This is a big story. ABC reports:

Federal Greens leader Richard Di Natale has partially broken with his party’s policy, saying that he does not believe genetically modified crops pose a significant risk to human health.

The Greens oppose the use of genetically modified crops, arguing they pose significant risks to agricultural ecosystems and human health.

But Senator Di Natale told the ABC that there is no concrete evidence on potential health harms to people.

“The literature so far, on the issue of human health, hasn’t produced evidence of widespread and significant health harms,” he said.

Will any Green MP here be brave enough to agree?

Radio NZ reports:

The Labour Party leader Andrew Little says his party would defy the Trans Pacific Partnership in Government.

Why he keeps repeating such a stupid stance I don’t know. You can withdraw from the TPP, but to claim you will simply ignore parts you disagree with is moronic. Think if all our trading partners took the same attitude?

By such a stance, Labour can’t credibly argue for a binding climate change treaty, as according to Professor Little you can just ignore treaties and agreements you don’t like!

Phil Quin blogs on what Little said on radio:

He is stating as a fact that signing up to the TPP prevents parties from restricting land sales to, among others, Americans, Australians and the Chinese.  He is simply wrong on the final count because China is not a signatory to the TPP.

Little blows the xenophobic Chinese dog whistle to rally against the TPP, even though they are not even a signatory!

Also even if they were, the TPP actually would allow an effective ban on land sales to foreigners – you can simply impose 100% stamp duty on them.

Seriously, though, Labour’s promise to flout the TPP if elected is the most reckless act by a mainstream political party since…umm, well I guess that would be Phil Twyford’s Chinese surname stunt.  It all suggests the party has become unmoored from any set of core principles or values; instead, they flail about, barking at each passing car, desperately hoping that the next stunt will be the game-changer that never comes.  So disheartening.  

What amazes me is the media allow Little to get away with such nonsense.  It’s about as intellectually honest as Donald Trump claiming he will build a wall with Mexico and get the Mexican Government to pay for it!

A very astute article at The Daily Beast:

When I say “the left,” I do not mean the Democratic Party—or, solely the Democratic Party. Rather, the pestilence that is the Trump campaign is the result of a conglomeration of political, academic, media, and cultural elites who for decades have tried to act as the arbiters of acceptable public debate and shut down any political expression from Americans with whom they disagree. They, more than anyone else, created Donald Trump’s candidacy and the increasingly hideous movement he now leads.

The author is no Trump fan:

It’s pointless to try to explain Trump in terms of political platforms because Trump himself is too stupid and too incoherent to have any kind of consistent political views about anything beyond hating minorities and immigrants. Nuclear weapons? “With nuclear, the power, the devastation is very important to me.” Drugs? “That whole heroin thing, I tell you what, we gotta get that whole thing under control.” A random word generation program could do better.

They like how he says it, not what he says.

Today, however, we have a new, more virulent political correctness that terrorizes both liberals and conservatives, old-line Democrats and Republicans, alike. This form of political correctness is distinctly illiberal; indeed, it is not liberalism at all but Maoism circa the Cultural Revolution.

The extremist adherents of this new political correctness have essentially taken a flamethrower to the public space and annihilated its center. Topics in American life that once were the legitimate subjects of debate between liberals and conservative are now off-limits and lead to immediate attack by the cultural establishment if raised at all. Any incorrect position, any expression of the constitutional right to a different opinion, or even just a slip of the tongue can lead to public ostracism and the loss of a job.

It starts on campuses and spreads from there.

Note, for example, how Trump turned the incident in which Black Lives Matter activists humiliated Sen. Bernie Sanders to his own advantage. He didn’t bother drawing partisan lines or going after Sanders. Trump and his supporters couldn’t care less about any of that, and Trump until that point almost had almost never mentioned Sanders.

