Stuff reports:

Millions of Kiwis are bombarding blacklisted child-sex-abuse sites to request access to illegal videos and photos.

That is total crap. The story would have you think somewhere between 25% and 100% of Kiwis are trying to access child pornography websites. It is alarmist crap which is trying to induce moral panic.

The Department of Internal Affairs has already blocked 34 million attempts within New Zealand to access at least one of 582 child sex abuse sites blocked by government filters since 2010.

There are two important things to note here. The first is that the 34 million attempts tells us nothing about how many people are making those attempts. There is absolutely no basis in fact for the claim in the opening sentence.

The second thing is that the 34 million number is not the number of unique attempts, but can be one page generates 100 or more “attempts”. It’s like the difference between “hits” and “visits”.

Although many of these attempts are generated by pop-ups, malicious software and a small group of heavy users, the sheer number was described by one cyber security expert as “mind-boggling”.

The opening line would have you think millions of Kiwis are into child pornography. In fact a lot of it is malware.

However, while the stream of blocked requests was huge, the actual number of people consuming child sex abuse material in New Zealand was small and most of them were being caught, he said.

DIA do a very good job of catching those who sell, buy and trade child abuse images. It’s a yucky job they do, and they deserve our thanks. They have made it clear that the actual number of people access child sex amuse material is small so how did the story end up with a misleading headline and opening sentence? It may have been a sub-editor?

Matthew Hooton writes in NBR:

They were there, they said, for everyone.

This week, Greenpeace chief executive Bunny McDiarmid led a self-described flotilla to try to stop Texas-based company Anadarko from exploring for oil off the West Coast of the North Island. The effort, according to Ms McDiarmid, was “in defence of our oceans, future generations, our climate and our coastline.”

Her sidekick, former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, went further, claiming to speak for all living creatures.

Both insist Anadarko is not welcome in our waters. …

In my life, I have swum in the ocean, sailed Lasers, gone snorkelling, caught the odd fish, water-skied, built sand-castles and strolled along Piha at sunset. The New Zealand coastline and ocean are as much mine as Ms McDiarmid’s. So too “the climate.” I also have just as much interest as her in “future generations.” Indeed, when I speak of these things, I do so without ambiguity or conflict.

In contrast, Ms McDiarmid speaks as a paid employee of a multinational empire with assets of $350 million and annual revenues of $435 million, of which about $110 million is paid to head office in Amsterdam.

The New Zealand franchise raises around $8.5 million a year, of which $2.5 million is spent on further fund-raising and another $2 million is paid to Amsterdam, including for the rights to use the Greenpeace brand. It is a similar setup to an oil company or fast-food chain.

Greenpeace is indeed a multinational brand.

Speaking, therefore, without the same financial interest in the matter as Ms McDiarmid, I say Anardako is welcome in my country, including along my coastline and out in my oceans. I hope they find oil, and lots of it, and I hope others do too.

Speaking on behalf of future generations, I then hope Energy Minister Simon Bridges gets on a plane to Norway before too long and learns what a successful oil industry and associated investment fund can do to transform the living standards of a small country, while not compromising its tourism industry or natural beauty. I hope that Mr Bridges and his superiors understand that if New Zealand does not drill our oil and sell it to transform our living standards, then – as global supplies eventually become scarcer over the next century – someone will one day come and take it. It’s always better to sell something than have it stolen. Mr Bridges should also increase the royalties the oil companies have to pay.

Having said all this, I also understand that there is a risk, albeit miniscule, of a serious spill. This would kill birds, seals, dolphins and whales, and swimming, snorkelling, sailing and sandcastles would be out of the question for a while. But I also know the environment would heal itself much quicker and more completely than Greenpeace will tell us, as was the case in Brittany after 1978, Prince Williams Sound after 1989, the Gulf of Mexico after 2010 and the Bay of Plenty after the Rena in 2011. It is a risk, in my view, worth taking.

