I didn’t think that there were still people who really think being gay is a choice, but the comments by Colin Craig indicate that it appears some do. Also with people trying to compare same sex relationships to polygamy, it seems it is necessary to deal with this issue. So, let’s be clear about what is and is not a choice.

Sex

You choose whom you have sex with. Yes Colin Craig could “choose” to have sex with a man. That however doesn’t make him gay. Some years ago I was discussing with a group of friends how much money it would take for me to have sex with a guy. I said that it would have to be enough to permanently change my lifestyle – more than I could probably earn some other way. $1 million wouldn’t be enough as the interest on that would be only $80,000 a year and I’d rather earn that from polling! I settled on a figure of $6 million as at 8% would get me $500,000 a year income. Hence amongst certain friends I am now known as the six million dollar man.

Now if I ever was to have sex with a man for $6 million, this would not make me gay. It would just make me a very expensive whore.

Desire

I don’t have any choice over whom I find attractive or desirable. I wish I did – it would make life much much easier. I find women attractive. Never have I found men attractive. Sure I can admire a good physique on either sex, but in terms of actual desire – I am incapable of finding anyone but women desirable.

Now some people may have problems accepting this, but for many gay men, it is exactly the same – except they only find men attractive and desirable, and have no desire to have sex with women. Now personally I can’t comprehend this (I can understand lesbianism very well though – in fact what amazes me is why any woman wants to sleep with a man, if they can score chicks also – but that is more a reflection on me!), but it is just the way some people are. Whether it is genetics, or some unknown combination of environmental factors at a massively early age (or a combination), I don’t know. But for most people, there is absolutely no element of choice about whom they are attracted to.

Yes, there are some people who are bisexual to varying degrees, and can happily have gay relationships for a while, and then have heterosexual relationships thereafter, and be absolutely happy. But just because some people are like this, doesn’t mean all are. I have some gay friends who never ever have been attracted to women, never ever will be attracted to women. If you do not accept this reality, then you are staying deliberately blind.

Love

Just as we get little choice in whom we find desirable, we also get little choice in whom we fall in love with. Again, life would be a lot easier if we did – I have sometimes fallen for the most inappropriate people.

I would hope most readers know what it is like to be in love – especially the head over heels variety. Where you just want to spend every waking hour with that person. Where you phone them six times a day just to chat. Where you share your life with them entirely, and you just feel empty and incomplete without them. God knows, how we have been programmed to feel like this, but we have. The wonder of love, is only matched by the horror of loss.

Now again, I know I can only fall in love with women. I have mates whom I would do anything for, and will be mates until we are dead. But that is different to someone you are actually in love with.

Now I can understand that 25 years ago some people may have thought being gay was just about gay sex, and hookups. Partly because of the then laws in place, gay couples could not be open about their relationships.

But just as heterosexual men and women fall in love with each other, gay and lesbian men and women fall in love with other. This sounds patronising that I even have to say this out loud, but I think some people out there doubt it – they think it is just about sex. Go out and meet some of those couples who have been together 20 or 30 years or longer. Their love is just as strong and just as valid, as any other couple’s.

Commitment

Now as I said you may not get much of a choice around whom you find attractive. You sometimes may not even have much of a choice around whom you fall in love with. You can be with one person and find other people attractive. You can even be married, and find other people attractive. You may even meet someone and realise you are falling for them.

But for me marriage is about commitment. I absolutely love the vows “until death do us part”. I think there is something wonderful about pledging yourself to another in sickness and health for the rest of your life. And sure some marriages fail, and people do cheat. But many do not. And it is via commitment that we choose not to cheat on our partner, and if we think we may be falling for someone else, we then choose to see less of them.

Choice

So in my view we do not get much of a choice about desire/attractiveness or love. But we do get a choice about sex and about commitment. And if same sex couples want to make a life-long commitment to each other to marry, then I think that is a great thing – and something that makes society better – as well as provides much happiness to that couple.

This is why the stuff about polygamy is a red herring. Polygamy is a choice. If people wish to have more than one partner, and they all agree, then that is their choice.

Marriage for me is about a couple who are in love with other wanting to commit to each other for the rest of their lives. I think it is an inspirational thing, even thought it is something I’ve not yet been lucky enough to have. I don’t want any (adult) couple who are in love with each other, who want to marry, to be banned from doing so. People should not be denied marriage on the basis of their sexuality, which they have no control over.

