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Thursday, April 30, 2009
The focus on government spending
Government spending per person in 1983/84, 2009 dollars, was $11,527.35. Government spending per person in 1995/96, 2009 dollars, was $11,292.22. Government spending reduced over this time saving each of us about $230.00 per year.
Yet government spending per person in 2008/09, 2009 dollars, was about $19,000.00. So between 1983 and 2009, the increase cost you about $7,500.00 per year. But which Government stole more?
National: $2,662.22 (4 years)
Labour: $4,905.41 (9 years)
Total: $7,567.63
This increased cost of Government for families is as follows:
Family of Three
Family of Four
Family of Five
Family of Six
Productivity, not government spending, is the driver of our wealth and wages. High productivity growth will deliver high wage growth. But unfortunately, high taxes and poor quality spending decrease productivity. We are paying for government twice – once through taxes, and once through lower wages.
Productivity growth from 1984 – 1990 was 2.8%. In 1990 – 2000 it was 2.5%, yet in 2000 - 2008 it was a mere 1.1%. This cost in lost wages adds up over time. The difference between 1% productivity growth and 3%, over ten years, is almost 25%. That is, policies which lowered our productivity growth have resulted in wages 25% lower than they would otherwise be. For the average wage earner, that's over $10,000 per year.
So what's the future?
Let's take a "two futures" look for the year 2021. If we do the same as we have done over the last 12 years from now till then government spending will be $31,500.00 for every man woman and child: the average income will be $54,600.00.
But with quality policies, which involve reduced government spending at just $19,000.00 for every man woman and child in New Zealand, plus inflation adjustments, the average income will be about $69,000.0.
Do you want a big government in 2021 or a small government? The burden of Government per person could be $31,500.00 or $19,000.00 and therefore an average wage of either $54,600.00 or $69,000.00.
Your choice.
Norman 'not a serious contender' says Standard 'Greenie'
Nothing Better To Do?
Adolf has no particular sympathy for trading banks.
However, every day people sign loan agreements with banks. These agreements are binding contracts between both parties, in which the financial penalties for breaking a fixed rate loan agreement (it's the agreement which is broken, not the mortgage, shit for brains journalists) are clearly stated.
When you break an agreement there are penalties. If you don't like the way your bank calculates break fees, go and find another bank. If you can't find a bank with break fees to your liking, DON'T BORROW the bloody money in the first place. Most of all, DON'T GO COMPLAINING to the Commerce Commission because you lost the bet on whether rates would go up or down.
Will New Zealanders ever grow up? Have they become so used to turning to Nanny State to bail them out of their own self made troubles?
If this is an example of how the Commerce Commission uses our tax dollars then it is a prime candidate for severe and immediate downsizing. Next thing you know, they'll be accusing McCains of collusion with Watties because both companies sell frozen peas which are the same colour. (At least they don't include the berries of Deadly Nightshade.)
I'd rather have another thousand hip replacements thanks.
Cullen gone - last nail in Labour's coffin
If he is going to go down in history as a wit then I'll believe half of what I hear.
I Still Can't Find It
The bloody recession, that is.
I see Fonterra is about to TREBLE its sales to China and has just cracked open the Egyptian market for its Anchor range of products. Sounds to me like the cow cockies will be having a pretty decent recession this time round. Anyone else picking better than $6.00 per Kg next year? With interest rates half the rate of a year ago?
The Herald reports that China is having a tough time because it's GDP increased by ONLY 6.1% in the first quarter of 2009.
Well folks, so much for the world wide recession. China appears to be not part of the world because recession means your GDP is in decline (euphemistically termed negative growth) for two consecutive quarters.
"China has reported its worst economic growth data since 1992. Growth slowed in the first quarter of this year to 6.1 per cent, but some analysts see signs of a recovery with hope that the last quarter was the trough.
Growth was 6.8 per cent in the last quarter of last year, but the first-quarter GDP figure dropped as exports fell 17 per cent last month."Accordingly, Adolf asks that journalists cease the use of this outrageously exaggerated term 'world wide recession.' It is damaging negative propaganda and it is a lie.
I wonder how certain other countries are getting on? The ones which do not suffer from tax and spend socialist governments and their cradle to the grave social services and bloated public services? No doubt NZ, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Canada are in recession but what about India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore?
Where can I get a look at their 2009 first quarter figures?
Update: From the OECD website - final quarter 2008:-
India ....... GDP 5.92
Indonesia GDP 7.78
Czech RepGDP 0.32
France .....GDP 0.88
Germany .GDP 1.17
So there you go. It's a world wide recession which doesn't include China, Indonesia and India - must be nearly half the world's population.
Michael Cullen's valedictory
What were his four main low points?
- The failure to stop the philistine obscenity of the Clyde high dam.
- The lack of consensus around the foreshore and seabed issue.
- The difficulty of getting a simple approach to the problem of leaky homes.
- The failure to get the majority of the press gallery to understand fiscal policy.
What does that tell you.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Champions League 2009: Arsenal v Manchester United
The title to this post alone should get us a few hundred overseas hits and raise our stats counter.
Tomorrow, 6:45am NZT, The Arse v Man U at Old Trafford, Leg 1.
In about a week's time Cactus will be ~ $250 poorer and writing in glowing terms on her blog about Arsenal.
Advertorial. New magazine available now.
New title available at all good book stores tomorrow morning.
Dick Cheney: This is a must read for all right thinking people.
Haliburton: This is a must read for all gun owners wanting to put their weapons to profitable use.
Phil Goff: Use of mercenaries is paid murder, but the cartoons in this magazine are really cool.
From the brain of Barnsley Bill... Actual komputer creation courtesy of the Death Star
The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides...
And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger... those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers!
STILL PONDERING WHETHER I (or any other person as partisan as me) WOULD BE SUITABLE TO WORK IN THE PARLIAMENTARY LIBRARY.
Perhaps my three regular readers (yes, that includes you mum) could advise whether a ranting hate monger from the right (or left) should be trusted to offer impartial research assistance to our parliament.
Antarctica is a big girl's blouse
But isn't Antarctica just bloody soft? I mean, climate change, if it has occurred at all, might have raised the temperature in Antarctica over the last 100 years by...............wait for it...............3 degrees. Yep, a whole 3 degrees. So if we apply averages to that, Antarctica has gone from its usual average of -49 (that's minus 49!) to - 46 (minus 46!). That's not during the last year, but the last hundred!
If Antarctic ice can't handle that then we are well and truly stuffed because it shows how fragile the World really is.
If the World is this fragile, that it cannot handlel a minuscue increase in temperature without ice breaking up all over the place, then I'm buggered if I'm going to spend my only life on this planet worrying about trying to save it when on this evidence it cannot be saved.
Antarctica is a big girl's blouse that can't handle a little hot air.
Pic stolen from FFM.
From Mesopotamia to Mt Albert: The politics of left-wing amnesia!
Indeed, Tim Selwyn at Tumeke! says its endless debates over Iraq helped create the Tumeke! blog.
But what gave the debate added frission was the evidence that senior Democrats like Hillary Clinton and Al Gore believed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that George Bush was right in trying to remove him.
As for President Pantywaist, he too will have changed his views with the political wind.
How the Democrats have changed their views over the years, out of political opportunism, or what, becomes ever clearer with a few more embarrassing facts.
Just as President Pantywaist is revealing various details of how, why and where the US carried out certain practices like waterboarding, we see senior Democrats up to their neck in it, despite Pantywaist's attempts to release information to embarrass the old Bush presidency.
Andrew Bolt has published some comments from former CIA director Porter Gross, accusing the Donks of a 'disturbing epidemic of amnesia' while giving away too many secrets that help our enemies.
His op-ed in the Washington Post tells more.
The Wall Street Journal looks at the issue further in The Politics of Liberal Amnesia.
House speaker and arch lefty Nancy Pelosi seems the greatest sufferer with her coming under greatest scrutiny, of more from bloggers and sympathetic media, rather than the MSM.
The Bulletin of Philadelphia says she has conclusively lied over her denials of previously approving such waterboarding.
But apparently,Pelosi now wants records kept secret.
And as Democrats talk of indicting George Bush, Dick Cheney and other prominent Republicans over the interrogation techniques, aren't Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats like Harry Reid now equally guilty of 'war crimes' and shouldn't they also face trial for allowing waterboarding?
Of course, I have no problem with waterboarding as a technique itself.
The issue is also not so much about state secrecy but one of rank hypocrisy.
Indeed, back in New Zealand, looking at the Mt Albert by-election, that is what makes the Shearer revelations all the more interesting.
Labour looks set to stand a candidate whose rightist beliefs, learnt at the foot of Rodney Hide, conflict with everything the Labour Party supposedly believes.
Its leader Phil Goff has been seen as a rightwinger by Labour standards, but Shearer's views on private armies would even put him on the right of ACT, even some libertarians.