Instead, he made it clear that he’d never allow himself to be shut down by a mob. That, for his loyalists, was the money shot, especially when Trump pretty much dared BLM to disrupt a Trump event, in effect inviting them for an ass-kicking. A lot of people loved that shtick, because they want to see someone—literally, anyone—stand up to groups like BLM, even if it’s in defense of poor Bernie, because they worry that they’re next for that kind of treatment.

Trump loves it when people try to disrupt his events.

For the record, I despise Donald Trump and I will vote for almost any Republican (well, OK, not Ben Carson) rather than Trump. I’m a conservative independent and a former Republican. I quit the party in 2012 because of exactly the kind of coarse ignorance that Trump represents. The night Newt Gingrich won the South Carolina primary on the thoughtful platform of colonizing the moon, I was out. If in the end God turns his back on America and we’re left with only the choice of Trump or Hillary Clinton, I will vote for a third candidate out of protest—even if it means accepting what I consider the ghastly prospect of a Clinton 45 administration.

I know a lot of Republican voters like this.

Trump’s staying power, however, is rooted in the fact that his supporters are not fighting for any particular political outcome, they are fighting back against a culture they think is trying to smother them into cowed silence. What they want, more than any one policy, is someone to turn to the chanting mobs and say, without hesitation: “No, I will not shut up.” How long this will go on, then, depends on how long it will take for those people to feel reassured that someone besides Trump will represent their concerns without backing down in the face of catcalls about racism, sexism, LGBTQ-phobia, Islamophobia, or any other number of labels deployed mostly to extinguish their dissent.

Trump will not win, but he is changing the landscape for those who will follow.

A guest post by Anthony Morris:

The result of the first flag referendum was very close, with the country being split down the middle on whether we prefer the red and blue silver fern design or the black and blue sliver fern, The red and blue flag was a clear favourite on first preferences with 580,241 votes to 559,587 for the black and blue. The black and blue design only pulled ahead after the second preferences of the voters for two lowest ranking flags were added. The final tally, also adding in the second preferences of the red peak voters, was 670,790 for the black and blue design to 655,466 for the red and blue – only 2.3% behind.  

Given the result was so close I think it is time to pause the legislative process and allow for further consultation to tweak the final design. Surely we need more of a consensus on the preferred new flag before having a final vote? 

Design wise, I think a large area of black only works on a pure black and white flag. I can understand the desire to see the silver fern partly as we are used to seeing it on a black and white flag, but the black and blue design is not inspiring and the blue also looks too pale. Perhaps we can come up with a compromise? I have tried with the design below which takes the darker blue of the red and blue design and adds in a red contour to reduce the expanse of black. The contour could represent many things.

For my 2c I disagree. We’ve had a referendum and one design won. Merging the 1st and 2nd designs means a new design no one voted for.

Marc Champion of Bloomberg writes:

Germany is reeling from the news, hidden for several days because of its political sensitivity, that as many as 90 women were sexually assaulted by a crowd of young men of Middle Eastern appearance outside Cologne’s majestic Cathedral on New Year’s Eve.

This is, as the local police chief put it, a “whole new dimension of crime” for Germans to confront.

No woman in North Africa, however, would be the least bit shocked.

There is a lot we still don’t know about the Cologne attacks, including whether they were organised ahead of time on social media and whether the actual culprits were refugees, petty criminals who have been plying the area around Cologne’s train station for years, or both. All the police have said is that the complaints were made, in one case of rape, and that the men were aged 18 to 35, many of them drunk and of “Arab or North African” origin.

The attacks are not a reason to not take in refugees. They are a reason to be selective of which refugees you take in, and vet them through the UNHCR system rather than just let them stream over the border.

No matter what the details, this will be political dynamite for Chancellor Angela Merkel. The new mayor of Cologne, who was stabbed in the neck during her election campaign over her support for Merkel’s pro-refugee policies, is already being hounded on social media for absurdly advising women to keep “an arm’s length” from strange men during the city’s carnival season next month.

Almost the ultimate in victim blaming.

The Premier of Taiwan writes:

I extend sincere congratulations to New Zealand for its role in the complex 12-nation negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement concluded in October.

