Breitbart reports:

The University of Western Australia has caved in to green activists and cancelled a planned $4 million Consensus Centre because of its associations with Skeptical Environmentalist author Bjorn Lomborg.
Blond, gay, impeccably left wing and a former member of Greenpeace, Lomborg has long infuriated environmentalists because his personal politics make it so hard for them to trot out their usual excuse that he only says the things he does because he is an evil, right-wing shill in the pay of Big Oil.

Even more frustratingly for his greenie opponents, Lomborg is not even technically a climate change sceptic. He has long accepted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) so-called “consensus” position on global warming. Where he differs from hard-core greenies is simply in his belief that the world has more pressing environmental and social problems than are caused by the marginal influence of man-made CO2 and that these should be given higher priority than combating climate change.

This is the argument of his not-for-profit think tank, the US-based Copenhagen Consensus Center. One of its main purposes is to help argue how governments around the world can get the biggest bang for their buck on environmental spending – providing micronutrients for the world’s malnourished; giving everyone access to clean water; and so on – recognising that the amount of money available for worthy causes is not limitless and that therefore such projects should be subject to a rigorous cost benefit analysis.

Lomborg’s pro-growth approach to green issues is what drew him to the attention of Australia’s conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott who invited him to set up a branch of his Consensus Center in Australia, with the help of a $4 million Federal government grant.

However, when word got out at the University of Western Australia (UWA), a “rowdy gathering of academics and students” in an atmosphere described by one witness as “like a Rolling Stones concert” campaigned to veto the project.

Unable to brand Lomborg a “climate change denier” – which he isn’t: he believes, or affects believe, what all the greenies do on climate change – they instead simply ‘argued’ that his “controversial track record as a climate contrarian” was more than enough reason to protect UWA’s precious students from any kind of proximity to or association with the ideas of this dangerously open-minded man.

The University of Western Australia’s Vice Chancellor Paul Johnson, citing what he called a “strong and passionate emotional reaction”, said that the proposed Consensus Centre lacked “the support needed across the university and the broader academic community to meet its contractual obligations and deliver value for money for Australian taxpayers.” With this excuse he cancelled the project.

Federal Education Minister Christopher Pyne, who had supported the project, tweeted: “What a sad day for academic freedom when staff at a university silence a dissenting voice rather than test their ideas in debate.”

A very sad day. Lomborg has never said that climate change is not real and primarily caused by human activity. He has simply argued that there may be other environmental areas which are more important to spend money on first.

It is reactions like this from the academics, which increase resistant to taking action. People don’t like being told you can’t debate things.

Charles Murray makes the case for conservative civil disobedience in a book called Rebuilding Liberty Without Permission. A review:

In parallel, the legal system has become a vehicle for progressive social aims, growing arbitrary and subjective. Murray points to lower bars for bringing lawsuits, broader rules of discovery and the rise of strict liability that doesn’t require specific negligence to find guilt. All this has conspired to create a system in which defending yourself is prohibitively costly, laws are so complex as to be unintelligible and prosecutors enjoy corrupting discretionary power. Instead of a world where acts are criminalized because they are malum in se (wrong in themselves), Murray argues that a large proportion of crimes in the federal code are “malum prohibitum — not things that are bad in themselves but things that warrant criminal penalties because the government has said they do.”

Think of the case of the pension in Paraparaumu taken to court by the Council because she had someone cut down a tree on her property.

So how do how small-government conservatives conduct civil disobedience in practice? Sit-ins at the EEOC? Occupy OSHA? Or maybe thousands of senior executives chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, innovation-stifling regulatory regimes have got go!”

Murray’s proposal is less dramatic and more ingenious. The regulatory state has two related weaknesses, he explains: It relies on voluntary compliance, and its enforcement capabilities are far inferior to its expansive mandate. So he proposes a private legal defense fund — the “Madison Fund,” honoring the father of the Constitution — that businesses and citizens can rely on for representation against federal regulators. By engaging in expensive and time-consuming litigation on behalf of clients that refuse to comply with pointless rules, the fund drains the government’s enforcement resources and eventually undercuts its ambitions. The state can compel submission from an individual or company with the threat of ruinous legal proceedings, Murray writes, “but Goliath cannot afford to make good on that threat against hundreds of Davids.”

