung function.
Before you post in response to this let me make it clear, if you want to continue smoking feel free it is not illegal and you personally may not suffer any of the adverse effects of smoking, across an population however, the adverse effects of smoking on morbidity and mortality are clear and have been proven with very robust studies many times.
Within a few weeks, people who quit smoking have improved circulation, produce less phlegm, and don’t cough or wheeze as often.
Oh how I wish that was true! (My experience of quitting in 1989, showed that it isn’t…) but if it was, it would give me much more of an incentive to quit!
Given that my experience has also shown that any coughing/wheezing I do is directly related to vehicle exhausts, in that I visit a friend in Wellington, who lives in a ghastly semi-rural area where there’s maybe one car a day, and I don’t cough – I come home, walk along Carrington Road past buses, and B-Double diesel road trains, and cough as if I am dying, quitting smoking will not help. But if I die soon, watch my death certificate say I died of smoking, even if I die because one of those barsteward diesels hit me and smacked me into the next world!
Oh how I wish that was true! (My experience of quitting in 1989, showed that it isn’t…) but if it was, it would give me much more of an incentive to quit!
And yet my experience is that it is. I also dropped about 5 years in the “looks” department – in other words, I looked younger (about 5 years younger).
Given that my experience has also shown that any coughing/wheezing I do is directly related to vehicle exhausts, in that I visit a friend in Wellington, who lives in a ghastly semi-rural area where there’s maybe one car a day, and I don’t cough
Yep. I’ve had that as well. Moving from Auckland to Dunedin did it for me – until I started coughing again a few months later. That said, Auckland cars cause significant deaths per year from respiratory diseases.
Because I have followed your comments for the last few weeks regarding smoking and your ideas fly directly in the face of the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus not to mention over 50 years of study, research, double blind and peer reviewed scientific inquiry.
You’re up against it mr bad12… but don’t fret as the current crusade to stop everyone smoking goes against the grain of human history and I predict that the current amonoly will disappear in the future and big chunks of the population will start smoking again. It’s just too desireable. 2c
Oh i don’t fret, what i do do though is get angry at attempts to stop me consuming a product that i am legally allowed to consume when punitive taxation is used to try and leverage the issue,
That of course would also require me to believe that such taxation is being applied to me for the stated reasons and is not just a revenue grab,
The Treasury in it’s briefing to the Government seems to believe it to be the latter even going so far as to advise the Government that such taxation was good because the users of the product are addicts who mostly WON’T give up use of the product…
PS, note the first comment in open mike today, never mind who put it there, BUT, the sponsor of that particular piece of Legislation is also a vocal anti-smoking campaigner who in the Legislation She is attempting to promote into the Statutes wants everyone to have the right to self determine the point of their death,
See any shadow of the hypocrite between the anti-smoking and ‘the right to self determine the point of ones death???…
Really mr draco? I have never been able to understand the apparent lack of reconciliation between, say, anti-smoking policy, allowing boxers to smash each other causing brain damage, euthansia type proposals, allowing the sale of cars that do 150mph and kill people, and etc.
How are they not mismatched and hypocritical?
edit: oh, and lets not forget the mismatch with alcohol policies too
One affects only you, the other affects everyone else as well.
Yes, there are mismatches and we really should be looking at them as well. The law has become far too complex over the centuries with huge amounts of loopholes and contradictions and so what is required is a wholesale dumping and replacement of that existing law. Unfortunately, today’s political parties just don’t seem capable of doing that and so they play around on the edges making it even more complex and convoluted and not fixing anything.
But, of course, treating us as lepers also affects our health.
So e.g. ranting about the trace-element risk of passive smoking from smokers in public open-air spaces, or even ranting at them in a very confrontational manner, endangers their health. Rather hypocritical, don’t you think?
1.) That has nothing to do with what I said
2.) You’re the ones inflicting the risk of death upon others. If you then get upset about others pointing this out then I suggest you ask yourself who’s to blame.
1) You seemed to imply that if euthanasia affected others, then supporting it while opposing smoking would be hypocritical. I actually think that risking the lives of others by forcing a confrontation is just as hypocritical.
2) Bullshit. We’re not talking smoke-filled workplaces here. A footpath by its very nature is a fleeting exposure at minimal concentrations. Think “smoke-alarm or VDU probability”. And if that’s too much for you, it’s a footpath. Walk away, just as you would if I failed to bath or had lousy fashion sense. Don’t endanger my life and yours with a confrontation, and don’t endanger my life by legislating that I be treated like a leper so that the police escalate the confrontation for you.
After all, the chances are that the smoker is addicted. Not much choice there. What next, kicking crutches away from the disabled because they take up too much of the footpath?
edit: “Yes, and?” . . . and I went on to explain the relevance.
It’s a cigarette. Not a confrontation. Or should we never do anything in case some deranged obsessive has no sense of perspective and abuses, even assauts us?
Suicide is illegal no matter how slow and painful it is.
Those shadows are on most smokers lungs
Addicts are selfish
When an addict is cornered the excuses just keep coming.
So if its so good how come most smokers achually want to Quit.
But Can’t why is that.
It damages families when your loved ones don,t have someone as their rock
So subsidizing Giant Corporations sucks especially when they have been proven to be liars and frauds conning our healthy young people to get addicted You can tell a smokers face
a mile a way .
Bad 12 you have been hooked line and stinker.
Kids get asthma from smokers
Only caught the first part of Question Time in the House today. Half-time report …
Key can’t stand Norman. It’s really funny, he’s a primary school kid getting shown up in front of the class, and he hates it. Key was reduced to shouting “Rubbish! You iz rubbish!”.
Robertson did a pretty good forensic job on Key. It may not be a headline-grabber, but it still keeps up the pressure. Shearer did OK on the Monday holidays issue, though again I lament the missed opportunities (why let Key get away with the desperate ANZAC card? Couldn’t somebody just … “Point of order, I seek leave to table an Australian calendar … seek leave to table reports of Australian ANZAC ceremonies”, etc, etc).
Russell Norman didn’t make Slippery look like a ‘total dick’, the Prime Minister has been that all along, Russell just provided Him the opportunity to highlight the fact…
I would like to add my voice to those of many people of conscience, around the world, in urging President Correa of Ecuador to grant political asylum to Julian Assange. The editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks is currently inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The British courts shamefully refused Mr. Assange’s appeal against extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in response to accusations of sexual molestation (no criminal charges have been made against him). Mr. Assange has said he is willing to answer questions relating to accusations against him, but to do so in the UK. He has good reason not to want to be extradited to Sweden, as he could find himself imprisoned in solitary confinement, and then very likely extradited to an American prison.
The American media has reported that the U.S. Justice Department and the Pentagon conducted a criminal investigation into “whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange violated criminal laws in the group’s release of government documents, including possible charges under the Espionage Act.” Mr. Assange’s only crime is he cared enough about people to respect their right to the truth, and he had the courage and bravery to print the truth, and in the process he embarrassed powerful governments.
The WikiLeaks release of thousands of State Department cables, and of the video footage from an Apache helicopter of a 2007 incident in which the U.S. military appears to have deliberately killed civilians, including two Reuters employees, revealed crimes against humanity. For this “truth telling,” he has incurred the wrath of the U.S. government, and has been targeted in a most vindictive way (as has Private Bradley Manning). (I support WikiLeaks right to publish leaked information, as it is in the interest of the public and their right to know. WikiLeaks were not the leakers or whistleblowers but an on-line news media).
Many believe there are those in high places who not only wish to punish Assange for outing them, but want to make an example of him so others will remain silent. They will not rest until Assange is behind bars in the USA and there are even some American politicians who have put Assange’s life in grave danger by calling for him to be assassinated.
It is ironic that Assange’s basic human rights have been breached since he is a journalist working for people’s rights to a free press and the freedom of speech.
The Australian, Swedish and UK governments have a responsibility to see that this man of courage be treated fairly and with justice. He ought to be allowed to tell his story in the UK when he can prove whether the incompetent and contradictory accusations against him are true or false.
It must also be remembered if Assange ends up in an American prison for a long time, in grave danger to his life, and maybe even face the death penalty, we all have to ask, “Who next?” and “Where goes freedom, human rights, and justice?”
We, as world citizens, need to support Julian Assange, who tried to protect the innocent by outing the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is they who should, one day, be made accountable for their crimes.
Grant Asylum to Assange
The British courts shamefully examined all the legal issues and decided to extradite him to Sweden so a sex crime investigation could progress. No charges have been laid as a result of him leaving the country before an arranged investigative interview.
Mr Assange says he is willing to be interviewed under conditions of his choosing, just like he said he was for the interview he failed to attend when he left Sweden.
Sweden is a client state of the US, apparently much more so than the UK.
Wikileaks pissed off the US.
Because he volunteered to be the face of wikileaks, the US is pissed off at him, too.
Assange is a journalist working for freedom, so it is a violation of his human rights to be investigated for rape.
The Swedish justice system should take place in the UK, at Assange’s convenience.
If Assange is granted asylum by Ecuador, we would all have to ask “so if I was really famous, I could get away with rape?” or even “if someone famous rapes you, don’t even bother reporting it because the cops won’t be able to do anything and the rapist’s fans will plaster your name all over the internet and make all sorts of crap up about you. Much better to just keep letting rapists rape with impunity”.
After all, if someone pisses off the americans, they should get a free pass on sexual assault investigations.
Hmmmm…. here’s a true clash of the Titans. McFlock versus Mairead Maguire. Which one is serious, thoughtful and formidably well informed? And which one is, well, … none of those?
And who merely cut&pastes without anything himself?
I’ve given plenty of my own opinions on many topics. Maybe you’ve seen them.