I would also like to take this occasion to reiterate Taiwan’s interest in joining the trade bloc. …

The two countries already have strong foundations in merchandise and services trade.

New Zealand’s fruit and nut products are popular with Taiwanese consumers and its butter, dairy, meat and fruit command large market shares here.

Meanwhile, demand for services continues to grow here.

By supporting Taiwan’s inclusion in the TPP, New Zealand would not only create business opportunities for itself but also support the two countries’ common desire for peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific. 

So as more and more countries line up to join the TPP, the opposition in NZ still maintain we should not be part of it!

Stuff reports:

Parker said it was a lack of proper regulation, rather than over-regulation, that had historically been a problem in New Zealand with issues like leaky homes and a decline in freshwater quality.

David Parker doesn’t think we have too much regulation in New Zealand.

I wonder if he has got around to getting a resource consent for his kid’s tree hut yet.

The Economist reports:

Until the 1960s boys spent longer and went further in school than girls, and were more likely to graduate from university. Now, across the rich world and in a growing number of poor countries, the balance has tilted the other way. Policymakers who once fretted about girls’ lack of confidence in science now spend their time dangling copies of “Harry Potter” before surly boys. Sweden has commissioned research into its “boy crisis”. Australia has devised a reading programme called “Boys, Blokes, Books & Bytes”. In just a couple of generations, one gender gap has closed, only for another to open up.

So it is a global issue, not just a NZ issue.

The reversal is laid out in a report published on March 5th by the OECD, a Paris-based rich-country think-tank. Boys’ dominance just about endures in maths: at age 15 they are, on average, the equivalent of three months’ schooling ahead of girls. In science the results are fairly even. But in reading, where girls have been ahead for some time, a gulf has appeared. In all 64 countries and economies in the study, girls outperform boys. The average gap is equivalent to an extra year of schooling.

That’s a huge difference.

To see why boys and girls fare so differently in the classroom, first look at what they do outside it. The average 15-year-old girl devotes five-and-a-half hours a week to homework, an hour more than the average boy, who spends more time playing video games and trawling the internet. Three-quarters of girls read for pleasure, compared with little more than half of boys.

So parents need to make reading cool for boys.

Once in the classroom, boys long to be out of it. They are twice as likely as girls to report that school is a “waste of time”, and more often turn up late. Just as teachers used to struggle to persuade girls that science is not only for men, the OECD now urges parents and policymakers to steer boys away from a version of masculinity that ignores academic achievement. “There are different pressures on boys,” says Mr Yip. “Unfortunately there’s a tendency where they try to live up to certain expectations in terms of [bad] behaviour.”

Gender stereotypes for most of our history have worked against women, but now gender stereotypes in education are working against boys and men.

Perhaps because they can be so insufferable, teenage boys are often marked down. The OECD found that boys did much better in its anonymised tests than in teacher assessments.

Discrimination on the basis of gender?

What is behind this discrimination? One possibility is that teachers mark up students who are polite, eager and stay out of fights, all attributes that are more common among girls. In some countries, academic points can even be docked for bad behaviour. Another is that women, who make up eight out of ten primary-school teachers and nearly seven in ten lower-secondary teachers, favour their own sex, just as male bosses have been shown to favour male underlings.

The lack of male teachers is a concern.

Girls’ educational dominance persists after school. Until a few decades ago men were in a clear majority at university almost everywhere (see chart 2), particularly in advanced courses and in science and engineering. But as higher education has boomed worldwide, women’s enrolment has increased almost twice as fast as men’s. In the OECD women now make up 56% of students enrolled, up from 46% in 1985. By 2025 that may rise to 58%.

At 60%, there would be 50% more women than men in tertiary education.

Social change has done more to encourage women to enter higher education than any deliberate policy. The Pill and a decline in the average number of children, together with later marriage and childbearing, have made it easier for married women to join the workforce. As more women went out to work, discrimination became less sharp. Girls saw the point of study once they were expected to have careers. Rising divorce rates underlined the importance of being able to provide for yourself. These days girls nearly everywhere seem more ambitious than boys, both academically and in their careers.

