Went to Makara on Sunday, to do the Makara loop walk. Been doing a largish walk ever Sunday over summer. Despite the fact I had Round the Bays in the morning, still did the walk in the afternoon – and very glad I did.

I haven’t been to Makara for years, so it was a good reason to head over.

The walk starts at the main beach and a fairly easy walk around a couple of bays, before the hill climb starts.

It is a bit of a bitch of a climb as it is more straight up than zigzag. However there is a mixture of semi-flat spells and climbs, so overall quite achievable. And as you can see the views are worth it.

The old gun batteries are now fenced off. This is a pity as I recall several fun teenage overnight parties held in them. The guns were never used and replaced during the war by the larger gun at Wrights Hill.

Just up from the gun batteries are the remains of Fort Opau, with some fascinating photos and histories. Around 60 soldiers lived up there.

From the gun batteries, you get a great view of the wind turbines to the South.

After Fort Opau, you hit the West Wind Recreation Area. The turbines are so much larger than the original Brooklyn one. And much more powerful. The Brooklyn one could power around 80 homes. The 622 West Wind turbines can power 71,000 homes, which happens to be the number of homes in Wellington City.

The historical display boards up there are fascinating. There used to be a settlement of around 20 houses built around the Post Office facilities up there.

Even if you are not into walking, you can drive to the West Wind area. A good place to take kids out to – great views, and some interesting history.

After West Wind, you head down to Opau Bay. The start is through a nice pine forest, but most of it is down a very steep 4WD track. I pitied the fishermen walking up it!

The return journey along the beach took longer than expected. There isn’t really a trail. The beach changes from sand, to small rocks, to larger rocks to huge rocks you have to climb over. Nothing too hard, but slow work in a hot sun. However the solitude and the views are worth it.

A couple of families had trekked around and were having a great day of it. The water was actually quite warm we were told. I was very tempted to go in myself.

And finally the end in sight. The only disappointment was we got back just after the store closed. The thought of an ice cream at the end had been giving me motivation!

Around three hours to do an 8 km loop. One of the most enjoyable walks I’ve done with the mixture of views and history.

Eric Crampton blogs a list of recent Coronial recommendations, including:

• Coroner recommends quad-bikes be equipped with rotational towballs
• Coroner recommends that all farm houses be fenced off. “Mr Scott called for farmers and Labour Department officials to lobby the government to make fencing compulsory on all farms”
• Coroner recommends people wear hard hats when climbing ladders to prune trees (whether they should be required when doing other things on ladders is not discussed)
• Coroner recommends that you should have to have a licence to rent a nail gun.
• Coroner recommends restrictions on access to glaciers
• Coroner recommends helmets for riders of motorised skateboards.
• Coroner recommends warning labels on Coke.
• Coroner recommends mandatory high visibility clothing (not just vests) for cyclists.

The problem we have is Coroners only look at how to reduce deaths. They seem to often miss any requirement for balance such as whether their recommendations are practical or affordable – or if they may have undesirable consequences.

Lucy at Cycling Auckland takes issue with the last recommendation:

The Coroner made two recommendations, both of which I feel quite strongly would not help to improve cycling safety. Irritatingly, neither of them seem very relevant to the actual accident he investigated.

First, as mentioned in the media, he recommended that the wearing of hi viz should be made mandatory for all cyclists because he saw it as a “no-brainer.” He doesn’t present any evidence to support this view.

This recommendation seems oddly unrelated to the case, given that the crash happened at 5.20 pm when it was just getting dark and Stephen Fitzgerald was wearing both reflective hi viz stripes and functioning lights.

So it is not even relevant to this case – but the Coroner just thought it was a good idea. It isn’t.

The problem with both of these recommendations, in my opinion, is that while they would probably make individual cyclists safer if they followed them (although it’s arguable in the case of hi viz, because there is some evidence that drivers give cyclists more space when they look less experienced) overall they make cycling less attractive.

This is particularly true of the hi viz recommendation. Even riders such as myself, who have very little interest in fashion, would probably be put off by a permanent requirement to wear hi viz.