Except, today, an appeal to authority.
With respect, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. By printing her appeal, I have merely pointed out another leading human rights and peace activist calling for Ecuador to grant asylum to the U.S. regime’s most feared and detested political dissident. I have argued Assange’s case in my own words on many occasions. But, yes, Mairead Maguire’s testimony is certainly authoritative, and compelling. Compare her moral and intellectual stature with that of the people whose rancid and witless views you choose to parrot on this site.
Really persuasive /sarc
I’m being scolded for sarcasm by somebody who launched into that bizarre “so if I was really famous” fugue on message 11.1. Now THAT’s funny!
If Ecuador does grant asylum they should also say that the rape will also be carried out under Swedish law. It would just happen in their country with no possibility of extradition to the US.
I’m not able to speculate on whether or not some line was crossed by Assange during his sexual encounters with two women in Sweden.
But when I look at the corporate media coverage of the former IMF chief, where they were quite happy to denigate the victim in what looked like, from the evidence supplied, a fairly straight forward case of sexual assault. And I contrast that with their equally happy commitment to denigating Assange, there is one obvious observation.
In both cases the media is siding with power. And that makes me uneasy.
Bill 11 1 3
That’s a point. It does make an interesting comparison. Mr Dominic whatname can do whatever, and has done whatever before, but can wriggle out of it. Whereas Assange might have thought that his women truly liked him for himself, till they were advised this was not a reasonable point of view. Now he is to be charged and the hounds are after him.
For the wealthy, they can get away with much, especially if they pay for it. Did Mr Dominic not pay? This maid must be short of money, and women’s self-respect and agency is always regarded by such men as open to tender. The coldness that lies behind men’s eyes…
In fact Strauss-Kahn got away with it for years. He was charged only when he dared to suggest the IMF should water down their Neo-liberal approach, because of the harm it was doing.
Similarly. It is unlikely Assuage would have been charged with sex crimes in Sweden, without the politics. Note that the first prosecutor said there was no valid case. So they massaged (if that is the right word) the evidence a little.
When are the troops in Afghanistan, and their leaders from Bush down, going to be charged with the massacres of unarmed civilians.
The establishment had no particular reason to go after Strauss-Kahn. On the other hand, Assange has to be destroyed. The zeal with which they are going after him is similar to Soviet anti-dissident campaigns in the 1930s.
Ok, in what way is asking Assange to defend himself in Sweden similar to Soviet anti-dissident campaigns in the 1930s? And, no, ‘they’re both countries in Northern Europe’ isn’t the right answer.
Ok, in what way is asking Assange to defend himself in Sweden similar to Soviet anti-dissident campaigns in the 1930s?
The full power of the state apparatus is aimed at Assange, who is a dissident non-pareil in the West. The state apparatus consists of secret machinations against the target, backed up by compliant and largely unquestioning media, which is where most of the public gets its “opinions” from. That’s what you are doing, unwittingly: parroting official lies and propaganda. The spectacle of immense state power being wielded against a target has parallels only with totalitarian regimes like Stalin’s, and Mao’s in the 1960s.
And, no, ‘they’re both countries in Northern Europe’ isn’t the right answer.
There he goes again, with the trivialization. Not funny, either.
Much huffing and puffing by Jim and his panelists over the rogue shooting by a clearly deranged man in Colorado. Bit of a contrast with the way they all but ignored the most recent massacre by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. As I do occasionally, I decided to goad Mr Mora’s conscience…
Dear Jim,
I am intrigued that you and your panelists continue to talk about James Holmes’ bloody rampage in a Denver cinema. I cannot recall you expressing similar concern about an even bloodier shooting spree just four months ago, when one Robert Bales killed sixteen civilians, most of them children who were sleeping. He then poured chemicals over their dead bodies and set fire to them.
This surely merited discussion on your programme, but neither you nor Susan Baldacci saw fit to mention it. Was that because Robert Bales was a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army and his victims were not Americans but Afghan civilians?
Much huffing and puffing by Jim and his panelists over the rogue shooting by a clearly deranged man in Colorado.
Did you read this? I’m not going to say that it’s definitive but it does raise some interesting questions. Was he deranged or had he snapped/driven under the pressures of modern society? Is there a difference?
Today David Shearer said:
“Labour is conscious of the need to be thrifty and to make sure that the extension to paid parental leave is affordable. We will work with other political parties and experts, including Treasury and IRD, to find a workable solution in the current economic climate”
We do not have to apologise or be ‘nice’ about seeking to legislate for these conditions.
The Kiwi worker is the most Dilligent, hard-working, most hours working, flexible working pattern employee in the world.
Why the fuck should we consult with National to get these minor increments to our work conditions. Will the EMA/ National do anything other use every card in the deck to block us?
Have we lost the fucking plot? Jesus wept! Who is writing his press releases?
A Labour opportunity lost. They could have got behind a positive thing for motorists and road safety but no. They had to agree with the NACToid, I think Collins, who criticised the idea of police having marked camera vans. It only slows down people for a moment said NACT and Labour’s transport safety spokesperson Iain Lees-Galloway agreed. So WTF? It is a safety symbol that will affect people’s behaviour, it is more transparent and it’s not sneaky to have the signage but NACT and Labour thought it was wasting money. Oh how pathetic.
You’re the ones inflicting the risk of death upon others.
How exactly DtB, are we inflicting the risk of death upon you or anyone else? Ok, we are at a bus stop, in the open air. I am smoking. Diesel buses are roaring past us every few minutes.
You screech and scream at me that my cigarette is endangering your life, even though you’re sitting in the shelter, and I am standing in the wind or rain 3 metres away. You’re breathing in particulates from the diesel exhaust, and mistaking them for the smoke that’s blowing away from you at 50 kph..
I would laugh if it wasn’t making me so angry.
(Based on true encounters.)
Well.
1.) I can tell the difference between diesel and cigarette smoke
2.) I’d be cursing both
3.) I wouldn’t actually be cursing you because, despite the fact that it’s a disgusting habit, I would also recognise that you’re making an effort not to inflict it upon me
When did Christine (Spankin’) Rankin become a “child advocate”?
Last time I saw this snarling harridan, she was advocating the right of people to beat their children. I’ve just seen her on TV1’s pisspoor Closeup programme, and she was called a “child advocate” on several occasions by Mark Sainsbury.
When did Spankin’ Rankin stop advocating the beating of children and become a child advocate?
The pressing thing for the National Party Ladies Home Journal (read Joanne Black talk about her kids and how crap people who exploit people for reality tv are) is the Labour -Green coalition possibility-
The main-stream polls are still the usual National way ahead but tracking downward, but, it’s National’s own polling which has got them lashing out angrily at all and sundry,
Apparently they show Labour/Green within a few percentage points of National whose slump has made ‘them’ believe that if their polling occurred on election day 2014 they couldn’t do it with the ‘Hairdo’, John(the convicted)Banks, and, the current number of Maori Party MP’s,
NZFirst isn’t going away either and if that Party were to be included in a Labour/Green coalition then it is game over for the Tory’s anytime they want to call an election…
Justice Minister Judith Collins said Anzac day was a day of commemoration and remembering the dead.
“Frankly to reduce it into a three day weekend is, I think, very disrespectful to the people whose lives have been lost. If people need to have a holiday to go and actually turn up at dawn parade then there’s something wrong.”
Is this the reason we didn’t have Old Shonkey fronting the issue?
That’s as English—and New Zealand—as it is American.
Oh don’t be absurd! It may be New Zealand, (and even then, only New Zealand in the last 20 years) but it is absolutely not English! I should know.
Yes, McFlock, I did forget to close the brackets, I often do! Too many subordinate clauses, – I hope they don’t tax you unduly, Morrissey? I simply abhor inaccuracies, and I equally abhor the somewhat grovelling nature of New Zealand’s cultural cringe before all things American. I saw an example in the programme on TV3 about tattooing – a Maori man with prison tattoos was making out that they are legitimate cultural tatts, when as far as i could see, that was not the case. “No different than” he said – and I just sighed. He looked older than Don Brash, who was the first gastropod to say “different than” on NZ TV (in January). No one in his 70s grew up saying ‘different than’. The bl**dy Yanks don’t need to bomb NZ, or even to take us over with money – if American troops marched up Queen Street tomorrow, ‘Kiwis’ would fight each other for the privilege of throwing flowers and licking Amerikan boots. Women would fling themselves at the feet of the American troops, flinging their skirts over their heads and their legs in the air.
if this writer (i.e., moi) were to tell you that he looks just like Julian Assange?
I’d say ‘Cool!’ (I am superficial like that, and have a weakness for blond men). 😀
However, I am guaranteed to be older than you are, so you’d never be interested…
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy at 10:06am on Wednesday, May 1:The Lead: Business confidence fell across the board in April, falling in some areas to levels last seen during the lockdowns because of a collapse in ...
Over the past 36 hours, Christopher Luxon has been dong his best to portray the centre-right’s plummeting poll numbers as a mark of virtue. Allegedly, the negative verdicts are the result of hard economic times, and of a government bravely set out on a perilous rescue mission from which not ...
Auckland Transport have started rolling out new HOP card readers around the network and over the next three months, all of them on buses, at train stations and ferry wharves will be replaced. The change itself is not that remarkable, with the new readers looking similar to what is already ...
Completed reads for April: The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling Carnival of Saints, by George Herman The Snow Spider, by Jenny Nimmo Emlyn’s Moon, by Jenny Nimmo The Chestnut Soldier, by Jenny Nimmo Death Comes As the End, by Agatha Christie Lord of the Flies, by ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
Have a story to share about St Paul’s, but today just picturesPopular novels written at this desk by a young man who managed to bootstrap himself out of father’s imprisonment and his own young life in a workhouse Read more ...