Fortunately, Shearer has owned up to his beliefs, especially when confronted with concrete evidence of them, even if the Liarbour leadership would prefer to forget them and wish they not might exist.
But considering how lefties everywhere can be exposed for hiding their previous views, I am sure 'the Politics of Labour Amnesia' could well make an excellent subject for an article on the Labour candidates for Mt Albert, as well as what it did concerning what top US Democrats actually believed, condoned and supported during the War in Iraq!
More Crap From The Herald
'Insensitive' insurance company forced to pay worker $17,000But wait.
It's not an insurance company, its a pissant back yard insurance broker.
Insurance companies are major corporates who generally treat their staff very well.
Insurance brokers are often erstwhile backyard fraudsters who operate on a shoe string and treat their staff like newly arrive dog turds.
I hope the Insurance Council brings a complaint.
Another Sign Post
Do we need a ministry for men??
ACT's Trojan Horse
The sleeper's name is David Shearer.
When you read his paper on privatization of the armed forces and then look at his subsequent opinions on privatization, published when he was a member of Phil Goff's staff, no less, you begin to wonder exactly what Mr Goff meant when he described Mr Shearer as 'a very special person. (AVSP)
His 'specialness' appears to be an uncanny ability to make ACT MP David Garrett look like a weepy eyed liberal by comparison. In that he has been consistent all the way through. No flip flops from this right wing hard liner.
All the Gnats have to do is put up a couple of platoons of school cadets marching though the streets of Mt Albert with bayonets fixed and rifles at the slope, shouting "Labour's Private Army" in between singing verses of the Waffen SS's favorite Wagnarian marching songs.
What will Labour do next? Put up Dr Michael Bassett as their new 'surprise' candidate? You'd think they would at least had enough political nous to put up someone called Clark.
Sad news
What annoys me is this statement.
"Hundreds of jobs are at stake and we are sure that poor management is at the heart of the problem," said the secretary of the union's clothing and textiles section, Maxine Gay.
Talk about kicking the owner Ken Anderson in the balls. I don't know Mr Anderson but I would imagine that he didn't invest in LWR only to mismanage the company into oblivion. Mrs/Miss/Ms Gay should make constructive comments or pull her head in.
Maybe Ken's problem was banking with Westpac.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Gore exposed as money-grabbing fraud,just like global warming!
The book comes as Australia also has a similar publication attacking the current orthodoxy that man's activities are causing 'global warming.'
Anyway, the best news on the climate change front this week just emphasises how much of it appears to be a con- a ruse by governments everywhere to increase tax revenues and control of economies.
Indeed, New Zealand's own emissions trading programme would have left our government with a $22 billion surplus as well as bring in a host of legislation and controls.
Well, over in the USA, government hearings into proposed emissions trading legislation has heard a Democratic Congressman admit its ETS plans are a 'great tax.'
Better still was Al Gore being exposed as someone who will profit greatly from cap and trade legislation.
Gore also lied about his financial dealings too.
Indeed, it pays to go green and make millions from spreading fear.
But what can we expect from Al Gore, whose house hypocritically uses far more power than the one George W Bush has!
Oh and how is that Global Warming coming along?
In retreat like those fabled glaciers, it seems.
Ditto in Australia, and I saw plenty of snow on Ruapehu and the Kaikoura ranges last week!
Just as events gave Ian Wishart plenty of fresh material for new chapters when he published Absolute Power a year ago, thus it will be the same this time round, with plenty of new material to back his case in Air Con.
New No 1 Best Seller
Subtitled "How The left Was Spun," this fascinating story of lust, deceit, betrayal and pure dumb arsed political naivete could have been written by Ludlam.
From the invisible party leader, the cast ranges though the carpet bagging neo fascist ring in 'good guy', a neophyte teenage party hack, the aging bumbling apparatchiks, the desperate but futile press releases, leading up to the thrilling denouement of a by-election in which any one can win.
Anyone but Labour, that is.
The Recession Is Over
Today Fonterra increased the milk solids payout for the current season. Expect more to come.
"Powder prices on our global Dairy Trade platform have increased and our global sales team has made good progress in selling product at these improved prices. As a result, we now have the cautious optimism necessary to signal a modest but welcome increase in payout."
Those with eyes and ears have seen this coming for some time. The world cycle for dairy products started to trend upwards some months ago but there was little media comment. Fonterra cracked the Egyptian market recently and expects sales to China to triple in the near term.
You can be sure this will have been one of the reasons for PM John Key's optimistic assessment of our ability to come out of recession sooner, rather than later.
Astute watchers have been keeping a close eye on lamb prices as well. A typical 17kg lamb which would have fetched $60 last year is currently bringing $95 and is expected to sell for up to $120 next season. Some recession!
These things all mean prosperity for New Zealand about which Treasury had not the faintest idea when it issued it's gloomy predictions before Christmas.
Top 10 Quintessential Kiwi Foods
Right at the very top of the list is NZ's traditional national dish.
1. Roast lamb (Merino/South Suffolk cross - killed at 14 months) and mint sauce, accompanied by steamed new potaoes, fresh green peas and sweet corn on the cob, all with lashings of butter.
2. Carefully prepared Maori hangi - pork, mutton, potato, kumara, beet root, puha.
3. Steamed pipi, cockles and kutai (mussels) with lots of fresh bread and butter.
4. Steamed Tarakihi or Hapuka with mashed potato and kumara (combined) and plenty of fresh greens. Plenty of salt and cracked black pepper along with lemon juice over the fish.
5. An eighteen inch long slab of sirloin steak, turned on the char grill for forty minutes while continually basted in a brew compising red wine, worchester sauce, tomato sauce, hot chilli sauce, garlic, soy sauce, balsamic viegar and any thing else which gets in the road. Black on the outside, nipple pink in the middle. Char grilled vegies on the side.
6. Steam pudding with custard sauce.
7. Roast chicken with roast vegies and silver beet. Lotsa gravy.
8. Bacon and eggs with baked beans and tomato.
9. TipTop Icecream
10. KFC for South Aucklanders.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Dunne up to his old tricks
The reporter may as well have gone straight to the last line.
"Prime Minister John Key could not be reached for comment last night"
Maybe Worth Has Value?
Maybe there's a clue in Mr Key's pragmatic approach to politics - 'what's good for New Zealand is what we'll do.'
Last week Adolf posted on those countries which are NOT in recession. These represent a surprisingly large swathe of the world's population. They include China, Indonesia and INDIA.
Richard Worth appears to have close contacts and a long association with New Zealand's Indian community and with business people in India itself. Here lies the Key philosophy. If we want to get out of recession quickly then we need to rapidly expand our trade with countries which can afford to and want to buy our goods. That means India. That means Richard Worth might be able to help make it happen.
Adolf predicts MP Richard Worth will shortly resign as a list MP and accept a specially created role as New Zealand Business Ambassador to India, based in Mumbai and reporting directly to the PM.
Just goes to show, everybody has some value, if little worth.
Phil, send the signs back, the signwriter missed a line
Putting Mt Albert first.
Unusual billboard when you consider Labour and it's blog mouthpiece are doing anything but putting Mt Albert first.
Is forcing Twyford to stand aside putting Mt Albert first?
Is trying to squash Meg Bates candidacy putting Mt Albert first?
Is flying in a carpet bagger, a failed candidate from previous elections, a man who is rumoured to be from the Roger Douglas end of the old Labour party, a man whose sole qualification seems to be being an old school buddy of Goff putting Mt Albert first?
I don't think so.
Putting aside the fact that labour and it's blog mouthpiece have developed a testicular torsion brought on by the Machiavellian manipulations of Blofeld and Darth Blogger they really have shown themselves up for the command and control clowns that they are.
Using senior labour staffers to run the on the ground campaign while still blogging "anonymously" at the Standard is a plan doomed to fail.
Labour will win the by-election, but at what long term cost to their credibility and Leader?
The Clark faction led by the Tizard trough feeding dynasty and the Edwards family is pushing hard for Bates while the parliamentary leader is pushing for his school chum. This will end in tears.
NZ Govt Acts Decisively
"Mr Key said the Government was invoking its flu plan and health officials hiked the potential influenza epidemic status to yellow, just below the code red response phase."I think New Zealanders can be confident that the government has a plan............."
In addition, all Labour Party MPs, party office bearers and union officials are to be immediately screened to make sure the swine aren't infected. (To ensure compliance, arrest warrants have been issued for ex president Mike Williams on account of his swinish visage and demeanor. It is suspected he was a latent carrier of the desease during the 2008 election campaign.)
Labour Party public meetings will be restricted to a maximum of twenty attendees.
For the duration of the emergency, all commercial piggeries are off limits to Labour Party members and trade union officials so as to ensure the swine don't infect the national pig stocks.
