Not a religion.

From Al Jazeera:

The sea level is rising twice as fast as previously forecast around parts of New Zealand, according to research published on Monday, putting the country’s two largest cities at risk decades earlier than expected... Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said adaptation planning was already under way, including budgeting for the relocation of some communities and infrastructure away from vulnerable coastlines.

“The first port of call isn’t necessarily managed retreat because there are a range of options that can be used,” she told Radio New Zealand, “We’re working alongside local government and insurers to work through who bears the costs of some of these options. The cost that needs to be borne won’t fall on one party.”

Ardern said New Zealanders should not accept that sea level rises are inevitable beyond those predicted for the near term, and every citizen should do all they can to reduce emissions and diminish the effects of climate change.

Hopefully she has tipped off the Dutch. Instead of spending all that money on flood defences, they should spend in on Tesla cars. Apparently the results are the same.

The last civilised climate discussion about climate science

From Don Aitken's blog, a 2014 article on The Relationship between CO2 and temperature.

Although the author of the article would clearly be decried as a Science Denier (TM, The Guardian) by today's standards, and some of the replies are by what Science Deniers decry as Warmenists or Alarmists nowadays, it is all professional and friendly. You don't see that any more, it's all completely polar (or bi-polar) nowadays. Or are New Zealanders just naturally polite?

(The Science Deniers in that thread seem to be more credible and thorough than the Warmenists, but I would say that wouldn't I?)
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For example, none of the Science Deniers advances the silly argument that The Second Law of Thermodynamics - that heat doesn't flow spontaneously from cool things to warm things - means that gases in the atmosphere can't possibly reflect infra red back to the surface of the and hence warm it, because the atmosphere is, on average, cooler than the surface of the earth. That claim is just embarrassing and undermines the Science Deniers' credibility.

"Cow trapped on cliff gets down with help from dogs, owner"

Emailed in by Peter S, from the NZ Herald, an rather bizarre tale:

A cow stranded above Mowhanau Beach, near Whanganui, has come down with the help of its owner and a few dogs.

It stood atop a subsided ledge and had no obvious path to freedom.

Callers to the Wanganui Chronicle said they were concerned about might happen at high tide.

Others said the cow had been stranded for up to two days.

The article is then just random bits of information and quotes, without saying how they did it.

Or indeed, whether the cow then promptly attacked her rescuers.

Sinkhole and cow news

Sent in by Derek R from CTV News:

Two people fell into a hole that opened up in the sidewalk outside a Kitchener department store Monday. It’s not clear what caused the hole to form outside the Sears store in Fairview Park Mall around 2 p.m.

Deanna Haddad was near the front of the store when she saw a woman try to walk into the building: “As she stepped in closer, she fell into a hole,” she said, “I don’t know exactly how deep the hole was, but she was up all the way up to her neck.”

There's your clue, right there.

From The Guardian:

A section of road in the centre of the Japanese city of Fukuoka has reopened just days after a sinkhole opened up outside a busy railway station and threatened to topple nearby buildings.

In a typical demonstration of Japanese workmanship and efficiency, workers toiled around the clocks and had practically filled in the section of road in just two days, according to local media. The road reopened to traffic and pedestrians early on Tuesday after local officials declared the repaired stretch safe.

Meanwhile, Up North:

Emergency planners are discussing when residents can return 'ome after a large sinkhole opened in North Yorkshire.

Twelve homes were evacuated on Wednesday after t'ole opened in t'back gardens of Magdalen's Road in Ripon.

Ian Spiers, emergency planning manager for Harrogate Borough Council, said Yorkshire Water were deciding how to reopen t'sewers so t'residents could return 'ome.

The worst kind of subsidence is an earthquake of course, among all the human misery there's this from MSN.com emailed in by James Higham:

Three New Zealand cows looked like they could use a little help on Monday after an earthquake triggered landslides all around them and left them stranded on a small island of grass.

