As an unashamed righty – this was far from the result I was wanting. But Nation ran a terrible campaign – and lets face it Winston (Love or loath him) really does have that “X” factor.
Personally I hope that this does not impact the RMA reforms, but I can see that this is going to be an issue now.
Oh well, lets hope the cricket goes well. On that at least most of us will agree.
Why do you want the RMA reforms? The current system does not prevent development, provided it is environmentally sustainable. And conversely, the proposed reforms were simply a return to colonial times of greed, slash and burn and fuck the environment. The proposed reforms were indicative of Neanderthal thinking.
The beginning of the end of an evil dishonest RW era of Key. Well done Winston, Well done NZF, Well done Willow-Jean, Well done Labour, Well done Andrew Little, Well done all the Opposition of NAT/ACT, Well done Northland and Well done New Zealand!
Thanks especially to; Clendon and his Northland team, for convincing the Wellington GP strategists that contesting this byelection would be a waste of time and money. His 3639 voters from last election certainly helped make Peters’ victory an emphatic one.
+I
Actually I would credit both the Whangarei and Northland electorate teams who were very smart working together with Labour & NZF during the 2014 election campaign. The local Greens was never in doubt supportIng Peter’s for a collective win.
Now watch the crafty Peters slowly but surely lance the NACT abscess and let NZ see the pus ooze out over the remainder of this term. Payback for 2008 just begun.
So much material to work with, starting with the former member for northland.
‘Waaaahh they all ganged up on us’ probably, be good to see some real journos in Oz get in his face.
CT will have the lines are prepared however the fact remains they just lost one of the safest rural national seats after throwing the kitchen sink at it in terms if on the ground presence and pork barrelling.
This happened to me yesterday as well, Lynn. The edit link was available, but clicking on it said I didn’t have permission. This was when the timer was at about the 7 min mark. Refreshing the page, the edit link had vanished.
This has sporadically happened in the past, as well. I wonder if it’s related to moderator activity happening elsewhere in the comments?
My problem of late has been that my comments often just disappear until the 10 minute editing window has expired (at which point I notice some obvious typos I would have corrected). Yestereve, I just put that down to the elevated amount of site traffic, but it’s been happening sporadically for the past week.
Ah. That one is due to some kind of combination of server and client side caching.
Try doing a Shift+F5 or Shift+Refresh when you next see it. And get back to me if it doesn’t fix it.
What that does is force the local cache to be flushed and a new request to load to be sent to server. The problem is that there are several layers of caching going on.
The closest one is your browser cache that shows when you use the back button.
The next is the signature that your browser sends to the server based on its cache info. The server uses that to determine if it has a “new” copy of that page, if not it tells your browser to reload the existing copy on your system. Sometimes the page hasn’t ‘changed’ after you async save a comment because it hasn’t ‘stored’ that update yet.
In those cases it may tell your browser to reuse the stored copy of the page, or it may send you one that has been cached on the server side.
Then there is the database cache that keeps track of updates. That sometimes doesn’t update immediately after a change is made because the database is still async processing it.
Nett effect is that sometimes, usually under heavy load you won’t get the page displaying with your comment on it. Doing a forced refresh will usually get it for you.
I’ll have a review of the current cache settings. But they are optimized for readers rather than commenters for the obvious reason – more than 95% of the page loads are from pure site reads. What I am wondering is if the memcached signatures are set to clear when a comment is made, but are reloaded by something else while the comment is being saved.
That has happened to me quite often. Sometimes I have been away from the post or even to another blog and when I have returned and want to edit and improve? my comment I am not allowed back in though plenty of time is available still. And refreshing wipes out the time available.
And I did wonder if it relates to activity in other areas of the blog, big downloads, new posts, etc. It’s still possible to put a separate amending note – it’s not being locked out – just from your own original comment.
trying to correct a loaded one to edit it with 7min’s plus remaining on it and I’ve never seen this message before.
It was on a first gen iPad which is just about ready for the technology scrapheap….imac is fine but the android pad has always had issues with the site and while I’m on the subject the iPhone never shows a ‘reply’ button for any comments in safari.
I’m on the subject the iPhone never shows a ‘reply’ button for any comments in safari.
On the usual desktop site? Or the mobile one?
The mobile site doesn’t have a reply button per comment. It is a problem with the theme.
The desktop theme shouldn’t do that. I wonder what the Shift-F5 equivalent is on a tablet…
BTW: I just splashed out $120 and grabbed the “Agency” version of WPTouch so I could get the developer documentation so I can correct issue properly. Lyn in Vietnam for a few weeks so I should have some extra spare time.
BTW2: The Agency version of the mobile theme has a pile of speed enhancements. Seem to do great things on my android phone. What about others?
I have logged in using my Android phone looks like a good deal for your $$$ speed is way better. BUT.. Sorry to say no reply button in Android even after logging in.
“Has the current PM made any statements too his media puppies?”
……..you mean since he said Winston had “no chance”? is his radar malfunctioning? will he be having a serious think about his future after last night, like he did after the cup of tea debacle? I think he should.
As a Northland electorate voter, all I can do is give thanks as well – to Winston for standing, to Andrew Little and Willow-Jean for giving us “permission” (“approval” ?) to vote for Winston, and to the Nats for giving us almost six weeks of constant entertainment and amusement as evidenced by these cartoons –
Agree with your sentiments, except that the party organisations do not give permission to anyone to vote. The enlightened voters make that choice, and there were still over 1000 who do not understand first-past-the-post up there.
And as an aside, National took two on the chin yesterday. Hope Slater recovers from that headache quickly, andthat it may have knocked some sense into him. Wonder if he will change his attitude to “bullying”
It’s actually a shame to see you go this time. Twitter seems to have engendered more conciseness to your comments. I’ve only just caught up on last night’s conflageration and see why you feel that a boycott is required in this instance.
I don’t know what “quite literally” means. Something like “pretty legal”?
Meh, ban who you like. Bit rich though to ascribe a view to him that he quite definitely didn’t literally write, after warning him for ascribing views to other parties.
However, I think the Pigman has the best solution when he says:
Personally, I think it makes participating in discussions on her [Stephenie Rodgers’] posts a tense and unpleasant experience akin to walking on eggshells.
Of course, the easiest way to avoid it is simply not to comment on anything she posts, a practice I’ll be adopting forthwith.
(For the record, until her derailing on Bill’s Assange post, served with scattershot derision for ma[l]e commenters on ts generally, and subsequent excessively controlling discussions in another post this week, I regarded her as a good author whose views I often accorded with.)
It seems a shame to have lost the commentary of; yourself, marty mars, rawshark –
yeshe, & greywarshark, all over the needless banning of Murray Rawshark on a night when those opposed to NACT should have been celebrating their ability to work together. Especially since at the time he was banned, he had already announced:
I’m taking a holiday from here. I can’t handle the approach taken by a couple of authors in their moderation. It feels too much like abuse of power and suppression of debate to me. See you all sometime. Maybe.
Therefore until at least the 12th of next month, I will join the Pigman in not commenting on any of the posts of Stephenie Rodgers. I see no reason to boycott the Standard as a whole as other authors have shown no similar tendancies to abuse their powers of moderation. Perhaps those in voluntary exile might consider doing the same and not depriving TS of your viewpoints?
Let her speak only with; the trolls, and her own echos, for a while.
Yep, I’ll be boycotting Stephanie’s posts from now on. Her aggressive stance towards any sort of criticism is an on-going problem for The Standard. A mix of self-martyrdom and control-freakery. Needs to be confronted once and for all.
It’s true that Stephanie comes in for an unusual amount of flak. But I’d ask her defenders (like, for example, Weka) – those who agree that it’s all to do with her gender – to consider the stark contrast between reactions to Karol and Stephanie.
Karol is a woman and a feminist but received very little criticism. Why ? Because she dealt reasonably with anyone who took issue with her arguments. Typically, she’d reply with something like: “Show me the evidence”.
Stephanie, on the other hand, seems to regard any criticism or disagreement as some sort of vicious attack upon her person. It really is Hyper-sensitivity gone mad. Unlike Karol, Stephanie’s reply would usually be along the lines of either:
(1) Don’t you dare tell me what to think or say !
or
(2) Don’t you dare demonise me !
Trigger-happy aggression dressed-up as self-defence.
And she’ll never have to stand back and objectively scrutinise her own behaviour because, of course, she has “200 years of feminist scholarship” to reassure her that it’s all about “men not being able to deal with a strong, decisive woman” rather than her own deeply controlling personality.
All of which may cop me a lifetime ban, but, as I say, it’s a problem that needs to be confronted once and for all. The shame of it is that Stephanie does, in fact, contribute some very important and interesting posts.
“those who agree that it’s all to do with her gender”
I haven’t said it’s all about gender. Neither has Stephanie (and none of us know what Stephanie is thinking). The only person who has run that line is felix, and now yourself. Please don’t misrepresent what I say.
Myself, I think there is room on ts for a range of moderation styles. I could criticise every moderator here, or praise them. But I don’t because I believe that the moderation here is set to protect the site and the authors not to suit the ideals of the commenters. That keeps the place functional and vibrant.
Unfortunately the comparison with karol just buys into the whole women/feminists have to behave in certain ways thing. It’s ok for Lynn to be rude and abusive when he moderates, but Stephanie has to behave like a well behaved feminist.
I would also point out that Stephanie is in a completely different situation than karol with regards to being a feminist blogger and what that means, and that those things need to be taken into account (i.e. context has meaning).
I’m gobsmacked to see you psychoanalysing an author and moderator. I think your characterisation of Stephanie is off and it’s really disappointing to see people thinking they can use their own characterisations of her to criticise her moderation.
+100…and I feel that Murray Rawshark, Colonial Rawshark and others have also come in for some quite unwarranted, personal, distasteful and vicious attacks at times eg…”rape apologists” with extras ( check out the posts on Julian Assange issue)
…sexism in reverse?
