Neil Reid at the Sunday News reports:

A REPORT into the risk of domestic violence during the Rugby World Cup has included recommendations for women-only spaces at the tournament’s 13 match venues.

It also proposes subsidised-fare taxis be provided for women at games on their own or who are unable to ensure they can return home safely.

My first reaction upon reading this story was that whatever Government agency produced this report obviously has too much time on their hands.

The report – Mitigating the Risk of Men’s Violence against Women Increasing During the Rugby World Cup 2011 – is being sent to RWC officials and sponsors.

It is written by women’s issues advocate Debbie Hager, from the Homeworks Trust, and Diane Woolson Neville, from family violence prevention project Te Rito Rodney.

I was relieved to read on and find out that it is just a couple of zealots, and the report has no official status at all.

It is true that there are some studies that suggest an increase in domestic violence after a rugby loss. But the violence does not happen at the rugby grounds – it occurs in pubs and bars or at homes. So the so called soution of “women-only” space at RWC games is stupid – plus of course would make us look an international laughing stock.

Homepaddock has discovered a test for narcissism. It is no surprise that Ele got 3/40 which is well below average. The score range is:

Between 12 and 15 is average.
Celebrities often score closer to 18.
Narcissists score over 20.

Of course I had to test myself. I was relieved that I was only slightly above average at 16. My results were:

Authority: 6.00
Self-Sufficiency: 2.00
Superiority: 3.00
Exhibitionism: 2.00
Exploitativeness: 0.00
Vanity: 0.00
Entitlement: 3.00

As Cartman says – you shall respect my authority!! 🙂

Below you will find a brief interpretation of each narcissism trait and what your score relative to that trait may indicate about you.

Authority

Authority refers to a person’s leadership skills and power. People who score higher on authority like to be in charge and gain power, often for power’s sake alone. You scored particularly high in authority, suggesting you see yourself as a leader or as someone who values power.

Self-Sufficiency

This trait refers to how self-sufficient a person is, that is, how much you rely on others versus your own abilities to meet your needs in life.

Superiority

This trait refers to whether a person feels they are more superior than those around them. You scored particularly high in superiority, suggesting you feel you are superior to most others.

Exhibitionism

This trait refers to a person’s need to be the center of attention, and willingness to ensure they are the center of attention (even at the expense of others’ needs).

Exploitativeness

This trait refers to how willing you are to exploit others in order to meet your own needs or goals.

Vanity

This trait refers to a person’s vanity, or their belief in one’s own superior abilities and attractiveness compared to others.

Entitlement

This trait refers to the expectation and amount of entitlement a person has in their lives, that is, unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with one’s expectations. People who score higher on this trait generally have a greater expectation of entitlement, while those who score lower expect little from others or life.

Looks reasonably spot on to me.

Kirsty Johnston at Stuff reports:

Ram’s testicles are so passe – this year extreme foodies wanting a real taste test will be lining up for a shot of stallion semen.

Horse semen shots, to be followed with a swig of energy drink, are the new kids on the kitchen block at the famed Hokitika Wildfoods festival next month.

Why have the energy drink follow the semen? They could combine it into the one drink – call it V+

The shots will be provided by racehorse owner Lindsay Kerslake, of Christchurch, who says he came up with the idea after hearing about people drinking bull’s semen.

“I thought, horses are all testosterone, they have hardly any cholesterol, so the idea is you’ll have as much zizz as a stallion for a week afterwards,” Kerslake said.

So the idea is to get zizz from the jizz. See if you can sneak that into an english exam.

SUBMISSION OF DAVID FARRAR TO THE JUSTICE & ELECTORAL SELECT COMMITTEE ON THE CRIMINAL PROCEDURE (REFORM AND MODERNISATION) BILL

About the Submitter

1. This submission is made by David Farrar in a personal capacity. I would like to appear before the Committee to speak to my submission.
2. I am the owner and editor of kiwiblog.co.nz, a blog which attracts hundreds of comments every day from close to 7,000 commenters. Some commenters have broken name suppression orders on my site, and a considerable amount of time is spent on detecting and deleting any breaches.

