Posts by Tom Beard
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Once upon a time haka parties were a feature of graduation/capping celebrations at most NZ Unis. Students, mostly engineers and science/footy types, would dress up in grass skirts, silly hats (top hats were all the go), and fake facial tatts. Then they'd sally forth to wreak drunken mayhem in the socially-approved manner of the times.
Ah yes, such a long time ago: drunken engineering students never do the haka when they're rioting these days ;-)
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Oh god (intentionally lower case), I've just spent some time reading the comments on Wishart's blog, and followed a few links, and I just keep getting reminded on why I generally keep away from the political blogosphere: I just end up feeling slightly ill. Then I found my way to "Dad4justice"'s blog, and this post in particular: To My Children. If you read between the (all caps) lines, there's a very scary story going on there, and its not about the "Liarbour Dykeocracy".
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Hell, at least they would be somewhat more characterful choices than yucky old John Banks and boring old Dick Hubbard.
It could be worse: you could be in Wellington. Apart from the deeply divisive Kerry P, we've got a self-appointed "man about town" who'd probably make Kerry look like Sue Bradford, some nice but essentially unelectable current councillors, and a bunch of frothing-at-the-mouth loonies.
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But The L.E.D.s...damn it was hard to find in Ak. Real Groovy / Marbecks / Rhythm...nobody had heard of it
Same here in Wellington, but I eventually found a copy in a T-shirt shop in Newtown, of all places: "Duncan & Prudence".
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I think this is just begging for a whole series of Lolcats.
Cheezburger? Do not want!!1!
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There's one thing that I've never understood about inflation: whenever a Nat is asked what they'll do about interest rates, exchange rates and inflation, they say that they'll cut (sorry, increase more slowly) government spending. But how come a dollar spent by government is "inflationary", while a dollar spent by an individual or company isn't?
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sorry Craig, but the fact that the Listener has never bothered to tell its readers that Joanne Black's husband is Key's chief advisor rankles with me.
And is Jane Clifton still with Murry McCully? It looks like what used to be magazine for leftish intellectuals is now being run by Tory groupies. No wonder it's full of "The NCEA will give you cancer, but plastic surgery will improve your house price" stories.
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"I guess I count myself as an "urban techno-greenie" . . ."
Sounds like what's known in Australia as a plastic wombat.
That's not a phrase I've come across before. I think I get the vague gist of it (perhaps implying a level of hypocrisy), but would you care to elaborate?
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Quite so. The Greens' stand on GMOs was that they had to be "proven safe". But when it comes to something in their backyard, the onus of proof has been neatly reversed.
Kedgely is the main reason I avoided voting green for so long. I guess I count myself as an "urban techno-greenie" rather than a hippie: I want to see high-density cities with quality public transport, ESD buildings and innovative sustainable energy source, rather than rejecting everything that the modern world stands for. It seems that Kedgely appeals more to the suburban middle-class baby-boomers who worry about "nasty chemicals", and I guess it's easier to promote "natural herbal medicines" than to get the soccer mums out of their SUVs.
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I'm currently reading Foucault's Pendulum on public transport, and aside from the somewhat dry encyclopaedic passages (which may or may not be completely fabricated), it's like the quality original of which the code is a cheap knock-off.
Exactly. Most of what's (supposedly) interesting about Da Code is in Eco anyway, and Eco can write.
From the Guardian comments:
Anyone who has seen / read the Unbearable Lightness of Being will remember that Tomas, our hero (who gives an entirely new meaning to the phrase "bouncing czechs") gets pulled by a receptionist in a small town because he is reading something cultured. She later turns out to be the love of his lfe - even though he does have to have half the women in Prague before he realises that
A female friend once lent it to me, and it wasn't until afterwards that I speculated on the significance of the bowler hat that she kept by the bed. D'oh!
Speaking of which, there's nothing wrong with mixing high & low culture references (presuming that Kundera counts as "high culture"). Actually, The Simpsons is 100 times smarter than Dan Brown's oeuvre. I can't quite understand the logic of reading trash when one's too tired to read intelligent writing. Reading requires a modicum of mental effort even for potboilers, and if I'm too tired for reading something worthwhile and need something to pass the time, I'd rather blob out in front of some mindlessly entertaining TV. Speaking of which, why oh why did Prime have to take off Mythbusters?! Oh well, at least my quota of appointment viewing has halved now.