Posts by Rich of Observationz
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Are people suggesting that soft porn/inappropriate clothing/tarty celebrities should in some way be censored? (more than NZs somewhat draconian laws do already - we are one of the few countries to try and censor simple text, for instance).
It would be very hard to frame such laws - would you have a schedule of minimum skirt lengths, rising with age, for instance?
Or are we just arguing that it's tasteless, cheesy and shouldn't be fashionable?
-
It's my unresearched belief that since teachers were banned from hitting children the incidence of child abuse perpetrated by teachers has substantially reduced. I think that's because there's a "line in the sand" - getting physical with the kids in any way is a career limiting move, so the opportunity for Christian Brothers type behaviour isn't there any more.
Maybe a smacking ban for parents will have a similar effect.
On Alistair's point, nutters (mostly of a right-wing persuasion) are amongst the main perpetrators of terrorism in developed states - e.g:
- David Copeland's bombings in London (1999)
- The Oklahoma City bomb
- The Unabomber
- Recent letter bomb attacks on speed camera-related companies in the UK
- The Tokyo nerve gas attacksIt's interesting that the security forces in most western nations devote very little resources to monitoring such people.
-
On the subject of sport:
- After having dropped just one game to England in the triangular series, the ABC commentators were blathering on between overs about how Michael Hussey was some sort of superhuman cricketing character (they stopped after he was out for 17).
- Four defeats later, Gilchrist is saying that they shouldn't really have had to tour New Zealand.
- I predict that after Oz loses to Scotland they will complain that they shouldn't have to play "minnows".
-
re: antidisestablishmentarianism
It was just too good to miss!
-
Reading the Anglican vicars article did draw me to think about the merits of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antidisestablishmentarianism.
Having a broad and liberal church as your state religion, as England does, provides certain advantages. Individuals and the state are able to observe traditional rituals (like church weddings, christenings, coronations) without thinking too hard about the religious background. CofE vicars are in many ways obliged to minister to everyone in their parish, even those with very limited religious faith, after the manner of Dawn French.
Of course this was truer 50 years ago than today - the CofE doesn't really *include* non-christians and the exodus of normal people from the church has caused it to move to a more fundamentalist outlook. (Ironically the most liberal Anglicans are now those in the United States).
(I write as an agnostic Pom, BTW)
-
I'd fully believe that someone making E's would choose to cut them with BZP - cheap (especially in quantity) available and reasonably psychoactive. Especially in NZ where MDMA and it's precursors are expensive. People use all sorts of things to cut illegal drugs - should we control the sale of glucose or xylitol? At least they're not using paracetamol!
Equally, I don't think anyone making OTC pills would put anything controlled in them. Ok, you'd build a name quite quickly - you'd be the most popular brand shortly before you got busted!
I don't believe the NZ cops are to be trusted with producing accurate information on anything - especially given that these guys are probably all too typical.
-
I think the best answer would not be popular because of upsetting too many applecarts:
We need more people using less energy. Having only 4 million people on a big chunk of land like NZ wastes energy - not least because those people want to visit each other and have stuff trucked to them. 8 million people could live much more sustainably than 4 (bearing in mind that the new 4 million aren't elsewhere - it's carbon *per capita* we are talking about).
We need to stop being a nation of farmers and become a nation of creators. Right now, much of the world farms ineffectively through lack of education/infrastructure/capital - that will change and staying a farming nation will mean increasingly competing on labour cost with places like Africa, India and China.
We need to go "all renewable". This *does* mean more dams - ok, maybe they aren't the nicest thing in the world (though I had a great weekend by the side of one of our power generators not long ago) but they're a damn site better than global warming. Nukes are a stupid idea - no nuclear power plant has ever been built without a government subsidy in the form of real money and an excemption from the need to carry anything like the kind of insurance the risk would justify. Basically, nuclear power was invented as a cover story because countries didn't want it to be too obvious how much money was being poured into plutonium manufacture. Electricity is a by-product of making Pu, not the other way round.
So large scale immigration, ramp down farming, build dams, no nukes. At least the last might be popular.
-
dgFieldsWhere do we start!
The system of local government is fundamentally broken:
- the success of outer Auckland is intrinsically bound up with the inner city, yet we have a regional body with limited powers (and which covers places that are not and should not be part of Auckland), combined with fragmented fiefdoms in each of the four "cities" (They aren't cities - Auckland is a city - Manukau, Waitakere and the shore are collections of suburbs).- because the national parties pretend not to participate in NZ local elections, there is no accountability for useless local politicians.
- the mayor is separately elected from the council and has no ability to drive policy except by exhortation
- having FPP used for council elections means that the candidate who gets the most momentum wins (favouring rich people who can spend up on publicity).
- this all results in the mayor being an ego-tripper - and typically either a failed national politician or a successful businessman
I'd suggest:
- merging the four central Auckland councils and the ARC
- having neighbourhood bodies for the present community board areas to address purely local issues like garbage and parks
- electing the council by a representative proportional system, with candidates representing real NZ political parties
- abolishing the mayor and having the council run by a leader having the support of a majority of councillors -
Briefly, the principles require that financing where the activity is socially and environmentally sustainable
So Westpac are stopping investing in Australia then?
-
I don't think I've had more than a coffee for breakfast since I was a small kid - eating time cuts into sleeping time! Unless you regard a mochachino as a balanced meal?