Nope. My fault. I did a series of upgrades to the operating systems followed by a cleanup of the disk space. Then after telling the check systems that the site was being rebooted, rebooted at about 2am. But failed to check that the site actually came online.
It had a configuration problem in the apache2 and failed to start up.
A seldom bought up fact is that coal fired and nuclear power does not work in very hot temperatures due to needing cooling as part of their process. In short they are not good in a global warming scenario as when it gets too hot, (and you need power to run air conditioners), it also effects other parts of the network.
That is why solar and diversified power networks are needed in global warming scenarios.
“The heat in Victoria has already cut power to thousands of properties in the state’s central north. More than 2700 AusNet customers were hit with a power outage near Nagambie and an underground cable fault might not be fixed until 5pm. ”
As the heat racks up, Australia becomes more and more suited to become the world’s first hydrogen fuel energy superpower.
High concentrated solar heat can split oxygen and hydrogen at industrial scales through the process of thermolysis far more efficiently than electrolysis, the current most common method.
Thermolytic hydrogen production looks to be at a similar stage to photocatalytic hydrogen production; a bit closer to reality than fusion power but not much.
Sorry but Hydrogen is just not efficient as a source of renewable power. There’s power loss from generation to piping, storing and consuming hydrogen.
The cheapest and most efficient use of solar and wind sources of renewable power is to send the electricity directly to a battery or to point of consumption. The ever improving economics of battery storage will drive the cost down so much that it will become economic to store it overnight for large populations.
That’s an issue for legacy power generation designed for a cooler climate. Unless the power plants are badly engineered, extreme hot temperatures should only force reduced output, not shutdown.
New builds can and should be designed for a warmer climate and much hotter hottest days, with substantially gruntier cooling systems. The gruntier cooling systems should also improve their overall thermal efficiency in less-extreme conditions. Concentrated solar-thermal, geothermal and gas generation also have the cooling issue. Even photovoltaics benefit from kept cool, although it’s rarely if ever cost-effective to actively cool them (there’s a double-benefit from floating photovoltaic arrays on reservoirs, better output from being kept cooler and reduced evaporation).
There’s also the transmission grid – if the cables get hot, they expand lengthwise and sag. Sometimes close enough to something underneath to start fires. One engineering solution for that is using carbon fibre cable for the tension-bearing core, and aluminium for the conductors. Carbon fibre has a very small thermal expansion lengthwise (can be positive or negative depending on the grade) so the heat-sag problem mostly goes away. It just costs a bit more initially.
In 1998 it was the opposite of a wintry storm: it was an El Nino summer. There was a drought and February was hot, fuelling electricity demand from CBD air conditioning.
This had a crippling effect on central Auckland’s ageing power supply. The CBD was fed by four 110 kilo-volt underground main cables – one pair that were gas filled and dated from the 1940s and another pair of oil-filled cables from the 1970s – and a solo 22kV cable from Kingsland.
Hot, dry ground and heat changes in the cables caused movement and instability. Faults in the gas cables put more demand on the oil ones, which overheated and failed.
The first the public knew of the impending crisis was a message from the power supplier (then known as Mercury Energy but now called Vector) advising CBD customers to conserve electricity, otherwise “drastic measures” would be needed.
By that point, February 19, three of the main cables had failed. The first went out in January. The fourth failed on February 20, leaving the Kingsland thread as the power lifeline.
There were two causes. A hot summer shifted the ground causing an actual break in at least one cable causing a leakage. The other one was a bit more insidious. There was insufficient ground moisture to transfer extra heat away from the cables.
I’d just moved into my apartment towards the end of 1997, so had the fun of months of the power outages.
It is kind of freaky to realise that at the time there were only 7000 people living in and around the CBD in 1998. The last time I looked (after the 2013 census) there were more than 70,000. It has gone up since then.
I read recently that City of London has much of its own governance.
Something like 7000 people live there, but 450,000 people work there or are integrated with it. e&oe
There are two Coal power stations in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria’s east couldn’t keep up with demand by 10:30am thence the rolling blackouts aka “brown outs” yesterday and one of the main trunk powerlines in Victoria went tits up as well.
There were also localised power outages as well cause by local transmission lines not handling the increase demand of power or the extreme heat or a combination of the both.
Can find the link but it looks like they have already had to shut down generations in Adelaide due to extreme heat. So just when you need power to cool, you have to shut down your generations. So I guess people could be dead pretty quickly.
Sadly power has become a business rather than a social good, and therefore the discourses are not about the cheapest most effective ways for communities and individuals to get power but more about big business making the most profit of often the poorest people, while subtly delaying/stopping or trying to control other better, cheaper ways they could get power.
Free trade has become about stopping social good and profiting from the effects of climate change, through thousands of pages of ‘rules’ to ensure profit remains to the big multinationals.
“Profit over the planet: WTO’s lawsuit ruling could be a giant blow to the renewable energy movement
WTO tribunal ruled in a lawsuit initiated by the U.S. that India’s national solar energy program violates trade law”
With the same ruling above, even though India had virtually ZERO solar capacity at that time the logic of US solar being damaged at that time could not be true. However the WTO still ruled in US favour.
“The U.S. sued India in the WTO tribunal because India’s subsidized solar energy program required that particular parts be made in the country. Washington claims that, because of this program, its solar exports to India have fallen by 90 percent since 2011, when the program started. As the Sierra Club’s Ben Beachy noted, however, India had almost no solar capacity at this time.”
Free trade has become about stopping social good and profiting from the effects of climate change, through thousands of pages of ‘rules’ to ensure profit remains to the big multinationals.
It’s not about free-trade – it’s about forcing trade.
India didn’t want to trade so as to help develop their economy and so the US through the WTO forced it upon them. They did so so that the US economy could be developed at India’s expense.
If these people were truly after free-trade they’d be dropping all the rules and allowing nations to decide for themselves if they’re going to trade with another nation or not. That, after all, is what free-trade is.
“If these people were truly after free-trade they’d be dropping all the rules and allowing nations to decide for themselves if they’re going to trade with another nation or not. That, after all, is what free-trade is.”
/agreed
Do you think we might see some committed ‘free trade’ advocate (such as a Wayne or an Ollie Hartwich) come along and offer an explanation as to why free trade and FTAs are not actually free trade?
I imagine if they ever do, the explanation will be laced with spin and buzz words going forward.
And you’re absolutely correct re India. I still marvel at how the MFATs, Oz equivalent and others can’t understand why India is one of those ‘hard nuts to crack’ in obtaining an FTA.
Here’s a hint: Despite all the overt corruption, backhanders and promises, there is actually a concern among the Indian political elite for its citizens – whether from the Left, or from the Right. They don’t actually like being treated like shit in the minds of their foreign betters especially with the offshore diaspora.
Do you think we might see some committed ‘free trade’ advocate (such as a Wayne or an Ollie Hartwich) come along and offer an explanation as to why free trade and FTAs are not actually free trade?
I would expect them to come on and explain why these agreements are all about free-trade when, more often than not, they’re used to force trade.
3pm (1500hrs) and its now 2000Hrs.
Waiting waiting waiting. I’d have thought there’d have been a few regulars jumping in by now – seems not.
I guess they’re waiting for instructions
They really don’t like it when the truth is before them.
The fact that these agreements are forced trade rather than free-trade undermines their credibility but they actually can’t deny that these agreements are about forcing trade rather than free-trade.
One of the things I have learnt watching today’s ODI involving India is the meaning of the cartwheel in the Indian flag.
From Wikipedia (therefore it must be true), :
“Gandhi first proposed a flag to the Indian National Congress in 1921. The flag was designed by Pingali Venkayya. In the centre was a traditional spinning wheel, symbolising Gandhi’s goal of making Indians self-reliant by fabricating their own clothing…”
But wait, there’s more:
“Bhagwa or the Saffron denotes renunciation or disinterestedness. Our leaders must be indifferent to material gains and dedicate themselves to their work.”
I would love to include this in the cabinet manual.
You’ve got it @gsays.
Not something a few Wasps in Delhi half a mile from a Railway Museum sucking on a fag and worrying about their future will ever get.
Just as well I ‘spose there’s now a ‘Maori Policy Unit’ in MFAT’ with one or two decent folk leading the charge, even if they do worship at the lower Tory Street Temple
*
there’s NOW a ‘Maori Policy Unit’ ……etc.
Sorry, I had a Leftist’s curmudgeon moment brought on by memories of a Relda and a Marama.
A Kohia cum Martin almost.
Thermal generation relies on the Carnot cycle, and it becomes less efficient as the ambient temperature rises. So does the cooling efficiency, and in many jurisdictions power plants are also restricted from putting too much heat back into rivers/estuaries, as this can have a severe impact on ecosystems. There is just so much legacy coal around that can’t be retrofitted with better cooling that our warming climate will cause more outages of coal fired power generation.
I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion about cooling or temperature being the cause of the power cut. They point out it was an underground cable and the fault could be caused by quite a few things.
A real issue for cooling for me would be transformers dealing with high loads. They are everywhere and are air cooled, the coils immersed in oil. So obviously 50 deg air is less efficient in cooling than 30 deg air. The risk being the insulating coating on the wires fail, they short circuit and explode.
As for the power plants there is two versions. Those that recycle water in cooling towers and those using water from rivers like Huntly. So the water exits the plant as steam at 100 deg plus, condenses and falls back down the tower. In theory less water would be recycled as less water can reach the temp to condense. The actual turbines shouldn’t be effected by a large amount as they operate at temperatures much higher than the air temerature. If anything the may need higher water flows in any component cooling part of the operation.
So water supply is actually the issue. Plants that can’t condense enough water may not have consent to draw enough from waterways to compensate. Plants like Huntly should have no issues as they have the ability to add cooling towers.
The actual figures for the effect of air temperature are small.
Funny how there has been ZERO nuclear power plants built by private practise in the world, instead they use tax payer money for the folly. Even when private practise do make the nuclear power plants it is enough to drive them under, meanwhile the countries and companies that invested in solar early are booming.
“Fossil fuel company TransCanada is already suing the U.S. government, after the Obama administration rejected its proposed Keystone XL Pipeline on environmental grounds. Former NASA environmental scientist and now Columbia University professor James Hansen emphasized that, if the pipeline were built and the vast oil reserves in Alberta, Canada’s tar sands were used, it would mean “game over for the climate,” yet the corporation is demanding $15 billion in compensation from American taxpayers.”
Oh, lets look at what industries are causing climate change, and then getting the free trade deals to compensate them for their destruction of the planet so far! Crazy!
Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says
A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change
And failed to see a reference to a rift valley less than 50 miles from Auckland which is thought by geologists to pose the risk of a large earthquake. Such a shake would affect the majority of the upper island as the fault runs through the Hauraki Gulf. It why the Firth of Thames is why it is – it is a submerged rift valley.
But not only is Auckland potentially liable to suffer an earthquake it is also liable to volcanic eruption. The hot springs at Miranda don’t just happen to be there for no apparent reason.
Indeed the whole of the upper North Island is formed from volcanic and earthquakes. If you were to do Geology 101 from AUC you would go on a field tip to Matheson Bay by Leigh, half way between Auckland and Whangarei, where the the evidence of Earth quakes, volcanoes, and other geological action is to be plainly seen.
The pay off in reliable power to Auckland for the whole city, including a massive upswing in EV’s and electric public transport would more than pay for itself.
Not only are they designed to run with typically cooler water the waste heat has environmental impacts which will only increase with recalibration and an already warmer cooling source.
“Every day, large reactors like the two at Diablo Canyon, California, individually dump about 1.25 billion gallons of water into the ocean at temperatures up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the natural environment. ”
I’ve got tickling in the back of my head that Huntly is (or was) occasionally constrained by its resource consent conditions. IIRC, when the Waikato river is already warm and low flow they’re not allowed to dump much extra heat into it, so that limits the power output.
President Trump agrees to open the US government up for 30 days. After that period if he doesn’t get his wall, he has threatened to either close the government again, or declare a National Emergency.
Even for a President who doesn’t read, the enormity of the second option can’t escape him.
Dunno about that. He knows he just got spanked over his dropping ratings so it’s unlikely he’ll try another shutdown, and his base thinks he just cravenly surrendered.
His way out is to get a bit of extra funding for more technology stuff like remote surveillance and entry port inspections, and call it a “smart wall”. He’s already setting the stage for that switcheroo, and most of his Wallnuts will go along with it.
But Trump’s description of what kind of wall he wants has evolved in a notable concession to his critics. Trump said Friday that natural barriers already provide ample protection in some parts of the border, and that resources for border control should also focus on ports of entry and technology developments beyond a physical barrier.
“The walls that we are building are not medieval walls. They are smart walls designed to meet the needs of front-line border agents and are operationally effective,” Trump said. “We do not need 2,000 miles of concrete wall from sea to shining sea, we never did, we never proposed that.”
Would trump’s wall actually have any effect other than to fulfill his election promises.
Fencing people out is vastly different to fencing them in imho
As a practical matter, a concrete wall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean would:
make floods in the Rio Grande much worse by impeding floodwaters
forcibly take a lot of land from a lot of really ornery Texans
really fuck up the ecosystems in the Big Bend area of Texas and kill a lot of the wildlife that depends on access to the Rio Grande for water let alone north-south migration patterns (equivalent ecosystems in the California mountains are already fucked from the fencing that’s already built)
barely noticeably reduce illegal immigration since most arrive legally and overstay, are smuggled through an entry port concealed in a vehicle, or go over or under existing fencing
Start again with what he is proposing.
What’s interesting about Trump is he has is end game and a starting position. Over time has starting position has changed from your comment, to his present policy. He has listened to the experts, who want the steel barrier etc.
His end game hasn’t changed.
Stop ILLEGAL immigration.
So you like law breaking and keep coming up with excuses justifying law breaking. He wants things to be lawful.
Most illegal immigration. But the rest is acceptable to you. Trump wants to stop it therefore Andre must condone it.
So most convicted rapists?
So most MS13?
So most sex trade victims?
Where do they enter the US?
I’m amazed that you condone those things just on your hatred of Trump. You would rather rapists, Gang members, and sex trafficking be unimpeded than let a single Trump policy, sorry Obama policy, sorry Pelosi policy be funded.
He probably should have signed up to the UN pact on immigration then as one of it’s goals was to stop people immigrating illegally by correcting the conditions that make them want to leave.
Of course, that would reduce the power of the US and other developed nations in the world.
Those Hitler digs are clearly stupid.
The socialist MSM is the new Goebbels.