Next time Ms McDiamid purports to speak for me, I would kindly ask her to also make these points. If her bosses in Amsterdam will allow it.

We’ve had drilling for decades in Taranaki. I get sick of people in Auckland and Wellington demanding that people in Taranaki and the West Coast should lose their jobs, to make them feel better.

A guest post by commenter “Flipper:

“It is interesting that the media are ignoring the real implications of  the Pike River death dance by Cunliffe and his union cronies.

I suppose their ignorance is in part explained (or increased) by the fact that the New Zealand Herald has taken unto itself the right to be the standard bearer for Cunliffe on this issue.   It has done so to the point where two experienced columnists – Armstrong and O’Sullivan – have rallied to support their Editor (Currie) and his love affair with Cunliffe.  The stance adopted by both Armstrong and O’Sullivan recently, and again today,  is disappointing because it is yet another example of NZ Herald news manipulation.   This planned approach, covering all APNZ publications, was exposed by Whaleoil in his now famous “Hit job” report.   One sees the Herald’s support of Cunliffe’ s  crass exploitation of already hugely compensated  tragedy families from  Pike Mine as “pay- back” for a Government that “escaped” their planned assassination conspiracy on retirement homes.

But there is another, wider, issue that some folk have observed: the proclivity of the media, especially including Fairfax, TVs One and 3, and the Herald, to chase down blind alleys.   In the past year there have been numerous “expose” stories that were going, they said, to bring the Key Government down.  These have ranged from Dotcom, to GCSB, to Dunne, to Vance, to Fonterra, to Nova pay, to Hekia Parata, to the Christchurch schools, to Len Brown’s loopy rail plans, to a non-existent manufacturing crisis and a non- existent regional crisis, to Tiwai Smelter, to Graeme Wheeler’s LVRs – and even to Roast Busters and more. All were promoted and portrayed as “killer” blows.     Is Pike River another “blind alley”?

As November  2013 draws to a close it is clear that they were largely media promoted events that had very little impact on middle New Zealand – a New Zealand starting to enjoy the fruits of three/four years of pump grinding while Europe is still in a mess.   The polls do not support the garbage promoted by Armstrong, Currie, O’Sullivan, Gower, Watkins, Small, Vance, Wood, et al. They live in an esoteric world totally divorced from the reality in which real New Zealand lives and, now, prospers.     Good economic news of the kind that almost all of Europe would welcome is ignored.  It does not fit the frame (up) that the media wants to promote. Pity.

And that brings me back to Pike River.   Armstrong, Currie, and O’Sullivan are extremely foolish to persist in their pro Cunliffe stance.    Court awarded reparations are a bottomless pit – a hole in the ground – into which the taxpayer would be required to pour endless millions.  The Government designs roads. Faulty design causes accidents that kill drivers.  The CTV building collapses.  Who is responsible?  By the Armstrong/Currie/ O’Sullivan line, the taxpayers should pick up the tab for Pike River corporate fines because, in O’Sullivan’s words, and after receiving millions in compensation and aid, with many, many millions still to come, the Cunliffe promise of $3.4 million is just “a drop in the bucket”.   Your pontification O’Sullivan, is beneath any serious reporter.   But are you a reporter?  Or are you now an advocacy journalist, like Mazda Campbell?   It is time that Fran, John, and Shayne, sat down and re-thought their roles.

Pike River has been handled by the Government with care and dignity. The response on our behalf has been measured, but fair, and appropriately humane.   Could some things have been done better (think Policeman Knowles)?  Yep.      The Pike River death dance orchestrated by Cunliffe, with the support of some media, is a sign of  Cunliffe’ s desperation, his “war footing” cry having slipped to the very edge of the abyss.   Give it up.

My thoughts on Pike River is that if Cunliffe seriously thinks the Government should pay, than why not have the parties that were in Government pay, rather than us poor innocent taxpayers. Regulatory problems happened under both Labour and National Governments. It is easy for Cunliffe to declare that taxpayers should pay, but why should we pay for mistakes made by the Government he was part of.