The Herald editorial:

The announcement yesterday of the framework for this country’s model for charter schools did nothing to quell the indignation of opponents. Indeed, they were supplied with new information to fuel their opposition, most notably the fact that charter schools – or partnership schools, as the Government wants them to be known – will be able to employ teachers without qualifications.

“You wouldn’t let an untrained doctor treat your child, or let anyone design your house,” retorted Labour’s education spokeswoman, Nanaia Mahuta. She would have been better served to save criticism for other, more questionable aspects of the framework.

Unlike public schools which children are forced to go to, because they live nearby, no child will be forced to go to a charter school, against their parents wishes. Parents will weigh up if they think the teaching quality is good enough.

A university has said it is interested in running charter schools. Technically university lecturers are not qualified teachers. Are we saying that a maths lecturer could not also teach some maths classes at school?

If an All Black was willing to do a couple of PE sessions every week, would you turn that down?

Basically you have to judge each school’s use of non “qualified” staff on an individual basis.

I like the fact that charter schools will have to accept every pupil who applies, so no cherry picking. And if more applications than places, then random ballots will be used.

I’m willing to bet that more than a few charter schools will have to use ballots, as there will be so many applications.

Judith Collins has announced:

“Our reforms will ensure the Family Court renews its focus towards those who need it most. The Court must put the needs of children first, rather than those of private couples with relationship issues.

“To better support victims of domestic violence, we’re increasing the penalty for breaching a protection order, recognising ‘economic abuse’ as a form of psychological abuse, and improving stopping domestic violence programmes.

“We’re introducing a new Family Disputes Resolution (FDR) service which will become a cornerstone feature of our family justice system, particularly for Care of Children Act cases. FDR will minimise the harmful impact conflict has on children with about 4,000 fewer court applications and 2,000 fewer children going to Court each year.

Excellent. Children should not be in court, unless absolutely necessary. The FAQ states:

It will become mandatory for parties to attempt Family Dispute Resolution before applying to the Court, unless an exemption applies. Access to the court is still available if FDR is unsuccessful.

So no heading straight to court.

Some types of disputes will not be suitable for FDR. For example, where there is a history of domestic violence or child abuse, where a party’s safety could be at risk, a significant power imbalance exists, or due to illness or disability.

Sensible exceptions.

A guest post by Anthony Morris:

There is something we could do about our high exchange rate

New Zealand hasn’t paid its way in the world since 1973. Every year since then we have had to take on extra debt and sell off assets to fund the gap between our exports and imports. Yes, the Government had paid off most of its debt before the global financial crisis hit in 2008. This means government borrowing is not high by international standards despite recent increases. However, private sector external debt is worryingly high.

The Reserve Bank recently looked at our net international investment position as a percentage of GDP, and came up with a figure of negative 86% as at 2008. Against a selection of 21 OECD countries New Zealand was 18^th with only Portugal, Hungary and Iceland having a worse position. Even Greece appeared to be in a slightly better position than New Zealand in 2008! See http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/bulletin/2007_2011/2010dec73_4Steenkamp.pdf

New Zealand has got into this position because we have had a chronically over-valued exchange rate. Year after year our export revenues have failed to cover our imports.

The high exchange has been blamed on the Reserve Bank since it became independent in 1989. Apart from some supervision of financial institutions, the Reserve Bank’s only task has been to keep inflation under control and its only levers for the job have been monetary ones. Relatively high interest rates have been required to tame inflation and a side effect has been a high exchange rate as foreigners have rushed to deposit money in New Zealand.

However, there are other factors that affect the exchange rate. The attractiveness of foreigners lending money to New Zealand financial institutions depends on the whole return and not just the ‘raw’ interest rate. Tax can be withheld from the interest paid. New Zealand’s tax treaties allow for a 10% or 15% interest withholding tax.

However, since 1991 the approved issuer levy (AIL) scheme has allowed financial institutions to pay a 2% fee in return for not having to deduct any withholding tax from the interest on foreign deposits. Recently the Government has gone even further and lowered the levy to 0% in some cases. Meanwhile, New Zealanders have tax deducted from the interest on their savings at their marginal tax rate, which for middle to high income earners is 33%.