The list of former National Party Ministers being given plum and important roles got longer this week with the appointment of former Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett as the chair of Pharmac. The Christopher Luxon-led Government has now made key appointments to Bill English, Simon Bridges, Steven Joyce, Roger Sowry, ...
Newsroom has a story today about National's (fortunately failed) effort to disestablish the newly-created Inspector-General of Defence. The creation of this agency was the key recommendation of the Inquiry into Operation Burnham, and a vital means of restoring credibility and social licence to an agency which had been caught lying ...
Holding On To The Present:The moment a political movement arises that attacks the whole idea of social progress, and announces its intention to wind back the hands of History’s clock, then democracy, along with its unwritten rules, is in mortal danger.IT’S A COMMONPLACE of political speeches, especially those delivered in ...
Stuck In The Middle With You:As Christopher Luxon feels the hot breath of Act’s and NZ First’s extremists on the back of his neck and, as he reckons with the damage their policies are already inflicting upon a country he’s described as “fragile”, is there not some merit in reaching out ...
The unpopular coalition government is currently rushing to repeal section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act. The clause is Oranga Tamariki's Treaty clause, and was inserted after its systematic stealing of Māori children became a public scandal and resulted in physical resistance to further abductions. The clause created clear obligations ...
Buzz from the Beehive The government’s official website – which Point of Order monitors daily – not for the first time has nothing much to say today about political happenings that are grabbing media headlines. It makes no mention of the latest 1News-Verian poll, for example. This shows National down ...
It Takes A Train To Cry:Surely, there is nothing lonelier in all this world than the long wail of a distant steam locomotive on a cold Winter’s night.AS A CHILD, I would lie awake in my grandfather’s house and listen to the traffic. The big wooden house was only a ...
Packing A Punch: The election of the present government, including in its ranks politicians dedicated to reasserting the rights of the legislature in shaping and determining the future of Māori and Pakeha in New Zealand, should have alerted the judiciary – including its anomalous appendage, the Waitangi Tribunal – that its ...
Dead Woman Walking: New Zealand’s media industry had been moving steadily towards disaster for all the years Melissa Lee had been National’s media and communications policy spokesperson, and yet, when the crisis finally broke, on her watch, she had nothing intelligent to offer. Christopher Luxon is a patient man - but he’s not ...
Chris Trotter writes – New Zealand politics is remarkably easy-going: dangerously so, one might even say. With the notable exception of John Key’s flat ruling-out of the NZ First Party in 2008, all parties capable of clearing MMP’s five-percent threshold, or winning one or more electorate seats, tend ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is ...
Luxon will no doubt put a brave face on it, but there is no escaping the pressure this latest poll will put on him and the government. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political ...
This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler In the wake of any unusual weather event, someone inevitably asks, “Did climate change cause this?” In the most literal sense, that answer is almost always no. Climate change is never the sole cause of hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, or ...
Something odd happened yesterday, and I’d love to know if there’s more to it. If there was something which preempted what happened, or if it was simply a throwaway line in response to a journalist.Yesterday David Seymour was asked at a press conference what the process would be if the ...
Hi,From time to time, I want to bring Webworm into the real world. We did it last year with the Jurassic Park event in New Zealand — which was a lot of fun!And so on Saturday May 11th, in Los Angeles, I am hosting a lil’ Webworm pop-up! I’ve been ...
Education Minister Erica Standford yesterday unveiled a fundamental reform of the way our school pupils are taught. She would not exactly say so, but she is all but dismantling the so-called “inquiry” “feel good” method of teaching, which has ruled in our classrooms since a major review of the New ...
Exactly where are we seriously going with this government and its policies? That is, apart from following what may as well be a Truss-Lite approach on the purported economic “plan“, and Victorian-era regression when it comes to social policy.Oh it’ll work this time of course, we’re basically assured, “the ...
Hey Uncle Dave, When the Poms joined the EEC, I wasn't one of those defeatists who said, Well, that’s it for the dairy job. And I was right, eh? The Chinese can’t get enough of our milk powder and eventually, the Poms came to their senses and backed up the ute ...
Polling shows that Wellington Mayor Tory Whanau has the lowest approval rating of any mayor in the country. Siting at -12 per cent, the proportion of constituents who disapprove of her performance outweighs those who give her the thumbs up. This negative rating is higher than for any other mayor ...
Buzz from the Beehive Pharmac has been given a financial transfusion and a new chair to oversee its spending in the pharmaceutical business. Associate Health Minister David Seymour described the funding for Pharmac as “its largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff”. ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its ...
TL;DR: Here’s my top 10 ‘pick ‘n’ mix of links to news, analysis and opinion articles as of 10:10am on Monday, April 29:Scoop: The children's ward at Rotorua Hospital will be missing a third of its beds as winter hits because Te Whatu Ora halted an upgrade partway through to ...
span class=”dropcap”>As hideous as David Seymour can be, it is worth keeping in mind occasionally that there are even worse political figures (and regimes) out there. Iran for instance, is about to execute the country’s leading hip hop musician Toomaj Salehi, for writing and performing raps that “corrupt” the nation’s ...
Yesterday marked 10 years since the first electric train carried passengers in Auckland so it’s a good time to look back at it and the impact it has had. A brief history The first proposals for rail electrification in Auckland came in the 1920’s alongside the plans for earlier ...
Right now, in Aotearoa-NZ, our ‘animal spirits’ are darkening towards a winter of discontent, thanks at least partly to a chorus of negative comments and actions from the Government Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on ...
You make people evil to punish the paststuck inside a sequel with a rotating castThe following photos haven’t been generated with AI, or modified in any way. They are flesh and blood, human beings. On the left is Galatea Young, a young mum, and her daughter Fiadh who has Angelman ...
April has been a quiet month at A Phuulish Fellow. I have had an exceptionally good reading month, and a decently productive writing month – for original fiction, anyway – but not much has caught my eye that suggested a blog article. It has been vaguely frustrating, to be honest. ...
A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 21, 2024 thru Sat, April 27, 2024. Story of the week Anthropogenic climate change may be the ultimate shaggy dog story— but with a twist, because here ...
Hi,I spent about a year on Webworm reporting on an abusive megachurch called Arise, and it made me want to stab my eyes out with a fork.I don’t regret that reporting in 2022 and 2023 — I am proud of it — but it made me angry.Over three main stories ...
The new Victoria University Vice-Chancellor decided to have a forum at the university about free speech and academic freedom as it is obviously a topical issue, and the Government is looking at legislating some carrots or sticks for universities to uphold their obligations under the Education and Training Act. They ...
Do you remember when Melania Trump got caught out using a speech that sounded awfully like one Michelle Obama had given? Uncannily so.Well it turns out that Abraham Lincoln is to Winston Peters as Michelle was to Melania. With the ANZAC speech Uncle Winston gave at Gallipoli having much in ...
She was born 25 years ago today in North Shore hospital. Her eyes were closed tightly shut, her mouth was silently moving. The whole theatre was all quiet intensity as they marked her a 2 on the APGAR test. A one-minute eternity later, she was an 8. The universe was ...
Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Is Antarctica gaining land ice? ...
Images of US students (and others) protesting and setting up tent cities on US university campuses have been broadcast world wide and clearly demonstrate the growing rifts in US society caused by US policy toward Israel and Israel’s prosecution of … Continue reading → ...
Barrie Saunders writes – Dear Paul As the new Minister of Media and Communications, you will be inundated with heaps of free advice and special pleading, all in the national interest of course. For what it’s worth here is my assessment: Traditional broadcasting free to air content through ...
Many criticisms are being made of the Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill, including by this writer. But as with everything in politics, every story has two sides, and both deserve attention. It’s important to understand what the Government is trying to achieve and its arguments for such a bold reform. ...
Peter Dunne writes – The great nineteenth British Prime Minister, William Gladstone, once observed that “the first essential for a Prime Minister is to be a good butcher.” When a later British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, sacked a third of his Cabinet in July 1962, in what became ...
Ele Ludemann writes – New Zealanders had the OECD’s second highest tax increase last year: New Zealanders faced the second-biggest tax raises in the developed world last year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) says. The intergovernmental agency said the average change in personal income tax ...
We all know something’s not right with our elections. The spread of misinformation, people being targeted with soundbites and emotional triggers that ignore the facts, even the truth, and influence their votes.The use of technology to produce deep fakes. How can you tell if something is real or not? Can ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Simon Clark. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). This year you will be lied to! Simon Clark helps prebunk some misleading statements you'll hear about climate. The video includes ...
It is all very well cutting the backrooms of public agencies but it may compromise the frontlines. One of the frustrations of the Productivity Commission’s 2017 review of universities is that while it observed that their non-academic staff were increasing faster than their academic staff, it did not bother to ...
Buzz from the Beehive Two speeches delivered by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters at Anzac Day ceremonies in Turkey are the only new posts on the government’s official website since the PM announced his Cabinet shake-up. In one of the speeches, Peters stated the obvious: we live in a troubled ...
1. Which of these would you not expect to read in The Waikato Invader?a. Luxon is here to do business, don’t you worry about thatb. Mr KPI expects results, and you better believe itc. This decisive man of action is getting me all hot and excitedd. Melissa Lee is how ...
…it has a restricted jurisdiction which must not be abused: it is not an inquisitionNOTE – this article was published before the High Court ruled that Karen Chhour does not have to appear before the Waitangi Tribunal Gary Judd writes – The High Court ...
Lindsay Mitchell writes – One of reasons Oranga Tamariki exists is to prevent child neglect. But could the organisation itself be guilty of the same?Oranga Tamariki’s statistics show a decrease in the number and age of children in care. “There are less children ...