… or disguised trolling ie their arguments (and in fact the whole initial Post) was illegitimately hijacked , overturned and twisted into something they never meant
Greens have gone from 1 seat to 4 seats in the NSW Lower House. They’ve taken the 2, formerly safe North Coast seats of Ballina and Lismore off the Nationals as the issue of Coal Seam Gas extraction became a major election issue. They held Balmain and gained the adjacent newly created inner Sydney seat of Newtown. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-28/nsw-election-greens-balmain-newtown-ballina-lismore/6356098
Where are all the headlines reporting this tremendous rout?
Where is John key putting in his usual two cents worthless worth?
Where is the pig?
Useless media!!
Great win and a fantastic nights celebration. Have shaken the hangover, helped by the shock of our little dog befriending a kiwi when I let her out for a pee. Taken her for a walk along the water front. The media are intviewing Peters now, ha some lady just yelled out go Winston you beauty! which really does sum things up nicely.
I’ve turned on Q & A late, so far seen an interview with Joyce, and now one with Marama Fox from the MP. First time I’ve seen Marama do anything, and she appears a very capable politician – I’d say better than some of the government ministers when it comes to explaining their position and interviews.
It’s still going on now on TV1, or you can catch it at 10am on 1 + 1.
In the latest ruling he has lost an estimated $67 million to the US. Im not sure if this means assets held in NZ and HK as yet. He seems to think that this wont be touched, but then again he has not been right for some time.
nice to see the slug hit the canvass so swiftly in his ‘fight’ with Ryder.Maybe the useless loudmouth should hand in his ‘man card’,he fought like a woman!
He keeps his Idiot Card for doing it at all. I don’t think he ever had a “man card” and trying to punch people in the head while wearing your undies is no way to get one.
physically it was an even match…Ryder is an over weight cricketer who is not toned or quick and I was expecting the slug,given his macho verbosity to actually fight.He did get up after being knocked over ,but offerred about as much resistant as a brightly coloured punching bag.
Agreed. I don’t want to open up any jokes about intelligence or whether he has a brain or not, even a few blows to the head can cause concussion and brain damage, which can have a lasting effect on your life.
Mind you, some people get brain damage and become better people for it. I’m not wishing brain damage on him, but maybe it’ll be for the better in the long term.
Those according him courage for self promoting himself in a boxing ring are the kind of people that mean we struggle to get justice for many vulnerable in this county, they perpetuate a dangerous and outdated definition of “man”. Being prepared to fight someone for personal gain (be it financial or publicity) is not manly.
Nah, the problem is: A couple of weeks back, Fisi suddenly changed his tune and covered his ass by predicting a Winnie win. (And I see he’s turned up today on another thread).
A leaked copy of the report, led by University of Auckland research fellow Dr Glenn Simmons, estimated that over 60 years, 40.4 million tonnes of catch was taken. That was roughly 2.9 times the 14 million tonnes reported officially during the period.
Government officials are braced for the impact of the report, acknowledging that New Zealand’s data on historic catch levels are poor.
Since the quota management system was introduced, Simmons “conservatively” estimated that the actual catch was 2.2 times official reported data.
Simmons, who could not be reached for comment on Friday, blamed the “vast majority” of the unreported catch on industrial catch and discards, in large part pointing the finger at foreign flagged vessels.
This is why we need better reporting and oversight of fishing. We need to know how much is being taken so that we can set quotas so that the fish in our seas get back to historic levels. We can’t do that if catches are being misreported.
Also note that the report was leaked by the fishing industry in what appears, IMO, to be an attempt to attack it before it’s official release.
Talking to both commercial and recreational fishermen the days of plenty are well in the past with some recreational outings yielding nothing.
We also need to factor in the non NZ fishing fleets who take advantage of our lack of enforcement and plunder what they can and the damage bottom trawling has done to the ecosystem.
Naturally our government introduced voluntary self-reporting for fishing vessels rather than having MAF inspectors on each one as previously. Though these figures suggest maybe that made little overall difference either.
This is effectively a black market twice the size of the official one. You’d think any state might want to do something about that in their own territory.
Anagrams from ‘one lout in that side of the house’.
Come to mind – tools, snide, hades, deus, nest, nose, tint, foist, nous, haste, lost, etc
and funny all have relevance to some or all of our parliamentarians.
Here is a link to making a submission to Parliamentary select committee on Inquiry into the 2014 general election
This is particularly essential for all those people – especially in the Northland electorate – who think they were unjustly turned away from voting in last year’s general election.
The closing date for submissions is Tuesday, 31 March 2015
By convention, a select committee inquiry is conducted following a general election into the legal and administrative aspects of that election. This process provides a multi-party approach to the review and any reform of the law and administration relating to Parliamentary elections.
The terms of reference for the inquiry are: “To examine the law and administrative procedures for the conduct of Parliamentary elections in light of the 2014 general election”.
The committee requires 2 copies of each submission if made in writing. Those wishing to include any information of a private or personal nature in a submission should first discuss this with the clerk of the committee, as submissions are usually released to the public by the committee. Those wishing to appear before the committee to speak to their submissions should state this clearly and provide a daytime telephone contact number. To assist with administration please supply your postcode and an email address if you have one.
And is there a business waiting to take off building furniture out of the pine they have planted in the past which I think is still abundant, and barging it south from Opua or a suitable port nearbuy to the big markets elsewhere in NZ though presumably mainly Auckland? The barges would also carry other produce. Another local business looking to the future when road making and vehicle costs are affected badly by high oil prices.
Juken wood treatment company has had a plant in Kaitaia for years connected with the MDF board industry. And there are a number of businesses working with this material but I don’t know how many are fully in NZ and NZowned. http://www.paneltec.co.nz/ (An Australian firm with sales office in Dargaville) http://www.applefurniture.co.nz/ (A NZ enterprise based in Kaiwaka)
Jim Anderton in 2005 launched this book on the growth of MDF board. http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/24157
Another site is hotfrog that is listing businesses and promoting them which gives an extra boost to small businesses.
It listed Make Enterprises Dargaville connected with Paneltec.
BBS Timbers NZ owned timber firm providing a range of species.
Juken have a big plant in Wairarapa and this item refers to the amount of wood available there. So perhaps Northland needs to keep up its plantings to get the right mass of wood to enable the local business to be ongoing.
Some comments in a stuff article on the business. http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business/9411743/Juken-primed-for-growth-with-founders-added-value-strategies While over half the timber logged in New Zealand leaves the country in this “primary” form, Juken focuses on tertiary production, which is only around 15 per cent of the country’s timber output, he said.
“There’s enough wood in Wairarapa to have another 10 mills. We have the single largest ownership, 15,000ha – but that’s only 20 per cent of what’s available in Wairarapa.”
Volatile prices and exchange rates have sent many domestic mills to the wall, such as Rotorua’s Tachikawa Forest Products which went into receivership last month with the loss of 120 jobs.
But Juken has insulated itself against the worst impacts by buying its logs for milling from its own forests, at a long-term average price.
Juken appear to have brains and foresight. Perhaps we should just throw out our politicians and contract out much of the business side of NZ to them. That however sounds suspiciously like an ACT idea so there is bound to be a worm in the apple.
The spokesperson refers to volatile prices which NZ must adjust to, but this difficulty is worsened by the exchange rates affected by the mafia protection system we are locked
into. Something that a government for NZ with guts, and explanations to the citizens of our true economic state, needs to do something about. Particularly the volatility of casino-like overseas financial entities playing with our money as if it was casino chips.
I noticed that my fingers produced nearbuy for nearby. I am wondering if there isn’t something of a Freudian slip here. Maybe nearbuy is going to be a new useful word that indicates local trading and business?
Northland produces higher-density timber that is too valuable to be chipped into MDF. Making solid furniture from it locally would create skilled jobs and better export revenues.
Well well:
“NZ First leader Winston Peters says NZ First may decide not to bring an extra MP into Parliament after his Northland byelection win because his party supports a smaller Parliament.”
Interesting. Won’t make any difference to the Government power. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11424888
@ianmac I’m sure Winston will resign his list seat and bring in another NZF member.
What people are missing here is the fact that the public of Northland knew this was going to happen if they elected Peters (or if they didn’t they don’t may attention-no excuse) yet they elected Peters with a stonking great majority.
People who whinge about this outcome need to accept that a democratic process has taken place where the electorate knew the consequences of their vote, rather than focusing on the effect on the result of an election 6 months ago.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that everyone who voted for Winston on Saturday fully expected him to resign his seat and that NZF would be up a seat afterwards. For him to now not do that would be against those expectations and thus against democracy.
This is a problem with our democracy in that our ‘representatives’ can go off and do what they like once they’ve been voted in no matter what their policies or the expectation of the populace was when they were voted in.
It is actually a very complicated legal situation, as no explicit legal provisions exist for the current situation. Too tired tonight to try to explain but suggest you read Graeme Edgeler’s latest post on Public Address; together with his earlier post there and Philip Lyth’s earlier post there today. Links are included in Edgeler’s latest post.
. Let us be quite definite about this. Any Democratic politician who thinks this is a bad situation — or, worse, will not stand by a Democratic colleague in this situation — is not worth the hankie to blow Joe Lieberman’s nose.
Representatives from Citigroup, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, have met to discuss ways to urge Democrats, including Warren and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, to soften their party’s tone toward Wall Street, sources familiar with the discussions said this week. Bank officials said the idea of withholding donations was not discussed at a meeting of the four banks in Washington but it has been raised in one-on-one conversations between representatives of some of them. However, there was no agreement on coordinating any action, and each bank is making its own decision, they said.
My god, what a prodigious bluff. Also, my god, what towering arrogance? These guys own half the world and have enough money to buy the other half, and they’re threatening the party still most likely to control the White House because they don’t like the Senator Professor’s tone?Her tone? Sherrod Brown’s tone? These are guys who should be worried about the tone of the guard who’s calling them down to breakfast at Danbury and they’re concerned about the tenderness of their Savile Row’d fee-fees? Honkies, please.
So now Yemen joins Syria, most of Iraq, northern Jordan, northern Lebanon, and northern Saudi Arabia into social chaos.
