The sin of plastic bags?

The Sunday Times reports on how the great campaign to "ban plastic bags" now occupying the likes of great populist rags like the Daily Mail, is based on flimsy evidence.

"The widely stated accusation that the bags kill 100,000 animals and a million seabirds every year are false, experts have told The Times. They pose only a minimal threat to most marine species, including seals, whales, dolphins and seabirds."

The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every year. However, this figure is based on a misinterpretation of a 1987 Canadian study in Newfoundland, which found that, between 1981 and 1984, more than 100,000 marine mammals, including birds, were killed by discarded nets. The Canadian study did not mention plastic bags.

Now you can choose not to use plastic bags yourself, but those who want people to not use them shouldn't use exagerrated false claims to do so. Frankly most people recycle them, using them as rubbish bags for household waste.

When did Labour first look to buy back the railways?

A while ago actually.

The Official Information Act request should be "All Cabinet papers, Cabinet Committee papers, papers for adhoc meetings of Ministers, notes and briefings to the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Transport regarding the future of the railway industry, including options for government ownership and regulation since 2000".

See if the paper turns up, is released, is partly released, has everything but it's title suppressed or even its existence suppressed...

Better stuck in the 90s than the 30s

Idiot Savant thinks that the Nats are stuck in the 90s supporting the re-privatisation of the railways if Labour re-nationalises it.

Which decade was nationalisation about again?

Then again, he does think "The rail network is vital infrastructure, and it will only increase in importance in the coming years as oil prices rise and climate change policy force changes in transport modes." Which begs the question, if it will become more competitive and the government will "force" freight onto it - why he doesn't buy it?

Who would've thought

Dover Samuels could make more sense than the rest of the Labour caucus put together. As David Farrar points out, one of Samuels' best points was:

"The Treaty of Waitangi seems to be the antidote for everything from tagging to wagging school and colonisation which is absolute cultural bullshit."

He continues:

"You've got these culturally correct loony tunes who think everything's offensive come on, it's time to wake up.

"Even if the sun shone 24-hours a day there are some people some are in Parliament who will find the dark and find some sort of grievance. They want to take us back in history and blame somebody.

"Look at the Maori Party. Just on the surface of it, the branding is attractive people think `hey, I'm a Maori, I'll vote for the Maori Party'. There's a lot of people who think that way. But what have they got to deliver? I have seen the rantings and the ravings and other people's scripts being given in Parliament, but what are they going to deliver?"

Of course National will be willing to do a deal with that party, wouldn't it?

the standard of The Standard

Well this post says it all. It is about as factually correct as the Korean Central News Agency.

Take this:

“Toll has been a classic asset-stripper: buy a key piece of infrastructure that should never have been sold, take as much profit as possible with minimal investment, and force the Government to buy the infrastructure back to prevent further economic damage.”

For starters, Toll never bought the track, which this implies. In fact Dr Cullen and the Labour government did a cozy little deal with Toll to bid for Tranz Rail. The Beehive press release here makes it clear that Toll and Dr Cullen were acting hand in glove. The government was "never forced", Toll never bought the infrastructure. Utter lies.

.

Secondly, this “as much profit as possible” is rather hilarious. $34.7 million net profit after tax in 2007 is hardly raking it in on assets of $791 million. No wonder Toll wants out. The asset stripping is also a fascinating claim. How? What has been stripped? Maybe Steve Pierson knows better, or maybe he is interviewing Microsoft Word with his own manufactured delusions.

Thirdly, it claims that "lines have been closed". What? By the state? Only one line has been closed since Toll took over, the tiny Castlecliff branch in Wanganui (and it hasn't been removed). Even since privatisation the lines mothballed consists of Rotorua, Taneatua and Whakatane. Far more lines closed under government ownership in the 1980s (Kurow, Otago Central, Okaihau, Thames, Seddonville, Makareao). Not that this was wrong, but the implication is that services were dropped from those who used them - when in fact lines like Kurow had just two freight trains a week - hardly a reason to get excited.

So if the Standard has this standard of research and writing, you might ask what else it does well?