   Executive Summary
   

3. This submission is focused on the provisions around name suppression and the Internet.
4. I believe name suppression orders have been too easy to obtain, and support the provisions of the bill which make it harder for name suppression to be obtained.
5. In the Internet age, it is very difficult to keep things secret, if there is a public interest in them. Wikileaks is a classic example of this – the US Government couldn’t stop publication of some of its most classified secrets. So the NZ Government will not be any more successful in stopping publication of defendants details if someone strongly enough wants to publish them.
6. Websites with no NZ connection (ie not hosted in NZ, and no known author/owner in NZ) can public suppressed details with no comeback under NZ law.
7. The bill proposes an offence for ISPs (which are defined as including bloggers) who do not delete any content which breaches a name suppression order. I am unsure as to the need for this, as I believe a failure to delete any content (once notified of it) is already an offence. This is why I have deleted comments which do breach suppression orders.
8. If there is to be a specific offence for ISPs, then significant changes need to be made to it to protect content hosts from being jailed for material they were unaware of. I detail these later on
9. I support the creation of a register of suppression orders for two reasons. The first is it would help media ascertain what is suppressed – something which can be challenging currently. Secondly it would allow publishers to verify if material on their site is in breach of an order, so it can be taken down.

   Clause 214 – Standing of members of media
   

10. Clause 214 restricts standing on a name suppression application to media who are subject to the BSA or Press Council. Unlike c202(2)(b) which caters for other persons reporting on court proceedings, c214 has no exceptions.
11. I do not believe it is necessary to have any restriction on whom may be heard in relation to a name suppression application. It is highly unlikely anyone would seek to be heard whom doesn’t have a legitimate interest in the issue. They might be an online publisher like Scoop, a student newspaper such as Salient, or even a transparency in government foundation.
12. If standing is to be restricted to “media”, then it would be desirable for the courts to have the flexibility (as in 202(2)(b)) to recognize a wider range of media

    Clause 215 – Offences and penalty
    

13. The maximum term of imprisonment of six months is excessive, especially as it may apply to publishers who do not knowingly break a suppression order but merely are found not to have detected and deleted a breach. A possible penalty of jail is excessive – even though this applies only to breaches of victims identities.

    Clause 216 – Liability of ISPs
    

14. Clause 216(2)(a)(i) states an ISP is liable for any breaches done by their users if they “knows or had reason to believe” the material is breaching a suppression order. This is far too uncertain a test for an issue of criminal liability. The test should be as per the Law Commission recommendation “that they know”.
15. Clause 216(2)(a)(ii) also removes liability protection if an ISP “does not, as soon as possible after becoming aware of the infringing material, delete the material”. It is important to define what constitutes awareness of the infringing material. Having someone merely tell you that there is infringing material somewhere on your site should not be sufficient to remove liability. You need to be aware of the specific page or URL it is on.
16. Clause 216(3) says the a court in determining liability must “take account of all relevant matters, including whether the Internet service provider has been notified of the alleged breach”. It does not define whom can do the notification. Ideally notification would be by way of a notice and takedown regime as proposed by the Telecommunications Carriers Forum. Before an ISP removes material, they need to have the assurance that it is someone in authority asking them to remove the material. Either Crown Law, the Ministry of Justice, the Police or even Judge’s Registrars could be deemed the appropriate authority to issue such takedown notices.
17. Clause 216(4) requires an ISP to notify a user if it has deleted material which is suppressed. This is not practical for bloggers (who are defined as ISPs under this bill) as many of the commenters are anonymous. It is desirable to say that notification should happen, only if practical.
18. It would be useful to use an alternate term such as a “content host” rather than ISP for the purposes of this section. Defining persons who host material on websites as an ISP will just lead to confusion between different Acts.

 If significant changes are not made to these provisions, ISPs and Internet publishers (such as myself) could face criminal liability despite our best efforts to obey the law. The Government needs to make it was easy and clear as possible for Internet publishers to know if material on their site infringes, to locate that material and to remove it secure in the knowledge that the request to do so has come from an authorized agency

David Farrar

Phil Goff was very relaxed and funny on 7 Days – he should do more stuff like that.