The United States is aligned alongside Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and against them in Yemen. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who have joined in the Saudi offensive in Yemen, are bombing factions in Libya backed by Turkey and Qatar, who also support the Saudi offensive in Yemen. The Syrian conflict has been fueled by competition among all regional powers to outmaneuver one another on battlefields far from home.
Neither the US nor Saudi Arabia have any consistency, and even Iran is beginning to look coherent in its positioning.
This is going to get broader and much, much worse before it gets better.
There was a well attended and very noisy protest outside Sky City this afternoon where the
“New Zealand’s premier annual upstream event- featuring the government’s launch of block offer 2015-the exclusive tender for exploration permits”, was taking place.
Topics include-expert speakers presenting with NZ context,
-insights into NZ regulatory system,
– best practice local community engagement.
I guess we were helping inform them about the last topic. All protesters had been invited to bring a drum and were entertained by Michael Franti before marching from Victoria Park to Sky City.
One major sponsor is Halliburton. Another is Fragomen which is a global corporate immigration law firm. This doesn’t indicate jobs for locals to me.
KiwiRail are saying that ‘no final decision has been made’, but when someone says that, it is pretty much always a done deal.
New Zealanders paid a lot of money for that electrification, plus interest, and it is madness for it to be ripped out only about 30 year later and sold for scrap. Fuel prices may be low, but that doesnt mean that they will be low forever…
When Lab VI bought Toll Rail back in 2008, it was supposed to be a new era for rail in NZ. Unfortunately since National won the election that year, their attacks on the rail system have been more savage than ever before.
Why don’t the nats go the whole hog and go back to steam trains , we could hire the unemployed on contracts to cut all those pesky trees down in the central north island to fuel them.
Where does Key get off?
The Northland-safe-as-houses seat for National was lost for no other reason than the usual die-hard Nat voters were actually not sure what sort of National Party is running the country – its complexion appears to have changed over the last couple of months and they couldn’t be convinced enough to get out and vote. I don’t think they are actually impressed by the likes of Bennett, Bridges, Woodhouse sitting on or near the front benches. They want stability and substance, not flash Harrys.
Perhaps the issues of the TPPA, RMA were not as important to them to motivate them to get out and vote. Surely they don’t need the presence of a campaign to get them to the polling booth.
They must have known that their government’s programme was under threat if Winston Peters rested the seat from them. That surely should have been motivation enough.
So Mr Key needs a bit deeper analysis than blaming the opposition for this defeat.
I’m happy for the nats to stay in denial with “the left and winnie ganged up on us” excuses.
The longer they take to lose their hubris, the better it’ll be for everyone else in 2017 (or earlier).
If dunnokeyo lives up to the form roughan confirmed, in a very short while our glorious pm will be reconsidering whether he wants to stay in the job. And mr didn’t-fix-it fucking up again leaves an opening for the minister for oravida, petulent bean, woodhead, mcshouty, and whoever else to battle for the iron throne…
If Saturdays 4,000 majority to Winston is combined with a National majority of 9,000 (last general election night) there is a loss of 13,000 to National.
How many National supporters chose not to vote last Saturday?
The spy agency probably has the answer to my question.
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Over the years, we've published many rebuttals, blog posts and graphics which came about due to direct interactions with the scientists actually carrying out the underlying research or being knowledgable about a topic in general. We'll highlight some of these interactions in this blog post. We'll start with two memorable ...
Yesterday we had the unseemly sight of a landleech threatening to keep his houses empty in response to better tenancy laws. Meanwhile in Catalonia they have a solution for that: nationalisation: Barcelona is deploying a new weapon in its quest to increase the city’s available rental housing: the power ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters, PhD The 2020 global wildfire season brought extreme fire activity to the western U.S., Australia, the Arctic, and Brazil, making it the fifth most expensive year for wildfire losses on record. The year began with an unprecedented fire event ...
NOTE: This is an excerpt from a digital story – read the full story here.Tess TuxfordKo te Kauri Ko Au, Ko te Au ko Kauri I am the kauri, the kauri is me Te Roroa proverb In Waipoua Forest, at the top of the North Island, New ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Coming attraction: IPCC's upcoming major climate assessmentLook for more emphasis on 'solutions,' efforts by cities, climate equity ... and outlook for emissions cuts in ...
Ringing A Clear Historical Bell: The extraordinary images captured in and around the US Capitol Building on 6 January 2021 mirror some of the worst images of America's past.THERE IS A SCENE in the 1982 movie Missing which has remained with me for nearly 40 years. Directed by the Greek-French ...
To impact or not to impeach? I understand why some of those who are justifiably aghast at Trump’s behaviour over recent days might still counsel against impeaching him for a second time. To impeach him, they argue, would run the risk of making him a martyr in the eyes of ...
The Capitol Building, Washington DC, Wednesday, 6 January 2021. Oh come, my little one, come.The day is almost done.Be at my side, behold the sightOf evening on the land.The life, my love, is hardAnd heavy is my heart.How should I live if you should leaveAnd we should be apart?Come, let me ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Jan 3, 2021 through Sat, Jan 9, 2021Editor's ChoiceAfter the Insurrection: Accountability, Reform, and the Science of Democracy The poisonous lies and enablers of sedition--including Senator Hawley, pictured ...
This article, guest authored by Prof. Angela Gallego-Sala & Dr. Julie Loisel, was originally published on the Carbon Brief website on Dec 21, 2020. It is reposted below in its entirety. Click here to access the original article and comments. Peatlands Peatlands are ecosystems unlike any other. Perpetually saturated, their ...
The assault on the US Capitol and constitutional crisis that it has caused was telegraphed, predictable and yet unexpected and confusing. There are several subplots involved: whether the occupation of the Michigan State House in May was a trial run for the attacks on Congress; whether people involved in the ...
On Christmas Eve, child number 1 spotted a crack in a window. It’s a double-glazed window, and inspection showed that the small, horizontal crack was in the outermost pane. It was perpendicular to the frame, about three-quarters of the way up one side. The origins are a mystery. It MIGHT ...
Anne-Marie Broudehoux, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM)Will the COVID-19 pandemic prompt a shift to healthier cities that focus on wellness rather than functional and economic concerns? This is a hypothesis that seems to be supported by several researchers around the world. In many ways, containment and physical distancing ...
Does the US need to strike a grand bargain with like-minded countries to pool their efforts? What does this tell us about today’s global politics? Perhaps the most remarkable editorial of last year was the cover leader of the London Economist on 19 November 2020. Shortly after Joe Biden was ...
Alexander Gillespie, University of Waikato and Valmaine Toki, University of WaikatoAotearoa New Zealand likes to think it punches above its weight internationally, but there is one area where we are conspicuously falling behind — the number of sites recognised by the UNESCO World Heritage Convention. Globally, there are 1,121 ...
An event organised by the Auckland PhilippinesSolidarity group Have a three-course lunch at Nanam Eatery with us! Help support the organic farming of our Lumad communities through the Mindanao Community School Agricultural Foundation. Each ticket is $50. Food will be served on shared plates. To purchase, please email phsolidarity@gmail.com or ...
"Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here." Prisons are places of unceasing emotional and physical violence, unrelieved despair and unforgivable human waste.IT WAS NATIONAL’S Bill English who accurately described New Zealand’s prisons as “fiscal and moral failures”. On the same subject, Labour’s Dr Martyn Findlay memorably suggested that no prison ...
This is a re-post from Inside Climate News by Ilana Cohen. Inside Climate News is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for the ICN newsletter here. Whether or not people accept the science on Covid-19 and climate change, both global crises will have lasting impacts on health and ...
. . American Burlesque As I write this (Wednesday evening, 6 January), the US Presidential election is all but resolved, confirming Joe Biden as the next President of the (Dis-)United State of America. Trump’s turbulent political career has lasted just four years – one of the few single-term US presidents ...
The session started off so well. Annalax – suitably chastised – spent a pleasant morning with his new girlfriend (he would say paramour, of course, but for our purposes, girlfriend is easier*). He told her about Waking World Drow, and their worship of Her Ladyship. And he started ...
In a recent column I wrote for local newspapers, I ventured to suggest that Donald Trump – in addition to being a liar and a cheat, and sexist and racist – was a fascist in the making and would probably try, if he were to lose the election, to defy ...
When I was preparing for my School C English exam I knew I needed some quotes to splash through my essays. But remembering lines was never my strong point, so I tended to look for the low-hanging fruit. We’d studied Shakespeare’s King Lear that year and perhaps the lowest hanging ...
When I went to bed last night, I was expecting today to be eventful. A lot of pouting in Congress as last-ditch Trumpers staged bad-faith "objections" to a democratic election, maybe some rioting on the streets of Washington DC from angry Trump supporters. But I wasn't expecting anything like an ...
Melted ice of the past answers question today? Kate Ashley and a large crew of coauthors wind back the clock to look at Antarctic sea ice behavior in times gone by, in Mid-Holocene Antarctic sea-ice increase driven by marine ice sheet retreat. For armchair scientists following the Antarctic sea ice situation, something jumps out in ...
Christina SzalinskiWhen Martha Field became pregnant in 2005, a singular fear weighed on her mind. Not long before, as a Cornell University graduate student researching how genes and nutrients interact to cause disease, she had seen images of unborn mouse pups smaller than her pinkie nail, some with ...
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidates for President and Vice President respectively for the US 2020 Election, may have dispensed with the erstwhile nemesis, Trump the candidate – but there are numerous critical openings through which much, much worse many out there may yet see fit to ...
I don’t know Taupō well. Even though I stop off there from time to time, I’m always on the way to somewhere else. Usually Taupō means making a hot water puddle in the gritty sand followed by a swim in the lake, noticing with bemusement and resignation the traffic, the ...
Frances Williams, King’s College LondonFor most people, infection with SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – leads to mild, short-term symptoms, acute respiratory illness, or possibly no symptoms at all. But some people have long-lasting symptoms after their infection – this has been dubbed “long COVID”. Scientists are ...
Last night, a British court ruled that Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the US. Unfortunately, its not because all he is "guilty" of is journalism, or because the offence the US wants to charge him with - espionage - is of an inherently political nature; instead the judge accepted ...
