Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Widely spoken in Britain before England existed?
Right you are, Provincia Britannia :)
Whatever, Latin certainly had a hand in shaping English right from the beginning, apart from its downstream influence. -
Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Lilith __,
And (indirectly) gave us the richness and depth of vocabulary that English now has.
And Latin was widely spoken in England before English existed.
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Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
This is such a bizarre debate.
Someone has to take it upon their noble shoulders to advocate for those poor endangered cancers in the public breast.
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Hard News: Crashing the party before it starts, in reply to Russell Brown,
I'm wrong, the Oil's flip on Dotcom was, as you say, most abrupt. And I'm also wrong in claiming that his slagging goes back at least a year. The word from on high obviously descended last March 2nd.
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Hard News: Crashing the party before it starts, in reply to Russell Brown,
The amusing part is when you look at his previous, highly supportive writing about Dotcom and his predicament.
I was aware that he’d once been somewhat supportive, but that degree of historical fawning is a revelation to me. Thanks for the laugh :)
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I would, however, be interested in the political background to Whaleoil’s abrupt shift of sympathies away from Dotcom, who he once described as a victim who had exposed troubling issues of state.
Hardly abrupt, Oil has been acting pretty much as Key's proxy on that issue for at least a year. For those wishing to plumb the depths of the grease trap there are probably earlier examples, but from ten months back here's "The sooner this fat german crook is put on a plane the better."
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Capture: Spring Breaks, in reply to Nora Leggs,
Northern Club, all decked in summer greenery. Are they spring cleaning in there? Why are the curtain ends bagged in black plastic bags?
The timeless Northern Club. I remember looking up from lower Queen Street one night, so long ago it was a late Friday shopping night, and spotting those curtains gathered in the distant window, like an oasis of domestic comfort. The virginia creeper's a smart choice. Unlike ivy it doesn't gain a foothold by dissolving the stonework.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Scientists are not a sainted caste nor are they homogenous nor are they all “good”. But the majority are “good”, a surprisingly large majority. So if you wanted to pick any group to sanctify you could do worse.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Because oil drilling research is bad then all research is bad? Really?
I didn't say oil drilling research is bad. My point is that the fruits of state-funded R&D are allocated as a subsidy to Government cronies, rather than being held in trust for the common good.
There are very very few scientists in NZ who like this situation and few who believe it is a good thing for NZ long term.
If scientists were some kind of sainted caste whose training required them to maintain a priestly detachment from mundane concerns that might be of more than passing interest. As you've made it clear from your postings here, they're largely barnacles on the economic boat.
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Hard News: Climate, money and risk, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Surely the desired outcome of the R&D Bart is arguing for would be products, specifically grasses and bacterias, that could then be sold to the world’s dairy (and sheep, beef, deer,…?) farmers, earning bucketloads by selling these high tech, high value added products? Wouldn’t that earn back the government’s initial R&D spend and keep money rolling in for ages as we kept developing newer and better grasses and bacteria?
While the recent taxpayer-funded mapping of the undersea Colville Ridge is being spun as an exercise in pure research for the common good, its immediate purpose is to benefit foreign mineral and oil explorers. A Government hell-bent on disposing of public assets is hardly likely to maximise any return on state-funded research for future generations. The sweetheart deal currently extended to Anadarko, of socialising risk while expediting the profits of NZ's mineral wealth overseas, is ample proof of this. The same applies to the dubious claimed benefits of dairy research.