Because I don’t particularly want to walk around the supermarket or go to work in hi viz, such a law would require me to permanently wear a hi viz vest over my normal clothes. This would not only be hot in summer but also would be annoying to carry around when I reached my destination.

Obviously, of course, riders who actually care about how they look while riding – such as teenage girls or the Frocks on Bikes types – would quite likely choose not to ride at all if hi viz was mandatory.

I’ve yet to see a single person support the Coroner’s recommendation.

The latest article by Pat Pilcher on software patents is somewhat misleading. I actually agree with Pat (and have quoted him before) that software patents should not be allowed. But the issue is about how the current law is depicted.

Pilcher wrote in the Herald:

At the end of the day, should software become patentable in New Zealand, the future winners will most probably only be large law firms and the multinationals who can afford them. In the US over the last 20 years, The estimated cost to the US economy of patent litigation has been an estimated half a trillion US dollars.

This is very misleading, as it strongly implies software is not patentable at the moment. It is. Apart from the normal tests for obviousness etc there are no restrictions at all on software patents.

The law is going to change, and it will ban at least some software patents. So in fact the change in the law will be the opposite direction to what Pilcher implies.

Now what the dispute is about, is the wording of the exemption. As has been described in the past, many worry the Government’s proposed wording which is based on European (and I think Australian) law will still allow some software to be patented. That is a legitimate concern and I prefer the wording backed by the Open Source Society and put forward as an amendment by Clare Curran.

But that doesn’t change the fact that even with the Government’s wording, the law is going to change from all software being patentable to most software not being patentable.

There is a good Wikipedia article on the pros and cons of software patents.

Homepaddock highlights this policy from NZ First:

All Christchurch uninsured red-zoned land owners who accept the current Government’s 50 per cent compensation offer will get the other half should New Zealand First become part of the next coalition Government.

Ensuring these landowners are treated fairly and receive the full rateable value of the land will be a bottom line in any coalition negotiations.

Very unwise for a party on 4% to start laying down non-negotiable policies two years before an election.

Ele points out:

The party obviously doesn’t understand that what it regards as treating these landowners fairly would be treating insurance companies, their staff and shareholders, and taxpayers most unfairly.

This would kill the insurance industry because no-one would bother insuring their properties if they knew the government would pick up the pieces after a disaster.

This policy passes all the risk and costs from private property owners and insurance companies to the government which means taxpayers.

Exactly. The precedent would be horrible. You’d be mad to ever get insurance again.

Now remember that NZ First has said this is a non-negotiable bottom line policy for any future Government.

Isn’t MMP great!

The details are all on the dedicated website. A summary:

• Only 19 out of 215 schools in Canterbury are affected, representing around 5% of Canterbury pupils
• 12 schools that were proposed for closure or merging will now remain as they are.  They are Bromley, Burnham, Burnside, Duvauchelle, Gilberthorpe, Linwood Avenue, Okains Bay, Ouruhia Model, Shirley Intermediate, and Yaldhurst schools, and the two kura – TKKM o Waitaha and TKKM o Te Whānau Tahi
• Seven schools are proposed to close
• 12 schools are proposed to merge into six schools
• Five schools in Aranui are proposed to merge into one Year 1 to 13 campus but this is still being consulted on
• Two schools have closed voluntarily
• Two schools are being rebuilt on their existing sites
• Five brand-new schools are being built
• Eight schools are being rebuilt on new sites
• Further consultation on interim decisions has been extended to 31 March 2013

It will be a hard day for the pupils, teachers, staff and parents of the 19 schools that face closure or change. My thoughts are with them. Also with those who will now not be impacted and will be very relieved and can focus on the future of their schools.

Tracy McVeigh at NZ Herald reports:

Small, volcanic, with a proud Viking heritage and run by an openly gay Prime Minister, Iceland is now considering becoming the first democracy in the Western world to try to ban online pornography.

Yeah, that will work.

Ministers are considering the results. “We are a progressive, liberal society when it comes to nudity, to sexual relations, so our approach is not anti-sex but anti-violence. This is about children and gender equality not about limiting free speech,” she said.

