Hard News by Russell Brown

Read Post

Hard News: Current affairs TV in "making difference" shock!

170 Responses

First ←Older Page 1 3 4 5 6 7 Newer→ Last

  • Islander,

    'holm' on the other hand means - a body of land, surrounded by water

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    lil' p ...

    with all there is for us to freely consider regarding such, the prize ever higher every year for s/he who can truly meet the plain criiteria for isolation of such a 'virus', i'm flippergusted that RB is willing to play so fast and loose (flippnatly) with such confusion of science with mere cultural arteifacts!

    ¿Que?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    If you even try to understand, he wins.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Sofie Bribiesca,

    Me no comprendo. :)

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report

  • Islander,

    Nah, he/it is a fuckwit- he/it thinks it is a master wordplayer but he/it is a 16yrold insecure kid (OK, I'd add up to 10 years on that age guess.) Booorrrrring-

    Big O, Mahitahi, Te Wahi … • Since Feb 2007 • 5643 posts Report

  • Andrew G,

    Damn. I'll have to start shopping at Countdown instead of Pak n Slave. Mind you Andrew I think you can get free range chicken at Chantel's in Hastings St and free range pork at the Farmer's Market on Sunday

    That's true Tony. I rarely buy pork but I have bought it from the farmers market and it's good.

    Napier • Since Mar 2007 • 53 posts Report

  • p forrester jarvie,

    i hi chaps

    i am in a uni computer room and i totally HAVE to go for a pee
    aint got my id on me so dunno if i can get back in after i go
    very, VERY glad that you wish to grab hold of more
    please, bear with me
    and i will be, your humble smurfant


    bursting
    p

    Since Feb 2009 • 84 posts Report

  • Glenn Pearce,

    re: Hosking

    He actually claimed on the radio this morning that he was offered the job of replacing King as the NZ celebrity champion but he turned it down.

    Not on the basis of the treatment of the animals but rather that he didn't think it would be good for his career promoting animal products.

    Claims also today that King has been in the employ of NZ Pork for 7 years, you'd think someone might had said something to him somewhere along the way about the industry... maybe someone from Safe might have written to him at some stage ?

    And "everyone" saw that Jamie Oliver series when it was screened didn't they ?

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Glenn Pearce,

    That should read "celebrity pork champion" BTW

    Auckland • Since Feb 2007 • 504 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    I like the intercity farming concepts, that allow the pigs to walk to market. The idea is that the pigs live in apartments above the butchers shop, until they're plump.

    The New Ruralism.



    Campbell Live story here (with link to 12minute video near top), with guests "Peter Sankoff from the Law Faculty at the University of Auckland, an expert in the laws governing animal welfare, and Chris Trengrove, chairman of the Pork Board". Enjoy the host's growing disrespect for the dissembling of the porkmeister general.

    Haven't followed any radio coverage, but did not hear the obvious question yet - why did the industry lobby so hard for such evil "standards" if only a small minority of farmers actually use them as Trengrove so dubiously claims? Why lie? And why would the rest of the industry risk being tainted by accusations of cruelty?

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • Sacha,

    inner-city

    And here I was thinking you were making a cunning tranport reference..

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report

  • James Green,

    why did the industry lobby so hard for such evil "standards" if only a small minority of farmers actually use them as Trengrove so dubiously claims? Why lie?

    I think it's because it's something that they're moving away from. As in, when they replace a building, they probably build it to a more modern standard. Although, I wonder if there are some farmers who are dragging their heels a bit, and letting the team down as it were.

    This article makes interesting reading. I guess you could infer from that that maybe the high grain prices have slowed down incentive to change. You can also read Colin Kay's resource consent application for a new farm here. Charitably, you'd guess he might close the existing one after that opens (although I note his resource consent for that is due to lapse soon).

    I just found an answer to another thing I was pondering. I can see (but don't support) the mechanisation advantages for battery chickens, but it's seems the benefits of growing pigs in a barn are less obvious. We don't keep our sheep and cows in feedlots, so why would we do it with pigs?

