Posts by slarty
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"Bunking" vs."Wagging".
I'd guess deep down it'll be a class thing.
I was taken to England in 1977 and had my education there (my equiv. of 7th form was 1987).
Bunking off was what we in the comprehensive school called it.
Wagging was what the Grammar boys / characters from Enid Blyton & Biggles books did.
My reason for long periods of absence was mainly that I liked the money I earned elsewhere... and as a working class lass my headmaster kindly offered to see if he could get me a job in the local chicken factory.
Recently I discovered a secret thing. I hated sport on Weds arvo so disappeared from an early age. Turns out that I wasn't the only one: if you were the son of a local GP / Headteacher, you got to wander down the road and play golf. Not only was this not advertised, but the participants were actively banned from mentioning it so they could make sure the golf club maintained the right tone...
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And is a teleconference discoverable
Interesting point: I would say technically yes, but the defence is simply that the record is not retained.
The letter of the law (ETA 2002) says that any electronic record has the same standing as a "paper" one. This means that any streamed media (VoIP, IPVid, IM etc.) has the same status as if someone had been sitting taking minutes of the conversation. This is because, however transient, a record did exist for the communication.
I'm interested in what distinguishes a (made up term) fluid, interactive conversation from a discoverable piece of information?
As far as I can tell the Courts / Ombudsman / learned counsel have based the distinction entirely on the matter of whether there is a record that can be recovered. IMHO this is a very shallow interpretation in a world where more and more stuff gets digitised and stored.
I think we urgently need some consideration of the law to reflect the intent of the conversation: did the parties intend it to retain some force for a future purpose? This covers contract, policy statements etc., but excludes the normal day to day banter in which we need to engage to explore and establish our position.
Crikey, that was a bit deep for a Sunday morning...
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... apparently we're radical and leading edge to have the thing in the first place! <sigh>
I've given this to our legal shop. The problem of course is that Public Sector organisations are not capable of evaluating risk in a rational manner, because of the skewed view they have of what is a serious problem... and the obsequious approach to managing the ego of the Minister...!
Just once I'd like to hear someone say "yes that's an interesting point of view Mr. <insert name of stupid old white man here>, but it is, as anybody with an IQ higher than their shoe size would know, complete bollocks."
Shame public servants don't get a valedictory to their Ministers...
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On a mores serious note... this was an "external" conference. Agencies also run internal ones all the time. I find the reasons interesting.
1. If you have a big piss up on a conference, it doesn't have to be coded to Staff Entertainment, which means you can get away with putting a couple of bottles of wine on the table (like any normal business would)
2. Rooms full of people talking aren't subject to OIA requests for practical reasons (only the printed product, which can be sanitised).
In my shop we use an on-line discussion area much like this one. It saves having hundreds of people fly to be in one room to discuss issues.
It's going to be shut down - we'll be back on the planes soon. And it's because the discussion is going to be subject to discovery, so we can't go through the full, frank, open banter required for human beings to arrive at a position.
Personally I don't think the intent of the OIA was to drive reasonable discussion underground... there's a strong parallel with one of the reasons for free speech.
Anyway, a I alone in thinking this interpretation could have a long term depressing effect on the performance of the Public Sector? It's one of the (many) reasons I'm trying to leave... what do you think?
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Why don't they offer the Beehive banquet hall at a good price to Govt Depts?
They do. And the reception halls in the Beehive itself. The security has an interesting effect I suspect: the CEO's and stuff think it's cool, most of us sigh as we submit to another scan :)
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Liquidity, liquidity, there's nothing like liquidity...
... Our Dollars are entirely bucked;
Our Pounds are lacking quiddity.
In Commerce (and in Finance too)
The balance sheets look fair:
But when they try to operate -
Liquidity's not there!Damn. Arrived too late for me to put in the BIM!
[Time for] Change
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For a long time, I referred to my partner as my lover. For some reason, that seriously weirds people out
I wore out my first wife.
So now I refer to my upgraded significant other as either Wife 2.0 or (much more commonly) Mistress.
Gets great responses. And is technically correct for her, as she comes from Catholic stock...
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What is it about Act supporters that makes them incapable of grace?
I deal with lots of criminals in my line of work. Now, I am not for a moment suggesting that Act supporters are villains, but something about the behaviour at the extremes resonates with something I see in the interview rooms: the ability to rationalise quite opposite viewpoints (simple example: ban abortion, but support death penalty).
I think it's this cognitive dissonance that causes the outbursts: the inability to acknowledge that aspects of your world view don't align. Such internal conflict must be very corrosive, causing little explosions...
But then again, I'm probably just talking complete bollocks.
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but how you get to surpassing the USA is somewhat a mystery.
Fair point: I was in a rush. Here's the nuance of where my tiny mind had gone.
Of the 50 States in the Union, 24 have some form of 3 strikes rule.
While the death penalty is in the federal (and military) toolbox, only 34 States have it on their books, and at any given time a number of them will have a moratorium.
We have a tool called preventative detention that has been criticised by the UNHCR, but is 'tolerated' in the majority. Personally I think it's a good compromise given the checks and balances in our system.
This allows ongoing detention of violent offenders for reasons of public safety: so it can be strongly argued we already have the tool we need, it is just that we want to instruct the judiciary to apply it more often.
On this basis, and taking into account NZ is now up there in terms of incarceration (we're in the company of countries like Bahrain and Israel), we are could be coming close to becoming the most draconian western democracy in proportional (if not absolute) terms.
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Key reckons the difference is that Winnie was Foreign Affairs and that should never be outside Cabinet
I liked Plunketts question in response: "so no minister outside cabinet will have bilateral talks with foreign governments?" (something like that).
Key: <long pause> "No".
I wonder if he realises NZ has about 40 tax treaties with other nations? Probably not - doesn't sound like any of them have been paying attention for the last few years.
But I guess I can hope that means Dunne won't be Minister of Revenue....