Video taken by Newshub news service from a helicopter near the small town of Kaikoura shows two adult cattle and a calf stuck on a chunk of land in a paddock that had been ripped apart in Monday’s magnitude-7.8 quake. The patch of grass was surrounded by deep ravines of collapsed earth, trapping the animals where they stood.

Fun with free trade deals

From the Australian Financial Review:

Australia's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Alexander Downer, says Britain's departure from the European Union will not hurt free trade negotiations with the bloc and suggested Brexit could be an opportunity to ease restrictions on Australians working in the UK...

"No this will definitely not kill any chance of us negotiating a FTA with the European Union. I think we can negotiate a high quality Free Trade Agreement with the European Union. Obviously, the UK is our closest partner in the European Union but we do have very close relationships with other countries - France, Germany, Italy and obviously Ireland as well."

From The Times (via MBK):

Mr Johnson wrote in The Daily Telegraph that he wanted “access” to the single market, but also said he wanted Britons to be able to work and stay in the EU, along with a points-based system for new arrivals from the EU.

This approach is unlikely to be agreed by the rest of the EU, according to officials and experts. They added: “It is a pipe dream. You cannot have full access to the single market and not accept its rules. If we gave that kind of deal to the UK, then why not to Australia or New Zealand. It would be a free for all.”

Now a lot of this is Doublespeak (which takes somebody with JohnB's mental gymnastic ability to decipher), but most countries have "access to the single market" without having any sort of explicit free trade deal (USA, China etc). But let's assume that in the second excerpt the Eurocrat uses this as synonymous with "tariff and quota-free access to the single market" (what the UK has at present, by and large). He implies that free movement of people and adopting EU regulations are pre-conditions and/or follow automatically from this.

Which will be news to the Aussies and Kiwis. Or is it genuinely expected that ANZ will be able to negotiate FTAs which are refused to the UK out of spite?

"Tauranga woman crushed by cow"

Spotted by Murray W in the NZ Herald:

The TrustPower TECT Rescue Helicopter was called to a Pongakawa farm about 2.30pm.(1)

Te Puke St John operations team manager Simon Campbell said a cow landed on a 53-year-old woman while they were loading the animals on or off a truck. "The accident was caused when a cow jumped over a rail on a truck they were loading and landed on top of her."(2)

She had moderate to serious neck injuries and minor head and leg injuries. The Pukehina Fire Service(3) and Te Puke St John responded to the initial call about 2pm.

1) I like the time travel element of the story: we are told the helicopter was called at 2.30 pm at the beginning of the article and that the ambulance was called at 2 pm, forcing you to skip back to the start of the article to see the relevance.

2) No, cows can't jump over the moon, but they can certainly leap walls and railings if they see a tasty target on the other side.

3) Was the cow on fire?

Killer Arguments Against LVT, Not (229)

Spotted by MBK at stuff.co.nz:

Councillor Maher said he had "gone on about [LVT] for years" but the Government was in charge of the legislation and did not have the will to change it.

"It's an archaic tax based on land values that has no basis on people's abilities to pay. Just because people own a lot of property doesn't mean they have an ability to pay."

i. That's an equation with two variables isn't it? Like all true Home-Owner-Ists, he assumes that "the amount of land you own" and "your ability to pay, i.e. your income" are both completely fixed and a given, and that the economy has to be based on compensating such people by transferring "income" to them from other people who own "no or not much land and have higher incomes".

ii. In free markets (an anathema for Home-Owner-Ists), very little is fixed or a given and governments do not go round making cash transfers to favoured groups, it's just a question of allowing things to find their own equilibrium. In the instant case, one does wonder why or how people with low incomes managed to amass all this land.

iii. When taxes on earned income are replaced with taxes on land values, such worthy people (i.e. Poor Widows In Mansions and/or people who put farmland to inefficient use) will either reduce the amount of land they wish to occupy or try to increase their incomes, which are exactly the same market forces facing all tenants and first time buyers: if you want to live somewhere nice, either cut back on your other expenditure or try and earn more money (or some combination of the two).

iv. Once the dust has settled, we will magically find that for most people, the amount/value of land they occupy (and hence their tax bills after deducting personal allowances or Citizen's Income) will have been adjusted to what they can realistically afford, i.e. some proportion of their income, and henceforth "ability to pay" will not be a big issue.

v. Yes, of course there will be a few hardship cases - death, dole, disability, divorce etc, and under full-on LVT there would have to be a system of discounts/deferments for older people and/or a much higher Citizen's Pension. Details, details.

vi. How long would it take for everybody to downsize, upsize or rightsize? Five or ten years, tops.