I think this is a great idea. It would be the equivalent of the ACLU. Imagine in the US a billion dollar fund that will help people fight against mindless regulations that serve no public good.

The full list is at DPMC.

Some of the more significant or interesting honours:

ONZ

To be a Member of the said Order:

Professor Sir Peter David Gluckman, KNZM, of Auckland. For services to New Zealand.

 

The New Zealand Order of Merit

The Queen has been pleased, on the occasion of the celebration of Her Majesty’s Birthday, to make the following appointments to The New Zealand Order of Merit:

DNZM

To be Dames Companion of the said Order:

Mrs Bronwen Scott Holdsworth, ONZM, of Gisborne. For services to business and the arts.

Ms Diane Elizabeth Robertson, of Auckland. For services to the community.

Mrs Therese Maria Walsh, of Wellington. For services to sports administration.

KNZM

To be Knights Companion of the said Order:

The Honourable James Kenneth McLay, CNZM, QSO, of Matakana. For services to business and the State.

Dr The Honourable Pita Russell Sharples, CBE, of Auckland. For services as a Member of Parliament and to Māori.

Mr Peter Ivan Talijancich (Peter Talley), ONZM, of Motueka. For services to business and philanthropy.

Congratulations to Sirs Peter, Jim, Pita and Peter and Dames Bronwen, Diane and Therese.

MNZM

To be Members of the said Order:

Dr Michelle Emma Dickinson, of Auckland. For services to science.

On the way to being Dame Nanogirl! 🙂

Some very sad news  from the USA. Vice President Joe Biden’s son has lost a two year battle with brain cancer at the age of 46.

The Washington Post reports:

Joseph Robinette “Beau” Biden III, the son of Vice President Biden and former state attorney general of Delaware, died Saturday after battling brain cancer for several years.

Biden, 46, the oldest son of the vice president and the rising star of a family dynasty, had been admitted recently to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda as he fought the cancer, a battle that his father largely kept private in the last weeks as his son clung to his life.

“The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau’s spirit will live on in all of us — especially through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter,” Vice President Biden said in a statement that was released Saturday night.

Far too young to die. Condolences to the Biden family.

The Herald on Sunday reports:

Tamaki thinks he might have to “move to Limerick next after this”. A whole generation of children will be bisexual because the “perversion of homosexuality is leading the charge,” he says.

It’s not Planet of the Apes – it’s Planet of the Bisexuals. They will rise up and conquer all!

Chris Trotter writes:

In order to sell a Labour Party based on Choice, Aspiration, Responsibility and National Pride; a credible, likeable (and because, historically, Labour is coming off such a low base) a frankly inspirational leader is required. Someone with a personality powerful enough to rekindle the love Labour lost in the 1980s and 90s – and only fleetingly recovered in the early noughties. Someone capable of sparking-up the old flame. And, more than this, someone fresh and fascinating enough to attract and hold the attention of Generations X, Y and Z. Someone to warrant a selfie – and a vote.

Does this sound like Andrew Little? Does it sound like anyone in Labour’s post-2014 caucus? If the answer is “No”, then, even with Sir Michael’s sage advice, the party’s in a pretty pickle. It has tried, four times, to pick a winner: twice by the judgement of the Caucus alone; twice according to the judgement of the whole party. Every single one of them failed to fire. And whoever heard of fifth time lucky?

If they want emotional connection, then maybe the answer is Jacinda?

Something has to be done, however, or, like Sir Keith Holyoake, the New Zealand political leader he so closely resembles, the Prime Minister will lead his party to its fourth consecutive election victory.

Little started strongly last year. Almost everyone said this. But his performance so far this year has been a combination of Missing In Action and Misfiring.