David Farrar writes: Graeme Edgeler wrote in 2017: In the first five years after three strikes came into effect 5248 offenders received a ‘first strike’ (that is, a “stage-1 conviction” under the three strikes sentencing regime), and 68 offenders received a ‘second strike’. In the five years prior to ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has surprised everyone with his ruthlessness in sacking two of his ministers from their crucial portfolios. Removing ministers for poor performance after only five months in the job just doesn’t normally happen in politics. That’s refreshing and will be extremely ...
TL;DR: These are the six things that stood out to me in news and commentary on Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the two days to 6:06am on Thursday, April 25:Politics: PM Christopher Luxon has set up a dual standard for ministerial competence by demoting two National Cabinet ministers while leaving also-struggling ...
Hi,Today I mainly want to share some of your thoughts about the recent piece I wrote about success and failure, and the forces that seemingly guide our lives. But first, a quick bit of housekeeping: I am doing a Webworm popup in Los Angeles on Saturday May 11 at 2pm. ...
It is hard to see what Melissa Lee might have done to “save” the media. National went into the election with no public media policy and appears not to have developed one subsequently. Lee claimed that she had prepared a policy paper before the election but it had been decided ...
Open access notablesIce acceleration and rotation in the Greenland Ice Sheet interior in recent decades, Løkkegaard et al., Communications Earth & Environment:In the past two decades, mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet has accelerated, partly due to the speedup of glaciers. However, uncertainty in speed derived from satellite products ...
Buzz from the Beehive A statement from Children’s Minister Karen Chhour – yet to be posted on the Government’s official website – arrived in Point of Order’s email in-tray last night. It welcomes the High Court ruling on whether the Waitangi Tribunal can demand she appear before it. It does ...
Mr Bombastic:Ironically, the media the academic experts wanted is, in many ways, the media they got. In place of the tyrannical editors of yesteryear, advancing without fear or favour the interests of the ruling class; the New Zealand news media of today boasts a troop of enlightened journalists dedicated to ...
It's hard times try to make a livingYou wake up every morning in the unforgivingOut there somewhere in the cityThere's people living lives without mercy or pityI feel good, yeah I'm feeling fineI feel better then I have for the longest timeI think these pills have been good for meI ...
In 1974, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, finding that the President was not a King, but was subject to the law and was required to turn over the evidence of his wrongdoing to the courts. It was a landmark decision for the rule ...
Every day now just seems to bring in more fresh meat for the grinder.In their relentlessly ideological drive to cut back on the “excessive bloat” (as they see it) of the previous Labour-led government, on the mountains of evidence accumulated in such a short period of time do not ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Megan Valére SosouMarket gardening site of the Itchèléré de Itagui agricultural cooperative in Dassa-Zoumè (Image credit: Megan Valère Sossou) For the residents of Dassa-Zoumè, a city in the West African country of Benin, choosing between drinking water and having enough ...
Buzz from the Beehive Melissa Lee – as may be discerned from the screenshot above – has not been demoted for doing something seriously wrong as Minister of ...
Morning in London Mother hugs beloved daughter outside the converted shoe factory in which she is living.Afternoon in London Travelling writer takes himself and his wrist down to A&E, just to be sure. Read more ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – The recent announcement of the University Advisory Group, chaired by Sir Peter Gluckman, makes very clear where the Government’s focus and priorities lie. The remit of the Advisory Group is that Group members will consider challenges and opportunities for improvement in the university sector including: ...
Eric Crampton writes – The Reserve Bank of New Zealand desperately wants to find reasons to have workstreams in climate change. It makes little sense. They’ve run another stress test on the banks looking to see if they could find a prudential regulation case. They couldn’t. They ...
Rob MacCullough writes – Pundits from the left and the right are arguing that National’s Fast Track Bill that is designed to speed up infrastructure decisions could end up becoming mired in a cesspool of corruption. Political commentator ...
Looking at the headlines this morning it’s hard to feel anything other than pessimistic about the future of humanity.Note that I’m not speaking about the future of mankind, but the survival of our humanity. The values that we believe in seem to be ebbing away, by the day.Perhaps every generation ...
Swabbing mixed breed baby chicks to test for avian influenzaUh oh. Bird flu – often deadly to humans – is not only being transmitted from infected birds to dairy cows, but is now travelling between dairy cows. As of last Friday, Bloomberg News reports, there were 32 American dairy herds ...
This afternoon’s interim Waitangi Tribunal report must be taken seriously as it affects our most vulnerable children, Labour children’s spokesperson Willow-Jean Prime. ...
Te Pāti Māori are demanding the New Zealand Government support an international independent investigation into mass graves that have been uncovered at two hospitals on the Gaza strip, following weeks of assault by Israeli troops. Among the 392 bodies that have been recovered, are children and elderly civilians. Many of ...
Our two-tiered system for veterans’ support is out of step with our closest partners, and all parties in Parliament should work together to fix it, Labour veterans’ affairs spokesperson Greg O’Connor said. ...
Stripping two Ministers of their portfolios just six months into the job shows Christopher Luxon’s management style is lacking, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said. ...
Tonight’s court decision to overturn the summons of the Children’s Minister has enabled the Crown to continue making decisions about Māori without evidence, says Te Pāti Māori spokesperson for Children, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “The judicial system has this evening told the nation that this government can do whatever they want when ...
It appears Nicola Willis is about to pull the rug out from under the feet of local communities still dealing with the aftermath of last year’s severe weather, and local councils relying on funding to build back from these disasters. ...
The Government is making short-sighted changes to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that will take away environmental protection in favour of short-term profits, Labour’s environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said today. ...
Labour welcomes the release of the report into the North Island weather events and looks forward to working with the Government to ensure that New Zealand is as prepared as it can be for the next natural disaster. ...
The Labour Party has called for the New Zealand Government to recognise Palestine, as a material step towards progressing the two-State solution needed to achieve a lasting peace in the region. ...
Some of our country’s most important work, stopping the sexual exploitation of children and violent extremism could go along with staff on the frontline at ports and airports. ...
The Government’s Fast Track Approvals Bill will give projects such as new coal mines a ‘get out of jail free’ card to wreak havoc on the environment, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The government's decision to reintroduce Three Strikes is a destructive and ineffective piece of law-making that will only exacerbate an inherently biased and racist criminal justice system, said Te Pāti Māori Justice Spokesperson, Tākuta Ferris, today. During the time Three Strikes was in place in Aotearoa, Māori and Pasifika received ...
Cuts to frontline hospital staff are not only a broken election promise, it shows the reckless tax cuts have well and truly hit the frontline of the health system, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
The Green Party has joined the call for public submissions on the fast-track legislation to be extended after the Ombudsman forced the Government to release the list of organisations invited to apply just hours before submissions close. ...
New Zealand’s good work at reducing climate emissions for three years in a row will be undone by the National government’s lack of ambition and scrapping programmes that were making a difference, Labour Party climate spokesperson Megan Woods said today. ...
More essential jobs could be on the chopping block, this time Ministry of Education staff on the school lunches team are set to find out whether they're in line to lose their jobs. ...
Te Pāti Māori is disgusted at the confirmation that hundreds are set to lose their jobs at Oranga Tamariki, and the disestablishment of the Treaty Response Unit. “This act of absolute carelessness and out of touch decision making is committing tamariki to state abuse.” Said Te Pāti Māori Oranga Tamariki ...
The Government is trying to bring in a law that will allow Ministers to cut corners and kill off native species, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking said. ...
Cancelling urgently needed new Cook Strait ferries and hiking the cost of public transport for many Kiwis so that National can announce the prospect of another tunnel for Wellington is not making good choices, Labour Transport Spokesperson Tangi Utikere said. ...
A laundry list of additional costs for Tāmaki Makarau Auckland shows the Minister for the city is not delivering for the people who live there, says Labour Auckland Issues spokesperson Shanan Halbert. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader Rawiri Waititi, and Mema Paremata mō Tāmaki-Makaurau, Takutai Tarsh Kemp, will travel to the Gold Coast to strengthen ties with Māori in Australia next week (15-21 April). The visit, in the lead-up to the 9th Australian National Kapa haka Festival, will be an opportunity for both ...
The Green Party has today launched a step-by-step guide to help New Zealanders make their voice heard on the Government’s democracy dodging and anti-environment fast track legislation. ...
The National Government’s proposed changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will mean tenants can be turfed from their homes by landlords with little notice, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson is calling on all parties to support a common-sense change that’s great for the planet and great for consumers after her member’s bill was drawn from the ballot today. ...
People with an interest in the health of Northland’s marine ecosystems are invited to a public meeting to discuss how to deal with kina barrens, Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones will lead the discussion, which will take place on Friday, 10 May, at Awanui Hotel in ...
Kiwi exporters are $100 million better off today with the NZ EU FTA entering into force says Trade Minister Todd McClay. “This is all part of our plan to grow the economy. New Zealand's prosperity depends on international trade, making up 60 per cent of the country’s total economic activity. ...
There are heartening signs that the extractive sector is once again becoming an attractive prospect for investors and a source of economic prosperity for New Zealand, Resources Minister Shane Jones says. “The beginnings of a resurgence in extractive industries are apparent in media reports of the sector in the past ...
The return of the historic Ō-Rākau battle site to the descendants of those who fought there moved one step closer today with the first reading of Te Pire mō Ō-Rākau, Te Pae o Maumahara / The Ō-Rākau Remembrance Bill. The Bill will entrust the 9.7-hectare battle site, five kilometres west ...
Energy Minister Simeon Brown has announced 25 new high-speed EV charging hubs along key routes between major urban centres and outlined the Government’s plan to supercharge New Zealand’s EV infrastructure. The hubs will each have several chargers and be capable of charging at least four – and up to 10 ...