“Research shows the average age of children who see online porn is 11 in Iceland and we are concerned about that and about the increasing violent nature of what they are exposed to. This is concern coming to us from professionals since mainstream porn has become very brutal.

Brutal? Has it? I think this needs a huge research project with lost of taxpayer funding to investigate.

Wayne Thompson at NZ Herald reports:

Parents have been stopped from “tandem” riding with their young children down hydroslides at Auckland aquatic centres.

One bemused parent, Michael Pleciak, was told by Mt Albert Aquatic Centre lifeguards on Saturday that his daughter Eva, 6, could not use the slide because it was too dangerous for anyone under 8, even if they are sliding with an adult.

“It is ridiculous,” he said.

“Eva has been on that slide for a month.

“She had a nervous start and I was accompanying her down as all parents do and she got her courage up.

“She has gone down at least half a dozen times with her 8-year-old sister or me.

Bureaucratic rules defy common sense.

Pool manager Paul Kite said Eva missed her treat because of confusion between a no-tandem rule from Auckland Council health and safety and the aquatic industry standard of requiring children under 5 to be within arm’s reach at all times.

He said 5- to 8-year-olds were allowed on the slide providing their parents or caregiver were at the bottom of the slide supervising them.

“It means, unfortunately, that mums and dads cannot go down the slide with their kids between their legs. Under 5-year-olds won’t be allowed to go down on their own.

What nonsense.

The council said the rule was recommended by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

However, a ministry spokesman could not confirm the reason.

Paging Steven Joyce, paging Steven Joyce. Please apply some boot somewhere.

Talking of hydroslides though, it does remind me of an unfortunate incident when I was 18 and we were using the water slide at Moana Pool. It is or was a totally enclosed slide.

There were half a dozen of us there and the game we developed is one of us would go down first, stop halfway and then turn around and stand up. Then the rest of would shoot down through their legs. We did this several times and all good fun.

But then on one of the times it was my turn to go first, something went wrong. Someone else got in front of my friends. I had stopped and was standing in the tunnel waiting for my friends to power down. I then heard a noise, sounding like crashing thunder. Then the tunnel got darker and darker as all the light from the top got blocked out.  Then crashing around the corner came a huge Samoan woman who was literally taking up the entire tunnel. No way could I turn around and start sliding down in time. With just a few moments of terror I then got smashed into by said woman, and spent the next 30 seconds semi-conscious stuck under her hurtling down the slide as she (rightfully) yelled at me in Samoan. Finally we shot out the end and my friends pulled me out of the pool, in-between fits of laughter. I felt like I had lost a wrestling match with a steam roller.

So my only advice for water slide safety is never stop!

Hamish Rutherford at Stuff reports:

Council development levies are pushing builders towards constructing bigger, less affordable homes because of the one-size-fits-all approach of councils, Housing Minister Nick Smith says. …

Developers were being charged “exactly the same whether you’re building $700,000, six-bedroom homes, or whether you’re trying to build an economic, two-bedroom home for a retired couple”, he said.

“That incentivises the developers to build large, expensive homes, rather than providing houses of the more affordable range.”

A flat development fee will of course incentivise larger houses. But the fee should reflect the cost.

The review would consider whether the Government should force councils to charge levies proportionate to the size of the homes being built, with Dr Smith claiming “logically” a large home would place more strain on sewerage, water and stormwater services than a smaller home.

The sensible thing would be a mixture of a flat fee and a size fee.

“The reason that development levies are interesting is that they have risen [in cost] by more than any other component in the whole picture, 360 per cent in a decade is much too much.”

Outrageous.

Imagine you are David Shearer or John Key and you have just become Prime Minister after an election. NZ First held the balance of power, and you struck a confidence and supply or coalition deal with them.

You have say a two seat majority.

You first six months go pretty well. Then the Sunday Star-Times breaks the story about Brendan Horan. The allegations are he stole tens of thousands of dollars from his dying mother, to fund a gambling addiction.

This is no longer just a matter for New Zealand First. He is a Government MP. He is voting confidence and supply for your Government. If you lose his vote, your majority is halved.  You can’t afford to have NZ First lose an MP so you decide to back Horan’s right to stay as an MP. You say he has not been charged with anything.