It is no wonder we have high capital inflows funding our way in the world when we go out of the way to make it attractive for foreigners to put their savings here but not for New Zealanders to save. Other countries have implemented various measures to discourage passive investment from foreigners because they know it pushes up the exchange rate and harms the productive parts of the economy. Here in New Zealand we don’t seem to care.

I suggest that the solution is to allow the Reserve Bank some control over the level of tax on interest payments, and to give it an objective that incorporates sustaining economic growth for the long term benefit of New Zealanders. If AIL was abolished and we went back to an interest withholding tax of 10 or 15% on foreign deposits then the demand for the $NZ would likely to drop a little and the exchange rate fall. This would make imports more expensive and exports more competitive, helping the balance of payments.

Discouraging the inflow of foreign savings could encourage banks to raise their deposit interest rates to raise more money, which would tighten monetary conditions. However, the Reserve Bank can ease monetary conditions if it thinks they are too tight. It has various tools like the official cash rate which effectively allow the creation of more money.

The global financial crisis did disrupt the power of the usual monetary instruments. In some countries, central banks had to turn to new instruments such as quantitative easing (essentially printing money) to increase the money supply. Quantitative easing definitely creates more money without having to borrow it from foreigners!

Making monetary conditions too loose causes inflation and I am not advocating that. But why borrow overseas when more money can be created internally?

Prior to their entry into the Euro zone the Greeks tended to have high inflation and a depreciating currency, no doubt from loose monetary conditions to grease the wheels of their economy. In recent times the Greeks couldn’t do anything to create extra money internally to help fund their excess consumption so had to borrow externally. That is why they racked up huge debts to foreign banks which they now can’t pay back.

It seems ludicrous that NZ should be getting itself into a similar situation to some European countries like Greece (in having high foreign debt) when we have our own currency, our own central bank and a reasonable tax system! It is simple economics to lower the demand for $NZ to lower the exchange rate to stop the need for foreign borrowing. That could, however, mean a fall in living standards as those big screen TVs become more expensive. I suspect that is the real reason why no one wants to bite the bullet and give the Reserve Bank the powers and responsibilities I am suggesting. Just like the Greeks of several years ago, we like to think the day reckoning will never come!

Stuff reports:

 One of Ewen Macdonald’s victims has labelled the former Feilding farmer a “bad apple” as more details of his offending emerge. …

Macdonald and former family farm worker Callum Boe went on a series of night-time “missions” that included burning down a hut, destroying 16,000 litres of milk and killing a herd of calves.

The murder trial jury did not hear of these “missions”, but was told about the pair destroying property belonging to Scott and Kylee Guy and poaching deer from Colyton farmer Craig Hocken.

One of the newly revealed charges was for killing 19 calves on Paul Barber’s Foxton property overnight on August 9, 2007. They were all bashed on the head with a heavy object, thought to be a ball-peen hammer.

In discussing the trial, a number of people have said that there was a huge gap between vandalising someone’s house and actually killing them. There is I suspect far less of a gap between killing 19 calves with a hammer and killing someone – in terms of being the sort of person who could kill someone.

That is why of course it was suppressed. The attacks on the Guys were allowed as it was directly relevant to the trial, but this info would be prejudicial in that it would have the jury thinking “He is a sick bastard, so he must have done it”.

December 30, 2006: Ewen Macdonald killed two trophy stags on Craig Hocken’s Feilding property.

August 9, 2007: Intentionally destroyed 16,000 litres of milk at Graham Sexton’s farm at Himatangi.

August 9, 2007: Intentionally killed calves causing loss to farmer Paul Barber at Foxton.

March 21, 2008: Damaged a duck-shooting whare belonging to Graham Sexton.

October 24, 2008: Damaged an old house by fire on Scott and Kylee Guy’s property in Feilding.

January 30, 2009: Vandalism of Scott and Kylee Guy’s new home in Feilding.

July 8, 2010: Scott Guy shot dead at the end of his driveway in the early hours of the morning.

It is pretty clear there is something quite wrong with Macdonald. Hopefully he will get a long jail sentence for the crimes has has been found guilty of, and will get treatment for whatever ails him.

Stuff reports:

Winning a gold medal at the Olympics should be one of the happiest moments of an athlete’s life.

But that was not the case for Chinese diver Wu Minxia.