The coalition Government will not proceed with the previous Government’s plans to regulate residential property managers, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says. “I have written to the Chairperson of the Social Services and Community Committee to inform him that the Government does not intend to support the Residential Property Managers Bill ...
The Government has announced an independent review into the disability support system funded by the Ministry of Disabled People – Whaikaha. Disability Issues Minister Louise Upston says the review will look at what can be done to strengthen the long-term sustainability of Disability Support Services to provide disabled people and ...
Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith has attended the Universal Periodic Review in Geneva and outlined the Government’s plan to restore law and order. “Speaking to the United Nations Human Rights Council provided us with an opportunity to present New Zealand’s human rights progress, priorities, and challenges, while responding to issues and ...
The Government and Rotorua Lakes Council are committed to working closely together to end the use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua. Associate Minister of Housing (Social Housing) Tama Potaka says the Government remains committed to ending the long-term use of contracted emergency housing motels in Rotorua by the ...
Trade Minister Todd McClay heads overseas today for high-level trade talks in the Gulf region, and a key OECD meeting in Paris. Mr McClay will travel to Riyadh to meet with counterparts from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). “New Zealand’s goods and services exports to the Gulf region ...
Education Minister Erica Stanford has outlined six education priorities to deliver a world-leading education system that sets Kiwi kids up for future success. “I’m putting ambition, achievement and outcomes at the heart of our education system. I want every child to be inspired and engaged in their learning so they ...
The new NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) App is a secure ‘one stop shop’ to provide the services drivers need, Transport Minister Simeon Brown and Digitising Government Minister Judith Collins say. “The NZTA App will enable an easier way for Kiwis to pay for Vehicle Registration and Road User Charges (RUC). ...
Whānau with tamariki growing up in emergency housing motels will be prioritised for social housing starting this week, says Associate Housing Minister Tama Potaka. “Giving these whānau a better opportunity to build healthy stable lives for themselves and future generations is an essential part of the Government’s goal of reducing ...
Racing Minister Winston Peters has paid tribute to an icon of the industry with the recent passing of Dave O’Sullivan (OBE). “Our sympathies are with the O’Sullivan family with the sad news of Dave O’Sullivan’s recent passing,” Mr Peters says. “His contribution to racing, initially as a jockey and then ...
Assalaamu alaikum, greetings to you all. Eid Mubarak, everyone! I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and everyone celebrating this joyous occasion. It is a pleasure to be here. I have enjoyed Eid celebrations at Parliament before, but this is my first time joining you as the Minister ...
Associate Health Minister David Seymour has announced Pharmac’s largest ever budget of $6.294 billion over four years, fixing a $1.774 billion fiscal cliff. “Access to medicines is a crucial part of many Kiwis’ lives. We’ve committed to a budget allocation of $1.774 billion over four years so Kiwis are ...
Hon Paula Bennett has been appointed as member and chair of the Pharmac board, Associate Health Minister David Seymour announced today. "Pharmac is a critical part of New Zealand's health system and plays a significant role in ensuring that Kiwis have the best possible access to medicines,” says Mr Seymour. ...
Hundreds of New Zealand families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) will benefit from a new Government focus on prevention and treatment, says Health Minister Dr Shane Reti. “We know FASD is a leading cause of preventable intellectual and neurodevelopmental disability in New Zealand,” Dr Reti says. “Every day, ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones today attended the official opening of Kaikohe’s new $14.7 million sports complex. “The completion of the Kaikohe Multi Sports Complex is a fantastic achievement for the Far North,” Mr Jones says. “This facility not only fulfils a long-held dream for local athletes, but also creates ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ engagements in Türkiye this week underlined the importance of diplomacy to meet growing global challenges. “Returning to the Gallipoli Peninsula to represent New Zealand at Anzac commemorations was a sombre reminder of the critical importance of diplomacy for de-escalating conflicts and easing tensions,” Mr Peters ...
Ambassador Millar, Burgemeester, Vandepitte, Excellencies, military representatives, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen – good morning and welcome to this sacred Anzac Day dawn service. It is an honour to be here on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand at Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood – a deeply ...
Distinguished guests - It is an honour to return once again to this site which, as the resting place for so many of our war-dead, has become a sacred place for generations of New Zealanders. Our presence here and at the other special spaces of Gallipoli is made ...
Mai ia tawhiti pamamao, te moana nui a Kiwa, kua tae whakaiti mai matou, ki to koutou papa whenua. No koutou te tapuwae, no matou te tapuwae, kua honoa pumautia. Ko nga toa kua hinga nei, o te Waipounamu, o te Ika a Maui, he okioki tahi me o ...
Paul Goldsmith will take on responsibility for the Media and Communications portfolio, while Louise Upston will pick up the Disability Issues portfolio, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon announced today. “Our Government is relentlessly focused on getting New Zealand back on track. As issues change in prominence, I plan to adjust Ministerial ...
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Energy Minister Simeon Brown has welcomed an important milestone in New Zealand’s hydrogen future, with the opening of the country’s first network of hydrogen refuelling stations in Wiri. “I want to congratulate the team at Hiringa Energy and its partners K one W one (K1W1), Mitsui & Co New Zealand ...
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Comment: Journalists are very good at telling other people’s stories, but they fall well short when writing about their own profession. Perhaps that is why it is so undervalued. Every successive poll on the public’s attitude toward journalism is more alarming than the last. In the last month we have ...
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Foreign investment proposals with implications for Australia’s strategic or economic security will face tougher scrutiny, under a policy overhaul to be announced by Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Wednesday. At the same time, the government ...
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Labour list MP Maryan Street has added her End of Life Choice Bill to the ballot. This tries to address controversial euthanasia issues.
This is a well researched and consulted bill, and deserves to be voted through the Select Committee for public input and MP debate.
Once again when considering euthanasia legals we have the know-all approach, the controller, the do it my way, about choice of death. If I get old and tired and pissed off enough and would like to go through the process of preparation and certification so I can go when I want to, that should be my right, without some supercilious jerk telling me that I’m not sick enough.
Keeping up the standards of English in interviews with our elected members.
What say we highlight incidents every time they do it, with a hope
that one of their more literate colleagues might have the guts to correct
them.
For starters.
John Key and Paula Bennett (both)
“There are children which …”
“There’s lots of …”
John Key
“Anythink”
Logie 97, you missed this charming dispatch from Keystania in yesterday’s Dom Post:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/politics/7335984/John-Key-delivers-another-clanger
Oh dear…..
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Domicility
John Key’s poor understanding of our language is an absolute indication that he is poorly read. He is not a deep man. He has little understanding of wider society. He is just a shallow dipstick with a forked tongue.
He uses words like he uses numbers.
the ‘prime ministers hour’ is coming up again on radio live, starting to advertise it. the last one was very enlightening. his shallowness & blankness came out loud & clear. that day i put the radio on & heard a very serious news reporters voice saying our credit rating had been downgraded, then i hear john keys bubbly air headed radio dj blather, it was quite surreal. all that ‘how are the hobbit movies doing sir peter my freind?’, the strange way he says ‘sir’, so bad its good (but not really good, still very bad) kinda entertainment.
So, that would be more free advertising for NACT from MediaWorks?
SIGH! 😀
I am keeping a wee note of what my late brother called ‘blutions’ on Radio NZ in particular, and some TV ones, and ‘there’s lots of’ crops up a lot!
Nucular is another one and one guy on TV3 keeps referring to the ‘Tullybin’ instead of saying Taliban…
The producers of a new film and book think that Tonga, a place often overlooked or mocked by New Zealanders, can provide solutions to the problems of education and race relations in this country:
http://www.readingthemaps.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/tongas-mental-athletes.html
I think the right wing and business part of NZ politics has really lost it… some examples just this morning;
1. The newly formed Heartland Bank is offering loans to its execs to buy the bank’s shares, apparently as an incentive. This is what Lachie McLeod at South Canterbury Finance got and look what it made him do – all sorts of terrible lending and carry on, ultimately hastening its demise. That Heartland has to offer such is an admission that the business model is flawed. Also, beware, Heartland is tied up with all them blu-nosed Cantabs off the last four ships such as George Kerr and they tend to make mincemeat of these things.
2. Gerry Browlee has been swiped by the High Court over his land zoning decision-making process in Christchurch. Following Skycity casino being reviewed, and the Akaroa marine reserve decision being tossed out, and others, it shows this government are cowboys with a completely cavalier attitude.
3. The welfare handouts to firstly teh NZX, a private business, in the sale of state assets to bolster the NZX’s performance is nothing short of a ripoff. I have a business that is struggling, can I please have a government handout too?
4. The looters bonus share scheme in the sale of assets is also an admission that the business model around the floats is flawed and incapable of success without the taxpayer subsidising it.
Seriously, this lot are incompetent. It feels like a last gasp for the right wing, a final grab of air before silently slipping beneath the waves for good. Not a single one of their major activities at the moment is worthy. They are not up to scratch. They are wheelers, dealers and wide boys with not a skeric of deeper understanding of the communities they live in. Fail.
You’ll probably find that those Heartland Bank loans to its execs don’t have to be repaid. In other words, it’s most likely an under the table bonus that doesn’t have to pay tax on and is also in line for untaxed capital gains.
Surely IRD would be all over that like a rash.
I suppose that would be dependent upon the language used. I seem to recall something like it happening a few years ago. Can’t remember where though.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/7345081/MPs-to-discuss-pay-in-secret
Yay, secret government!
Sir Humphrey will save us.
….. as always a pox on all their houses would be suitable karma.