There’s no enormity in building a wall. Not a single American will have a single control placed on them. Not one. No media imprisoned like Venuzuela. No protesters shot or run over like Venuzuela. No corruption like Venuzuela. No high taxes that cause all the youth to flee like Venuzuela.
Nothing. Not one thing Nazi in anything Trump has done. Unlike Ocasio Cortez who is a racist and sexist as well. On record with her hate white men comments.
Aside from your irrational Godwinisms, I agree that the concept of walls is not inherently bad, humans have built them throughout history. Trump’s tantrum shutdown wasn’t really about he wall, it’s about Democrats taking control of Congress, and obstructing the Mueller investigation. Trump has had 2 years to fund his stupid fscken wall but he seemed to forget about it until now.
I think your wrong.
She has a great personality but clearly not that bright.
She refuses to by interviewed by media that may ask non patsy questions so she can’t actually get to that higher level. The day she has to face a real interview rather than patsy questions she will look stupid and scary.
The rich are going WTF she is just nuts. The second she gets any traction or power with her ideas large numbers of the rich will donate to the republicans. She will be like the gift that keeps on giving.
Billionaire @MichaelDell on @AOC's 70% marginal tax rate on millionaires: "Name a country where that's worked — ever." Co-panelist and MIT professor Erik Brynjolfsson: "The United States!"#Davos2019https://t.co/fVgrFI73wO
That’s right, they were very perdantic on that one. Unlike Venuzuela who have no paper to take records. Or no media to report on it. There in prison.
We have the same policy here in NZ it’s called CYFS. All you need is you and 2 dodgy mates to independently make false allegations and they will go around and take the children from the parent or parents. They keep paperwork as well but good luck trying to get hold of it. The children are placed with audited, better parents. Sadly often more likely to abuse the kids vs the parents.
Exactly. Everyone else identifies that child, who their parents are, where they were taken into custody (and by whom), whether the child was healthy, and what their destination will be.
The Nazis kept better records on the kids they intentionally murdered than dolt45’s crew do on kids they were supposed to try to keep alive.
“If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shutdown on February 15, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States to address this emergency,”
But just imagine what the next Democrat President in 2020 could do with those “emergency powers” tRump is just wanting to set a precedent for!
Action on Climate Change.
Immigration policy.
Voting rights.
Social Justice.
to name a few.
His advisers are cautioning him about taking this approach because it would set up a whole gateway for open slather executive action that potentially violates their constitution. Furthermore, if it should succeed through the myriad of legal objections, such an order would immediately face, it opens the way for any succeeding Democrat to do something to which Republicans are totally opposed. Of course, having essentially cast aside all the adults in the room, and never actually listening to any advice that may be given – unless it is from his mates on Fox news – who knows what he will do. He obviously hasn’t a clue as to what he is doing – so how is anyone else to know?
Macro …
26 January 2019 at 7:32 pm
But just imagine what the next Democrat President in 2020 could do with those “emergency powers”….
What, next Democratic President?
Early reviews of Fahrenheit 11/9 suggest that Moore uses the Flint water crisis to show how civil safeguards are being eroded by Republican freebooters, He claims that Rick Snyder, the Republican governor of Michigan, engineered a virtual coup d’etat by instituting “emergency management” that sidelined elected officials after Flint’s water supply was polluted by an unnecessary but profitable new pipeline.
Moore also suggests that Trump is the figurehead of an attempt to destroy democracy in the US: his speeches are compared to Adolf Hitler’s to argue that the same social passivity that allowed dictators to legally seize power in the 1930s is blunting opposition today.
You fail to understand the importance of the most recent election and the real “Blue Wave” that transformed the country. And yes it did transform the country. There is still more to be done, but the people are not resting on their laurels, they are now seriously working on 2020. Trumpkins who are now the only base for Trump support, are even now, walking away as they realise the reality of life under the Orange one is not what he said it would be. The Republicans don’t have the support, nor the gumption, to remove him, and they are fractionalised as a party, like they have never been before. There has been a huge reaction to the election of Trump. It has energized people, particularly women. There is growing movement for reform.
If Trump was successful to create expanded “Emergency Powers” for his wall, that would create a precedent for any follow on President to do a vast number of things of which current Republicans would never dream of doing. Remember it was the power of the Republicans in Congress that has held up any substantive progress on Climate Action on the world stage for decades. No US President could agree to working towards reducing GHG emissions on a world stage without their consent.
Saturday, 29 September 2001
The meek have inherited the Earth and are now too frightened to go outside their doors. They seek to deny change, change in how they live – change within themselves.
Do not be afraid – change is life, to be masters’ of the change is to be enlightened.
To seek enlightenment is to become unenlightened, seek instead to become masters of self.
This war which looms upon us is not a war against terror as George W. (Dubya) Bush would have us believe – it is a war against a change in the status quo, a war to try and preserve those in power, those who believe that they are the rulers of Earth.
This war will see the end of the American Empire, its final collapse coming in a time when America has no friends – when brother sets against brother.
The end of this war can only come from within America, as those who come to see the tyranny of what is and rise up to bring change. The catalyst has started, the ball is rolling – the end is in doubt. Those of us who sit on the side lines are those who will cry most – none will be unchanged.
Cost will be beyond measure, attainment beyond price.
This is the Final War – the war against capitalism.
1. you need to put in a /sarc tag else no one else will get it. It’s the general problem wit text.
2. You’re a RWNJ so we expect you to be lambasting Nazi Germany as socialist when it actually wasn’t.
On Twitter, Justin Paulson brought this fascinating article from the Journal of Economic Perspectives to my attention. It’s called “The Coining of ‘Privatization’ and Germany’s National Socialist Party.” Apparently, the first use of the word “privatization” (or “reprivatization”) in English occurred in the 1930s, in the context of explaining economic policy in the Third Reich. Indeed, the English word was formulated as a translation of the German word “Reprivatisierung,” which had itself been newly minted under the Third Reich.
Isn’t privatisation what we’ve been doing for the last thirty years?
So, for the last thirty years we’ve been following Nazi Germany’s economic policies.
Chris Trotter on how imperialism has set Britain apart from its European competitors and landed it in the mess it’s in – The Prime Minister, Theresa May, and her supposed alternative, Jeremy Corbyn, epitomise in equal measure the malady that is Brexit.
May has failed utterly to draw into the debate the broad range of parties and interests whose co-operation continues to be essential to the extremely difficult task of making Britain’s departure from the European Union, if not painless, then bearable. Tribal, mistrustful, high-handed and fatally unimaginative, the Conservative Party leader remains politically upright only because her job is now so hard and so thankless that nobody else wants it.
His latest on Bowalley Road is fairly brutal: http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-jacinda-problem-where-she-goes-we-go.html
although I can understand how many aren’t seeing the benefits of a change in government (yet). Let’s hope tho’ that we don’t keep getting a “Rome wasn’t built in a day” response from any criticism – it’s not going to wash for too much longer.
maybe, maybe not
We’ll see whether or not this is Her moment of advocacy for change, or whether it will be seen as just another media moment in time (going forward).
I’m hoping it is the former, although I understand she has a whole lot of shit to push uphill to get to where she’d hope we all want to be.
There are a growing number of the dis-possessed that can’t even afford a concern for the politics of kindness and they’ve given up even being interested in such a hope.
2019 is going to be an interesting year.
It occurs to me that if we don’t get a fairer system the grievances and hate against governmental and elite leaders will build up. There eventually could be a revenge group that pays back to the families of the comfortable privateers. Best to really take things seriously about giving the lower classes some let-up on their downward trend in everything before the obsessed get beyond hope for bread tomorrow; let them eat cake sometimes now please, sitting on their own chairs in their own lockable home, not the romantic outdoors.
I don’t think Singaporeans are going to be satisfied with NZ Defence Forces standing back and pleading laissez faire. I think there are many Singaporean Chinese in this country. They didn’t lift themselves out of poverty by dropping regulations and adopting a she’ll-be-right approach. It wasn’t us gov’ plea or we can’t be questioned, ‘Do you know who we are’ can work to deal with us ordinary NZ citizens but they will be displeased.
That could be put – what less do you expect the NZDF to do? And I could say yeah good idea if they didn’t host such practises; but then how can they withdraw without breaking the working alliance that is thrust upon us by the constant desire to have something that someone else has got. Which is millenials old.
So I don’t know what can NZDF do; be better hosts? Try to make it clear in Singapore news media with adverts that we are very sad that one of their young role models and youth stars has been killed here, and stress that we were not involved?
And I could say yeah good idea if they didn’t host such practises; but then how can they withdraw without breaking the working alliance that is thrust upon us
They may have hosted the exercise but they weren’t part of it.
This means that no investigation by them will result in any meaningful resolution.
The only ones who can investigate the incident is Singapore.
Which is what’s happening with the NZDF assistance.
There is, quite literally, nothing else that the NZDF can do.
So I don’t know what can NZDF do; be better hosts? Try to make it clear in Singapore news media with adverts that we are very sad that one of their young role models and youth stars has been killed here, and stress that we were not involved?
He was a Singaporean defence force personnel operating under their jurisdiction. There is, quote literally, nothing that the NZDF can do except extend NZs condolences which I’m pretty sure that they’ve already done on our behalf.
There is nothing that you can fault our defence forces with as they didn’t have anything to do with it.
There is nothing that you can fault our defence forces with as they didn’t have anything to do with it.
I already indicated that DTB. So don’t go on about it.
As far as I am aware the NZDF provides the venue but not direct control of the exercise. Certainly not the NZDF staff (as your link points out) except probably for exercise bounds.
Just like the exercises that the SAF does in a number of friendly countries where they have some room to do operational training in larger areas than their islands. The SAF does these exercises shipping their own gear into the host country and mainly doing their own exercises. As far as I am aware the use of many of those exercise areas are paid for in millions or billions of dollars deals. I suspect that if they aren’t explicitly doing a multilateral exercise, that any operational training cooperating with host forces would be an afterthought.
The Singapore land area is only about 3/4 that of the Auckland urban area. It severely limits the kind of exercise that they can do inside their own country. For instance at brigade or regimental level, anything to do with jet aircraft, most armour or artillery, hell even the bush warfare areas would be limited. Gods knows what else they’d need to do. In Australia they use thousands of square kilometres at Shoalwater Bay.
But what you don’t seem to grasp is that the SAF are finicky about training injuries or deaths. In Singapore even training deaths caused by dehydration or lightning are prominent in the news media. Everything that I’ve seen over this last year (I spent 5 months of 2018 in Singapore) indicates that they are the best people to do any such inquiry. They have more actual experience than the NZDF.
That is because they cycle so many more people through training. Conscripts through their two years and reserves through their annual training. That is a *lot* of training. It is a far far large force than NZDF. Active personnel are about 70k at any one time. And there are over a million reserves.
With military training, like that of civilian training, there simply isn’t any way to remove all risk. The trick is to make sure that you learn from accidents to make damn sure that they don’t reoccur. I can’t see how getting the NZDF to do it would add much, if anything.
Singapore Armed Forces use Waiouru for live fire artillery training and as your link notes, it’s Singapore’s show so there’s no reason for the NZDF to be involved in any inquiry.
We can express sorrow in a media release that would show up in Singapore. It affects our 100% Pure happy place promotion somewhat. We don’t want any more preventable deaths in this country piling up in statistics!
Seems to me there might be places around NZ where this could be useful in the future, but I also wonder whether we’ll take our traditional short term approach to doing things and go for ‘light rail’ options using a completely different gauge.
The Labour party needs a name change.
Here are a few starters.
New Zealand Pacific
New Zealand Global
Our New Zealand.
True New Zealand.
New Zealand Heart.
Another tailings dam collapse. Hundreds missing. Surrounding farmland destroyed via being covered in toxic sludge.
Shares in Vale drop 10%. The same Vale responsible for the last dam failing in Minas Gerais, the 19 deaths then, and Brasil’s worst ecological disaster.
Bolsonaro to the rescue, concerned for miners welfare.
What I am aware of in the free market is that every disaster is a profit centre if a Corporate can work it right. So one conglomerate screws up – then another supplies a remedy. The governments pay and pay and pay, and the people say what was in that brown paper email?
While we are at it a 21 century name
for New Zealand is way over due.
We are not a Dutch province.
Tasman did not discover New Zealand.
Realistically we should be Rarotonga Hou.
There is a vacuum with NZ demand & supply lobbying, so it tends to go to rorting instead.
To different degrees, some things are natural monopolies, like govt. itself is for example. The strength of that natural monopolistic part of the societal economy, is that despite all the leverage put over it to the contrary, it is a product of dynamic NZ demand & supply.
That is a general guide then, to the direction in enabling NZ lobbying systems for even the bigger natural monopolistic areas of activity to take the place of rorting.
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Kris Faafoi on Saturday announced he’ll be asking the public for ideas on how to toughen the law.
Wonder if he’ll like the answers because the first thing that needs to be done is for all natural monopolies that provide essential services (Power, telecommunications, water, hospitals (and health in general)) to be brought in to state ownership as a government service. Some of which (i.e, health) would not carry charges.
In The Reactionary Mind, Robin traces conservatism back to its roots in the reaction against the French Revolution. He argues that the right was inspired, and is still united, by its hostility to emancipating the lower orders. Some conservatives endorse the free market; others oppose it. Some criticize the state; others celebrate it. Underlying these differences is the impulse to defend power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality — while simultaneously making populist appeals to the masses. Despite their opposition to these movements, conservatives favor a dynamic conception of politics and society — one that involves self-transformation, violence, and war. They are also highly adaptive to new challenges and circumstances. This partiality to violence and capacity for reinvention have been critical to their success.
I was watching the Philip DeFranco channel playing interviews from LAUSD Teachers and why the went on strike. They were offered better pay but turned it down as what they want is lower class sizes, and full-time nurses and counselors.
Another thing that was mentioned was about a lot of the funding trickery going on with some of the charter schools there. The schools have a headcount at a certain time near the start of the school year that helps set their funding. Right after this time a lot of the charter schools then dump a lot of the lower performing students forcing them back to public schools. Meanwhile, they keep the funding level for the higher number of students while the public schools forced to accept them are left with a funding level for a lower number of students. The charter schools have effectively found a loophole to swipe funding from the public schools while being left with the best of the cherrypicked students. They can also turn down those with physical handicaps putting even more pressure on the public schools who must supply extra funding from their budget for those students.
Some of this seems to resonate with what was happening here under the last National government with charter schools being better funded than public schools and being able to cherrypick students and having no accountability.