“When in doubt”, says Lynton Crosby, “stand for something!” And then, he might have added, convince a majority of voters to stand with you

If Labour can’t find a leader to do that for them, then, for God’s sake, let them hire a campaign manager who can!

Maybe McCarten should become Leader and Little the campaign manager! 🙂

The Herald reports:

Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei says her party’s 25th year has been its most successful yet.

Opening the party’s AGM in Auckland this morning, Mrs Turei marked the quarter-century anniversary of the Greens and its previous incarnations The Values Party and the Alliance.

“We are still here,” she told a crowd of around 200 delegates.

“Not one single party other than National and Labour that stood in the 1990 election is still around, let alone doing better than ever.”

The Greens are still around, and will remain a permanent force in politics. But while they have been around for 25 years, they have also never achieved Government in 25 years. Who has achieved Government:

1. National
2. Labour
3. NZ First
4. Alliance
5. Progressive
6. ACT
7. United Future
8. United
9. Right of Centre
10. Maori Party

And when will the Greens achieve Government? Well let’s be generous and says Labour wins in 2017 but they can only do so with Winston. Greens blocked out. So Labour-NZ First until 2023. Then National comes back in and say nine years of National. So realistically Greens might get into Government in 2032 – 42 years after 1990.

Mrs Turei was introduced as the “senior female politician in Opposition” and received a standing ovation.

Really? I think Annette King might disagree with that. Annette entered Parliament when Turei was at school.

The Herald reported:

Security Intelligence Service chief Rebecca Kitteridge has apologised to Kim Dotcom for the behaviour of her spies, who swapped emails about the internet entrepreneur’s weight and wife while mocking his chances of getting New Zealand residency. …

One reply stated: “He was never going to get far from the cops on foot, was he?” Another SIS staffer said Dotcom was like the Daleks, the wheeled villains in Dr Who, because “he could be defeated by a small set of stairs”.

That may be the funniest thing ever written by an SIS Officer! Yes I know it was inappropriate, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t very funny.

The more interesting aspect to this story is that the e-mails were released, and this is no doubt due to Kitteridge. In the past any e-mails about someone who had been investigated by the SIS would have been declined under the OIA, and it would not have been difficult to fund a reason to justify this such as prejudicing security or international relations.

The e-mails were written in a culture where they never ever thought they would be potentially released. In the past the SIS pretty much refused all OIAs. But Kitteridge has obviously decided that unless there is a direct link to security and international relations, then material will be released. This is a significant change – one of many the security agencies have gone through in recent years.  I suspect in future SIS staff will confine their humour to the oral sphere.

At some stage I’ll do a post looking at all the changes in the last few years around the security and intelligence agencies. They have been significant, and most heading in the right direction.

Liam Hehir writes:

There’s a presidential election in the United States next year and that means you can look forward to many editorials, columns and opinion pieces by New Zealand writers about what dummies the Republican contenders are.

It won’t make any difference to point out that Senator Rand Paul and Ben Carson are highly trained surgeons. Senator Ted Cruz may have been regarded “off the charts brilliant” by liberal Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, but that won’t help him. Never mind that Carly Fiorina was the first woman to lead a Fortune 20 company and was responsible for one of the biggest tech mergers in history.

This is because all of these contenders will take policy stances at odds with what is considered wise or prudent by New Zealand opinion-makers – who will therefore inevitably declare a received wisdom that the Republican field consists mostly of airheads, numbskulls and know-nothings. 

Yep.

In the 2000 election, there was a persistent narrative around Bush being intellectually inferior to Democratic nominee Al Gore. You might be surprised to learn, therefore, that a comparison of their respective university transcripts shows Bush to have the superior record. In fact, despite somehow having acquired the cachet of scientific expertise, Gore seems to have fared particularly badly in science courses.

The record also shows Bush was a slightly better student than 2004 opponent John Kerry. According to military testing undertaken by both when they were in their twenties, Bush probably had the higher IQ.  Again, however, the campaign press usually portrayed Kerry as the more cerebral of the two.