Another judicial ruling against National. Court finds minister acted unlawfully:
I wonder when that higher standard of accountability thing that Key talked about is going to appear?
Shock Horror!!! 25% of cancer deaths are caused by smoking, wow,
Said another way, 75% of cancer deaths are caused by not smoking,
And who would have thinked it, there’s a 20/80% split in the adult population who do and don’t use tobacco products
link?
http://www.smokefree.org.nz/faqs-1
Ok, that goes back to cancer society, and that goes back to a CS factsheet, which references this. That gives attrib vs nonattrib rates for mortality. If you want to find out how they identified attributable deaths without hard data on pop smoking rates, it seems that they used this method. I.e. usung a function of lung cancer mortality as a proxy for smoking rates, given that the relationship between smoking and lung cancer is well travelled. Sometimes you have to put together workarounds to compare international apples with apples.
Have a read of them, in particular the age breakdowns.
Your not a used car salesman by any chance are you???
In effect your accusing Smokefree New Zealand and a number of other organizations using the ”25% of all cancer deaths are caused by smoking” of spreading misinformation???…
No.
I was pointing out how you could go back to the original research and see how those percentage cuts are possible.
To make it simple, let’s use an hypothetical population of 100 (i.e. the raw number = the total population rate %) in a 1 year snapshot:
100 people.
40 cancers.
20 smokers.
80 non-smokers.
30 cancers in non-smokers.
10 cancers in smokers.
Total cancer incidence: 40%.
Non-smoker cancer incidence: 37.5% (30/80*100)
smoker cancer incidence: 50% (10/20*100)
% of cancers in non-smokers: 75%
% of cancers in smokers: 25%
And we can actually calculate the number of cancers attributable to smoking in this population (although HS might want to check my math if they can be bothered – I tend to put things in the wrong order when doing it manually ❓ ):
smokingCancers-(smokingpop * nonsmokingIncidenceRate) = attributable cases.
10 – (20*0.375) = ac
10 – 7.5 = 2.5
So in that population of 100, each year on average 2.5 cancer deaths are attributable to smoking.
The actual numbers, if you go back to source, are the same ratios, just much bigger numbers.
Which just proves the Smokefree link is correct,
Not smoking causes 75% of cancer deaths in any given year,
Smoking causes 25% of cancer deaths in any given year,
The percentage of the NZ population who do and do not smoke is 19.9% who do and the rest don’t,
So, as far as DYING from cancer goes theres just as much chance, or more,of snuffing it with cancer whether or not you have ever smoked,
The difference being, and i havn’t had my nose in the figures for this yet, is the age at which one cohort snuffs it as opposed to the non-smoking cohort right???…
No. Read it again:
By those ratios, you are 1/3 more likely to die of cancer if you smoke, than if you don’t.
50-37.5 = 12.5, 12.5 = 1/3 of 37.5, therefore smoking = 1.33*nonsmoking.
This is nowhere near “as much chance if not more”. It’s “smoking seriously increase the chance you will die of cancer”.
Your mathematical gymnastics amuse me Mc, if 25% of the cancer deaths in any given year in New Zealand are caused by smoking then 75% of the cancer deaths in any given year are caused by people who do not smoke,
Sorry you cannot grapple with that little fact, perhaps you have been educated into being unable to grasp the simple fact,
It takes no complicated mathematics, either the ‘Smoke-free’ 25% of cancer deaths a year is wrong or my outlandish assertion that ‘not smoking’ causes 75% of the yearly deaths from cancer is right…
“then 75% of the cancer deaths in any given year are caused by people who do not smoke”
…then 75% of the cancer deaths in any given year are not caused by smoking. fify.
btw, can you name another single product that causes 25% of all cancer deaths in a given year?
Wow. That piece of stupidity actually did help me see a problem in my math. I confused incidence with attrubutable number (i.e. “caused by”). 75% occur in nonsmokers. It’s not “caused by not smoking”. I.e. if you start smoking you’re at risk of those cancer plus the tobacco cancers.
pop: 100
Smoking: 20
Nonsmoking: 80
Cancer: 40
Smoking attributable cancer: 10.
nonsmoking cancer + cancers in smokers that weren’t attributable: 30.
Nonsmoking cancer rate: 30%
# Smokers with non-attributable cancer: 30% of 20 = 6.
# nonsmokers with NAC: 30% of 80 = 24.
NAC = 6+24 = 30
AC = 10.
Cancer number in smokers = smokers’ NAC + AC = 6+10 = 16.
Smoker’s cancer rate = 16/20*100
Fuck I hate doing it manually. But at least it doesn’t involve confidence intervals or p-values 🙂
Nah.
But motor vehicles seem to be involved in 75% of road fatalities.
But motor vehicles seem to be involved in 75% of road fatalities.
I learn something everyday…. not much chance of me being in a road fatality because I’m not a motor vehicle … 😉
(now when I step outside I’m going to have to cross my fingers to ward off sod’s law)
Rosy, yeah i can,at 75% of the deaths from cancer each year that are not linked to tobacco you would have to say fresh air figures way above the 25% attributed to tobacco use…
Mc, good one,more mathematical gymnastics, BUT,as you figured it that way,(to suit how or what your thinking), then surely you can see that from the other,
IF 75% of cancer deaths have no link to tobacco use then it is obvious that even if they DID NOT use tobacco products 75% of those 25% of tobacco cancers would in fact get and die of cancer,
Do some rithmatic and tell us the answer to that one…
I guess you might have a point Bad12, seeing as cancer rates increase with age, so the longer you breathe….
Still that’s a pretty fatalistic attitude (pardon the pun) given the health experts know there are risk factors for particular cancers e.g. smoking and lung cancer, alcohol and breast cancer, cured meats and stomach cancer and so on.
Mc, i got that a little wrong,it should read that if the 25% of smokers didnt, their number would still be decimated by cancer deaths as the same rate as the % of the population that now die of non-smoking related cancer,
So,25% of cancer deaths a year down to just tobacco use, nah not even…
Sigh.
It’s math, not gymnastics.
What’s your point? Everyone will eventually die? Agreed.
The issue is whether people drop dead of cancer or heart disease at 40 or 50, or heart disease or azheiners at 80 or 90. At the moment we have more of the former thqan the latter.
Thanks rosy i will take that point,as i need a few Mc keeps beating up on my brain wiff His rithmatic,
Gee i see that kids author, Margret Mahy, cancer got Her,i threw this one into the debate the other week,the biggest cause of death for us all is living, tick tock and one day the battery stops,
The problem with having such closed minds surrounding the supposedly iron clad statistics around cancers is that things might just get missed, fifty year old studies there might be, but, they didn’t have the study of genes back then,
As i pointed out in the debate the other week, there is one small gene study that shows that lung cancer at least is down to ‘genetic propensity’ where those who get the lung variety, both non and smokers, have a genetic anomaly at number 15 on the genome,(i think that’s how its described),
But how do those studying genetics gain the funding to do the really broad ranging research into such cancers where the shop is effectively closed by the medical fraternity and the politicians pushing their barrows,
My point there is IF the genetic anomaly is where lung cancer starts there is some small or large chance that such anomaly’s exist elsewhere on the genome which account for the other cancers,(and why we all don’t get em), once identified we are half way to the next step of looking for the treatment which stops those genetic anomaly’s from being able to produce cancers…
Sigh, It’s maths not math.. This is not America!
(Every time some careless idiot says “math”, or “center” or “theater” or “gotten”, David Bowie cries, and my father spins in his grave. He’s halfway to Italy by now, with all the careless stupid people who can’t spell, or who wish they lived in Oakland, Warshington, Denver or Connecticut!
youz done forgot to close them curvey brackets.
Sigh, It’s maths not math.. This is not America!
The American version makes much more sense. I’m all for ditching “maths” with its ridiculous “ths” diphthong.
(Every time some careless idiot says “math”,
or “center” or “theater”
I think you mean every time some careless idiot WRITES “center’ or “theater”.
or “gotten”,
That’s as English—and New Zealand—as it is American. Come ON, Vicky.
David Bowie cries,
Let’s just hope his crying is not as inept and cringe-inducing as his “dancing”…
No, there is a higher risk of dying from many cancers if you are a smoker.
Most notably cancers of the lung, esophagus, larynx, mouth, throat, kidney, bladder, pancreas, stomach, and cervix, as well as acute myeloid leukemia.
The immediate health benefits of quitting smoking are substantial:
Heart rate and blood pressure, which can be abnormally high while smoking, begin to return to normal. Within a few hours, the level of carbon monoxide in the blood begins to decline.
Within a few weeks, people who quit smoking have improved circulation, produce less phlegm, and don’t cough or wheeze as often.
Within several months of quitting, people can expect substantial improvements in lung function.
Before you post in response to this let me make it clear, if you want to continue smoking feel free it is not illegal and you personally may not suffer any of the adverse effects of smoking, across an population however, the adverse effects of smoking on morbidity and mortality are clear and have been proven with very robust studies many times.
Oh how I wish that was true! (My experience of quitting in 1989, showed that it isn’t…) but if it was, it would give me much more of an incentive to quit!
Given that my experience has also shown that any coughing/wheezing I do is directly related to vehicle exhausts, in that I visit a friend in Wellington, who lives in a ghastly semi-rural area where there’s maybe one car a day, and I don’t cough – I come home, walk along Carrington Road past buses, and B-Double diesel road trains, and cough as if I am dying, quitting smoking will not help. But if I die soon, watch my death certificate say I died of smoking, even if I die because one of those barsteward diesels hit me and smacked me into the next world!
and a longer life HS something not to be scoughed at.
May be they are that unhappy in their lives they prefer to drag it out
No mre puffery from me
And yet my experience is that it is. I also dropped about 5 years in the “looks” department – in other words, I looked younger (about 5 years younger).