For the next six months the Opposition dominate question time with questions of fraud, gambling, vulnerable elderly and the like. You drop 5% in the polls and finally charges are laid, he is expelled and he becomes an Independent MP. Your majority is now one. It will be like what Julia Gillard has just had to endure with Craig Thomson (note I am not saying Horan has broken any laws).

Just as you are coping with that, then the MP for Wogistan shares his thoughts with the nation on how anyone who looks like a Muslim should be banned from flying. Once again this is no longer a matter just for NZ First. It is a matter for the Prime Minister. He is a Government MP. You face questions on whether he should remain an MP. If you say he should go, then you no longer have a majority. If you say he made a mistake but should stay an MP, then you become crippled as a Government with your mandate to govern being based on the MP for Wogistan’s vote. It is like Alamein Kopu but far worse. You drop another 5% in the polls and just one year into the term you are facing either an early election on inevitable defeat at the next election – regardless of how well you are doing with your policies.

This is no far fetched scenario. This is what could well have happened if NZ First had held the balance of power in 2011.

The question that should be keeping David Shearer and John Key awake at night, is the thought that this could be what awaits them after 2014. Winston by himself is capable of destablising the most stable Government. But add in some maverick MPs and it is a nightmare.

This Tom Scott cartoon hits the mark.  How confident can you be that NZ First actually has a robust selection process where they vet, critique and scrutinise their candidates? Does anyone really think Horan and Prosser are aberrations?

That is not to suggest all NZ First MPs are flaky. They are not. To name just three, Barbara Stewart, Tracey Martin and (somewhat surprisingly) Andrew Williams have all been diligent MPs who have not caused any issues and are working hard.

But if you are a minor party in Government, you only need a couple of ones that implode, and the Government itself gets imperiled.

David Shearer and John Key should be be thinking very hard about their options after the next election.  If you are a Labour or Green supporter, you should be thinking about what sort of Government a Labour-Green-NZ First Government would be. If you are a National supporter, you should be thankful that National ruled Peters out in 2008 and 2011, and hoping they do so again.

UPDATE: Stuff has a timely article looking at the NZ First caucus and asking which MP may go next.

Getting there!

Stuff reported:

The Government will announce interim decisions for 31 schools earmarked for possible closure or merger as part of its ”education renewal plans” for the city at noon on Monday.

Schools will have six weeks to respond to those decisions. A final decision on the schools will be made in late May.

The 31 affected schools have a total roll of about 5500 kids, or 7.6 per cent of the school population in greater Christchurch.

The schools will be informed of the interim decisions first on Monday, at their schools as they have requested, before the decisions are publicly announced at noon.

A letter for parents will also be sent home with all children at the affected schools outlining the decisions and what it means for them.

Information about each school will be available on the shapingeducation.govt.nz website.

An 0800 number has been set up, which parents can call if they have any questions. That number is            0800 746 338       and will be active from noon Monday.

I have to say it looks like the Government has learnt from what went wrong last time, with the way they have handled this latest round.

Last time people were summoned to a room, and found out the proposed fate of their school from the colour of their name tag.

This time, the process looks much much better. The schools have been asked how they want to be told. Each school has someone coming in to them – to tell them first. The Government has made clear any decisions are interim, and that there is six weeks to submit before final decisions. There is a letter to each parent, a dedicated website and an 0800 number.

Now this doesn’t mean everyone will like the decisions. Inevitably any decisions on mergers and closures will be upsetting for those affected. But the population loss and damaged buildings and land has made change inevitable. Also 92% of pupils in Canterbury will be unaffected by any decisions.

Also important to recall that the education unions have called a strike for tomorrow – regardless of what is announced. The unions have decided in advance to oppose whatever is announced. [It seems the strike may have quietly been called off according to one report.]

I, for one, am going to wait to see the details.

I’ve blogged at Curiablog the details of the One News Colmar Brunton poll that was released this evening.

Along with around 14,000 others I took part in the AMI Round the Bays fun run this morning. Normally I like Wellington to be hot and sunny but was glad it was overcast today.

I took part last year, but could only walk it. That was still a lot of fun. Also great to help raise money for the Malaghan Institute for cancer research.

