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From The Guardian: Arctic seas turn to acid, putting vital food chain at risk With the world's oceans absorbing six million tonnes of carbon a day, a leading oceanographer warns of eco disaster Carbon-dioxide emissions are turning the waters of the Arctic Ocean into acid…
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Back in 1934, when Gross Domestic Product was first being developed in the States, the economist in charge, Simon Kuznets, wrote "...the welfare of a nation [can] scarcely be inferred from a measure of national income...". Right from the start, the economists were saying GDP was…
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There is a very revealing quote from John Banks in the weekend's Dominion Post where he talks about his campaign strategy: Uptown, Auckland Mayor John Banks, a former police minister and radio talkback host, is doing his best to soften his public image. "If I…
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Taito Philip Field has been sentenced to six years jail for bribery and corruption. Field is a prime example of the ability of power to corrupt. He let down all those who put their trust in him - his community, his former party, and the…
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Yesterday, around 1,000 bus drivers and support staff issued noticed to their employer, NZ Bus owned by Infratil, that from Thursday they would be working to rule in protest over the company's unacceptable pay offer. Essentially, the company wants to combine several existing collective agreements…
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SAFE is campaigning against a new and very odd form of "entertainment" in pubs. Catcha Cray machines are just like arcade grab machines, with the key difference being that rather than the prize being a non-sentient soft toy, the prize is instead a living and…
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Poor DPF must feel like he's through the looking glass these days. He's got to defend a government that flip flopped on tax cut promises. He's got to defend a leader that refuses to be open with the public (on why a Minister was sacked).…
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When the Tui oil-field was opened last year, the operators (AWE New Zealand, 87.5% foreign-owned, ironically) were given permission to burn off 10 billion cubic feet of natural gas retrieved incidentally to the oil over the life of the oil-field. That's actually a hell of…
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This the kind of garbage isn't usually worth my time, but that's what wee gripes is for: Why are Key, Henry and Watkins so excited that the Youtube vid of John Key's clowning on Letterman has more hits than the vid of Obama on the same show?…
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Just found the trailer on youtube. No word yet when it's coming to New Zealand.
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Low-level industrial action has begun at Parliament after workers rejected an offer from the employer that would have slashed redundancy provisions and kept pay outside the collective, meaning wage cuts for the foreseeable future. The management is trying to please their political bosses by cutting…
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Paula Bennett: "The number of people needing an Unemployment Benefit has slowed significantly over the last month, says the Minister for Social Development and Employment." Here, let me correct that for you: "The growth in the number of people needing an Unemployment Benefit has slowed…
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From the NZEI. Great to see the low paid mobilise so effectively.
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Last week the Employment Court decided that Talleys-owned Open Country was acting illegally in locking out its unionised staff. The Court upheld the right of workers to demand a collective agreement and stated it was illegal for the Talleys to lock them out rather than…
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Visionstream completed its takeover of the Auckland and Northland patch on Thursday and it's now become clear that they've failed to meet the terms of their contract with Telecom as workers have continued to hold out despite being made redundant. The situation is just crazy.…
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I have to agree with Tim Selwyn in his criticism of Phil Twyford's peace about Moriori pacifism. Twyford writes on Red Alert: Moriori elders told us the story of chief Nunuku who made the covenant of peace, renouncing warfare and cannibalism. Hand to hand fighting…
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I love that, after studiously ignoring Bill English's housing rort, Farrar's now got unending questions for the Greens. Pretty desperate stuff too - 'sure, you paid the money back of your own accord after you yourselves discovered you had over-claimed but why did it take so…
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When they're struggling to defend Bill English's housing rip-off, or John Key's clowning, or Richard Worth's dodgy dealings, or Anne Tolley's incompetence, or Paula Bennett's bullying, righties will still often try to deflect by recalling the time the car Helen Clark was in sped in Canterbury.…
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Greetings to the good people of Dipton. Must be fun to be so much in the news lately! I hope some local entrepreneurs are working out how to make good on all the free publicity. I'd expect Dipton's high profile in the media to last…
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An interesting take on the Crafars from Bernard Hickey in the Herald. He starts off: The Crafar Farms tragedy is a microcosm of many of the things wrong about our business and investment culture. Then goes on to say: We believe land is the best…
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The Greens have a superannuation fund. That's fine. It has investments in a couple of houses. That's fine. The Green MPs have to rent somewhere to live when they're in Wellington. They claim the out of town allowance to cover those costs, which is what…
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Today's mediawatch on RNZ covers problems with the reportage of the tsunami warnings, the politics of climate change reporting, and features an interview with Mike King about his life and new Sunday night Radio Live show focusing on psychological issues and mental illness. Although it's…
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It was inevitable that Farrar would do this, although I really hoped he wouldn't. His post criticising Chris Carter for being in Samoa is a shameless attempt to make political capital off tragedy. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Winne Laban headed to Samoa to…
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Maybe it would be good for my blood pressure to try not to be grumpy about politics on Sundays. So here is a site I found last week which both rekindled my sense of wonder, and re-calibrated my sense of perspective. The site displays a full…
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Colin Espiner also writes in yesterday's blog: The Government was slow off the mark in sending a minister up to Samoa. While Labour quickly dispatched two MPs, Winnie Laban and Chris Carter, as late as Wednesday McCully was still saying he saw no point in going…
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Colin Espiner: "To start with the ironical, Acting Prime Minister Bill English had no sooner hauled his protesting family back to Dipton for the parliamentary recess to prove that it was still really his home than he had to come straight back to Wellington again…
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Fran O'Sullivan has laid out the business elite's preferred successors to Bill English: At this stage English is not mortally wounded. But his reputation as one of the Mr Cleans of New Zealand politics has been damaged. And - more importantly for the Deputy Prime…
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Remember "Education cuts don't heal"? That was the rallying cry during the last National government. Looks like we might be needing it again this time round. National's 2009 budget was a very mixed bag for education, but it turns out that it only narrowly avoided…