Yep. I’ve had that as well. Moving from Auckland to Dunedin did it for me – until I started coughing again a few months later. That said, Auckland cars cause significant deaths per year from respiratory diseases.
I certainly hope no one takes your pro smoking crusade seriously, bad12.
Reason???
Because I have followed your comments for the last few weeks regarding smoking and your ideas fly directly in the face of the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus not to mention over 50 years of study, research, double blind and peer reviewed scientific inquiry.
Does the link provided above ‘fly in the face’ of all that too???…
No.
You’re up against it mr bad12… but don’t fret as the current crusade to stop everyone smoking goes against the grain of human history and I predict that the current amonoly will disappear in the future and big chunks of the population will start smoking again. It’s just too desireable. 2c
The evidence is not on your side bad12. As a smoker I’d love it to be otherwise.
Oh i don’t fret, what i do do though is get angry at attempts to stop me consuming a product that i am legally allowed to consume when punitive taxation is used to try and leverage the issue,
That of course would also require me to believe that such taxation is being applied to me for the stated reasons and is not just a revenue grab,
The Treasury in it’s briefing to the Government seems to believe it to be the latter even going so far as to advise the Government that such taxation was good because the users of the product are addicts who mostly WON’T give up use of the product…
PS, note the first comment in open mike today, never mind who put it there, BUT, the sponsor of that particular piece of Legislation is also a vocal anti-smoking campaigner who in the Legislation She is attempting to promote into the Statutes wants everyone to have the right to self determine the point of their death,
See any shadow of the hypocrite between the anti-smoking and ‘the right to self determine the point of ones death???…
No.
Really mr draco? I have never been able to understand the apparent lack of reconciliation between, say, anti-smoking policy, allowing boxers to smash each other causing brain damage, euthansia type proposals, allowing the sale of cars that do 150mph and kill people, and etc.
How are they not mismatched and hypocritical?
edit: oh, and lets not forget the mismatch with alcohol policies too
One affects only you, the other affects everyone else as well.
Yes, there are mismatches and we really should be looking at them as well. The law has become far too complex over the centuries with huge amounts of loopholes and contradictions and so what is required is a wholesale dumping and replacement of that existing law. Unfortunately, today’s political parties just don’t seem capable of doing that and so they play around on the edges making it even more complex and convoluted and not fixing anything.
But, of course, treating us as lepers also affects our health.
So e.g. ranting about the trace-element risk of passive smoking from smokers in public open-air spaces, or even ranting at them in a very confrontational manner, endangers their health. Rather hypocritical, don’t you think?
1.) That has nothing to do with what I said
2.) You’re the ones inflicting the risk of death upon others. If you then get upset about others pointing this out then I suggest you ask yourself who’s to blame.
1) You seemed to imply that if euthanasia affected others, then supporting it while opposing smoking would be hypocritical. I actually think that risking the lives of others by forcing a confrontation is just as hypocritical.
2) Bullshit. We’re not talking smoke-filled workplaces here. A footpath by its very nature is a fleeting exposure at minimal concentrations. Think “smoke-alarm or VDU probability”. And if that’s too much for you, it’s a footpath. Walk away, just as you would if I failed to bath or had lousy fashion sense. Don’t endanger my life and yours with a confrontation, and don’t endanger my life by legislating that I be treated like a leper so that the police escalate the confrontation for you.
Yes, and?
How is a confrontation being forced? Hint: It’s not the non-smoker.
Nonsmoker choosing to make a big deal out of it.
After all, the chances are that the smoker is addicted. Not much choice there. What next, kicking crutches away from the disabled because they take up too much of the footpath?
edit: “Yes, and?” . . . and I went on to explain the relevance.
It’s possible to overcome the addiction and thus stop the confrontation.
It’s a cigarette. Not a confrontation. Or should we never do anything in case some deranged obsessive has no sense of perspective and abuses, even assauts us?
Open your mind then…
I’m not the one with a closed mind.
Suicide is illegal no matter how slow and painful it is.
Those shadows are on most smokers lungs
Addicts are selfish
When an addict is cornered the excuses just keep coming.
So if its so good how come most smokers achually want to Quit.
But Can’t why is that.
It damages families when your loved ones don,t have someone as their rock
So subsidizing Giant Corporations sucks especially when they have been proven to be liars and frauds conning our healthy young people to get addicted You can tell a smokers face
a mile a way .
Bad 12 you have been hooked line and stinker.
Kids get asthma from smokers
vto cuts to the chase
http://robertguyton.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/vto-cuts-to-chase.html
As i’ve posted on your blog rob it’s only fair that i put it here too
Only caught the first part of Question Time in the House today. Half-time report …
Key can’t stand Norman. It’s really funny, he’s a primary school kid getting shown up in front of the class, and he hates it. Key was reduced to shouting “Rubbish! You iz rubbish!”.
Robertson did a pretty good forensic job on Key. It may not be a headline-grabber, but it still keeps up the pressure. Shearer did OK on the Monday holidays issue, though again I lament the missed opportunities (why let Key get away with the desperate ANZAC card? Couldn’t somebody just … “Point of order, I seek leave to table an Australian calendar … seek leave to table reports of Australian ANZAC ceremonies”, etc, etc).
Overall, a pass mark for the Opposition.
Key is probably still shitty about yesterday’s Question Time. Norman made him look like a total dick.
Russell Norman didn’t make Slippery look like a ‘total dick’, the Prime Minister has been that all along, Russell just provided Him the opportunity to highlight the fact…
Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does politics.
Latest poll shows the Conservatives joining the mix …
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2012/4807/
Labour won’t win by default. Voters who get disillusioned with Brand Key can shop around … Colin Craig, Winston, Mana, the couch.
It should be hard for Labour to lose the next election. But first, they have to fight it.
It should be but it looks like they’ll succeed in losing anyway.
Grant Asylum to Assange
by Mairead Maguire
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article31967.htm
July 23, 2012
I would like to add my voice to those of many people of conscience, around the world, in urging President Correa of Ecuador to grant political asylum to Julian Assange. The editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks is currently inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
The British courts shamefully refused Mr. Assange’s appeal against extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in response to accusations of sexual molestation (no criminal charges have been made against him). Mr. Assange has said he is willing to answer questions relating to accusations against him, but to do so in the UK. He has good reason not to want to be extradited to Sweden, as he could find himself imprisoned in solitary confinement, and then very likely extradited to an American prison.
The American media has reported that the U.S. Justice Department and the Pentagon conducted a criminal investigation into “whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange violated criminal laws in the group’s release of government documents, including possible charges under the Espionage Act.” Mr. Assange’s only crime is he cared enough about people to respect their right to the truth, and he had the courage and bravery to print the truth, and in the process he embarrassed powerful governments.
The WikiLeaks release of thousands of State Department cables, and of the video footage from an Apache helicopter of a 2007 incident in which the U.S. military appears to have deliberately killed civilians, including two Reuters employees, revealed crimes against humanity. For this “truth telling,” he has incurred the wrath of the U.S. government, and has been targeted in a most vindictive way (as has Private Bradley Manning). (I support WikiLeaks right to publish leaked information, as it is in the interest of the public and their right to know. WikiLeaks were not the leakers or whistleblowers but an on-line news media).
Many believe there are those in high places who not only wish to punish Assange for outing them, but want to make an example of him so others will remain silent. They will not rest until Assange is behind bars in the USA and there are even some American politicians who have put Assange’s life in grave danger by calling for him to be assassinated.
It is ironic that Assange’s basic human rights have been breached since he is a journalist working for people’s rights to a free press and the freedom of speech.
The Australian, Swedish and UK governments have a responsibility to see that this man of courage be treated fairly and with justice. He ought to be allowed to tell his story in the UK when he can prove whether the incompetent and contradictory accusations against him are true or false.
It must also be remembered if Assange ends up in an American prison for a long time, in grave danger to his life, and maybe even face the death penalty, we all have to ask, “Who next?” and “Where goes freedom, human rights, and justice?”
We, as world citizens, need to support Julian Assange, who tried to protect the innocent by outing the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is they who should, one day, be made accountable for their crimes.
Mairead Maguire ( http://www.peacepeople.com ) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976.
Grant Asylum to Assange
The British courts shamefully examined all the legal issues and decided to extradite him to Sweden so a sex crime investigation could progress. No charges have been laid as a result of him leaving the country before an arranged investigative interview.
Mr Assange says he is willing to be interviewed under conditions of his choosing, just like he said he was for the interview he failed to attend when he left Sweden.
Sweden is a client state of the US, apparently much more so than the UK.
Wikileaks pissed off the US.
Because he volunteered to be the face of wikileaks, the US is pissed off at him, too.
Assange is a journalist working for freedom, so it is a violation of his human rights to be investigated for rape.
The Swedish justice system should take place in the UK, at Assange’s convenience.
If Assange is granted asylum by Ecuador, we would all have to ask “so if I was really famous, I could get away with rape?” or even “if someone famous rapes you, don’t even bother reporting it because the cops won’t be able to do anything and the rapist’s fans will plaster your name all over the internet and make all sorts of crap up about you. Much better to just keep letting rapists rape with impunity”.
After all, if someone pisses off the americans, they should get a free pass on sexual assault investigations.
Hmmmm…. here’s a true clash of the Titans. McFlock versus Mairead Maguire. Which one is serious, thoughtful and formidably well informed? And which one is, well, … none of those?
I’ll leave it to our regulars to work that out.
And who merely cut&pastes without anything himself? Except, today, an appeal to authority.
Really persuasive /sarc
And who merely cut&pastes without anything himself?