Is the Gender Identity Movement a movement for human liberation, or is it a regressive movement which undermines women’s liberation and promotes sexist stereotypes? Should biological males be allowed to play in women’s sport, use women-only spaces (public toilets, changing rooms, other facilities), be able to have access to everything ...
Ian Whittaker, Nottingham Trent University and Gareth Dorrian, University of BirminghamSpace exploration achieved several notable firsts in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, including commercial human spaceflight and returning samples of an asteroid to Earth. The coming year is shaping up to be just as interesting. Here are some of ...
Michael Head, University of SouthamptonThe UK has become the first country to authorise the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for public use, with roll-out to start in the first week of 2021. This vaccine is the second to be authorised in the UK – following the Pfizer vaccine. The British government ...
So, Boris Johnson has been footering about in hospitals again. We should be grateful, perhaps, that on this occasion the Clown-in-Chief is only (probably) getting in the way and causing distractions, rather than taking up a bed, vital equipment and resources and adding more strain and danger to exhausted staff.Look at ...
Story of the Week... Toon of the Week... SkS in the News... Coming Soon on SkS... Poster of the Week... SkS Week in Review... Story of the Week... Many Scientists Now Say Global Warming Could Stop Relatively Quickly After Emissions Go to ZeroThat’s one of several recent ...
The situation in the UK is looking catastrophic.Cases: over *70,000* people who were tested in England on 29th December tested positive. This is *not* because there were more tests on that day. It *is* 4 days after Christmas though, around when people who caught Covid on Christmas Day might start ...
by Don Franks For five days over New Year weekend, sixteen prisoners in the archaic pre WW1 block of Waikeria Prison defied authorities by setting fires and occupying the building’s roof. They eventually agreed to surrender after intervention from Maori party co-leader Rawiri Waititi. A message from the protesting men had stated: ...
Lost Opportunity: The powerful political metaphor of the Maori Party leading the despised and marginalised from danger to safety, is one Labour could have pre-empted by taking the uprising at Waikeria Prison much more seriously. AS WORD OF Rawiri Waititi’s successful intervention in the Waikeria Prison stand-off spreads, the Maori ...
Dear friends, it’s been a covidious year,A testing time for all of us here—Citizens of an island nationIn a state of managed isolation,A team (someone said) five million strong,Making it up as we went along:Somehow in typical Kiwi fashion,Without any wild excess ...
A chronological listing of news articles linked to on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week: Sun, Dec 27, 2020 through Sat, Jan 2, 2021Editor's Choice7 Graphics That Show Why the Arctic Is in Trouble Arctic Sea Ice: NSIDC It’s no secret that the Arctic is ...
One of the books I read in 2020 was She, by H. Rider Haggard (1887). I thoroughly enjoyed it, as being an exemplar of a good old-fashioned adventure story. I also noted with amusement ...
Scottish doctor Malcolm Kendrick looks at the pandemic and the responses to it 30th December 2020 I have not written much about COVID19 recently. What can be said? In my opinion the world has simply gone bonkers. The best description can be found in Dante’s Inferno, written many hundreds of ...
I notice a few regulars no longer allow public access to the site counters. This may happen accidentally when the blog format is altered. If your blog is unexpectedly missing or the numbers seem very low please check this out. After correcting send me the URL for your ...
As we welcome in the new year, our focus is on continuing to keep New Zealanders safe and moving forward with our economic recovery. There’s a lot to get on with, but before we say a final goodbye to 2020, here’s a quick look back at some of the milestones ...
The Prime Minister of New Zealand Jacinda Ardern and the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands Mark Brown have announced passengers from the Cook Islands can resume quarantine-free travel into New Zealand from 21 January, enabling access to essential services such as health. “Following confirmation of the Cook Islands’ COVID ...
Jobs for Nature funding is being made available to conservation groups and landowners to employ staff and contractors in a move aimed at boosting local biodiversity-focused projects, Conservation Minister Kiritapu Allan has announced. It is estimated some 400-plus jobs will be created with employment opportunities in ecology, restoration, trapping, ...
The Government has approved an exception class for 1000 international tertiary students, degree level and above, who began their study in New Zealand but were caught offshore when border restrictions began. The exception will allow students to return to New Zealand in stages from April 2021. “Our top priority continues ...
Today’s deal between Meridian and Rio Tinto for the Tiwai smelter to remain open another four years provides time for a managed transition for Southland. “The deal provides welcome certainty to the Southland community by protecting jobs and incomes as the region plans for the future. The Government is committed ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has appointed Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). The leader of each APEC economy appoints three private sector representatives to ABAC. ABAC provides advice to leaders annually on business priorities. “ABAC helps ensure that APEC’s work programme is informed by business community perspectives ...
The Government’s prudent fiscal management and strong policy programme in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic have been acknowledged by the credit rating agency Fitch. Fitch has today affirmed New Zealand’s local currency rating at AA+ with a stable outlook and foreign currency rating at AA with a positive ...
The Government is putting in place a suite of additional actions to protect New Zealand from COVID-19, including new emerging variants, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said today. “Given the high rates of infection in many countries and evidence of the global spread of more transmissible variants, it’s clear that ...
$36 million of Government funding alongside councils and others for 19 projects Investment will clean up and protect waterways and create local jobs Boots on the ground expected in Q2 of 2021 Funding part of the Jobs for Nature policy package A package of 19 projects will help clean up ...
The commemoration of the 175th anniversary of the Battle of Ruapekapeka represents an opportunity for all New Zealanders to reflect on the role these conflicts have had in creating our modern nation, says Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage Kiri Allan. “The Battle at Te Ruapekapeka Pā, which took ...
Babies born with tongue-tie will be assessed and treated consistently under new guidelines released by the Ministry of Health, Associate Minister of Health Dr Ayesha Verrall announced today. Around 5% to 10% of babies are born with a tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, in New Zealand each year. At least half can ...
The prisoner disorder event at Waikeria Prison is over, with all remaining prisoners now safely and securely detained, Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis says. The majority of those involved in the event are members of the Mongols and Comancheros. Five of the men are deportees from Australia, with three subject to ...
Travellers from the United Kingdom or the United States bound for New Zealand will be required to get a negative test result for COVID-19 before departing, and work is underway to extend the requirement to other long haul flights to New Zealand, COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins confirmed today. “The new PCR test requirement, foreshadowed last ...
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has added her warm congratulations to the New Zealanders recognised for their contributions to their communities and the country in the New Year 2021 Honours List. “The past year has been one that few of us could have imagined. In spite of all the things that ...
Attorney-General and Minister for the Environment David Parker has congratulated two retired judges who have had their contributions to the country and their communities recognised in the New Year 2021 Honours list. The Hon Tony Randerson QC has been appointed a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for ...
Minister for Pacific Peoples Aupito William Sio says the New Year’s Honours List 2021 highlights again the outstanding contribution made by Pacific people across Aotearoa. “We are acknowledging the work of 13 Pacific leaders in the New Year’s Honours, representing a number of sectors including health, education, community, sports, the ...
The Government’s investment in digital literacy training for seniors has led to more than 250 people participating so far, helping them stay connected. “COVID-19 has meant older New Zealanders are showing more interest in learning how to use technology like Zoom and Skype so they can to keep in touch ...
A nationwide poll has found majority support for the government to continue to closely monitor abortions in New Zealand and the reasons for it, despite the Ministry of Health recently suggesting that there is not a use for collecting much of this information. ...
The out-of-control growth in gangs, gun crime, and violent gang activity is exposing our communities to dangerous levels of violence that will inevitably end in tragedy, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “The recent incidents of people being shot and ...
Successive governments have paid lip service to our productivity challenge but have failed to deliver. It's time to establish a Productivity Council charged with prioritising efforts. ...
Understanding the connection between chronic fatigue syndrome and ‘long Covid’ might be helpful in treating symptoms that doctors will find all too easy to dismiss.When people began to report signs of “long Covid”, characterised by a lack of full recovery from the virus and debilitating fatigue, I recognised their stories. ...
Nadine Anne Hura, who never considered herself an artist, reflects on what art and making has taught her.I couldn’t clean or cook or wash the clothes, but I could sew. That’s a lie, I’m a terrible sewer, but I left work early to fossick around in the $1 bin of ...
Summer reissue: In the final episode of this season of Bad News, Alice is joined by Billy T award winner Kura Forrester to look at how well we’re honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi in 2020.First published September 3, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The ...
Lucy Revill’s The Residents is a blog about daily life in Wellington that has morphed into a stylish, low-key coffee-table book featuring interviews and photographic portraits of 38 Wellingtonians. In this extract, Revill profiles Eboni Waitere, owner and executive director of Huia Publishers. The Residents features names like Monique Fiso ...
Pacific Media Watch correspondent The pro-independence conflict in West Papua with a missionary plane reportedly being shot down at Intan Jaya has stirred contrasting responses from the TNI/POLRI state sources, church leaders and an independence leader. A shooting caused a plane to catch fire on 6 January 2021 in the ...
“Last year ACT warned that rewarding protestors at Ihumātao with taxpayer money would promote further squatting. We just didn’t think it would happen as quickly as it is in Shelly Bay” says ACT Leader David Seymour. “The prosperity of all ...
Our kindly PM registered her return to work as leader of the nation with yet another statement on the Beehive website, the second in two days (following her appointment of Anna Curzon to the APEC Business Advisory Council on Wednesday). It’s great to know we don’t have to check with ...
A Pūhoi pub is refusing to remove a piece of memorabilia bearing the n-word from its walls. Dr Lachy Paterson looks at the history of the word here, and New Zealand’s complicity in Britain’s shameful slave trading past.Content warning: This article contains racist language and images.On a pub wall in ...
Supermarket shoppers looking for citrus are seeing a sour trend at the moment – some stores are entirely tapped out of lemons. But why? Batches of homemade lemonade will be taking a hit this summer, with life not giving New Zealand shoppers lemons. Prices are high at supermarkets and grocers that ...
You’re born either a cheery soul or a gloomy one, reckons Linda Burgess – but what happens when gene pools from opposite ends of the spectrum collide?In our shoeboxes of photos that we have to sort out before we die or get demented – because who IS that kid on ...
