Stuff reports:

Czech kickboxer and convicted drug smuggler Karel Sroubek has been declined parole for the fourth time.

Unlike the Minister, they actually ask questions.

Parole Board chairman Sir Ron Young said the board was aware Sroubek was prepared to employ a private psychologist and asked why he couldn’t do that in prison before being released.

Sroubek said he would not be “tested” in prison but on the outside if he became stressed, he could call his psychologist and get help if he needed it.

Why not be tested in prison? Why not share the results with the Parole Board? Or are you worried what they might show?

Sir Ron also questioned Sroubek about the three people who had offered him a bed on release.

Sroubek said he had chosen a friend who worked as a personal trainer at a gym and had no criminal convictions.

Sir Ron asked him if he was aware of the backgrounds of the other two men. One has connections with gang members and the other was recently on parole.

So two of his three “sponsors” are gang connected or criminals.

Sroubek said he had previously been fixated on being a “successful individual”.

“I got into financial issues and I was looking for an easy way out.”

He said during his time in prison he had undergone rehabilitation courses, including a budgeting course.

I became a drug smuggler because I was bad at budgeting.

But Sroubek told the board he didn’t talk about the possibility of returning to his country of birth. “I fully believe I will be granted residency.”

He said in the event he was deported, he would not return to the Czech Republic.

I don’t think he understands how deportation works. You don’t get to choose where you get deported to.

The Guardian reports:

Pete Buttigieg knew he was foraying into unfriendly confines when he was en route to Orange City, the seat of Iowa’s most conservative county.

“What you need to realize with Sioux county is there’s a very strong religious flavor there, from their courts to their public squares,” said Ned Bjornstad, a former elected prosecutor in north-west Iowa turned veteran defense attorney who practices regularly in Orange City. “For a candidate like Buttigieg, I’d expect protesters.”

There weren’t any.

As Buttigieg entered the Prairie Winds Events Center in downtown Orange City, a crowd of around 200 instead roared in a standing ovation.

Regan Harms, a 22-year-old senior majoring in biblical studies at Northwestern College in Orange City, said she wasn’t at all surprised with the turnout. As she introduced Buttigieg, she described him as a neighbor and fellow midwesterner, one who understands life in rural America. …

But Orange City is hostile territory to Democrats and fervently socially conservative. There, no Democrat running for governor or president has registered over 18% support since 2008. In Orange City, penalties are levied for work on Sunday.

If anyone can break the “red wall” it is Mayor Pete. Some of the reasons are:

1. Is a military veteran who served in Afghanistan
2. Is a regular church goer
3. Happens to be gay, but doesn’t let that define him
4. Has worked in business
5. Is a capitalist, not a socialist

Now of course he is a Democrat and most of his policies are ones that Republicans don’t like. But elections are about people and values as well as policies, and Buttigieg doesn’t come across as some East Coast uber progressive liberal who doesn’t understand the rest of the country.

I don’t think he will win the nomination, but I think he has the greatest potential to beat Trump. By that I mean his “ceiling” is higher than Biden, Warren or Sanders. However his floor is probably lower also.

Duncan Johnstone writes:

World Athletics needs to move quickly to stamp out the technology gains footwear manufacturers are providing runners.

Australian marathon great Rob de Castella is spot-on with calls to investigate the advantage that Nike’s controversial Vaporfly shoes are clearly giving their runners.

The shoes have thick soles and carbon-fibre plates that act like springs to give runners more bounce.

I don’t think you can ban a shoe for being too bouncy.

Even for the average athlete, an American study showed that more than 40 per cent of marathons completed in under three hours last year were by runners wearing a version of the shoes.

Which just shows they are popular with serious runners. If all serious runners use them, then what is the problem?

Duncan Garner writes:

And today comes the deal, and taxpayers you’ve copped it right between the eyes.

My sources say the Government will transfer $45 million as a grant to Auckland Council… who will then pass that on to Fletchers.

$45 million of taxpayer money spent, and not on buying drugs for Pharmac, or hiring more teachers but on molifying protesters.

Losers: That’s you, New Zealand taxpayers who just stumped up $45 million because a bunch of protestors held the country to ransom.

This should send a chill down the spine of anyone sitting on private land.

Property owners beware,  this Government just picked protestors over private property rights.

And equally,  all those iwi who have settled and couldn’t get their hands on prized private property they may pile back into the beehive demanding renegotiation.