The mass entrance of women into the workforce and higher education is one of the great trends of the 20th century. Now the challenge is to ensure boys are not left behind educationally.

Spent New Years Eve at Disneyland. The good thing was they stay open until 2 am and have lots of fireworks. The bad thing is it is their busiest day of the year.

As we had to be up at 5 am to catch a flight, the plan was to leave around 9.30 pm after the first fireworks. But we kept wanting to do just one more ride and we finally left very happy but tired at 1.30 am.

Here’s how I rated the attractions we did:

• Hyperspace Mountain 9.5/10
• Star Tours 9/10
• Indiana Jones Adventure 9/10
• Splash Mountain 9/10 (did twice)
• Big Thunder Mountain Railroad 8.5/10 (did twice)
• Matterhorn Bobsleds 8.5/10 (did twice)
• Pirates of the Caribbean 8/10
• Haunted Mansion Holiday 7.5/10
• Jingle Cruise 7/10
• Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters 7/10
• It’s a Small World 6.5/10
• Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage 6.5/10
• Disneyland Railroad 6.5/10
• Casey Jr Circus Train 6/10
• Peter Pan’s Flight 6/10

This was the Jungle Cruise renamed the Jingle Cruise for the season.

Enterting into It’s A Small World.

Young padawans being trained up during lunch breaks

This was one of the longer queues, around 30 minutes. Some of the top attraction had two to three hour queues but we used Fastpass for them, and then did less popular ones between. Also after 9 am the queues got a lot shorter and we managed to get on some popular rides such as Matterhorn bobsleds with only five minute queues!

The enchanted castle.

A scene from the Finding Nemo submarine.

Getting ready for Hyperspace Mountain.

A scene from It’s A Small World.

And the dolls to represent NZ!

After the fireworks at 9 pm everyone headed towards the middle of Disneyland – either to exit the park, or join the party there. This caused total gridlock – moving say a metre per second. If you are ever there on NYE, do not go towards the centre in the evening – use the more remote paths.

Peter Pan’s Flying adventure.

Some toys we purchased. Sadly not for me, but certain little girls.

One of the real highlights was Fantasmic. I thought it would be like World of Colour, and all done with fountains and lights. But this one had actors and props galore. It is a battle between good and bad in Mickey’s dreams and was superbly done.

Captain Hook’s boat turns up.

As done Mark Twain’s!

Despite the crowds was a great day at Disneyland. We spent almost 18 hours there!

Some general advice for others going:

• Get there early and stay late
• Get fast passes as soon as they are available for you again
• Book your lunch and dinner venues well in advance unless you want to do burgers
• Make sure you see the shows as well as do the rides

The Herald reports:

Mr Little said it would also be inappropriate to hold a signing ceremony for the deal two days before New Zealand’s Waitangi Day.

“Our national day is a day that we celebrate our national identity and national sovereignty, and this is an agreement that potentially compromises our sovereignty.”

That’s pretty pathetic, and just desperate.

So how many days before Waitangi Day is okay? 2.5? 3? 3.5?

Paul Buchanan writes in the NZ Herald:

The United States has asked New Zealand to provide special operations troops to the coalition against Isis (Islamic State). The Government has said it will consider the request but the Prime Minister has qualified the response, stating that he does not think New Zealand will increase its contribution beyond the company-sized training complement currently deployed at Camp Taji outside Baghdad.

The PM’s caution has more to do with domestic political concerns than the practical or diplomatic necessities of the conflict. With a thin majority thanks to Winston Peter’s by-election victory in Northland, National cannot risk parliamentary defeat on the issue. But Opposition leader Andrew Little has signalled that Labour is willing to consider sending SAS troops to the fight, so the ground is clearing for authorisation of a new phase of the New Zealand mission.

They argued so vigorously against sending trainers, it is hard to see they will do a u-turn and support direct combat troops.