Summer reissue: Prisoner voting rights are something that few in government seem particularly motivated to do anything about. Could a catchy charity single help draw attention to the issue?First published September 1, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its ...
Hundreds more Cook Islanders are expected to begin criss-crossing the Pacific, Air NZ will triple the number of flights to Rarotonga next week, and about 300 managed isolation places will be freed up for Kiwis returning from other parts of the world. When Thomas Tarurongo Wynne took a job in Wellington at ...
SPECIAL REPORT:By Ena Manuireva in Auckland It seems a long time ago – some 124 days – since Mā’ohi Nui deplored its first covid-19 related deaths of an elderly woman on 11 September 2020 followed by her husband just hours later, both over the age of 80. The local ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Turnbull, Postdoctoral research associate, UNSW A global coalition of more than 50 countries have this week pledged to protect over 30% of the planet’s lands and seas by the end of this decade. Their reasoning is clear: we need greater protection ...
The Reserve Bank Governor’s apology and claim he will ‘own the issue’ is laughable given the lack of answers and timing of its release. Jordan Williams, a spokesman for the Taxpayers’ Union said: “It’s been five days since they came clean, ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Olga Kokshagina, Researcher – Innovation & Entrepreneurship, RMIT University Are too many online meetings and notifications getting you down? Online communication tools – from email to virtual chat and video-conferencing – have transformed the way we work. In many respects they’ve made ...
The Reserve Bank acknowledges information about some of its stakeholders may have been breached in a malicious data hack. The Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has commissioned an independent inquiry into how stakeholders' information was compromised when hackers breached a file sharing service used by the bank. “We ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Caitlin Syme, PhD in Vertebrate Palaeontology, The University of Queensland This story contains spoilers for Ammonite Palaeontologist Mary Anning is known for discovering a multitude of Jurassic fossils from Lyme Regis on England’s Dorset Coast from the age of ten in 1809. ...
A tribute to the sitcoms of old? In the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Yup. Sam Brooks reviews the audacious WandaVision.Nothing sends a chill up my spine like the phrase “Marvel Cinematic Universe”. Since launching in 2008 with Iron Man, the MCU has become a shambling behemoth, with over 23 films (not ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Clare Corbould, Associate Professor, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University The alt-right, QAnon, paramilitary and Donald Trump-supporting mob that stormed the US Capitol on January 6 claimed they were only doing what the so-called “founding fathers” of the US had done in ...
The Point of Order Ministerial Workload Watchdog and our ever-vigilant Trough Monitor were both triggered yesterday by an item of news from the office of Conservation Minister Kititapu Allan. The minister was drawing attention to new opportunities to dip into the Jobs for Nature programme (and her statement was the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Kupz, Senior Research Fellow, James Cook University In July 1921, a French infant became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against tuberculosis (TB), after the mother had died from the disease. The vaccine, known as Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), is ...
The first Friday Poem for 2021 is by Wellington poet Rebecca Hawkes.While you were partying I studied the bladeI your ever-loving edgelord God-emperorof the bot army & bitcoin mine subsistingon an IV drip of gamer girl bathwaterfinally my lonelinessis your responsibility………. you seeI need a girlfriend assigned to me by the ...
The arming of police officers in Canterbury was inevitable with the growing numbers and brazenness of the gangs across the country – this should be a permanent step, says Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is unfortunate that we have come to the point ...
Celebrations in Aotearoa New Zealand to mark the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will begin on Thursday 21 January with ICAN Aotearoa New Zealand’s Wellington and online event, and continue on Friday ...
Hardly anyone is using their Covid Tracer app. Something needs to change.As the mercury approaches 30°C in Aotearoa, there is a good deal of slipping and slopping, but, let’s face it, piss-all scanning. As few as around 500,000 QR codes are being scanned by users of the NZ Covid Tracer ...
On the East Coast, a group of Māori-owned enterprises is innovating to create new revenue streams while doing what they love.New Zealand’s remote and sparsely populated regions are typically not the best places to create thriving brick-and-mortar businesses. In small communities miles away from any major centres, there are so ...
As we reach the height of summer, it’s not too late to do a safety check on your gas bottle. The Environmental Protection Authority’s Safer Homes programme has some tips and tricks to keep in mind before you fire up the grill. "If you’ve ...
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.AUCKLAND1Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)If you’re in any way unsure about ...
“We may as well knock on the gang headquarters around this country and tell them we all give up," says Darroch Ball co-leader of Sensible Sentencing Trust. “It is simply outrageous that violent offender, James Tuwhangai, has been released from ...
Analysis by Keith Rankin. Ireland, Israel, and Lebanon. Chart by Keith Rankin. The countries with the most recent large outbreaks of Covid19 are those with large numbers of recent recorded cases, but yet to record the deaths that most likely will result. In this camp, this time, are Ireland, Israel ...
RuPaul is in Aotearoa, kicking back in managed isolation to await the filming of an Australasian version of her hugely popular reality show Drag Race. But not everyone is happy about, explains Eli Matthewson. The world’s most famous drag queen, RuPaul, is in New Zealand, the government confirmed earlier this week ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gregory Melleuish, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Inquiry, University of Wollongong What can we make of Clive Palmer? This week, he announced his United Australia Party (UAP) would not contest the upcoming West Australian state election on March 13. After a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Gisela Kaplan, Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England Have you ever seenmagpies play-fighting with one another, or rolling around in high spirits? Or an apostlebird running at full speed with a stick in its beak, chased by a ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jen Jackson, Program Director, Centre for Policy Development, and Associate Professor of Education, Mitchell Institute, Victoria University Childcare centres across Australia are suffering staff shortages, which have been exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Many childcare workers across Australia left when parents started ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jonathan Barrett, Senior Lecturer in Taxation, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Rhetoric plays an important role in tax debate and therefore tax policy. If your side manages to gain traction in the public imagination with labels such as “death ...
*This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished with permission* Whoever leads the Republican Party post-Trump will need to consider how they will maintain the rabid support of his “base”, while working to regain more moderate voters who defected from the party in the 2020 election. In a historic ...
Covid-19 fears accelerated banks’ moves towards cashless transactions. But the Reserve Bank is fighting to protect cash, and those who still use it. ...
Good morning and welcome to this one-off edition of The Bulletin, covering major stories from the last few weeks.A quick preamble to this: Today’s special edition of The Bulletin is all about filling you in on some of the stories you might have missed over the summer period. Perhaps you had ...
Summer reissue: In this episode of Bad News, Alice Snedden is forced to confront her own mortality before hosting a very special dinner party to get to grips with the euthanasia debate.First published August 27, 2020.Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is ...
The contrast between the words of John F Kennedy and today’s anti-democratic demagogue is inescapable, writes Dolores Janiewski I still remember three eloquent speeches by an American president. One happened in January 1961 and spoke about a “torch being passed to a new generation”. Two years later and one day apart, ...
The debate over cutting down a large macrocarpa to make way for a new residential development has highlighted a wider agreement between developers and protesters: that we also need to be planting far more trees. At the corner of Great North Road and Ash Street in Avondale, a 150-year-old macrocarpa stands its ground ...
More infectious variants of Covid-19 are increasingly being intercepted at the country’s borders, but the minister running New Zealand’s response is resisting pressure to accelerate vaccination plans despite demands from health experts as well as political friends and foes, Justin Giovannetti reports.New Zealand’s first Covid-19 jabs will be administered in ...
As CEO of her iwi rūnanga, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer was on the frontline protecting her community during the first outbreak of Covid-19. Now that more virulent strains threaten to breach our borders, the Māori Party co-leader calls on the government to introduce much stricter measures.As we enter the New Year I ...
The Prada Cup challenger series starts today. Suzanne McFadden goes behind the scenes of the world's only live yachting regatta to see what's in store for the next five weeks. At 6am on race days, Iain Murray wakes up and immediately checks the weather outside his Auckland window. “It’s all ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Raquel Peel, Lecturer, University of Southern Queensland This story contains spoilers for Bridgerton The first season of Bridgerton, Netflix’s new hit show based on Julia Quinn’s novels, premiered on December 25 last year. The show is set in London, during the ...
The New Zealand government believes its own negotiations with Rio Tinto will be resolved "fairly quickly" now there is certainty about the future of the Tiwai Point smelter. ...
Amanda Thompson and her family are attempting to cut back on the meat, so they gave all the vego sausies the local supermarket had to offer a hoon on the barbie. Here are the results.I was a vegetarian once. Even the best of us take a well-meaning wrong turn on ...
The Taxpayers’ Union welcomes the call by Wellington City Councillor Fleur Fitzsimons for a shift to land value based rates charges. Union spokesman Louis Houlbrooke says, "Local government leaders across the country should join in Fitzsimons’s call ...
It’s been described as ‘pointless revenge’, but impeaching the president has a firm moral purpose, argues Michael Blake – setting a limit to what sorts of action a society will accept.A House majority, including 10 Republicans, voted today to impeach President Trump for “incitement of insurrection”. The vote will initiate ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Bryan Cranston, Lead Academic Teacher – Politics & Social Science (Swinburne Online), Swinburne University of Technology In a historic vote today, Donald Trump became the only US president to be impeached twice. By a margin of 232–197, the Democrat-controlled US House of ...
Hurrah. The PM is back to posting her announcements on the government’s official website, her deputy is back in the business of self-congratulation, Rio Tinto is back in the business of sucking up cheap electricity to produce aluminium at Tiwai Point, near Bluff. And overseas students (some, anyway) can come ...
The electricity sector, Government and people of Southland are rejoicing after Tiwai Point aluminium smelter owner Rio Tinto announced the major industrial would be open until the end of 2024, Marc Daalder reports Stakeholders in the electricity sector and across Southland are celebrating the extension of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter's ...
If you’ve been on social media this week, you may well have come across a surge in interest in sea shanties. We asked a veteran of the style why. In case you missed it, soon may the Wellerman come, to bring us sugar and tea and rum. If that sentence is even ...
