Posts by Caleb D'Anvers
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Eh, if we must have '80s revivalism, Ladyhawke is actually good '80s revivalism.
Sure, but haven't we been in a permanent state of '80s revival since about 1996? Surely 13 years, plus the original 10, are more than enough?
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Um, Caleb, I paid a modest but reasonably substantial tax bill -- as often happens to freelancers who don't earn a regular income -- with "little fuss" by dipping into my savings.
Congratulations, Craig. That's fantastic. Um, this is relevant ... how?
To be blunt, Caleb, so fucking what?
You made a claim about Mary English's working conditions that was incorrect. I was just pointing that out.
Sorry but I just don't see what Mary English's presumed income -- or that of any other Parliamentary spouse -- has to do with anything.
As has been pointed out repeatedly, spousal income is taken into account for other beneficiaries of public money. The fact that MPs' living costs are not similarly means-tested is just another example of the rules not applying to the political classes. Which some, understandably, find a little ... hypocritical ... especially when it comes from those who like laying down the law for others.
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Absolutely, Sue. And the fact that English seems able to pay everything back so quickly shows just how much he must have stashed away already. Seriously -- if you can pay back your entitlements with that little fuss you don't need them.
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I don't know what Mary is doing nowadays, but when I knew her she was working for the Newtown Union Health Service -- not exactly Wellywood's answer to Harley Street.
She's in Thorndon now, Craig. Hardly the ghetto.
What gets me is that English continues to benefit from antediluvian attitudes to gender and earning power that just happen to have been stripped away from every public entitlement. When I lose my job at the end of this week (thanks in part to public-sector cutbacks), I'll have to fall back on my wife's income while I desperately search for another job. She, of course, earns far less than either of the Englishes. And we don't have our own house, either. Let alone two of them.
Meanwhile, English keeps going on about parsimony and his own family's needs, without even the slightest clue of how obscene it sounds coming from someone of his means.
It's particularly bad timing in the light of this. I mean, come on, we tried this in the '90s and it was a fucking disaster. Contracting out to the private sector ends up costing much more than doing things "in house", and raises the obvious question: qui bono? And why?
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Does that mean Cuba Street is the new Upper Hutt shops?
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Quilter's are open on Saturday now? Score!
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Surely if you choose to move in next to a long established live venue it's incumbent upon you or the developer to soundproof the housing, rather than the venue to keep your peace?
The tort of private nuisance actually tends to work the other way. At Law school, we were taught the case of homeowners who moved in next to a long-established pig farm, and managed to have the farm successfully shut down because of the nuisance it created. Noise would be treated in the same way.
Re: the CitRats' ability to produce consistently rubbish policies at an almost superhuman rate, I'm reminded of this quote attributed to German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Erquord:
"I divide my officers into four classes; the clever, the lazy, the industrious, and the stupid. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy however is for the very highest command; he has the temperament and nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious is a menace and must be removed immediately!"
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But if people want to fuck themselves up setting fire to sofas, why is it governments job to stop them.
Um, Rich, as someone pointed out up-thread, burning couches in the middle of the road is a public nuisance. And while that's technically a tort, not a criminal offence, most people would assume that the state's authority extends to keeping the highways clear of obstructions. Particularly when those obstructions are on fire. And then there's the separate fact that drunken polytech students who try to jump over said couches tend to end up in public hospitals at the taxpayers' expense. And then there's that whole out-of-control-fire-spreading-to-neighbouring-houses thing. The line between "participants" and "non-participants" is a pretty blurry and fluid one, after all.
Or, on preview, what Sasha said.
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slightly irked that Trevor Mallard has said he hopes English doesn't lose his job because Steven Joyce would do a better job as finance minister.... it just annoys me that an MP would openly celebrate mis-management of our nations economy as it suits his political aspirations.
I interpreted Mallard saying Joyce would "do a better job for National" as meaning that he would pursue a more explicitly right-wing agenda than English. Perhaps I'm giving Mallard too much credit there.
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Paranoid belief systems like the one behind EVP is just Gnosticism by another name; ditto, the simulation argument
Ditto certain aspects of theosophy and scientology. And inevitably, of course, it all goes back to Hitler.