The Original Article: New Zealand First’s Winston Peters Enjoys a Clear Field of Fire in Pending General Election Booby trapped centristsSaturday, 05 August 2017 11:03
How did we get the Winston Peters ascendancy so unequivocally correct?And so early—at the start of August?
Answer: We saw that Mr Peters was the only one to present a clear slate of villains.
Then to clearly articulate what he intended to do about them.
He gave disenchanted National voters especially a wide open, unobstructed basket into which they could lob their spare vote.
But there was and is of course something else going on in the way of unspoken undercurrents.
To baby boomers Winston Peters is the reincarnation of the school master they best remember.
This is the one of the type who served on the North West Frontier and then went onto fight his way through the Western Desert and Europe.
His classes had a vivid quality about them.
Thwacking his ruler on the desk he would depart from his teacher’s script and make a dramatic segue.
He might declaim for example that this or that sector of society required a good “thrashing.”
That this or that public figure deserved an equally good “horsewhipping.”
That some other otherwise admired figure was in fact a “pompous ass.”
What this category of baby boomer voters want is similarly a clarity of opinion and thus of purpose.
Even if they do not exactly agree with what is being said they want to be left in no doubt about what is being said.
The rest of the National Government teachers common room, as it were, in contrast seemed intent on pursuing the latest fashionable fad.
One which nobody can quite recall.
It is characterised by much backing, filling, hedging, prevarication of the on- one- hand/on the- other- hand variety.
Prime Minister Bill English kept and keeps quoting statistics, synthesising issues.
He comes across as a worthy but boring schoolmaster of the type that leaves the class snoozing as they drearily follow the text book word-for-word.
Or else he delivers stunning insights into the blindingly obvious.
Or else issues generalisations of the we’ve never had it so good variety.
His right hand man, Stephen Joyce MP, all the while comes across as the head prefect of the prissy type on the look out for anything that he can quash that might turn into fun.
| This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. || Wednesday 4 October, 2017 |||
The troubled triumph of 1993’s Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Greatest Hits by Jonny Potts | Guest writer for TheSpinOff October 3, 2017
Tom Petty died today, aged 66. Jonny Potts remembers his 1993 Greatest Hits album, one of the best single-disc greatest hits compilations ever released.
I still have my copy of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ Greatest Hits on CD. It was one of the first CDs I bought after acquiring a shitty boombox from an older kid at school. Up till then, it had all been tapes: The Rhythm Volume 3, Joyride, Use Your Illusion II, The Simpsons Sing the Blues.
With a CD, you could skip the tracks. That was the big selling point. Sure, the sound quality was supposedly immaculate, but what the hell did I know? CDs were big, beautiful objects to own. They were an investment which promised, in the excessive ‘How to Care for your CD’ notes which frequently accompanied the early ones, ‘a lifetime of listening enjoyment’. No more spooling the tape back in with a pencil! For a modest investment of $33 today you can guarantee that when you’re on your deathbed you’ll be able to skip straight to ‘Informer’ on Snow’s 12 Inches of Snow.
In 1993, the massive singles from Tom Petty’s Into the Great Wide Open were still current, with the videos being played alongside Green Jelly and C+C Music Factory on RTR Countdown. But they were already classics. ‘Free Fallin’’, ‘Into the Great Wide Open’, ‘Learning to Fly’ and ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance’ were rich and fully formed capital R Rock; they seemed to belong to another generation. The guy had a weird mumbly non-voice like the old dude off Dire Straits. The songs were kinda like Bruce Springsteen but without the bombast. And he looked like a skeleton. How old were these guys? Is it OK to keep the video recorder going to catch the creepy ‘Mary Jane’ video when all I wanted was the ‘In Bloom’ one? Brendan says this song is about drugs. Have I ever liked a song with a harmonica in it before?
The hugeness of those hits did not suggest a backstory. They were the story: massive, singalong standards that your friend’s older brother’s friend could play on guitar. They belonged to everyone. Because of this, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers did not seem to fit anywhere. In 1993, they were not canonised, like the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, nor were they ushering in something new like Pearl Jam and Nirvana. And Tom Petty was in a band with one of the Beatles? What is he, like, 60? Was there anyone else making music this restrained and commercial that we all agreed on?
But though we all liked that stuff, Petty wasn’t ours. This was Older Brother’s Music. The idea of risking $33 on a copy of Full Moon Fever on CD was prohibitive, especially when you’re saving up for the Spin Doctors’ Pocket Full of Kryptonite.