7 Days is a great programme – love watching it every week.

NZPA report:

An Auckland man and his company could face penalties totaling $700,000 for allegedly sending out hundreds of thousands of spam emails and text messages.

Brendan Paul Battles and Image Marketing Group Limited are accused of sending 519,545 spam emails and 44,824 spam text messages during 2009.

The text messages allegedly asked recipients to purchase a mobile phone antenna booster over the internet.

Department of Internal Affairs’ Anti-Spam Compliance Unit has lodged two statements of claim in the High Court in Auckland alleging breaches under the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 by Battles and Image Marketing Group Limited.

The department is seeking financial penalties against Battles of $200,000 and $500,000 against his company for sending unsolicited messages.

Few in the anti-spam community will be surprised that Brendan Battles is the identity of the person being prosecuted. He was a major spammer in the US, and while he claimed to have given up spamming when he moved here, the evidence pointed the other way.

I wonder if he has NZ residency? If not then I say deport him after fining him.

Dave Burgess in the Dom Post reports:

Celia Wade-Brown has failed the first big political test of her mayoralty.

She has long been a supporter of moves to bring the Wellington Waterfront development company under full council control, and tried to rally support against a proposal yesterday to keep it as a standalone council-controlled organisation.

This is a good thing. Council should sign off on the major decisions, but it should not be directly managing the waterfront. A reversion to direct Council control would just be a nightmare.

But by the time her amendment was introduced, it had been watered down, and she said was not willing to muster councillors’ support on the issue.

“In the end, it is up to each of us in our own responsibilities. I’m not into herding cats or sheep, or whatever particular species you feel you represent.”

Umm Celia – that is in fact the role of the Mayor. If you want something badly, then you fight for it.

Its possible of course that Celia isn’t too upset that she lost. Sometimes you have to promise things to your supporters, but you also know that implementing them would be a big headache.

Councillor Helene Ritchie said there was vast management experience within the council, which should have full control of waterfront developments and should not allow any more bars.

Good God. Why not? This is exactly why politicians should not be in control. It would be bye bye to Dockside, St Johns, Foxglove, Shed 5 etc.

Maggie Tait of NZPA reports:

Paying overnight staff to sleep will cost more than $500 million over three years and changing the law may be considered, Health Minister Tony Ryall says.

The Court of Appeal yesterday upheld an earlier Employment Court decision against an IHC provider, which had opposed paying for sleep-over hours. Instead of a shift allowance of about $30, staff would get at least the minimum hourly wage.

If this is the law, then the law needs to change. If you are rostered to be on call then you should get some kind of allowance for this, but to get paid the same rate of pay for sleeping as for actually working is just ridicolous.

Staff know this. This is why they accepted jobs where you get paid at least the minimum wage for hourrs you actually work, and a lesser allowance for merely being on call.

If the law is not changed (or appealed to Supreme Cout) then $500 million will be be spent – and not extra patient or pupil will get better care due to it. It will be $500 million for a zero return. No IHC patient will get better care due to that $500 million.

I note Labour have said they would provide the extra funding. God know what rainbow they think they will find the pot of gold under. Their promises must be getting close to $10b now. Just last night their Botany candidate was promising that ECE funding would be increased to 1% of GDP.

There’s an old saying in politics – that explaining is losing. This seems to apply to the saga of the new BMWs. It does appear that no Minister was told of this until after the contract was signed, and even that the decision saved money, but explaining this means that the story stays alive for another day. At this stage one is in a lose/lose situation. If you explain you lose, and if you don’t explain you lose.

The Government isn’t able to release the contract that Labour signed in 2008, but what they have been able to say is:

DIA had advised that the cost savings from a three-year replacement versus a five-year replacement, are considerable.