I’ve given plenty of my own opinions on many topics. Maybe you’ve seen them.
Except, today, an appeal to authority.
With respect, I don’t think you know what you’re talking about. By printing her appeal, I have merely pointed out another leading human rights and peace activist calling for Ecuador to grant asylum to the U.S. regime’s most feared and detested political dissident. I have argued Assange’s case in my own words on many occasions. But, yes, Mairead Maguire’s testimony is certainly authoritative, and compelling. Compare her moral and intellectual stature with that of the people whose rancid and witless views you choose to parrot on this site.
Really persuasive /sarc
I’m being scolded for sarcasm by somebody who launched into that bizarre “so if I was really famous” fugue on message 11.1. Now THAT’s funny!
If Ecuador does grant asylum they should also say that the rape will also be carried out under Swedish law. It would just happen in their country with no possibility of extradition to the US.
I’m not able to speculate on whether or not some line was crossed by Assange during his sexual encounters with two women in Sweden.
But when I look at the corporate media coverage of the former IMF chief, where they were quite happy to denigate the victim in what looked like, from the evidence supplied, a fairly straight forward case of sexual assault. And I contrast that with their equally happy commitment to denigating Assange, there is one obvious observation.
In both cases the media is siding with power. And that makes me uneasy.
Bill 11 1 3
That’s a point. It does make an interesting comparison. Mr Dominic whatname can do whatever, and has done whatever before, but can wriggle out of it. Whereas Assange might have thought that his women truly liked him for himself, till they were advised this was not a reasonable point of view. Now he is to be charged and the hounds are after him.
For the wealthy, they can get away with much, especially if they pay for it. Did Mr Dominic not pay? This maid must be short of money, and women’s self-respect and agency is always regarded by such men as open to tender. The coldness that lies behind men’s eyes…
In fact Strauss-Kahn got away with it for years. He was charged only when he dared to suggest the IMF should water down their Neo-liberal approach, because of the harm it was doing.
Similarly. It is unlikely Assuage would have been charged with sex crimes in Sweden, without the politics. Note that the first prosecutor said there was no valid case. So they massaged (if that is the right word) the evidence a little.
When are the troops in Afghanistan, and their leaders from Bush down, going to be charged with the massacres of unarmed civilians.
In both cases the media is siding with power.
The establishment had no particular reason to go after Strauss-Kahn. On the other hand, Assange has to be destroyed. The zeal with which they are going after him is similar to Soviet anti-dissident campaigns in the 1930s.
I think i may make hyperbole my word of the day. What do you think, Mozza?
I think i may make hyperbole my word of the day.
I think “trivialization” is the most appropriate word for your attitude, my friend.
Ok, in what way is asking Assange to defend himself in Sweden similar to Soviet anti-dissident campaigns in the 1930s? And, no, ‘they’re both countries in Northern Europe’ isn’t the right answer.
Ok, in what way is asking Assange to defend himself in Sweden similar to Soviet anti-dissident campaigns in the 1930s?
The full power of the state apparatus is aimed at Assange, who is a dissident non-pareil in the West. The state apparatus consists of secret machinations against the target, backed up by compliant and largely unquestioning media, which is where most of the public gets its “opinions” from. That’s what you are doing, unwittingly: parroting official lies and propaganda. The spectacle of immense state power being wielded against a target has parallels only with totalitarian regimes like Stalin’s, and Mao’s in the 1960s.
And, no, ‘they’re both countries in Northern Europe’ isn’t the right answer.
There he goes again, with the trivialization. Not funny, either.
An e-mail to Jim Mora
Wednesday July 25, 2012
Much huffing and puffing by Jim and his panelists over the rogue shooting by a clearly deranged man in Colorado. Bit of a contrast with the way they all but ignored the most recent massacre by U.S. troops in Afghanistan. As I do occasionally, I decided to goad Mr Mora’s conscience…
Dear Jim,
I am intrigued that you and your panelists continue to talk about James Holmes’ bloody rampage in a Denver cinema. I cannot recall you expressing similar concern about an even bloodier shooting spree just four months ago, when one Robert Bales killed sixteen civilians, most of them children who were sleeping. He then poured chemicals over their dead bodies and set fire to them.
This surely merited discussion on your programme, but neither you nor Susan Baldacci saw fit to mention it. Was that because Robert Bales was a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army and his victims were not Americans but Afghan civilians?
Yours sincerely,
Morrissey Breen
Northcote Point
Did you get a reply? Do let us know if you do… Good luck! 🙂
Did you get a reply?
Not yet. I’ll keep you posted.
Did you read this? I’m not going to say that it’s definitive but it does raise some interesting questions. Was he deranged or had he snapped/driven under the pressures of modern society? Is there a difference?
Thank you, Mr Bastard. Very interesting indeed.
The Michael Douglas movie Falling Down was written about this very phenomena.
Today David Shearer said:
“Labour is conscious of the need to be thrifty and to make sure that the extension to paid parental leave is affordable. We will work with other political parties and experts, including Treasury and IRD, to find a workable solution in the current economic climate”
We do not have to apologise or be ‘nice’ about seeking to legislate for these conditions.
The Kiwi worker is the most Dilligent, hard-working, most hours working, flexible working pattern employee in the world.
Why the fuck should we consult with National to get these minor increments to our work conditions. Will the EMA/ National do anything other use every card in the deck to block us?
Have we lost the fucking plot? Jesus wept! Who is writing his press releases?
A Labour opportunity lost. They could have got behind a positive thing for motorists and road safety but no. They had to agree with the NACToid, I think Collins, who criticised the idea of police having marked camera vans. It only slows down people for a moment said NACT and Labour’s transport safety spokesperson Iain Lees-Galloway agreed. So WTF? It is a safety symbol that will affect people’s behaviour, it is more transparent and it’s not sneaky to have the signage but NACT and Labour thought it was wasting money. Oh how pathetic.
How exactly DtB, are we inflicting the risk of death upon you or anyone else? Ok, we are at a bus stop, in the open air. I am smoking. Diesel buses are roaring past us every few minutes.
You screech and scream at me that my cigarette is endangering your life, even though you’re sitting in the shelter, and I am standing in the wind or rain 3 metres away. You’re breathing in particulates from the diesel exhaust, and mistaking them for the smoke that’s blowing away from you at 50 kph..
I would laugh if it wasn’t making me so angry.
(Based on true encounters.)
Well.
1.) I can tell the difference between diesel and cigarette smoke
2.) I’d be cursing both
3.) I wouldn’t actually be cursing you because, despite the fact that it’s a disgusting habit, I would also recognise that you’re making an effort not to inflict it upon me
Personally, I am opposed to both.
And. I appreciate the, few, smokers who do make an effort to avoid making me smell them.
When did Christine (Spankin’) Rankin become a “child advocate”?
Last time I saw this snarling harridan, she was advocating the right of people to beat their children. I’ve just seen her on TV1’s pisspoor Closeup programme, and she was called a “child advocate” on several occasions by Mark Sainsbury.
When did Spankin’ Rankin stop advocating the beating of children and become a child advocate?
http://www.listener.co.nz/current-affairs/politics/jane-clifton-minority-report/
The pressing thing for the National Party Ladies Home Journal (read Joanne Black talk about her kids and how crap people who exploit people for reality tv are) is the Labour -Green coalition possibility-
The polls must be good!
The main-stream polls are still the usual National way ahead but tracking downward, but, it’s National’s own polling which has got them lashing out angrily at all and sundry,
Apparently they show Labour/Green within a few percentage points of National whose slump has made ‘them’ believe that if their polling occurred on election day 2014 they couldn’t do it with the ‘Hairdo’, John(the convicted)Banks, and, the current number of Maori Party MP’s,
NZFirst isn’t going away either and if that Party were to be included in a Labour/Green coalition then it is game over for the Tory’s anytime they want to call an election…
Justice Minister Judith Collins said Anzac day was a day of commemoration and remembering the dead.
“Frankly to reduce it into a three day weekend is, I think, very disrespectful to the people whose lives have been lost. If people need to have a holiday to go and actually turn up at dawn parade then there’s something wrong.”
Is this the reason we didn’t have Old Shonkey fronting the issue?
Oh don’t be absurd! It may be New Zealand, (and even then, only New Zealand in the last 20 years) but it is absolutely not English! I should know.
Yes, McFlock, I did forget to close the brackets, I often do! Too many subordinate clauses, – I hope they don’t tax you unduly, Morrissey? I simply abhor inaccuracies, and I equally abhor the somewhat grovelling nature of New Zealand’s cultural cringe before all things American. I saw an example in the programme on TV3 about tattooing – a Maori man with prison tattoos was making out that they are legitimate cultural tatts, when as far as i could see, that was not the case. “No different than” he said – and I just sighed. He looked older than Don Brash, who was the first gastropod to say “different than” on NZ TV (in January). No one in his 70s grew up saying ‘different than’. The bl**dy Yanks don’t need to bomb NZ, or even to take us over with money – if American troops marched up Queen Street tomorrow, ‘Kiwis’ would fight each other for the privilege of throwing flowers and licking Amerikan boots. Women would fling themselves at the feet of the American troops, flinging their skirts over their heads and their legs in the air.
feel better?
Women would fling themselves at the feet of the American troops, flinging their skirts over their heads and their legs in the air.
Sounds exactly like the reception that modern women give to Julian Assange.
At first glance, I’d do him! But then, as me old Mum used to say “handsome is as handsome does”.
And what would you say, Vicky, if this writer (i.e., moi) were to tell you that he looks just like Julian Assange?
I’d say ‘Cool!’ (I am superficial like that, and have a weakness for blond men). 😀
However, I am guaranteed to be older than you are, so you’d never be interested…