Posts by Joe Wylie
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Speaker: Are we seeing the end of MSM,…, in reply to Alfie,
...and then you want to report it again. Is that when it becomes a told?
Catatafish tale will soon be told....
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Up Front: Cui bono?, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Thanks Hilary. So to add to that, Christchurch buses are 10-3 weekdays.
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Up Front: Cui bono?, in reply to Walter Nicholls,
Several gold card holders, even ones who still have cars, have said to me that this makes a huge difference to their independence, far far more than the (saved) cost of the bus ticket would seem to justify.
The last I checked the free travel was limited to between 10 AM and 3 PM, so one needs to plan accordingly with medical appointments etc. Does anyone know if the kind of discounted fares that might be available to "jobseekers" have similar restrictions?
The kind of meaningless churning of the vulnerable that seems to be emerging here became all the go in Australia under John Howard. Pointless and demeaning "seminars" of the kind described by Mellopuffy were often scheduled for 9 AM, preventing those on fixed incomes from taking advantage of freely available off-peak fares on public transport. It's the kind of simple consideration that can literally make the difference between eating and going without.
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Up Front: Cui bono?, in reply to Sacha,
because super is regarded as something you are entitled to, rather than begrudgingly 'doled' out with suspicion and resentment. At least it provides a good example of how it can be done properly.
Over the over 65 rainbow. Somehow I doubt that the flower lady will ever grasp the distinction berween charm and smarm.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Screen gigs, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
The link is just to the right of the forecast (as you look at the screen)
Wow! Best mouseover experience ever. Those shadows moving....
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Speaker: Banning begging will be about…, in reply to ,
I remember one day in the mid 199os when Martan was running some weather boards thru the table saw, someone in the other room was making screeching noises to possibly reduce anxiety.
One very still evening I was sharpening an axe before cutting firewood. After each stroke of the stone I noticed a curious delayed echo. Wondering if it was due to some rare atmospheric condition I looked around for a cause, but all I could see was two young guinea pigs, who'd emerged from their nest and were watching me intently.
Surely it couldn't be them I thought, wandering over for a closer look. Leaning in close I idly attempted to imitate the sound by grinding my teeth. Instantly the pigs did it right back, loudly and rapidly chattering their teeth as if to say "You got it!" Anxiety, empathy, it's a deep animal thing.
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Speaker: Are we seeing the end of MSM,…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
...any fool knows it's more of a Drop Brim Fedora
More like a posh version of an Australian giggle hat than a Baker Street dorksteerer.
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Polity: Eleventy billion dollars!, in reply to Rob Stowell,
How we pay for this is important to get right. But all the moaning that we can't, it's impossible, madness!?
"Surely there never was such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of having been flawed before. They were ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; they were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly undone, when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke…Whenever a Coketowner felt he was ill-used—that is to say, whenever he was not left entirely alone, and it was proposed to hold him accountable for the consequences of any of his acts—he was sure to come out with the awful menace, that he would ‘sooner pitch his property into the Atlantic.’ This had terrified the Home Secretary within an inch of his life, on several occasions."
Charles Dickens, Hard Times, 1854
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Polity: The Taxpayers' Union rides again!, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
...a UBI has always been understood since first proposed by Milton Friedman among others in the 1960s...
Not as preposterous as your claiming Nelson Mandela as some kind of champion of supply-side economics, but hey. nice try. The concept of a UBI was being discussed in far greater breadth and detail than anything Friedman proposed centuries before the Harvard school.
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Polity: The Taxpayers' Union rides again!, in reply to Kumara Republic,
...we could make them look like crass bullies by punking or trolling them...
If they're really "a club like Rotary or Lions" they could fight back by holding community events like sausage sizzles. Operating one of those little trains that gives rides to kiddies would do wonders for their image, but who'd trust their kids with that lot?