Dolan Twins Funeral Controversy & Why The LAUSD Teacher Strike Will Ripple Through The US…
I get so brassed off with commenters who present on this blog using coded language of acronyms. It’s lazy, and irrational when it is about specialist subjects and people ought to know better. How on earth are commenters supposed to know what LAUSD is. I presume on looking it up on google that its’s this; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Unified_School_District
I agree. I keep getting stuck on what IIRC means, and occasionally FWIW.
Besides, those acronyms often often have a different meaning assigned to them through time.
For example, at one time SDLC meant Synchronous Data Link Control until some sage came along with a project management process and it became Systems Development Life Cycle.
Is it possible COVFEFE has some deep meaning in the mind of an orange turd?
The first two are ones people generally know about. They are useful for being short. I can understand them being good for phone texters. That Covfefefe is a doozy. I had some fun finding out about it.
Just watching link to a piece on early languages in the UK. Thet have just mentioned the burghs that would contain a group of traders and businesspeople who had a fairly autonomous sytem, reporting to a noble who reported to a king.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X5zX3yVoiQ
I think we have to revitalise our local areas as the governments appear to have been captured by right wing economists with romantic, sensual dreams supplied by Ayn Rand.
I think we could end up in a Mafia-like community with government providing protection whichever way we lean. So think about semi-autonomous regions, they might choose to be supportive of each other, in exchange for more choice of what to do with their collected taxes. I have been suggesting that say 5% of GST collected in particular areas be returned there to provide and update infrastructure. May be the tax reform group might have looked at that.
Well, the yanks just beat the brits 19-7 in Hamilton – even though the latter played really tight attacking rugby. Amazing how good the USA sevens team has become the last couple of years, after being non-contenders for so long. Obviously we must blame Trump. Anyone sussed out how he did it yet?
Metric tests to a person’s competency to THC levels & a related license to smoke pot perhaps, along with the availability of cheap devices for enthusiasts to purchase & use for application of such an approach.
Individual freedom comes with personable responsibility & self-control after all.
Perhaps such regulations would be a way to help people with high dependencies get to grips with their self-management and organisation better, in essence raising the lowest common denominator to a growing societal problem area in general & to help put a lid on it at a relatively harmless level.
After reading that article it reinforced my opposition to legalisation.
Commodifying by legalising a herb creates all sorts of issues.
Decriminilising is a far better way to go.
Take profit out of the issue, depower gangs, enable folk with pot issues to seek help, keep corporates away from marijuana.
Regulation should continue to include bans for THC levels in a person’s blood for:
– Private car
– Bus driving
– Taxi driving
– Truck driving
– In fact random testing for using any machinery at all
– In fact random testing for any level of THC in the workplace no matter where you are
And of course harder enforcement at school:
– Random testing at school, to ensure the legal age is enforced and young people actually study
And a tax step that’s far higher for using it as cigarette, damaging the lungs, compared to less tax for a pill or liquid form.
If they felt like it they could hypothecate (dedicate) the income from both tobacco and marijuana sales to minimizing their harm.
Now that the “rights” argument is getting closer, let’s talk about actual responsibilities in society.
It would need a good stepped metric testing license system. People are different.
As long as that was sound, the rest of associated approaches and outcomes would gravitate around it effectively to the shape of the market and how it functions.
Yuk. Next thing they will be limiting how many farts is appropriate per day and decide it should be none and then whole classes at school will go into detention when nobody will own up. No one wants to now, it will be worse when it is punishable. /sarc
Lets hope our Prime Minister has the good sense not to be sucked into Nato’s latest attempt to make out seventeen years of pointless killing in Afghanistan is justified and in some way moral. Lets also hope she passes on the, sure to arrive, requests to support regime change in Venezuela too. Trudeau has made it clear he is Trumps bitch. Lets try and keep some self respect.
Kia ora The AM Show The 7,s Rugby in Hamilton was awesome the stands were packed out and OUR 7,s Black Ferns Wahine Rugby team first game on home soil was a great success. Mana Wahine its looks like it will be a yearly event for OUR Black Firns Mana Wahine. The All Blacks 7 team is still in the hunt for the 7 trophy to ka pai. simon we needed the greens party in Government after shonky shorted the system for his wealthy m8 nar you don’t want a capital gains tax that would make life better for the many people and ECO MAORI knows national run government’s for the 00.1%
I put deflated the alt right neo mark his blue m8s were not happy with that move they played up heaps after that kick from ECO Maori. I will observe a bit more before I put my nose in the Auckland Council election. I still say all the anity capital gains principles of NZ Have the teachers union by the noses. Jason I feel sorry for you people in Australia with those scorching temperatures over them. Jason it only takes 1 degree changes for life or death no wonder you and duncan are m8s both human caused climate change deniers. That last comment of yours on social media shaming fools who are disrespectful totally agree with that view social media gives people a conscious. Phil Goff needs to use social media to direct the traffic away from traffic jam’s like Korea does he needs to send someone there and see what they do with DATA & social media to keep one of the highest density and Internet connected population in Papatuanukue running a few tweeks in Auckland would save the country millions of $$$$$ and lower our carbon footprint. I say all road works on high traffic roads should be carried out at night there priorities should be safety first and traffic flowing freely even try Japanese traffic slow down models I see some more heads have been moved out of NZTA may be time for change they could have had links to oil barons.?????.
That is cool having Rob Hewitt on The show education people about Wai water & safety swimming in Tangaroa. Tangaroa was looking after him when he spent 4 days lost in Tangaroa Ka pai.
24 degrees here at the minute.
A true green party is a left humane party one can spout being green and in the same breath party shout lock em up cut social security I see someone who jumped on my coat Tails for a lift cheat. Ka kite ano P.S The controversial water view tunnel in Auckland made life better for people who fly Alot just like national look after the 00.1%, before the 99.9 %
Ki ora Newshub Global warming is hear and now one has to plan for the heat and work smart to avoid heat stress and Fires
Good Wai quality is a must it makes Eco think we have hope when 80 % of people think good water quality is needed to avoid desaster with our water and environment. Road Rage not good is it. 3 topic,s linked climate change traffic jams and obesity it would be nice with the obesity subject that the real culprit is branded for that problem SUGAR.
ECO MAORI knows how strong Tawhirirmate in around Aketio I think that is Cape turnagain Alex been in some big seas there.
Its is awesome that Black panther has picked up a few prizes at the SAG awards . Ka kite ano
Looking into a distant mirror The academic publishing process is notoriously stately. Events in the rest of the world happen at their own swift pace as a given article makes its way through the publication pipeline. In the case of Russian climate scepticism: an understudied case, authors Teresa Ashe & Marianna Poberezhskaya submitted their work ...
A ballot for one member's bill was held today, and the following bills were drawn: Sale and Supply of Alcohol (Harm Minimisation) Amendment Bill (Chlöe Swarbrick) Swarbrick's bill implements a number of past recommendations from government agencies and advisory bodies which for some reason (cough big booze ...
No Common Ground: The destructive and punitive impulses aroused by the abortion issue make a rational, let alone a civil, debate virtually impossible. Indeed, the very idea that those on both sides of the abortion issue might be decent and caring individuals, whose opposing positions are based on reasonable and ...
What Happened Next? After the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1954, overturned its earlier validation of “separate but equal” schools, hospitals, public washrooms, busses and trains for Blacks and Whites, and told the Topeka Board of Education that segregated education is in breach of the Fourteenth Amendment of ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Neha Pathak When spring creeps around the corner, pediatrician Aaron Bernstein starts counseling his Boston-area patients and their families about extreme heat action plans. “The first heat wave of the year is routinely the most harmful,” says Bernstein, who also directs Harvard’s ...
On 7 December 1941, Imperial Japan launched a war on the American people. It would forever become a date of infamy, said then US President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, eightyone years ago.On 24/25 June 2022, conservatives launched their war on 166.24 million American women. That date, also, will forever live on ...
Stuff has a story this morning about the police juking the domestic violence stats, downgrading family violence crimes to "incidents" so they don't have to be investigated (and so Bad Number doesn't Go Up). That's appalling in and of itself, for the human consequences, and for what it says about ...
Today is a Member's Day, and it looks like its back to local legislation for a while. First up is the committee stage of the highly controversial Canterbury Regional Council (Ngāi Tahu Representation) Bill, which would allow unelected appointees (and a disproportionate number of them, at that) on ECan. This ...
Despite Christopher Luxon’s assurances to the contrary, there is no such thing as “settled law” in New Zealand. Apart from the six provisions that are constitutionally entrenched, legislation can always be amended or overturned by a simple majority vote within our single chamber of Parliament. Luxon’s repeated use of the ...
This is a re-post from the Thinking is Power website maintained by Melanie Trecek-King where she regularly writes about many aspects of critical thinking in an effort to provide accessible and engaging critical thinking information to the general public. Please see this overview to find links to other reposts from Thinking is Power. ...
What a week, month even of deplorable headlines and hysterics we’ve had as a country – and given 2023 is closing in on us (a mere 6 months until Parties shift some gears into election mode really, not that some of them haven’t started already of course), we need ...
Over the weekend, the US Supreme Court followed through on its threat, and overturned Roe v. Wade, effectively outlawing abortion in much of the United States. People were outraged, in America and around the world. And in Aotearoa, this meant a lot of sudden questions for the National Party, which ...
Nothing is evil in the beginning… #TheRingsOfPowerpic.twitter.com/XffZtqp8Yw— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) June 27, 2022 We have ourselves a new breadcrumb (not a leak!) out of The Rings of Power. It is a fifteen second collection of clips from the original teaser-trailer, together ...
The repeal of Roe vs Wade by the US Supreme Court is part of a broader “New Conservative” agenda financed by reactionary billionaires like Peter Thiel, Elon Mush, the Kochs and Murdochs (and others), organised by agitators like Steve Bannon and Rodger Stone and legally weaponised by Conservative (often Catholic) ...
A Dangerous Leap Backwards: A United States forced to live by the beliefs and values of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries cannot hope to go on leading the “Free World”, or compete economically with nations focused fearlessly on the future. The revocation of Roe v. Wade represents the American republic’s most ...
Now that the right of US women to abortion (formerly protected by Roe vWade) has been abolished, the important role of medication-induced abortion will come even more to the fore. Already, research by the Guttmacher Institute reproductive rights centre shows that over half of US abortions are obtained ...
The government is finally moving to improve transparency over party finances, lowering the donation disclosure threshold to $5,000. This is a good move, though it doesn't go as far as it should. And of course, there's a nasty twist: The rules for larger donations are also changing. Presently parties ...
A rare exposure in Western media of the fact that many residents of the Donbass prefer Russian rule to Ukrainian ultranationalist rule. I don’t know why anyone would take advice from UK’s lame duck Prime Minister and well-known buffoon Boris Johnson seriously, but he ...
Jacinda Ardern will need to deploy every aspect of her starpower if she is to have any hope of rescuing New Zealand’s faltering free trade negotiations with the European Union (EU). The Prime Minister has branded each of her four foreign trips so far this year as ‘trade missions’ – ...
It was sometime in the late 1990s that I first interviewed Alan Webster about New Zealand’s part in a global Values Study. It’s a fascinating snapshot of values in countries all over the world and I still remember seeing America grouped with many developing countries on a spectrum that had ...
Today marks Matariki, the first “new” New Zealand public holiday since Waitangi Day was added in 1974. Officially the start of the Maori New Year, this is one of those moveable beasties – much like Easter, the dates will vary from year to year, anywhere from mid-June to ...
The takeaways from the just released data are:1. Any estimate of GDP is subject to error.2. The 0.2 percent decrease in the March 2022 quarter is not precise and will be revised, with the mild likelihood that it will eventually be higher.3. New Zealand has no ‘official' definition of a ...
Guided By The Stars? This gift of Matariki, then, what will be made of it? Can a people spiritually unconnected to anything other than their digital devices truly appreciate the relentless progress of gods and heroes across the heavens? The elders of Maoridom must wonder. Can Te Ao Māori be ...
The internet is a wonderful thing sometimes. Yesterday, I ran across an AI program that generates images via prompt: https://huggingface.co/spaces/dalle-mini/dalle-mini So I have been doing the logical thing with it. Getting it to generate Silmarillion characters in bizarre situations. Morgoth playing golf, and so forth. But one thing I ...
Stashing renewable energy Do a little internet sleuthing on renewable energy via your favorite search engine and you'll find some honest critique and much more dishonest misinformation (aka disinformation) to the effect that photovoltaic and wind generation are fickle energy supplies, over-abundant in some periods and absent in others. There's ...
The current New Zealand First Foundation trial in the High Court continues to show why reform is required when it comes to money in politics. The juicy details coming out each day show private wealth being funnelled into some peculiar schemes in an attempt to circumvent the Electoral Act. Yet ...
As in so many other areas of public policy, attitudes towards overseas investment in New Zealand – and anywhere, for that matter – boil down in the end to ideology. For proponents of the “free market”, there is really no issue. The market, in their view, must never be second-guessed; ...
Selwyn Manning and I discussed the upcoming NATO Leader’s summit (to which NZ Prime Minister Ardern is invited), the rival BRICS Leader’s summit and what they could mean for the Ruso-Ukrainian Wa and beyond. ...
New Zealand’s Most Profitable“Friend” Dangerous “Threat”: This country’s “Five Eyes” partners, heedless of the economic consequences for New Zealand, have cajoled and bullied its political class into becoming Sinophobes. They simply do not care that close to 40 percent of this country’s trade is with China. As far as Washington, London, ...
I have seen some natter around about how The Rings of Power represents the undue and unholy corporatisation of J.R.R. Tolkien. I won’t point out examples, but anyone who has seen YouTube commentary has a pretty good grasp of what I am talking about – the sentiment that ...
2017’s Queenmaker: Five years ago, Winston Peters’ choice ran counter to New Zealand’s informal, No. 8 wire, post-MMP constitution, which, up until 2017, had decreed that the party with the most votes got to supply the next prime minister. Had National not been in power for the previous 9 years, it ...
I've read some bad stuff about long covid recently, and Marc Daalder's recent Newsroom piece about what endemic covid means for Aotearoa got me wondering about whether the government was thinking about it. Mass-disability due to long covid has obvious implications for health and welfare spending, as well as for ...
Last year, a stranded kiwi criticised the MIQ system. Covid Minister Chris Hipkins responded by doxxing and defaming her. Now, he's been forced to apologise for that: Minister Chris Hipkins has admitted he released incorrect and personal information about journalist Charlotte Bellis, after she criticised the managed isolation system. ...
