Hard News: Only in a relative sense
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For those who like such pastimes, I did actually attempt to discuss the Iraq elections in good faith on Kiwiblog this morning.
And then: Redbaiter ...
Sigh.
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I was passing the Pt Chev Liquor Centre -- our local tag-strewn hole in the wall -- so I stopped and bought a bottle.
It's news to me that they sell wine, you should've stuck with a few Woodys
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And then Redbaiter...
Isn't that the title of a horror film?
Just to derail for a brief moment, it's been interesting to watch Ryan Sproull play his way through the Kiwiblog mire...they almost respect him now.
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I'm pretty sure I've encountered retarded slugs that have greater cognisance of the word "consequences".
Well, duh. Of course. If you had any appreciation of consequences you wouldn't be racing unsafe and often illegal vehicles in unsafe and unsafe and often illegal conditions for fun.
Personally, I think being made to spend every Saturday night handcuffed to stocks in the hospital emergency department would be a more appropriate punishment that having your car crushed...
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Pour it out on the counter next time, then turn on your heel and walk out gracefully - or run if they have a hockey stick under the counter.
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And then Redbaiter runs into the room with his underpants on his head
LOL
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For those who like such pastimes, I did actually attempt to discuss the Iraq elections in good faith on Kiwiblog this morning.
Can't you just ask Fiona to get her best stilettos and jump up and down on your crotch if you really want to suffer? You'd probably learn more, as well as have a lot more fun.
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Boy racers = affluenza at it's worst.
Ultimately, you can't stop them though. We live in a free country and unless you commit an offense, you've got a right to go about your business. The type of sweeping powers the police are looking for in Christchurch are well and good when used on stupid little half wits like boy racers, but of course it is only a matter of time before some dull-witted copper decides they are an excellent way to stop a group of people on strike picketing a factory or prevent a spontaneous march down the street.
At the end of the day it is just young people with too much money and not enough sense. The best way to stop boy racers then is to hit them in the pocket - with compulsory third party insurance which is so high for modified vehicles driven by teens that they can't afford it.
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For those who like such pastimes, I did actually attempt to discuss the Iraq elections in good faith on Kiwiblog this morning.
And then: Redbaiter ...
Ten thumbs down! Boo-yah! Take that RB!
And in all fairness, Redbaiter was there first. It's practically his house.
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It's not unusual for NZ Sauv blanc to get pronounced "tinned asparagus"and "tinned peas" notes with age which can render them virtually undrinkable, but it normally takes 5-10 years, and even a bad 2006 should still be drinkable.
Most likely cause here is that the wine has been "cooked" by heat exposure - left somewhere in intense fulll sunlight, and ruined.
Most good suppliers/wineries accept faulty wine back from a retailer without complaint and credit the retailer, so it is unusual for any decent retailer not to replace or substitute the wine for another. I refuse to purchase again from stores who won't exchange virtually full faulty bottles. And I would have thought a local wine shop in Pt Chev would do almost anything to avoid annoying a local resident - surely that where their bread'n'butter sales come from?
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At the end of the day it is just young people with too much money and not enough sense. The best way to stop boy racers then is to hit them in the pocket - with compulsory third party insurance which is so high for modified vehicles driven by teens that they can't afford it.
Hear, hear.
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There's a huge amount of political point-scoring going on down here over boy racers. Since Sideshow Bob got in, he HAS made a difference, give him his due. Things have got worse all right, but the declaration of war was on HIS side.
This is not an issue, IMO, that can be fixed by policing. A wish to see sit downs and listening might make me a huge wet liberal, but treating them like vermin doesn't seem to be working.
Yes, you're "a huge wet liberal" :P
What makes CHC's "boy racers" special? Nowhere else in the country do they get to engage with the politicians. Nowhere else do they get any damned say at all, in fact. The pollies point, the police do their thing, and the racers move on. Auckland City, Manukau City, North Shore City, Tauranga, the list goes on. All have, or have had, problems with street racers. Manukau's got quite a lengthy list of streets that are forbidden to cars during various parts of various nights of the week, and it works. Why should the CHC racers get treated any differently to racers elsewhere?
I don't recall the racers targeting elected officials, never mind the cops, in any other town, either. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong. Any possible grounds that may have existed for trying to engage with the street racing community in CHC has been thoroughly tainted by the actions on Friday night. Openly hunting and attacking cops is a very big line to cross, and beyond it lies no chance of redemption. They are vermin, as demonstrated by their behaviour. If they wanted to be treated like adults, they could've behaved like adults. They didn't, and now are rightly deserving of whatever comes their way.