Bush actually passed all his courses while Gore failed a natural sciences course and was in the bottom fifth of his year.  John Kerry got Ds in history, geology and political science.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Bush was a better president than Gore or Kerry would have been. While people tend to fixate on intelligence, it is hardly the be all and end all of enlightened leadership. On the contrary, there are many other factors that go into making an effective leader, including humility, patience, decisiveness and human decency.

And in the absence of countervailing influences, intelligence often leads to hubris. Nemesis is rarely far behind.

Few people would doubt that Robert Muldoon or Richard Nixon were highly intelligent men. Their cleverness, however, led them to overestimate their ability to control a complex system like a developed economy. Both were arrogant enough to centrally regulate prices and wages and the result in both cases was economic damage that took years to mend. 

Herman Goring was highly intelligent (he had a measured IQ of 138).  He also signed off on the final solution. Clearly his brainpower did not give him moral clarity enough to oppose the murder of millions of innocent men, women and children.

You need politicians to be smart, but not super smart. So long as they are not actually stupid, then other factors such as character, and judgement come to the fore.

Second Afterlife at Circa is a very smart production that resonates with the social media generation.

The play starts with a flat party. Most people are partying, but Dan is too busy facebooking the party, to actually be enjoying it. We all know a Dan! I was once a Dan!

The next day we see the various flatmates emerge (including from under a sofa!) and we learn Dan (Michael Hebenton) has hooked up with the dreadful Sadie (Mahalia Sinclair-Parker), much to the annoyance of flatmate Bea (Bronwyn Ensor), who appears to have a crush on Dan.

But this is not a Neighbours type soap opera. In fact the flat is soon left behind as Dan decides he has had enough of social media, and tries to delete his Facebook profile. This is harder than many would imagine, and as Dan battles with Facebook, he gets drawn into the Second Afterlife – a sort of Internet limbo where he is confronted with the memories of his past – both real and online.

Dan’s guide in the afterlife is the perky and slightly annoying The Guide (Ruby Hansen). Is she friend or foe as she leads him from You Tube to Bebo to Word of Warcraft to finally Facebook.

Dan’s friends Simon (Michael Trigg) and Ethan (Matthew Staijen) pop up regularly, along with Sadie and Bea. You learn more about all of the characters as the play progresses through its 75 minutes. Special mention must be made of Sinclair-Parker who really does well making Sadie that self-obsessed girl at school we all knew!

The set and lighting deserves praise also. You have two to three dozen (fake) computer monitors all hooked up through a very visual web. And each of them has an image projected onto them. It must have been incredibly challenging to set up and co-ordinate. Also very good was the music and sound effects by the on stage operator. Some of his whispers into the mike were the funniest scenes.

What I especially enjoyed about the play was the ending, as Dan realises who has really been there for him the whole way through. Not quite the ending you might expect, but very funny and satisfying.

The play also had several fight scenes, ranging from Fight Kitchen to Air Guitar to World of Warcraft. The scenes were really well done and a highlight, managing to be both realistic and funny.

A very enjoyable play, that will appeal to the social media generation.

Stars: ****

The Herald reports:

James Shaw has been elected as the new co-leader of the Green Party.

The Wellington-based MP, who has only been in Parliament for seven months, was confirmed as the successor to Russel Norman at the party’s AGM this afternoon.

Mr Shaw said it was an “extraordinary privilege” to take on the top role.

He acknowledged that some people would be disappointed in the result, and said: “I will do everything within my power to earn everyone’s respect.”

Mr Shaw thanked his rivals, Mr Hague, Gareth Hughes, and Vernon Tava.

Kevin Hague, who had been the early favourite for the male co-leader position, placed second after a vote by delegates.

Congratulations to James, and commiserations to Kevin, Gareth and Vernon.

This is a rare opportunity for the Greens to significantly grow their appeal. If they play their cards right, people who have always dismissed them as being an anti-business and anti-economy party may now stop and listen to what they are saying. They may not necessarily get converted, but more of them will now listen.

