Posts by Idiot Savant
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OK so it may have started with Muldoon, could have been even earlier. But I think the Herald has hit the nail on the head - things really had got out of hand and question time had just become an embarrassment.
There was no "golden age". If you browse through Hansard from the 30's, or hell, the 1890's, you'll see the same old crap. Politicians come and go, but politics remains the same.
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Or before you link, ask yourself 'Should I be creating traffic for the newspaper that thinks Garth George's opinion is worth publishing?' The herald sales your eyeballs to its advertisers, every view on its site is worth money to it.
That's what Adblock is for. See no ads, give no revenue.
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Probably some issues with pests, as the winters won't necessarily kill annoying bugs any more.
And we can get invaded by nastier bugs from overseas who prefer a warmer climate. Malaria, anyone?
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Can anyone point me to some data to refute this idea I heard from a friend that...
"predicted changes [in climate] for new Zealand would all be good for our agricultural and horticultural industries"Yes: every report on climate change impacts ever produced in New Zealand. For example, the EcoClimate Report (summary here). Short version: bits of NZ will indeed get warmer, but that's not entirely a good thing. Other bits will get wetter, while a big chunk will get a lot dryer. The whole east coast drying up and blowing away is not "good" by any measure (particularly for the dairy farms they're now sticking there. But those fools are our major contributor to the problem, so I guess they have no-one to blame but themselves...)
You might also be interested in the MfE reports Climate Change: Likely Impacts on New Zealand Agriculture and Climate change impacts in New Zealand, or the NIWA report on Changes in drought risk with climate change.
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Rocket Propelled Grenade?
Bloody non-Gamers.
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The birds feasting on my strawberry patch just as they turn ripe are evidence of this.
Clearly, you need some cats to keep the birds under control (and as a bonus, they don't like strawberries).
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The flavour of freshly picked tomatoes tends to be better than that of those bought from shops
And that goes double for strawberries.
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The purpose of the armed forces is to protect the sovereignty of New Zealand.
Actually, the purpose of the NZ armed forces is to take all the psychos who want to play soldiers and dump them in a small holes in the middle of nowhere (Waiouru, Linton, Birmingham). Looking for lost trampers or building schools in disaster-ravaged places is an added bonus. But "protecting sovereignty"? Who the hell from?
Oh, that's right: the penguins. Tikili-li.
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The rules are very clear: the Minister of Local Government or the Minister of Consumer Affairs are entitled to use operational resources (meaning staff, consultants, etc) to obtain policy advice within their portfolios. They cannot use it to obtain policy advice on e.g. climate change policy. If they do, its a misuse of appropriated funds, and the sort of thing that upsets the Auditor-General (remember him? That knife cuts both ways, you know...)
As Minister in charge of Ministerial services, John Key can indeed change these rules. But he'll be answering some very interesting and pointed questions in Parliament if he does.
Basically, your position does seem to be that "it's not pork if we do it". that's simply hypocrisy. If Winston rather than ACT had been the beneficiary of such arrangements, ACT would have screamed bloody murder for three years. And that, i think, is all we have to say about your party's moral bankruptcy.
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Actually, I'd bet that Nick Smith had bugger all say in the Nat-ACT deal, and Key, English & Brownlee figure that with the economy going down the toilet our emissions will actually decline for a year or two anyway.
We won't know until two years after the fact anyway, but yes, recessions reduce emissions. If you look at the graph of NZ emissions, you can see the disaster of the Jenny Shipley government right there in the figures...