Posts by Nat Torkington
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Parking is still important, Che: a lot of us live outside the area of Auckland's public transportation. If we're to come to a game, we need a place to drop our wheels. I guess there'll be plenty of parking near Eden Park if the waterfront stadium gets built, eh?
If Carlaw Park is in private hands, whose private hands are they? Is Eden Park similarly in private hands?
PS, surely if all we've been drinking is stadium Tui then it's more "watering the oleander" than anything else?
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I agree with LegBreak--it's disturbing that there hasn't been depth explored for McCaw, Carter, Hayman, and Woodcock. They're crucial and obviously world-class, so are targets for the other teams. Who's going to take McCaw's place if his hamstring goes or he's concussed? Has the replacement had experience in that position, or are we currently playing him in a different position? The problem in earlier World Cups was that injuries forced us to play people out of position to cover, and the resulting inexperience and incoherence leaked tries and failed to press attacks. It'd be negligent not to prepare for injuries to our real stars: in planning there's no such thing as someone you can't imagine losing.
It's the same in other sports, by the way. In NFL (American football), injuries correlate to winners. The eventual league champions are almost always the team with the least damage done by injuries. I wonder what the equivalent statistics would be for rugby.
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James wrote: "all I can say is that I live in the US, I talk to Americans everyday, I travel around the US, I watch US TV every night, and you don't.". I lived there from 1995-2005, through the tech boom, 9/11, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. I travelled around the US and Europe too, lived in a state with a strong Republican presence, and yet came to entirely different conclusions than does James.
I do, however, agree with him that the US has foiled attacks since 9/11. It foiled attacks before 9/11 as well. We differ on the role that the contested legislation has played. I don't believe that the previous system for getting wiretaps had been a problem, and I don't believe that cruel interrogation techniques on prisoners should be okay (because not all prisoners can be guaranteed to be criminals).
Not that those opinions helped me in the US: I couldn't vote. So I came back home :-)
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Why midterms? The US equivalent of members of Parliament come in two flavours: house (where each state gets a # of representatives according to its population), and senate (where each state gets only two) collectively known as "congress". The different houses of congress, separation of courts (law validators) and government (law makers), etc. are intended to provide checks and balances. The two types of representative ensures states can't be ignored but neither can popular opinion. Midterms ensure that the fickle populace can't get the shits with a party and throw everyone out at once, baby with bathwater (it also prevents a corrupt party from gaming the entire system at once).
Because the top job isn't up for grabs, they typically get as much respect as an All-Asian rugby cup. However, they are talked up as being indicators for the next Presidential election. I'm of mixed opinions about this: there's still another two years before the Presidential election, which gives the incumbents a chance to change their story should they get trounced in the mid-terms.
It's also the case that Presidents (unlike Prime Ministers) are term-limited to eight years (two terms), so in many cases (e.g., this one) the person running for President won't be the person who's President during the mid-terms. The danger of turning this election into a referendum on Bush is that the election we really care about won't be about Bush, it'll be about whatever perfect-teeth rich white people step up to the Presidential stage in the next two years.
So when do the American people get to express their displeasure with Bush? They had it, in 2004, and they blew it. "Don't change horses mid-stream!" Bah! He's not a horse, just a horse's ass. The best we can hope for is that the more obvious bozos who kissed his ass will be voted off the island.
Sorry for the cynicism. I was in the US for the 1996 (woo!), 2000 (boo!), 2004 (throwing good votes after bad) and I'm glad to get back to a country where the difficult political decisions are: (1) what to do with the surplus, (2) whether tax cuts are stupid or just mis-timed, and (3) who to spank for uncouth behaviour in Parliament instead of (1) is a deficit a bad thing, (2) which tax to cut next, and (3) how much sleaze can I hide to keep my cronies in power?
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As a grownup, most of the Goodies is disappointing. I'll probably be forced to turn in my 1992-era Monty Python Appreciation Society t-shirt for saying so, but even most of Python now fails to work for me. But when the Goodies fire, as when Python fires, it's hot and good.
What I've been enjoying lately are the "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" episodes. There are some real gems from the Goodies/Python crowd in there. Of course, that's radio shows and not TV.
And then there was Blackadder. I blame Blackadder for the fact that I don't speak like a Kiwi. I watched them all on first broadcast (the TV equivalent of owning a first edition), from teenager through to the final episode of the fourth series in the university hall of residence. We all just shuffled out in shocked silence ... so powerful.