Party leader Phil Goff said "These restrictions will have little adverse effect on our campaign for Mt Albert as we don't ever get more than fifteen people at our meetings.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Please help Phil
The Labour Party today released this photo of their candidate for the upcoming Mt Albert byelection, seen here delivering pledge cards. Anyone knowing the identity or whereabouts of this person is asked to contact the Labour Party immediately on 0900 MISSUHEL*, so Phil can do a proper campaign launch.
*a $20 donation to the Labour Party will be deducted from your account.
Only One Pea In Three
I linked the sacrifices made last century to what I think are the threats to our way of life today.
Arthur Lloyd sacrificed his life in a simpler world. He could literally look his enemy in the eye over some rotten piece of no man's land. His enemy had a spiked helmet, bolt action rifle and bayonet.
As many better people than me have pointed out, we are spending what he and thousands like him paid for.
If I ever had the opportunity to talk to my 20 year old ancestor and ask him his view, I am picking that he would tell me something along these lines.
"My enemy is not the rifle or the bayonet but the man behind it. That man may be an innocent 20 year old like me but we are all caught up in forces greater than us as individuals. Regardless, he is the threat I must deal with today"
And if I could ask him for advice, maybe he would tell me
"Know your enemy because he knows you"
Now I have lived through the cold war. I remember, as a 14 year old, being taken to South Korea by my war veteran father. We visited Panmunjeom, the village in the middle of the Demilitarised Zone, where the original peace talks were held. This was a surreal place were 6 foot 2 inch American GI's towered over their North Korean counterparts and a meeting room was set exactly on the border. The table had a line running down the middle. Everything had its place down to the size and position of the little flags on either side. No quarter was asked for or given. This was the absolute coal face between the West and Communism. There you could still look your enemy in the eye.
Now 35 years on, I have had a great life spending the freedom paid for by past generations. I have had the luxury of a good education, traveled freely around the world and had business opportunities my ancestor's would not have thought possible. Thankfully I have never had to look an enemy directly in the eye.
But does that mean that they don't exist? No.
Many human threats exist to our lifestyle and more importantly, the future lifestyle of our children. In fact baring natural disasters, which can be partially mitigated by risk management, 99% of all threats are from other humans. The problem is that now they don't come clearly labelled with bolt action rifles and bayonets.
I won't name them here because that is not the purpose of this post.
I merely point out that I for one will not waste the lesson that Arthur left for me on the fields of France.
Another one for Macdoctor's list
Somehow one branch falling on a powerline equates to the RWC being an unmitigated disaster
McCarten Calls Mt Albert.
......The bloggers claimed that Twyford's campaign would be overshadowed by the furore of the supposedly unpopular Tizard slipping back into Parliament.
Privately, none of the bloggers believed that their strategy would amount to much, but were incredulous when certain media players started taking it seriously.
What gobsmacked the bloggers particularly - and fatally for Twyford - was that the Labour Party panicked. "
You see, McCarten just could not bring himself to write the words 'Kiwiblog' and "Whaleoil" as he blamed unspecified evil 'right wing bloggers' for the Labour Party's forthcoming loss of the Mt Albert By election.
(Adolf can picture him sitting there, eyes screwed up tight, white knuckles gripping his pen, hand shaking. Anger welling up at the sheer incompetence of the bimbos over at the Labour Party's outlet for flatulence, The Standard. He's right of course. Both Whaleoil and David Farrar are intelligent successful men while the Standard is run by pimply faced school kids.)
Yes, that's right. Before the candidates are even chosen, McCarten is calling a win for National.
Of course he doesn't actually SAY that but you can smell it in everything he says. The left has thrown in the towel before the race even starts.
McCarten even gives the tortured Phil Goff the political doup de grace he deserves.
"If I was a Labour MP I wouldn't volunteer to share a foxhole with Goff when the shooting starts."
Saturday, April 25, 2009
But What About The Successes?
This time it's the losses incurred by Auckland City Council's trading arm, The Edge. The Edge runs, among other things, the Aotea Centre and Aotea Square. According to its website it is required as well to provide for a number of non profit activities for which funds are provided by the council.
The big whinge from the Herald and others is that recently The Edge made a trading loss of some $1.9 million on a production of My Fair Lady. This somehow was likened to the ARC's disastrous Beckham debacle.
Adolf would feel better informed if he knew how many times and to what value The Edge has turned a profit for the rate payers of Auckland,
Accordingly he has written and asked for copies of the organisation's last five year's profit and loss accounts. (For wet behind the ears accounting graduates that's real English for "statements of financial performance.)
I'm more than intrigued as to why Mayor Banks has not called for this information.
Could it be that there has been no profit?
If so, the first thing he should do when he is elected Lord Mayor is to sell off all these unprofitable liabilities with their associated bricks and mortar to private companies who will take the decisions necessary to render them profitable. Then all his grand council will have to do is pay the businesses to provide the council designated non profit activities.
If he's not prepared to do that then he is no more than just another Fiddler on The Hoof
Pvte Arthur Thomas Lloyd, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, my Grandmother's brother.
Killed in action in the field, France, 1st September 1916, aged 20.
I am thankful that my Grandfather returned, likewise my 2 Uncles from WW2 and my own father from Korea.
War takes much but also gives much.
We were given the precious gift of freedom and in many respects, a gift that we are now squandering.
We have lived well on the back of those sacrifices but those days are drawing to an end.
Like all centuries before, this one also poses a new set of challenges. We would be fools to think that mankind will live in peace forever more.
As I read, hand painted on the back of a truck in Niger many years ago
"Life is war have a safe journey"
There are many dangerous people out there.
Environmentalists who deny our very right to exist.
Socialists who desire to tell us how to live.
Muslims who wish to impose their beliefs on our culture.
Each time we take a single step back we are just bringing the new risks one step closer.
Update. Right on cue, a gutless, anonymous apologist who rates my ancestor's and every other fallen soldier's sacrifice worthy of a 4/5 rating. These are the people who take not one but 2 steps back.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Now this is a conference I would like to go to
Let's hope the organisers and attendees have read this post and this post.
It's good to see acknowledgment that the USA's War on Drugs has been an abject failure, except for the prison construction industry.
Facts: the USA has spent $US 1,000,000,000,000.00 [One Trillion dollars] on the issue; the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) budget in 1971 was $75 million dollars, in 2001 it was $1.6 Billion; as a result of this "war on drugs" drug arrests quadrupled and the percentage of prison inmates committed for drug offences increased from 26% in 1973 to 56% in 2001; yet the drug 'problem', and of course related crime problems, have got worse.
The War is lost. Time for a new direction.