The problem lies with the Iraqi Army leadership. Iraqi field rank officers are not included in the training programme and are by and large unwilling or unable to demonstrate the type of leadership skills under fire that are required to make best use of the training received by their soldiers from the NZDF and its allies.

That is where special operations troops like New Zealand’s SAS are useful. Among many other roles they serve as leadership advisers on the battlefield. Because of their exceptional skills and hardened discipline, SAS teams serve as force multipliers in the field by adding tactical acumen, physical resilience and steadfastness of purpose to the fight. They lead by example.

I’m sure the NZ SAS would add value.

It will be odd if New Zealand refuses to send its most elite soldiers when asked for them by its major allies in a UN-sanctioned multi-national military coalition. Troops such as the NZSAS need regular combat experience to sharpen and maintain their skills. Since part of their specialness is versatility in a wide range of combat environments, the SAS would be keen to test its troops in the mixed urban/desert, conventional and unconventional battlefields of Iraq and Syria.

Leaving the SAS in New Zealand is akin to leaving a Bugatti in the garage. Much has been invested in their combat readiness. They are trained to fight and lead others in combat (such as during the anti-terrorist mission in Afghanistan). It would be counterproductive for them to be idling in Papakura when there is a just cause to be fought against enemies of humanity who commit atrocities and wreak misery on those they subjugate.

It is a very just cause, and indeed against enemies of humanity.

Stuff reports:

Prime Minister John Key is expected to announce the Government will help fund Auckland’s $2.5 billion inner city rail link two years earlier than originally promised.

It’s understood the PM will make the commitment in a speech to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce on January 27.

The City Rail Link will join up Auckland’s train network, allowing for double the number of trains and passengers and making rail a more attractive alternative to driving on the city’s congested roads.

In 2013, the government agreed it would jointly fund the CRL with Auckland Council, but said it would provide its share in 2020.

Spent the 30th of December at Disney California Adventure Park, and another fun day.

They don’t have a front of pass ticket, but they do have a system where you can acquire a fast pass ticket for a popular ride every two hours. These are critical to having a good day and so the moment you can get a new fast pass, you should.

Here’s how I rated the attractions we did:

• Radiator Springs Racers 9.5/10 (the most popular attraction by far)
• Aladdin – 9.5/10 (hilarious, the genie is a star)
• California Screaming 9/10 (literally screaming)
• Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 9/10 (think of an elevator that drops several floors at a time)
• World of Color – 9/10 (incredible light show)
• Soaring Over California 8.5/10
• Grizzly River Run 8/10
• Monsters Inc 7.5/10
• Toy Story Midway Mania 7/10
• Silly Symphony Swings 6.5/10
• Goofy Sky School 6/10
• The Little Mermaid – Ariel’s Undersea Adventure 5.5/10

Not a lot of photos here as hard to take then while doing the attraction!

The big ferris wheel.

This is the most fun (in a terrifying sense) ride – California Screaming. You do drops, a loop and lots of twists. And people do spend most of the ride screaming!

The World of Colour show in the evening is quite fantastic. All done with lights and 1,200 fountains.

Jame Whyte writes at the NZ Herald:

There is no poverty in New Zealand. Misery, depravity, hopelessness, yes; but no poverty.

The poorest in New Zealand are the unemployed. They receive free medical care, free education for their children and enough cash to pay for basic food, clothing and (subsidised) housing. Most have televisions, refrigerators and ovens. Many even own cars. That isn’t poverty.

We spend well over $35 billion a year providing welfare, free education and free medical care.

Why then do we keep hearing that more than 20 per cent of New Zealand children live in poverty? Those who tell us this do not mean by “poverty” what most people do. They have a statistical definition: you live in poverty if your household’s income is less than 50 per cent of the national median (after tax and housing costs, and adjusted for the number of adults and children in the household).

For example, the Herald recently published an article by Susan St John, spokeswoman for the Child Poverty Action Group, that claimed 220,000 children live in poverty because they “fall under the stringent 50 per cent after-housing-costs poverty line”.