Jacinda Ardern has set the tone for this and blame can be laid squarely at her feet as Prime Minister.

Also it means 400 homes won’t be built so Jacinda Ardern has destroyed more home with this move than Kiwibuild has built over two years.

If confirmed, this means the end of full and final settlements. Every settlement is now up for renegotiation if you are willing to occupy private land.

And no longer does the Government say private land belongs to its legal owners, and can’t be used to settle wrongful actions of the Crown. Now private landowners can be successfully targeted.

Salim Firth writes:

Bureaucratic delays also inflate construction costs, driving up housing costs. According to a study of residential construction in eight California cities, the average approval time for projects that meet local standards was between seven and 30 months. Projects requiring variances or other exemptions took even longer. Such delays will not creep into North Carolina and Texas, though, where newly passed legislation requires cities and counties to issue project approvals within a few weeks. In Texas, a developer can now move forward with construction if a municipality takes more than 30 days to review a completed application. North Carolina now imposes a 15-business-day limit for building permits involving one- and two-family dwellings.

Think what such a law would do in NZ in terms of incentivising Councils to have more efficient processing times.

Stuff reports:

Kobe Bryant, the legendary basketball star who spent 20 years with the Los Angeles Lakers, was killed Monday (NZT) when the helicopter he was travelling in crashed and burst into flames in the US.

Bryant, 41, was travelling in his private helicopter when it went down amid foggy conditions in the hills above Calabasas, Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County Sheriffs confirmed five people had died in the helicopter crash, which was about 48 kilometres northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter Gianna was also on board the helicopter, according to TMZ and ESPN. Bryant’s wife Vanessa was not among those aboard the chopper. The couple had four daughters together.

Kobe Bryant must be one of the well known sportspersons around. One of the best basketball players of all time. Such a sad loss.

Stuff reports:

Asked about the growth in gang members, Jones says the number of patched members has increased by 30-35 per cent in the past 2-3 years in Hawke’s Bay alone.

There’s a Gang Focus Unit, created last year to tackle organised crime, but if anyone thought it was any kind of panacea they’d be wrong.

It’s “not the silver bullet for this particular problem” says Kura. “This is well beyond police.”

A 35% increase in two years is massive. And it has consequences.

Also chilling is the Police saying the problem is beyond them.

The Herald reports:

The rate of smokers being offered help in quitting by their health providers has fallen significantly in the past two years, according to an official measure.

Smoke-free campaigners say it’s an incredibly disappointing trend and the Opposition is accusing the Government of losing focus on health targets.

But ministers say smoking rates are still falling and other clinical checks are taking priority.

New data published by the Ministry of Health shows while in the middle of 2017 about 89 per cent of patients registered as smokers had been offered help by health professionals in the previous 15 months, that figure had slumped to 82.9 per cent by September last year.

This is what happens when you scrap targets.

Smoke-free campaign group ASH’s director, Deborah Hart, said the country was not on target to become smoke free in five years’ time.

“If DHBs are reaching less people, that’s terribly disappointing,” she said.

“There’s a whole lot of services that need to be offered and DHBs are part of that.”

This is a Government that hates any form of accountability.

Stuff reports:

The Government will allow online video providers like Netflix to self-classify their content after officials warned providers could withdraw from the New Zealand market if a more stringent approach suggested was taken.

Hooray common sense won.

It would be insane for us to have an army of bureaucrats viewing and classifying every single TV show and film available on provides such as Netflix.

All these shows have generally already gone through a classification process overseas.

All we need is a requirement that any material have a classification, and a process for appealing that classification if someone thinks it is materially incorrect.

The Government opted to allow providers to self-classify, going against the wishes of the Children’s Commissioner and the Labelling Body which wanted the current process followed.

Well done Minister Martin. Following their advice would have been incredibly costly and not actually provided any substantive benefits.

The regulatory move went through some trouble with officialdom – the regulatory impact analysis itself was not up to scratch according to the Quality Assurance panel, made up of Department of Internal Affairs and Treasury.

That panel found the original report did not meet quality standard, saying the analysis was limited on “the magnitude of the risk from misclassifying content” and there was “little information about the costs to providers”. A supplementary report was found to have addressed these concerns. 

Which suggests the officials involved were so keen on the proposal, they failed to do a rigorous analysis.