James has both an impressive business background, but also knows how to communicate to people who are not left wing. Anyone can persuade people who already agree with you, but the skill is persuading people who don’t.

The election of Shaw is not a silver bullet for The Greens, but it is a golden opportunity. They have shown an ability to win votes off Labour – now they may have the ability to win some votes off National. The election of Shaw is a potential thorn for National. However it is also good for people who believe in sensible policy, as eventually there will be a Labour-Green Government, and I’d rather have James Shaw as the Finance Minister in it, than Russel Norman. Not because Russel is a bad person, but his beliefs were shaped by Marxism, and Shaw’s are not. This does not mean Shaw is right wing, or not left wing. He is definitely left wing – but just more centre left than hard left.

Kevin Hague would have been a very good co-leader if he had been elected. As I have blogged previously, Kevin  has achieved a lot as an MP, and would have done so also as co-leader. he was just unfortunate with the timing of the vacancy, and the fact the Greens under-performed at the last election meant that their members were more attracted to a circuit-breaker.

So it will be interesting to see how The Greens go with their new male co-leader. They have the opportunity to grow their support now, but it won’t happen automatically.

The current UK boundaries are not fair, with some electorates being much larger than others in terms of population. The electors per seat are:

• Wales 57,057
• Northern Ireland 68,704
• Scotland 68,403
• England 72,814

The Conservatives have a bill to get rid of what is effectively a gerrymander and also reduce the House of Commons from 650 to 600 MPs.

Electoral Calculus has projected what the 2015 results would have been without the gerrymander, and with only 600 seats. It would be:

• Conservatives 325 (-6)
• Labour 202 (-26)
• Lib Dems 5 (-3)
• SNP 49 (-7)
• Plaid Cymru 3
• Northern Ireland 16 (-2)
• Conservative Majority 50 (+38)

This is quite significant. It will significantly help their re-election chances in 2020, if they get rid of the unequal seat sizes.  They go from a majority of 12 to a paper majority of 50.

Sarrah Le Marquand writes in the Daily Telegraph:

Here, in an environment in which progressive ideas are fostered and an innate belief in equality is (rightfully) encouraged, the thought of being labelled “racist” is particularly horrifying.

So while in many aspects of campus life the goals of feminism are proudly championed, even the faintest risk of being accused of cultural insensitivity is all but guaranteed to see any commitment to gender equality suddenly discarded.

If there’s a hierarchy in the hallowed halls of our nation’s tertiary institutions whenever a potential clash of ideology arises, it goes something like this: Muslims and then women. In that order.

This is an environment in which even the most passionate of women’s advocates can be rendered mute by a suggestion they are engaging in anti-Islam rhetoric. …

Which is pretty much how events unfolded at the University of Western Sydney last Thursday night when men and women were asked to sit apart at an event organised by the Muslim Students’ Association.

“Brothers to the front” and “sisters” to the back of the room was the instruction politely issued to The Daily Telegraph’s male reporter when he initially sat among the women.

Women being made to sit in the back of the room – a bit like being made to sit at the back of the bus.

Stuff reports:

Sepp Blatter was re-elected president of FIFA for a fifth term after his only challenger conceded defeat in an election overshadowed by allegations of rampant corruption in world soccer.

Blatter’s victory came despite demands that he quit in the face of a major bribery scandal being investigated by US, Swiss and other law enforcement agencies that plunged soccer’s governing body into the worst crisis in its 111-year history.

Neither Blatter nor Jordanian opponent Prince Ali bin Al Hussein got the necessary two thirds of the ballot in the first round, with Blatter securing 133 votes against 73 for Prince Ali. However, Prince Ali swiftly conceded.

Kudos to Football New Zealand for voting for Ali. It seems difficult to comprehend how so many national associations voted for the guy who has presided over a reign of corruption. I can only presume many of them are corrupt also.

Stuff reports:

Collecting information about New Zealanders is important because too often Government delivers policy that makes politicians feel good, but doesn’t necessarily help anyone, Finance Minister Bill English says.