The songs were insistent. They were everywhere. They became mixtape staples. They were used to score cricket highlights. You heard them coming out of builders’ radios and student flats. Nobody could change the station when they heard the chime of that opening chord of ‘Free Fallin’’. You could make a decision to not like Paul McCartney or Neil Young: with Tom Petty you had no choice.
So the release of a greatest hits album was, as the sales figures bear out, a smart move. The album was massive. There were 18 tracks on it – great bang for your buck – and I knew about six of them. The great thing was, I could skip straight to those bangers. And by not buying four CD singles, I’d saved myself about $7.
OK, I am now going to ask you to try to imagine what it is like buying a CD with ‘American Girl’, ‘Refugee’, ‘The Waiting’ and ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ on it having never heard those songs before.
Continue to read Johnny's full article on TheSpinoff right here || October 4, 2017 |||
Commemorations to mark one of New Zealand’s darkest days will be held in New Zealand and Belgium this month to remember the Battle of Passchendaele.
Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Maggie Barry says the commemorative programme reflects on New Zealand’s involvement in the fighting around Passchendaele between 1 and 18 October 1917.
“Passchendaele on 12 October 1917 is still known as one of the greatest disasters in New Zealand’s history – when 843 men died in a single day. This devastating loss of life remains the highest one-day death toll suffered by New Zealand forces overseas,” Ms Barry says.
“During the Third Battle of Ypres, which included Passchendaele, New Zealand lost nearly 2,000 men. We’ll remember them and all who fought in Belgium.”
In Wellington the commemorations will begin at 3pm on October 12 at the Pukeahu National War Memorial Park.
“Immediately after the national ceremony, a memorial gifted to New Zealand by the Belgian Government will be unveiled on the eastern terraces at the Park. The Last Post will be held at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at 5pm,” Ms Barry says.
“The ceremony in Belgium will take place at 11am local time at the Tyne Cot Cemetery near Zonnebeke and will be attended by His Royal Highness , the Duke of Cambridge on behalf of the Queen and Her Royal Highness Princess Astrid of Belgium on behalf of King Philippe.”
New Zealand will be represented by Hon Dr Nick Smith and Rt Hon David Carter.
“This is the largest Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery in the world and contains the graves of 520 New Zealanders. Our ‘Memorial to the Missing’ in the cemetery lists the names of others who died in the Battles of Passchendaele,” Ms Barry says.
The New Zealand Passchendaele Centennial Memorial and Garden in Belgium will also be opened as part of the commemorations at 3pm local time.
“I want to commend Chris Mullane, Mike Pritchard and many others from the Passchendaele Society in New Zealand, who’ve worked so hard over so many years to have this memorial garden built. I planted the first flax there in 2016 and I know it is a fitting memorial telling our poignant New Zealand story’” Ms Barry says.
Ceremonies will conclude at sunset at Buttes New British Cemetery in Polygon Wood where 95 Kiwis are buried and where the New Zealand ‘Memorial to the Missing’ records the names of 388 New Zealanders who died near there but have no known grave.
“A group of senior secondary school students, who won the joint Ministry of Education, Fields of Remembrance Trust and the Passchendaele Society digital competition, will be attending the commemorations in Belgium. They will also attend the New Zealand Memorial and Garden,” Ms Barry says.
More information about both the domestic and overseas Passchendaele commemorations can be found at ww100.govt.nz/passchendaele-centenary.
| A Beehive release || October 3, 2017 |||
When it comes to solar panels, the future is flexible. Vanessa Young discovers how a MacDiarmid project is unlocking the possibilities of a new generation of solar cell technology.
When we imagine solar panels, we think of hard rectangle frames, sitting upright on roofs, or spread out across expanses of deserts.
But imagine flexible, bendy solar panels, supple enough to skin a curved roof, pliable enough to be rolled up and transported easily. Lightweight enough to be a thin film for the roof of a tent. And portable enough to be rolled out to generate power for emergency relief operations, or taken into remote areas.
Printable solar materials that will allow all of this is closer than we think. Victoria University associate professor Justin Hodgkiss, lead researcher in a MacDiarmid Institute project investigating the possibilities presented by ‘printable photovoltaics’, says they will be low cost and could replace silicon as the next generation of photovoltaic (solar energy) materials.
“Silicon cells are getting cheaper but still require a high-temperature, high vacuum manufacturing process. For solar energy to be really accessible it needs to be much cheaper and faster to manufacture.”
He says these printable semiconductors, including polymers and nanoparticles, can potentially be manufactured on a roll, cutting production costs.
“Their ease of transport and light weight also mean it is feasible for these to be manufactured in New Zealand and shipped anywhere in the world.”