Auckland Governance referendum
Do you agree that the Auckland region should be governed by a Super City council that has a vision for Auckland that Auckland needs an overarching vision for the region uniting Aucklanders to achieve prosperity for all, quality of place and lifestyle, and enhanced well-being for the region's diverse and growing population; and that the Auckland Council should include a vision for the region in its spatial plan; and that the Mayor of Auckland's annual "State of the Region" address should describe progress towards the attainment of the vision; and that Auckland needs governance structures for economic development capable of working effectively with central government to address major regional issues as well as meeting the localised needs of Auckland's communities and businesses; and that partnership should be developed between central government and Auckland's local government to address the region's long-term economic development and to formulate immediate responses to the current economic conditions; and that the Auckland Council should adopt a comprehensive regional economic development plan and an associated funding plan; and that the Auckland Council should establish a) a regional economic development agency within the Auckland Council with functions and activities b) local economic development agencies reporting to the regional economic development agency (existing economic development agencies may be retained where appropriate) & c) a high-level, regional cross-sectoral advisory board comprising representatives of central government, local councils, business, education, and not-for-profit organisations; and that the regional economic development agency should take an innovative approach to developing long-term funding relationships, drawing funding from the regional budget, central government economic development programmes, and the private sector on specific projects; and that the transition should comprise of a Cabinet Committee and Minister for Auckland which should begin work immediately with the Establishment Board to lay the ground for the Auckland Council's work in priority areas, including the Rugby World Cup 2011 and broadband; and that as a basis for future decision making by the Auckland Council, the Establishment Board should review whether existing local economic development programmes are delivering value for money; and that Urban Design, and Heritage Auckland needs governance arrangements for the region's built and natural environments to ensure Auckland's quality of place is maintained and enhanced; and that the Auckland Council should establish an Urban Design Panel to review all major developments throughout the Auckland region, with sign-off power for major projects; and that the Auckland Council should establish a Heritage Advisory Panel to assist it with the identification of heritage buildings and places, and the formulation of rules to ensure their preservation; and that the Auckland Council and the Northland Regional Council should develop a co-management regime in respect of the Kaipara Harbour, involving relevant territorial authorities and mana whenua representatives from local iwi with the final structure and responsibilities to be determined by the Auckland Council and the Northland Regional Council; and that the Auckland Council should a) undertake environmental monitoring (potentially in collaboration with the Ministry for the Environment) b) benchmark progress and collaborate with central government on environmental programmes, including the limiting of air pollution from motor vehicle emissions c) appoint a park ranger with responsibility for volcanic cones d) prepare an internal code of conduct including procedures to manage councillors' involvement in individual regulatory decisions; and that central and local government's annual social well-being spend is in the vicinity of $12 billion in the Auckland region so it is critical that these resources are applied effectively, to achieve the best outcomes and accordingly, Auckland needs a governance structure for social well-being that enables local and central government to share decision making and accountability for improving the effectiveness of resources spent, and addressing the critical social issues in Auckland; and that a Social Issues Board should be established as the main governance body for social issues, with central and local government membership with the powers of the Social Issues Board to be set out in Terms of Reference approved by the Cabinet Committee for Auckland and the Auckland Council; and that the Social Issues Board should develop a Social Well-Being Strategy and Implementation/Funding Plan with a Social Issues Advisory Group of officials to be established to support the Social Issues Board which should be co-funded by central and local government with responsibilities; and that the Auckland Council role should centre on providing leadership and facilitating improved social well-being outcomes but direct delivery of social well-being services by the Auckland Council should not duplicate central government responsibilities and should be part of the Social Well-Being Strategy and Implementation/Funding Plan; and that the Government should give consideration to aligning geographic boundaries of local government and central government agencies responsible for the delivery of social well-being services; and that the Establishment Board should ensure the necessary structures and processes are in place to ensure that the Social Issues Board, the Social Issues Advisory Group, and the Auckland Council are able to commence work on their immediate priorities; and that Auckland needs governance structures that promote the benefits of diversity and support culture and recreation; and that The Mayor of Auckland should take a leadership and advocacy role in promoting and welcoming diversity, and encouraging acceptance of migrants and minority groups in Auckland; and that the Auckland Council should establish two advisory panels, one relating to the arts and the other to recreation and with the assistance of the advisory panels, it should develop strategies for regional arts and recreation activities and their associated funding; and that Local councils should be responsible for implementing culture and recreation policies in their communities, partnering with local groups where appropriate, and representing the views of local communities at regional level; and that the Auckland Council should consider establishing a council-controlled organisation ("CCO") to hold and to operate the regional arts, entertainment, convention, and major event facilities; and that the Government should give consideration to the introduction of a four-year electoral term for local authorities in New Zealand; and that the Auckland Council as a unitary authority should be formed to assume all local government responsibilities in the Auckland region; and that when the Auckland Council is established, the following existing local authorities should be abolished:Rodney District Council, North Shore City,Council, Waitakere City Council, Auckland City Council, Manukau City Council, Papakura District Council, Franklin District Council, Auckland Regional Council; and that the Auckland Council should operate and have representation at two levels: the elected Auckland Council, and six local councils; and that all local councils should be given Māori names and these should be determined by the Local Government Commission after consultation with mana whenua, with the new Māori names used by the Commission being the suggested starting point for consideration with the interim names of the six local councils to beRodney Local Council, Waitemata Local Council, Waitakere Local Council, Tāmaki-makau-rau Local Council, Manukau Local Council, Hunua Local Council; and that the Auckland Council should comprise a single organisation, with a single staffing and management structure which should employ one chief executive officer, who will employ all other council staff (but not staff of council-controlled organisations) at both Auckland and local levels, including local council managers for each local council; and that staff from the eight abolished councils should be transferred to the Auckland Council, at least initially; and that local councils should share the governance of their areas with the Auckland Council but will be subsidiary to it; and that the Mayor of Auckland should preside over the Auckland Council and should be elected at large by the electors of Auckland; and that the Auckland Town Hall should be the symbolic centre for the Auckland Council; and that when the Auckland Council is established, all existing community boards within the territories of the abolished local authorities, except for the Waiheke and Great Barrier Island Community Boards, should be abolished and a new City Centre and Waterfront Community Board should be established; and that the assets and liabilities of abolished territorial authorities and of the Auckland Regional Council should be transferred to Auckland Council. However, a fair apportionment of the assets and liabilities of the Franklin District Council and Auckland Regional Council should be made between the Auckland Council, the Waikato District Council, and the Waikato Regional Council, to reflect the boundary changes proposed by the Commission; such apportionment to be made in accordance with the Local Government Act 2002, Schedule 3, clause 69; and that all existing interests in council organisations, council-controlled organisations, and exempt organisations held by current councils should be transferred to the Auckland Council on the establishment date; and that the Establishment Board should develop the proposed structure of the elected Auckland Council and local councils (including the committee structure and advisory panels and groups); and that the Establishment Board should develop the proposed organisational structure of the Auckland Council which will include defining the key roles and positions for council administration, staffing levels, staff locations, and the systems necessary for the Auckland Council to operate on the establishment date; and that the Establishment Board should review the functions and activities currently carried out by the Auckland Regional Council and seven territorial authorities, identifying those that will continue to be carried out by local councils, and those relevant functions and activities to be undertaken directly by the Auckland Council; and that the Establishment Board should determine the location of council offices (particularly Auckland Council, and Tāmaki-makau-rau and Rodney Local Councils) and service centres; and that the elected Auckland Council composition, role, and functions should comprise 23 councillors elected or appointed as follows:10 councillors elected at large, eight councillors elected in four urban wards, two councillors elected in two rural wards, two councillors elected at large by voters on the Māori electoral roll, one councillor appointed by the Mana Whenua Forum; and that the role and functions of the Auckland Council should be as prescribed for unitary authorities under the Local Government Act 2002 and other legislation, and as may be additionally prescribed in any future legislation referring specifically to the Auckland Council or any of the abolished local authorities; and that the Auckland Council should be responsible for all asset management, debt management, and revenue raising. It will also develop one set of financial plans and policies for Auckland; and that there will be one rating system for Auckland and ratepayers will receive one rates bill; and that the Auckland Council should operate a hierarchical and integrated planning framework; and that there will be a new regional spatial plan and one district plan for Auckland; and that the Auckland Council should be responsible for the production of the long-term council community plan and annual plans as required by the Local Government Act 2002, for its own operations and the operations of local councils. There will be one long-term plan and annual plan for Auckland; and that the Auckland Council should establish advisory panels and groups as necessary to ensure appropriate expertise is available to it and the Auckland Council will appoint an Appointments Advisory Panel which will assist the Auckland Council to recruit directors or representatives to serve on boards of council-controlled organisations, external entities (for example the Auckland Museum Trust Board), advisory panels, and forums; and that the relationship between Auckland Council and each local council should be governed by a three-yearly governance agreement negotiated in the year following each local body election; and that the Auckland Council's annual report under the Local Government Act 2002 should include separate sections on the operations of the elected Auckland Council and each local council; and that the State Services Commissioner should be asked to assist in developing the job description and design of the performance management framework, and in conducting the initial screening and short-listing for the chief executive; and that the Government should enter into a partnership agreement with the Auckland Council and appoint a senior Government minister as Minister for Auckland; in addition it should appoint a Cabinet Committee for Auckland comprising Ministers with portfolios of significance to Auckland, and the Cabinet Committee should be supported by an officials committee; and that the functions of the Cabinet Committee for Auckland should include a) consulting with the Auckland Council through the Minister for Auckland b) setting priorities for Government spending in Auckland and deciding on the allocation of discretionary funding c) overseeing events of international significance affecting Auckland; and that the Auckland Council should meet regularly with representatives of the neighbouring regions of Northland, Waikato, and Bay of Plenty to consider issues of mutual interest; and that the Minister for Auckland should consider convening an annual forum comprising the Auckland Council and relevant interest groups (including regional and territorial councils and business groups) from the Northland, Waikato, and Bay of Plenty regions to discuss matters of mutual and topical interest; and that the Establishment Board should review all current council advisory panels and groups and report to the Auckland Council on which current advisory groups should be continued by the Auckland Council and the Establishment Board should appoint an interim Appointments Advisory Panel which will assist the Establishment Board to a) undertake the review of existing advisory panels described above b) prepare draft terms of reference for new and continuing advisory panels c) identify potential candidates for such panels d) recruit interim directors for council-controlled organisations, as necessary.
These are the Royal Commission's recommendations succintly put together into question format just for the referendum.
So what's it gonna be? Yes, or no.
UPDATE: I see over at The Standard this morning they suggest the question is simply: " Do you support the super-city that the Government proposes?". That's worth a post tonight but for now the only referendum Aucklanders will get will be in about October 2011.
Arm wrussling for Mt Albert
I am sure he will again be campaigning on being "mainstream" but the reality is that once Jreenette goes, poor old malecoleader Russel is going to have a foot on both sides of the proverbial electric fence. Wackos on one side and a MOU with National on the other.
Talk about doing a Dunne and having a foot in both camps.
All I can see is pain, followed by extinction.
(and National taking another Labour scalp)
David Farrar and Russell Brown in new alliance!!
A New Leader of the Oppostion?
You saw it first here at No Minister on April 14th - ten days ago.