I recently rediscovered a documentary that really influenced me. James Burke's "Day the Universe Changed" was mind-blowing at the time, and remains so. I bittorrented the series and it stands up to repeated viewing. I also bought the book and it is even better than the series. Strongly recommended.
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Che: they taught you about NZL in Social Studies? All I remember was Aztecs (and the fabulous taste of "Tenochtitlan" in one's mouth) and Israel-Palestine (and the horror of the teacher when I wrote in favour of Palestine). I don't think I learned much about New Zealand in school, and I'd be surprised if I was alone.
It's a difficult line to walk for a country: too much and it's nationalism and indoctrination, too little and the citizens have no clue where they came from or what traditions their predecessors expected them to uphold. I'm glad to see my kids learning a lot more about all New Zealand history, from Maori, to the many waves of immigration that James Cook set off, to farming and fishing. I have no complaints so far, although they've only been two years in the school system so perhaps the bit where they all learn to write SST editorials and hate welfare-scrounging Johnny Foreigner is coming next year.
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Bart said, "__My guess is that there would be very few backyard displays this weekend where everything went according to plan__". Nobody was hurt or even scared in our home's firefest. The worst that happened was that two things from our $70 box of goodies went "sput" instead of whatever they were supposed to do. We took the box down to the wharf and had a bloody good time. The explosions echoed all around Whangateau Harbour with nobody losing an organ or limb, no fires being started, and no pets being horrified (though there were probably a few startled possums).
I don't care how stupid teenagers are with them, I don't want my fireworks taken away. It's as selfish and as simple as that. I like being able to make a thing go 'bang', I like being able to get close to a pretty spark-making Firezilla Pretty Colour Mega-Volcano.
The parallels with liquor seem pretty good. I don't want my Speights Old Dark taken away just because kids love to get hammered on whatever it is that kids get hammered on these days, puking on the neighbour's cat. We're only arguing about the age of sale, not whether liquor should be blanket banned except for organized community events where everyone gathers around and watches the anointed respectable ones knock back a few G&Ts under a bonfire.
If the argument works for alcohol, let it apply to fireworks too. Only let people above the age of 21 buy fireworks. If the risks are managable for liquor the year around, they're managable for fireworks a few nights of the year. Yes, fireworks are immediately dangerous while alcohol is indirectly dangerous, but I'd be interested to know the per-capita numbers for alcohol-related deaths and injuries vs fireworks-related. I've heard people complain about the noise (oo er is my banging keeping you up?), but our neighbours love to get on the piss on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, sometimes going until midnight (and, on one memorable night, screaming derangedly at 3am). I don't think they're special. I don't think alcohol-related annoyance numbers vs fireworks-related would look good for alcohol.
A cautionary note on the request for a winter fireworks day. I know it's November and by now the worst of the winter memories are fading, but here's a reminder: winter sucks. I remember when it would rain on Guy Fawkes--it's no fun going to a community event when it's sheeting down and the sou-wester's cutting through your budget coat and every time you look up you get a bucketful in the moosh. The summer 4th of July never stopped us when we were in the US--when the kids were younger, they'd fall asleep before the show but we'd enjoy it and then just carry them home. No big.
--Nat
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I'd like to go down in history for being the first to suggest that Lockwood Smith is at the vanguard of the zombie army quietly eating their way through New Zealand's democratic institutions. That fixed smile, the undead hairpiece, the unwillingness to die .... I don't know about you, but as a Rodney voter I'm keeping close to hand a supply of shovels, chainsaws, lawnmowers, and other proven zombie deterrents. I think we can all get behind the call for New Zealand's Bill of Rights to be amended to include the right to bear landscaping equipment against zombies.
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I was a sucker for American trash: Automan, BJ and the Bear, Dukes of Hazzard. Hmm, I sense a car theme which is strange given how unmechanical I've turned out.
On the Kiwi front, Ollie Ohlson from After School ... hey, can anyone YouTube Ollie uttering that famous "Keep Cool 'til After School!" line?
Of course, nothing's as good when we go back to it. Neil Gaiman blogged that watching the Muppets with his kids wasn't what he'd hoped it would be--the shows haven't aged as well as our memories of them have. I can second that. However when I bittorrented all of the Goodies, my kids went batshit over them. Everyone once in a while William will spontaneously erupt in the themesong ...