 “Based on a fleet of 35 cars, if the existing fleet is kept for five years, the total cost of ownership  over the five years would be $4,697,175. If we keep the cycle of replacing every 3 years, the total cost over five years of the existing fleet held for three years plus two years of the new fleet, would be $2,612,365. So, the savings over five years would be $2,084,810 .”

So the contract signed by Labour in 2008 had an option for a renewal in 2011. And while it was not compulsory to renew in 2011, it would cost you more over the long term if you did not renew. This is presumably why DIA decided to renew. Purely on fiscal grounds, it saves money. But they over-looked the political aspect which I’ll come to.

Next we have the issue of whether DIA were entitled to sign off the replacement cars without ministerial authority or even notification. The delegation to the Chief Executive of Internal Affairs is for capital expenditure of up to $15, so he was legally entitled to renew the fleet without ministerial approval.

However I beleive DIA made a very bad mistake by not seeking at least an opinion from their Minister or Ministers. The reason they should have done so is because the Ministers are seen to be the recepients of the benefits of having a new fleet. This should absolutely have been notified under the no surprises policy.  I hope and trust DIA have been left under no misunderstanding that in future this should occur.

It is possible of course that DIA made a deliberate decision not to tell Ministers. They possibly concluded (correctly) that if they had told Ministers in advance, the Ministers would try and delay the upgrade. And if it really was cheaper to upgrade in 2011, then DIA could well have an incentive to sign the deal before telling Ministers, in case the Ministers were not happy.

Trevor Mallard is going on about how Ministers should have known in advance because there was a reference made to it in a select committee report. That’s absurd – Mallard knows that Ministers don’t read select committee reports – hell they have several boxes of reading every night as it is.

After the contract was signed, the Internal Affairs Minister was told, and he in turn told the Finance Minister. While the contract was already signed, if I had been one of thise Ministers my first reaction would have been to ask can the contract be rescinded, and if so how much would it cost. The answer might have been that it was too late, but the Government would have possibly have had that as an option if they had moved quickly. It’s easier to cancel a contract a week after it is signed compared to three months later.

The other fair criticism of the Government is its response to the story. They were effectively given a hospital pass on this issue, but having had knowledge of the purchases before the story broke, they should have been ready with a response (stating the savings, the fact Labour signed the contract, the fact they were only told afterwards) to go out within minutes of the story breaking.

Instead the facts have only come out over a period of three to four days, ensuring it stays in the news for 3 to 4 days. So while there was always going to be some damage from a hospital pass, the damage has been compounded a bit by the way the story has been kept alive.

Went with a couple of friends to Love You Approximately at Downstage on opening night on Wednesday.

I loved the premise of the show – a long distance cyber-romance between Imogen in New Zealand and Pere in Spain. And Pere was literally in Spain – the play was conducted over Skype with webcams etc. The actors who played Imogen and Pere have never actually met in real life.

Imogen and Pere’s relationship seemed all too real at time. Poor Pere was the one who had to face rejection by blurting out to his Imogen that he wanted to be more than just friends. And Imogen was indecisive and emotional going through phases of positivity and negativity.

Lara Fischel-Chisholm played Imogen. Shortland Street fans may remember her as Anita (Ben’s sister) Goodall. I thought Fischel-Chisholm did very well portraying Imogen, and bringing to life what was a fairly ordinary script. She made her character very real and believable.

My biggest criticism of the play is it didn’t make a strong emotional connection. You want to either be laughing, or angry, or sad, or suspenseful as a play progresses. At best, the play was interesting. You did want to see how it ended, but there were no real suspense or high drama.

The play was enjoyable. I doubt it would appeal greatly to non Internet natives, but proficient users of webcams and Skype should enjoy the play, and see how much it might mirror real life for them.

It was good to see an innovativeplay that made good use of technology. The two leads even became virtual flatmates for a while – leaving their webcams connected to each other and on 24/7. Quite a neat idea if one didn’t have data charges!

No great surprise that Sir Roger is standing down at the election. Apart form his age, it is obvious he is not that happy in ACT’s caucus.