So why doesn’t Cunliffe pledge $1.5 million to be paid to Pike River families from the Labour parliamentary budget, and call on National to do the same. Would that not be fairer that asking for taxpayers to pay?

The Listener has their ten favourite opening sentences from news reports. They’re very good. They include:

• Sweden’s Ice Hotel has been ordered by the National Housing Board to install fire alarms, despite being made completely out of frozen water.
• Firefighters have warned of the dangers of driving into a petrol forecourt when your car is on fire.
• Swino, the boozy feral pig that shot to international fame after drinking 18 cans of beer, starting a fight with a cow and causing chaos at an Australian campsite, has died in a car accident.
• A gay man tried to poison his lesbian neighbours by putting slug pellets into their curry after he was accused of kidnapping their three-legged cat.
• A German student created a major traffic jam in Bavaria after making a rude gesture at a group of Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang members, hurling a puppy at them and then escaping on a stolen bulldozer.

I think the last one is my favourite.

Anthony Hubbard at Stuff reports:

The Lange government fell apart, Sir Geoffrey says, because of “a failure of one of the most basic principles of Cabinet government”.

Prime Minister David Lange was the main culprit. He canned the newly elected government’s notorious economic package of December 1987, a dramatic lurch to the Right based on a flat income tax and sweeping privatisation.

Lange’s unilateral decision was something “that you can’t do”, Sir Geoffrey says. “And that’s why it all fell apart.”

He points to the selfishness of both men. “Neither David nor Roger seemed in their epic struggle to consider the interests of anyone but themselves,” he writes.

There were faults on both sides, “but David had serious weaknesses that in the end destroyed his government”.

“He could not or would not have meaningful discussions with Roger Douglas over their differences.”

In terms of the actual management of government, Lange was arguably the most incompetent Prime Minister we’ve had. He had great strengths but he couldn’t do the basics right.

“He was not well organised personally and lacked administrative skills. His office was not well run and that was his fault.

“He did not have much stamina for meetings, and politics requires many long meetings. He often left meetings for long periods, aimlessly wandering about talking to people.”

Lange’s “multifarious health problems affected not only his ability for sustained work but also in later years his judgment. . .

“Neither did he seem to be able or willing in Cabinet to argue strongly for particular policy positions, so it was hard to see where he was coming from.

“He really did not exert much influence over the policies of his own government. He was not an effective policy operator.”

Nature abhors a vacuum, and this is probably one of the reasons why Roger Douglas ended up almost running the Government.

When Sir Geoffrey became prime minister, Helen Clark was elected as his deputy. His assessment of her performance is cool.

Clark “is, as everyone knows, extremely able. She was not, however, an ideal deputy because she had only been a minister since the 1987 election.

“In January 1990 she was saddled with two new and difficult portfolios, health and labour. As a result, she did not have the time to devote to firefighting and management of the whole.

“Her style was to micromanage her portfolios. She had strong connections with the party and that was very helpful, but I found myself wishing sometimes that I had a deputy of the type I had been.”

Loyal? Clark knifed Palmer to install Moore.

Stuff reports:

She’s a pretty 25-year-old, a prim dresser with a “fun sense of humour”.

And she wants to marry a 79-year-old prison inmate whose name is Charles Manson.

Meet “Star”, the young girlfriend/fiancee of America’s most notorious criminal who is serving a lifetime behind bars at Corcoran State Prison in California for the infamous Tate-LaBianca murders of 1969.

“Star!” Manson tells Rolling Stone in a lengthy series of bizarre interviews published on Thursday (local time).
“She’s not a woman. She’s a star in the Milky Way!”

Star has been living in Corcoran for seven years, since she was 19 – drawn not, she says, by Manson’s killer reputation but his credentials as a solid “greenie”.

