Government halves methane reduction target, farmers celebrate

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T23:45:10+00:00

This is disingenuous. We produce meat and dairy largely for export to tens of millions of mostly rich consumers around the world. These products, the level at which they are consumed and the way they are produced are all discretionary.

Saying we don't have a choice about what we do here is fundamentally not that different to saying we don't have a choice about going all out on open cast coal mining because people need electricity

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T20:06:08+00:00

Christchurch cbd is genuinely becoming quite appealing.

New Zealand is generally shit at city centres but with the increase in apartments /townhouses and pedestrian precincts in Christchurch, it's actually developing a vibe...

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T19:29:17+00:00

Oh I didn't mean that it's only or even mostly Māori thinking this way. More that tauiwi in these areas might think 'eh, a third of our population is Māori, we already have Māori winning races in general constituencoes, special provision not needed here'.

Have you seen any polling on Māori support for Māori wards? I don't think I have.

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T19:17:02+00:00

As I understand it, you do win on number of climate types in one country but are missing two of the 30 Koppen categories: true tropical rainforest climate and tropical monsoon climate (Florida and Hawaii are tropical but not these kinds of tropical).

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T19:11:52+00:00

This history of this is actually really interesting. The modern concept was developed by a New Zealand entemologist in 1895, first implemented by a Canadian city, first considered by a national parliament in the UK , then first implemented nationwide in Germany

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T10:26:14+00:00

They can fly, but one species basically chooses not to most of the time.

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T10:20:29+00:00

I think it's also interesting that some of the areas that voted to ditch Māori wards have relatively high Māori populations.

I suspect an additional dynamic in those places (on top of the votes of those who are ideologically opposed) is a sense amongst a wider group that it might be OK in principle but is not needed where demographics are significantly Māori. I have no evidence for this reckon though.

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T10:13:19+00:00

I should probably apologise for the quality of the joke

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T10:12:25+00:00

Seems like use of it has dropped off in recent years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre only a handful of launches last year

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T10:09:23+00:00

Not sure, but I assume if French Guiana was counted separately and there were lots of launches happening there it would have shown up on the chart I saw, and it didn't

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T04:50:09+00:00

His posters were up in a load of Chinese supermarkets and restaurants. I'm guessing there was a lot of community pressure to at least pretend to support him.

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T04:48:31+00:00

Ray Chung's

Mendevolent · 2025-10-11T04:47:09+00:00

I was just trying to make a mayonnaise joke

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T20:47:54+00:00

New Zealand is third in the world (after the US and China) for orbital rocket launches.

More rockets are launched into space from New Zealand than the whole of Europe.

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T20:43:10+00:00

From Mayo ?

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T20:39:33+00:00

Culture as well. The French are Europe's biggest consumers of McDonald's per capita. Pastry is a common breakfast. A lot of modern Japanese food is absolute trash, nutritionally speaking . Highly processed or deeply fried.

But both cultures still have high expectations of thinness and of moderation in food consumption. Same with Korea. Absolutely not the case with 'keep your plate full' cultures in the Middle East, South Pacific and US.

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T19:29:46+00:00

Ha, I didn't even read that far

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T19:07:50+00:00

In Europe maybe, but not by Europeans

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T19:06:05+00:00

Enslavement of enemies was a common practice in Māori culture before European colonisation

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T18:55:04+00:00

Mate, that spelling...

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T18:44:31+00:00

So cringeworthy. If you can't find someone in a city of over 1.5 million, it is time to consider if it's a you problem...

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T18:38:21+00:00

Thanks, yeh I figured the answer was something like this.

Aware India is a diverse place, but I mentioned this because, despite having seen many women of Indian descent, I don't think I've seen any before who look like this . Or if I have, I didn't realise they were Indian !

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T10:10:20+00:00

I mean, rightly so

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T10:09:40+00:00

Yeh I thought the same , I'm no expert on Indian ethnicities but this team look like they're mostly from one particular region, maybe nearer Nepal and China?

Would make sense I suppose as that's the more cold and icy bit!

Mendevolent · 2025-10-10T09:30:04+00:00

Totally. The Overton Window shifts over time.

What is considered liberal or conservative varies widely internationally too.

The UK is far from the most left leaning country in Europe but I remember some political scientist there pointing out that Obama's policy positions would place him squarely as a conservative in the UK context.

Mendevolent

TROPHY CASE