Taonga

Argentina and Uruguay are jointly petitioning UNESCO to grant the Tango World Heritige Status. Buenos Aires and Montevideo are planning to build Tango museums with permanent exhibits. There is also money being made available to catalogue an estimated 50 000 Tango recordings. Sign in to see full entry.

Still with the Pope but this time from a Jewish perspective. Jewish groups say that accepting a holocaust denier like Richard Williamson back into the fold is a slap in the face to them. On the one hand, theirs, it is. But still on the other hand, what does this act say about the Catholic Church?... Sign in to see full entry.

Pope Benedict the 16 th has decided to rehabilitate the excommunicated Richard Williamson and three other men. Williamson was claiming last year that there is no evidence of six million Jews being killed as a “deliberate policy of Adolf Hitler” and “there were no gas chambers”. He was excommunicated... Sign in to see full entry.

The Red Cross notice only 35 men are still alive of those who were captured during the Gallipoli campaign by the Ottoman Empire. Dardanelles Commission (1) Report Findings (1) NZ, in particular, was bitterly against this Commission, as the British Government chose the person who was supposed to... Sign in to see full entry.

A few words on former US President, George W. Bush. He has been compared to a douche bag. This is unfair. He has always seemed to me to be a dysfunctional sewage treatment plant - shit goes in, more shit is added, shit goes out. I shall miss him. Sign in to see full entry.

The IFPI. This week they claimed 95% of music downloads are illegal. This figure is possible but unverifiable. The IFPI got the figure by estimating. What annoys me is that the “estimate” (used for confirmation bias:I.e we feel a lot of music is being pirated therefore we will estimate a big figure)... Sign in to see full entry.

The Presidential inauguration in America doesn ’ t need commentary from me. Instead I ’ ll talk about U2 who gave a performance in the lead-up ceremonies. From a New Zealand perspective I was among the group ’ s earliest fans. I even travelled to Ireland in the eighties to hear them perform before a... Sign in to see full entry.

Ballistics experts have determined that the death of the teenage boy which triggered the rioting of late las year was caused by a ricochet. Hardly earthshaking news. But the report also claims the guard fired “in the direction” of the boy and not “in the air” as the guard claims. This is not... Sign in to see full entry.

The governor of Rio de Janiero has vowed to clean up the Copacabana beach - starting with the brotherl “Help”. There will also be an odour control system to combat the smell rom a nearby sewage treatment plant. According to Wagner Victer, “Now, instead of smelling of human waste, Copacabana will... Sign in to see full entry.

A Massey University researcher in New Zealand, Matt Barnes, has made the discovery that alcohol interfers with muscle recovery. This means that sportspeople whjo take an after-match tipple are effectually and effectively reducing their muscular ability for the match next week as the this effect of... Sign in to see full entry.