Who needs saving?

After last week’s confession I have been asked how the evolution and expansion of the common law could deliver resource conservation and environmental protection.

By its nature, there’s no generic prescription but common law principles can be helpfully thought through for particular instances.

The advantage of the common law approach is its lack of prescription in favour of the consistent application of the principles of property, tort and contract law.

The common law doesn’t deliver an outcome but instead a set of rules that enables people to interact peacefully and freely while continuously discovering the best and proper use of precious resources.

That makes my head hurt.  What has this got to do with whales Rodney?  ’Cause we post anything about whales.  It’s policy.

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The Young Nats have got their remit wanting the government to remove Section 97 of the Employment Relations Act through the Norther Region conference today.

Only a few dirty lefties from the North Shore slopes were against it. Joseph Bergin (of the Devonport Local Board) and Matthew Piper should really hand in their membership cards for cuddling up to unions. They described the remit as a “gratuitous attack on unions”….Is there any other sort of attack on unions?

Joseph is now walking around the conference bending the ear of anyone who will listen at how aggrieved he is I called him a dirty leftie…well what did he xpect standing up and voicing support for unions at a National conference.

The Young Nats are pretty chuffed, as well they should be. Their press release says:

The NZ Young Nats are thrilled by the support for their remit to allow employers to take on temporary labour in the event of a strike or lockout, endorsed by the party’s Northern Convention this afternoon.

“Repealing section 97 will restore balance and fairness to the workplace,” says Northern Young Nats Chair, Brittany Raleigh.  Read more »

via guim.co.uk

The Captain of the Black Caps.

No, I’m not kidding.

You, or I, can no longer refer to … The Captain of the Black Caps by his actual name, unless we do so for the purposes of review, satire, or if we get a license from the NZ Herald to use, err, The Captain of the Black Caps’ name.

Don’t believe me?

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via The Verge

What is Two Factor Verification?  (Or 2FA, for the nerds)

It is when you log into a web site with a password, but then it sends you a TXT/SMS with a PIN code that you need to enter to gain proper access to the site.

And guess  what?

Dotcom invented it.

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The commies in Venezuela have found a solution to their massive bog paper shortage. Massive borrowing and forcing the peasants to eat less.

Venezuela’s lawmakers are rolling out plans to import toilet paper and allot a $79 million trade credit to help alleviate the country’s shortages on many basic goods.

Last week, commerce minister Alejandro Fleming promised he’d import 50 million rolls of toilet paper, but the recent overture comes in more than 10 million short, at 39 million rolls. Why exactly is unclear—the government neither addressed the discrepancy, nor has it been asked about it.

Still, the measure will help quell Venezuela’s short-term scarcity problems—besides toilet paper, milk, butter and coffee, among others—but still seems to lack long-term perspective. What happens a few months down the road when supplies diminish?  Read more »

Team IceRicers V-Log4: The Skislope from Redhouse media on Vimeo.

We now know that the newsrooms of the nation are filled with flunkies of the political left…not many people get to hold them to account, but Monckton does.

Here is his letter in response to a poorly written article in the paper:

Your report of my recent climate talk in Blenheim was inaccurate ["Lord entertains, but not everyone convinced", Express, May 22].

I did not ask the audience “if they believed climate change was happening”. It has been happening for 4567 million years. I asked how many thought man-made warming was dangerous. Six (3 per cent) thought so.

I received not only “criticism” but also congratulation from scientists and media. Give both sides, not just yours.  Read more »

Spotted at Eastridge, Mission Bay yesterday.  Alas, no parking tickets printed yet.  Plenty of other examples were available, just not as bad as this one.

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We are creating a nation of sooks where very soon w will have to send kids to school wrapped in bubblewrap.

A misguided health and safety culture is threatening to render children’s play meaningless, early childhood providers are to be warned.

The United Kingdom-based founder of Outdoor Play and Learning (Opal), Michael Follett, says a “policy of fear” has reshaped play to the extent that children are losing out on vital learning.

“You are taking away their ability to learn through primary, first-hand experience, which is how children actually learn.

“They need to fall over, they need to cut themselves, have bumps and bruises.

“If you over-protect, they don’t learn resilience.”

Life is full of knocks, bumps, grazes and falls. Best let kids experience that so they learn the ground is hard and corners are sharp.

Len Brown’s unitary plan may well be the undoing of him, that is if someone can find some courage to stand against him. meanwhile grassroots unrest is now turning into an insurgency against Len Brown and his plans for  Auckland.

John Roughan in the Herald explains.

I haven’t seen real suburban unrest before. This isn’t a “rates revolt” where people come to public meetings and sound off about an additional hundred dollars as though it matters. There is a deathly quiet about this plan.

We weren’t asked to vote on Tuesday night, just urged to send individual submissions to the council. Forms were distributed by a group organised to call for a “rethink” but our association wasn’t ready to endorse them.

Its founders are folk who believe more is to be gained in co-operation than combat. Just a month ago when the chairman circulated information on the council’s contentious metropolitan boundaries, he said he didn’t think it had much to do with Campbells Bay.

Nor did I – then.  Read more »