Posts by Kyle Matthews
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What is happening in the house today is a demonstration of just how strong our democracy is. Despite the fact that NACT has a majority in the house does not mean they can "Railroad" through any legislation they chose on a whim, they cannot.
I was busy over the weekend, but I'm guessing:
1. Government tries to get through legislation under urgency.
2. Opposition cries foul and moves a million stupid amendments which achieves nothing other than stalling it for a day or two.Personally I'd like my democracy in a different flavour:
1. Government only moves bills under urgency when they're actually urgent.
2. Opposition that tries to get government MPs to flip if the legislation is so bad.It's times like this that I wish the youth parliament was running the country rather than the twaddle that happens there now. A diverse group of people debating issues, listening to the public and considering things before making laws? I'll take the 17 year olds over the current lot.
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Er... while the alignment of, and construction details of the waterview connection of SH20 are indeed only a local issue... Surely, the completion of the western ring route... (of which it's the only un-started part) which provides an alternative to going through the CBD for anyone bypassing Auckland, has EXACTLY as much national importance as Transmission Gully... which achieves much the same thing... an alternative route on a heavily used and frequently blocked SH1, no?
There are... a gazillion ways to get from one side of Auckland to the other. There's two ways to get into Wellington, and they go up different sides of a mountain range.
One good earthquake and everyone's driving to Levin via Upper Hutt and Palmerston North(I'm testing my North Island geography here, I think that's correct).
There's a motorway/ring route which alleviates traffic, and then there's traffic systems that are vital in a civil emergency. They're not the same thing, particularly in cities built on fault lines.
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Of all the ridiculous claims made in this thread, your statement that the military can prowl the streets with impunity is now topping them all for general idiocy, not to mention its offensive suggestions about the integrity of several of our social organs.
Wait, you weren't getting into "neener neener, I was right, you were wrong"? Where weren't you doing this?
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This would explain why the tunnel option costs so much.
Actually I would have thought cut and cover would be more expensive.
I mean crossing the Pacific floor and then covering it up? That's going to take some work.
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Not surprising, the NZ left is incapable of noticing similar opinions when cultivated by their own Minister of Foreign Affairs.
We've had our own Minister of Foreign Affairs? I guess Helen Clark was left when she did it for a few months. Nothing else in the past 20 years.
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So you're saying that no-one other than Man U and Barcelona fans are going to watch the Champions League final?
No I'm saying that Otago/Wellington/Hawkes Bay people who would typically watch (either at the game or on the TV) their team play, are much less likely to watch Auckland play Melbourne. You've suggested creating a competition in which over half the population are likely to feel shut out of because their team isn't in it. Some will watch anyway, but no where near as many as would watch it if their team was in it.
Also stadia that have to be booked for weeks of games that never happen.
Why do they contract players now, not knowing whether they will make the playoffs or not? Their players that they contracted would miss out on the same amount of rugby as they do now, more or less. And with this approach, maybe they could play some club rugby to help raise the standards there.
The Air NZ Cup playoffs at present are what, 3 weeks? You've tacked an additional 8 weeks onto that (you said home and away games). A team that gets knocked out in the quarterfinals of the air NZ cup would have contracted their players for an additional 10 weeks of rugby that they now don't play.
Club rugby doesn't earn income for the province. How are they going to pay for these contracted players when they're not earning any income? The provinces are struggling financially enough already.
You're right that Oz doesn't have a domestic comp, but it could surely run one involving Queensland, NSW, Western and ACT, and add teams from Victoria and South Australia or perhaps on the central/gold coast under this scheme.
It surely could, but despite their best efforts they haven't been able to get one off the ground for some years.
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Something to do with paying for a new stand for some kind of World Cup thingy?
Don't tell half of Dunedin that you're only paying for a new stand. They'll be pissed that you got off so cheaply.
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But I not really surprised, either, that it probably doesn't raise a lot of interest in Auckland.
Yes. Stereotypically down here you'd say "Aucklanders don't care about what goes on south of the bombay hills", and "everyone else gets to hear plenty of what goes on north of the bombay hills". To what extent that's true...
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The problem with some sort of 'top X teams from the domestic competition going on to some further competition' is that you instantly exclude a heap of your players, and at least half your country from any interest in it.
I mean, if Auckland, Waikato and Canterbury make the knockout, you've just shut out over 2 million potential audience members.
And why would Wellington contract players to the end of the season if they don't know at the beginning if there would be games for them. And if they did contract them, and there were no games, how would they pay them? And if they didn't contract them, won't they all bugger off to play northern hemisphere and we'll run a larger risk of losing them?
And Australia doesn't have a domestic rugby competition like the Air NZ Cup. There's nothing between club rugby and Super rugby is there?
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Sorry! In my defence, I never thought you'd be *that* far behind.
Ihug/vodafone has this broadband plan where you get 20GB at good speed, and then sometime after that (seems to kick in at about 25 - 30GB, must be when they figure out that you're really serious that month) they put you on dialup speeds. Takes a while to download a 900MB file at dialup speeds.
It's the only vodafone plan that you can't kick in an extra bit of money and double your limit.
And when a HD game with no overtime tops out at 2.1 GB, it doesn't take too long to get up to 20+GB.