Gil-galad is an Elven Chad Gil-galad is an Elven Chad But Celebrimbor makes them mad Digesting leaks from Amazon Of Isildur and Pharazôn. The hair is short? The knives are keen. The beardless face of Dwarven Queen? With meteor and man-not-named The fandom temper is inflamed. Of Annatar ...
From the desk of Keir "Patriotic Duty" Starmer:“We have robust lines. We do not want to see these strikes to go ahead with the resulting disruption to the public. The government have failed to engage in any negotiations.“However, we also must show leadership and to that end, please be reminded ...
Has swapping Scott Morrison for Anthony Albanese made any discernible difference to Australia’s relations with the US, China, the Pacific and New Zealand ? Not so far. For example: Albanese has asked for more time to “consider” his response to New Zealand’s long running complaints about the so called “501” ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The Biden administration in April 2021 dramatically ratcheted up the country’s greenhouse gas emissions reductions pledge under the Paris target, also known as its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). The Obama administration in 2014 had announced a commitment to cut U.S. emissions 26-28% below 2005 levels ...
Something I missed: the Central African Republic has abolished the death penalty: The National Assembly of the Central African Republic (CAR) passed a law abolishing the death penalty in the CAR on May 27, 2022. Once CAR President Touadéra promulgates the bill, the CAR will become the 24th abolitionist ...
Walking On Sunshine: National’s Sam Uffindell cantered home in the Tauranga By-Election, but the Outdoors & Freedom Party’s Sue Grey attracted an ominous level of support.THE RIGHT’S gadfly commentator, Matthew Hooton, summed up the Tauranga by-election in his usual pithy fashion. “Tonight’s result is poor for the National Party, catastrophic for ...
Te reo Māori is Dr. Anaha Hiini’s life purpose. Raised by his grandparents, Kepa and Maata Hiini, Anaha of Ngāti Tarāwhai, Tūhourangi, Ngāti Whakaue descent made a promise at the age of six to his late grandmother, Maata Hiini. “I’ve always had a passion for Māori culture. My first inspiration ...
Dr Carwyn Jones’ vision is to see Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the law given equal mana. Carwyn who holds a PhD in law and society and currently teaches Ahunga Tikanga (Māori Laws and Philosophy) at Te Wānanga o Raukawa after 15 years at Victoria University of Wellington has devoted ...
Jacinda Ardern’s decision to attend the upcoming North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Spain – but to skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda – symbolises the changes she is making to New Zealand foreign policy. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) starts today in ...
The outlook does not look that promising. Forecasting an economy is a mug’s game. The database on which the forecasts are founded is incomplete, out-of-date, and subject to errors, some of which will be revised after the forecasts are published. (No wonder weather-forecasting is easier.) One often has to adopt ...
by Don Franks It seems that almost each day now another ram raid shatters someone’s shop front and loots the premises. Prestigious Queen street is not immune, while attacks on small dairies have long stopped being headline news. Those of us not directly affected are becoming numbed to this form ...
It’s hard to believe that when we created Sciblogs in 2009, the iPhone was only two years old, being a ‘Youtuber’ wasn’t really a thing and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok didn’t exist. But Science blogging was a big thing, particularly in the United States, where a number of scientists had ...
For 13 years, Sciblogs has been a staple in New Zealand’s science-writing landscape. Our bloggers have written about a vast variety of topics from climate change to covid, and from nanotechnology to household gadgets.But sadly, it’s time to close shop. Sciblogs will be shutting down on 30 June.When ...
Radical Options: By allocating the Broadcasting portfolio to the irrepressible, occasionally truculent, leader of Labour’s Māori caucus, Willie Jackson, the Prime Minister has, at the very least, confirmed that her appointment of Kiri Allan was no one-off. There are many words that could be used to describe Ardern’s placement of ...
A Delicate Juggler? The new Chief Censor, Ms Caroline Flora, owes New Zealand a comprehensive explanation of how she sees, and how she proposes to carry out, her role. Where, for example, is her duty to respect and protect the citizen’s right to freedom of expression positioned in relation to ...
Good grief. Has foreign policy commentary really devolved to the point where our diplomatic effort is being measured by how many overseas trips have been taken by our Foreign Minister? Weird, but apparently so. All this week, a series of media policy wonks have been invidiously comparing how many trips ...
Where we've been Time flies. This coming summer will mark 15 years of Skeptical Science focusing its effort on "traditional" climate science denial. Leaving aside frivolities, we've devoted most of our effort to combatting "serious" denial falling into a handful of broad categories of fairly crisp misconceptions: "radiative physics is wrong,""geophysics is ...
Mercenary army of bogus skeptics on parade Because they're both squarely centered in the Skeptical Science wheelhouse, this week we're highlighting two articles from our government and NGO section, where we collect high-quality articles not originating in academic research but featuring many of the important attributes of journal publications. Our mission ...
In the latest episode of AVFA Selwyn Manning and I discuss the evolution of Latin American politics and macroeconomic policy since the 1970s as well as US-Latin American relations during that time period. We use recent elections and the 2022 Summit of the Americas as anchor points. ...
The Scottish government has announced plans for another independence referendum: Nicola Sturgeon plans to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence in October next year if her government secures the legal approval to stage it. Angus Robertson, the Scottish government’s constitution secretary, said that provided ample time to pass ...
So far, the closer military relationship envisaged by Jacinda Ardern and Joseph Biden at their recent White House meeting has been analysed mainly in terms of what this means for our supposedly “independent” foreign policy. Not much attention has been paid to what having more interoperable defence forces might mean ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters For those puzzling over the various hurricane computer forecast models to figure out which one to believe, the best answer is: Don’t believe any of them. Put your trust in the National Hurricane Center, or NHC, forecast. Although an individual ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Scott Denning The excellent Julia Steinberger essay posted at this site in May provides a disturbing window into the psychology of teaching climate change to young people. It’s critically important to talk with youth about hard topics: love and sex, deadly contagion, school shootings, vicious ...
By Imogen Foote (Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington) A lack of consensus among international conservation regimes regarding albatross taxonomy makes management of these ocean roaming birds tricky. My PhD research aims to generate whole genome data for some of our most threatened albatrosses in a first attempt ...
Well, if that’s “minor” I’d be interested to see what a major reshuffle looks like.Jacinda Ardern has reminded New Zealand of the steel behind the spin in her cabinet refresh announced today. While the Prime Minister stressed that the changes were “triggered” by Kris Faafoi and Trevor Mallard and their ...
A company gives a large amount of money to a political party because they are concerned about law changes which might affect their business model. And lo and behold, the changes are dumped, and a special exemption written into the law to protect them. Its the sort of thing we ...
Active Shooters: With more than two dozen gang-related drive-by shootings dominating (entirely justifiably) the headlines of the past few weeks, there would be something amiss with our democracy if at least one major political party did not raise the issues of law and order in the most aggressive fashion. (Photo ...
Going Down? Governments also suffer in recessions and depressions – just like their citizens. Slowing economic activity means fewer companies making profits, fewer people in paid employment, fewer dollars being spent, and much less revenue being collected. With its own “income” shrinking, the instinct of most government’s is to sharply ...
In the 50 years since Norm Kirk first promised to take the bikes off the bikies, our politicians have tried again and again to win votes by promising to crack down on gangs. Canterbury University academic Jarrod Gilbert (an expert on New Zealand’s gang culture) recently gave chapter and verse ...
Misdirection: New Zealanders see burly gang members, decked out in their patches, sitting astride their deafening motorcycles, cruising six abreast down the motorway as frightened civilians scramble to get out of their way, and they think these guys are the problem. Fact is, these guys represent little more than the misdirection ...
New Zealand’s defence minister, Peeni Henare, has had a very busy first half of the year. In January, Henare was the face of New Zealand’s relief effort to Tonga, following the eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai volcano. Then, from March onwards, Henare was often involved in Jacinda Ardern’s announcements ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to announce its support urgently for a moratorium on deep sea mining under the high seas, after Pacific nations joined forces this week to demand change. ...
We’re committed to ensuring that there is every opportunity for women and girls to succeed in Aotearoa New Zealand, with fewer barriers. Since coming into Government, we’ve worked hard to support women and girls, by improving services like healthcare and tackling issues like the gender pay gap. Here are just ...
Political pressure from the Green Party has pushed the Government to supply free masks to kids and teachers in schools across Aotearoa New Zealand. ...
The Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand and the European Greens have published a joint statement calling for the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement to support climate action, phase out fossil fuel subsidies, cut agriculture emissions, protect human rights, and uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to guarantee that it will complete light rail and improve walking, cycling, and bus journeys across Wellington before digging new high-carbon tunnels. ...
The Green Party is urging Oceans and Fisheries Minister David Parker to commit to stronger ocean protection around Aotearoa and on the high seas while at the United Nations Oceans Conference in Portugal this week. ...
A strong Green voice in Parliament has helped reduce the influence large secret money will have in future elections and finally ensured overseas New Zealanders will retain the right to vote even while stranded by the Pandemic. But, the Government needs to go further to ensure our democracy works for ...
A new poll shows that the majority of people back the Greens’ call on the Government to overhaul the country’s criminally punitive, anti-evidence drug law. ...
The US Supreme Court’s decision on abortion is a reminder that we must take nothing for granted in Aotearoa, the Green Party says. “Aotearoa should be a place where everyone, no matter where they are from, or who they love, can choose what is right for their body and their ...
We’re proud to have delivered on our election commitment to establish a public holiday to celebrate Matariki. For the first time this year, New Zealanders will have the chance to enjoy a mid-winter holiday that is uniquely our own. ...
Proposed new legislation to reduce the risk that timber imported into Aotearoa New Zealand is sourced from illegal logging is a positive first step but it should go further, the Green Party says. ...
On World Refugee Day, the Green Party is calling on the new Minister for Immigration, Michael Wood to make up for the support that was not provided to people forced to leave their home countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
This week, we’ve marked a major milestone in our school upgrade programme. We've supported 4,500 projects across the country for schools to upgrade classrooms, sports facilities, playgrounds and more, so Kiwi kids have the best possible environments to learn in. ...
We’ve delivered on our election commitment to make Matariki a public holiday. For the first time this year, all New Zealanders will have the chance to enjoy a mid-winter holiday that is uniquely our own with family and friends. Try our quiz below, then challenge your whānau! To celebrate, we’ve ...
The Green Party says the removal of pre-departure testing for arrivals into New Zealand means the Government must step up domestic measures to protect communities most at risk. ...
The long overdue resumption of the Pacific Access Category and Samoan Quota must be followed by an overhaul of the Recognised Seasonal Employers (RSE) scheme, says the Green Party. ...
Lessons must be learned from the Government's response to the Delta outbreak, which the Ministry of Health confirmed today left Māori, Pacific, and disabled communities at greater risk. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to withdraw the proposed Oranga Tamariki oversight legislation which strips away independence and fails to put children at the heart. ...
European Commission President von der Leyen and Prime Minister of New Zealand Ardern met in Brussels on 30 June 2022. The encounter provided an opportunity to reaffirm that the European Union and Aotearoa New Zealand are longstanding partners with shared democratic values and interests, aligned positions on key international and ...
Export revenue to the EU to grow by up to $1.8 billion annually on full implementation. Duty-free access on 97% of New Zealand’s current exports to the EU; with over 91% being removed the day the FTA comes into force. NZ exporters set to save approx. $110 million per annum ...
57,000 EVs and Hybrid registered in first year of clean car scheme, 56% increase on previous year EVs and Non Plug-in Hybrids made up 20% of new passenger car sales in March/April 2022 The Government’s Clean Car Discount Scheme has been a success, with more than 57,000 light-electric and ...
Police Minister Chris Hipkins congratulates the newest Police wing – wing 355 – which graduated today in Porirua. “These 70 new constables heading for the frontline bring the total number of new officers since Labour took office to 3,303 and is the latest mark of our commitment to the Police ...
Members with a range of governance, financial and technical skills have been appointed to the Reserve Bank Board as part of the shift to strengthen the Bank’s decision-making and accountability arrangements. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 2021 comes into force on 1 July 2022, with the establishment of ...
New Zealand to remain at Orange as case numbers start to creep up 50 child-size masks made available to every year 4-7 student in New Zealand 20,000-30,000 masks provided a week to all other students and school staff Extra funding to schools and early childhood services to supports better ...
Aotearoa New Zealand will join Ukraine’s case against Russia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which challenges Russia’s spurious attempt to justify its invasion under international law. Ukraine filed a case at the ICJ in February arguing Russia has falsely claimed genocide had occurred in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, as ...
The Government has taken another step forward in its work to eliminate family violence and sexual violence with the announcement today of a new Tangata Whenua Ministerial Advisory Group. A team of 11 experts in whānau Māori wellbeing will provide the Government independent advice on shaping family violence and sexual ...
Te Mahere Whai Mahi Wāhine: Women’s Employment Action Plan was launched today by Minister for Women Jan Tinetti – with the goal of ensuring New Zealand is a great place for women to work. “This Government is committed to improving women’s working lives. The current reality is that women have ...
The food and fibre sector acknowledged its people and leadership at last night’s 2022 Primary Industries Good Employer Awards, a time to celebrate their passion towards supporting employees by putting their health, welfare and wellbeing first,” Acting Minister of Agriculture Meka Whairiti said. “Award winners were selected from an extraordinary ...
Kia ora koutou katoa. It is a rare thing to have New Zealand represented at a NATO Summit. While we have worked together in theatres such as Afghanistan, and have been partners for just on a decade, today represents an important moment for our Pacific nation. New Zealand is ...
Te Arataki mō te Hauora Ngākau mō ngā Mōrehu a Tū me ō rātou Whānau, The Veteran, Family and Whānau Mental Health and Wellbeing Policy Framework “We ask a lot of those who serve in the military – and we ask a lot of the families and whānau who support ...
Associate Minister of Foreign Affairs Aupito William Sio has been appointed by the United Nations and Commonwealth as Aotearoa New Zealand’s advocacy champion for Small Island States. “Aotearoa New Zealand as a Pacific country is particularly focused on the interests of Pacific Small Island Developing States in our region. “This is a ...
An estimated 100,000 low income households will be eligible for increased support to pay their council rates, with changes to the rates rebate scheme taking effect from 1 July. Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta has announced increases to both the maximum value of the rates rebate, and the income threshold ...
A long-standing physical activity programme that focuses on outcomes for Maori has been expanded to four new regions with Government investment almost doubled to increase its reach. He Oranga Poutama is managed by a combination of hapū, iwi, hauora and regional providers. An increase in funding from $1.8 million ...
