Air NZ big international expansion

Air NZ Chair Rob Fyfe has announced that by 2010 the airline will open up a host of new long haul routes:

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- Auckland to London via Shanghai (opening up via Hong Kong in October);

- Auckland to Santiago (competing with LAN);

- Auckland to Sao Paulo (linking up with Star Alliance partner Varig, which is nearly bankrupt);

- Auckland to Vancouver (no doubt codesharing with Air Canada, which has already announced it is starting Sydney-Vancouver via LA shortly);

- Auckland to Beijing;

- Auckland to Mumbai.

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These are ambitious plans, with the first direct flights to Brazil, Canada and India, linking growing markets for tourism and trade. This year Auckland-Shanghai is expected to commence, as is the 2nd daily flight to London, but through the much better hub of Hong Kong rather than LA. This suggests the airline will need more than 4 new Boeing 787s, as it needs that many to replace its remaining 767s alone (which fly to Perth, Papeete and LA via Pacific Islands).

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So isn't it about time that at least some of the airline was privatised to give it the capital to buy more planes?

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By the way, while 2 of its 8 747s are still to be refurbished (1 is in the workshop at the moment) with the new seats (business class pictured) and video on demand entertainment system (all London and San Francisco, and most direct LA flights now use refurbished 747s), the 767s are being tarted up (pictured) and look now like the Airbus A320s on the inside. The fifth 777 arrived in the past week and is destined for the Auckland-Hong Kong route, replacing a 767. At the moment 777s operate on Auckland-San Francisco, Auckland-Singapore, Auckland-Tokyo Narita and selected services from Auckland to Australia. Once the sixth 777 arrives in late July, Auckland-Osaka Kansai will go from a 767 to a 777, meaning all of Air NZ's flights to and from Asia will have the new product - about time!

The Independent recommends liberalising drug laws

British leftwing paper The Independent had a headline today "Heroin. The solution?"

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It reports on an article in the Lancet published yesterday claims that Britain’s tough on drugs programme is failing and the UK has the highest rate of drug related deaths in Europe (2500 a year). It recommends “medicalising” the taking of heroin which it says has resulted in an 82% reduction in new users of heroin in Zurich.
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In Zurich the policy provides:
- Needle exchange;
- Oral Methadone on prescription;
- Heroin on prescription;
- Safe houses for those wanting to inject.
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The result is that the glamour of heroin dissipates, as it is seen as something people do out of medical addiction rather than desire. It is hardly sexy and rebellious to shoot up with addicts in a safe house, and demand for high price illegally supplied heroin has dried up. Those who need it no longer resort to crime to feed their addiction, and the drug industry is no longer criminal. The needle exchange reduces disease transmission, methadone provides a safer fix and prescribing heroin means it is safer drug (as it is not “ bulked up” with agents that are toxic).
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Zurich also reclassified cannabis as a drug so that policing resources were moved away from policing users to suppliers.
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A 4% per annum reduction in drug users over 11 years is reported.

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The Tories have said they will look into it. It's not libertarian, but it is a step in the right direction. If the point of drug policy is to improve outcomes, then it is clear that prohibition isn't working.

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However, don't expect Helen Clark or Don Brash to warm to this - they each will have the braying banality of Jim Anderton and Peter Dunne peddling the same failed ideas - the ones that have worked nowhere.

Smart childcare

How fucking dumb... The NZ Herald reports two really stupid childcare teachers walking toddlers through the Terrace motorway tunnel because they thought it would a "good idea". Apparently the silly bitches entered the tunnel at the southern end, where the Inner City Bypass construction work is underway to walk to a grassed area adjacent to the tunnel on the other side. The Police caught them partway through the tunnel and escorted them out. Thankfully they both face $250 fines for putting small children in danger - but the Police are considering charging them with endangering public safety under the Crimes Act. One can be an idiot, but the two together don't even share half a brain. What would happen if one of the children slipped off that concrete walkway and fell in front of a truck? "Sorry" wouldn't have been enough.

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So:

1. They didn't know the road code that walking on motorways is illegal;

2. They didn't see or read the signs that prohibit pedestrians from walking on the motorway;

3. They are too stupid to think that walking toddlers through a tunnel with a tiny concrete walkway adjacent to traffic travelling at 100km/h is a safe and healthy thing to do with children;

4. They are too stupid to figure out how the hell they would reach the "grassed area on the other side" when after the tunnel, the motorway becomes a viaduct over Shell Gully carpark, would they have climbed down the viaduct, or dashed across the onramp from Clifton Terrace?

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One "didn't see there was a problem" and was "uncooperative" said the Police according to Stuff.

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I wonder how they figure out which end they eat from and which end...

Kedgley the food bully is rather dumb

Oh Sue, the banaholic frothing at the mouth that the Government hasn't made compulsory schools only selling milk, fruit juice and water in vending machines. This is because "Diet drinks rot children's teeth just as much as sugary ones". What bollocks - especially when she advocates juices. Fruit juice contains sugar, not refined natural cane sugar as in Coca-Cola (oohhhh the big evil American company... boooo), but unrefined natural fructose. It has the same calorie and tooth rotting qualities as cane sugar. I remember my dentist many years ago telling me not to drink orange juice on its own, without food or something else to wash it down, because the acid eats away at tooth enamel.

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Well done, another pseudo scientific load of banality from the Greens. I can't wonder if Sue wouldn't like state enforced diets for everyone, which allocated you rations every day.

Funding snub for Karori Wildlife Sanctuary

Ha ha ha ha... according to the Dominion Post local Labour MPs and the centreleft Mark Blumsky (well he's always advocating new state spending as far as I can see) are upset you are not being forced to pay through central government (not so lucky Wellington city ratepayers) to build a new visitor and education centre at the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.

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Good.

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If you support the Sanctuary, support it - with your own money. Sponsor it, go visit it and pay for entry, give a donation. If Marian Hobbs and Mark Blumsky each contributed $30,000 (and let's face it, neither are short of a bob or two) it would be 1% of the funding for it. If 10,000 Wellingtonians contributed $60 each - the funding would be there.

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Too hard? Well tough luck. You see the people whose money it is had to do something to get it, they had to convince someone to give it to them (setting aside politicians of course).

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It's called fundraising - it's how a lot of community used assets were built, and it means convincing individuals to spend their money, not Cabinet to spend yours.