“It is basic human decency to speak up and protect any vulnerable child from harm, so withholding information in child abuse cases and allowing the abuse to happen by not speaking up is, put simply, a cowardly move,” says Jess McVicar Co-Leader ...
Allowing 1,000 returning international students back to New Zealand is the right move by the Government, and hopefully we will be able to welcome more, says ExportNZ Executive Director Catherine Beard. "International education has contributed ...
A majority of the House of Representatives have voted to make Donald Trump the first US president ever to be impeached twice, formally charging him in his waning days in power with inciting an insurrection just a week after a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol. Follow the ...
The Youth of NZ will be standing up for climate action once again on January 26th outside of Parliament for School Strike 4 Climate NZ’s 100 Days 4 Action campaign rally. “We believe it is vital to hold our new Labour-led government to account ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is calling on Rotorua Lakes District Council to urgently release the engineering report on the public safety and structural integrity of the visible foundation-misalignment and lean of the City’s Hemo Gorge monument to government ...
Changes in income and movement in and out of poverty over time are only weakly associated with higher rates of child hospitalisation in New Zealand, according to a new University of Auckland study. Published today in PLOS ONE, the collaborative study led by Dr ...
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Thank you Northland. 🙂
+100
As an unashamed righty – this was far from the result I was wanting. But Nation ran a terrible campaign – and lets face it Winston (Love or loath him) really does have that “X” factor.
Personally I hope that this does not impact the RMA reforms, but I can see that this is going to be an issue now.
Oh well, lets hope the cricket goes well. On that at least most of us will agree.
Why do you want the RMA reforms? The current system does not prevent development, provided it is environmentally sustainable. And conversely, the proposed reforms were simply a return to colonial times of greed, slash and burn and fuck the environment. The proposed reforms were indicative of Neanderthal thinking.
I’m glad you answered your own question because there was fuck all chance that James was going to.
The beginning of the end of an evil dishonest RW era of Key. Well done Winston, Well done NZF, Well done Willow-Jean, Well done Labour, Well done Andrew Little, Well done all the Opposition of NAT/ACT, Well done Northland and Well done New Zealand!
And so say all of us!
+100
Thanks especially to; Clendon and his Northland team, for convincing the Wellington GP strategists that contesting this byelection would be a waste of time and money. His 3639 voters from last election certainly helped make Peters’ victory an emphatic one.
+I
Actually I would credit both the Whangarei and Northland electorate teams who were very smart working together with Labour & NZF during the 2014 election campaign. The local Greens was never in doubt supportIng Peter’s for a collective win.
Well done Mora and the GT!
+100…great to hear the co-operation Skinny….
+1000
Now watch the crafty Peters slowly but surely lance the NACT abscess and let NZ see the pus ooze out over the remainder of this term. Payback for 2008 just begun.
So much material to work with, starting with the former member for northland.
Oh Doctor please do! Bring your healing fingers. Goodness gracious me.
+100 tc …yes I would love to see this…in fact I think most of New Zealand is waiting to see Winston play this…
Well done Winston,a real David and Goliath performance.Has the current PM made any statements too his media puppies?
‘Waaaahh they all ganged up on us’ probably, be good to see some real journos in Oz get in his face.
CT will have the lines are prepared however the fact remains they just lost one of the safest rural national seats after throwing the kitchen sink at it in terms if on the ground presence and pork barrelling.
Worm turning….tick.
Would like correct my dodgy typing but it says I have no permission to edit.
That is odd unless the time has expired. Is this when you save an edited comment?
This happened to me yesterday as well, Lynn. The edit link was available, but clicking on it said I didn’t have permission. This was when the timer was at about the 7 min mark. Refreshing the page, the edit link had vanished.
This has sporadically happened in the past, as well. I wonder if it’s related to moderator activity happening elsewhere in the comments?
My problem of late has been that my comments often just disappear until the 10 minute editing window has expired (at which point I notice some obvious typos I would have corrected). Yestereve, I just put that down to the elevated amount of site traffic, but it’s been happening sporadically for the past week.
Ah. That one is due to some kind of combination of server and client side caching.
Try doing a Shift+F5 or Shift+Refresh when you next see it. And get back to me if it doesn’t fix it.
What that does is force the local cache to be flushed and a new request to load to be sent to server. The problem is that there are several layers of caching going on.
The closest one is your browser cache that shows when you use the back button.
The next is the signature that your browser sends to the server based on its cache info. The server uses that to determine if it has a “new” copy of that page, if not it tells your browser to reload the existing copy on your system. Sometimes the page hasn’t ‘changed’ after you async save a comment because it hasn’t ‘stored’ that update yet.
In those cases it may tell your browser to reuse the stored copy of the page, or it may send you one that has been cached on the server side.
Then there is the database cache that keeps track of updates. That sometimes doesn’t update immediately after a change is made because the database is still async processing it.
Nett effect is that sometimes, usually under heavy load you won’t get the page displaying with your comment on it. Doing a forced refresh will usually get it for you.
I’ll have a review of the current cache settings. But they are optimized for readers rather than commenters for the obvious reason – more than 95% of the page loads are from pure site reads. What I am wondering is if the memcached signatures are set to clear when a comment is made, but are reloaded by something else while the comment is being saved.
That has happened to me quite often. Sometimes I have been away from the post or even to another blog and when I have returned and want to edit and improve? my comment I am not allowed back in though plenty of time is available still. And refreshing wipes out the time available.
And I did wonder if it relates to activity in other areas of the blog, big downloads, new posts, etc. It’s still possible to put a separate amending note – it’s not being locked out – just from your own original comment.
Nope. What I am wondering about is how it determines that time. Maybe there is a absolute UTC time transmitted as part of the Javascript.
trying to correct a loaded one to edit it with 7min’s plus remaining on it and I’ve never seen this message before.
It was on a first gen iPad which is just about ready for the technology scrapheap….imac is fine but the android pad has always had issues with the site and while I’m on the subject the iPhone never shows a ‘reply’ button for any comments in safari.
I get the missing reply button as well. I find that logging in solves the problem. but it is random.
Umm…
On the usual desktop site? Or the mobile one?
The mobile site doesn’t have a reply button per comment. It is a problem with the theme.
The desktop theme shouldn’t do that. I wonder what the Shift-F5 equivalent is on a tablet…
BTW: I just splashed out $120 and grabbed the “Agency” version of WPTouch so I could get the developer documentation so I can correct issue properly. Lyn in Vietnam for a few weeks so I should have some extra spare time.
BTW2: The Agency version of the mobile theme has a pile of speed enhancements. Seem to do great things on my android phone. What about others?
I usually use the desktop site, and can leave a couple or 3 computers logged at once maybe that’s it???
I have logged in using my Android phone looks like a good deal for your $$$ speed is way better. BUT.. Sorry to say no reply button in Android even after logging in.
I still have to write that. Part of the package was the documentation and the barebones framework.
Except Winston was the Goliath.
When Winston ran his first electorate campaign in the north, Mark Osborne was 3 years old.
He still is?
Shouldn’t say that.Sorry Mark.
“Has the current PM made any statements too his media puppies?”
……..you mean since he said Winston had “no chance”? is his radar malfunctioning? will he be having a serious think about his future after last night, like he did after the cup of tea debacle? I think he should.
The FBI used to recommend encryption. Now they want to ban it! What?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/28/the-fbi-used-to-recommend-encryption-now-they-want-to-ban-it
a p.s…before my two-week absence/protest in support of murray kicks off..
..see you all in a couple of weeks..
..but first i have to give thanks..
http://whoar.co.nz/2015/comment-whoar-those-we-need-to-thank-for-the-victory-in-northland/
As a Northland electorate voter, all I can do is give thanks as well – to Winston for standing, to Andrew Little and Willow-Jean for giving us “permission” (“approval” ?) to vote for Winston, and to the Nats for giving us almost six weeks of constant entertainment and amusement as evidenced by these cartoons –
http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2015/03/cartoons-about-the-northland-by-election.html
Agree with your sentiments, except that the party organisations do not give permission to anyone to vote. The enlightened voters make that choice, and there were still over 1000 who do not understand first-past-the-post up there.
And as an aside, National took two on the chin yesterday. Hope Slater recovers from that headache quickly, andthat it may have knocked some sense into him. Wonder if he will change his attitude to “bullying”
JK Thanks. Those cartoons are priceless. I think Emersons ‘morepork’ was no. 1.
And what will the cartoons be like when they find out why it was that there was a by-election, as Tremain’s cartoon refers ?
pu
I thought your thank qus were very well said. You summed it up pretty well.
phillip ure
It’s actually a shame to see you go this time. Twitter seems to have engendered more conciseness to your comments. I’ve only just caught up on last night’s conflageration and see why you feel that a boycott is required in this instance.
Comment 31 & associated replies on:
Comment 28 & associated replies on:
Felix’s responses are good:
However, I think the Pigman has the best solution when he says:
It seems a shame to have lost the commentary of; yourself, marty mars, rawshark –
yeshe, & greywarshark, all over the needless banning of Murray Rawshark on a night when those opposed to NACT should have been celebrating their ability to work together. Especially since at the time he was banned, he had already announced:
Therefore until at least the 12th of next month, I will join the Pigman in not commenting on any of the posts of Stephenie Rodgers. I see no reason to boycott the Standard as a whole as other authors have shown no similar tendancies to abuse their powers of moderation. Perhaps those in voluntary exile might consider doing the same and not depriving TS of your viewpoints?
Let her speak only with; the trolls, and her own echos, for a while.
Yep, I’ll be boycotting Stephanie’s posts from now on. Her aggressive stance towards any sort of criticism is an on-going problem for The Standard. A mix of self-martyrdom and control-freakery. Needs to be confronted once and for all.
It’s true that Stephanie comes in for an unusual amount of flak. But I’d ask her defenders (like, for example, Weka) – those who agree that it’s all to do with her gender – to consider the stark contrast between reactions to Karol and Stephanie.
Karol is a woman and a feminist but received very little criticism. Why ? Because she dealt reasonably with anyone who took issue with her arguments. Typically, she’d reply with something like: “Show me the evidence”.