The Government is progressing a preferred option for LGWM which will see Wellington’s transport links strengthened with light rail from Wellington Station to Island Bay, a new tunnel through Mt Victoria for public transport, and walking and cycling, and upgrades to improve traffic flow at the Basin Reserve. “Where previous ...
To Provost Muniz, to the Organisers at the Instituto de Empresa buenas tardes and as we would say in New Zealand, kia ora kotou katoa. To colleagues from the State Department, from Academia, and Civil Society Groups, to all our distinguished guests - kia ora tatou katoa. It’s a pleasure ...
On June 28, 2022, a meeting took place in Madrid between the President of the Government of the Kingdom of Spain, Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern, who was visiting Spain to participate in the Summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as one ...
A six-fold increase in the Aotearoa New Zealand-Spain working holiday scheme gives a huge boost to the number of young people who can live and work in each other’s countries, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says. Jacinda Ardern and Spanish President Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón made the Working Holiday/Youth Mobility Scheme announcement ...
A significant barrier has been removed for people who want to stand in local government elections, with a change to the requirement to publish personal details in election advertising. The Associate Local Government Minister Kieran McAnulty has taken the Local Electoral (Advertising) Amendment Bill through its final stages in Parliament ...
New financial conduct scheme will ensure customers are treated fairly Banks, insurers and non-bank deposit takers to be licensed by the FMA in relation to their general conduct Sales incentives based on volume or value targets like bonuses for selling a certain number of financial products banned The Government ...
Legislation that bans major supermarkets from blocking their competitors’ access to land to set up new stores paves the way for greater competition in the sector, Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Dr David Clark said. The new law is the first in a suite of measures the Government is ...
The Government has announced an end to the requirement for border workers and corrections staff to be fully vaccinated. This will come into place from 2 July 2022. 100 per cent of corrections staff in prisons, and as of 23 June 2022 97 per cent of active border workers were ...
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta has concluded a visit to Rwanda reaffirming Aotearoa New Zealand’s engagement in the Commonwealth and meeting with key counterparts. “I would like to thank President Kagame and the people of Rwanda for their manaakitanga and expert hosting of this important meeting,” Nanaia Mahuta said. “CHOGM ...
Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty officially launched the new Monitoring, Alerting and Reporting (MAR) Centre at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) today. The Government has stood up the centre in response to recommendations from the 2018 Ministerial Review following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake and 2017 Port Hills fire, ...
Transport Minister Michael Wood has welcomed the announcement that a 110km/hr speed limit has been set for the SH1 Waikato Expressway, between Hampton Downs and Tamahere. “The Waikato Expressway is a key transport route for the Waikato region, connecting Auckland to the agricultural and business centres of the central North ...
Following feedback from the sector, Associate Minister of Education Jan Tinetti, today confirmed that new literacy and numeracy | te reo matatini me te pāngarau standards will be aligned with wider NCEA changes. “The education sector has asked for more time to put the literacy and numeracy | te reo ...
$4.5 million to provide Ukraine with additional non-lethal equipment and supplies such as medical kit for the Ukrainian Army Deployments extended for New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) intelligence, logistics and liaison officers in the UK, Germany, and Belgium Secondment of a senior New Zealand military officer to support International ...
Changes to electoral law announced by Justice Minister Kiri Allan today aim to support participation in parliamentary elections, and improve public trust and confidence in New Zealand’s electoral system. The changes are targeted at increasing transparency around political donations and loans and include requiring the disclosure of: donor identities for ...
The Labour government has announced a significant investment to prevent and minimise harm caused by gambling. “Gambling harm is a serious public health issue and can have a devastating effect on the wellbeing of individuals, whānau and communities. One in five New Zealanders will experience gambling harm in their lives, ...
The Government has widened access to free flu vaccines with an extra 800,000 New Zealanders eligible from this Friday, July 1 Children aged 3-12 years and people with serious mental health or addiction needs now eligible for free flu dose. From tomorrow (Tuesday), second COVID-19 booster available six months ...
The Government is investing to create new product categories and new international markets for our strong wool and is calling on Kiwi businesses and consumers to get behind the environmentally friendly fibre, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor said today. Wool Impact is a collaboration between the Government and sheep sector partners ...
At today’s commemoration of the start of the Korean War, Veterans Minister Meka Whaitiri has paid tribute to the service and sacrifice of our New Zealand veterans, their families and both nations. “It’s an honour to be with our Korean War veterans at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park to commemorate ...
Minister of Tourism Stuart Nash and Associate Minister of Tourism Peeni Henare announced the sixth round of recipients of the Government’s Tourism Infrastructure Fund (TIF), which supports local government to address tourism infrastructure needs. This TIF round will invest $15 million into projects around the country. For the first time, ...
Matariki tohu mate, rātou ki a rātou Matariki tohu ora, tātou ki a tātou Tīhei Matariki Matariki – remembering those who have passed Matariki – celebrating the present and future Salutations to Matariki I want to begin by thanking everyone who is here today, and in particular the Matariki ...
Oho mai ana te motu i te rangi nei ki te hararei tūmatanui motuhake tuatahi o Aotearoa, Te Rā Aro ki a Matariki, me te hono atu a te Pirīmia a Jacinda Ardern ki ngā mahi whakanui a te motu i tētahi huihuinga mō te Hautapu i te ata nei. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister David Parker will represent Aotearoa New Zealand at the second United Nations (UN) Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, which runs from 27 June to 1 July. The Conference will take stock of progress and aims to galvanise further action towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14, to "conserve and sustainably use ...
The Government is boosting its partnership with New Zealand’s dairy sheep sector to help it lift its value and volume, and become an established primary industry, Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has announced. “Globally, the premium alternative dairy category is growing by about 20 percent a year. With New Zealand food ...
The Government is continuing to support the Buller district to recover from severe flooding over the past year, Minister for Emergency Management Kieran McAnulty announced today during a visit with the local leadership. An extra $10 million has been announced to fund an infrastructure recovery programme, bringing the total ...
“The Government has undertaken preparatory work to combat new and more dangerous variants of COVID-19,” COVID-19 Response Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall set out today. “This is about being ready to adapt our response, especially knowing that new variants will likely continue to appear. “We have undertaken a piece of work ...
RNZ News New Zealand has designated US groups the Proud Boys and The Base as terrorist entities. Set down in the government’s official journal of record — the Gazette — last Monday, 20 June, it was published publicly a week later but with no wider dissemination. The move — authorised ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra David Pocock, the progressive independent who broke the Liberals’ stranglehold on one of the two ACT Senate seats, wouldn’t have expected to find himself allied with Pauline Hanson before even being sworn in. But, ...
Tabloid Jubi The Civil Organisations Solidarity for Papua Land has condemned Indonesia’s Papua expansion plan of forming three new provinces risks causing new social conflicts. And the group has urged President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to cancel the plan, according to a statement reports Jubi. The group — comprising the Papua ...
RNZ Pacific Palau, Fiji, and Samoa have announced their opposition to deep-sea mining, calling for a moratorium on the emerging industry amid growing fears it will destroy the seafloor and damage biodiversity. The alliance was announced just as a United Nations Oceans Conference began in Portugal this week. The moratorium ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just spoken to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky by phone, expressing solidarity and support for his country. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dennis B Desmond, Lecturer, Cyberintelligence and Cybercrime Investigations, University of the Sunshine Coast Sashenka Gutierrez/EPA The art of concealing or misrepresenting one’s identity in the physical world has long been practised by spies engaged in espionage. In response, intelligence agencies ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Peter Martin, Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University Wes Mountain/The Conversation, CC BY-ND Homeowners will face mortgage rates near 5.5% in a little over a year, according to a survey of 22 leading Australian economists. The ...
Guest column by Nicholas Kerr Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s comments about the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling on abortion inadvertently help explain why the court was right to overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue to the states. She noted that New Zealand ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mona Nikidehaghani, Lecturer in Accounting, University of Wollongong From Monday July 4 2022, Australian job seekers face a new social security system to police eligibility for support payments. It replaces the “Jobactive” system that required the “mutual obligation” of applying for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Robyn Gulliver, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, The University of Queensland A man who drove through a climate protest blocking the Harbour Tunnel this week has copped a A$469 fine, while multiple members of the activist group were arrested. The protest was among a ...
“Less than a month ago Floyd Du Plessis, the President of the Corrections Association (CANZ), wrote a letter to the Chief Executive warning of more assaults against prison officers if things didn’t change,” says Darroch Ball Leader of Sensible Sentencing ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ritesh Chugh, Associate Professor – Information and Communications Technology, CQUniversity Australia Shutterstock While manufacturers have successfully increased the water-repelling nature of smartphones, they are still far from “waterproof”. A water-resistant product can usually resist water penetration to some extent, but ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Suze Wilson, Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Massey University Phil Walter/Getty Images The US Supreme Court’s recent ruling to throw out Roe v Wade is an issue of relevance to political leaders in Aotearoa New Zealand. The decision was ...
New Zealand will present its legal view on Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations' international court, contesting the Kremlin's claim of genocide. ...
Buzz from the Beehive The Government has declared or reiterated three bold ambitions, one of them (the elimination of family violence) probably unachievable. Whether progress is being made towards the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Anna Price, Team Leader / Senior Research Officer, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute Shutterstock Most new parents and caregivers will know the phrase “put your baby down when drowsy but awake”. But some parents may find this just doesn’t work for ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Helen Stavrou, English Language Instructor, University of Cyprus, and PhD Graduate, Charles Sturt University Traditional approaches to adult language teaching often use resources such as textbooks and generic learning materials that are less than inspiring for learners. New research shows ...
Accompanied by a giant albatross sculpture made of reclaimed plastic bottles, Greenpeace has delivered a 100,000-strong petition to parliament calling on the Government to ban single-use plastic bottles and incentivise reusable and refillable alternatives. ...
Covid-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall says the country needs to remain at the orange traffic light setting as case numbers are starting to "creep up". ...
Our Annual plan 2022/23 was presented to the House of Representatives today. This annual plan is a key accountability document for our Office. It describes the discretionary work we consider will help us to achieve our ultimate outcome – that Parliament ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Fitz-Gibbon, Director, Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre; Associate Professor of Criminology, Faculty of Arts, Monash University AAP Image/Supplied by Department of Justice In 2020 the killing of Hannah Clarke and her three children – Aaliyah, 6, Laianah, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch University The election of the Albanese Labor government brings an opportunity to end one of the most detrimental elements of Australian refugee law and policy in the past decade: the use of temporary ...
The New Zealand Council of Trade Unions has welcomed the launch of the Te Mahere Whai Mahi Wāhine: Women's Employment Action Plan today. For too long, women have been disadvantaged in the world of work. While many improvements have been made over ...
The experimental weekly series provides an early indicator of employment and labour market changes in a more timely manner than the monthly employment indicators series. Key facts The 6-day series includes jobs with a pay period equal to or less than ...
Statement from Auckland Transport Interim Chief Executive Mark Lambert: Auckland Transport is proud to support the New Statement of Ambition being launched tonight by the Climate Leaders Coalition. We’re delighted that AT’s work to achieve the ...
Greenpeace Aotearoa, SAFE, Animals Aotearoa, SPCA, and the New Zealand Animal Law Association have joined forces to call for an end to intensive winter grazing through the Government’s Dairy Cattle Code of Welfare review. The coalition says that as ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ben Swift, Educational Experiences team lead (Senior Lecturer), ANU School of Cybernetics, Australian National University Shutterstock I love writing code to make things: apps, websites, charts, even music. It’s a skill I’ve worked hard at for more than 20 years. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Baillie, Professor of Allied Health, University of Sydney Shutterstock COVID might be the largest mass casualty event in Australian history. And with one in 20 people with COVID still experiencing symptoms three months later, long COVID might even become Australia’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Patrick O’Connor, Associate Professor, University of Adelaide A tiny parasitic mite that lives on the European honeybee (Apis mellifera) has breached Australia’s border quarantine and been detected in managed bee hives in New South Wales. This is bad news for Australia’s ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michael Main, Visiting Scholar, Australian National University Shutterstock The COVID pandemic slowed mining activity across the Pacific. But as economic activity returns, an Australia-based company is poised to pursue what would be the largest mine in Papua New Guinea’s history. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rachele Sloane, Graduate Researcher and Tutor – Master of Education, Student Wellbeing Specialisation (MGSE), The University of Melbourne Shutterstock New Child Safe Standards come into effect in Victoria this Friday, July 1. The set of 11 standards builds on the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Morag Kobez, Associate lecturer, Queensland University of Technology shutterstock When the temperature drops in the southern hemisphere, you might like to stave off the chill with a big steaming pot of mulled wine, and fill your home with the comforting aroma ...
Russia's actions in Ukraine are an affront to the world but mustn't be allowed to create a more polarised, dangerous world, the prime minister says. ...
Russia's actions in Ukraine are an affront to the world but mustn't be allowed to create a more polarised, dangerous world, the prime minister says. ...
EDITORIAL:Bythe Rappler teamWe will continue bringing you the news, holding the powerful to account for their actions and decisions, calling attention to government lapses that further disempower the disadvantaged. We will hold the line. Dear readers and viewers, We thought this day would never come, even as ...
ANALYSIS:By Gavin Ellis The Aotearoa New Zealand Public Media Bill — introduced to Parliament this week — will have a long journey before it is fit for purpose. The Bill gives effect to the government’s plan to replace TVNZ and RNZ with a new entity designed for the digital ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caleb Goods, Senior Lecturer – Management and Organisations, UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia Uber Australia has struck a historic agreement with the Transport Workers’ Union – a statement of principles that re-regulate work in the Australian rideshare and food ...
Today the signatures of 72 Mayors, Deputy Mayors, Councillors, Local board members, and the LGNZ Young Elected Members Committee will be handed to the Government in support of making the voting age 16 via an open letter organised by Make It 16. “Young ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Paul Grogan, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, The Daffodil Centre, University of Sydney E-cigarettes and vape products are illegally imported into Australia. Some claim not to contain nicotine, but do.Simon Collins/Shutterstock ABC TV’s Four Corners this week reported how unlawful sale of e-cigarettes ...
However, more work is needed to understand the cost of rolling out a new approach to disability support, Minister for Disability Issues Poto Williams says. ...
Hospitality New Zealand is calling for MPs across Parliament to send ACT MP Chris Baillie’s Member’s Bill on repealing Easter trading restrictions to a select committee so hospitality businesses can have their say on whether to stay open or ...