My aim this year was to run all 7 kms of it, without needing any walking breaks. I was semi-confident I could do it because I had run more than 7 kms on the treadmill in the gym. But there were four difference which meant I was only feeling 60/40 about being able to run it.

• The treadmill runs had 1 minute walk intervals every 12 minutes, and I had never actually done 7 kms without a break before. The longest previously with no break was 25 minutes.
• I jog on the treadmill at 9 km/hr but tend to jog slightly faster than that outdoors, which isn’t always a good thing as it means the heart rate can get too high too quick.
• Roads are tougher to run on than treadmills
• There is no sun or wind inside

My official goal was to do it in under 60 minutes. I was hoping secretly to do it in under 50 minutes. I was more than happy to get to the finish line in 38 minutes 55 seconds (according to my iPhone app). The pace was just over 10 km/hr which I honestly did not think I could do. Somewhat surprisingly also, each half km my pace was slightly faster than the previous.

Also of interest or  amusement is that a bit of a meme going around Wellington in the last few weeks has been that David Shearer no longer has to worry when David Cunliffe shaves his beard off, but instead when Grant Robertson shaves off a few kilos!

By coincidence I saw Grant taking part in the Round the Bays today 🙂

Radio Live tweeted:

There are calls from Fight the Obesity Epidemic for the Government to act over the price of fruit and vegetables, which continue to soar.

These bunch of taxpayer funded lobbyists have been very vocal in the last few years. Whenever there is a monthly spike in food prices, they cry that it is the end of the world. They really seem to think we have obesity because of the price of spinach.

Anyway yes fruit and vege prices jumped 3.5% in January 2013. But there is this thing known as seasons. So what you should do is compare the price of fruit and veges to other Januaries.

Now the current fruit and vege price index is at 1223, and four years ago in January 2009 it was at 1128. This means that over four years it has increased 8.4% which is equal to annual increased of 2.04% compounding.

The increase in fruit and vegetables prices over the last four years is almost identical to the overall increase in food prices (8.2% v 8.1%) and smaller than the overall level of inflation which was 9.0% over four years.

So what causes fruit and vegetable prices to go up? Inflation. Policies such as printing money and looser monetary policy settings. Will the anti obesity lobbyists target policies that are inflationary?

This is of course the last four years only. If we went back a bit further, they might have cause for complaint. In the four years from January 2005 to January 2009 fruit and vegetable prices increased a staggering 26.2%.

Jack Tame writes in the HoS:

There’s more to health than just his fat, Christie retorted this week. He appeared on late night TV smashing a doughnut. Unless the doctor gives him a physical or examines his family history, Christie says Mariano should “shut up”.

But surely the doctor has a point.

It’s true Obama continues to struggle with cigarettes, and that his nicotine addiction could one day spell his end. But one need only look at Christie to know he probably risks a much more sudden departure.

If tax returns, birth certificates and religious leanings are considered fair fodder for Presidential nominees, I don’t think it entirely unreasonable for a pulse to be a prerequisite, too. Being obese might not stop a person doing the job, but being dead would be a hindrance.

David Letterman makes Chris Christie fat jokes almost non-stop, so it was hilarious when Christie went on the show and after a few minutes pulled out a donut and ate it, saying he didn’t realise how long the interview would be. People love someone who can mock themselves.

Christie’s weight and health will be issues if he stands for President. However the chance of Christie departing from office prematurely is hugely overblown by commentators such as Tame.

Paul Campos at Time writes:

In January 2017, Christie will be 54, while the current Democratic front runner for her party’s presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton, will be 69. It is true that with all other things being equal, compared with normal-weight people like Clinton, very obese people like Christie have an elevated mortality risk. Specifically, the most recent, detailed and sophisticated study of the question, published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that people as heavy as Christie have a 29% increase in mortality risk vs. otherwise similar people of normal weight.

Now, 29% may sound like a significant elevation in risk, but let’s compare it with another factor, one that has a vastly more powerful effect than body weight: age.

