“Love my Vote – Love My Dogs” Dogs are the forbidden issue in the pending New Zealand local government elections. None of the candidates want to introduce, let alone discuss, the increasingly raw topic of the nation’s dogs and their owners. There are two reasons behind the electoral blind eye to an increasing health problem which takes two forms. These are the growing number of attacks by dogs on humans, especially children, in addition to the perennial fouling problem. Local government candidates avoid the issue in the knowledge that dog owners are single-issue electors in that any measure against their…

First industrial-scale heist since 1855. The clean getaway of the Ashburton rustlers and their 500 –cow heist underlines the imminence of New Zealand of stock theft as a continuing threat. The theft is the first such large-scale one in more than a generation. In New Zealand a 500 plus herd is considered a large one and this is the first incident in which such a large number of farm stock have been officially reported as missing. The cows, in calf, appear not have been insured thus indicating a straight out rustling operation. The non-insurance of the animals points to the…

United States is looking at a Restoration “He was the heart, she was the head” confided a former Reagan-era cabinet member in a private conversation about the Clinton presidency. Yet otherwise Americans to any foreigner insist that Hillary Clinton will be new to the job. That she is running in fact as a first timer instead of running for re-election,. Americans refuse to accept they are facing a Restoration. The topic is taboo in the United States media all the way from the ultra-liberal East and West coast newspapers and television networks through to their right-leaning counterparts in the hinterland.…

Perfectly incorrect pseudo accounting term must be replaced

More on the weasel word Dear Sir, The term transparent is as your correspondent correctly observed is dangerous in that it conveys the impression of underpinning specialist knowledge. It is as if a person whose medical knowledge was confined to what they had gleaned from popular magazines and television shows went around cocktail parties telling people that they were in the best of health. In fact even professional auditors sign off their reports with the qualification that their audit report is based only on the data supplied.  Your correspondent correctly blames the word transparent on the false confidence prior to…

Word is transparent warning to withdraw your money from anyone uttering it Dear SirFrom your catalogue of old words/new meanings you (deliberately?) omitted the most misleading and indeed most dangerous in this category. I refer to the word transparent, usually rendered as “transparency” which has been plucked from the three dimensional world and applied to accountancy.In its application in accountancy it is used by people who wish to give the impression that that they are well versed in this most demanding of professions. Such people talk about the need for transparency or for this or that to be in a…

The MSC Newswire panel has identified the following words routinely uttered by politicians, officials, and broadcasters which have in recent years taken on new meanings. Audits Something fishy/official investigation. Not necessarily into accounts Birthing Maternity -  nothing to do with ships Choices Decisions/options/ alternatives Early childhood Kindergarten Family Staff/employees/ “team” Interventions Social welfare involvement Issues Problems Monitor A problem has/will occur and officials wonder what to do Parenting This gerund replaces the old “bringing up” of children (“raising” in the US) Procedure Surgical operation Resilient Sustainable Robust Designed to hold water in law court Security Supply of something, as in…

 Widely used technology routinely ignored in New Zealand claims process engineer. European technology that converts milk and meat processing plant effluent into self- contained waste consuming and energy generating plants is now available in New Zealand.Napier industrialist Ken Evans said the technology allowed milk and meat processing plants to become their own standalone waste treatment units with the added advantage of these plants using the waste so consumed as their own source of energy. As an example he cited large scale milking centres in Europe that were self sufficient in power simply because all the waste they generated was converted…

Togs reveal limits of diversity and multiculturalism A swimwear outfit designed in Australia is pulling apart the ruling coalition of the world’s sixth largest economy and in doing so is granulating the two central pillars of modern social democracy—diversity and multiculturalism.The beach togs are unraveling the threads of these backdrop tapestries of contemporary liberal belief not because they reveal too much. But too little.The burkini has become the symbol of the limits of diversity and multiculturalism. Throughout France, local municipalities, notably in the Nice area, continue to defy a high court ruling to the effect that their wearers are entitled…

European experience points to need for suppliers to add value, diversify The blockade by angry French dairy farmers of the Lactalis HQ at Laval carries a strong message for their New Zealand counterparts similarly dismayed by their returns, though not possessed of the Latin temperament required to man the barricades. The lesson centres on the wisdom of signing up for a fixed volume and price contract which is the issue underpinning the Lactalis ructions, writes our European Correspondent. The problem is that the dairy farmer cannot recover fixed costs by supplying milk at any price. In contrast a cooperative, Fonterra…

                                  Our European Correspondent (see “ Reporter at Brentry & Brexit says Ted Heath was the Genuine Article”) touched upon a statesman he considered genuine. We asked him to look through the tunnel of time, and distance, and identify some authentic New Zealand counterparts. John A Lee:   The “A” was always obligatory. He was the last active living member of the original Labour Party to survive into recent times, and to still remain a force in them. He lost a forearm in the First World War and is widely credited with being the politician behind implementing…