On 1 July an exciting new Ministry for Disabled People – will come into being to lead much-needed change. There is nothing that people will need to do on day one to continue receiving disability support services. “Many disabled people and whānau ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra As well as her interviews with politicians and experts, Politics with Michelle Grattan includes “Word from The Hill”, where she discusses the news with members of The Conversation politics team. Michelle and Peter Browne from ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Senior Lecturer, Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society, University of Canberra Shutterstock “Stagflation” is an ugly word for an ugly situation – the unpleasant combination of economic stagnation and inflation. The last time the world experienced ...
The Ardern government has done it again, announcing a grandiose plan to reform Wellington’s transport system. The plan includes a long-overdue duplicate Mt Victoria tunnel, a rearrangement of the road around the Basin Reserve and a light rail operation from the city centre to the south coast, all in the ...
Buzz from the Beehive Legislation to tighten things, legislation to relax things and a speech which reminds us of threats to our democracy – from the PM, we are delighted to note – feature in the latest posts on the Beehive website. Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister David Clark has ...
The Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner has expressed disappointment over the delay in undertaking urgent action to address ethnic, gender and disability pay gaps across workplaces in Aotearoa New Zealand. The Government has committed to scoping ...
OP-ED by Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). ...
Our report Improving value through better Crown entity monitoring was presented to the House of Representatives today. Crown entities carry out a wide range of important public services and functions. In 2020/21, Crown entities were responsible for 39% ...
Auckland Council has formally adopted the 2022/23 Annual Budget. This includes Mayor Phil Goff’s proposal for a billion-dollar “Climate Action” package to be funded by a new targeted rate levied on households. The Auckland Ratepayers' Alliance has ...
"The Wellington Chamber of Commerce welcomes today’s announcement of a preferred option for mass rapid transit," Chief Executive Simon Arcus said today. "It is good to see the government being very clear on its thoughts. These are the kind ...
Wellington Airport is welcoming progress on Wellington’s transport network with the Government announcing a preferred option today. “It’s good to see progress being made and a clear pathway forward,” says Wellington Airport chief executive ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ismini Vasileiou, Associate Professor in Information Systems, De Montfort University Shutterstock Today marks 15 years since Apple released what’s arguably its flagship device: the iPhone. A decade and a half later, there are few products that have managed to reach ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Phillimore, Executive Director, John Curtin Institute of Public Policy, Curtin University Just before the Western Australian state election in March 2021, the then leader of the Liberal Party did an unusual thing. He conceded defeat – but then asked voters to ...
National Party leader Christopher Luxon says he has no interest "importing culture wars" into New Zealand after Roe v Wade was overturned in the US. ...
New polling out this morning confirms that Aucklanders overwhelmingly support fare free public transport. These results follow the release of a report jointly co-commissioned by FIRST Union and the NZ Public Service Association Te Kauae Kaimahi, making the ...
New research released today emphasises our growing concern for harmful content online. Today, the Classifications Office released their report, ‘What we’re watching - New Zealanders’ views about what we see on screen and online.’ The report shows ...
A new poll conducted by Talbot Mills purports to show overwhelming support for mayoral candidate Efeso Collins’ fares-free public transport policy. However, the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance says the wrong question was asked. The poll of 772 Aucklanders, ...
The Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance is urging candidates to tone down their rhetoric and leave personal attacks out of the campaign. On Wednesday morning, The New Zealand Herald reported that mayoral candidate Efeso Collins and his family were “nearly ...
The Electoral Commission begins an enrolment drive today to make sure people are enrolled for this year’s local body elections. ‘It’s time to check you’re enrolled, and that you’re listed at the right address, so you’re ready to vote ...
New government information about the deepwater fish orange roughy shows the fish may not reach full maturity until the age of 80, throwing the entire management of the fishery into doubt. Orange roughy, a long-lived deepwater fish, grow and mature ...
NZEI Te Riu Roa has delivered its oral submission in support of the Fair Pay Agreements Bill, outlining how it will benefit workers and improve the quality of early childhood education. When the legislation comes into force the Union will be seeking a Fair ...
Hindu Youth New Zealand (HYNZ), a Division of Hindu Council of New Zealand Inc., is pleased to announce its first online webinar series focused on recent changes in visa, and immigration requirements in New Zealand – Pathway to Aotearoa . Whether ...
Crime victims are being urged to seek support even if they don’t report the crime. Victim Support, the charity that supported more than 43,000 victims of crime, trauma and suicide last year, says the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey released today ...
Welcome back.
Heh, I had visions of Lprents kitten playfully chewing through an important cable…
Nope. My fault. I did a series of upgrades to the operating systems followed by a cleanup of the disk space. Then after telling the check systems that the site was being rebooted, rebooted at about 2am. But failed to check that the site actually came online.
It had a configuration problem in the apache2 and failed to start up.
Mort was innocent (this time)
A seldom bought up fact is that coal fired and nuclear power does not work in very hot temperatures due to needing cooling as part of their process. In short they are not good in a global warming scenario as when it gets too hot, (and you need power to run air conditioners), it also effects other parts of the network.
That is why solar and diversified power networks are needed in global warming scenarios.
“The heat in Victoria has already cut power to thousands of properties in the state’s central north. More than 2700 AusNet customers were hit with a power outage near Nagambie and an underground cable fault might not be fixed until 5pm. ”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12195786
Good point savenz. I’m copying this to How to get there tomorrow unless someone else does so.
As the heat racks up, Australia becomes more and more suited to become the world’s first hydrogen fuel energy superpower.
High concentrated solar heat can split oxygen and hydrogen at industrial scales through the process of thermolysis far more efficiently than electrolysis, the current most common method.
Bring it on.
Thermolytic hydrogen production looks to be at a similar stage to photocatalytic hydrogen production; a bit closer to reality than fusion power but not much.
Sorry but Hydrogen is just not efficient as a source of renewable power. There’s power loss from generation to piping, storing and consuming hydrogen.
The cheapest and most efficient use of solar and wind sources of renewable power is to send the electricity directly to a battery or to point of consumption. The ever improving economics of battery storage will drive the cost down so much that it will become economic to store it overnight for large populations.
That’s an issue for legacy power generation designed for a cooler climate. Unless the power plants are badly engineered, extreme hot temperatures should only force reduced output, not shutdown.
New builds can and should be designed for a warmer climate and much hotter hottest days, with substantially gruntier cooling systems. The gruntier cooling systems should also improve their overall thermal efficiency in less-extreme conditions. Concentrated solar-thermal, geothermal and gas generation also have the cooling issue. Even photovoltaics benefit from kept cool, although it’s rarely if ever cost-effective to actively cool them (there’s a double-benefit from floating photovoltaic arrays on reservoirs, better output from being kept cooler and reduced evaporation).
There’s also the transmission grid – if the cables get hot, they expand lengthwise and sag. Sometimes close enough to something underneath to start fires. One engineering solution for that is using carbon fibre cable for the tension-bearing core, and aluminium for the conductors. Carbon fibre has a very small thermal expansion lengthwise (can be positive or negative depending on the grade) so the heat-sag problem mostly goes away. It just costs a bit more initially.
That’s helpful information Andre. More good infor like this will be welcome.
It seems it was an underground grid failure that caused the outage. No other information on what went wrong.
I suspect that the power stations themselves weren’t badly affected if at all.
Probably the same problem as we had in Auckland
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12033654
There were two causes. A hot summer shifted the ground causing an actual break in at least one cable causing a leakage. The other one was a bit more insidious. There was insufficient ground moisture to transfer extra heat away from the cables.
I’d just moved into my apartment towards the end of 1997, so had the fun of months of the power outages.
It is kind of freaky to realise that at the time there were only 7000 people living in and around the CBD in 1998. The last time I looked (after the 2013 census) there were more than 70,000. It has gone up since then.
I read recently that City of London has much of its own governance.
Something like 7000 people live there, but 450,000 people work there or are integrated with it. e&oe
There are two Coal power stations in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria’s east couldn’t keep up with demand by 10:30am thence the rolling blackouts aka “brown outs” yesterday and one of the main trunk powerlines in Victoria went tits up as well.
There were also localised power outages as well cause by local transmission lines not handling the increase demand of power or the extreme heat or a combination of the both.
Just found this on Railpage Australia, worth the reading the rants and has some useful links as well.
https://www.railpage.com.au/f-p2132792.htm#2132792
Can find the link but it looks like they have already had to shut down generations in Adelaide due to extreme heat. So just when you need power to cool, you have to shut down your generations. So I guess people could be dead pretty quickly.
Sadly power has become a business rather than a social good, and therefore the discourses are not about the cheapest most effective ways for communities and individuals to get power but more about big business making the most profit of often the poorest people, while subtly delaying/stopping or trying to control other better, cheaper ways they could get power.
Free trade has become about stopping social good and profiting from the effects of climate change, through thousands of pages of ‘rules’ to ensure profit remains to the big multinationals.
“Profit over the planet: WTO’s lawsuit ruling could be a giant blow to the renewable energy movement
WTO tribunal ruled in a lawsuit initiated by the U.S. that India’s national solar energy program violates trade law”
https://www.salon.com/2016/02/24/profit_over_the_planet_wtos_lawsuit_ruling_could_be_a_giant_blow_to_the_renewable_energy_movement/
With the same ruling above, even though India had virtually ZERO solar capacity at that time the logic of US solar being damaged at that time could not be true. However the WTO still ruled in US favour.
“The U.S. sued India in the WTO tribunal because India’s subsidized solar energy program required that particular parts be made in the country. Washington claims that, because of this program, its solar exports to India have fallen by 90 percent since 2011, when the program started. As the Sierra Club’s Ben Beachy noted, however, India had almost no solar capacity at this time.”
It’s not about free-trade – it’s about forcing trade.
India didn’t want to trade so as to help develop their economy and so the US through the WTO forced it upon them. They did so so that the US economy could be developed at India’s expense.
If these people were truly after free-trade they’d be dropping all the rules and allowing nations to decide for themselves if they’re going to trade with another nation or not. That, after all, is what free-trade is.
“If these people were truly after free-trade they’d be dropping all the rules and allowing nations to decide for themselves if they’re going to trade with another nation or not. That, after all, is what free-trade is.”
/agreed
Do you think we might see some committed ‘free trade’ advocate (such as a Wayne or an Ollie Hartwich) come along and offer an explanation as to why free trade and FTAs are not actually free trade?
I imagine if they ever do, the explanation will be laced with spin and buzz words going forward.
And you’re absolutely correct re India. I still marvel at how the MFATs, Oz equivalent and others can’t understand why India is one of those ‘hard nuts to crack’ in obtaining an FTA.
Here’s a hint: Despite all the overt corruption, backhanders and promises, there is actually a concern among the Indian political elite for its citizens – whether from the Left, or from the Right. They don’t actually like being treated like shit in the minds of their foreign betters especially with the offshore diaspora.
I would expect them to come on and explain why these agreements are all about free-trade when, more often than not, they’re used to force trade.
/yep
Don’t hold your breath if you’re expecting anything meaningful
3pm (1500hrs) and its now 2000Hrs.
Waiting waiting waiting. I’d have thought there’d have been a few regulars jumping in by now – seems not.
I guess they’re waiting for instructions
They really don’t like it when the truth is before them.
The fact that these agreements are forced trade rather than free-trade undermines their credibility but they actually can’t deny that these agreements are about forcing trade rather than free-trade.
The results speak for themselves.
One of the things I have learnt watching today’s ODI involving India is the meaning of the cartwheel in the Indian flag.
From Wikipedia (therefore it must be true), :
“Gandhi first proposed a flag to the Indian National Congress in 1921. The flag was designed by Pingali Venkayya. In the centre was a traditional spinning wheel, symbolising Gandhi’s goal of making Indians self-reliant by fabricating their own clothing…”
But wait, there’s more:
“Bhagwa or the Saffron denotes renunciation or disinterestedness. Our leaders must be indifferent to material gains and dedicate themselves to their work.”
I would love to include this in the cabinet manual.
You’ve got it @gsays.
Not something a few Wasps in Delhi half a mile from a Railway Museum sucking on a fag and worrying about their future will ever get.
Just as well I ‘spose there’s now a ‘Maori Policy Unit’ in MFAT’ with one or two decent folk leading the charge, even if they do worship at the lower Tory Street Temple
*
there’s NOW a ‘Maori Policy Unit’ ……etc.
Sorry, I had a Leftist’s curmudgeon moment brought on by memories of a Relda and a Marama.
A Kohia cum Martin almost.
While I am at it, the stream of the match I am watching is from espn, locals there are able to get a new BIG suv with 72 months to pay, 0% interest.
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/worldwide-auto-sales-decline-010059853.html
You would be dead right there. Excuse the horrible pun.
But the fact is that in Australia more people die from heat waves than from bush fires.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-18/heatwaves-australias-deadliest-hazard-why-you-need-plan/9338918
Thermal generation relies on the Carnot cycle, and it becomes less efficient as the ambient temperature rises. So does the cooling efficiency, and in many jurisdictions power plants are also restricted from putting too much heat back into rivers/estuaries, as this can have a severe impact on ecosystems. There is just so much legacy coal around that can’t be retrofitted with better cooling that our warming climate will cause more outages of coal fired power generation.
I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion about cooling or temperature being the cause of the power cut. They point out it was an underground cable and the fault could be caused by quite a few things.
A real issue for cooling for me would be transformers dealing with high loads. They are everywhere and are air cooled, the coils immersed in oil. So obviously 50 deg air is less efficient in cooling than 30 deg air. The risk being the insulating coating on the wires fail, they short circuit and explode.
As for the power plants there is two versions. Those that recycle water in cooling towers and those using water from rivers like Huntly. So the water exits the plant as steam at 100 deg plus, condenses and falls back down the tower. In theory less water would be recycled as less water can reach the temp to condense. The actual turbines shouldn’t be effected by a large amount as they operate at temperatures much higher than the air temerature. If anything the may need higher water flows in any component cooling part of the operation.
So water supply is actually the issue. Plants that can’t condense enough water may not have consent to draw enough from waterways to compensate. Plants like Huntly should have no issues as they have the ability to add cooling towers.
The actual figures for the effect of air temperature are small.
https://dukespace.lib.duke.edu/dspace/handle/10161/6895
Tbf
One nuclear power plant in a non earthquake area up north would solve a lot of problems.
Try and put one up here and you will get problems like you wouldn’t believe.
Funny how there has been ZERO nuclear power plants built by private practise in the world, instead they use tax payer money for the folly. Even when private practise do make the nuclear power plants it is enough to drive them under, meanwhile the countries and companies that invested in solar early are booming.