Government actuarial tables reveal that with all other things being equal, the odds that a 69-year-old woman will die between January 2017 and January 2021 are 115% higher than the odds that a 54-year-old man will die during that four-year period. In other words, age poses almost exactly four times the mortality risk to Hillary Clinton as weight does to Chris Christie, in regard to the chances that either would die during a first presidential term.

So Clinton’s age is four times greater a mortality factor than Christie’s weight. How many pundits will write on the possibility that Clinton would die in office?

Joanne Carroll at NZ Herald reports:

One rogue 19-year-old is a liable father to 13 kids to different mums.

A source has confirmed the man is named on the birth certificates of 13 children, and is liable to pay child support for them.

Figures released by the Inland Revenue Department show 943 teenage fathers were liable to pay child support at the end of last year. Some were just 15 years old, and already liable for two children.

A study for Inland Revenue estimates the “average” cost of raising a child to the age of 18 as $250,000. It does not count stay-at-home parents’ loss of incomes or childcare costs. The weekly cost for a low-income parent raising a child is $150 – or $140,000 by the time the child reaches 18.

Sadly he knows that he won’t have to pay for any of them, as I predict he is almost inevitably not working himself. Even if he is, you pay the same for 13 kids as you do for one kid, in terms of child support.

What would be karma is forcing him to live in a home with all the mothers and kids and spend 40+ hours a day changing nappies, feeding etc.

The BBC report:

“I am the bullet in the chamber” ran the strapline for the Nike advert featuring Paralympic champion Oscar Pistorius.

As the South African athlete faced charges of “premeditated murder” in a Pretoria courtroom following the shooting dead of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp, his sponsors went into crisis-management mode.

Nike swiftly pulled the unfortunately-worded ads, as the perils of celebrity brand endorsement were brought sharply into focus once again.

Oh dear. If there is a competition for most inappropriate ad straplines with the benefit of hindsight this must win.

Hat Tip: Mandy on FB

Len Brown has just hired his sixth spin doctor. That’s six spin doctors, all funded by the ratepayer, working in Len’s private office. That isn’t six spin doctors for the entire Auckland Council. That is six spin doctors just for Len.

Started this month is Dan Lambert as Len’s propaganda manager. He comes from the United Kingdom.

Dan joins Glyn Jones who was the chief spin doctor, and who is now called Media Communications Manager.

Len also has a senior press secretary, a communications advisor, former Clark spin doctor David Lewis as a media consultant and a speech writer on top of that.

Len has more spin doctors than the entire Parliamentary Labour Party (they have five). The previous Mayor of Auckland had just one – Cameron Brewer.

Should Auckland ratepayers be funding Len’s reelection campaign?

Talking of the election, isn’t it time also for C&R and their friends in Auckland to get their shit together and select a Mayoral candidate. Otherwise Len and his six spin doctors will have too easy a time of it.

Claire Browning blogs on trees:

I want you – the 87 percent of you who live in a city or town in New Zealand – to have a think about trees. What do trees mean to you?

Shade on a baking day like today; pretty light on your lawn in the mornings? Nesting and perching space for the morning chorus and their babies? Some light entertainment? – drunk tui, chattery fantail, those solemn kereru clowns? Your kids and kittens climbing, swinging; kids playing cricket underneath? Privacy from noisy or nosy neighbours; a shield from next door’s ugly house, or the road? Shelter from blustering winds? Ringing the changes from autumn, through winter, to spring?

I agree. Trees are great. That is so many of us like to have trees on our properties. And I love public areas with lots of trees.

All of that under threat, and you’re being misled about it: the government’s latest proposal to take an axe to urban trees is described in the explanatory note to the Resource Management Reform Bill 2012 as a “technical change”, to “clarify and improve the workability of the RMA”.

In the Bill (clause 12), the RMA would be changed so that a tree protection rule in a council plan can only apply to a particular tree, or a group (cluster, line or grove) of trees on the same or adjacent properties, listed in the plan.

If it proceeds, many fewer trees will be protected, because of the bureaucratic difficulty and cost of individually assessing and adding every tree to the plan, in a schedule.

Claire, like so many others, fails to mention the salient point.

There are no plans for anyone to axe urban trees in public places.  If anything, I am sure Councils will have more trees, not fewer trees.