Speaking at the Identity Conference in Wellington on Monday, English said it was important to know “which people were where” across the country in order to tell what particular Government services were making a difference.

“The reason people hand over their PAYE at the end of the week or fortnight… is because they think we are making a difference to someone else’s life. Too often we haven’t.”

He said: “We’ve delivered policy to make us feel good… that made it look like we cared, but we never went back to see whether it made any difference, and actually, we couldn’t because often we didn’t know, and still don’t know who gets our service,” he said.

Good intentions are not enough. One can justify almost any programme and any level of spending based on good intentions. Data is what helps us decide if it is a good investment that actually achieves useful results.

“Take a child under 5 who is known to CYFS, where at least one parent in the household is on the benefit and where either of the parents has had contact with Corrections…we can pretty much forecast now that that child under 5 with those characteristics…by the age of 35 they’re five times more likely to be a beneficiary and seven times more likely to be in prison by age 21.”

English calls these children the “billion dollar kids” and says the more the state knows about them, “we may be able to change the course of that life”.

“If we can’t know that much about them it’s almost certain that we can’t change the course of their life.”

The fact there are 20,000 children in New Zealand with parents in prison proves “we haven’t been making much impact with what we know,” he said.

Data by itself won’t solve these problems. But they at least give you a fighting chance.

To be more effective we need to get the data out of government agencies, and into the public. There are many NGOs and companies that would happily spend time crunching data to try and identify correlations, trends etc. I’d love to see all the justice sector databases (less identifying details) made public – offender, sentencing, corrections etc.

The Guardian reports:

Fossil fuel companies are benefiting from global subsidies of $5.3tn (£3.4tn) a year, equivalent to $10m a minute every day, according to a startling new estimate by the International Monetary Fund.

The IMF calls the revelation “shocking” and says the figure is an “extremely robust” estimate of the true cost of fossil fuels. The $5.3tn subsidy estimated for 2015 is greater than the total health spending of all the world’s governments.

The vast sum is largely due to polluters not paying the costs imposed on governments by the burning of coal, oil and gas. These include the harm caused to local populations by air pollution as well as to people across the globe affected by the floods, droughts and storms being driven by climate change.

I’m against any form of energy being subsidised. Fossil fuels should not be subsidisied, and neither should (for example) solar power.

However there is a difference between a subsidy and whether a tax should be placed on an activity to cover the public costs imposed by that activity. There is a case for such externality taxes (such as have on tobacco and alcohol) but again it is not the same as a direct subsidy.

The costs resulting from the climate change driven by fossil fuel emissions account for subsidies of $1.27tn a year, about a quarter, of the IMF’s total. The IMF calculated this cost using an official US government estimate of $42 a tonne of CO2 (in 2015 dollars), a price “very likely to underestimate” the true cost, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The direct subsidising of fuel for consumers, by government discounts on diesel and other fuels, account for just 6% of the IMF’s total. Other local factors, such as reduced sales taxes on fossil fuels and the cost of traffic congestion and accidents, make up the rest. The IMF says traffic costs are included because increased fuel prices would be the most direct way to reduce them.

So the actual subsidies are 6% of the total, and the other 94% is not covering estimated external costs.

And which countries have the biggest subsidies?

1. China US$2,300 billion
2. US $700 billion
3. Russia $335 billion
4. EU $330 billion
5. India $277 billion
6. Japan $157 billion

Stuff reports:

A Southland driving instructor is calling for regular re-testing of drivers in a bid to improve road safety, but the Ministry of Transport has ruled out introducing the measure.

DriveTech director Brian Frew said the thought of a person driving for several decades without being required to demonstrate their ability to drive under vastly different conditions was alarming.

Frew, who has more than 45 years of experience in the automotive industry and instructs car and truck drivers, said it was “little wonder” there were so many crashes under the present system.

“My opinions are just opinions, but I think that every 10 years, people should update their road knowledge,” Frew said.

“Maybe they should even do a practical test, but they should at least have to show that they know the theory of the road rules.”

