Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to Sacha,
asshole
Agreed. While the rest of it was annoying, that and the diatribe immediately prior was simply nasty.
And also a salutary lesson in just how we are from where we want to be in this country. The lack of empathy, the ease with which pain is caused in others for his (assuming here) own entertainment. It's all part of a larger picture that defines the things we need to change to become a genuinely caring and responsible country.
You can have fun without trying to hurt others and despite the trolls under the bridges we can get there.
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We will walk up to the local primary school to vote sometime tomorrow, might be a sleep in required after a rough and tiring week.
I'm still not sure we've reached peak cray, it has been a truly amazing election and I hope with all my heart that it has inspired more people to vote this time and actually participate. Seriously how could you not want to be a part of this weirdness.
After voting it will be a lazy day and then off to our semi-regular wine tasting evening with friends. Randomly it ended up on election night one year and we've made a habit of it since, somehow tasting wine with friends as we watch what NZ has decided to do makes the whole even more fun.
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Paul Brislen tweeted this today
https://twitter.com/goking5/status/512256368380616704/photo/1
Which we agreed was a good metaphor for the election.Sorry I couldn't figure out how to either embed the tweet or just get the image to display :(
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I remember reading about this a while ago and thinking we could really do with that here in NZ. While I understand and accept that the top job carries responsibilities and liabilities that are genuinely onerous I don't see any real justification for allowing the gap between top and bottom to grow the way it has.
It isn't actually that much of a hardship for the guys (yes male) at the top, if they want $100k more they just need to raise the salary at the bottom by $5k.
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Apropos of nothing at all, I kept reading this sentence
what’s the radius of a vicious circle?
as
what's the radius of a viscous circleAnd no I don't know the answer.
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Hard News: A call from Curia, in reply to Jon Briggs,
Never thought about this before, but polling a few days out from the election must be bogus.
It is banned this close to the election in a number of countries.
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Hard News: A call from Curia, in reply to Stephen R,
as if some parties actually believe what they're doing is wrong.
Yet when I've responded to questions that way "Actually, I think all of them *think* they're doing what's right"
For me that is one of the things I find most unpleasant about some politicians because no I don't believe they are doing what they believe is right. Rather they are doing what they believe will give them the most power. One could argue they are gathering power in order to do what is right but that does not appear to be the case for some of them.
And there is the question of whether the MPs are acting on the beliefs of the party, or again as appears to be the case for some, they act independently of the party they purport to represent.
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I was able to award half-points.
But were you able to award negative points? Or in the case of Colin Craig perhaps imaginary numbers would have helped.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Katharine Moody,
And Chief Ombudsman launches a wide ranging investigation
And in a surprise policy change National will replace the Chief Ombudsman's office with the more appropriate Chief Lapdogs office in order to improve consistency in reporting standards across all government departments.
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I'm glad to be part of this non-abusive group of left wing snobs.
Even though sometimes we slip into abuse, we pretty much always own up to it and apologise.
I wonder whether he'll show his coworkers how low he was prepared to go for fun.