Posts by Kyle Matthews
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Isn't it great to see Key thinking we do not need it.
I can't understand what advice Key is getting. His argument is 'we don't need it because it doesn't need to be a capital fund the government should just fund it'.
Which in the sound bite media world is of course getting shorted to 'we don't need it', and he looks like a naysayer. Tip for Key: You don't need to just say 'bad' to everything the government does, particularly when most people are going to think what the government is doing is 'good'.
If he wants to be the naysayer, surely his argument should be "the government is only promising to fund 10 - 15 years of research. A national government will put $XXX million dollars into our first budget and it will be there every year from then on, adjusted for inflation, so we can guarantee the research future of NZ'.
-
My mum updates unix scripts with Vi
There must be a million better ways to get your thrills in the new millenium? I always found Vi to be the definition of annoying and obscure.
-
And " trust us we will deal with the details" is really is not good enough...remember the last time we heard that
I really don't get this line of thought. Government almost always announces the headline first, and then the detail later.
It makes practical sense - means you can sort out the details by involving stakeholders and tidy things up without the headline being leaked.
It also makes political sense - means you get two bites from the media. In actual fact they typically get four bites - 1. we're going to announce more funding for XXX tomorrow. 2. Oh look more funding! 3. we're going to announce the details of the funding tomorrow. 4 Oh look, juicy details!
But it's what they do with most things, have for ages. What's new people?
Also nice to see some rural support from amongst the "Hard News" readers,it is not easy down on the farm
Who else automatically finished this with "where we really know our cheese"? Just me?
-
James, I would respond, but it appears your argument is 'global warming is a myth because I believe that peak oil won't happen'.
Which doesn't seem worth anyone's time to be honest.
-
Jim Anderton
Now we're 'Ministerial special'.
-
Excuse my ignorance of how this works but my experience, admittedly only as a consumer, is that when an agriculture sector (take your pick which flavour crops, livestock whatever) has a "bad season" due to weather the price to me goes up correspondingly so presumably the farmer's income hasn't "halved" ?
Well for some stock, the price doesn't go up. In order to get through a winter farmers often have to sell sheep/cattle etc, and since the market is flooded the price goes right down.
And if your crop is 90% wiped out, it doesn't matter if the price goes up 50%, you're still going to have a bad year.
-
Damn, it's hot behind the entertainment rack. Will blog in the morning ...
Sounds like something Mr Spitzer woudl say.
-
My guess, and I’m a plant developmental biologist, is that if we can figure out how plants grow that will open up areas of tremendous value to NZ and humankind as a whole.
That's not a question that's already answered in my Yates NZ Gardens book?
And we haven't had a decent student riot in years :(
We had a fairly exciting one down here last year. Bloody Canterbury students and their crappy cars and alcohol. If you can't have a proper riot, why bother?
-
Well bugger me, could it be that John Banks is going to use his obnoxiousness for good instead of evil ?
There was a very good Daily Show Clip with John Oliver about Bush visiting Africa and 'doing good work'.
Oliver was spewing because "for all this time he's been capable of doing good works, and he's just been messing with us!"
It's here: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=163043&title=bushman-of-africa
Fair enough, Bart. But I suspect the phrase "expectation" that private parties would stump up with matching funding was chosen with some care. Serious question, because I've not found any answer -- exactly what does that mean?
I don't know in this instance, but there's a dollar-for-dollar matching arrangement for some donations in the tertiary sector, and the University of Otago has sucked over $25 million from the private sector as a result.
I presume any sort of serious research funding would require some sort of matching investment from private sector in some way before the cheque was signed.
-
And I may also be a died in the wool latte drinking urban dweller
Heh. The meaning of that is changed quite a lot from the more traditional 'dyed in the wool'.
I'm sure some accountant in wtgn thinks they've done a wonderful job of forcing "efficiencies" in science. [I'd love to be in a small room with that accountant for a while so I could explain the damage they've done :)]
I see a test tube in his future. "Just consider yourself lucky we didn't adjust this for inflation over the past decade either. Now hold still..."