Alas, the measure is not stringent; it is ridiculous. It means, for example, that doubling everyone’s income would have no effect on the amount of poverty in New Zealand. Our incomes would all remain the same percentage of the median.

The more wealthy people who migrate to NZ means the more people are defined as being in poverty!

Poverty, when defined as a percentage of the median income, is something that only socialism can solve. The only way to have fewer people in poverty is tax the wealthy more and give more money to those on lower incomes.

Yet lowering incomes might reduce poverty. If the median income fell, then those on the minimum wage or unemployment benefit would find their unchanged incomes closer to the median.

Communist counties have very few people in poverty by this definition, as everyone is equally poor.

Using this definition, a 2014 Unicef report claimed there is more child poverty in Japan than in Hungary and more in the United States than in Greece. This at a time when the Greek economy was in tatters, unemployment was running at 27 per cent and masses of Greeks were queuing for handouts at soup kitchens.

Yep.

Worse, the measure disregards consumption that people do not pay for with their own money. Consider two 10-year-old boys who live in the same quality of house, attend the same school, visit the same doctor when ill, wear the same brand of tracksuit and so on. Their material wellbeing differs in only one respect. Whereas Jimmy’s parents give him $20 a week in pocket money, Timmy’s give him only $10. Should we conclude that, since his disposable income is only half of Jimmy’s, Timmy is a pauper?

Suppose the housing, schooling and so on that they both receive are worth $200 a week, and that both spend all their pocket money. Then Jimmy consumes $220 a week and Timmy consumes $210. Though Jimmy’s disposable income is double Timmy’s, he is only 5 per cent better off.

The same goes for New Zealand households. A large portion of their consumption is not paid for from their disposable incomes. Education, healthcare and housing are all in this sense free. Differences in disposable income exaggerate differences in consumption. Yet poverty is a matter of consumption.

Excellent points. This is why I think the best definition of poverty in NZ is whether people are in material hardship, as measured by whether they can afford hings such as shoes for their kids.

The Herald reports:

Brazil’s economy will contract more than previously forecast and is heading for the deepest recession since at least 1901 as economic activity and confidence sink amid a political crisis, a survey of analysts shows.

Latin America’s largest economy will shrink 2.95 per cent this year, according to the weekly central bank poll of about 100 economists, versus a prior estimate of a 2.81 per cent contraction. …

Brazil’s policy makers are struggling to control the fastest inflation in 12 years without further hamstringing a weak economy. …

The last time Brazil had back-to-back years of recession was 1930 and 1931, and it has never had one as deep as that forecast for 2015 and 2016 combined, according to data from national economic research institute IPEA that dates back to 1901.

Brazil currently has unemployment of 7.5% and inflation of 15.4% and negative economic growth. How did it manage this?

The Economist reports:

In 2014, as Ms Rousseff sought re-election, the budget deficit doubled to 6.75% of GDP (the bill has since swelled by another 2.7 percentage points). For the first time since 1997 the government failed to set aside any money to pay back creditors. Its planned primary surplus for this year, which excludes interest owed on debt, of 1.2% of GDP is now expected to turn into a 0.9% deficit. Brazil’s gross government debt of 66% may look piffling compared to Greece’s 175% or Japan’s 227%. But Brazil’s high interest rates of around 14% make borrowing costlier to service. Debt payments eat up more than 8% of output.

It’s the old story of having spending get out of control in a bid to win re-election. They won, but the economy tanked under the burden of their promises.

Red tape, poor infrastructure and a strong currency have rendered much of industry uncompetitive. So consumers have been the main source of demand. A low unemployment rate pushed up wages. In the past ten years wages in the private sector have grown faster than GDP (public­-sector workers have done even better). That allowed consumers to borrow more, which encouraged still more spending. Now the virtuous circle is turning vicious. Real wages have been falling since March, compared with a year earlier, mainly because Brazilian workers’ productivity never justified the earlier rises.