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And in all fairness, Redbaiter was there first. It's practically his house.
True. Really, there's not a lot for a "basically decent" boyblogger to post about now that the National millenium's in place, apart from "I'm so over Obama" and the occasional menstruation joke.
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And in all fairness, Redbaiter was there first. It's practically his house.
Of course it is -- no sane person wants to flat with a lunatic who won't take his pills, flush the toilet or even try not to turn every minor irriataion (someone didn't change the toilet roll! we're out of milk!) into the Apocalypse.
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The best way to stop boy racers then is to hit them in the pocket - with compulsory third party insurance which is so high for modified vehicles driven by teens that they can't afford it.
And what will be done to them in the event that they have no such insurance? They've already demonstrated total contempt for laws such as vehicle licensing, driver licensing, and driver behaviour. Why would another law make any difference? Not that I disagree with the concept, I'm just pointing out that anyone who thinks it'll make a huge difference is overlooking the fact that criminals, by definition, break the law. Most of the young drivers who would be the targets of mandatory insurance are already breaking various laws on a regular basis.
The police don't need more things for which they can arrest these little shits, the courts need more penalties that can be applied. Vehicle crushing, with attendance not being merely an invitation but, rather, court-ordered and with the added "bonus" of being the person who pushes the button/pulls the lever to activate the crusher, should prove to be quite the disincentive. Compulsory payment orders would be another. Or make unpaid fines the IRD's problem: they're very effective at getting money out of people.
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One thing recently that actually reallydisconcerted me about Blackwater was when I found out they were building their own airforce. That's kinda major.
D'ye think they'd be interested in some mothballed Skyhawks?
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The pollies point, the police do their thing, and the racers move on.
Yes, they move on, they don't go away. They 'moved on' from the Colombo Street overbridge. And into the suburbs. And out to McClane's Island, and Templeton, none of which made the problem go away, it just shifted it to another community.
I have no sympathy, Matthew. We used to live next door to a carpark in a street with 'traffic calming measures' - or, an adventure playground. But they're not vermin, they're people.
I don't recall the racers targeting elected officials, never mind the cops, in any other town, either.
Nor did it happen in Chch previously. It's pretty simple. Ideology aside, the 'crackdown' is totally ineffective, and just aggravating the problem.
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For those who like such pastimes, I did actually attempt to discuss the Iraq elections in good faith on Kiwiblog this morning.
I'm with Craig - why DO you bother?
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Matthew Poole, that was quite a little rant! Do you also confiscate the ball when the neighbour’s kids kick it onto your lawn? I would say what characterises the Christchurch boy racer problem is their very middle class ability to use police scanner to organise an ambush. As such, characterising someone's little darlings as vermin presumably requiring some variant of Zyklon B is hardly helpful.
Like I said, in a free country you can't stop youths being complete idiots. Let’s face it - if we could have afforded a rice paper rocket when we were 16 we would have been off in a squeal of tyres and big puff pile of blue smoke as well.
With age comes maturity, and these kids will grow up. We should all stop our baby boomer moral panic over boy racers, and do want wise adults should do - make them PAY WITH REAL MONEY for the pleasures.
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Asparagus and Tinned peas are two notes that Sauvignon blanc develops in bad vintages. Oxidation is a real problem with screwcaps as James described and that may have been your problem, it also may have been "cooked" at some time.
We've done vertical tastings of S.b going back 10 years. It really is remarkable the difference vintage makes. Some of the older wines were still drinkable and interesting . But interesting isn't really what I'm after from Sauvignon blanc :).
The general consensus is Sauvignon blanc tastes best when less than 2 years old.
If you want a really nice and really cheap bottle, try the cleanskins they have in Foodtown. There are usually 3 different S.b styles, Hawkes Bay, Marlborough and reserve Marlborough. We like the last of those the best but your palate will be different. Cleanskins are often made by very good wineries that need to move some stock at low price but don't want to diminish their brand. The only problem is you have no way of knowing that you are getting the same wine next time.
Personally if I got that treatment from a shop I'd contact the winery directly. NZ winemakers are mostly really nice folks and they'd be pissed off to find out their brand had been damaged by a retail outlet.
