Posts by Paul Campbell
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Jake - next time remind them about the Boston Tea Party, "no taxation without representation", and that US citizens who live in NZ are allowed to vote - ask that you at least be allowed to vote for dog catcher
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but raccoons are so cute, especially the babies .... until they sneak thru the cat door after the catfood and can't get out, and mum gets really mad .... (but can't fit through the same cat door) ....
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Oh Tom - we have to get our stories straight - you have to talk about the giant keas, evolved without mammalian competition, that rip tents apart, the windscreens from parked cars, eat live sheep, attack trampers for their butter
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Exactly -- and just to add insult to injury, it's one form of spam nobody is interested in regulating in the United States.
Actually the US has a pretty good anti-phone spam system -p certainly better than here. The "do not call list" is a list of phone numbers that phone spammers are not allowed to call (with a few exceptions) - anyone can sign up on a web site. Cell phones have always been on such a list (because in the US the owner pays for incoming calls).
However the "few exceptions" sadly includes political calls (after all guess who writes laws ...)
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Well living in Berkeley I never quote got those sorts of questions - though one work mate thought I came from an island off the east coast of Canada (she was entranced that I'd grown up watching Dr Who, and considered it a kids show - it did play at 4pm after all)
The seasons thing does mess them up (and timezones that change with time of year).
I do wish we'd hold halloween in NZ in late April though - we carved pumpkins here last year (expensive and hard to find) - and it was still day light out when the little kids came around - the whole fun of halloween is taking little kids around in the dark to see the scary stuff and meet the neighbours
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I'm tempted to give Powell the benefit of the doubt - a family friend was a military aide working for him during that time - from what I've heard he was shafted
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I had my bimonthly call from the Democrats this morning on my US phone number (we gave them money when we lived there):
"You do realise I'm in New Zealand right? it's 6am"
(quiet moment while they process this)
"but you have a 510 number ..."
"yes it's in NZ ... you remember all those Vonage ads on TV .... it's an internet phone"
(at this point I steel myself for the usual pitch for sending them some cash)
"well we're just calling up to make sure that you vote ..."
"I'm not allowed to vote, my wife has already voted 3 weeks ago ...." .
(notice I restrained myself and didn't announce that we were actually planning on voting on the 8th)
"she can't vote until the 5th ... she has to go to her polling place on Alcatraz on the 5th ...."
"she voted as an absentee ... she already voted .... for Obama .... please cross us off your list ...."
"oh, OK .... thank you"
<click>and she forgot to ask for money
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Yes thank you BB King is much maligned by the comparison
Graham Capill on the other hand would nbe Gary Glitter ....
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sigh RG's the only vaguely usefull record store we have here in Dunedin.
As someone who likes owning vinyl and CDs - I don't buy online, don't download and have 50Gb on my iPod I guess I'm going to have to start - guess I'm going to have to wait for Apple to release their iTunes client for linux before I start spending money on music again
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Do you mean an equally applied capital gains tax across all investment asset classes?
I'd go for that mostly with a few provisos:
- a tax rebate for capital gains on anything held for some minimum time (3-5 years) so maybe 5-10% less than the top marginal rate (you register the purchase and file with the IRD)
- no tax on someone selling their primary residence and buying another of equal value or higher - claimable once every 3-5 years (but equally if you claimed it when you bought it you can't claim it as a loss either)
- a one time tax holiday on the first N$ ($500Kish) of a primary residence sold over age 55these are largely the US rules for pre Bush capital gains (IMHO their changes to let you claim the whole of selling a primary residence every 5 years added to the current mess and let a lot of people pull RE money out of the US market - including me when returning to NZ)
They work well because they are relatively simple, almost everything is either short term or long term it doesn't distinguish between types of assets - except that it keeps out of the way of most people's house buying while discouraging property speculation