You can’t sustainably rise wages by legislation or even agreement. To be sustainable it has to be on the back of productivity gains.

The Herald reports:

Soon after the ground shook around its nuclear testing facility, North Korea trumpeted its first hydrogen bomb test – a powerful, self-proclaimed “H-bomb of justice” that would mark a major and unanticipated advance for its still-limited nuclear arsenal.

Pyongyang’s announcement yesterday was met with widespread skepticism, but whatever the North detonated in its fourth nuclear test, another round of tough international sanctions looms for the defiant, impoverished country.

The test likely pushed Pyongyang’s scientists and engineers closer to their goal of building a warhead small enough to place on a missile that can reach the US mainland. But South Korea’s spy agency thought the estimated explosive yield from the explosion was much smaller than what even a failed H-bomb detonation would produce.

I don’t think even the North Korean dictator is that crazy. The US would be forced to respond with multiple nukes back.

The test was met with a burst of jubilation and pride in Pyongyang. A North Korean television anchor, reading a typically propaganda-heavy statement, said a test of a “miniaturised” hydrogen bomb had been a “perfect success” that elevated the country’s “nuclear might to the next level”.

Which probably means it was a fizzer.

Spent the 29th of December at Universal Studios Hollywood, and no surprise had a great day. Some great rides, fascinating history and fun shows.

For those who have not been, but may one day, my strong advice is buy a Front of Line pass. For the extra $50 or so you’ll easily get to do every attraction and with five minute queues instead of one hour ones.

Here’s how I rated the attractions:

• Transformers The Ride 3D – 10/10
• Studio Tour – 9/10
• King Kong 360 3D – 9/10
• Revenge of the Mummy – 9/10
• Simpsons Ride – 8.5/10
• Shrek 4D – 8/10
• Despicable Me Minion Mayhem – 8/10
• Fast & Furious – 8/10
• Jurassic Park – 7.5/10
• Waterworld – 7/10
• Animal Actors – 6.5/10
• Special Effects – 5.5/10

The Transformers Ride was amazing. The moment we did it with Front of Pass, we queued up to do it again.

You can also go down the CityWalk, which is free, next to the park. Lots of great restaurants including Bubba Gump and Hard Rock Cafe.

Lots of very bad food.

This was quite cool. Basically you fly with a huge fan propelling you up.

These signs are up everywhere. Even the toilets warn you they have chemicals that can kill you. Public Health bureaucracy gone crazy,

This was the set for Animal Actors. The falcons were a highlight. The dogs very cute.

The star though was an owl from Harry Potter.

Who remembers Kit?

And the Flintstones of course. They had several dozen cars on the studio tour.

They produced their own flash flood for you as you drove by.

And this is the remains of an actual plane that they have as wreckage. Whenever there is a plane crash, they’ll use this site. The entire studio site was huge – scores and scores of studios ncluding Wysteria Lane.

In April they open their Harry Potter ride, and you can see Hogwarts already built on the hill.

A scene from Waterworld.

As I said, it was a really good day. Doesn’t get as crowded as Disney and the rides have cool themes to them – they basically tell a story.  Definitely will visit again the next time I am in LA, or in Orlando.

Lindsay Mitchell blogs:

Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw of the Morgan Foundation (DomPost, Jan 1) argues that giving families cash with “no strings attached” is the best way of reducing child poverty. To support her argument she quotes fromThe Economist, “Unconditional Cash Transfers work better than almost anyone would have expected. They dent the stereotype of poor people as inherently feckless and ignorant”.

This is only part of the quote. The next sentence is, “But Conditional Cash Transfers are usually better still, especially when dealing with the root causes of poverty and, rather than just alleviating it, helping families escape it altogether.”

That immediately conflicts with the idea of “no strings attached.”

I have a way to resolve this issue.

Let the Morgan Foundation choose a suburb and the Morgan Foundation gives everyone in that suburb $500 a week. And then see after say three years what the impact has been.

The Washington Post reports: