Posts by Lucy Stewart
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Excuse my ignorance, but what actually is a "robocall" ? I assume it's an automatically-generated phone call that indiscriminately rings loads of people and recites dodgy messages to whoever answers ?
Precisely so. Used mostly by cash-strapped campaigns, because Americans have become so inured to them they tend to hang up as soon as they realise it's a recorded message (i.e. about two words in.) That McCain is using them so extensively is a telling sign og just how hard-up his campaign is trying to compete with Obama's fundraising.
(What I'm *really* waiting for in terms of outspending is the half-hour TV spot Obama has purchased for Oct. 29 to address the nation. It's both audacious and brilliant.)
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We have a lot of Celts in general. As well as a high level of Scottish and irish migration (esp. the former although not I think as great a proportion as Canada) NZ also had a particularly high proportion of West Country migrants - Cornwall and Devon. I learned this when helping to put together a family history a couple of years ago (Hosking is a west country name).
Demonstrated by the fact that we have the highest proportion of Stewarts per thousand people of any country in the world, including Great Britain. (Probably not Scotland, though.)
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Rodney was a University Lecturer at Lincoln (yes it is although I'm not sure that it should be a Uni) in economics.
I once had a lengthy debate over the correct use of it's and its with a lecturer at my university, in which the lecturer in question insisted that it's was the possessive form. Education is not an assurance of good grammar. (In any case, I was mostly referring to a Terry Pratchett quote which asserts that multiple exclamation marks are "a sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head".)
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I see Rodney's dropped the yellow jacket on the new billboards! And thrown in a few not-entirely-necessary exclamation marks!
Clearly not a well-read man on what a multiplicity of exclamation marks is said to indicate about the user.
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But, hell, it doesn't matter how fiscally irresponsible and flat out unfair it is, we're all pissing our pants with glee as just how clever Labour is.
I think you're making some enormous assumptions about how much help most students get from their parents. There'll always be a few who don't need it, but there are a lot of students whose parents are assumed to be supporting them under the current system and aren't, for a variety of reasons. Why screw them over because it looks fairer?
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In the long run it probably won't break the coffers that much, but the real question is whether it's actually worth the risk.
Especially when raising the amount you're allowed to borrow for living costs by more than five bucks (could that have *been* more insulting*?) would have got a lot of student votes and been at least theoretically more financially viable.
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And all I can think is bollocks, I'm not going to be a student (in this country, at any rate) in 2012.
Quick note on the Key ad: a poll of my flat showed that the general first thought was "but if he's in the passenger seat, who's driving?". Subtext Fail.
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Then close it by changing the law, if that's a valid concern. We don’t allow people to buy alcohol at the same age as they can vote. Separate issue
With all due respect: WTF, dude? It's eighteen for alcohol and voting, and has been for quite some time now.
The point is more that jury duty has always been a basic responsibility required of voters, or at least those registered to vote. If someone isn't mature enough to sit on a jury, then they're not mature enough to vote. Age issues are always tricky because you're drawing a line in the sand when people are rather more fluid, but, currently, eighteen is the age at which one is considered an adult with all the rights and responsibilities that entails. I don't see why voting should be a special separate thing that someone is suddenly mature enough to do earlier than every other adult responsibility. If they're not old enough to run their own lives, they're sure as hell not old enough to decide who runs the country.
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I don't deny the dangers of political marketing to children, but we've coped with that in other areas. with a good education program I think it could work.
Do remember: jurors are drawn from the electoral rolls of the area surrounding the court requiring a jury. That's a *big* can of worms right there.
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@Matthew Poole (about two pages late, but what the hell): Tait is actually one of the very few companies that *can't* send it's R&D overseas; it's run by a trust whose charter states that it is required to remain locally based and in local hands, and that around 90% of its profits must be ploughed back into R&D and company development, with the other 10% going to the founder's family, or something like that. It's a highly unusual and far-sighted company structure, aimed at employing as many people as possible while being as good in their field as possible. I'd say it works.
Places like Allied Telesyn or Jade, though, they'd bugger off overseas if it suited them better. And they employ a lot of very-highly paid experts in their field.