Fatty, You're Warming the Earth!

Fat people require more fuel to transport them and the food they eat, and the problem will worsen as the population literally swells in size, a team at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine says.

See full story: UK Reuters

Who's Counting

This letter first appeared in local Manukau papers this week.

WHILE attending a public meeting I was approached by a local businessman who congratulated me on my stand against the white-water rafting proposal being promoted by the trust that operates the Pacific Events Centre.

Amazingly, he told me members of the trust had shown him the business plan.
Amazingly, I say, because councillors who are being asked to make a decision on the trust’s request for $40 million have never sighted a business plan. All councillors have been told is the proposal is viable.

Remember the former mayor’s famous words when speaking of the Pacific Events Centre, “this won’t cost the rate payer a penny”.

So far it’s cost $52 million but then again who’s counting?

Political tickets join forces

Manukau’s largest local body political ticket Peoples Choice is to merge with Auckland Citizens & Ratepayers Association.

Peoples Choice chairman Hamish Stevens says the move, agreed to at an executive meeting last Wednesday, is a response to the government’s announcement that the seven Auckland councils will be merged into one.

"The new Auckland governance structure and the demise of Manukau city means we need to work at a regional level with like-minded groups

Women Athletes Hard Done By

While Valerie Vili will continue to garner athletic titles and awards but one goal that all track and field athletes aspire to will undoubtedly elude her is the world record.

In the women’s shot put the current world record is 22.63 metres set by Natalya Lisovskaya from the former Soviet Union in 1987. This is still 2 metres better than Vili’s best of 20.56 metres set last year.

The fact remains that almost all women’s world records set by athletes from the former eastern bloc were aided by a programme of state sanctioned drug taking.

How many drug free athletes were robbed of Olympic medals by athletes who otherwise would who have little better than a run of the mill athlete.

Australian, Raylene Boyle was one such athlete. Boyle was denied a gold medal in the 200m at the 1972 Munich Olympics by an athlete, Renate Stecher, East German secret service files revealed was on the state-sponsored doping program.

The Australian revels that German coaches implicated in the doping of athletes in the former German Democratic Republic are still coaching to this day.

Sex and the city

Volunteers are joining forces to tackle the antisocial behaviour of street sex workers – and they’re taking the fight right to the punters’ letterboxes.

They’re sending "clients" little pink letters in the post in the hope their spouses will realise their partners are kerb-crawling.

The 15 members of the Papatoetoe Community Patrol say the condoms and human waste left behind by prostitutes and punters at Hunters Corner were bad enough.

But schoolchildren being propositioned by men looking for sex was the final straw.

Graffiti dobbers spurn rewards

Manukau City Council joined the Stop Tags tip-off line a month ago, but has been running its own anti-tagging line for two years.The council spends $1m on graffiti a year, of which $800,000 goes towards painting and cleaning, $100,000 on investigations and the rest on education programmes.Senior policy analyst Rex Hewitt said the programme had had resulted in a "noticeably cleaner city".

State Vandalism

One of the recommendations to come out of the Royal Commission Report on Auckland Governance is that an Urban Development Agency could be created which would have a role in ensuring that the more complex urban renewal in planned nodes and corridors is achieved. This agency, made up of unelected and unaccountable appointees will have the power to compulsorily acquire land for urban renewal. What this means is that someone who does not like or approve the area in which you live can throw you out of the house that may have been yours for decades and give the land to a developer whose plans conform to the vision of the Urban Design Agency.

In Liverpool, England an elderly lady has fought against the compulsory acquisition of her Victorian house, and the laws that enable such state vandalism.