She runs a Tumblr and Facebook pages promoting ATWA – Air, Trees, Animals and All the Way Alive -Manson’s uncompromising ecological mandate. She visits every Saturday and Sunday for up to five hours a day, assuming her infamous boyfriend hasn’t been placed in solitary.

“Yeah, well, people can think I’m crazy,”

People think she’s crazy because, well she is.

Stuff reports:

Waikato pensioners are starving and raiding their KiwiSaver accounts to pay back mounting credit card debt.

This is a badly written story. It takes an assertion of a financial adviser and reports it as fact. It should report it as an assertion and credit it to the financial adviser.

Hamilton Budgeting Advisory Trust manager Clare Mataira said financial abuse of the elderly is a growing problem and she is pushing for banks to tighten their lending policies.

“We’re seeing people use credit cards for living expenses.

“I’ve seen more superannuitants in the last four to five years using credit cards for living expenses than in my whole career,” she said.

Not sure why, as the pension has increased well beyond the rate of inflation. Every year the purchasing power of NZ Superannuation tends to increase. We have the most generous superannuation scheme in the world – universal, linked to the median wage, no means or asset testing etc.

The latest migration stats came out yesterday. In terms of NZers leaving to Australia and returning, the recent trend is pretty good.

Graeme Edgeler has a lengthy post at Public Address on the consequences of calling on advertisers to boycott shows. I recommend people read it in full, as it is hard to do justice to it with just some extracts.

I don’t like advertiser boycotts; especially not boycotts of advertisers for the content of the programmes during which their advertising appears, and especially not if that programme is news or current affairs.

Yes, free speech has consequences. But the exercise of free speech in response also has consequences.

There are several aspects to this. I do not think that advertisers should exercise control – even indirectly – over content. For advertisers, the programming is the medium, not the message; a programme is a conduit to the audience of a broadcaster, not something they should generally been seen as supporting. Especially when we are dealing with news or current affairs, those advertising during a particular programme should not be seen as endorsing the views expressed in it. And I think that if people generally treat advertisers as bearing responsibility for editorial content, they are more likely to either want some control over it, or to spend their advertising dollars in a way that has that effect.

We have ad-supported broadcasting. While there might be a place for a real public broadcaster, most of the radio and television we have will continue to be ad-supported. I like that there is a variety of things to watch and to listen to (most of which I don’t). But if we really start holding advertisers to account for the content of programmes or channels on which their ads appear, then they will be more circumspect about placing ads, and some voices may be lost.

That is not to say that those calling for boycotts should be stopped. Their speech is just as worthy of protection as the speech they seek to shut down. I simply ask that they consider not only the consequences of the speech they are protesting, but also the consequences of the speech they engage in.

I may agree that the speech targeted in one boycott is ill-considered, or harmful in some way, but next time a boycott succeeds it might have the effect of reducing speech I like, or think is valuable. Targeting Freeview over something Willie Jackson and John Tamihere have said, or Heritage Hotels for something Paul Henry said over which they had no control (and shouldn’t have control) in order to punish their broadcasters for airing them, isn’t fundamentally different from arranging a boycott of Four (or Mediaworks) for airing an episode of South Park about the abuse by Catholic clergy, or someone else for airing pro-homosexual propaganda like Queer Nation or The L Word.

Well said.  Again, I recommend people read the whole post.

David Cunliffe blogs:

A couple of months ago I was asked to write a post for the Ruminator and, rather optimistically, I agreed.The original brief was to respond to a post by Judith Collins. My post was going to be about snapper, not trout. But considering that issue, along with Judith’s leadership aspirations, has floundered, I’ll try another hook.

What is extraordinary is this is a written blog post – not an off the cuff remark.

@mizjwilliams @DavidCunliffeMP @RuminatorNZ Imagine the outcry from Labour if one of Nat male MPs called a Labour woman a trout #sexist

— Judith Collins (@JudithCollinsMP) November 22, 2013

This is quite correct. If a male National MP had called a female Labour MP a trout, almost every female Labour MP would have done press releases condemning the sexism.