Stephanie, on the other hand, seems to regard any criticism or disagreement as some sort of vicious attack upon her person. It really is Hyper-sensitivity gone mad. Unlike Karol, Stephanie’s reply would usually be along the lines of either:
(1) Don’t you dare tell me what to think or say !
or
(2) Don’t you dare demonise me !
Trigger-happy aggression dressed-up as self-defence.
And she’ll never have to stand back and objectively scrutinise her own behaviour because, of course, she has “200 years of feminist scholarship” to reassure her that it’s all about “men not being able to deal with a strong, decisive woman” rather than her own deeply controlling personality.
All of which may cop me a lifetime ban, but, as I say, it’s a problem that needs to be confronted once and for all. The shame of it is that Stephanie does, in fact, contribute some very important and interesting posts.
+100…yes come back karol!
“those who agree that it’s all to do with her gender”
I haven’t said it’s all about gender. Neither has Stephanie (and none of us know what Stephanie is thinking). The only person who has run that line is felix, and now yourself. Please don’t misrepresent what I say.
Myself, I think there is room on ts for a range of moderation styles. I could criticise every moderator here, or praise them. But I don’t because I believe that the moderation here is set to protect the site and the authors not to suit the ideals of the commenters. That keeps the place functional and vibrant.
Unfortunately the comparison with karol just buys into the whole women/feminists have to behave in certain ways thing. It’s ok for Lynn to be rude and abusive when he moderates, but Stephanie has to behave like a well behaved feminist.
I would also point out that Stephanie is in a completely different situation than karol with regards to being a feminist blogger and what that means, and that those things need to be taken into account (i.e. context has meaning).
I’m gobsmacked to see you psychoanalysing an author and moderator. I think your characterisation of Stephanie is off and it’s really disappointing to see people thinking they can use their own characterisations of her to criticise her moderation.
+1 Weka.
+100…and I feel that Murray Rawshark, Colonial Rawshark and others have also come in for some quite unwarranted, personal, distasteful and vicious attacks at times eg…”rape apologists” with extras ( check out the posts on Julian Assange issue)
…sexism in reverse?
… or disguised trolling ie their arguments (and in fact the whole initial Post) was illegitimately hijacked , overturned and twisted into something they never meant
Greens have gone from 1 seat to 4 seats in the NSW Lower House. They’ve taken the 2, formerly safe North Coast seats of Ballina and Lismore off the Nationals as the issue of Coal Seam Gas extraction became a major election issue. They held Balmain and gained the adjacent newly created inner Sydney seat of Newtown.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-28/nsw-election-greens-balmain-newtown-ballina-lismore/6356098
NSW still loses its power network tho.
Fark, those North Coast wins for the Greens are amazing. That’s true-blue territory. (Lismore in particular).
A massive 32% swing in Ballina and 26% in Lismore.
Where are all the headlines reporting this tremendous rout?
Where is John key putting in his usual two cents worthless worth?
Where is the pig?
Useless media!!
As expected, please John stay the F away from the black caps and keep your losing touch where it belongs….around Steven Joyce’s neck.
Great win and a fantastic nights celebration. Have shaken the hangover, helped by the shock of our little dog befriending a kiwi when I let her out for a pee. Taken her for a walk along the water front. The media are intviewing Peters now, ha some lady just yelled out go Winston you beauty! which really does sum things up nicely.
Hope you guys enjoyed my babbling last night 🙂
Yep glad your karma? gave you little hangover. Shane Jones with NZF next time ?
Commented on Jones under mickeys recent post, go there cobbah.
Thanks saw that
+100 ..yup…on the spot commentary …cant beat it!
I’ve turned on Q & A late, so far seen an interview with Joyce, and now one with Marama Fox from the MP. First time I’ve seen Marama do anything, and she appears a very capable politician – I’d say better than some of the government ministers when it comes to explaining their position and interviews.
It’s still going on now on TV1, or you can catch it at 10am on 1 + 1.
Apparently Peter Dunne has made an urgent appointment at the hairdressers and can’t take a call from John just now …
I see Dotcom has had another setback. Its been a while since he had any good news in the courts.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11424752
In the latest ruling he has lost an estimated $67 million to the US. Im not sure if this means assets held in NZ and HK as yet. He seems to think that this wont be touched, but then again he has not been right for some time.
Maybe if he had gone there he could defend himself. Hopefully he will be gone soon.
nice to see the slug hit the canvass so swiftly in his ‘fight’ with Ryder.Maybe the useless loudmouth should hand in his ‘man card’,he fought like a woman!
He was outclassed, and out skilled. But he actually got in there. He keeps the “man card”. Anyone who has boxed would agree.
He keeps his Idiot Card for doing it at all. I don’t think he ever had a “man card” and trying to punch people in the head while wearing your undies is no way to get one.
physically it was an even match…Ryder is an over weight cricketer who is not toned or quick and I was expecting the slug,given his macho verbosity to actually fight.He did get up after being knocked over ,but offerred about as much resistant as a brightly coloured punching bag.
Doubt it. Cam looked like shit. He had shit cardio. He was puffed after 30s.
He was happy that he could now run 8km, when at the start of his training he couldn’t run at all.
I doubt Ryder would have much trouble running 16km.
the fat feral fucker got his head smashed into the ground…
how apt
what goes around comes around… every time
🙄
There is nothing man about Slater as it was for self promotion, if you think other wise you have been suckered by the biggest coward in NZ.
Not so tough without a laptop to hide behind…
WhaleOil – I know hes not the most liked here, but regardless takes stones to get into a boxing ring (More so on television).
So all credit for raising the $$$ for charity. But I wouldn’t think he will be stepping into the ring again. Simply seriously outclassed on the night.
I agree with tc (at cmnt 15 below); “slater is all about self promotion”. I fail to see why we should celebrate his macho posturings here.
+1
Not enjoying the confluence of politics and violence either. Boxing match, Peters giving National a bloody nose analogy etc.
“Man card”? “stones” ? “fought like a woman”?
Hey this is the 21st century.
+1
+1
Also boxing is stupid. If Slayer has to express himself through a violent one-on-one competition then why can’t the gun freak make it pistols at dawn?
Can you confirm that he didnt receive any recompense at all, with documented proof. Thanks.
A little Sunday humor, http://tvnz.co.nz/othersports-news/jesse-ryder-knocks-cameron-slater-video-6272354
Was that a left hook or a right one?
resplendent in red …knocked out by Ryder in the blue corner…says he may fight again…must like lying on the canvass!
Stones or stupidity either way the slater is all about self promotion and this was an opportunity to do so without expensive lawyers or govt MP’s.
Boxing is pure stupidity.
Agreed. I don’t want to open up any jokes about intelligence or whether he has a brain or not, even a few blows to the head can cause concussion and brain damage, which can have a lasting effect on your life.
Mind you, some people get brain damage and become better people for it. I’m not wishing brain damage on him, but maybe it’ll be for the better in the long term.
Those according him courage for self promoting himself in a boxing ring are the kind of people that mean we struggle to get justice for many vulnerable in this county, they perpetuate a dangerous and outdated definition of “man”. Being prepared to fight someone for personal gain (be it financial or publicity) is not manly.
where is the Key-sucker fisiani today I wonder?
Even Key is speechless and has gone into hiding! Winston had Zero chance of winning, he had said!
I think Key has gone to get his photo taken with Abbot at the cricket. They can share exit strategies together.
Abbott is not in Melbourne for the cricket. He is in Singapore for Lee Kuan Yew’s funeral – which is where Key should also be IMO.
+1
Nah, the problem is: A couple of weeks back, Fisi suddenly changed his tune and covered his ass by predicting a Winnie win. (And I see he’s turned up today on another thread).
NZ fishery catch may be three times more than reported
This is why we need better reporting and oversight of fishing. We need to know how much is being taken so that we can set quotas so that the fish in our seas get back to historic levels. We can’t do that if catches are being misreported.
Also note that the report was leaked by the fishing industry in what appears, IMO, to be an attempt to attack it before it’s official release.
the sea is rapidly being depleted of fish.
just like the kauri, the seals, the whales and now the rivers and waterways, the greed of primary sector takers has no limits.
we have idiots in government so what do we expect?
Talking to both commercial and recreational fishermen the days of plenty are well in the past with some recreational outings yielding nothing.
We also need to factor in the non NZ fishing fleets who take advantage of our lack of enforcement and plunder what they can and the damage bottom trawling has done to the ecosystem.
Naturally our government introduced voluntary self-reporting for fishing vessels rather than having MAF inspectors on each one as previously. Though these figures suggest maybe that made little overall difference either.
This is effectively a black market twice the size of the official one. You’d think any state might want to do something about that in their own territory.
Feeling a bit sorry for the hostage in Northland, there’s no way Joyce will release him now that his face has been all over the tv.
They’re going to have to kill him.
Hapless suitor of female reporters stirs up a hornet’s nest
Steven Joyce, the campaign manager from Hell, is not the only right wing politician suffering massive ridicule at the moment….
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/67527214/Peter-Dunne-takes-on-New-Zealand-comedians
Oh god what a wally. What’s that old line about not getting into a war of words with anyone who buys ink by the barrel?
It also applies to “people who take the piss for a living”
never go into a war unarmed… and in a war of humour he is most definitely unarmed.
Would he rather be lightly roasted by Sandy Tosksvig? I don’t think so…
Which National MP is out?
Did you mean to write: “Which National MP is a lout?”
Answer:
Jonathan Coleman
There is more than one lout in that side of the house.
stout?
Anagrams from ‘one lout in that side of the house’.
Come to mind – tools, snide, hades, deus, nest, nose, tint, foist, nous, haste, lost, etc
and funny all have relevance to some or all of our parliamentarians.
The answer is no change since Sabin resigned.
Here is a link to making a submission to Parliamentary select committee on Inquiry into the 2014 general election
This is particularly essential for all those people – especially in the Northland electorate – who think they were unjustly turned away from voting in last year’s general election.