The law change is about the rights of property owners to trim or cut trees THAT THEY OWN on THEIR LAND.

It can cost a property owner hundreds of dollars to get bureaucratic permission to trim their own trees. It’s ridiculous and in fact will discourage people from planting trees.

The law change still allows Council to protect individual trees that have significant heritage or conservation value. But what it will stop is Council bureaucrats declaring all trees of a certain type belong to them, rather than their owners, and the owners must pay large fees to the Council for the right to trim their own trees.

The weekly quiz is here. I got 8/10 in 45 seconds.

Al Williams at Stuff reports:

The beer belly getting you down? Still parked on the couch and wanting to shed some kilos?

Stop for a minute and forget about it – new research suggests it’s healthy.

While it is widely believed that beer is fattening, new scientific evidence from the United Kingdom suggests it has “nutritional and wellbeing benefits” which are at least similar to wine.

A report was commissioned by the British Beer and Pub Association to see whether beer was responsible for more weight gain than other alcoholic drinks, including wine.

It found that there was growing scientific support that moderate consumption of beer could be associated with health benefits.

It also found that 100ml of a 5 per cent lager contained 43 calories, compared to the 84 calories of the same quantity of a 12 per cent white wine. The rule of thumb was, the higher the alcohol content, the higher the calories.

Moderation, as with most things, is the key. Few things (except poisons) are totally bad for you.

But I would point out one flaw in the advocacy that beer is less fattening than wine. It is true on a per ml measure – but this ignores the nature of both drinks. You inevitably drink more beer and faster, than you do wine (although I may have disproved that theory last night!). If you drink more than a litre of wine you will be highly unlikely to carry on drinking. But one can drink a litre of beer fairly easily without too many noticeable effects.

A standard beer glass tends to be 330 mls or more and wine up to 150 mls only. So yes beer per ml is less fattening  but a glass of beer is more fattening than a glass of wine I’d say.

Having said that, I generally drink a lot less wine than I used to – mainly because of the calories in it.

Jason Krupp at Stuff reports:

Mighty River Power says years investing in overseas geothermal projects have given it the confidence to go it alone internationally at a time when Kiwi development opportunities are drying up.

The state-owned energy company yesterday announced it had reached a deal with GeoGlobal Energy (GGE) to withdraw from the GGE Fund after five years.

Mighty River is taking two Chilean development projects and a minority stake in US firm EnergySource with it, currently held by the GGE fund. In exchange, GeoGlobal will take control of the fund’s interest in Germany, and other non-EnergySource related assets in the US.

Mighty River has been a big investor in the GGE Fund for more than five years, with the bulk of the US$250m committed to the venture already invested. It will also pay GGE US$24.8 million (NZ$29.1m) to exit the fund.

“The fund was a way to learn about the international market, and we learned about what works and doesn’t work, and it is timely for us to move on,” said MRP chief executive Doug Heffernan.

NZ taxpayers should not be having their money at risk in a company that is investing in risky projects overseas. I don’t think there is anything wrong with MRP investing as they have. Business always has a degree or risk. Only those with no business experience fail to understand this. They think business is a licence to print money.

The only companies the Government should own are those that provide some sort public service (Radio NZ but not TVNZ) or maybe monopoly infrastructure providers (Transpower – but once could actually have that as a club-type membershp).

Take Solid Energy. That used to be a profitable company. But it has been hit by two major external factors. A drop in the price of coal due to China over-supply and a global move away from coal as fracking has opened up shale gas as an alternative energy source.

If Solid Energy had been sold some years ago, then private owners would bear the risk of the business downturn. There is no strategic reason for the Government to own a mining and energy company.

But now the taxpayer is going to be left having to finance a likely bailout of Solid Energy. Rather than spend money on hospitals or schools, the taxpayer is going to have to bail out a mining and energy company that it shouldn’t even own. I doubt it will ever be sold now – the global market has changed fundamentally. So we will be left with a dog that will cost taxpayers money.

I want a Government that invests in schools and hospitals – not coal mines and hydro-dams. It’s a great pity they were not all sold many years ago.