Posts by Matthew Littlewood
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Hard News: The Next Act, in reply to Russell Brown,
Have you actually seen the track? I think Karen's a hell of a lot more robust than you give her credit for. I wonder if HDPA has found her niche with this show.
Yeah, Karen gave as good as she got, and in reasonable humour, too. And it was a good punchline, too.
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I thought there were a lot of similarities between the Janet McIntyre interview with Paul Holmes and John Campbell's "sitdown" with David Lange back in 2005. Both were literally in their last days (I think Campbell's Lange piece was filmed less than a week before Lange passed away), both subjects were in an unusually reflective and sharpened mood, and both had a sense of being an obituary while the subject was still alive (Both interviewers regrettably, went for sentiment as a recourse, but perhaps that was understandable). Also, both were enlightening and even occasionally compelling television, in how they captured individuals whose "virtues were also their vices". For better or worse, both figures loomed large.
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More grist to the mill: More than 40 percent of Canterbury’s water-consent holders have not installed the compulsory water-meters. The Government announced the rule in 2010, with support across all parties, and the deadline was November 2012. No indication if/when ECan will fine those who aren't complying.
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Crikey editor-at-large Guy Rundle's latest, furious column is sadly hidden behind a paywall, but it's worth excerpting a couple of key paragraphs. (It's also worth subscribing to Crikey too, as it happens). He calls the latest incident a "pivot point in wretched gun debate".
Some key quotes:
There is no doubt that something has changed with this massacre, for obvious, if irrational reasons. This was the first large-scale primary school massacre in the US by a young person (rather than a disgruntled teacher), and the pull of guilt at a society's failure to protect its own children has become a powerful force against the homilies of the gun lobby. There was a similar sort of feeling at the time of the Columbine massacre, but less strong, even though the prospect of a teenager facing a violent and immediate death -- with the full knowledge of imminent extinction and a life missed out on -- seems equally horrific.
To continue the old "guns don't kill people, people do" shtick in the wake of all this, now seems not clever or persuasive, but obscene and obtuse. Subsequent events seemed to confirm that society was, in this respect, spinning out of control; on Sunday, a morning church service in Newtown's St Rose of Lima church had to be abandoned when bomb and gun threats were phoned in. The Huffington Post is now running a whole series of reports on individual murders here and there, to show the absolute carnage in a country, where nowadays you have to hit double figures to make an impact.
But more importantly:
Indeed a lot of the arguments that "there is nothing to see here" are spurious. It’s argued that the number of massacres hasn't gone up since the '20s. But in the '20s many of these massacres were "rational crime" -- they were either large family or clan feuds, gangsterism or the like. Much of this stuff now goes unreported. What passed for a massacre in the 20s, is Saturday night in Philadelphia now.
What has come out of the blue are stranger and semi-stranger massacres, which were almost unknown before World War II. Since Charles Starkweather, the killing of whole classes of people simply because they are co-workers, McDonald's patrons or school students has gone through the roof. In their rush to defend guns, the gun lobby ignore this important shift.
It's seriously worth tracking down, Rundle's anger is marshalled and absolutely on target (no pun intended).
Also, someone at Democratic Underground has compiled some of the best editorial cartoons in the wake of the shooting. The second one is simple, obvious, but undeniably powerful.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to mark taslov,
Studies done at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem concluded that people living in Beijing can expect to lose five or six years of their life based on the amount of pollution they breathe
Most of NZ's issues with air pollution- at least in terms of particulate pollution- are related to poor quality home heating and insulation (something, that, to this Government's credit, they've tried to address through EECA's Warm Up NZ scheme). However, it's pretty bad in many towns, particularly in Timaru, where I work.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/features/7318427/Something-in-the-air
(As an aside to my comment about ECan commissioners' extraordinary powers- looking at the legislation, it pertains to their setting plans, such as their current Land and Water Regional Plan.)
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There's more than talk to all this at the moment. This week's Listener editorial takes a well-informed looked at two developments:. First, the delivery to government of the Land and Water Forum's third and final report on water standards -- and the Environment Minister Amy Adams' subsequent sidelining of the forum in favour of "a seemingly secret group of officials
That's a really interesting comment- particularly considering the previous Environment Minister Nick Smith appeared to be hugely supportive of the forum, at least in public and in interviews. I was unaware of that development with regards to Amy Adams.
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Keir Leslie,
To be fair, ECan was dysfunctional, especially on water issues. Something needed to be done.
It's now a matter of public record (thanks to one of earlier MfE "document dumps" after the sacking of the ECan Councillors back in 2010) that way back in 2006 and again in 2007 and 2008, ECan chairman Kerry Burke and chief executive Bryan Jenkins consistently asked the (then-Labour) Government for special legislative powers to help them deal with the oncoming "gold rush" of water consent applications- such as the ability to declare "moratoriums" on at-risk catchments and a more specific national policy framework to work from (i.e. actual rules and limits that all RCs could use as a baseline). It really was a mess-at both a regional and national level.
Thanks to the ECan Act, the appointed commissioners have the ability to declare moratoriums on "at-risk" catchments.However- and here's the kicker- no one has the right to appeal any of the appointed ECan commissioners' decisions to Environment Court. You can only appeal on points of law, which is much, much more limited in scope. They are literally extraordinary powers.
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Hard News: Party on, dudes, in reply to HenryB,
And then when PA System came along, the discussions became broader and noisier and funnier and more controversial and social and different and exciting and always educational. So much discussion!
Noisy, funny, controversial, social, different, exciting, educational - says it all and says it for me. Congratulations RB and all.
Indeed, and as someone who reads more than posts, I'm often impressed by the quality of writing here. Long may it continue- and here's to meeting more of you in person.
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Hard News: The Righteous Humour, in reply to Tristan,
yeah I did on page one along with the maddow link…what do people have me blocked or something?
Of course not :) I guess my rhetorical phrasing of the "did anyone else notice" was a little on the nose. :)
On another note, I suspect the next few months of "bargaining" will provide ample fodder for the Daily Show...whether or not that's a good thing depends on the actual outcome....
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Hard News: The Big 2012 US Election PAS Thread, in reply to steve black,
Some context is that in "gold star" science you usually want to be 95 or 99 percent certain. Nate went with 92%, but he is more of a poker player I suspect.
Funnily enough, Silver's admitted he's used his skills in poker player to clean up in online and "friendly" tournaments. He once joked that he became interested in politics when various states started outlawing online poker so he began writing to Congressmen about it :)
Meanwhile, it looks like first of the Obama/House Republicans face-offs has already started.. I would expect Obama not to budge as easily as he done in the past.