Pasta News Network - New Zealand

A queue of eager punters snaked out the door at one of Canterbury's most popular pie purveyors on Friday, waiting patiently to snap up one of the 6000 pastry parcels produced each week by a husband and wife duo and their team.

About an hour from Christchurch, well-placed for day trippers, skiers, tourists and tradies alike, the Sheffield Pie Shop and its sister store and bakery in Oxford are on the market.

Owners Loretta and Shane Paterson​ say it's time to move on.

"We feel like we've done what we set out to do."

Hard work and dedication. Feel good read for the day.

The pandemic saw the rise of misinformation, corroding trust in evidence, research and democratic institutions. The issue requires a global and coordinated response, writes Gilbert Wong

The Covid pandemic has brought personal tragedy on a global scale with more than 6.5 million deaths, along with deep damage to economies. A third and less obvious threat is the rise of misinformation.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater of Waipapa Taumata Rau, University of Auckland, says, “We’re dealing with another ‘virus’ that we need to ‘vaccinate’ ourselves against.”

Three Things:

• There is a-lot of academic circle jerk going on here.
• "evidence-based" gets mentioned twice which is laughable in light of academia still recommending masks and vaccines in 2023.
• The problem is easy to fix, make sure the principles of transparency and accountability are properly upheld.

A Todd Energy gas plant has been temporarily shut down over safety concerns.

The Kapuni liquid carbon dioxide plant in Taranaki has been New Zealand's only domestic producer of food-grade CO2 since the Marsden Point refinery was decommissioned last year.

Todd Energy has confirmed to RNZ the closure started more than two weeks ago, just before Christmas.

There is no reopening date yet.

The equitable results of Eco-Facism hard at work. We will all pay more for our food and drinks.

The Coromandel Peninsula is bracing for Cyclone Hale, with officials warning that road slips, fallen trees and power cuts are possible as the storm barrels towards the North Island.

Waka Kotahi NZTA said New Zealanders in parts of the country forecast to feel the brunt of the weather should "avoid unnecessary travel", while one council said people should move to somewhere safe by Monday night.

"Cyclone Hale is expected to impact on the Coromandel late this afternoon and early evening bringing heavy levels of rain and high winds," the Thames-Coromandel District Council said on Monday afternoon.

Welp.

Australian Communications and Media Authority wants social media companies to hand over information on how they respond to complaints

Australia’s updated misinformation code still fails to tackle large-scale group messaging and needs tougher requirements for digital media companies to report on harm reduction, according to the media regulator.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority said it welcomed the new voluntary code of practice on disinformation and misinformation, released in late December but signalled it would continue to push for powers to compel social media companies to hand over information about how they are combatting misinformation and dealing with complaints.

If I remember correctly WhatsApp is very popular amongst politicians in Australia. Messages sent and received through WhatsApp do not fall under the regular record keeping rules.

Politcians are great misinformation spreaders.

Putting one and one together makes things very awkward.

Perhaps Dr Kerryn Phelps and her wife, in their disclosure just before Christmas 2022 admitting that they had suffered severe side effects from their Covid vaccines, would agree. But why are we no longer seeing the daily media parade at 11 am from Health Ministers, regulators, and fringe-dwelling health bureaucrats with little to no clinical experience with Covid addressing the serious adverse effects and deaths from vaccines?

If we recall, government Ministers and bureaucrats across the country all marched to the beat of the same drum – get vaccinated as the alternative of being ostracised. Losing your livelihood and being publicly ridiculed was too much for the majority. We could not move outside a 5km radius, work, or visit loved ones for fear of transmitting the virus unless we were injected. Strangely the Supreme Court held that this was not coercion, because apparently you had a choice as to whether you wanted to work or travel outside the ‘5km bubble’, but of course, this was predicated on whether you had the jab.

Sobering and honest writing by lawyer Tony Nikolic.

Long form, worth reading in full.

From 2014:

So, it turns out that privilege gets used perfectly reasonably. All it means is that you’re interjecting yourself into other people’s conversations and demanding their pain be about you. I think I speak for all straight white men when I say that sounds really bad and if I was doing it I’m sorry and will try to avoid ever doing it again. Problem solved, right? Can’t believe that took us however many centuries to sort out. A sinking feeling tells me it probably isn’t that easy.

In the comments section of the last disaster of a social justice post on my blog, someone started talking about how much they hated the term “mansplaining”, and someone else popped in to – ironically – explain what “mansplaining” was and why it was a valuable concept that couldn’t be dismissed so easily. Their explanation was lucid and reasonable. At this point I jumped in and commented.

The money shot:

I think there is a strain of the social justice movement which is entirely about abusing the ability to tar people with extremely dangerous labels that they are not allowed to deny, in order to further their political goals.

Long form, still rings true today.

In other words, more than a decade-and-a-half since my father’s death, the more than six million American families with a loved one with Alzheimer’s are facing exactly the same fate as mine. While treatments for diseases such as many cancers, some autoimmune disorders like multiple sclerosis, and HIV have undergone revolutions during this period, Alzheimer’s has defied all attempts at altering the course of this brain-robbing disease. The treatments that are always promised are still around a distant corner.

I have covered medical news for decades. I am a big believer in medicine’s triumphs—so was my dad. But why did medicine have nothing to offer my family and so many like ours?

I set out to discover why.

A great long-form read also proving how much we still do not know and how people persist repeating the same thing over and over.

Will add, arguments have been made that amyloids may serve as protective tissue rather then being the root cause of Alzheimer's. Also, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12 and Lions Mane go a long way for brain health in the elderly.