After winning the women’s synchronized three-metre springboard competition in London on Sunday, the 26-year-old Olympian got devastating news: her family decided it was the right time to tell her that her grandparents had died – over a year ago – and her mother had breast cancer for eight years, AFP reported.

Wu had no idea. Her father admitted the news was kept from her to avoid any distractions during her quest for gold.

“Wu called us after her grandmother died, I gritted my teeth and told her: ‘Everything’s fine, there aren’t any problems’,” father Wu Jueming told the Shanghai Morning Post.

“It was essential to tell this white lie. We never talk about family matters with our daughter.”

Her mother defended the decision, saying she waited until her cancer was in remission before telling Wu.

The story of the Wu family’s secrets has added to a public “backlash against the win-at-all-costs mentally” in China.

Thousands of Chinese web users took to Sina Weibo – a Chinese microblog similar to Twitter – to condemn what they say is an example of the harshness of China’s government-funded sport system, AFP reported.

I guess she didn’t see her grandmother often! But good to see that there is a backlash to this sort of mentality.

“Apart from making people crazy, our Olympic strategy also makes people lose their humanity,” one online commentator said.

“Our national sports system is disgusting,” another said.

Cultural change is occurring, albeit slowly. Many are also angry at the badminton team being told to lose, so they would get an easier opponent in the next round.

Heh, so true.

My NZ Herald column:

My initial reaction was that of course the Government should delay the float until it receives the Tribunal’s report, due in September. This might be a delay of a few weeks only, and what does a few weeks matter.

It seems the timing is more sensitive than one may initially think. The rules around issuing shares in a company require the most up to date set of financial accounts. If the flat is held too long after the annual accounts have been finalised, then the company has to prepare a special more recent set of accounts. This is no minor job and can take a month or two.

Preparing the accounts can’t really be done over the summer break, as too many suppliers and the like close down, so what this means is that if Mighty River Power is not listed by perhaps October, then the delay would have to be until March or April next year. So a delay of a few weeks may be a delay of six months or so. This is undesirable for the Government because they want the five partial sales done well before the 2014 election.

I conclude:

However there is a view by some in Government that the Maori Council is acting in bad faith. The Government has been negotiating with Iwi leaders on issues around water rights for some time, and they are committed to resolving those issues. They do not believe the number of shares they hold in an SOE is relevant to their ability to resolve those issues. This is why there has been little support from Iwi for the claim by the Maori Council. There is also some anger at the fact that the Maori Council waited until the last possible moment to go to the Waitangi Tribunal, considering the policy was announced 18 months ago.

What this leads to is the alternate view that the Maori Council are going to eventually go to court regardless of what the Waitangi Tribunal says. Hence, if that is your belief, then the sensible thing is to get them into court as quickly as possible. Therefore saying you will not wait for the Waitangi Tribunal report could be a way of achieving that. It is like demanding your competitor in poker show their hand. 

There are risks either way.

Tom Pullar-Strecker reports:

 Pacific Fibre announced yesterday that it had failed to raise the US$400 million (NZ$492m) it needed for the cable, which leaves Southern Cross Cable’s stranglehold on international communications to and from New Zealand as secure as ever.

Around five weeks ago I was in a meeting where I ventured my opinion that Pacific Fibre would not make it, due to the amount of time that had gone by without concrete funding. Sadly I was right.

However some interesting discussion happened about what if PF does not occur, in terms of the economics of a second cable to the US. The problem is that the nature of contracts for cables are firms buy a slice of the pipe in advance for say a term of 20 years, and they are locked in for that price. This means that Southern Cross has a number of customers paying then the market price of 10 years ago. Today’s price are probably 1/4 of what they were then.

This means that any competitor has to compete against not Southern Cross’s average fees, but their marginal fees for extra capacity. As Southern Cross has the revenue stream from the early signers, they can afford to drop their current fees considerably – and have been doing so. Incidentially, this has meant prices have been dropping for international bandwidth – which is good. However now Pacific Fibre is not a potential competitor, industry will be looking at whether or not there will be any further price reductions.

There were expectations competition would have resulted in more generous data caps and perhaps cheaper broadband plans for consumers.

However, research by InternetNZ last year suggested the impact of Southern Cross’s near-monopoly on international bandwidth may have been over-emphasised and other factors could be more to blame for New Zealand’s restrictive data caps.