Oh and just one other comment, from the tastings we've done with our group of friends. For Suavignon blanc price is no indicator of quality. You are just as likely to find a stunning $12-18 bottle as you are to find a stunning $25-40 bottle. That's not true of Pinot noir :(.
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Tom, put it down to having been to far too many serious/fatal car crashes resulting from dipshits (of varying ages) whose foot weight greatly exceeded their brain weight. I have no time for those people, and even less time for people whose lack of respect for the law and the police extends to actively seeking to harm police officers.
You're right, there is little that can be done to stop idiots being idiots. However, stopping them from inflicting their idiocy on others is a different story. If they want to be idiots, fine, that doesn't mean they're entitled to place the lives and well-being of others at risk.
Oh, and what makes you think CHC's racers are any more middle-class than the ones from Auckland and North Shore cities? Scanners can be had for a couple of hundred bucks, or less. Only takes a couple of people who have them to get the word onto the text grapevine and two minutes later everyone knows.
Emma, yes, they move on and the problem moves. They don't turn around and start attacking those who have vocalised or enforced the public's objections to their antics, they move on. CHC's racers appear to believe that they're above the law, since they don't feel that it's right for them to be tackled for their behaviour. I'm sure the racers at this end of the country get very shirty when arrested and fined for their carryings-on, but they don't congregate in large numbers and hunt cops. They don't track down the residences of the "offending" mayors and buzz them. They find other places to do their thing.
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Emma, yes, they move on and the problem moves. They don't turn around and start attacking those who have vocalised or enforced the public's objections to their antics, they move on. CHC's racers appear to believe that they're above the law, since they don't feel that it's right for them to be tackled for their behaviour. I'm sure the racers at this end of the country get very shirty when arrested and fined for their carryings-on, but they don't congregate in large numbers and hunt cops. They don't track down the residences of the "offending" mayors and buzz them. They find other places to do their thing.
Matthew, you already said this, and short of me repeating what I said, I don't really see anywhere to go from here. So I guess you must be right.
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Tom, I agree with your remedy, but I don't like the implication that being middle-class entitles you to leniency.
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Stephen - no, not for minute do i think being middle class entitles you to leniency! But I do think the whole thing smells of kids who think the law applies to someone else, which is very a middle class trait indeed.
making third party insurance compulsory will stop these kids because not having insurance would result in an instant impounding of the vehicle until proof of insurance was produced. At the moment, the cops rightly have to wait for an offence to be committed. Spot checks for insurance would easily weed out dozens of vehicles. Secondly, even if a boy racer had insurance, it would only take one offense for the insurance o be cancelled, keeping him off the road.
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At the end of the day it is just young people with too much money and not enough sense. The best way to stop boy racers then is to hit them in the pocket - with compulsory third party insurance which is so high for modified vehicles driven by teens that they can't afford it.
Too much money or too money finance companies willing to give them credit? One can only hope that the credit crunch / crisis / <insert generic economic catastrophe euphemism> will result in quite a few of the cars / modifications being repossessed.
And as for third party insurance, I think Matthew's right on the money (if you'll excuse the pun). The chance that the little buggers would actually pay for compulsory insurance is slim given the contempt they've shown for other measures designed to thwart them, let alone general road laws.
But they're not vermin, they're people.
Granted, but idiotic people who have no regard for my personal safety in public places. Or my ability to get a decent sleep when I get home on Friday or Saturday night.
Like I said, in a free country you can't stop youths being complete idiots. Let’s face it - if we could have afforded a rice paper rocket when we were 16 we would have been off in a squeal of tyres and big puff pile of blue smoke as well.
Not me, Tom. I've never 'got' the whole driving fast and dangerously thing and wanting a flash car. I just don't understand it. Never have.
With age comes maturity, and these kids will grow up. We should all stop our baby boomer moral panic over boy racers, and do want wise adults should do - make them PAY WITH REAL MONEY for the pleasures.
I live in Mt Vic, a block up from Kent Terrace - a notorious strip for drag racing in Wellington. I genuinely fear for my safety sometimes when crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing on a Friday or Saturday evening.
I think calling this moral panic is a little facetious. These are immature people in charge of powerful machines with the ability to seriously harm or kill me and you.
Personally, I'd like to see a maximum engine size (or HP or KW output) for individuals under 25 enshrined in legislation.
/end curmudgeonly rant.
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