Road rules, road conditions and vehicles were constantly changing and some drivers may not have looked at the road code for more than 50 years because they were not required to, he said.

I agree. Just because you passed a test once when you were 16, doesn’t mean you should not be tested again for 50 years. I think re-testing every ten years would be a sensible thing to do.

Liam Hehir writes in the Manawatu Standard:

He will probably not find the comparison flattering, but I think axed television presenter John Campbell has more than a bit of Glenn Beck about him.

For those who can’t quite place the name, Beck once hosted an eponymous current affairs program on Fox News (having migrated there from CNN). An avowed conservative, he often focused on perceived corruption and extremism within the Obama administration.

The style of Glenn Beck could be characterised as emotional, populist, sensationalist, earnest and, sometimes, paranoid – all adjectives which could also be quite fairly applied to Campbell Live’s programming.

There will be plenty of commentators who would contest this association on the grounds that Beck is Rightwing, and therefore evil and stupid, whereas Campbell is Leftwing, and therefore virtuous and enlightened. However, that would be a distinction based on distaste for an opposing ideology, rather than on any fundamental dissimilarity between the crusading style and partisan programming on each show. 

Hehir says the future is rosy for Campbell:

Hopefully, Campbell will find something professionally fulfilling to do before too long. With his profile and experience he won’t be short of options. You could easily see him slotting into some comfortable role in a centre-Left environment like Radio New Zealand.

But if he’s feeling a little entrepreneurial, maybe he could take some inspiration from his mirror universe counterpart.

On his sacking from Fox, Glenn Beck launched his own subscription news service called GBTV (now called TheBlaze). Freed from the constraints of mainstream television and the advertising revenue model, Beck’s enterprise has gone from strength to strength. Initially an Internet and radio only service, it was back on television as its own satellite channel within a year. 

Oh, and he’s pulled in millions and millions of dollars as a result.

Last year, he met with Google chairman Eric Schmidt  who went as far as to say that “people are going to be studying what Glenn did for years, and trying to replicate it. To have a model where you have Internet and cable companies working together – it’s extraordinary.”

The John Campbell You Tube channel – it could be a real hit!

If just 50,000 of those who signed the various “Save Campbell Live” petitions agreed to pay a small monthly subscription then you would expect Campbell’s team would have enough to get a show going. And without network interference, they would be free to make exactly the kind of show they wanted.

Worth a go.

Stuff reports:

Don’t get too attached to your steering wheel and brake pedal because self-driving cars could be hitting our roads sooner than you think.

The first privately-owned driverless vehicles could start appearing in New Zealand in as little as two years, once European manufacturers start bringing them to market, Transport Minister Simon Bridges says.

Bridges is in the German city of Leipzig to attend the International Transport Forum’s annual summit, where a lot of the talk has been about the rapid pace of driverless car technology and how it could dramatically reduce the number of vehicles clogging up our roads.

Yep, they may be a great way to reduce congestion.

The International Transport Forum – a global think-tank for transport policy – unveiled the results of a major study into the impact of self-driving cars at its summit on Thursday.

It discovered that a fleet of self-driving shared cars could make 90 per cent of conventional cars in a mid-sized city superfluous.

Researchers used actual transport data from Lisbon, Portugal to model the impact of two types of self-driving cars: those shared simultaneously by several passengers, dubbed TaxiBots, and those that pick-up and drop-off single passengers, known as AutoVots.

It found that a large-scale uptake of TaxiBots, in conjunction with high-capacity public transport, would remove nine out of every ten cars from the road without hindering people’s mobility.

I’d happily get rid of my car, if affordable taxibots were available for the occasional car trip. Most of us only use our cars a fraction of the day.

Sarah Hunter, head of public policy at Google’s technology development facility Google[x], said the world was on the cusp of having cars and planes that required no interaction from humans at all, apart from inputting a destination.

“It can take you from A to B without you ever being involved. In fact, it’s so autonomous, it doesn’t require a steering wheel or brake.”