Sir Roger has a great legacy as NZ’s second greatest finance minister. In his second spell in Parliament, there is less of a legacy but personally I’ll always be grateful he sucessfully sherpherded the VSM Bill through Parliament while Heather was a Minister.

Andrea Fox reports:

Public anger at the fast-rising price of milk and other dairy products has led Agriculture Minister David Carter to seek a special report from his officials and dairy giant Fonterra to revisit its sums.

Mr Carter wanted to be assured there were no cosy “arrangements” and that legislation designed to rein in Fonterra’s domestic market power was working.

Peter McClure, managing director of Fonterra’s New Zealand operations, Fonterra Brands, said he would be “uncomfortable if prices moved up much more”. But he might be forced to raise them if export returns remained strong.

Mr McClure said milk represented “incredibly good value” – a two-litre bottle could still be cheaper than a cup of coffee – but Fonterra did not want to make milk unaffordable.

That’s a stupid comparison – comparing the cost of a raw good, with the cost of something you buy over the counter and is made up for you.

It’s like saying that ham is good value as the price of buying ham at the supermarket is less than the cost of buying a chicken roll at Subway.

The correct comparison for milk is how it compares to juice, soft drinks etc. A 3l keri juice is $5.71 and fresh up is $6,43.

Calci-trim milk is $6.49, and it used to be around $5.70 so has gone up a lot and is now more expensive than fruit juice and way more expensive than soft drinks.

NZPA report:

Book chains Borders and Whitcoulls have been put under administration in New Zealand and Australia.

The two chains have about 1000 staff in New Zealand.

Australian parent company REDgroup Retail, which manages operations in both countries, called in voluntary administrators to the business, The Age reported. The jobs of up to 2500 staff were now in doubt, the newspaper said.

REDGroup is controlled by private equity group PEP.

Borders and Whitcoulls made up 85 of the 350 bookshops in New Zealand according to Booksellers New Zealand.

I’m still missing Dymocks. I liked the way they organise their stores. I love Borders Auckland for the range of books they have there. Borders Wellington doesn’t have as many.

It will be sad if these two book chains collapse, but not the end of the world. The Internet has allowed independent bookstores to compete with the giants.

In Newtown, there’s a second hand bookshop called Book Haven. I’ve only once been to the store physically. But they have over 50,000 titles online – I think the largest second hand online collection in New Zealand. They also have a network of other stores, so can find rare books for you.

The shipping charges for Book Haven are only NZ$5/item and they turn up the next day. Amazon charge US$10 for the first item and US$5 for each other item for slowmail andUS$20 for the first item sent fastmail.

“Preparing to launch”

Click for larger, higher res image

It’s an estuarine crocodile, getting into the water. Liked the shot for the low angle, the reflection in the water and the colour scheme of the scales.  I miss being around crocodiles…

The Herald reports:

Yesterday a Nielsen poll in the Sydney Morning Herald gave further bleak tidings for Keneally: a Coalition two-party preferred lead of 66 per cent to 34 per cent, an 18 per cent swing that would hew the number of Labor MPs in the Lower House from 50 to as few as 13.

Nielsen’s research director, John Stirton, told the SMH that the “astonishing” poll had revealed the biggest two-party preferred lead any party has had, state or federal, in Nielsen’s 39-year history.

That sort of result is indeed unprecedented. Can’t wait until election night.

The Herald has an extract from Julia Gillard’s speech. Absolutely hits the spot. What a shame the Greens bllocked her from actually addressing Parliament, and having these wonderful words recorded in Hansard:

“Our founders could not have imagined the extraordinary events that would bring our nations far closer than any words or any laws.

Not forged in meeting rooms by old men wearing suits.

But by young men in trenches wearing slouch hats and lemon squeezers.

That is why I say Australia has many alliances and friendships around the world.

Economic and defence partnerships of every kind.

But New Zealand alone is family.

When those 29 men never came home from the Pike River mine, we didn’t just mourn for the two Australians.

We mourned for them all. Family.

When Pike River exploded, New Zealand didn’t have to ask Australia to send help.

We just did.