New generation flexible solar cell material. Photo: Eight19 Ltd
Shiny is the enemy of good
When we see photos of those bright shiny swathes of solar farms, we don’t automatically think of their shininess as a problem. But Hodgkiss says an ideal solar panel would look black.
“Every bit of light that reflects off a solar panel is light not transformed into energy. When no light bounces off it means all visible light is getting in.”
This is where nanotechnology comes in. He compares the idea to radio antennae on the roof of a building.
“When you see large antennae on the top of buildings, their size is related to the radio frequencies they’re tracking. Radio waves are of the order of metres, so the antenna discs are this size. But optical wavelengths are in the order of hundreds of nanometres.”
He says the MacDiarmid teams working on this are effectively creating tiny antennae that capture light and can direct it inside the solar panels.
“We’re making nano-patterns that make sure that light gets in and is not bounced away, and that capture and focus the light waves directly where it is needed in the solar panels.”
Continue to read the full article here published by The Spinoff on a MacDiarmid Institute Project a MacDiarmid Institute Project || October 3, 2017 |||
China and the United States’ cooperation in applying sanctions against North Korea does not promise a new era of cooperation around increasingly entwined economic and security issues, new research led by Victoria University of Wellington academics has concluded.
“We’re seeing much more competition than cooperation” says Robert Ayson, Victoria’s Professor of Strategic Studies and author of a study published by a prestigious Australian National University (ANU) think-tank.
“Our new report, The Economics-Security Nexus Under Trump and Xi: Policy Implications for Asia-Pacific Countries, finds that New Zealand and its regional partners should expect less reassurance and more pressure,” says Professor Ayson.
“President Trump has withdrawn the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership process and is threatening to exit the free trade agreement with South Korea, a leading US security ally. And China has signalled to New Zealand, Australia and other regional countries that they need to consider the potential trade implications of taking a critical stance on the South China Sea. The days of separating our economic and security interests are well and truly over.”
The new study was kick-started by a symposium hosted by Victoria’s Centre for Strategic Studies, which brought together leading scholars from Victoria, the ANU and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
Associate Professor David Capie, the Centre’s Director, says the symposium was an opportunity to build strong links with some of Victoria’s most important capital city university connections. “We were also thrilled with the participation of senior officials from a range of government agencies.”
Building deeper connections with scholars in the region and with the official community is a strong focus for Victoria.
“This is exactly what we had in mind when we established ‘Enabling our Asia-Pacific trading nation’ as one of Victoria’s eight areas of academic distinctiveness and strength,” says Professor Siah Hwee Ang, Victoria’s Chair in Business in Asia and Chair of the team leading this area of research collaboration.
“We’ve created research connections across the University that can bring new combinations of expertise to deal with knotty interdisciplinary questions. And we’re leading the way in outlining the policy options governments need to consider.”
That’s where the next stage of Professor Ayson’s work will head.
“We knew none of the options for governments would be easy” he says, “but we think we’ve identified some of the most fruitful ways ahead. It’s no longer about finding our comfort zone between the US and China, because that doesn’t exist. For New Zealand, we think this means working even more closely with some of our regional partners, including Australia and Singapore, to make sure none of us is alone when we face future economic and security pressures from the big powers.”
| A Victoria University release || October 3, 2017 |||
Ceva Logistics is celebrating two anniversaries in Australia this month, marking ten years of operations as Ceva Logistics, and the first anniversary of its new Australasian headquarters in Truganina, Victoria.
Ceva was born in Australia from the merger of Australian transport company, Thomas Nationwide Transport (TNT), and Eagle Global Logistics in August 2007.
Ceva is celebrating the milestone achievements with customers and staff across the country, starting with a staff event at Truganina hosted by Managing Director of Australia and New Zealand, Carlos Velez Rodriguez.
“We are delighted to be able to celebrate two landmark achievements at the same time with our colleagues and customers,” said Velez Rodriguez.
“I’d particularly like to pay tribute to our staff, be they working at this site or others in the Australia & New Zealand cluster, for their dedication and hard work in making this company the success it is today. A number of them have been with us for many more than the ten years we are marking today and we salute them all.”
| A L&MH release || October 3, 2017 |||
Palace of the Alhambra, Spain
By: Charles Nathaniel Worsley (1862-1923)
From the collection of Sir Heaton Rhodes
Oil on canvas - 118cm x 162cm
Valued $12,000 - $18,000
Offers invited over $9,000
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242
Mount Egmont with Lake
By: John Philemon Backhouse (1845-1908)
Oil on Sea Shell - 13cm x 14cm
Valued $2,000-$3,000
Offers invited over $1,500
Contact: Henry Newrick – (+64 ) 27 471 2242