Steve Elers writes:

In 2002, 17-year-old Luff shot two Feilding police officers, killing Detective Constable Duncan Taylor and injuring Detective Jeanette Park. Taylor died instantly after being shot in the head and chest at point-blank range at a Rongotea farmhouse in Manawatū. Taylor left behind a wife and an 11-month-old son, who is now a young adult. Luff also shot at Detective Tony Heathcote.

In September 2002, Luff was sentenced to a minimum non-parole period of 17 years for the murder of Taylor, 10 years for the attempted murder of Park, five years for shooting at Heathcote, seven years for kidnapping his former girlfriend’s parents, five years for aggravated burglary and two years for burglary. Those sentences are concurrent, meaning they are served simultaneously, which is why Luff came up for parole last month – 17 years after his sentencing – rather than in 2048, which is when he would be eligible for parole under a consecutive sentencing model.

So he tried to kill three cops, plus did kidnapping and burglary.

The Parole Board’s decision noted Luff is “undertaking his PhD – he has already completed significant academic qualifications” and that he has been awarded a PhD scholarship.

Although the Parole Board didn’t name the university, a quick Google search returns Luff’s public profile on the Massey University website, which says his doctoral thesis is tentatively titled Life within the society of captives: Exploring the pains of imprisonment for real.

His profile page says his research methodology is autoethnography. In layman’s terms, autoethnography “seeks to describe and systematically analyse personal experience to understand cultural experience”.

Massey’s website also includes a publicly available online database of graduates to verify qualifications. It shows Luff was awarded a bachelor of arts in defence studies and psychology in 2014 and a bachelor of arts (honours), first-class honours in psychology in 2017.

I have mixed feelings on this. It is great Luff has studied in prison and gained a degree. It bodes well for his future when he is released. It is a win-win. But …

Kudos to Luff for his outstanding academic achievements so far. After all, it must be tough studying in prison for all those years, virtually all alone along with your books and study resources.

I mean, imagine being a student and not having to work at least part-time at the minimum wage to pay your rent and food bills. And when it’s mealtime, someone else cooks it for you, in consultation with a qualified dietician, so your meal meets the Ministry of Health’s food and nutrition guidelines, as required in prison.

When I taught at an Auckland university as a PhD student, I remember having Pasifika students who travelled to campus outside of class hours to use the computers and internet to complete their assignments because they didn’t have those luxuries at home.

Students in prison are provided with extra printed resources other students don’t receive because prisoners are not allowed to access the internet.

And what about the huge debt that most students end up with? I’m not sure if Luff paid his own way through his bachelor’s and honour’s degrees, or whether his education was courtesy of the taxpayer, such as the “$8 million dollars in funding to tertiary education organisations delivering prisoner training and education” given in 2017.

Should the taxpayer be funding not just an initial degree, but two further post-graduate degrees?

In other words, between now and May 2021, a convicted cop killer may possibly be on “release to work” at a Massey University campus, which could potentially lead to a permanent position once parole is approved. I’m not sure how that fits with Massey’s policy on pre-employment checks. But don’t worry about it, dear law-abiding citizens, just foot the bill.

So long as he isn’t a member of Hobson’s Choice, he’ll be welcome!

Conservative writer Marc Thiessen every year states the 10 best and worst things he thinks Trump did.

The 10 best:

1. He has continued to appoint conservative judges at a record pace.
2. He ordered the operation that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
3. He delivered the biggest blow to Planned Parenthood in three decades.
4. His tariff threats forced Mexico to crack down on illegal immigration.
5. His “maximum pressure” campaign is crippling Iran.
6. His withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is delivering China and North Korea a strategic setback.
7. He stood with the people of Hong Kong.
8. He has got NATO allies to cough up more money for our collective security. 
9. He implemented tighter work requirements for food stamps.
10. He continued to deliver for the forgotten Americans.

And the 10 worst:

1. He gave Turkey a green light to invade Syria and attack our Kurdish allies.
2. He invited the Taliban to Camp David.
3. He asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden.
4. He continued to attack dead people.
5. He continued to spread the canard that the United States is fighting “endless wars.”
6. He used his emergency authority to circumvent Congress on the border wall.
7. He lost a needless government shutdown fight.
8. He said the Soviet Union was right to invade Afghanistan and congratulated China on the 70th anniversary of the Communist takeover.
9. He used anti-Semitic tropes to attack his enemies.
10. He ridiculously claimed “Our country is FULL.”

Would be interesting to weigh each one as to importance. I don’t care much about funding for Planned Parenthood but I do care about ISIS and betraying the Kurds.