This is not the first time Cunliffe has made an off colour remark about Judith Collins. he previously said:

The controversial radio host asked Cunliffe if he ever contemplated who he would mate with if he was on a plane and everyone else in the world suddenly died.

Cunliffe answered: “Well, I have thought that if Judith Collins was the last woman on Earth, the species would probably become extinct.”

He seems to have a fixation about Judith.

The Washington Post reports:

The partisan battles that have paralyzed Washington in recent years took a historic turn Thursday, as Senate Democrats eliminated filibusters for most presidential nominations, severely curtailing the political leverage of the Republican minority in the Senate and assuring an escalation of partisan warfare.

I think it is good the filibuster is gone, as you should be able to confirm appointments with a majority. However by unilaterally changing the rules, the Democrats have started what may be a chain of events which means that in future the majority will be able to do anything it wants.

In NZ standing orders generally only change if there is unanimous approval. The standing orders generally protect the minority, and Governments know one day they will be in opposition and then be protected by standing orders.

The Democrats will enjoy having got rid of the filibuster while they hold the White House and the Senate. But at some stage the Republicans will hold both, and then they may regret their decision greatly.

The change does not apply to Supreme Court nominations. But the vote, mostly along party lines, reverses nearly 225 years of precedent and dramatically alters the landscape for both Democratic and Republican presidents, especially if their own political party holds a majority of, but fewer than 60, Senate seats.

It is inevitable that supreme court nominations will in time lose the filibuster also.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned Democrats against the rule change on Wednesday, saying that if the GOP reclaimed the Senate majority, Republicans would further alter the rules to include Supreme Court nominees, so that Democrats could not filibuster a Republican pick for the nation’s highest court.

Inevitable.

The vote to change the rule passed 52 to 48. Three Democrats — Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.), Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Mark Pryor (Ark.) — joined 45 Republicans in opposing the measure. Levin is a longtime senator who remembers well the years when Democratic filibusters blocked nominees of Republican presidents; Manchin and Pryor come from Republican-leaning states.

I’m no fan of the filibuster, but both sides have used it in recent years.

Spies are reporting that Labour have been using robo-calling in Christchurch East and the calls are not going down well.

I am not a fan of robo-calling. I think its pisses off more people than it persuades. In some countries there is a political culture that accepts it, but not in NZ.

I think it works in the US because people are more removed from their politicians. When you get a robocall in the voice of say Bill Clinton, you may find it vaguely exciting. But I can’t see that anyone in NZ likes getting a robo-call from a NZ politician.

UPDATE: Ruth Dyson has tweeted Labour are not robo calling in Christchurch East. I will check with my source but of course accept what Ruth has said.

Google recently won a court case the US Society of Authors brought against it for their Google Books service. The Society of Authors claimed that Google’s scanning in of 20 million or more books without the permission of the rights holders was a breach of copyright. Google argued that it was fair use as they didn’t allow anyone to download a copy of the book, just search for and quote extracts of up to quarter of a page.

The details of what Google does to protect a book i its entirety being copied is interesting, as are the reasons the Judge gave for his decision which was a strong argument for the benefits of fair use.

For books in “snippet view” (in contrast to “full view” books), Google divides each page into eighths — each of which is a “snippet,” a verbatim excerpt. …

Google takes security measures to prevent users from viewing a complete copy of a snippet-view book. For example, a user cannot cause the system to return different sets of snippets for the same search query; the position of each snippet is fixed within the page and does not “slide” around the search term; only the first responsive snippet available on any given page will be returned in response to a query; one of the snippets on each page is “black-listed,” meaning it will not be shown; and at least one out of ten entire pages in each book is black-listed.

