Also, good post.

And I never said you were a journalist. *BOOM*

Whenever I come across something I know about, I tend to notice things that have been gotten wrong... e.g. only people who vote to change MMP get to vote in the second referendum question; or, three strikes means?

I know. Have never quoted the ACR, see...

On a more serious note, your post is a very good example of something that gets on my bröstvårtor regularly. Unfortunately, the tobacco stuff is just one example though. Having followed the intellectual?

no moral or political ones either, judging by what business and civic 'leaders' routinely get away with these days.

To remind you that the law was changed last July and power walls will soon be a thing of the past. Hansard of the Third Reading debate is here.

As I understand it, new power walls will be illegal from 22 July this year,?

I honestly think that the Chasers or Yes Men type of approach to this sort of thing is the only rational response anymore.

Oh, I'm currently weighing up the realistic options. Shortlist so far:

1) Move family to survivalist cabin/bunker in remote mountain region. Shoot trespassers on sight. Pluses: lack?

Since I started to receive press releases direct from PR companies a couple of years ago I've been amazed at how many of them end up in print, but more disturbingly how high the proportion of stories are that are PR-generated rather than research generated.

Well that comment is a little less classy than Inwood's tweet, but still as shonky.

For the record, the science convinced 97.5% of MPs to vote for the third reading of Smoke-free Environments (Controls and Enforcement) Amendment Bill last July and so ban power walls in New?

Butt stop...
Keep up the good work Keith...
It's good that someone can be fagged to do the hard work!

So you're claiming that this isn't astroturfing, Mr Graham? And that you're acting out of the goodness of your heart?

Carrick Graham, who worked as a PR for?

Well that comment is a little less unclassy than Inwood's tweet, but still as shonky.

Let's not forget that the story here is that local news media have basically abandoned the principles of truth and objectivity (etc., etc.). Personally, I think it's easily the single most serious problem facing New Zealand.

And thank *you*! Not having to completely forgo income to do this stuff would be nice – and hopefully means that I can do more of it.

Are you suggesting that ACR?s press releases come from ?people who actually work?

Evidence, please. Let's start with proof that 97.5% of MPs actually know what the Smoke-free Environments (Controls?

I surrender.

But then I did read the Hansard of the debate.

Let me guess... Advertising. Revenue. Turkeys. Thanksgiving. I suspect also it's the same reason?

They exist, for instance in this TV3 story from 2007. And IIRC (Keith, got some of that evidence thingymajig for Graeme?) word is that business does not suffer for these dairies.

Actually, I think you need an epistemologist for that.

I suspect the pay-for-display revenue is more the difference.

Edit: And that's more where I see the issue. I'm not going to?

Graeme kind of reminds me of the Fair Witness profession in a Heinlein novel:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranger_in_a_Strange_Land#Fair_Witness

So if you were speeding down a country road with Graeme and he said "You know there's 29 bullet holes in that sign that?

Fair enough, actually. I've actually done a lot of thinking about how I'd like this particular kind crowdfunding to work. Will blog about it next week.

Nice work Keith.?

Don't take it personally, but small fungal growths on old cheese are holier than Carrick Graham, IMHO, so that's a pretty low bar.

On the service station/tight margin point – when I was home last I stayed with a couple who've owned and run a rural service station since the 1980s. They were saying that for the first?

Noted! Will see what I can do.

Even if it is as simple as sending bank a/c details to anyone who contacts you through that hard-to-find page on hte PAS site.

I'd argue that science is the winner. Expanding on yesterday's brief aside:

No, it doesn't happen in the simplistic way Graeme suggested yesterday. MPs wouldn't have looked at the 2011 bill de?

Except that prohibition is not on anybody's agenda.

The Smokefree Coalition has a goal of New Zealand being smokefree by 2025, and the current Government committed to that goal when responding last year to the Maori Affairs select committee inquiry.

All actors are using a?

This!

My guess from what I've seen and remember* is that 90%+ of the time science is reported it is incorrect either in the actual science being reported or in the interpretation.?

and no one *makes* them do otherwise

Performance by DHBs is reported quarterly, including by taking ads in the daily papers. I believe Governments of all stripes over recent years are genuinely committed to reducing smoking rates. If Treasury ever has raised issues around?

This is something Google News could exploit to its advantage. Providing background on the stories authors?

wisdom costs too much

Will blog about it next week.

