Posts by Bart Janssen
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My friend describes this kind of tourism as "human zoo".
We saw it in Cambodia where, in the first village we visited, the guide essentially walked us through peoples homes showing us how the locals lived. After that we chose to play cards on the boat rather than visit any other local villages.
It's frustrating when people go on about the romance of the way things used to be done and how modern technology has ruined everything.
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Hard News: And so it begins ..., in reply to Rich Lock,
It's the same here in the UK - the most incompetent government in living memory, and it's still polling a solid 40%, just a couple of points below Labour.
That's the nature of tribes. Same here in NZ while Joyce was telling outrageous lies there was a core that justified (or denied) all of that simply to support their tribe.
If it wasn't terrifying it would be fascinating. It really seems as though people make a decision and then fit every fact into that decision.
I wonder whether that's a natural default or whether that's something we somehow teach.
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Hard News: And so it begins ..., in reply to Shaun Lott,
I personally feel that the constitutional crisis started with the Supreme Court vacancy stand-off.
Agreed.
But there is also a crisis coming within the GOP. At some point GOP representatives are going to demand some kind of change. Without something happening a lot of GOP politicians are going to be kicked out in 2018. But there's no certainty that Pence would be any more palatable than Trump.
Longer term I'm starting to wonder if the public are willing to accept the binary system that they currently have. It's hard to see how change can occur and certainly American kids are taught that their system is the only viable system. But a lot of folks don't like either party.
If Trump's supporters do protest hard, it's just possible that the counter protest could trigger a major change in the US system.
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Another good source is Seth Abramson (@sethabramson) who posts quite long threads detailing the saga from the point of view of a lawyer.
Very early on he identified Papadopolos as a likely target of the FBI who could be "turned".
It's really interesting to see how a lawyer interprets the various statements and actions and it's really nice to get a clear legal definition of what is and is not a crime and what kind of approach is typical for an investigator like Mueller.
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If you don't tell anyone what you are doing then they can't criticize you for failing. That's what Orsman and co fail to realise - sure they didn't spend (waste) money on communication but the consequence is that you have no way of know where they did waste money.
But it's a symptom of a larger failure in these organisations and that is they don't believe they work for us. Every dollar in those organisations comes from the people in the communities. It's not just that we aren't being treated like valued customers, it's that we aren't being treated like owners.
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Hard News: All Change, in reply to Kumara Republic,
does everyone need to go to university?
No.
But can everyone benefit from tertiary education?
Hell yeah. And at any stage of their life.
It doesn't need to be the classical university education, it could be anything.
My personal opinion is universities exist to train a specific type of skills that society needs. But society doesn't need everyone to have those skills - other skills are just as valuable and some of those are much better learned outside a university structure.
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For those interested Love to Ride is doing a mini bike challenge with prizes to get people on their bikes for spring.
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Been trying to figure out a way of saying this without screwing it up, hopefully this will be taken in the spirit intended.
While I understand the value of investing in infrastructure in the highest density areas I think a case can be made that Sth Auckland has a greater need. Access to low cost transport might have a bigger impact in Sth Auckland than in Grey Lynn. And having safe paths and places to cycle might encourage healthy activity in communities that are not currently well served with places to play.
In short, the benefit might be greater in Sth Auckland even if the population density isn't as high as in central Auckland.
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Just wanted to say
ALL THOSE BEAUTIFUL BRIDGES!!!!!
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We've been exploring from Mt Roskill in every direction we can. The cycleway along the southwestern has been great fun leading us to the Onehunga path and along the estuary - but yeah it ends there.
One Sunday we explored further in that direction and ended up riding up Gt South Road through to Newmarket. It's a beautifully smooth road surface (please can we make bike routes smoother) and on a quiet Sunday morning a pleasant ride but it reminded me of when I dodged traffic to ride to my holiday job as a student - essentially everyone was trying to kill me and it doesn't look much different now.
Great South Rd could accommodate bike lanes, even if they're not currently planned, but Manukau Rd and Mt Eden Rd would have a lot more difficulty.
All three of those roads could have wide bike lanes separated from cars by a curb with ease - they are easily wide enough. The problem is everyone looks at the road and sees the lanes for the cars and thinks "that's how wide the road is" but it isn't - for most of those roads there is a line of cars that people have left on the side of the road - remove those and suddenly you have MUCH more space for the transport network. Yes people will have to find somewhere else to put their car, perhaps on their own land or park on the side streets.