There is some positive movement with data caps, with some 1 TB/month packages now available. Bandwidth prices certainly is part of the issue, but not the only issue. The secondary bandwidth market is arguably the bigger problem.

Anyway as we were discussing how to make it practical to get a second cable to the US, one person had a pretty good idea I though. Why not focus on getting an additional cable to Australia and push Sydney as a regional data centre for the major players – Google, You Tube, Amazon, Facebook. NZ will never be big enough to get major data centres, but Sydney could arguably do it. And this means that extra cables to Sydney will provide that extra competition we need, if much of our data comes from Australia.

Stuff reports:

Alleged drug boss Paul Rodgers, also known as Porky Rimene, was often on a welfare benefit and living in a state house when police say he was the head of a multimillion-dollar drug ring.

Maybe it wasn’t very profitable?

In the High Court at Wellington yesterday, his longtime partner, Kelly Cole, 38, said that at the time Rodgers, whom she called Pork, was arrested last February, he was sick of the life he had been leading and wanted to settle down with her and the baby she was having.

Oh dear, the poor woman probably believed him also.

The other four children the couple had together had been removed from their care – one in the maternity ward – because they were being exposed to domestic violence. By the time the violence had abated in 2008 the alternative care arrangements had been made permanent.

Lost four children? Simple, just have a fifth!

A police witness estimated Rodgers’ gross income had been up to $4.5 million between May 2009 and last February and most of the time he had been receiving a Work and Income benefit as well.

That’s gross income. Doesn’t take account of his possible expenses such as guns, bodyguards etc.

She kept the books and wrote and read text messages for Rodgers because his literacy and numeracy were poor, she said. He had left school at 12 or 13.

There’s a lesson here for us.

Made two purchases yesterday:

1. A Blu-ray DVD player so I can watch movies and TV shows of content providers who are willing to take money off me.
2. A 1 TB Media player so I can watch movies and TV shows of content providers who are not willing to take money off me.

I think that is a very balanced purchase!

Adam Bennett at NZ Herald reports:

“The law literally is an ass in this particular case … anyone can drive a bus through [it].” Mr Key said the Local Electoral Act may need reforming, “and that’s something we’ll consider in due course”.

Changes may be possible before next year’s local authority elections, depending on the Government’s legislative workload.

Local Government Minister David Carter said he’d had preliminary discussions with officials about aligning the Local Electoral Act with legislation that applies to candidates standing for Parliament, “particularly in regard to anonymous donations”.

Labour leader David Shearer said his party was prepared to work with National to improve transparency around donations to local government candidates. ‘It’s something we’ve talked about for a long time and I think there’s a possibility of sitting down and making sure people have confidence in our electoral laws.”

Mr Banks said he would “absolutely” support any move to tighten up the Local Electoral Act.

I think it is important it is reformed before the 2013 elections which will mean a bill to be introduced in late 2012. It isn’t overly complex to do, and there will be broad support for it. Really the only tough issues will be over what are appropriate disclosure limits and should they vary by the size of the authority.

Sunrise from the Pouakai ridge Mt Egmont National Park, Taranaki New Zealand

Welcome to Wednesday (and August).

A little respite from South Island scenery this week, this image was made from the Pouakai Ridge on the Northern flank of Mt Taranaki.  Sarah & I hiked up in the dark on the previous evening – fortunately the sun broke through, as it would have been a lot of effort for a photo of fog & mist shrouded tusssocks….

As always, this is available as a [free iPad wallpaper] Password = freewallpaper

Thanks again to David for hosting Wednesday Wallpaper.  Have a great week.

Cheers – Todd

[view image on our website] [blog]

The Press reports:

Christchurch businesses forced out of the central city after the February 2011 earthquake are queuing up to return.

Several major city tenants, mostly in the financial and legal sectors, yesterday eased fears it would be difficult to entice office workers back from suburban business hubs.

Law firm Cavell Leitch, which lost its office in Clarendon Tower, said on Monday it would shift its a 120-strong work force from Burnside when new office space had been secured.

Anderson Lloyd Lawyers relocated to Birmingham Dr from Clarendon Tower, but chief executive Richard Greenaway said the firm intended to move back to the central city “one day”.

“We are working on identifying possible sites and buildings now that the central city blueprint has been announced,” he said.

SBS Bank Canterbury area manager Matthew Mark said his company’s pledge to the central city was “stronger than ever”.

