Posts by paulalambert
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Is this supposed to be acceptable? How far are these laws creeping?
I think they're almost already there.
The TSA casts a wide net. The only thing between that and other activists (without guns) is the person who denies/allows police permission to proceed under the TSA. In its first incarnation it wasn't so bad, but I seem to recall an extra bit, and addition/amendment, that went through with other legislation later. I have no detail now, it all disappeared with the last computer pfft and I'm to busy to faff around, am not excellent at using search engines.
I'm told Annette King was talking about another Bill this morning, to do with the SFO. Then there will be the Criminal Proceeds Recovery Bill to follow after that. There is a huge net being cast, and this is a small country. All is needed for surveillance is a suspicion, but based on what didn't seem to be defined. Perhaps an 0800 line ?
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I read that document and what did it for me was the silencers too. I can understand being out in the bush shootin' things, but silencers indicate a whole new creepy level.
Speaking of burden of proof, presumption of innocence: Didn't that one alrady go down the toilet quite a while ago for those unfortunate enough to be arrested on drugs charges.
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Dude, that was a totally awesome flameout!
It's so good it makes me feel all warm inside.
Well said, Danielle, and Dyan - fantastic analysis.Yes, and reading it was priceless, but not totally unexpected lol
And also thanks, talk of push-polling earlier reminded me of something I had completely forgotten: I was on the point of leaving the house a few weeks ago when a caller whom I assumed was push-polling rang. The question was something like "Are you very concerned about P endangering/creating havoc/whatever in the community?"
I gave her a friendly earful "No, I was at Nicky Wagnr's Methcon meeting the other night and am more worried about the way politicians and their friends create spin and fear in the community like that and by having you ask questions like this. And tell John Key to say something intelligent about cannabis. Drunk drivers are by far the scariest on the road. " I hope that was the best ranty she got all evening. It just flowed out, a 'make my day' moment too.
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A friend's father even took the buzz out of their Buzzy Bee.
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My doctor told me you don't get diabetes from sugar. Yay !
For a while a recorder was my gift of choice for kids. Fortunately noone was unkind enough to return the 'favour' when I had my own.
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Classic comment from an excellent article.
Bush is a grownup kid who likes doing to humans what he did to frogs. He also almost certainly has extensive drug/alcohol based brain damage. Putin is a sophisticated, intelligent man with an excellent education who actually understood what he learned and who plays politics like chess, not poker.
DING,DING……………. dongThough possibly totally unrelated to the current war, massive and long-entrenched smuggling and corruption in that part of the world. Googling "Ossetia+drugs" turns up an interesting 2004 book, (written before the pro-EU Georgian government?) I didn't see a mention of Ukraine, but plenty on Transnistria, the ethnic Russian eastern part of Ukraine. Talk about 'watch this space' . . . aren't we lucky to live in New Zealand.
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Someone I know well with one child is on the DPb and grateful to have it. Apart from the supermarket they rarely go anywhere that costs money, she very often wear secondhand clothes, tries hard to maintain a home and property in some semblance of order. She said today after that Nat's announcement that she's grateful for their relative security, courtesy of the groaning taxpayer via WINZ. She gets the basic one child rate plus Accommodation supplement of the maximum $75pw and out of that is currently paying off what she owes WINZ for buying school uniform and stationery.
She'd started a degree but after about eight papers part-time study at that level (ironically) it became too difficult to successfully juggle once her child was of school age, but part-time casual work has been an option sometimes. There is an absentee father and no family for any reliable or free help.
She said parenting didn't get easier once the child was six, it got harder and, if she wasn't usually at home for her now early teen, seriously wonders whether she'd be sometimes searching the streets or mall. Or whether that is still to come.
She also says no matter how loving and rational she has remained during her beneficiaryhood shes found children can grow up a bit confused and angry at the public distaste for beneficiary children bashing.
Yes thats how that child has seen it, heard it, interpreted it. From school, not from hearing about it at home.
I can't really imagine what it would have been like as a kid to have grown up feeling a bit like a stigmatised powerless political football.
Not 'Once Were Warriors' but not nice. -
{unlike smoking which I believe mostly does pay for its own health care costs)
Current tobacco tax revenues amount to approximately $1 billion per year, and have been at that level for some years. This is just under 2 percent of total tax revenues.
- Of the approximate $1.6 billion per year retail spending on tobacco products, approximately 70 percent is tax revenue, including GST as well as tobacco excises.
- Thus, the average amount spent by New Zealand’s 750,000 smokers is approximately $2,135 each per year and approximately $1,500 is tax revenue.
NZ Medical Association, Tobacco Taxation In New Zealand, November 2007The cost of smoking-related health care to the New Zealand taxpayer is about $250 million.
The Cancer Society, Cancer Society of New Zealand Inc September 2004 -
And this morning I read this Death of Free Internet is Imminent- Canada Will Be Test Case which I'm hoping is merely conjecture at this point.
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This new moralism has no hope of getting pron off the internet: I was right about that. What I hadn't realised was how much damage could be done trying.
Tell me about it ! Where is this all leading ... first they came for the porn . . .
After working in drug policy reform for so long, I really wonder about the corpses that are continually stacking up; caused by damage from moralist political and other leaders' supposedly unintended consequences, or not. Grrr.