Posts by Ian Dalziel
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Curse of…, in reply to Don Reid,
Disparate Dan...
Martin Phillipps has always carried the weight of destiny
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Getting bud-wiser...
It must have been something in the air. During a short time window at the end of the last ice age, Stone Age humans in Europe and Asia independently began using a new plant: cannabis.
That’s the conclusion of a review of cannabis archaeology, which also links an intensification of cannabis use in East Asia with the rise of transcontinental trade at the dawn of the Bronze Age, some 5000 years ago.
Central Eurasian’s Yamnaya people – thought to be one of the three key tribes that founded European civilisation – dispersed eastwards at this time and are thought to have spread cannabis, and possibly its psychoactive use, throughout Eurasia.The pollen, fruit and fibres of cannabis have been turning up in Eurasian archaeological digs for decades.
Tengwen Long and Pavel Tarasov at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, and their colleagues have now compiled a database of this archaeological literature to identify trends and patterns in prehistoric cannabis use.
It is often assumed that cannabis was first used, and possibly domesticated, somewhere in China or Central Asia, the researchers say – but their database points to an alternative.
Some of the most recent studies included in the database suggest that the herb entered the archaeological record of Japan and Eastern Europe at almost exactly the same time, between about 11,500 and 10,200 years ago. -
Hard News: The war is still with us, in reply to Russell Brown,
Everything is somewhere, but it might not be where you left it.
Continental drift plays havoc with geo-political borders, as well...
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Polity: Post "post-truth" post, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Mash media...
...they should have put it on outbrain as “New Zealand sent some sheep to Mecca. You’ll be amazed what happened next.”
Brilliant scheme!
I like it!I can see that right next to "He assured them there were Weapons of Mass Destruction, so they went looking. You won't believe what went down after that!"
More and more the Jon Stewart/John Oliver approach to feeding facts to the public gets more cut-through than serious reportage and the more common once-over-lightly flimsy filler.
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Capture: Garden of Arcane Delights, in reply to JacksonP,
did they fall, or were they pushed?
All the leaves have been transferred efficiently from this tree to our lawn
Mulch ado about nubbins...
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Polity: Post "post-truth" post, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Meth – an foetid meme
the smell of purple spirit when making handouts*
or - when the spirit mauves you…
…there ends the purple reign? -
Fare of flying...
Last time I took a cab to airport in Chchch the driver asked if they could drop me off just before the entrance to the airport, so they didn't have to enter the area and be automatically subject to all the extra taxi charges.
They aren't allowed to just drive through and drop me off and leave apparently - that seems weird to me - I can understand the airport taking a whack for providing cab ranks for them to wait for a fare, but charging just to drop someone off in the drive through area seems over the top (as do their other charges - gouging I'd call it in light of the return to drivers). -
Capture: Garden of Arcane Delights, in reply to David Haywood,
My own visit to a park this morning…
Why do I get the idea that you may be in a frost-free zone...
:- )There seems to be some dangerous livestock loose on those roads!
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Hard News: Back in Christchurch, in reply to Jeanette King,
Non-stop Nonsense
The Margaret Mahy playground was such an inspired Council investment.
The Crown built that, not the Council, insisted on it (and coming in around $20 million you’d hope it might be okay) – it’s one of the few things they’ve completed, aside from the unholy monstrosity that looks like Mega City One aka the Justice and Emergency Services Precinct- also the only thing that technically deserves the name Precinct.
The Council owned City Care did get the contract to install the playground though and are turning a reasonable profit – but the council (because of the Government’s bullying) is selling some or all of City Care any minute now, so that in future we’ll pay through the nose to some (probably out of of town if not off shore) company for every bin that ‘s emptied and park that’s mowed, not to mention we do have a few repairs needed about the place – that money will now leave Chchch and its economy – that’s helpful, too.
All so we can pay ’our part’ of stuff we don’t want, like oversized Convention Centres that delusional Gerry and the Placemakers still hasn’t made a business case for or even quantified in any meaningful way – ditto for the stadium dead zone they want to put between the ‘Innovation Precinct’ and the now not as green ‘East Frame’ residential barrio….…the farcical nonsense that is the Innovation Precinct is an unenforceable piece of aspirational PR bullshit that now all the old Canterbury money has banded together to try and stop any ‘extra retail’ occurring in – what a bunch of sad tossers.
(they say they are doing it to test the validity/efficacy/legality of the ‘Blueprint’ – I think the real reason is they are scared of competition and realise their model is out of date) – what do they think is going to happen on the ground floor of all these buildings – I’m hoping they have innovative shops that are open when people finish work!I think I should stop now, it all makes me very, very irate…
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Renegotiation Of Christchurch City Council/Government Cost Share Agreement Should Wait Until After Local Body Election
Keep Our Assets Canterbury has consistently called for the Christchurch City Council/Government Cost Share Agreement (entered into by the 2010-13 Council headed by Mayor Bob Parker) to be renegotiated.
That is one obvious way to alleviate the pressure from central Government for the Council to have to sell public assets in order to pay for white elephant anchor projects (like the proposed covered rugby stadium in the CBD).
In June it was announced that just such a renegotiation is under way.
But the timing is all wrong.
It’s too close to the October local body election.
The motive for the Government is clear – to tie the hands of the incoming Council before it has even been elected (which is exactly what happened last time around).
By all means renegotiate – but wait until after a new Council has been elected.
Current Councillors (not all of whom are standing for re-election) have no mandate to tie the hands of their successors.
Nor, for that matter, do they have a mandate to sell City Care – because nobody campaigned to sell public assets at the 2013 election.
That sale has failed to meet the Council’s self-proclaimed June 30th deadline, which is even more reason why it should be left for the new Council.
From KOA
http://www.koa.org.nz/