    Limerick, Ireland • Since Nov 2006 • 703 posts Report

  • TracyMac,

    You know, leaving aside the blergh factor that farrowing crates and the like are being used in NZ, I'm amazed at the revelation that there is no inspection of these farms. As someone else said, how can you pretend to have an adequate regulatory environment?

    I was horrified to learn recently that there are a few feedlots for beef in NZ as well. Seriously, what the hell? If people want to eat over-fattened tasteless "Angus" beef, let them get it from countries with no ethics.

    Not to mention last month's revelation that they want to start up live sheep exports again. If we're not capable of providing halal meat to those markets, we've got bigger problems. And since we do already ship halal meat to those same markets (but at not such a "premium" price), there's no excuse.

    Canberra, West Island • Since Nov 2006 • 701 posts Report

  • Kumara Republic,

    While we're still on media matters, the whole story on Britain's youngest dad has come horribly unstuck. Libel, anybody?

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report

  • James Green,

    I was horrified to learn recently that there are a few feedlots for beef in NZ as well. Seriously, what the hell? If people want to eat over-fattened tasteless "Angus" beef, let them get it from countries with no ethics.

    On the odd occasion I head north to the Flatlands, I'm often surprised by restaurants who seem like they should know better (pimping the 'local' in the food on their menu), when they have Wakanui grain-feed beef. Useless factoid -- the feedlot at Wakanui required more earth to be moved than the Benmore dam (which is an earth rather than concrete dam for those who haven't been, picture here, scroll down. Actually, I just found a picture of the feedlot. I assume the black area is in fact 15,000 cows standing so close together you can't see the concrete!!

    Limerick, Ireland • Since Nov 2006 • 703 posts Report

  • James Green,

    UPDATE: The source by the picture says 2000, this has 15,000. Not sure which is more accurate. Other good stats. Cows come in at 18 months, stay for 250 days, and eat 2 tonnes of grain on the way to doubling their weight.

    Limerick, Ireland • Since Nov 2006 • 703 posts Report

  • Sylvie Zlami,

    On the issue of celebrity endorsements:

    Mike King must have had ‘some’ knowledge about pig farming practices. I think he simply chose not to delve into it because it wasn't convenient.
    He’s neither stupid nor poorly informed, and unless he was living under a rock he must have come across a SAFE campaign, or one of the many TV programmes, or the odd petition; besides he would have been an obvious target for animal rights activists.

    His emotional response when he visited the farm seemed genuine alright, but the horror on his face also showed a great deal of guilt. Guilt over electing to ignore what should have been obvious; guilt for failing to act and for “looking only the money side of things” I think was how he put it.

    I’d like to think that celebrities share a duty of care in such instances.
    And frankly, exposing your former employer in the way that Mike King has done doesn’t go down well either. It strikes me as too convenient.
    (As an aside, I wonder if future endorsement contracts will include a gag clause?)

    I’m pleased about the increased public awareness of intensive farming practices but I also hope that this issue makes celebrities more careful about the role they play when they endorse a product.

    auckland • Since Dec 2007 • 31 posts Report

  • p forrester jarvie,

    RB, to clarify my admittedly somewhat oblique/mischievous way of broaching my objection to 'HIV science' (and all that follows from it) yesterday..

    i am speaking of just what i did indeed mention, and that is the reward offered by various parties to s/he, they, who can actually *isolate* this little puppy that numerous other parties call 'the HIV virus'

    and achieving this according to the very clear rules & criteria for doing so (which have been in place since Pasteur's time) has simply not happened yet..

    if there is not a wholly unnecessary clamour here begging to defer to authority & consensus figures - and may i repeat my insistence that we did NOT arrive at the dawn of the scientifically-girded 20th century via a series of consensus meetings - i shall link anyone interested to papers which will swiftly take you very deep into the relevant science at stake..

    i ask that folks not waste their breath with purely flatulent accusations of "denial" , 'heresy. &c &c and recall to themselves once more that we have indeed entered the age of the internet, where every man worth his weight in informedness is free to judge the available evidence for himself

    to those fretful littlle sleepers Sacha and Islander i ask - did your grandma not tell you it is very rude to speak of someone present in the 3rd person?