"Teen shot in homekill mishap"

Emailed to me by Murray W, from stuff.co.nz:

A teenager is undergoing emergency surgery after being hit by a bullet which ricocheted off an animal's head during a homekill which went wrong in north-west Auckland. Police said the accident happened at 11.15am on a rural farm property on Peak Rd, Helensville, when a slaughterman reportedly shot a cow in the head.

The bullet ricocheted off the animal's head and hit the slaughterman's 18-year-old assistant in the shoulder. The victim was flown to Auckland Hospital. Police have informed his family of the accident. A hospital spokeswoman said the teen was in a critical condition this afternoon.

A spokesman from the police northern communication centre said police spoke to the slaughterman at the scene. He did not know if police had formally interviewed him. Police were conducting a scene examination at the accident site which is understood to be near Gumboots Early Learning Centre. They were also interviewing witnesses.

A police spokesman said the cow did not die from the initial gun shot, but was later shot dead by police. He said the animal was knocked out by the first bullet but was still moving.

The spokesman said the slaughterman did not kill the animal with a second shot because he was concerned about his assistant. He said police had not alerting the SPCA about the incident because the slaughterman "did not have evil intent". Caregivers at the learning centre said the first they knew of the accident was when they saw a helicopter fly over.

A resident living on Peak Rd passed the accident scene, about one kilometre from the intersection of Peak and Old North roads, on her way home about 1pm. She said a homekill van was parked just off the road and police were at the scene. Both OSH and the Department of Labour had been notified and were also investigating.

There's one badly injured every minute.

There were thirteen social smokers, standing on a wall...

From NZ Herald:

Those who dabble in social smoking count themselves among non-smokers and look down on those who do smoke, a new study suggests. A qualitiative study published in the journal Tobacco Control shows that many people who socially smoke have conflicted personalities - disassociating themselves from smokers.

Many of those interviewed as part of the study were also plagued with feelings of remorse and regret the morning after they indulged their occasional habit...

Wot? "plagued with feelings of remorse and regret"? They didn't get drunk and crash a car, punch a colleague or get pregnant by a complete stranger or anything, they stepped outside the pub and smoked a few cigarettes in the company of their friends. And what did this study actually consist of..?

The study recruited and interviewed 13 social smokers aged between 19 and 25... The study, titled Social Smokers' Management of Conflicted Identities, was carried out over the period of a month early last year. The five authors looked at social smoking because they suspected it was riddled with contradictions, she said. Interviewers carried out one-on-one conversations with participants to tease out different questions.

Yup, it takes five 'authors' to interrogate thirteen people until they get the answers they want. What kind of answer might they have been looking for..?

The authors are members of ASPIRE2025, a research collaboration that had been tasked with carrying out research to test and evaluate different policies and interventions to achieve the Government's goal of being smoke-free by 2025, said Dr Hoek.

So not biased then. Chuck in a lie for good measure:

"From our perspective, I think there's a real public health problem here because we know that smoking does become very addictive very quickly for some people. Some people find that they're addicted in fewer than three weeks which is really astonishingly quick when you think about it. So we have to come up with ways to minimise this behaviour."

Not true. Some people become addicted to smoking very quickly, others smoke one cigarette and are put off for life, and there is a happy bunch of maybe a fifth of the population who smoke on a Friday down the pub and wouldn't dream of smoking during the week.

Once suitably water-boarded and sleep deprived, what did these social smokers, " plagued with feelings of remorse and regret" plead for..?