The closing date for submissions is Tuesday, 31 March 2015
By convention, a select committee inquiry is conducted following a general election into the legal and administrative aspects of that election. This process provides a multi-party approach to the review and any reform of the law and administration relating to Parliamentary elections.
The terms of reference for the inquiry are: “To examine the law and administrative procedures for the conduct of Parliamentary elections in light of the 2014 general election”.
The committee requires 2 copies of each submission if made in writing. Those wishing to include any information of a private or personal nature in a submission should first discuss this with the clerk of the committee, as submissions are usually released to the public by the committee. Those wishing to appear before the committee to speak to their submissions should state this clearly and provide a daytime telephone contact number. To assist with administration please supply your postcode and an email address if you have one.
http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/sc/business-summary/00DBSCH_INQ_59471_1/inquiry-into-the-2014-general-election
Thinking about Northland and one of its industries – timber. Does that work well for them? Does it create lots of permanent jobs? A bit of background around the MDF (medium density fibreboard or squashed bits of timber making large panels of uniform strength and size.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-density_fibreboard
An alternative view of MDF. http://www.joshuakennon.com/why-i-avoid-mdf-and-furniture-built-with-mdf-and-think-you-should-too/
And is there a business waiting to take off building furniture out of the pine they have planted in the past which I think is still abundant, and barging it south from Opua or a suitable port nearbuy to the big markets elsewhere in NZ though presumably mainly Auckland? The barges would also carry other produce. Another local business looking to the future when road making and vehicle costs are affected badly by high oil prices.
Juken wood treatment company has had a plant in Kaitaia for years connected with the MDF board industry. And there are a number of businesses working with this material but I don’t know how many are fully in NZ and NZowned.
http://www.paneltec.co.nz/ (An Australian firm with sales office in Dargaville)
http://www.applefurniture.co.nz/ (A NZ enterprise based in Kaiwaka)
Jim Anderton in 2005 launched this book on the growth of MDF board.
http://www.beehive.govt.nz/node/24157
Another site is hotfrog that is listing businesses and promoting them which gives an extra boost to small businesses.
It listed Make Enterprises Dargaville connected with Paneltec.
BBS Timbers NZ owned timber firm providing a range of species.
Juken have a big plant in Wairarapa and this item refers to the amount of wood available there. So perhaps Northland needs to keep up its plantings to get the right mass of wood to enable the local business to be ongoing.
Some comments in a stuff article on the business.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/business/9411743/Juken-primed-for-growth-with-founders-added-value-strategies
While over half the timber logged in New Zealand leaves the country in this “primary” form, Juken focuses on tertiary production, which is only around 15 per cent of the country’s timber output, he said.
“There’s enough wood in Wairarapa to have another 10 mills. We have the single largest ownership, 15,000ha – but that’s only 20 per cent of what’s available in Wairarapa.”
Volatile prices and exchange rates have sent many domestic mills to the wall, such as Rotorua’s Tachikawa Forest Products which went into receivership last month with the loss of 120 jobs.
But Juken has insulated itself against the worst impacts by buying its logs for milling from its own forests, at a long-term average price.
Juken appear to have brains and foresight. Perhaps we should just throw out our politicians and contract out much of the business side of NZ to them. That however sounds suspiciously like an ACT idea so there is bound to be a worm in the apple.
The spokesperson refers to volatile prices which NZ must adjust to, but this difficulty is worsened by the exchange rates affected by the mafia protection system we are locked
into. Something that a government for NZ with guts, and explanations to the citizens of our true economic state, needs to do something about. Particularly the volatility of casino-like overseas financial entities playing with our money as if it was casino chips.
I noticed that my fingers produced nearbuy for nearby. I am wondering if there isn’t something of a Freudian slip here. Maybe nearbuy is going to be a new useful word that indicates local trading and business?
Northland produces higher-density timber that is too valuable to be chipped into MDF. Making solid furniture from it locally would create skilled jobs and better export revenues.
Well well:
“NZ First leader Winston Peters says NZ First may decide not to bring an extra MP into Parliament after his Northland byelection win because his party supports a smaller Parliament.”
Interesting. Won’t make any difference to the Government power.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11424888
@ianmac I’m sure Winston will resign his list seat and bring in another NZF member.
What people are missing here is the fact that the public of Northland knew this was going to happen if they elected Peters (or if they didn’t they don’t may attention-no excuse) yet they elected Peters with a stonking great majority.
People who whinge about this outcome need to accept that a democratic process has taken place where the electorate knew the consequences of their vote, rather than focusing on the effect on the result of an election 6 months ago.
Actually, I’m pretty sure that everyone who voted for Winston on Saturday fully expected him to resign his seat and that NZF would be up a seat afterwards. For him to now not do that would be against those expectations and thus against democracy.
This is a problem with our democracy in that our ‘representatives’ can go off and do what they like once they’ve been voted in no matter what their policies or the expectation of the populace was when they were voted in.
It is actually a very complicated legal situation, as no explicit legal provisions exist for the current situation. Too tired tonight to try to explain but suggest you read Graeme Edgeler’s latest post on Public Address; together with his earlier post there and Philip Lyth’s earlier post there today. Links are included in Edgeler’s latest post.
http://publicaddress.net/legalbeagle/what-next-for-winston/
Charles Pierce says what he really thinks.
.
Let us be quite definite about this. Any Democratic politician who thinks this is a bad situation — or, worse, will not stand by a Democratic colleague in this situation — is not worth the hankie to blow Joe Lieberman’s nose.
My god, what a prodigious bluff. Also, my god, what towering arrogance? These guys own half the world and have enough money to buy the other half, and they’re threatening the party still most likely to control the White House because they don’t like the Senator Professor’s tone? Her tone? Sherrod Brown’s tone? These are guys who should be worried about the tone of the guard who’s calling them down to breakfast at Danbury and they’re concerned about the tenderness of their Savile Row’d fee-fees? Honkies, please.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a33971/the-senator-professor-has-some-interesting-enemies/
Hate fueled pricks can’t take a trick.
Sarah LeavittVerified account @sarahleavittcbc
Hard to estimate but 3-10 people identified themselves as being sympathetic to #Pegida #cbcmtl
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/pegida-cancels-anti-islam-demonstration-in-little-maghreb
The unforgettable photo of the winner and the vanquished:
http://a.disquscdn.com/uploads/mediaembed/images/1823/821/original.jpg?w=600&h
The Herald is not even trying to hide its bias with a headline like this.
“Greenies say ‘frack off’ to drilling.”
Roughan on duty, I’d guess.
Unbelievable.
What an awful rag.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11424932
Sharing economy gets shared.
http://gizmodo.com/stolen-uber-accounts-are-on-sale-for-a-dollar-on-a-dark-1694273240
So now Yemen joins Syria, most of Iraq, northern Jordan, northern Lebanon, and northern Saudi Arabia into social chaos.
The United States is aligned alongside Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and against them in Yemen. Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who have joined in the Saudi offensive in Yemen, are bombing factions in Libya backed by Turkey and Qatar, who also support the Saudi offensive in Yemen. The Syrian conflict has been fueled by competition among all regional powers to outmaneuver one another on battlefields far from home.
Neither the US nor Saudi Arabia have any consistency, and even Iran is beginning to look coherent in its positioning.
This is going to get broader and much, much worse before it gets better.
Been following this bloke.
Tweets by AliAlAhmed_en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_al-Ahmed
There was a well attended and very noisy protest outside Sky City this afternoon where the
“New Zealand’s premier annual upstream event- featuring the government’s launch of block offer 2015-the exclusive tender for exploration permits”, was taking place.
Topics include-expert speakers presenting with NZ context,
-insights into NZ regulatory system,
– best practice local community engagement.
I guess we were helping inform them about the last topic. All protesters had been invited to bring a drum and were entertained by Michael Franti before marching from Victoria Park to Sky City.
One major sponsor is Halliburton. Another is Fragomen which is a global corporate immigration law firm. This doesn’t indicate jobs for locals to me.
Meanwhile, Kiwi Rail is going to chop the NIMT electrification
OMGWTF.
KiwiRail are saying that ‘no final decision has been made’, but when someone says that, it is pretty much always a done deal.
New Zealanders paid a lot of money for that electrification, plus interest, and it is madness for it to be ripped out only about 30 year later and sold for scrap. Fuel prices may be low, but that doesnt mean that they will be low forever…
When Lab VI bought Toll Rail back in 2008, it was supposed to be a new era for rail in NZ. Unfortunately since National won the election that year, their attacks on the rail system have been more savage than ever before.
Why don’t the nats go the whole hog and go back to steam trains , we could hire the unemployed on contracts to cut all those pesky trees down in the central north island to fuel them.
Where does Key get off?
The Northland-safe-as-houses seat for National was lost for no other reason than the usual die-hard Nat voters were actually not sure what sort of National Party is running the country – its complexion appears to have changed over the last couple of months and they couldn’t be convinced enough to get out and vote. I don’t think they are actually impressed by the likes of Bennett, Bridges, Woodhouse sitting on or near the front benches. They want stability and substance, not flash Harrys.
Perhaps the issues of the TPPA, RMA were not as important to them to motivate them to get out and vote. Surely they don’t need the presence of a campaign to get them to the polling booth.
They must have known that their government’s programme was under threat if Winston Peters rested the seat from them. That surely should have been motivation enough.
So Mr Key needs a bit deeper analysis than blaming the opposition for this defeat.
I’m happy for the nats to stay in denial with “the left and winnie ganged up on us” excuses.
The longer they take to lose their hubris, the better it’ll be for everyone else in 2017 (or earlier).
If dunnokeyo lives up to the form roughan confirmed, in a very short while our glorious pm will be reconsidering whether he wants to stay in the job. And mr didn’t-fix-it fucking up again leaves an opening for the minister for oravida, petulent bean, woodhead, mcshouty, and whoever else to battle for the iron throne…
I reckon that Collins is sorry that she did not have the Orivida Kauri milled.
If Saturdays 4,000 majority to Winston is combined with a National majority of 9,000 (last general election night) there is a loss of 13,000 to National.
How many National supporters chose not to vote last Saturday?
The spy agency probably has the answer to my question.