Such vehicles would dramatically reduce the number of road accidents, which statistics showed were 94 per cent down to human error.

“It’s not the car that brakes, it’s the human that doesn’t brake,” she said.

“[Self-driving cars] never get drunk, they never get tired, they never get distracted by a text message.”

Self-driving cars would also improve the quality of life for many, including the blind and elderly who cannot drive.

The is the future, and it will be in our lifetime.

Richard Harman blogs at Politik:

MPs today heard a revealing account of antiquated systems within the Auckland Council’s Building Control Department.

The Department — which deals with over 17,000 applications for building consents a year – does most of its work on paper.

Sarah Lineham, Sector Manager, Local Government at the Office of the Auditor General told Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee that the Council used approximately $3.5 million of paper in the building consents department because only a few applications were handled online.

That’s a staggering total.

She was being questioned on a report on the Auckland Council’s handling of Building Consents which said that the reliance on paper within the department meant that staff spent 6000 hours a year simply scanning application documents.

That’s three staff who do nothing but scan documents in!

It said staff at one architectural firm estimated that they used two kilometres of A1-size paper a month, much of it for building consent applications.

The Council should make a priority to have an online tool for consent applications. Not just to save millions of dollars of paper, but actually to simplify and speed up the whole process. Ideally consent applications that conform with the unitary plan should be able to be approved with no human review – just like registering a company – all automated.

Mike Yardley writes in The Press:

It will come as little surprise to learn the bulk of city councillors who voted in favour of super-sizing the number of elected representatives were indeed the People’s Choice crew, who increasingly vote like a blinkered, partisan block.

Ironically, these civic comrades, who want to rack up a bigger bill on running the council, are the same characters who’ve been particularly vociferous against capital divestment of council assets.

Any credible consideration of getting the council’s financial house in order has completely escaped their priorities.

Indeed.

Dove-tailing with the representation review, the city council is planning to develop a community governance model, whereby many council decision-making powers are devolved to community boards.

The notion sounds fine in theory but do our community boards currently comprise the requisite calibre and nous, to make the hard calls and reach firm decisions, frugally and fairly?

With the council’s Long Term Plan hearings under way, I subjected myself to several days of the process on the live-stream last week.

It was a dispiriting spectacle. One by one, the community board chairs fronted up to the council table, cap in hand, to make their submissions and share their big-spending wish lists – seemingly oblivious to the city’s dire financial predicament.

Most of the board chairs dutifully barked their protestations at council asset sales, like graduating parrots from group-think school.

Heh.

The Lyttelton-Mt Herbert Board chairwoman, Paula Smith, even had the gall to claim her community supported lifting the annual rates rise beyond 8.75 per cent.

I hope she campaigns on that.

Spreydon-Heathcote chairman Paul McMahon tried to argue that instead of divesting capital, the convention centre should be aborted.

McMahon didn’t seem  to realise the project is being fully funded by the Crown, prompting the mayor to bristle with frustration.

Then the deputy board chair, Karolin Potter, launched a tirade against any council money being lavished on car parking in the central city, because “we should only use public transport to get to the city”.

Adding to the cabaret, Riccarton-Wigram’s Mike Mora called for a spanking regional fuel tax to avert asset sales, until the ever-exasperated mayor, who couldn’t stomach the malarkey any longer, shut him down with quick-fire lecture on how the council was powerless to impose such funding-stream fantasies.

If you were hoping your community board representatives might actually defend your back pocket, and submit savings proposals, to slash the forecast rates hike of 8.75 per cent this year, it was an epic failure.

Might be time to set up a Christchurch Ratepayers’Alliance.

In basically just two weeks, the Auckland Ratepayers’ Alliance has gained 6,000 members, as the backlash grows against the 9.9% residential rates increases. That means the ARA now has more members in Auckland than all but one political party. Even better a significant proportion of the members have said they want to be volunteers and activists. I’d be very worried if I was a Councillor who voted for 9.9% rate increases in Auckland or advocated for the same level of increase in Christchurch.