Twelve of the thirteen participants thought introducing smoke-free areas outside bars and restaurants was a good idea to help curb the social smoking habit.

The thirteenth has probably been subjected to an extraordinary rendition or something.

"Fatal crash: Cows forced second landing attempt"

Spotted by Conrad S at stuff.co.nz:

Tauranga pilot Ian Sloan was killed when his planed nose-dived on a private airstrip near Arrowtown on October 17 this year. His two passengers suffered serious injuries in the accident...

"The aircraft made an initial approach to land on the airstrip, but as there were cattle on it, the pilot applied power to gain height, made a turn and approached the airstrip again from the opposite direction," the report said, "During this approach to land, the aircraft experienced a quartering tailwind and strong cross-wind conditions... The aircraft did not touch down until more than half way down the airstrip, and the pilot aborted this landing applying full power. Seconds later, the aircraft made a turn to the left, lost airspeed and impacted the ground."

See also: Pigs on runways.

"Angry cow causes fall"

From stuff.co.nz:

A man has injured himself falling down a three-metre bank after he was chased by a cow.

The man, 50, injured his ribs this afternoon when he landed on a tree stump* at the bottom of the bank in Whareama, north of Riversdale on the Wairarapa coast. He was treated by the Masterton ambulance service before Westpac rescue helicopter flew him to Wellington Hospital.

Life Flight crewman Logan Taylor said the man was herding cows on his property when the accident happened. "I believe he was trying to herd a cow with a calf, and the cow turned on him and chased him, and as he was being chased he fell down a bank."

The man had been treated by ambulance paramedic when the helicopter arrived but was still in "quite a bit of pain", Mr Taylor said. He was now being treated at the hospital's emergency department.

* The cow knew exactly where to herd him in order to cause maximum pain on impact, eh?

"Moody cows go on the attack"

From the NZ Herald:

Two frenzied cow attacks have sparked calls to take care around the hormonal beasts during calving season.

A 64-year-old man was yesterday pinned to the ground, stomped and headbutted by a cow on a Coromandel farm, just two hours after a 47-year-old woman was attacked by a cow on a Dannevirke dairy farm.

Both were flown to hospital for treatment...

See also TwinCities.com:

Farmer David Ferwerda may have dug pythons out of warthog holes and escaped elephant herds in Africa, but it was a pregnant Black Angus cow that would leave him on the operating table.

Ferwerda, a globe-trotting game hunter, credited his loyal Australian cattle dog Hannah with saving his life after the Angus attacked him March 14.

"She's an exceptionally good dog," he said. "She never takes her eyes off me. If it wasn't for the dog, I would never have gotten out of that barnyard."

Short Lists

Foreign politicians who are/were married to English men.

1. Aung San Suu Kyi

2. DBR Reed came to my rescue with Helen Clark (former PM of NZ). I would have ruled out her husband on the grounds of not being English enough, but it turns out that the other person I was thinking of, Yulia Tymoshenko, is not married to an English musician at all, it's her daughter who is so betrothed, so Ms Clark is the fall back candidate. Oops.

Next up in the list of lists, a couple of very short lists indeed: Cities in France whose name, if listed next to their region, sounds like a chav and her daughter (submitted by John B), and Towns in Australia which sound as if they were named after a heavy metal magazine.

Outbreak Of Commonsense...

... In New Zealand (spotter's badge: Dearieme):

Reserve Bank chairman and economist Arthur Grimes is proposing a $12 billion land tax, higher gst (1) and slashing personal tax rates, but says the idea is "a personal one".

A 1 per cent a year land tax to raise more than $12 billion and raising gst to 15 per cent would allow for a cut in personal income tax to just 20 per cent, with low-income earners paying no tax...

Finance Minister Michael Cullen, also at the meeting, questioned how people would pay the land tax if they owned property that was not earning an income (2), but he would not comment further...

