Posts by jeremy gray
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I/S has a grep of everything in the leaks mentioning NZ here. Better than anything I have seen from local press so far ....
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I don't think that apple will be taking a slice of the kindle app profits - all the money goes through amazon. Kindle also has a (free) android app, which again works by buying through amazon.com. The actual app seems to simply show you the files it finds on the linked amazon account.
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In related news, cabinet is expected to reach its' decision about the mining in national parks today, with an official announcement later in the week. The quotes from Key and Brownlee on RadioNZ leave me less than optimistic
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(Disclaimer - I am a trained geneticist, but also an ex-greenpeace employee)
I think it will be interesting to see how these kinds of conflicts where GM leads to an environmental benefit, pan out in the next few years. The non-corporate sector are catching up in GM and we are likely to see more and more "good" GMOs coming through the pipelines. A more evidence and science based green movement (sorry biodynamics) would be a great outcome (Though to be fair, most green organisations are more "wait and see" than completely anti GM).
I have seen no scientific evidence that GM is bad per se, almost all the claims have been debunked or never published. More at issue for me is the way it is gone about - Years and Years of public funding of science all over the world, then a couple of years done by eg Monsanto and they get all the benefits. There is also a lack of transparency - science is traditionally very open and peer reviewed, while GM data are jealously guarded. It would be nice to see something similar to the Genok biosaftey assesment tool (no idea why that is https) being made compulsory and open to the public - it basically asks for a suite of data proving that you have only changed what you wanted to.
As to this specific example, I think it is too early to say. I don't know how clover is traditionally seeded, but imagine that clover would rapidly spread and be hard to contain. It is pretty necessary to make sure the altered tannins don't kill bees, alter gut microbiology or do anything else unexpected. The argument that it is not transgenic because the gene comes from a similar species is pretty bunk, the techniques are exactly the same either way - see this essay. I think if it works, this clover will be a Good Thing, but given it is still 15 years off, probably didn't deserve the top story of 3 news last night.
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I imagine Mount Aspiring has been spared as it is part of the Te Wahipounamu UNESCO world heritage site. Other notable UNESCO sites include the pyramids, and the great wall of China. Mining there may just be a step too far, even for these Orcs.
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Greens craziness:
talk to a Reiki (!) convention on CAM
blanket GMO ban, banning food irradiation (what about microwaves?)
Yes I did vote for them, but if you are going to argue for the global warming scientific consensus, what about the scientific consensus against CAM and for public health measures like fluoridation.
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I think Concert FM is pretty clearly a public good. It may rile up some people on the left for being culturally imperious or whatever, but the cost of $5 million Russell mentioned earlier is pretty cheap.
In an ideal world it would be more inclusive and have more genres, but to suggest cutting it because it only represents one culture is cutting off your nose to spite your face. If the $5 million is such a priority, there are surely better places to cut it from.
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I suspect telecom was plagiarizing Kurt Vonnegut - This is from breakfast of champions, and yes, it is supposed to be a butthole.
I'm a bit skeptical that a logo requires a multimillion dollar designer, but if that one was a knowing joke pulled on them by their designer I can say their money was well spent.
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Don't forget the Ric Barker post on red alert - http://blog.labour.org.nz/index.php/2010/02/02/tread-carefully-mr-key/ . Labour arguing for landowners not paying tax?
New Zealand has one of the least affordable housing markets in the world, and is one of the few OECD countries without a capital gains tax. House prices need to come down, which sucks for investors, but the otherwise home ownership won't make sense for the younger generation. Capital gains tax should have been implemented in the boom years where investors were making money hand over fist to slow things down.
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All these disproportionate effects could easily be stopped by a sensible judge having the leeway to decide the sentence, which is what we currently have.
Why do they need to introduce a 3 strikes law for anything other than propaganda, when they could easily just ask (or failing that, legislate) judges to give more weight to prior offending when sentencing.