Clark's legacy just keeps on keeping on. The destruction of the Labour Party.
The latest blow is the decision by The Greens to field a high profile candidate in the Mt Albert by-election. Adolf wonders if it will be Russel Norman himself. Yep. Sure is!
A win for him in Mt Albert would catapult The Greens into prominence and a substantial increase in support at the next general election - possibly more seats than Labour.
Congratulation are in order for The Greens. At last they have divorced themselves from their erstwhile fickle friends who gave them nothing and took everything for nine long years. They will guarantee themselves success in 2001 if now they can remove their communistic rump and transform themselves into a SANE environmental party.
NZ Labour reminds Adolf of the hapless but once powerful battleship Bismark, sailing in circles with it's rudder jammed by an attack from seemingly ineffective string bag WWI torpedo bombers (The Maori Party) while an overwhelming force descends upon it (NACTionalMPGP) and prepares to deliver the coup de grace.
The only real difference is that in 2009, the rear admiral and the kapitan managed to scuttle away to the safety of foreign shore before their ship sank.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Bill's too big already Bill! Life is taxing enough!
Some Very Fishy Dots............................................???
World domination by a UN with its own armed forces.
Here's a snippet from Ian Wishart's piece.
The UN, with two parliaments, one for the nations as exists now and another for individual parliamentarians, would gradually take over responsibility for the military forces of nation states, and control world economic flows.
The briefing paper draws heavily on reports by Kemal Dervis, Helen Clark's predecessor as UN Development Programme head, which indicates Socialist International has been working closely in plans to reform the United Nations along these lines.
This is a euphemistic description of Soviet style world domination.
So it is no wonder Adolf's antennae twitched a little when yesterday's Herald announced that the Labour Party is favouring a new candidate for Mt Albert. One David Shearer, currently Middle East chief of which organisation? Yep, Helen Clark's very own UNDP.
Ask yourself, how does a humble secondary school science teacher from Papatoetoe quickly rise through the ranks of the UN to such a senior position in one of the world's most corrupt organisations?
How is it that he suddenly and conveniently is able to front up for what has been a safe Labour seat for decades?
Is he, like Helen Clark, a member of Socialist International?
Is this fellow to be our representative in the Socialists' brave New World Order?
Will he take the May Day salute?
There is much work here for New Zealand's few remaining competent journalists.
Go to it, Mr Gibson.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Spare a thought for Poor Phil-in!!!
At long last you have achieved what you have always wanted- the leadership of the Liarbour Party.
But is it what you expected?
You come after a huge towering figure, one who made her mark on the country, for better or worse.
Who could follow her record? Who could also make as much an impact? Who?
Indeed, as you see the first poll results you are but an invisible pygmy. An impotent midget against a most virile colossus.
Phil Who? Phil-in, Mr Invisible? It all sounds so cruel and most unfair.
You bided your time and served loyally. But it seems your party has just set you up for the fall.
You compete against a fresh new prime minister who it seems cannot put a foot wrong.
He looks like he will be around forever, whereas you are older, a relic from the 1980s when the rookie PM was but a boy.
You note the economy is turning to custard and try and push him on policy, saying the country needs some extra stimulation, some extra spending.
But it's a hard task convincing a man who madeh is money on the markets and has a sounder grasp of economics than you will ever have.
It makes the task even harder that your former government spent all the money when the sun shone, saved nothing for our rainy day, and left debts so large the markets would downgrade the country's credit rating if they spent more, like you seek.
Deep down you know you cannot push the issue too far, for you were a senior man in the old government, even if others made the decisions, but you'd be blamed all the same. You are but tainted, tainted by their failed government, the government you once served in.
Indeed you tried to break free, mooting a change on the smacking bill, but you decided you better not run the wrath of your party. You have enough on your hands dealing with the opposition now serving in government, never mind the opposition in your own party, the left faction, the bigger faction, Helen's faction.
Indeed, she rebuilt the party in her own image. Her immediate legacy is a by-election and what a problem that is. A wrong candidate, such as list MP like Phil Twyford, means the return of her 'Handbag,' an old face as old as you, another relic from another age.
Thus you seek fresh faces. The much mooted rejuvenation. Megan Bates, Conor Roberts, both presentable faces, but aren't both Clarkist clones, or at least youthful members raised at the feet of Helen, keen to carry on her work?
Your options are closing fast.
So you look around at your old government. There's Helen now in New York, with Heather to help her out. Michael Cullen has swallowed his dead rats, sold out, and is to work for Bolger at NZ Post.
There's always jobs for the boys if you are good. Politicians always look after each other, don't they?
So you cheer up thinking, 'serve a decent time , lead the party to respectable defeat in 2011. Let that nice Mr Key enjoy an extended place in the sun'. He'll need it to undo the mess your old government made.
You remind yourself to tell him. If Cullen can have an SOE, then so can you. You go away and smile thinking your future is secure. Then you remember this National government, its promises, and the economic crisis your government left behind. The Nats might keep you waiting so long, there might not be any SOEs left to chair when you need one!!
Enjoying a golden autumn
I have just arrived in Picton after 3 hours on the Arahure Interislander ferry.
Now, I was supposed to be heading south relocating a campervan for a hire firm so I pay bugger all for it, , but since I don't like vehicles with manual transmission, I was able to swap for a huge Mitsubishi 4wd auto, still paying bugger all.
As wise move as it turned out. I spent last night in Ohakune and there was frost on the roadsides as I drove towards my first interview.
Why rough it in a little campervan when you can have all the comforts of a decent motel? The one I had been given was not at all like the luxurious Winnebago bloggermobile David Farrar enjoys on his adventures.
I am having what you might call a working holiday, interviewing various provincial businesses for one of the business titles I work for.
Trouble is, combining the work with the driving has left insufficient time to catch up with people properly or at least give them fair warning. The unpredictable and busy traffic on the Kapiti Coast Highway does not help either. It's almost as bad as Auckland yet the hillsides, the houses and the railway get in the way of any simple road widening. The capital certainly needs Transmission Gully and a motorway to Levin, at least.
But roads are being improved, even in the very hilly Wanganui District, where SH4 is as twisted as the government we booted out in November. The autumn colours on the trees looked particularly good, just as they did in the Waikato and King Country yesterday, passing west of Hamilton.
I also enjoyed the snow early on Ruapehu and the mountain's pinky-orange glow at sunset as I arrived at the carrot capital just after 5pm yesterday.
So tomorrow, after working in Blenheim, I hope to pay homage again to the homes of Wither Hills and Alan Scott. I might even get some of that bottle fermented beer his son Joshua makes.
Then it's Kaikoura, some decent kai moana before heading to the Garden City to drop off the car late Friday.
After catching up with ACT blogger Rick Giles over the weekend, I expect I'll be ready for heading back north early next week.
Cul len de sac
What the OECD has prescribed is not radical New Right theory, nor is it a
neo-liberal prescription, nor is it the line-up of usual suspects, or any of the
other Pavlovian responses which jump up whenever outsiders attempt to forge
debate on just how New Zealand's lagging performance might be enhanced to get
ourselves out of the cul de sac into which the Labour Government parked the
All the Paris-based organisation has done is come up with solutions to
some of New Zealand's short-medium term fiscal problems such as cutting
spending, selling mature assets to reduce debt and free up capital for new
investment, and increasing the revenue line.
This is bog standard stuff for New Zealand companies right now as they get
their balance sheets into order to withstand the international recession. Why
should it be any different for Governments if they are to match the
international norms necessary to attract top-flight investment capital and
secure the retention of our own best companies and talent?
Labour's cul len de sac. It wouldn't be so bad if he had parked up a Rolls Royce but all we've got is a clapped out Corolla, with bald tyres, on tick to a finance company. While the driver has hitched a lift with a NZ Post truck and dun a runna.
Sack Him And His Boss - Now
Joris de Bres
This idiot attended the appallingly discredited Israel bashing UN conference organised by Islamists when the rest of the civilization stayed away. Not only that, his actions are a direct slap in the face to the government of the day which has openly repudiated Labour's barely concealed hatred of Israel and support for the so called Palestilian cause in Gassa.
Mr de Bres attended the conference independently and publicly criticised the Government for pulling out, implying it was trying to please the United States. But Mr McCully believes Mr de Bres has no business criticising foreign policy and implied that Mr de Bres was a Labour Party hack.
You can tell the prick is a Labour hack. Just look at his teeth. He goes to the same veterinary tooth doctor as Goff and Clark.
The HR Commissioner obviously need to be sent packing as well.
Chief Commissioner Rosslyn Noonan said she did not believe he overstepped any line.
What a sour looking hack she is. She even wears Labour's (Clark's) colours.
Both these people are streets ahead of Richard Worth in the 'lack of judgement' stakes. In fact it could reasonably argued that Worth is chronically stupid while these two characters are deliberately undermining their country's foreign policy.
