Archive for June, 2010

  • frog

    Lloyd’s 2 Business: oil crunch coming fast - by frog



    One of the world’s biggest insurers is telling business that the two biggest risks they face are peak oil and climate change. It seems Lloyd’s has gone a bit green, or has started reading frogblog. read more
    June 17, 2010 6:49 am - 25 Comments
  • Gareth Hughes

    100% fare increases: 100% stupid - by Gareth Hughes



    [Disclaimer] In the spirit of Parliamentary transparency I need to start with acknowledging I have a vested interest in the issue. I live downtown Wellington and often I bus it to work. In fact I love Wellington’s city buses. Why? To start with a big chunk of them are wind-powered – in the sense they [...] read more
    June 16, 2010 9:30 pm - 15 Comments
  • Kevin Hague

    Government fudges Health budget cuts, has no clue on child health - by Kevin Hague



    I’ve had two opportunities to question Tony Ryall today about priorities in the health sector, and his answers reveal a real mastery of evasion and obfuscation but little or no grasp of what is genuinely important in health. First up was his appearance before the Health Select Committee to answer questions about the Budget (although [...] read more
    June 16, 2010 5:33 pm - 30 Comments
  • David Clendon

    Better clothing won’t solve prison crisis - by David Clendon



    I sat in on the Law and Order Select Committee today, to hear what Minister Collins had to say about ‘Vote Corrections’. Their opening gambit was to present a ‘show and tell’, proudly displaying examples of her ‘solution’ to the growing violence in our prisons. read more
    June 16, 2010 5:31 pm - 5 Comments
  • frog

    Greater Wellington votes to double bus fares (and worsen congestion, pollution) in CBD - by frog



    Buried on page 7 of the Dominion Post is the unfortunate news that the Greater Wellington voted to raise bus and train fares yesterday. Most troubling is the doubling of the inner-city fare from $1 to $2.  A 100% increase in price will lead to stark drop in demand for services.  Many people will shift [...] read more
    June 16, 2010 5:21 pm - 12 Comments
  • Catherine Delahunty

    Gifted awareness week despite funding cuts - by Catherine Delahunty



    This week is Gifted Awareness Week. I support calls to restore full funding for gifted and talented support programmes – programmes which had their funding slashed in last year’s Budget. Children are gifted in so many different ways, and many need professional support like that offered by gifted and talented programmes throughout our state schools. [...] read more
    June 16, 2010 3:02 pm - 9 Comments
  • frog

    More crap from Crafar Farms - by frog



    Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse for Crafar Farms, given their appalling record of dirty dairying and animal cruelty and being put in receivership and under threat of foreign ownership, this appears: read more
    June 16, 2010 1:38 pm - 7 Comments
  • frog

    Rules for freshwater management? Never! - by frog



    Kiran Chug has a great story in this morning’s Dominion Post: the sorry tale of the proposed National Policy Statement on Freshwater management. Our rivers are getting dirtier and dirtier while this document languishes. A quick history: National policy statements are tools that can be developed under the Resource Management Act to guide local and [...] read more
    June 16, 2010 10:45 am - 11 Comments
  • Russel Norman

    GE clover in the enviro, or in lab? - by Russel Norman



    One of the confusions about the GE clover story is whether the GE organisms will be released into the environment or not. The TV3 piece last night assumed that the GE clover would be released into the environment, while the Morning Report piece this morning, oddly, didn’t make it clear whether it was referring to GE [...] read more
    June 16, 2010 10:23 am - 3 Comments
  • Russel Norman

    GE magic clover solves climate change,… or not - by Russel Norman



    So AgResearch has solved the greenhouse emissions from cows – so it seems on TV tonite! Or have they? Well, the GE clover may or may not reduce greenhouse emissions from cows -they haven’t actually tested it in cows so they don’t know, but they have a hypothesis. And it may be available in 15 [...] read more
    June 15, 2010 10:13 pm - 95 Comments
  • frog

    How bad could the BP spill get? - by frog



    I have asked myself this question repeatedly over the last month or so, as things in the Gulf of Mexico seem to be going from bad to worse. read more
    June 15, 2010 3:31 pm - 28 Comments
  • Keith Locke

    The Not-so-Cosmopolitan Club - by Keith Locke



    South Auckland is the cultural melting pot of New Zealand. People from more than 100 nationalities, and all faiths, live side by side. Many are recent migrants. read more
    June 15, 2010 12:01 pm - 20 Comments
  • frog

    General debate 15th June 2010 - by frog



    What issues are grabbing you today? read more
    June 15, 2010 8:59 am - 42 Comments
  • frog

    Finally, an answer - by frog



    Geniuses at Oil Sciences have come up with a novel idea about how to stop the millions of barrels of oil from billowing into to Gulf of Mexico. And, you guessed it, they’ve put it up for sale to the highest bidder on Trade Me. read more
    June 14, 2010 10:37 pm - 11 Comments
  • Gareth Hughes

    Buying votes with girls and money - by Gareth Hughes



    While New Zealand is in the throes of its own embarrassing corruption scandal, Japan has been rocked by a newspaper sting into vote buying at the International Whaling Commission. A Sunday Times investigation has exposed Japan for bribing small nations with cash and prostitutes to gain their support for the mass slaughter of whales. The [...] read more
    June 14, 2010 1:44 pm - 12 Comments
  • David Clendon

    Mine waste, not National Parks - by David Clendon



    I hope Gerry Brownlee and his pro-mining supporters read Good magazine. In the latest issue there is a very informative article “Sitting on a Gold Mine” that confirms that there is plenty of gold already above ground, and begs the question of why we would sacrifice our conservation estate to dig up any more. Quoting [...] read more
    June 14, 2010 12:23 pm - 11 Comments
  • frog

    More from inside the WWG welfare forum - by frog



    Paula Bennett: “This debate could get uncomfortable…it could get emotional…we may even see an ugly side of New Zealand…” And who created that ugly side, Paula? read more
    June 14, 2010 11:54 am - 73 Comments
  • Keith Locke

    1981 revisited - by Keith Locke



    As a 1981 anti-tour protester I welcome next year’s visit by some of the 1981 Springbok squad. Captain Wynand Claassen is in make-amends mode. He sees the visit as ‘apologising in a way’ because  his team ‘were actually the instigators’ of the mayhem during the tour. No doubt the 1981 team members will meet some [...] read more
    June 14, 2010 11:13 am - 11 Comments
  • frog

    Photo – Monarch butterfly - by frog



    On a gloriously hot summer’s day, this Monarch butterfly visited an Elecampane flower just as I was photographing it. Ordinarily, the tall herb is covered with ladybirds, feeding on the sticky juices that exude from all of it’s parts but on this day it was the turn of a much bigger insect. read more
    June 14, 2010 5:43 am - 6 Comments
  • Russel Norman

    Cantabrians cold, but not comatose - by Russel Norman



    John Key and Nick Smith  might have hoped that the cold would keep them away. But they were sooo wrong. Thousands of Cantabrians came out in defence of their rivers and their democracy this afternoon. The cold came up through my feet as we listened to speakers and music – Brian Turner, Brian Deans, Dean [...] read more
    June 13, 2010 9:35 pm - 52 Comments
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