So even if one went through an entire book trying to use words found in it, to get an electronic copy, you would end up with 10% of pages missing and 12.5% of the other 90% of pages missing. Anyone wanting an electronic copy would just scan a hard copy in themselves1

The Judge lists the benefits of Google Books:

1. Google Books provides a new and efficient way for readers and researchers to find books.  It makes tens of millions of books searchable by words and phrases. It provides a searchable index linking each word in any book to all books in which that word appears.
2. Google Books has become an essential research tool, as it helps librarians identify and find research sources. Google Books has become such an important tool for researchers and librarians that it has been integrated into the educational system — it is taught as part of the information literacy curriculum to students at all levels
3. Google Books greatly promotes a type of research referred to as “data mining” or “text mining.”  Google Books permits humanities scholars to analyze massive amounts of data — the literary record created by a collection of tens of millions of books. Researchers can examine word frequencies, syntactic patterns, and thematic markers to consider how literary style has changed over time.
4. Google Books expands access to books. In particular, traditionally underserved populations will benefit as they gain knowledge of and access to far more books. Google Books provides print-disabled individuals with the potential to search for books and read them in a format that is compatible with text enlargement software, text-to-speech screen access software, and Braille devices.
5. Google Books helps to preserve books and give them new life.
6. By helping readers and researchers identify books, Google Books benefits authors and publishers.

These benefits are a great list of why fair use is so important in copyright.

Also worth quoting the judgement on whether Google Books may serve as a market replacement for books.

Here, plaintiffs argue that Google Books will negatively impact the market for books and that Google’s scans will serve as a “market replacement” for books. (Pl. Mem. at 41). It also argues that users could put in multiple searches, varying slightly the search terms, to access an entire book.  (9/23/13 Tr. at 6).

Neither suggestion makes sense. Google does not sell its scans, and the scans do not replace the books. While partner libraries have the ability to download a scan of a book from their collections, they owned the books already — they provided the original book to Google to scan. Nor is it likely that someone would take the time and energy to input countless searches to try and get enough snippets to comprise an entire book. Not only is that not possible as certain pages and snippets are blacklisted, the individual would have to have a copy of the book in his possession already to be able to piece the different snippets together in coherent fashion.

The argument that someone could use Google Books to get a free electronic copy is basically nuts. It’s impossible and even if i was not, would be far more effort than just scanning one in yourself.

To the contrary, a reasonable factfinder could only find that Google Books enhances the sales of books to the benefit of copyright holders. An important factor in the success of an individual title is whether it is discovered — whether potential readers learn of its existence. (Harris Decl. ¶ 7 (Doc. No. 1039)). Google Books provides a way for authors’ works to become noticed, much like traditional in-store book displays. (Id. at 14-15). Indeed, both librarians and their patrons use Google Books to identify books to purchase. (Br. of Amici Curiae American Library Ass’n at 8). Many authors have noted that online browsing in general and Google Books in particular helps readers find their work, thus increasing their audiences.  Further, Google provides convenient links to booksellers to make it easy for a reader to order a book. In this day and age of  on-line shopping, there can be no doubt but that Google Books improves books sales.

You have to wonder why the Society of Authors took this case? I know many authors who did not support their action. They were arguing against a service that helps generates sales for them.

I think it is just being reactionary. I guess once upon a time the Society of Authors probably opposed allowing libraries to lend books out, as they saw it as a threat also.

Labour proclaimed:

Documents obtained by Labour show the Government has kept secret the real risk of an incident including a major oil spill occurring at the depths of Anadarko’s proposed Kaikōura drilling site, Labour Leader David Cunliffe says.

“The Government has constantly told the public deep sea oil exploration will be safe.

“However, documents obtained under the Official Information Act show Environment Minister Amy Adams had international research 13 months ago showing there is a 70 per cent probability of a ‘reportable incident’ occurring within a year at the 1500m depth of the Kaikōura well.

This so called secret document has been held in a top secret location – the world wide web. It’s been there for the last two years. Someone should introduce Labout to Google.

“This research shows while existing shallow water sites such as Taranaki carry a risk of only around 10 per cent, the risk is dramatically increased at deeper levels.