Such is the legacy of nine years politicising of the public service.


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Puja K. MehtaMD, FACC
Biography :
Dr. Puja K. Mehta, MD, FACC is Director of the Non-invasive Vascular Function Research Laboratory in the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at the Cedars-Sinai's Heart Institute. She is also Co-Director of the Cardio-Oncology Program, a clinic dedicated to the heart health of women after cancer treatment.
Dr. Mehta also treats persistent chest pain, microvascular disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Her clinical interest is heart disease prevention and behavioral approaches such as exercise, nutrition, stress reduction, and meditation for heart disease.
Dr. Mehta is board certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular diseases and board-eligible in echocardiography and nuclear cardiology. She is a member of the American Heart Association, the American Society for Preventive Cardiology and the American College of Cardiology, where she is also a fellow.
Dr. Mehta attended undergraduate school at Georgia Institute of Technology, where she graduated magna cum laude with a degree in applied biology. She earned her medical degree from Medical College of Georgia, graduating cum laude. At Emory University, she completed both her internal medicine residency and a four-year cardiovascular fellowship. Dr. Mehta completed an additional year of advanced training in women and heart disease as the Women's Health and Heart Disease fellow at Cedars-Sinai's Women's Heart Center.
Dr. Mehta's academic success, she has received numerous awards including the prestigious New Jersey Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award. She has published her research in peer-reviewed journals and presented at national cardiology meetings. Dr. Mehta's research is National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded and includes the role of mental stress in heart disease, exploring the brain-heart connection and new approaches to treating chest pain in women.

subset: commoncrawl


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Who me? Another star? Er, actually two stars. OK, the red carpet is going down again in thanks to http://ivonprefontaine.com whose lovely blog Teacher as Transformer is always worth a read. Thank you very much Ivon. I am very honoured and as this is Blog of the year for 2012, I thought I had better get my act together before 2012 turns itself into ancient history! Ivon has a great blog with some great ideas – my teachers were seldom like this! He also has lovely people who read his blog and I sometimes
stalk follow them too. so it's a great place to visit on many counts. I'm sure he will put the kettle on if you pop over there and see him.
And as I was writing this I discovered that Andrew Toynbee has nominated me for another star! Thank you Andrew. You are very kind and I am delighted to adorn my post, my blog and myself with a third star! I am so ruined! He has a delightful book on Amazon called A Construct of Angels and if you haven't read it, you'd better get a move on because he is cracking on with the second in this trilogy!
It has to be said that I am a) all over the place with my blogging at the moment and b) pretty rubbish at organising myself to accept awards in general – so many apologies to Shawn at http://thewizardstower.wordpress.com/, Maggie at http://maggiemendus.wordpress.com/, Darlene at http://darlenefoster.wordpress.com/ and Carolyn at http://carolynhughesthehurthealer.wordpress.com/ who have nominated me for awards and I have not yet got to the point where I can do them justice and nominate people. I promise faithfully that I will get there very soon. (Do pop and say hello on my behalf. They are sure to have tea in the pot and welcome you). However, the time of year (think Christmas comes on the same date every year, so have no idea as to how it manages to creep up on me) is wreaking havoc with my life, probably in common with everyone else on here. If you are beautifully organised and think people like me should sort out their lives, I can only agree.
But with new stars for the Blog of the Year 2012 in my pocket, it is time to give a quick blast on the old trumpets and announce that I am delighted to accept Ivon's and Andrew's nominations and to display new stars on my blog. Hooray!
The 'rules' for this award say that I should:
1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the 'Blog of the Year 2012' Award – coming – see below.
2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there's no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and 'present' them with their award. Yes, in progress.
3 Include a link back to this page 'Blog of the Year 2012' Award – http://thethoughtpalette.co.uk/our-awards/blog-of-the-year-2012-award/ and include these 'rules' in your post (please don't alter the rules or the badges!)
4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the 'rules' with them
5 You can now also join our Facebook group – click 'like' on this page 'Blog of the Year 2012' Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience
6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…
Yes – that's right – there are stars to collect! Unlike other awards which you can only add to your blog once – this award is different! When you begin you will receive the '1 star' award – and every time you are given the award by another blog – you can add another star! There are a total of 6 stars to collect. Which means that you can check out your favourite blogs – and even if they have already been given the award by someone else – you can still bestow it on them again and help them to reach the maximum 6 stars!
'Blog of the Year 2012' Award Badges
Here are the six badges for you to collect – you can either 'swop' your badge for the next one each time you are given the award – or even proudly display all six badges if you are lucky enough to be presented with the award six times!
So, without more ado, but with a certain embarrassment because I am going to miss people out whom I believe should receive this, here are my nominations for the Blog of the year 2012. All of these would love to receive a visit from you and are really great places to hang out. I commend you to:


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LastPass for iPhone has made it to the App store bringing mobile password management to iPhones everywhere: LastPass in the App Store. We're very excited about this because we love using it, and find it incredibly convenient to have all your sites and secure notes available for easy access on your iPhone. The App allows you to edit and add sites and secure notes and launch sites in a built-in browser where LastPass fills in your data automatically. See our user manual article for more details and head to the App Store to download the app:
We're going to continue adding functionality and improving usability so let us know what you think and how we can make it better.
Like our Android, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile applications, this application is a part of our LastPass Premium offering. You will be able to try LastPass for iPhone for free for 14 days, but you must become a LastPass Premium subscriber to continue using it after that.
We're also very close to releasing our first alpha version of LastPass for Safari (OS X) so stay tuned.


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Coronavirus (COVID-19) ) – We're here for you. Our hospitals, emergency departments, urgent cares, physician offices and virtual care services are open to safely deliver care. Learn more.
Get regional updates for Providence Oregon, including visitor restrictions.
By Connie Warner, MS, RD, pediatric dietitian, Providence Children's Development Institute at Providence Child Center
Ideally, half of every plate you put in front of your children should be filled with vegetables and fruits.
I realize that's not always easy. While your kids probably like fruit, it may be hard to imagine them digging happily into a plateful of vegetables.
Nevertheless, the evidence is clear: kids need their veggies. Vegetables supply critical nutrients to help them build healthy bodies and brains and to provide protection from cancer and other serious diseases. When eaten in place of higher-calorie foods and snacks, vegetables also help ward off weight problems in childhood and throughout life.
But how can we get kids to eat something they just don't like? My advice: keep trying. The vegetable world consists of more than carrots and green beans. There are hundreds of vegetables out there, and thousands of ways to prepare and serve them. The more you expose your kids to different vegetables and preparations, the more likely they will be to come across a few that they like. With ongoing exposure, they may begin to accept – and yes, even love – vegetables as a normal part of their diet.
Here are 12 tips to help lead your kids to vegetable love.


text: Swainson's lorikeets might seem like an easy bird to spot, with blue on the head and belly; orange or red on the breast; green under the tail, back and wings; and a red bill. But in their native habitat, lorikeets' vibrant colors provide the perfect camouflage. Lorikeets are stocky with pointed tails; and unlike many species of birds, males and females look alike. They are very noisy birds, screeching incessantly while flying and feeding. At night, they roost in flocks of thousands; and during the day, they travel in smaller flocks of perhaps 20 birds. Did You Know? Sometimes these birds drink nectar until they are so drunk they can't fly! Diet Lorikeets feed on pollen and nectar from flowering plants, which is harvested with a large, rounded tongue equipped with brush-like hairs. They crush fruits and berries to get the juice and have been observed getting intoxicated and rolling about drunkenly on the ground after feeding on fermented fruit nectar. They also feed on fruit, insects and larvae. Size They grow to about 12 inches in length, and females tend to be a bit smaller than males. Range Lorikeets are widely distributed along Australia's coastal strip from Cape York to Victoria and into southern Australia. They are abundant from Sydney northward, becoming less common south of Sydney. Their preferred habitat is coastal forests and urban clearings. Population Status Lorikeets are common in their range. Predators Hawks and snakes prey on lorikeets. Back to the Top


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"Accelerating Development
& Commercialization of
Sustainable Aviation Fuel"
The Goal of SAFUG is to Accelerate Development and Commercialization
of Sustainable Aviation Fuels
The Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group was formed in September 2008 with support and advice from the world's leading environmental organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB). The group is focused on accelerating the development and commercialization of sustainable aviation biofuels.
SAFUG announces the release of a Global Policy Statement on Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC). Read more »
All members have signed a Sustainable Pledge, and believe that a key driver to a carbon neutral industry is advancing and adopting sustainable aviation biofuels. This shall significantly reduce life cycle GHG emissions over conventional petroleum based aviation fuels. These fuels:
- Exhibit minimal impact on biodiversity
- Meet a sustainabiliy standard with respect to land, water, and energy use
- Do not displace or compete with food crops
- Provide a positive socioeconomic impact
- Do not require any special fuel handling equipment, distribution systems, or changes to engine design


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Despite protests from resident preservationists, a 127-acre tract off Burnt Store Road in Cape Coral was rezoned from agricultural to marketplace residential at Monday's City Council meeting at City Hall.