Dr Grimes said his idea would allow for zero tax on incomes up to $9500, 10per cent tax on incomes between $9500 and $38,000 and 20 per cent on all income above $38,000. "This sort of tax structure would raise enough revenue for the Government to provide funds for existing social services, while encouraging people and firms to add extra value," he said.

A land tax combined with lower income tax and higher gst rates is a very appealing package, says former Reserve Bank governor Don Brash. "If the trade-off were a substantial reduction in income tax rates there would be a lot to commend it," said Dr Brash, the former National Party leader. "It doesn't surprise me, because Arthur Grimes is a very smart economist."

Westpac chief economist Brendan O'Donovan said: "Anything that helps flatten the tax system is going to be good to motivate people." High tax rates were a disincentive to work and investment, and a drag on productivity. He favoured a flatter personal tax system with a higher gst rate to encourage savings and discourage consumption.

The downside of rates or land taxes was that there could be cases of elderly people being forced out of their homes in wealthy suburbs, he said (3). It could be a dampener on house prices, depending on how much of the tax could be passed through in higher rents (4).

A land tax could make life difficult for older people on low fixed incomes or for some farmers and Maori making small returns but sitting on valuable properties. Dr Brash said if people were "asset-rich and cash-poor" they could sell some of their assets or borrow against them to pay the tax...

Dr Grimes said his idea would encourage investment in human capital, new plant and equipment, and research and development. It would also encourage high-value activities to locate in New Zealand...(5)

1) Boo to higher gst, which is their equivalent of VAT, The Worst Tax Of All.

2) Land/location generates income directly (because that's where your business is) or indirectly (if you want to live in a high wage area, you have to pay higher rent or mortgage). Or else it would have no value. For most people, they will lose on the LVT swing and gain on the income tax roundabout. If not, it's simplest to see LVT as a tax on consumption of land, i.e. personally benefitting from 'communal efforts' (TM Friedrich Hayek).

3) Exemptions, discounts, deferment. To be fair, pensioners are least likely to benefit from income tax cuts.

4) It probably would 'dampen house prices', whether that's A Good Thing or A Bad Thing depends on your point of view. As to 'passing on', the upper limit to the amount that can be 'passed on' is the amount by which the tenant's or purchaser's income tax is reduced, so the calculation is quite circular (and supports my theory that we could replace all taxes with LVT).

5) Well obviously. Such a tax can't encourage physical land or infrastructure to relocate from New Zealand, can it?

Quote of the day

At EU Referendum:

... evidence is accumulating that global warming is most definitely man-made – but not as we know it...

You can take drug legalisation too far ...

From the BBC:

NZ votes against child smack ban

[New Zealand] Cow attack

It appears that cow attacks are 'going global'. From New Zealand we have this:

A jogger feared for his life during an attack by a cow in a popular Auckland park that left him with a broken arm and extensive bruising. A morning run through the farm at Cornwall Park, on One Tree Hill, has been part of Ted Walker's routine for almost 15 years.

But the Greenlane resident never expected to be attacked by a full-grown cow protecting her calves. While running through a paddock on July 26, he passed a cow who had recently given birth to two calves. She knocked him to the ground, kicking and head-butting him.

"I was absolutely terrified and scared witless," he says, "I thought it was all over. I quite literally thought she was going to kill me."

So how did they do it then?

When this story first broke, those who commented reckoned it would be very difficult for them to shift the cash.

It's now reported that they've fled the country with NZ$ 2.3 million of the NZ$ 10 million that was erroneously credited to their account - what the public wants to know (or me at least) is how on earth did they do it?

"Selling sex legally in New Zealand"

There's a fine BBC article on how things have changed in NZ since prostitution was legalised six years ago.

It's fairly short and well worth a read, so I won't highlight bits of it. Suffice to say, this is a golden opportunity for pragmatarians and libertarians to say "We told you so."

Different continent, same old shit (2)

Not to be outdone in the Underclass child abuse, incompetent meddling* and liberal hand-wringing stakes, New Zealand presents ... Nia Glassie.

H/t The Clunking Fist.

* Or should that be "meddling incompetence"?