Pasta News Network - New Zealand

Rural Queenstown residents are concerned about the effect of a massive private New Year's fireworks display on their animals.

Neighbour John Quinn said more than 50 locals are up in arms, and nearly 400 people have signed an online petition against the 14-minute commercial-grade display, planned by the owners of a property on Littles Road in Dalefield.

The first neighbours knew of the display was a public notice in a local newspaper.

The millionaire planning the large display on New Year's Eve said he will consider financially assisting his Queenstown neighbours to move their livestock.

Locals are concerned the show will cause their horses to panic and injure themselves, or the public.

"No fun allowed, ever. Because it affects me."

There were nearly 300 water engineer positions advertised on recruitment website Seek last month. The high demand for these specialist engineers bodes ill for the government's Three Waters reform, which will rely heavily on experts the country currently doesn't have in the required numbers.

Not a bad thing.

Water engineers specialise in the design, construction and management of wastewater, drinkable water and stormwater systems. They will have typically completed a four year engineering degree, usually civil or environmental engineering, before specialising. Competency can take an extra five years.

Currently, these specialists are in very high demand internationally. Companies regularly compete to employ engineers with five or more years' experience, offering excellent wages and conditions. There is simply not a large enough pool of water engineers in New Zealand, and the situation is set to get worse.

If only the government would spend as much time fixing the education system as they worry about the treaty.

The Government has slammed the election-year brakes on New Zealand’s plan for upholding the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

The Cabinet agreed on Monday that ministers wouldn’t receive any further reports on developing a draft plan in response to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples until 2024, Newsroom can reveal.

It comes just before the summer break, at which point all ministers are expected to go away and look at work programmes and reforms in their portfolio areas to see what could be cut at the start of next year.

The Prime Minister is clearing the decks in January and wants the Government focus to be on those reforms that are needed, and don’t cause unnecessary distractions.

One way to avoid awkward questions in an election year.

In a stunning admission, according to estimates from the government’s top health authority, nearly 37 million people in China may have been infected with Covid-19 on a single day this week.

This is a shockingly stark divergence from the extremely low 'official' case count (which reported just 62,592 symptomatic) and utterly dwarfs the previous global daily record of about 4 million, set in January 2022, as Omicron spread...

Not sure what they were expecting, you cannot stop nature. Nature has a way of doing things.

Japan reverses nuclear energy phase-out policy amid global fuel shortages, climate change

Japan has adopted a new policy promoting greater use of nuclear energy to ensure a stable power supply amid global fuel shortages and to reduce carbon emissions, in a major reversal of its phase-out plan following the Fukushima crisis.

Key points:

• Japan plans to maximise its existing nuclear reactors by restarting as many as possible
• The policy reversal argues that nuclear power provides stable output and serves "an important role"
• A Fukushima disaster survivor says the new ruling is "extremely disappointing"

Energy is the Economy.

Without Energy, no Economy.

According to the newspaper report, Stanford’s website administrators have embarked on an “Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative”. Under this initiative, users of the website must not be so described because the word “users” might make some of them think they were being compared with drug addicts (who are themselves better described as “people who deal with substance abuse issues”).

Other words and phrases to be excised by Stanford include “rule of thumb” (it allegedly refers to an old English law which allowed men to beat their wives), “ballsy” (links personality traits to anatomy), “long time no see” (mocks indigenous people and Chinese), and even the now famous, fairly new expression “trigger warning” (can “cause stress about what is to follow”).

This story could have arisen only in the West, and would probably be incomprehensible to all but an elite few in the countries which featured in the four preceding stories – China, Russia, Belarus, Afghanistan and even democratic India.

And this is why Russia and China are increasingly distancing themselves from the West. The West is incapable of introspection and unable to see what is on the horizon.

On December 22, 2022, the United States Senate passed a $1.7 trillion spending bill, which means that American taxpayers have had to fork over more than $110 billion in aid to Ukraine in less than one year.

Earlier in 2022, Congress approved $66 billion in aid to Ukraine. The additional $45 billion featured in the omnibus bill would make that figure total out to $111 billion.

According to Kristina Wong of Breitbart News, this figure “would exceed by tens of billions the estimated average the U.S. spent per year on a full-scale war in Afghanistan, which had more than a hundred thousand U.S. troops deployed to the country at one point.”

The Biden administration has promised to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.”

This is my first compilation of beautiful atmospheric black metal,over 2 hours of great music with nice landscape art for each song.

1. Sojourner - The Shadowed Road
2. Bloodbark - As Wolves
3. Violet Cold - Black Sun
4. Mesarthim - Laniakea
5. Caladan Brood - Wild Autumn Wind
6. Mephorash - Sanguinem
7. Year Of No Light - Persephone
8. Eldamar - Land Of The Dead
9. Mesarthim - Orbiting
10. Brymir - Ragnarok
11. Midnight Odyssey - Shards Of The Silver Fade
12. Left Horn Of The Ram - Final Moment Of A Dying Star III

"The bones of beasts and the bones of kings, Become dust in the wake of the hymn. Mighty kingdoms rise, but they all will fall, No more than a breath on the wind."

He explains the innerman and shows you how essentially you are a spirit.

I am a being of love and light and knowledge, no weapon formed against me shall propsper, whatever it is, have your affirmation on your tongue.

Or... sorry... in your being.

Neil wraps up the year with a merry christmas to all in the Cave.

Nostalgia for things of Christmas Wishlists of days of yore and future directions for the Cave and the Channel.