As I blogged after my trip down there, it was clear that many former tenants were keen to return. The big unknown is how much money are property investors willing to spend on constructing buildings in the new CBD.

The plan for the CBD is exciting, and if it occurs will make for a great city centre. But the cost of construction is greater now per square metre due to tougher earthquake code requirements, and hence will sometimes exceed what insurance will cover. The height limits also make buildings more expensive per square metre.

There is a possibility that even with tenants keen to return, that the costs may end up prohibitive. But the plan unveiled will at least allow property owners to now work out those costs and make decisions.

Six for one is an excellent deal, considering the lack of souls involved.

Yes, thsi si the controversial advertising campaign. I wonder if you have to bring your own ginger kids to get the ginger beer, or can borrow someone else’s?

The Herald reports:

Justice Minister Judith Collins has suggested there will be further changes to rules on alcopops in liquor reforms due before Parliament.

The Alcohol Reform Bill bans off-licence stores from selling ready-to-drink beverages (RTDs) with more than 6 per cent alcohol content and more than 1.5 standard drinks per container.

Mrs Collins this morning hinted that this could be amended.

“There will be a provision on RTDs, and that provision will be a bit different from what we did in May, just to make it more workable and more flexible to make it better able to react to any initiatives by the industry that might make it counter-productive to what we’re trying to do.”

I think it is initiatives by RTD drinkers they should worry about – specifically substitution to hard spirits.

Effectively what the Government is proposing is a limited form of prohibition or banning. It is saying it will be illegal to sell RTDs (at off-licenses) of greater than 6% alcohol. This is effectively abolishing certain types of drink. When in the history of humanity has such prohibition worked?

In the Law Commission report the reforms were based on, the commission said the most common drinkers of RTDs were 14 to 24-year-olds, in particular women.

I repeat. The Law Commission did not recommend any measures against RTDs specifically. This proposal is not based on the Law Commission report, but in fact goes against what they said, which was:

Despite these concerns, there are strong arguments why it is not feasible to ban or directly target RTDs. The risks associated with drinking RTDs are of no marked difference to any other alcohol product. It is likely that banning one type of alcohol product would simply lead to the development of alternative products by the alcohol industry. Some experts consider that young people would be likely to switch products in order to obtain cheap alcohol if measures were introduced to single out RTDs by increasing their price or removing them from the market.

Some of the products to which they may switch are arguably more likely to cause harm because of the high alcohol content, such as straight spirits mixed with other beverages.

On this issue the Law Commission is absolutely correct.

Claire Trevett at NZ Herald reports:

His amendment would exempt unions and labour organisations, as well as groups such as charities, non-governmental organisations, community groups, churches and sports bodies.

Five trade unions are affiliated to the Labour Party and donate to it, but Mr Chauvel said he had put in the amendment off his own bat. He said the unions were relaxed about the bill, but he believed they were in a similar position to philanthropic, voluntary organisations which were not-for-profit.

“When trade unions came up, it seemed to me that they fell on the not- quite-so-sinister-and-behind-the-scenes side of things.”

He said corporate lobbying had the power to change policy, and was often done on the quiet.

What an incredible argument. Is he saying unions do not have the power to change policy? The CTU has actually written policy adopted by Labour. The unions have huge influence on parliamentary policy.

Ministers are obliged under the OIA to disclose any meetings, if asked. Opposition MPs are not, so any lobbying done on the quiet is of opposition MPs, but of Ministers.

“There is a big public interest in knowing what corporates are doing because they can afford heft lobbying and hospitality, and research and all the rest,” Mr Chauvel said.

I blogged on this some years ago, but be assured that the unions have far greater funds and assets than the business groups such as Business NZ and the Chambers of Commerce.

And is Charles arguing that it is a bad thing for research to be provided to MPs?

Ms Walker said changes were needed to ensure the bill did not cover everyone who spoke to an MP. However, she believed trade unions should be covered by the bill despite Labour’s stance.

Good. The current definition is problematic, and the solutions are not obvious. But one thing I can tell you is that an argument for unions to be exempt is a self-serving one that flies in the face of any claims to actually want transparency.