“Amy Adams went to great lengths to keep this information from the public. In fact, she told Parliament there is a ‘very low risk’ of a large scale oil spill occurring.

Which there is. Labour are conflating an oil spill with a reportable incident. To do this, you need to be either very stupid or very misleading.

PEPANZ set the record straight:

 “Communities are calling for more responsible information about deep sea drilling. Instead, Labour Leader David Cunliffe’s announcement today is riddled with inaccurate assertions which are harmful to the oil and gas industry here in New Zealand and potential investors looking to come to our shores.

 “Labour claims they have ‘unearthed’ secret documents hidden by the Government – the truth is you can find the report online here. Or use Google.

 “They claim there is a “well /drilling site” in Kaikoura – again, this is incorrect. Anadarko has planned seismic surveys for the area – but that’s as far as it goes.

 “Taking information out of context or using images without the commentary and research it was published with is misleading and does not contribute to a balanced conversation that our country needs to have about energy.

“For example, a graphic used in a report written by Academic, Mark A Cohen, which Labour is referring to, used on its own suggests the deeper you drill offshore the probability of an incident grows to up to 70%. But when reading the report in its entirety it is clear that those statistics are about the number of incidents reported – injuries, falls or spills. The 70% does not refer simply the probability of a large oil spill – in fact it is saying the more people and machinery you use – the more chance there is of a cut finger, injury, fire or any other incident that you would see on a construction site anywhere.

So if someone drops a wrench on their foot, bruising it, then Labour is trying to make you think that is equivalent to a major oil spill!

This is akin to conflating the crime rate with the homicide rate.

The Telegraph reports:

The Institute for Public Policy Research will publish a paper later this week proposing a new means-tested “youth allowance” for 18 to 24-year olds who are not in work or education.

Only those who prove they are in “purposeful” training or carrying out an “intensive” job search would be eligible for the allowance, the group will say.

The allowance would be dependent on family income, with the children of parents earning more than £25,000 a year unable to claim it, the IPPR will suggest.

The 2013 survey results for NZ from the World Internet Project have been released. A huge amount of data in the report. Some interesting highlights:

• 92% of NZers use the Internet, 5% never have, and 3% used to
• Only 2% of users are still on dial-up
• 79% of users access the Internet through laptops, 74% desktops, 68% mobile phones, 48% tablets, 15% gaming consoles and 10% Smart TVs
• 34% of users use the cloud
• 81% of NZers say the Internet is an important source of information compared to 47% for TV, and 37% for radio and newspapers
• 70% of users are on Facebook, 7% of LinkedIn and 3% on Twitter
• Only 22% of NZers say the Govt should regulate the Internet more than it does
• Around 60% of male users aged under 45 visit sexual content sites compared to around 20% of female users of the same age

Let’s throw caution to the wind and post a pic of one of my favourite NZ spiders.  This girl is Trite planiceps.  She has the common traits of a Salticid (jumping spider).  These include the large front legs, large eyes (jumping spiders have the best eyesight in the the Spider-world) and a small abdomen.  I’ve got her in a grooming pose.

They are a relatively common spider and pretty harmless. In fact. they’re probably quite a useful visitor to have in the garden as they’re aggressive predators of insects.

Click for larger, higher res image

The Remuneration Authority has released its 2013 determination for MPs salaries. These are backdated to 1 July. The new salary levels for each type of MP are:

• PM $428,500
• Deputy PM $303,900
• Cabinet Ministers (18) $268,500
• Speaker $268,500
• Leader of the Opposition $268,500
• Ministers outside Cabinet (7) $226,300
• Government Senior Whip $200,770
• Labour Deputy Leader $192,560
• Labour Senior Whip $191,820
• Deputy Speaker $189,400
• Green Party Leader $182,170
• NZ First Party Leader $173,140
• Green Whip $172,520
• Maori Party Leader $166,060
• NZ First Whip $164,780
• Assistant Speakers (2) $162,200
• ACT Party Leader $162,200
• UnitedFuture Party Leader $162,200
• Mana Party Leader $162,200
• Junior Whips (3) $162,200
• Select Committee Chairs (13) $162,200
• Select Cmte Deputy Chairs (13) $152,400
• Ordinary MPs (49) $147,800

The Remuneration Authority said that the average annual increase in terms of total remuneration is just under 2%.