And when natural disasters hit Australia this summer, New Zealand didn’t need to be asked to lend a hand.

You just did.

And our gratitude is boundless.”

A great speech.

The Herald reports:

Destiny Church has been branded a “cult” after Brian Tamaki said Jesus did not rise from the dead – but the self-styled bishop says he was quoted out of context.

Mark Vrankovich, director of Cultwatch, has released audio clips and transcripts of Bishop Tamaki preaching a series of messages to his followers.

He says the clips show Bishop Tamaki rejecting the physical resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after he was crucified – the core of the Christian faith.

In the sermons, Bishop Tamaki said he had been preparing his followers for a year to receive the revelation God gave him about the resurrection, so they could “understand what the Bible is really saying”.

He told the congregation they would doubt his teaching, unless they also had the revelation, because of “too many forces and too much teaching and too much backlog of religion”.

“You must get out of your mind that, that Jesus Christ is now, ah, is still Jesus of Nazareth … But Jesus did not come out of the tomb. The flesh Jesus died in the tomb.”

When I read this story, it puzzled me. Why would Archbishop Tamaki start to tell his followers that Jesus was not physically ressurected, and did not rise from the dead. After all, these are pretty fundamental Christian beliefs.

But then I read the context about how he claims to have been personally instructed by God, and that his revelations would take a year for them to accept etc.

And the only answer that makes sense to me, is that Tamaki was going to claim he is the new son of God.

I presume that a son of God can charge an even higher tithe than a Bishop or Archbishop.

Claire Trevett in the Herald reports:

When Labour’s social development spokeswoman Annette King asked about Salvation Army reports of high demand for food parcels, Mr Key responded by saying it was true that the global recession meant more people were on benefits.

“But it is also true that anyone on a benefit actually has a lifestyle choice. If one budgets properly, one can pay one’s bills.

“And that is true because the bulk of New Zealanders on a benefit do actually pay for food, their rent and other things. Now some make poor choices and they don’t have money left.”

The PM is right that the majority of those on a benefit do not use foodbanks. Those who do use foodbanks probably fall into three categories:

1. Those whose expenses regularly exceed their income – which probably does indicate a budget prioritisation issue
2. Those who have a temporary one off high priority expense, such as medical bills (note special need grants are also available)
3. Those who prefer free food to paying for food

I don’t know what proportion of foodbank goers fall into each category. But I am reminded of what happened when VUWSA set up both a welfare fund (free cash) and a foodbank (free food) for students.

Year after year they would report that demand exceeded supply, and that this proved how more and more students were living in poverty, and hence why they needed to double the budget for said funds. And even after said doubling, the following year they would again run out of free money and free food. And again they would declare this proved how more and more students were living in poverty.

My theory was simpler. My theory was simply that students like free money and free food.

Final reminder for those interested that Wordcamp, for users of WordPress, is on this weekend at Te Papa. Sessions include:

• Tweet this book
• Kidsplay – Monkey Blogs
• WordPress Security
• SEO for WordPress
• Evolving the News
• BuddyPress – WordPress social networking comes of age
• The future of blogging etc.
• Scaling WordPress for Performance

I’m also talking about some of the challenges of running a heavily trafficked blog on WordPress.

When the Govt announced in August that the Government would be implementing high country rentals based on earning capacity it was welcomed by Labour’s Damien O’Connor as “a good principle” and one that offered a “principled position” that would be “welcomed by farmers”. Damien, one of Labour’s few farmers, said the decision reflected Labour’s position.

But last night when the Bill came up for its first reading Damien had clearly been rolled and  Labour withdrew its support with David Parker giving what can only be described as a spite and hate filled speech calling the policy

• “rent reductions being given to millionaires”
• “A sop from National to its farming mates”
• “Governing in the interests of narrow few”
• ” a small number of rich people are getting millions of dollars at the expense of taxpayers”

So Labour shat over their own spokesperson, just to try and score some petty points. Another reason not ready to govern. Maybe an inquisitive jouranlist could ask Damien if he agrees with what David Parker said last night.