My 10 millions worth.

We all give each other our bank account details.We set up automatic payments to each other. Keith posts. The first one to comment is docked 10c into KN's bank. The second one banks 10c into the first commenter's account and?

Carry on.

In the latest example, we suddenly have a govt. minister declaring that Brian Tamaki is "entitled to" millions in state funding for his Jonestown school system. It was only about five or six weeks ago that?

I was also thinking the Wackos from Waco.

And Richard Boock's blog on the matter has drawn the creationists out of the woodwork. What?

Whenever I come across something I know about, I tend to notice things that have been gotten wrong? e.g. only people who vote to change MMP get to vote in the second referendum question; or, three strikes means XYZ.

This has a name! It?s the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/65213

Well to get pedantic, we now know it can be approximated?

Yep. I had fairly intimate knowledge of the bullying stories covered by a TV program that shall remain nameless last year but rhymed with Ramble Jive that was filled from start to?

We need Jono Pryor to pull another fast one or two.

That kinda was my point. Phil was making a claim about the voting on a piece of legislation that I considered unlikely?

Or you could ... like ... stop selling tobacco

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10369512

At the risk of being boring, I responded yesterday: my original comment that was a brief aside which Graeme chose to interpret it in a way I had not intended. I replied saying my meaning was that science had been informing the debate over many?

I read Jay Rosen @jayrosen, who teaches journalism at New York University. He responds here to the piece by the NYT's Brisbane, and includes reaction by others and by Brisbane himself.

Bitching and moaning that this legislation that is, by every measure, going to save?

They're very easy to grow in NZ, the conditions are well suited and they require nearly no maintenance, because they're naturally toxic to pests. Preparation pretty much hanging the?

Yeah I have an aunt-in-law who grows her own tobacco. There are limits to how much you are allowed to grow but otherwise seems a reasonable option.

If you accept there will be addicts or simply people who make that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_in_cigarettes

Talking to a well informed friend the other day, he told me that if you dry your?

I suspect that the real problem is that people who smoke?

I refer you to Tuo Lei's post above:
That?s all very well, but how does a home grower add all of?

The money is in pounds, shilling, and pence, and the grower is – if I parse the handwriting correctly – of "Ngatimoti", so you'll have to settle for bad spelling.

This. Like so many acquired tastes (and the acquisition of a taste for tobacco is typically a very forced affair, the?

S68A of the Customs and Excise Act contains a specific exemption for tobacco grown for personal use as long as it at your own private home, for your own use (no sharing!), and no more than 15kg/year?

Um, the S68A exemption prohibits 'sale or other disposition to any other person'. Kinda rules out that idea. See S68A(2)(c)(ii).?

Maybe if somebody could produce a quality product that might be different.

Hmm...

Since this is a reference to tobacco, "quality product" has to be the oxymoron of the month.

Not really. You can have a quality handgun or a crappy one, despite the sole purpose of it being to harm humans. Indeed the quality one is probably more fit for that purpose.?

Americans use licence as both the verb and noun, so a licence spelled as a license is unlikely to be from the US.

The OED ((c) 1971) has the following note:
The spelling license, though still often met with,?

includes discussion on astroturfing and the tobacco lobby, related to plain packaging in Aussie.

Talking about Marryatt.

A CEO runs a competitive business that has to make money. The council is a monopoly?

Here we go http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/columnists/joe-bennett/6273320/Tony-Marryatt-L-Oreal-Man-because-hes-worth-it

As the noun, in American English, the -ence spelling is theoretically possible, but not actually used to any appreciable extent.

As one recent example, the Macmillan English Dictionary contains the following headword listings:
licence noun
license[1] verb
license[2] the AmE spelling?

Anyway. Yeah. Joe Bennett. Wonderful column.

the way of the future as we return to a mainly oral culture digitally.

Surely that belongs on the other thread?

New on the Ministry of Health website, they are listing their meetings w/ Big Tobacco. Recent meetings include discussion removal of power walls.

This is required under a treaty, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. I suspect all Ministries (and Ministers?) will be obliged to report?

Briefings to Incoming Ministers are out

I?ve found 2 that haven?t yet put them up so far (the External Reporting Board and the Commerce Commission), and two doc files (CreativeNZ and SportNZ), one xls (to be fair?