UPDATE: The Waikato Times editorial is excellent:

Labour’s Charles Chauvel says the bill can be made more workable by exempting the community and voluntary sector from a major burden. He has the gall to include trade unions in that group. This attempt to confine the bill’s scope to commercial organisations, as one commentator observed, would introduce “loopholes you could drive a busload of lobbyists through” while undermining the bill’s objectives.

Wanting to flush National’s business mates into the open but allow Labour’s union mates to continue lobbying covertly is shamefully unprincipled. More perplexing, it would expose a well-intentioned bill to a partisan buffeting that would threaten to sink it.

It is shamefully unprincipled indeed.

Stuff reports:

A website dedicated to opposing gay marriage has been removed from the internet the day it was launched after it was the target of one of the “largest unprecedented attacks” on a website in New Zealand.

The “Protect Marriage” website, launched today by Family First, crashed in a matter of hours as a result of a “large-scale denial of service attack” according to the site’s webhost.

It was back up and running at 1pm, but had been removed completely by the webhosting company later this afternoon, to “protect its own servers”.

“Due to large scale Denial of Service attacks against this domain it has been decided to ensure the stability and security of our servers and network, this account has been removed,” said a message from 24/7 Hosting.

This is a very bad thing. New Zealanders should hear both sides of a debate, not have one side get closed down under a DOS attack.

If I had a server myself, I’d offer to host the site. Is there an ISP out there that believes in free speech and thinks it can handle such attacks?

I’m especially annoyed the site has gone down, because it means I can’t fisk it 🙂

Stuff reports:

A Northern Territory man may be flown to Adelaide after a party trick involving setting off firecrackers  between his buttocks went badly wrong.

The 23-year-old man was at a party in the Darwin suburb of Rapid  Creek on Saturday night when he decided to let the cracker off, NT police said.

”It appears a party was in full progress when a young male  decided to place a firework between the cheeks of his bottom and  light it,” said Senior Sergeant Garry Smith.

”What must of seemed to be a great idea at the time has  backfired, resulting in the male receiving quite severe and very  painful burns to his cheeks, back and private bits,” Senior Sgt Smith  said.

Alcohol was a possible factor involved in the stunt, police  said.Paramedics were called although the man had reportedly already  taken himself to hospital by the time they arrived.

If alcohol was not a factor, then that’s one really stupid Aussie! Actually even with alcohol, still pretty stupid!

Introducing the Christchurch Central Recovery Plan from CCDU on Vimeo.

A video outline of the plan for Christchurch, for those interested.

Stuff reports:

More filming for The Hobbit will be done in Wellington after Sir Peter Jackson confirmed the movie will be split into three.

The film-maker today announced plans for the third film, with more shooting for the US$500 million (NZ$639m) project planned in the capital next year. The third, as-yet-unnamed part will be released in mid-2014.

Jackson said the decision to the turn the two-part film into a trilogy was based on “the richness of the story of The Hobbit, as well as some related material in the appendices of The Lord of the Rings”.

“[It] gave rise to the simple question: do we tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as film-makers and fans was an unreserved ‘yes’.”

Jackson said he and co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens were keen to make a third film after viewing a cut of the first film, An Unexpected Journey, to be released in December, and part of the second, There and Back Again.

Much of the tale of Bilbo Baggins, the dwarfs, the rise of the Necromancer (arch villain Sauron in The Lord of the Rings), and the Battle of Dol Guldur, would not be told “if we did not fully realise this complex and wonderful adventure”, he said.

“It has been an unexpected journey indeed, and in the words of Professor Tolkien himself, ‘a tale that grew in the telling’.”

Neither Jackson nor Hollywood studios New Line Cinema, Warner Bros and MGM detailed how the three parts would now be structured or whether the Battle of the Five Armies – the climax of The Hobbit novel – would be moved to the third film.

Yay. Even though it means a further year until the final film, it is worth it if more of the story is captured on film. Hopefully it will plug some of the gap between The Hobbit and LOTR also.

I loved the LOTR films but have always been sad that time constraints meant they never covered the scouring of the shire, which was so hugely important from the hobbit’s point of view – showing how they had changed and grown.

It will be a difficult decision whether to have the Battle of the Five Armies in the second or third film. If you have it in the second, what gets people to come to the third – except hard core fans. But if left for the third film, what is the climax for the second film?

I’m guessing that Bilbo acquiring the ring will be the climax of the first film. Maybe the climax of the second film is the killing of Smaug?