The Herald reports:

A Whakatāne doctor is demanding an apology from a retail worker she claims repeatedly “yelled at” her young son for playing “peekaboo” behind a shop sign.

The doctor and mother, who works in the town’s hospital but did not want to be named, went shopping with her 15-month-old son and her son’s grandmother on The Strand, Whakatāne, this week.

They were in Just Jeans when she claims a staff member suddenly yelled at her son as he hid behind a sign near the shop window.

She said the woman yelled “get out of there” and, at first, her son giggled.

“I think maybe he thought; finally someone’s joined in my game.”

She said the staff member again yelled at the toddler who then came running to his mother crying.

Now up until this point of the article, I was all on the mother’s side. Of course the staffer shouldn’t shout at a toddler (unless it was actually damaging something). You just ask their parents to intervene.

I’d be upset if I was the mother also. But …

She called the police “and they said they were going to send a Community Constable over there.”

She said that in her opinion, “It is such a grey area, there has been no physical abuse, but it was abuse nonetheless.”

The mother lodged complaints with the regional Just Jeans manager and police and is considering filing a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

You don’t call the cops because someone yelled at your kids. Who the hell would do that? And WTF are you doing going to the Human Rights Commission because your toddler got yelled at. Get over it.

JNS reports:

More than 130 Palestinian organizations have refused to sign a European Union grant request that stipulates among its criteria that recipients must refuse to transfer any E.U. assistance given to terrorist groups or entities.

Yep that’s right. A simple request to not pass the dosh onto terrorist groups was deemed unacceptable.

David Larsen writes:

So apparently, in order to “manage” their overseas collection – which consists of all the books they hold published anywhere on Earth except New Zealand – the library is proposing to … get rid of their overseas collection. That’s management with teeth. If DOC took this approach to managing the country’s conservation estate, it would save the government a great deal of expense; also, kiwi and kakapo would be extinct. The library’s cull process is under way now, and is intended to be complete by the end of this year. 

No one actually knows how many books, newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, letters, e-documents, and other things loosely definable as “publications” the National Library has. Cataloguing of the older material is often imprecise; but the number is well up in the millions. The Overseas Published Collections comprise only a small fraction of this, totalling about 710,000 items, of which the library wishes to dispense with roughly 625,000 (the remainder having been identified as high value).

There’s many things I don’t like paying taxes for. But the National Library isn’t one of them. I’d much rather the Government increased the funding for the National Library than have them destroy 600,000 books.

Very interesting results from the election survey.

In terms of what percentage of the vote each Democratic candidate would get against Trump from survey participants, the results were:

1. Bloomberg 33.2%
2. Buttigieg 29.7%
3. Biden 29.1%
4. Gabbard 23.2%
5. Klobuchar 20.3%
6. Warren 17.9%
7. Sanders 16.4%

So while Trump would win (with KB readers) in all face to face contests, Bloomberg, Buttigieg and Biden would do best against him and Warren and Sanders worst.

But let’s look at the results broken down by political category. The four categories were:

1. Republican – tolerate Trump: 40.1%
2. Republican – support Trump: 28.9%
3. Democrat: 16.6%
4. Republican – Never Trumper: 14.4%

No surprise that 98% of Trump fans would vote Trump. Gabbard does slightly better amongst his potential opponents at 1.6%.

Of Republicans who tolerate Trump, Bloomberg is most appealing – he would pick up 17% of their vote followed by Gabbard at 15%. Warren has the least appeal at 2%. This suggests that if US voters were like NZ voters, Bloomberg is best placed to pick up Republican votes.

With Never Trumpers Republicans, Bloomberg and Biden would both get around 80% support and Mayor Pete 76%. Then a big gap to Klobuchar at 50% and Sanders at 27%.

Those who would be Democrats would all vote for the Democratic challengers but only 67% for Gabbard and 85% to 88% for Bloomberg, Biden and Buttigieg.

Now for the question about which of the candidates would make the best President if elected. The candidates in order were:

1. Bloomberg 31.4%
2. Gabbard 24.3%
3. Buttigieg 15.6%
4. Biden 14.3%
5. Sanders 6.1%
6. Warren 4.9%
7. Klobuchar 3.6%

So overall readers thought Bloomberg would make the best President followed by Gabbard. Buttigieg and Biden in 3rd and 4th.

Now again let’s break those down by political grouping:

Trump fans think Tulsi Gabbard would by far be the best President, if it was a Democrat. Second is Bloomberg and no-one else over 10%.

