A Call to Action on Global Warming from Dr. James Hansen

It's time to take a stand on global warming. Dr. James Hansen, an internationally-recognized climate scientist, calls for Americans to take part in the Capitol Climate Action on March 2 at the Capitol power plant in Washington DC -- expected to be the largest display of civil disobedience against global warming in US history. Dr. Hansen warns that unless we stop burning coal, the country's largest source of global warming pollution, young people will inherit a dramatically different world than the one we know.

Make history March 2, 2009 in Washington, D.C.
Be part of the largest mass civil disobedience for the climate in U.S. history.
You know there is a climate crisis. You know we have to solve it. It’s time to take our action to the next level.
With a new administration and a new Congress, we have a window of opportunity. But we have to open it — together.
On March 2, join thousands of people in a multi-generational act of civil disobedience at the Capitol Power Plant — a plant that powers Congress with dirty energy and symbolizes a past that cannot be our future. Let’s use this as a rallying cry for a clean energy economy that will protect the health of our families, our climate, and our future.
This will be a peaceful demonstration, carried out in a spirit of hope and not rancor. We will be there in our dress clothes, and ask the same of you.
It’s time to take a stand on global warming. We can’t wait any longer for the changes we KNOW we can, and must, make today.

BUT ... 94% of the carbon in the atmosphere has the same isotopic signature as the natural background.6% is of an organic origin, fossil fuels included.Half of that organic source, 3% is what the IPCC itself says man is contributing.

So will we see Jim Salinger at Huntly?

Firefighters beat chemical blaze

Firefighters have extinguished a chemical fire outside a packhouse and orchard in Hastings.

The hazardous substances unit was called after 20kg of copper based fungicide was found near the pallets.
The chemical, believed to be used as a fertiliser, was extinguished and was put into barrels and taken away, Mr Dalton said.

Aha, I can just see orchardists using a fungicide as a fertiliser ... really sensible.

Awatere Huata is back in education

One would have imagined that this appointment may have raised a few eyebrows and demanded a few questions - particularly as a substantial portion of the funding must come from the 'public purse.' .... apparently not.

Former Act MP Donna Awatere Huata is running Albany-based correspondence school The Learning Post.
She is general manager of education for west Auckland’s Te Whanau O Waipareira Trust, which has acquired the centre.
The job marks Mrs Awatere Huata’s return to the education sector.

In 2005 she was convicted of misusing public funds donated to education trust The Pipi Foundation.
She served almost nine months in jail and three months’ home detention before being paroled.

And as for remorse ....

Speaking from her office in Albany, she dismisses the past few years as a "break".
" I’m no different from any other Kiwi faced with adversity – you move on.

Responsibility?

What responsibility?

Corrections boss: I have nothing to fear ... from a State Services Commission (SSC) inquiry.

Mr Matthews told NZPA that as head of the department, he was accountable for its performance and how it delivered government goals.

"I don't have any problem with that and equally everybody in the organisation is accountable for the job they do given the resources they've got and the task ahead of them there," he said.

"That authority was delegated to the general manager of probation (Katrina Casey) to in fact deliver on that."

So obviously a person who wants the responsibility , wants the power and the rewards for that ($375,000) without the associated accountability.
This attitude has become extremely pervasive throughout the private and public sectors such that one has to wonder how so many of these people warrant the remuneration they get.

Quangos Are Like That.

Auditor-General Kevin Brady looked at 100 cases of offenders released on parole, including 52 serious cases.
He said this afternoon: "In most of those 100 case files, the department had not followed one or more of its own sentence management requirements. Five of the requirements that my staff checked are the most important, in my view, for keeping the public safe, and one or more of these five requirements had not been followed in most of the 100 cases."ditor-General: Parole failings a concern for public safety.

He said he was concerned at the department's ability to ensure public safety.

The five recommendations he was most concerned about were that:
* the proposed accommodation of offenders was not problematic for victims
* probation officers regularly visited offenders in their homes
* senior staff oversaw how probation officers manage high-risk offenders
* enforcement action was consistent and prompt
* victims were notified promptly about certain enforcement actions relating to an offender's parole.

And there is of course 'the probability of reoffending,' which, due to the nature of some forms of offending, are heightened by incarceration ... and this should be taken in to account quite independent of whether or not the person has a finite sentence.

'Human/Criminal Rights'

Maori want to run private prisons ??
Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia said Maori would see great opportunities and she would not be surprised to see some groups or iwi putting in tenders.
"Many Maori have considerable experience in prison work, not only in this country but also in Australia," she said.

Aha ... many prison officers have been and are maori ... some superintendants of prisons have been too and many of them ex-sevicemen... and all appeared good until Mangaroa (Hawkes Bay Prison) where the 'cousies' of the inmates were employed to 'watch over them.' ... and then Carrington Hospital was Titiwhai-ed for a while too ... so all sides 'covered?'

Sooo ... 'recidivism, what is that?'

We await in anticipation of the Work(ing)man's commentary ... Kim?

Windfarm deal no secret, says DOC

DOC is standing by the confidential 2007 deal, which involved a payment of $175,000 by Meridian to the department in return for DOC not opposing the Project Hayes windfarm near Ranfurly in Central Otago.

So 'confidential' doesn't mean 'secret,' aha.

"In this case an agreement was reached which resulted in $175,000 being set aside to improve public access to nearby conservation land and for a series of plant and birdlife issues to be addressed," Mr Morrison (DOC) said.

Ms Fitzsimons said, "While there were many options in terms of mitigating conservation damage, money changing hands in secrecy for silence was unacceptable ... But that should not have been a secret deal and it should not have been at the price of buying DOC's silence."

And she is so right!

Any Ole Pic Will Do.

The CAA is investigating a crash at the North Shore Airfield. The pilot was unhurt in the crash. Photo / Glenn Jeffrey


A vintage military light plane that crashed at North Shore Airfield in Auckland this evening has been removed from the crash site.
The two-seater, Russian-made L29 jet had gone off the runway because of brake failure ...

But ..... It was an L29 jet

Quite a different machine altogether.