From the above link
“Fossil fuel company TransCanada is already suing the U.S. government, after the Obama administration rejected its proposed Keystone XL Pipeline on environmental grounds. Former NASA environmental scientist and now Columbia University professor James Hansen emphasized that, if the pipeline were built and the vast oil reserves in Alberta, Canada’s tar sands were used, it would mean “game over for the climate,” yet the corporation is demanding $15 billion in compensation from American taxpayers.”
Oh, lets look at what industries are causing climate change, and then getting the free trade deals to compensate them for their destruction of the planet so far! Crazy!
Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says
A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change
🙄
Never heard of the Firth of Thames as a rift valley?
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/79903971/waikatos-earthquake-waiting-game
Then there is the Auckland Volcanic field
http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/9219092/Auckland-the-most-unprepared-for-disaster
I never realised in the entirety of the North Island there is only Auckland
I never realised you failed Comprehension 101.
I think I can comprehend they were talking about volcanoes in Auckland
And failed to see a reference to a rift valley less than 50 miles from Auckland which is thought by geologists to pose the risk of a large earthquake. Such a shake would affect the majority of the upper island as the fault runs through the Hauraki Gulf. It why the Firth of Thames is why it is – it is a submerged rift valley.
But not only is Auckland potentially liable to suffer an earthquake it is also liable to volcanic eruption. The hot springs at Miranda don’t just happen to be there for no apparent reason.
Indeed the whole of the upper North Island is formed from volcanic and earthquakes. If you were to do Geology 101 from AUC you would go on a field tip to Matheson Bay by Leigh, half way between Auckland and Whangarei, where the the evidence of Earth quakes, volcanoes, and other geological action is to be plainly seen.
Northland is probably the only place in the entirety of the North Island with an acceptably low level of seismic activity.
But good luck finding a site in Northland with the attributes and infrastructure necessary to building a nuclear reactor.
https://screenshots.firefox.com/DfnKaH8UGzHvCd7y/quakesearch.geonet.org.nz
I was thinking it might provide a few jobs and revive a few towns and force a govt to finally put a decent road in.
Hence my “solve a lot of problems.”
Apologies though.
I wasn’t exactly mr clear
I think you’ll need a little more than a decent road.
For starters, a deep water port.
All good
Add that
The pay off in reliable power to Auckland for the whole city, including a massive upswing in EV’s and electric public transport would more than pay for itself.
Not only are they designed to run with typically cooler water the waste heat has environmental impacts which will only increase with recalibration and an already warmer cooling source.
“Every day, large reactors like the two at Diablo Canyon, California, individually dump about 1.25 billion gallons of water into the ocean at temperatures up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the natural environment. ”
https://progressive.org/dispatches/nuclear-power-causes-global-warming/
http://www.analys.se/engelska/publications/nuclear-power-high-sea-water-temperatures/
https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/legacy/assets/documents/nuclear_power/fact-sheet-water-use.pdf
I’ve got tickling in the back of my head that Huntly is (or was) occasionally constrained by its resource consent conditions. IIRC, when the Waikato river is already warm and low flow they’re not allowed to dump much extra heat into it, so that limits the power output.
Imagine if that energy was able to be diverted to tunnel houses.
The tomatoes would be going gangbusters!
This is definitely an issue due to high intake temperatures or restricted outflow temperatures e.g.
https://nuclear-news.net/2018/08/24/hot-weather-continues-to-cause-lower-nuclear-power-production-in-france/
https://reneweconomy.com.au/nuclear-power-takes-a-hit-as-european-heatwave-rolls-on-87477/
https://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/heat-and-drought-pose-risks-for-nuclear-power-plants
and also system vulnerabilities in transmission networks that trip the network and take large coal and nuclear plants off line e.g.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/power-stations-fail-as-victorians-brace-for-hottest-day-since-black-saturday/news-story/b404770015b841f39e348b19e5eec3a7
The US Reichstag moment comes closer.
President Trump agrees to open the US government up for 30 days. After that period if he doesn’t get his wall, he has threatened to either close the government again, or declare a National Emergency.
Even for a President who doesn’t read, the enormity of the second option can’t escape him.
I found a tongue in cheek piece on what advantages the Wall might enable.
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/97746/greg-ninness-details-wide-ranging-economic-opportunities-offered-us-president-donald
Greg Ninness details the wide ranging economic opportunities offered by US President Donald Trump’s proposed Mexican border wall
Also on the Wall and USA-Mexico long hostile relationship.
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/97607/journey-aztlan-chris-trotter-why-democrats-should-let-trump-build-his-wall
Journey To Aztlan: Chris Trotter on why the Democrats should let Trump build his wall
Dunno about that. He knows he just got spanked over his dropping ratings so it’s unlikely he’ll try another shutdown, and his base thinks he just cravenly surrendered.
His way out is to get a bit of extra funding for more technology stuff like remote surveillance and entry port inspections, and call it a “smart wall”. He’s already setting the stage for that switcheroo, and most of his Wallnuts will go along with it.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/25/government-shutdown-over-border-wall-1127564
Would trump’s wall actually have any effect other than to fulfill his election promises.
Fencing people out is vastly different to fencing them in imho
As a practical matter, a concrete wall from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean would:
make floods in the Rio Grande much worse by impeding floodwaters
forcibly take a lot of land from a lot of really ornery Texans
really fuck up the ecosystems in the Big Bend area of Texas and kill a lot of the wildlife that depends on access to the Rio Grande for water let alone north-south migration patterns (equivalent ecosystems in the California mountains are already fucked from the fencing that’s already built)
barely noticeably reduce illegal immigration since most arrive legally and overstay, are smuggled through an entry port concealed in a vehicle, or go over or under existing fencing
He is not proposing what you stated.
Start again with what he is proposing.
What’s interesting about Trump is he has is end game and a starting position. Over time has starting position has changed from your comment, to his present policy. He has listened to the experts, who want the steel barrier etc.
His end game hasn’t changed.
Stop ILLEGAL immigration.
So you like law breaking and keep coming up with excuses justifying law breaking. He wants things to be lawful.
Most illegal immigration. But the rest is acceptable to you. Trump wants to stop it therefore Andre must condone it.
So most convicted rapists?
So most MS13?
So most sex trade victims?
Where do they enter the US?
I’m amazed that you condone those things just on your hatred of Trump. You would rather rapists, Gang members, and sex trafficking be unimpeded than let a single Trump policy, sorry Obama policy, sorry Pelosi policy be funded.
He probably should have signed up to the UN pact on immigration then as one of it’s goals was to stop people immigrating illegally by correcting the conditions that make them want to leave.
Of course, that would reduce the power of the US and other developed nations in the world.
What the Tantrump has actually achieved for national security.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/trump-shut-down-the-government-to-protect-national-security-he-hurt-it-instead/
It will make some steel and construction company owners wealthier.
Reckon as soon as they got the contract they’d find some way to be based in Mexico, use Mexican labour and tariff-free Chinese steel?
Whatever President Pence allows.
They’re probably already based in the one or other of the tax havens.
That’s how mexico will pay for it.
The North American Venuzuela is one step closer.
https://goo.gl/images/MgTRJ2
Those Hitler digs are clearly stupid.
The socialist MSM is the new Goebbels.
There’s no enormity in building a wall. Not a single American will have a single control placed on them. Not one. No media imprisoned like Venuzuela. No protesters shot or run over like Venuzuela. No corruption like Venuzuela. No high taxes that cause all the youth to flee like Venuzuela.
Nothing. Not one thing Nazi in anything Trump has done. Unlike Ocasio Cortez who is a racist and sexist as well. On record with her hate white men comments.
After all Nazis are socialists. It’s in the name.
“After all Nazis are socialists. It’s in the name.”
Don’t be intellectually lazy. You’ve clearly got the smarts to be better than that. Get educated and get real man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program
Aside from your irrational Godwinisms, I agree that the concept of walls is not inherently bad, humans have built them throughout history. Trump’s
tantrumshutdown wasn’t really about he wall, it’s about Democrats taking control of Congress, and obstructing the Mueller investigation. Trump has had 2 years to fund his stupid fscken wall but he seemed to forget about it until now.The RWNJ’s are dead scared of Ocasio Cortez and co.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-young-lefts-anti-capitalist-manifesto/
I think your wrong.
She has a great personality but clearly not that bright.
She refuses to by interviewed by media that may ask non patsy questions so she can’t actually get to that higher level. The day she has to face a real interview rather than patsy questions she will look stupid and scary.
The rich are going WTF she is just nuts. The second she gets any traction or power with her ideas large numbers of the rich will donate to the republicans. She will be like the gift that keeps on giving.
Talking about not that bright…
/exactly.
In fact, we actually need maximum incomes. Not just high interest rates but actually saying that amounts over X amount will be taxed at 100%.
We need to stop fucking around and realise that the economy really is a Zero Sum Game.
She won’t go anywhere a fox wanker if she has any sense warty.
As she’s socialist she’s so obviously far brighter than you.
No, the rich are panicking as they realise that their end is nigh.
But, you’re a good RWNJ and you’re here to defend their unearned wealth.
When the Nazis kidnapped children from their parents and adopted them out to ‘better’ people, at least they kept proper paperwork.
That’s right, they were very perdantic on that one. Unlike Venuzuela who have no paper to take records. Or no media to report on it. There in prison.
We have the same policy here in NZ it’s called CYFS. All you need is you and 2 dodgy mates to independently make false allegations and they will go around and take the children from the parent or parents. They keep paperwork as well but good luck trying to get hold of it. The children are placed with audited, better parents. Sadly often more likely to abuse the kids vs the parents.
Exactly. Everyone else identifies that child, who their parents are, where they were taken into custody (and by whom), whether the child was healthy, and what their destination will be.
The Nazis kept better records on the kids they intentionally murdered than dolt45’s crew do on kids they were supposed to try to keep alive.
After all Nazis are socialists. It’s in the name.
The fact that right-wingers bring this level of analysis to historical, social and political questions explains a great deal about their comments.
They’re a perfect example of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They’re too ignorant to understand that they have NFI WTF they’re talking about.
I was taking the piss and the comment deserved it.
Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock….
Trump Threatens to Use Emergency Power to Build Wall If Congress Does Not Approve It by February 15
But just imagine what the next Democrat President in 2020 could do with those “emergency powers” tRump is just wanting to set a precedent for!
Action on Climate Change.
Immigration policy.
Voting rights.
Social Justice.
to name a few.
His advisers are cautioning him about taking this approach because it would set up a whole gateway for open slather executive action that potentially violates their constitution. Furthermore, if it should succeed through the myriad of legal objections, such an order would immediately face, it opens the way for any succeeding Democrat to do something to which Republicans are totally opposed. Of course, having essentially cast aside all the adults in the room, and never actually listening to any advice that may be given – unless it is from his mates on Fox news – who knows what he will do. He obviously hasn’t a clue as to what he is doing – so how is anyone else to know?
What, next Democratic President?
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/07/michael-moore-fahrenheit-119-trump
Ladies and Gentlemen the last President of the United States.
You fail to understand the importance of the most recent election and the real “Blue Wave” that transformed the country. And yes it did transform the country. There is still more to be done, but the people are not resting on their laurels, they are now seriously working on 2020. Trumpkins who are now the only base for Trump support, are even now, walking away as they realise the reality of life under the Orange one is not what he said it would be. The Republicans don’t have the support, nor the gumption, to remove him, and they are fractionalised as a party, like they have never been before. There has been a huge reaction to the election of Trump. It has energized people, particularly women. There is growing movement for reform.
If Trump was successful to create expanded “Emergency Powers” for his wall, that would create a precedent for any follow on President to do a vast number of things of which current Republicans would never dream of doing. Remember it was the power of the Republicans in Congress that has held up any substantive progress on Climate Action on the world stage for decades. No US President could agree to working towards reducing GHG emissions on a world stage without their consent.
The problem, of course, is that what’s happening is the problem.
How can anyone address the problem if no one recognises it? If their whole being is about maintaining the status quo?
Here’s an excerpt from my Book of Shadows 29/11/2001:
This is the Final War – the war against capitalism.
Your piss has blood in it! Better get a health check.
yeah, not helping.
By the way I was talking to DJW at 335111.
1. you need to put in a /sarc tag else no one else will get it. It’s the general problem wit text.
2. You’re a RWNJ so we expect you to be lambasting Nazi Germany as socialist when it actually wasn’t.
Nope. They were all capitalists:
Isn’t privatisation what we’ve been doing for the last thirty years?
So, for the last thirty years we’ve been following Nazi Germany’s economic policies.
I believe he’ll do that. He is unable to negotiate
Chris Trotter gives the UK an Eagle’s-eye view and perceives the cracks.
https://www.interest.co.nz/opinion/97655/chris-trotter-how-imperialism-has-set-britain-apart-its-european-competitors-and
Chris Trotter on how imperialism has set Britain apart from its European competitors and landed it in the mess it’s in –
The Prime Minister, Theresa May, and her supposed alternative, Jeremy Corbyn, epitomise in equal measure the malady that is Brexit.
May has failed utterly to draw into the debate the broad range of parties and interests whose co-operation continues to be essential to the extremely difficult task of making Britain’s departure from the European Union, if not painless, then bearable. Tribal, mistrustful, high-handed and fatally unimaginative, the Conservative Party leader remains politically upright only because her job is now so hard and so thankless that nobody else wants it.
His latest on Bowalley Road is fairly brutal:
http://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-jacinda-problem-where-she-goes-we-go.html
although I can understand how many aren’t seeing the benefits of a change in government (yet). Let’s hope tho’ that we don’t keep getting a “Rome wasn’t built in a day” response from any criticism – it’s not going to wash for too much longer.
Davos attendance was a poor decision
maybe, maybe not
We’ll see whether or not this is Her moment of advocacy for change, or whether it will be seen as just another media moment in time (going forward).
I’m hoping it is the former, although I understand she has a whole lot of shit to push uphill to get to where she’d hope we all want to be.
There are a growing number of the dis-possessed that can’t even afford a concern for the politics of kindness and they’ve given up even being interested in such a hope.
2019 is going to be an interesting year.
It occurs to me that if we don’t get a fairer system the grievances and hate against governmental and elite leaders will build up. There eventually could be a revenge group that pays back to the families of the comfortable privateers. Best to really take things seriously about giving the lower classes some let-up on their downward trend in everything before the obsessed get beyond hope for bread tomorrow; let them eat cake sometimes now please, sitting on their own chairs in their own lockable home, not the romantic outdoors.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/380978/defence-force-won-t-investigate-death-of-singaporean-aloysius-pang
I don’t think Singaporeans are going to be satisfied with NZ Defence Forces standing back and pleading laissez faire. I think there are many Singaporean Chinese in this country. They didn’t lift themselves out of poverty by dropping regulations and adopting a she’ll-be-right approach. It wasn’t us gov’ plea or we can’t be questioned, ‘Do you know who we are’ can work to deal with us ordinary NZ citizens but they will be displeased.