Republicans who tolerate Trump think Bloomberg would be best at 36%, then Gabbard at 27%, Biden and Buttigieg on 14%. Warren bottom on 2%.

Never Trumpers think Bloomberg best at 35%, then Biden 25% and Buttigieg 19%.

Democrats think the best President would be Buttigieg at 28% then Bloomberg 18%, Warren 16%, Biden 15% and Sanders 15%. Gabbard last at 4%.

Almost 1,700 people took part. Really interesting results

Duncan Garner writes:

Simon Bridges will soon make public his decision on whether to rule out New Zealand First and Winston Peters from Government, should National win this year’s election. 

It’s his biggest decision, a crucial call.

Surely he can only go one way and give Peters the flick before he has the chance to humiliate National and shaft them at the altar once again.

The truth is Peters has not worked cooperatively with the Nats for 22 years.

Think about that – 22 years.

Not since 1998, when he walked out of Cabinet twice.

Since then, he’s propped up Labour.

And will continue to do so. He chose Labour and Greens over National and will of course do so again.

A vote for Peters is a vote for Labour. 

It squeezes Peters, and takes away his ability to choose the next Prime Minister. It strips him of the thing he loves the most – being at the centre of it all.

This is the key.

The latest benefit statistics shows that since the change of Government:

• 37,000 more people on welfare
• A 22% increase in those on a jobseeker benefit
• 16,000 more people who have been on a benefit for over a year
• A 30% increase in Maori and Pasifka jobseeker benefit levels
• 15,000 more children living in a benefit dependent household

The year of delivery strikes again.

The Herald reports:

New Zealand’s absence from a global holocaust memorial event has been called disappointing by the New Zealand Jewish Council and labelled disgraceful by the Opposition.

Almost every President or PM in the western world is attending.

The decision not to attend is disgraceful, and also stupid.

It is disgraceful because anti-Semitism is on the rise, as just seen in Wellington with a swastika painted onto a synagogue.

It is disgraceful because the Holocaust is the worst atrocity of modern times. What message do we send, by saying sorry we couldn’t spare anyone.

But it is also stupid because we missed out on the very important networking opportunities from the largest gathering of heads of state or governments outside the UN. You’ve got Mike Pence, Putin and Macron for a start.

Five years ago for a less prominent holocaust event, The Government sent both a Minister and a senior Opposition MP (Chris Finlayson and Annette King). Good bipartisan work.

For a gathering of this nature we should have sent either the Governor-General, the Speaker or the PM.

Future Crunch has 99 good news stories from 2019, you have probably never seen. Here’s a few:

• New surveys revealed that the population of humpback whales in the South Atlantic region now number 24,900 — almost 93% of their population size before they were hunted to the brink of extinction
• In Kenya, poaching rates have dropped by 85% for rhinos and 78% for elephants in the last five years
• Algeria and Argentina officially eliminated malaria this year
• The Global Burden of Disease Report said that between 1990 and 2017, the number of kids and teenagers dying around the world decreased by more than half, from 13.77 million to 6.64 million
• Remember bird flu, the disease that was going to be the next global pandemic? There hasn’t been a single H5N1 human infection since February 2017
• In the biggest breakthrough for cystic fibrosis in decades, a new drug that targets the genetic roots of the disease was approved by the FDA.
• Malawi eliminated the world’s most common infectious eye disease, trachoma, the second African country to do so after Ghana. In 2014 more than eight million people were at risk. Today, that number is zero.
• A new Ebola vaccine was cleared for distribution in 2019, and is working miracles, reducing mortality rates from 70% to as low as 6%.
• New research showed that the proportion of people in extreme poverty around the world fell from 36% in 1990 to 8.6% in 2018.
• The biggest global story you didn’t hear about this year was the successful conclusion of India’s extraordinary sanitation drive. In the last five years, 90 million toilets have been built, 93% of households now have access, and 500 million people have stopped defecating in the open.
• China now has equal numbers of girls and boys in primary and high school, and more than half of university students are women, up from less than a quarter in 1978

I’m running a poll on the 2020 US Presidential Election, embedded below. Please take 30 seconds to vote in it.

I’m interested in not just the topline results, but the cross tabs. Which Democratic nominees would do best against Trump, and how people describe their politics. Also which Democratic nomiee would make the best President, if elected.

I’ll publish on KB an analysis of results. Voting is anonymous and private.