Winners

Tim MacIndoe – Ham west was marginal seat when he won it, built good majority last time and with current redraw it looks like he has a fairly blue seat

Nikki Kaye – strong population growth in the blue friendly CBD and Grey Lynn disappears

Losers

Ruth Dyson – 3500 majority in Dyson favour turns to a 2000 or so paper majority for Nats. A strong candidate for National could take it.

Sue Moroney – Hamilton West loses the rural area BUT takes in top of north Hamilton East and Horsham Downs from Waikato. Ham East loses some solid blue but still blue seat.  Hamilton could be one of few urban/city seats that are strong blue.

Jacinda Ardern – will be gutted the Auckland central has lost Grey Lynn, both as it votes red and green, but also as she lives there.

Nicky Wagner – did an astonishing job to win CHCH central last election and the boundaries ensure that is unlikely to happen again – very red now.

Paula Bennett (kind of) – Waitakere seat disappears but long term Upper Harbour looks a good seat for her.

Phil Goff – Mt Roskill becomes almost marginal

Sam Lotu Iiga – will be tough seat to hold with red parts of Tamaki and neighbouring red coming into the seat but Sam is a good local MP and Beaumont has not made much impact as a List MP there.

The Daily Beast reports:

In 2012, voters in Colorado and Washington passed full-on, no-hemming-or-hawing pot legalization by large majorities. Lawmakers in each state have spent the better part of the past year figuring out how to tax and regulate their nascent commercial pot industries, which will open for business in 2014 (until then, recreational pot is only supposed to be cultivated for personal use). The spirit behind the legalization efforts in both states was that marijuana should be treated in a “manner similar to alcohol.”

Unfortunately, it’s starting to look like both states are going to treat pot in a manner similar to alcohol during Prohibition. Not only are pot taxes likely to be sky high, various sorts of restrictions on pot shops may well make it easier to buy, sell, and use black-market marijuana rather than the legal variety. That’s a bummer all around: States and municipalities will collect less revenue than expected, law-abiding residents will effectively be denied access to pot, and the crime, corruption, and violence that inevitably surrounds black markets will continue apace.

The lesson here is that is you tax something too much, then a black market prospers.

The upshot of such actions is predictable and depressing. Colorado lawmakers are banking on about $70 million a year (PDF) in taxes from pot and their Washington counterparts have projected new revenues of $1.9 billion over the first five years of legalization. There’s just no way that’s going to happen if a legal ounce of pot is double the price or more of back-alley weed. Even the most stoned pothead isn’t that easy to scam.

It will be very interesting to see what the legal and black market prices are, when the legal market starts. Also what market share each gathers. How much more will people pay for it to be a legal purchase?

Jeremy Warner at The Telegraph reports:

Bit late on this, but a report this week by the management consultancy McKinsey has attempted to quantify the distributional consequences of central bank asset purchases (so-called quantitative easing) which I referred to in my column this morning. Pretty terrifying reading it makes too, hammering home the point that QE has been extremely beneficial to indebted governments and other borrowers, but on the whole very damaging to households, particularly elderly ones reliant on fixed income forms of saving.

And further:

Most certainly the profligate have been bailed out at the expense of the thrifty, but it is not even clear that there is a net economic benefit from propping up the overborrowed. In the end, it may have been at best a zero sum game. More spending sustained among the overstretched has very possibly been cancelled out by less spending by those with the foresight to save.

QE has resulted in a massive transfer of wealth from households the governments.

Enables the Government to spend more by printing money, but households still end up paying for it.