So, what more do you expect the NZDF to do?
That could be put – what less do you expect the NZDF to do? And I could say yeah good idea if they didn’t host such practises; but then how can they withdraw without breaking the working alliance that is thrust upon us by the constant desire to have something that someone else has got. Which is millenials old.
So I don’t know what can NZDF do; be better hosts? Try to make it clear in Singapore news media with adverts that we are very sad that one of their young role models and youth stars has been killed here, and stress that we were not involved?
They may have hosted the exercise but they weren’t part of it.
This means that no investigation by them will result in any meaningful resolution.
The only ones who can investigate the incident is Singapore.
Which is what’s happening with the NZDF assistance.
There is, quite literally, nothing else that the NZDF can do.
He was a Singaporean defence force personnel operating under their jurisdiction. There is, quote literally, nothing that the NZDF can do except extend NZs condolences which I’m pretty sure that they’ve already done on our behalf.
There is nothing that you can fault our defence forces with as they didn’t have anything to do with it.
There is nothing that you can fault our defence forces with as they didn’t have anything to do with it.
I already indicated that DTB. So don’t go on about it.
Huh?
As far as I am aware the NZDF provides the venue but not direct control of the exercise. Certainly not the NZDF staff (as your link points out) except probably for exercise bounds.
Just like the exercises that the SAF does in a number of friendly countries where they have some room to do operational training in larger areas than their islands. The SAF does these exercises shipping their own gear into the host country and mainly doing their own exercises. As far as I am aware the use of many of those exercise areas are paid for in millions or billions of dollars deals. I suspect that if they aren’t explicitly doing a multilateral exercise, that any operational training cooperating with host forces would be an afterthought.
The Singapore land area is only about 3/4 that of the Auckland urban area. It severely limits the kind of exercise that they can do inside their own country. For instance at brigade or regimental level, anything to do with jet aircraft, most armour or artillery, hell even the bush warfare areas would be limited. Gods knows what else they’d need to do. In Australia they use thousands of square kilometres at Shoalwater Bay.
But what you don’t seem to grasp is that the SAF are finicky about training injuries or deaths. In Singapore even training deaths caused by dehydration or lightning are prominent in the news media. Everything that I’ve seen over this last year (I spent 5 months of 2018 in Singapore) indicates that they are the best people to do any such inquiry. They have more actual experience than the NZDF.
That is because they cycle so many more people through training. Conscripts through their two years and reserves through their annual training. That is a *lot* of training. It is a far far large force than NZDF. Active personnel are about 70k at any one time. And there are over a million reserves.
With military training, like that of civilian training, there simply isn’t any way to remove all risk. The trick is to make sure that you learn from accidents to make damn sure that they don’t reoccur. I can’t see how getting the NZDF to do it would add much, if anything.
Singapore Armed Forces use Waiouru for live fire artillery training and as your link notes, it’s Singapore’s show so there’s no reason for the NZDF to be involved in any inquiry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiouru_Military_Camp#Singapore_connection
We can express sorrow in a media release that would show up in Singapore. It affects our 100% Pure happy place promotion somewhat. We don’t want any more preventable deaths in this country piling up in statistics!
Something @ Cleangreen and possibly others might be interested in:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jan/25/manchester-tram-train-network
Seems to me there might be places around NZ where this could be useful in the future, but I also wonder whether we’ll take our traditional short term approach to doing things and go for ‘light rail’ options using a completely different gauge.
The Labour party needs a name change.
Here are a few starters.
New Zealand Pacific
New Zealand Global
Our New Zealand.
True New Zealand.
New Zealand Heart.
I wish they would hurry up and do something positive party?
True National.
Another tailings dam collapse. Hundreds missing. Surrounding farmland destroyed via being covered in toxic sludge.
Shares in Vale drop 10%. The same Vale responsible for the last dam failing in Minas Gerais, the 19 deaths then, and Brasil’s worst ecological disaster.
Bolsonaro to the rescue, concerned for miners welfare.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/hundreds-missing-after-brazilian-dam-collapse/news-story/3cd78c609dd8e01ae5c1e3089bac3c24
What I am aware of in the free market is that every disaster is a profit centre if a Corporate can work it right. So one conglomerate screws up – then another supplies a remedy. The governments pay and pay and pay, and the people say what was in that brown paper email?
While we are at it a 21 century name
for New Zealand is way over due.
We are not a Dutch province.
Tasman did not discover New Zealand.
Realistically we should be Rarotonga Hou.
Mate, NZ has a name, try Aotearoa.
Holy heck.
During the government shutdown 200+ US government websites had their SSL certificates expire. Bad, very bad.
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/the-mother-of-all-government-data-breaches-is-happening-right-now-24461/
Sort of bizarre.
We gotta have a wall to protect the security of our country!!!!!
What do you mean the shut down has comprimised our digital security!!
Ooooooopps.
Even his ex CoS Gen Kelly has been telling him that the shutdown was doing more harm to their security than any f**king wall would save.
https://www.axios.com/government-shutdown-kelly-department-homeland-security-e6e456bc-6d8d-4180-b4d6-7490942bb995.html
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2019/01/powerful-firms-in-the-government-s-sights.html
There is a vacuum with NZ demand & supply lobbying, so it tends to go to rorting instead.
To different degrees, some things are natural monopolies, like govt. itself is for example. The strength of that natural monopolistic part of the societal economy, is that despite all the leverage put over it to the contrary, it is a product of dynamic NZ demand & supply.
That is a general guide then, to the direction in enabling NZ lobbying systems for even the bigger natural monopolistic areas of activity to take the place of rorting.
NZ1st!
Quoting article:
Wonder if he’ll like the answers because the first thing that needs to be done is for all natural monopolies that provide essential services (Power, telecommunications, water, hospitals (and health in general)) to be brought in to state ownership as a government service. Some of which (i.e, health) would not carry charges.
The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump
My bold.
This one just got on to my Must Read list.
I was watching the Philip DeFranco channel playing interviews from LAUSD Teachers and why the went on strike. They were offered better pay but turned it down as what they want is lower class sizes, and full-time nurses and counselors.
Another thing that was mentioned was about a lot of the funding trickery going on with some of the charter schools there. The schools have a headcount at a certain time near the start of the school year that helps set their funding. Right after this time a lot of the charter schools then dump a lot of the lower performing students forcing them back to public schools. Meanwhile, they keep the funding level for the higher number of students while the public schools forced to accept them are left with a funding level for a lower number of students. The charter schools have effectively found a loophole to swipe funding from the public schools while being left with the best of the cherrypicked students. They can also turn down those with physical handicaps putting even more pressure on the public schools who must supply extra funding from their budget for those students.
Some of this seems to resonate with what was happening here under the last National government with charter schools being better funded than public schools and being able to cherrypick students and having no accountability.
Dolan Twins Funeral Controversy & Why The LAUSD Teacher Strike Will Ripple Through The US…
I get so brassed off with commenters who present on this blog using coded language of acronyms. It’s lazy, and irrational when it is about specialist subjects and people ought to know better. How on earth are commenters supposed to know what LAUSD is. I presume on looking it up on google that its’s this;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Unified_School_District
I agree. I keep getting stuck on what IIRC means, and occasionally FWIW.
Besides, those acronyms often often have a different meaning assigned to them through time.
For example, at one time SDLC meant Synchronous Data Link Control until some sage came along with a project management process and it became Systems Development Life Cycle.
Is it possible COVFEFE has some deep meaning in the mind of an orange turd?
The first two are ones people generally know about. They are useful for being short. I can understand them being good for phone texters. That Covfefefe is a doozy. I had some fun finding out about it.
Just watching link to a piece on early languages in the UK. Thet have just mentioned the burghs that would contain a group of traders and businesspeople who had a fairly autonomous sytem, reporting to a noble who reported to a king.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X5zX3yVoiQ
I think we have to revitalise our local areas as the governments appear to have been captured by right wing economists with romantic, sensual dreams supplied by Ayn Rand.
I think we could end up in a Mafia-like community with government providing protection whichever way we lean. So think about semi-autonomous regions, they might choose to be supportive of each other, in exchange for more choice of what to do with their collected taxes. I have been suggesting that say 5% of GST collected in particular areas be returned there to provide and update infrastructure. May be the tax reform group might have looked at that.
Something to brighten up Labour? Eddie Izzard is a Labour Party official and wantsto stand for Parliament.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/world/europe/uk-eddie-izzard-labour-jeremy-corbyn.html
On Brexit –
Coming to Auckland nZ 1 March
http://ourauckland.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/articles/events/2019/03/eddie-izzard-wunderbar-world-tour/
(April Berlin July San Fransisco so he gets around.)
Is there truth in this satirical piece on why the EEC and Britain et al from Yes Minister?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvYuoWyk8iUV
Well, the yanks just beat the brits 19-7 in Hamilton – even though the latter played really tight attacking rugby. Amazing how good the USA sevens team has become the last couple of years, after being non-contenders for so long. Obviously we must blame Trump. Anyone sussed out how he did it yet?
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12195856
Metric tests to a person’s competency to THC levels & a related license to smoke pot perhaps, along with the availability of cheap devices for enthusiasts to purchase & use for application of such an approach.
Individual freedom comes with personable responsibility & self-control after all.
Perhaps such regulations would be a way to help people with high dependencies get to grips with their self-management and organisation better, in essence raising the lowest common denominator to a growing societal problem area in general & to help put a lid on it at a relatively harmless level.
NZ1st!
After reading that article it reinforced my opposition to legalisation.
Commodifying by legalising a herb creates all sorts of issues.
Decriminilising is a far better way to go.
Take profit out of the issue, depower gangs, enable folk with pot issues to seek help, keep corporates away from marijuana.
Regulation should continue to include bans for THC levels in a person’s blood for:
– Private car
– Bus driving
– Taxi driving
– Truck driving
– In fact random testing for using any machinery at all
– In fact random testing for any level of THC in the workplace no matter where you are
And of course harder enforcement at school:
– Random testing at school, to ensure the legal age is enforced and young people actually study
And a tax step that’s far higher for using it as cigarette, damaging the lungs, compared to less tax for a pill or liquid form.
If they felt like it they could hypothecate (dedicate) the income from both tobacco and marijuana sales to minimizing their harm.
Now that the “rights” argument is getting closer, let’s talk about actual responsibilities in society.
It would need a good stepped metric testing license system. People are different.
As long as that was sound, the rest of associated approaches and outcomes would gravitate around it effectively to the shape of the market and how it functions.
You’re advocating for people, including minors to hand over their DNA…randomly…
Consistently, you expose a weak minded authoritarian streak in your comments, Ad…
Keep pondering until you come up with a more nuanced process that doesn’t begin with presumed guilt…something that doesn’t resemble a sledge hammer…
So called leftist thinking at its most confused…
Have some freedom of choice…now subject yourself to random testing…
Yuk. Next thing they will be limiting how many farts is appropriate per day and decide it should be none and then whole classes at school will go into detention when nobody will own up. No one wants to now, it will be worse when it is punishable. /sarc
Lets hope our Prime Minister has the good sense not to be sucked into Nato’s latest attempt to make out seventeen years of pointless killing in Afghanistan is justified and in some way moral. Lets also hope she passes on the, sure to arrive, requests to support regime change in Venezuela too. Trudeau has made it clear he is Trumps bitch. Lets try and keep some self respect.
Not as good as it could have been but it highlights some of the issues.
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2019/01/growing-pains-ecological-cost-insatiable-economy-190121045037084.html
Kia ora The AM Show The 7,s Rugby in Hamilton was awesome the stands were packed out and OUR 7,s Black Ferns Wahine Rugby team first game on home soil was a great success. Mana Wahine its looks like it will be a yearly event for OUR Black Firns Mana Wahine. The All Blacks 7 team is still in the hunt for the 7 trophy to ka pai. simon we needed the greens party in Government after shonky shorted the system for his wealthy m8 nar you don’t want a capital gains tax that would make life better for the many people and ECO MAORI knows national run government’s for the 00.1%
I put deflated the alt right neo mark his blue m8s were not happy with that move they played up heaps after that kick from ECO Maori. I will observe a bit more before I put my nose in the Auckland Council election. I still say all the anity capital gains principles of NZ Have the teachers union by the noses. Jason I feel sorry for you people in Australia with those scorching temperatures over them. Jason it only takes 1 degree changes for life or death no wonder you and duncan are m8s both human caused climate change deniers. That last comment of yours on social media shaming fools who are disrespectful totally agree with that view social media gives people a conscious. Phil Goff needs to use social media to direct the traffic away from traffic jam’s like Korea does he needs to send someone there and see what they do with DATA & social media to keep one of the highest density and Internet connected population in Papatuanukue running a few tweeks in Auckland would save the country millions of $$$$$ and lower our carbon footprint. I say all road works on high traffic roads should be carried out at night there priorities should be safety first and traffic flowing freely even try Japanese traffic slow down models I see some more heads have been moved out of NZTA may be time for change they could have had links to oil barons.?????.
That is cool having Rob Hewitt on The show education people about Wai water & safety swimming in Tangaroa. Tangaroa was looking after him when he spent 4 days lost in Tangaroa Ka pai.
24 degrees here at the minute.
A true green party is a left humane party one can spout being green and in the same breath party shout lock em up cut social security I see someone who jumped on my coat Tails for a lift cheat. Ka kite ano P.S The controversial water view tunnel in Auckland made life better for people who fly Alot just like national look after the 00.1%, before the 99.9 %
Got to remember to edit my work there you go the Australian krypton busting laws are crap the kumara never tells how sweet it is
Ki ora Newshub Global warming is hear and now one has to plan for the heat and work smart to avoid heat stress and Fires
Good Wai quality is a must it makes Eco think we have hope when 80 % of people think good water quality is needed to avoid desaster with our water and environment. Road Rage not good is it. 3 topic,s linked climate change traffic jams and obesity it would be nice with the obesity subject that the real culprit is branded for that problem SUGAR.
ECO MAORI knows how strong Tawhirirmate in around Aketio I think that is Cape turnagain Alex been in some big seas there.
Its is awesome that Black panther has picked up a few prizes at the SAG awards . Ka kite ano
I posted this 20 minutes ago????????????