The rezoning, which passed council 7-1, allows the property to match what the city had planned for the property, which will allow owner First Community Bank to market and sell the land.
And despite what those environmentalists claimed, Cliff Repperger, project manager of Avalon Engineering, said the project would help preserve the land.
"It was a good decision and will help protect the property instead of hinder it," Repperger said. "It gives the developers an assurance the comprehensive plan will be followed, and the city had the safeguards so the project will go through rigorous reviews."
The environmentalists were concerned that a residential development there would destroy the pristine nature of the property, where eagles call home on the southwest corner and where burrowing owls and gopher turtles have been spotted.
"Wetlands improve our ecosystem, they help control water flow and cleanse the system," said Beverly Saltonstall of the Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife. "Cape Coral is expected to reach a population of 450,000. Water quality will become a huge issue."
Dan Williams, a resident nearby, said the council should do an independent study before making a decision. It was a sentiment echoed by Katherine Hughes.
"People want to see birds, and we want to point them here and not in Sanibel," Hughes said. "They'll spend money in stores and the economy will thrive."
The need for more commercial property and the possibility of litigation if council did not agree to change the zoning prevailed.
Councilmember Kevin McGrail said with Burnt Store slated to expand, a zoning change was assured.
"That two-lane road is not going to look that way in the future. To expect it to stay rural and devoid of development isn't realistic," McGrail said. "To delay this is punitive to the land owner, and we run the risk of a claim against us."
Council promptly voted, with only Chris Chulakes-Leetz voting against the ordinance.
"Now the zoning matches what the city had planned. Now, if someone was interested in the property, they would feel confident they were on the right track," Repperger said.
Saltonstall didn't see things in such a sunny light.
"It had to be the decision. But we would have liked to see the land developed into an ecologically friendly area and not wall-to-wall houses," Saltonstall said. "Hopefully, the vision the bank has for the land will be in line with what we want."
In other business, the city council agreed to waive the permit fees for Elizabeth Rodriguez as a result of the Chinese Drywall found in her home.
The snag was that Rodriguez originally owned the property along with her father. When he died, it changed the ownership, which would have meant the original resolution regarding fee waivers for those with Chinese drywall would have been voided, according to city attorney Dolores Menendez.
Council decided to waive the fee by a 7-1 vote (Councilmember Nesta voted against), but the resolution would have to be amended to reflect that it was a family member who was owner, and the ownership passed to another family member upon passing.


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Ferguson Bath, Kitchen and Lighting Gallery - Houston
Your home is like a grand symphony—composed around who you are, what you like, and where you've been. So why not start with things you love? Choosing just the right touches for remodeling your kitchen and bath can be the difference that makes a house, your home. Whether you're renovating a tired kitchen or bathroom or creating your ideal dream home, don't miss this ultimate shopping experience.


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Tynan's community section is the biggest stealth camping community on the web I'm aware of. Seldom do I see a mention of it on another forum that doesn't quickly degrade into a question of morality (the heck?).
I've got questions that don't deserve their own threads, I assume others may, too. Lets use this thread as a way to prevent bloat.
All questions welcome, from current or potential campers. Links to resources on stealth camping, RV modifications, or the like are welcome.
Currently I funnel all purchases through a Bank of America VISA to get 1.25% (1% if you cash out under $300) back and pay it off at the end of each month (otherwise 1% isn't fighting the tide).
Given I'm not spending differently this is free money. I assume it works by helping people drown themselves in debt by removing some guilt of getting themselves there.
What credit cards do you guys (ab)use for their perks?
He's installed a wood stove! I don't know the benefits/downsides vs propane, but it's definitely cool.
For the Rialta, the first thing I'd do is build removable insulation for the windows and research replacing them. The bed having windows on 3 sides is a definite winter time bottle neck. The next is look into a fluted catalytic heater to reduce interior moisture. I don't think I'd want to go wood.
He's considering a thermoelectric generator which got me thinking about a propane run TEG. I found a reasonable sized one (with no list price) at http://www.redhawkenergy.net/globalteg.html
firstname.lastname@example.com/day doesn't feel very efficient to me.
I learned a lot on my first renovation and after living in the RV for a year I got a lot of scheming done.
I've started painting over that painful brown color using a light coffee palette. I'm putting a layer or two of satan water based polyurethane on top of the latex paint to give it better water/stain/scratch resistance.
I've pulled down the ceiling again (photo 1). I discovered that not all the bolts I used to hold my solar panels on were stainless and the high humidity/winter time condensation caused a lot of rust on them (photo 2).
I'm planning on replacing the ceiling with thin vinyl sheets painted using the above technique, glued directly to the insulation. I'm also considering using fiberglass reinforced sheet of some sorts, http://www.homedepot.com/b/Lumber-Composites-Paneling-Fiberglass-Panels/N-5yc1vZbqk5
It's as expensive as the solid oak sheets I had used, but has the perk of being synthetic, so prolonged moisture during the brutally humid winters wont be an issue.


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Boston, Mass.—A look at how the brain processes information finds a distinct pattern in children with autism spectrum disorders. Using EEGs to track the brain's electrical cross-talk, researchers from Boston Children's Hospital have found a structural difference in brain connections. Compared with neurotypical children, those with autism have multiple redundant connections between neighboring brain areas at the expense of long-distance links.
The study, using a "network analysis" like that used to study airlines or electrical grids, may help in understanding some classic behaviors in autism. It was published February 27 in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine, accompanied by a commentary.
"We examined brain networks as a whole in terms of their capacity to transfer and process information," says Jurriaan Peters, MD, of the Department of Neurologyat Boston Children's Hospital, who is co-first author of the paper with Maxime Taquet, a PhD student in Boston Children's Computational Radiology Laboratory. "What we found may well change the way we look at the brains of autistic children."
Peters, Taquet and senior authors Simon Warfield, PhD, of the Computational Radiology Laboratory and Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, of Neurology, analyzed EEG recordings from two groups of autistic children: 16 children with classic autism, and 14 children whose autism is part of a genetic syndrome known as tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). They compared these readings with EEGs from two control groups—46 healthy neurotypical children and 29 children with TSC but not autism.
In both groups with autism, there were more short-range connections within different brain region, but fewer connections linking far-flung areas.
A brain network that favors short-range over long-range connections seems to be consistent with autism's classic cognitive profile—a child who excels at specific, focused tasks like memorizing streets, but who cannot integrate information across different brain areas into higher-order concepts.
"For example, a child with autism may not understand why a face looks really angry, because his visual brain centers and emotional brain centers have less cross-talk," Peters says. "The brain cannot integrate these areas. It's doing a lot with the information locally, but it's not sending it out to the rest of the brain."
Network analysis—a hot emerging branch of cognitive neuroscience—showed a quality called "resilience" in the children with autism—the ability to find multiple ways to get from point A to point B through redundant pathways.
"Much like you can still travel from Boston to Brussels even if London Heathrow is shut down, by going through New York's JFK airport for example, information can continue to be transferred between two regions of the brain of children with autism," says Taquet. "In such a network, no hub plays a specific role, and traffic may flow along many redundant routes."
This quality of redundancy is consistent with cellular and molecular evidence for decreased "pruning" of brain connections in autism. While it may be good for an airline, it may indicate a brain that responds in the same way to many different kinds of situations and is less able to focus on the stimuli that are most important.
"It's a simpler, less specialized network that's more rigid, less able to respond to stimulation from the environment," says Peters.
The study showed that both groups of children with tuberous sclerosis complex had reduced connectivity overall, but only those who also had autism had the pattern of increased short-range versus long-range connections (See image).
Under a recently announced NIH Autism Center of Excellence Grant, Peters and his colleagues will repeat the analysis as part of a multicenter study, taking EEG recordings prospectively under uniform conditions.
The current study builds on recent work by Peters, Sahin and colleagues, which imaged nerve fibers in autistic patients and showed structural abnormalities in brain connectivity. Other recent workat Boston Children's, led by Frank Duffy, MD, of Neurology, looked at "coherence," or the degree of synchrony between any two given EEG signals, and found altered connectivity between brain regions in children with autism.
Yet another recent study, led by Boston Children's informatics researcher William Bosl, PhD, and Charles A. Nelson, PhD, research director of the Developmental Medicine Center, looked at the degree of randomness in EEG signals, an indirect indicator of connectivity, and found patterns that distinguished infants at increased risk for autism from controls.
The current study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grant #s R01 RR021885, R01 LM010033, R03 EB008680, UL1 RR025758 to Warfield; P20 RFA-NS-12-006, 1U01NS082320-01 to Sahin and Peters); the National Institute of Mental Health (grant #K23MH094517 to coauthor Shafali Jeste); the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (grant #DC 10290 to Charles Nelson, PhD) and the Department of Defense (grant #W81XWH-11-1-0365 to Nelson).