    Since Feb 2009 • 84 posts Report

  • p forrester jarvie,

    correction - i meant the rules for isolation = irrevocable identification of bona fide *virus* - have been in place since Pasteur Institute conferences of 1973..

    Since Feb 2009 • 84 posts Report

  • Sam F,

    Testing your hypothesis, I've done some exploring on the Internet as a completely unqualified explorer.

    It seems that the crushing weight of scientific and medical expertise is behind the retrovirii HIV-1 and HIV-2 as the cause of AIDS. There is disagreement on this - but the opposing camp seems to be composed of hardly any qualified scientists, and mixed in with the sincerre doubters are a lot of people whom it suits to believe that AIDS is really a nervous condition, a WHO conspiracy to sell mind-control drugs, or a result of drug abuse and Foul Sodomy rather than of an indiscriminate virus.

    Would be interested to hear your views and see those papers, although I suspect you may have a barrow to push on this. But regarding your consensus thing: to crudely paraphase Bertrand Russell, for every self-taught eccentric that promotes unfashionable truths, there are 99 who promote unfashionable bullshit.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1611 posts Report

  • p forrester jarvie,

    an excellently spirited response sir! But i am not in the business of adoring 'crushing weight' and to begin with i will attempt to link you to a legal man's perspective on the long, utterly convoluted history of - some would simply say 'interested scrum formation around' the establishment of this thing called 'HIV science'

    i think this is best Sam because its the broadest possible persepective that will surely open the field right out for discussion..

    (as you might have noticed, every time our boffins encounter an exception to the HIV rule, they merely invent a new name for this observed phenomenon allowing heem to join in and take his place within the bosom the jolly HIV family.. )

    we are way too automatically IMPressed with capital letters, dashes and numbers, in endlessly reiterated formation in our brains..

    i think the main thing to keep in mind is that 'qualified scientists' are no longer all they're cracked up to be, and that these qualifications may indicate nothing so much as their arrival at a well-paid research position that just does not permit anymore, past a certain point, of the freedom to think most surely for oneself..

    just what does it mean, i mean (!) meanwhile, for it to suit any one person, an independent hitter no less, to believe? For my part i do greatly respect my nose for untruth, and my respect furthermore for whatever analogical organ might best be disposed toward sensing truth! - and i reckon that, in a world just groaning with the crushing weight of agenda, this self-respect is damn well important!

    of the CDC the WHO and co, all of whom flow rather fearfully from the original Population Control orgs, the old Social Engineering boys,
    i have nothing much good to say..

    but enough of my half-baked asseverations, i'm off to select some papers for yer perusal!

    Since Feb 2009 • 84 posts Report

  • Stephen Judd,

    half-baked asseverations

    Percy was a liar
    Percy was a pest
    So they gave him a one way ticket
    And packed him off to Jest
    Where many a true word is spoken

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report

  • p forrester jarvie,

    PS why do we assume, or rather *suspect* so readily that there must be a barrow that needs pushing, that our concern must needs be corrupted before it even gets outta the starting-gate?

    i mean, why should i be anything less than purely intrigued that every last one of the orginal AIDS victims - even before that GBS (gay bowel syndrome) victims but the estate of George Bernard Shaw put paid to that handle - were heavy - and we do mean heavy - users of nitrate based drugs? IE drugs whose action interferes most catastrophiically with the nitrogen-controlled gates to the mitochondrial consitutents of the cell? And that even before them the recipients of similarly-derived drugs, ie organ-transfer patients, has immune-system breakdowns of equally disastrous consequence?

    indiscriminately *yours*
    p

    Since Feb 2009 • 84 posts Report

  • p forrester jarvie,

    (the drugs were used natch to relax their anuses, that the ensuing sodomy-express might NOT be so foul...)

    Since Feb 2009 • 84 posts Report

  • LegBreak,

    Why do I feel like I’ve been transported to a different place?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1162 posts Report

First ←Older Page 1 3 4 5 6 7 Newer→ Last

Post your response…

This topic is closed.