Meghan Weber
[email protected]
Boston Children's Hospitalis home to the world's largest research enterprise based at a pediatric medical center, where its discoveries have benefited both children and adults since 1869. More than 1,100 scientists, including nine members of the National Academy of Sciences, 11 members of the Institute of Medicine and 12 members of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute comprise Boston Children's research community. Founded as a 20-bed hospital for children, Boston Children's today is a 395-bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care grounded in the values of excellence in patient care and sensitivity to the complex needs and diversity of children and families. Boston Children's also is a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. For more information about research and clinical innovation at Boston Children's, visit: http://vectorblog.org/.


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Digital IBMer in Argentina
Visits (13143)
This week I'm in Argentina, teaching IBM Business Partners and sales reps about the latest System Storage products. Encouraged by my success on my Digital IBMer tour last month in Europe, I decided to get a SIM chip for my smartphone here in Buenos Aires.
I did my homework. There are three major mobile service providers that offer pre-paid GSM-based SIM chips: Claro, Movistar, and Personal. I arrived on Sunday morning, but thanks to the local [blue laws], none of them were open. I was able to walk around and find retail outlets for each within blocks of my hotel.
All three offer voice and SMS text messaging, but online reviews indicated that Movistar offered the best data plan. I was there at 9:30am sharp, the moment the Movistar store opened Monday morning. The lovely young lady behind the counter was quite helpful. She put the SIM chip in my phone, but then told me it might be an hour or two before it was activated. I would receive an SMS text message welcoming me to the Movistar network. She provided my new 12-digit phone number, along with instructions on how to check my balance (*444) or call for technical assistance (*611).
(FTC Disclosure: even though I am not in the United States as I write this, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission rules require that I mention that this blog post is not intended as a paid or celebrity endorsement for any of the cellphone service providers mentioned. I work for IBM, and this post is based entirely on my personal experience.)
Why not just use international roaming available on my US plan? International roaming is quite expensive! I made the mistake of uploading three hi-res photos to Flickr last year in New Zealand to discover this the hard way. Here is a comparison chart:
(If your spouse or significant other threatens to leave you if you don't call her every day while out of the country, remind her that divorce attorneys are less expensive than these international roaming rates! Fortunately, all of my friends and family know this and are quite understanding if they don't here from me as often as they would like.)
The SIM chip cost only 30 pesos (about seven bucks). Normally, SIM chips come without credit, but their current promotion included 20 pesos credit for voice calls (enough for 7 minutes of talking), and 200 free SMS text messages.
Six hours later, my phone still was not yet activated. I returned to the store Monday afternoon to ask what was going on. She decided the chip must be bad, gave me a second one, and assigned me a new phone number. I would then have to wait again another hour or two for the welcome message.
Monday evening, a grey window pops up, "Bienvenidos a Movistar" so I thought it was activated, but it wasn't exactly the SMS text message the young lady told me would happen. Sure enough, neither *444 nor *611 worked, giving me voice responses that my phone is not yet activated, and please wait another hour.
Tuesday morning, I am back at the Movistar outlet. The young lady was not happy to see me. She confirmed my second chip was not yet activated, but felt she did nothing wrong. She insisted the problem was either with my phone, or with the Movistar main office, but that she did everything correctly by the book.
(I realize that the sales clerks at these outlet stores don't have a Ph.D. in digital telephony or electrical engineering. I was not angry, nor trying to blame her individually for all of the problems we encountered. Getting a smartphone manufactured in South Korea for the US market to work in Argentina is challenging enough. Given all the difficulties I had last month in Europe, I know it is not limited to Latin America.)
Either way, I told her, if we can't get my phone working, I would like my 30 pesos refunded and promised she would never see me again.
Her response was classic. She would rather not-see me-again because I was delighted with the Movistar service, rather than not-see me-again because we were unable to get it working. She offered to contact the main office to figure out what was going on, and that I should come back in an hour or two. She did not want to lose my business, nor have me go to one of her two main competitors. Now that's customer service!
Tuesday afternoon, I return. She now was instructed on how to do some basic problem determination. We put my new SIM chip into a test phone, and confirmed it was not my phone having problems. The chip did not work in the test phone either. She called the main office, and they were able to activate the chip in the test phone, and then she transferred the chip back to my phone. I asked her to please call my new phone number to confirm it was now working, and I was able to send a quick text message to confirm that was also working. The *444 indcated that my balance was now down to 19.29 pesos. Apparently, it cost me 71 centavos to receive her phone call.
(Just as we were wrapping up, a young man walks in with his phone wanting a SIM chip. None of the Movistar staff spoke English, he did not speak Spanish, but luckily I speak both fluently and was able to translate.
First, we confirmed his phone was still locked, and that he would need to contact his AT&T provider to get an unlock code. He should then come back with the unlock code and his passport to then buy the chip. He didn't understand why Movistar needed his passport for a pre-paid plan, so I had to explain to him at length Argentinian law, the Denied Parties List, the ongoing war against terror and drug trafficking, and how he would have to agree to their Terms and Conditions to use their service, even if there is no ongoing monthly service contract.
He thanked me, promised to return with both his unlock code and passport, and told me my English was "quite good"!)
The next step was to activate my data plan. For this, I would need to buy additional credit. Scratch cards to add credit to your pre-paid phone, referred to locally as "Tarjeta de Recarga", come in 20 and 30-peso denomnations, but are not sold at the Movistar outlet. Instead, the young lady told me to get one at any kiosk or corner convenience store.
As it turns out, not every convenience store offers these cards for Movistar, but after a few blocks, I was able to find one that did. The process is simple: call *444, follow the Spanish-language prompts, scratch off the back of the card, and enter the 16-digit code. I bought a 20-peso card (about $4.50 USD), followed the procedure, and got my confirmation text, indicating that I qualified for 10 extra pesos as a gift for being a new customer, so my new balance was now $49.29 pesos. Woo-hoo!
Now that my phone was armed with enough credit, all I had to do was send an SMS text message containing the word "Datos" to the Movistar phone number 2345. A text message response indicated my data plan was now active. I will have to do this every other day, as the plan is 1GB per 2-day period, but I have enough credit to last me the rest of the week here. To get my phone to detect the new status, I had to turn on data packet traffic, configure and validate the Access Point Name (APN) information, then reboot the phone.
The data plan service is based on the General Packet Radio Service [GPRS] protocol. GPRS is a best-effort service, resulting in variable throughput and latency that depends on the number of other users sharing the service concurrently. Speeds are comparable to dial-up rates, 56 to 114 Kbps.
For those of us spoiled on T-Mobile's 4G speeds in the USA, GPRS is terribly slow. But that's OK. I doubt I will go over the 1GB limit. Overall, I am quite pleased with my success. My phone is fully functional for the week, and all for less than the cost of a single glass of Malbec in the Hilton lobby bar!
technorati tags: IBM, Movistar, Buenos Aires, Argentina, GPRS


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So far, construction crews at the building site of the new Gorham Fayette school building have used about a seventh of the project's contingency fund.
During a brief meeting Monday, Jim Price of the Buehrer Group—the architectural firm overseeing construction—reported that workers had to use gravel to stabilize the bottom of a storm water retention pond, as well as install extra drainage tile in the area.
In all, the extra work siphoned about $60,000 from the $680,000 contingency fund. Last year, changes to a lift station due to a rising water table cost $40,000.


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Arts & Events
Barbara's Living Room – A Staged Reading in Memory of Barbara Oliver, at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley
St. Mark's Episcopal Church of Berkeley will present a staged reading of Barbara's Living Room – A Celebration in Eight Scenes and One Poem in remembrance of Barbara Oliver, on Sunday October 27th at 4:00 p.m., in the church's upstairs Parish Hall at 2300 Bancroft Way, Berkeley. Attendance is free and a festive reception will follow. The performance will serve as a benefit for St. Mark's new sound system, a passionate cause of Barbara's. Donations will be accepted.
Barbara Oliver co-founded the Aurora Theatre Company of Berkeley in 1992 and was a well-known member of the Bay Area theater community. She was a member of St. Mark's and passionate believer in the power of the spoken word. She founded a Spoken Word committee at St. Mark's in 2006, which has since performed several plays, staged readings, and poetry readings, as well as trained lectors in giving scripture readings during services.
The Spoken Word committee at St. Mark's will perform this staged reading to honor her memory and leadership. The script and art design for the reading were created by Charles Shaw Robinson, a member of the committee and a well-known professional actor in the Bay Are theater scene. The work includes scenes from some of Barbara's favorite plays, both those she performed in and directed over the course of her theater career.
Questions should be directed to St. Mark's Episcopal Church of Berkeley, at (510) 848-5107, or firstname.lastname@example.com