Posts by Joe Wylie
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Polity: Home-spun non-truths, in reply to Sacha,
Keith Rankin about what UBI is.
"Nothing for anyone to fear. No robbing Peter to pay Paul. No licence to laze. It ensures that precariously employed people – and students and mothers and others – will always have $175 of publicly-sourced income each week from which they may pay their most important bills. If properly explained, this simple unobtrusive mechanism can win over those today on modest incomes who often work long hours, and who may have been told that a universal basic income will mean them paying higher taxes to support people who do not wish to work."
While ostensibly addressing the concerns of the precariat, surely that reads like a reassuring dog-whistle to those higher up the food chain that a UBI is really about a solid subsidy to entrench low wages.
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Hard News: Friday Music: The hottest rap…, in reply to Mike O'Connell,
At the outset, they were warned off any political broadcasting and nearly got chucked off air for debating the ’76 All Black tour to South Africa.
In 1976, when the Chch Star was a proper newspaper with a cover price, one Colonel Elderton regularly appeared in its letter columns politely promoting the imagined virtues of apartheid. Early in that year the Star recorded how the Colonel provoked derision from UC students in a public debate by claiming that the "different toilet habits" of blacks justified segregated public facilities. Happy days.
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Polity: Global behemoths and tax, in reply to Simon Lyall,
The important thing is that the 1,2 or 10 people working in New Zealand for Apple, Google or Facebook don't generate all that much added value for the companies.
I guess that depends on how you slice it. For example, the Austrian-based Red Bull GmbH, which must be a significant contributor to Facebook's coffers with over 45 million FB fans, the last I looked owned an upmarket residential property in Queenstown for corporate recreational purposes. I'm sure they're not alone in maximising the advantages of their various business environments.
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Beatles'…, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
There are various arts / entertainment areas as well as the Arts Centre - we are reassured that they will all be 'vibrant' areas
I blame Sideshow Bob for the whole vibrant schtick.
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Speaker: The real problem with the ‘Kiwimeter’, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
...the important distinctions between a self-selecting poll, and a properly sampled survey.
It's more than a decade since an online poll had Destiny Church poised to win several seats in the 2005 election. While the faithful may have dutifully clicked away online, the long since deregistered Destiny New Zealand managed to score only 0.62% of the total vote.
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Hard News: Friday Music: The Beatles'…, in reply to linger,
all deconstructions of “Tomorrow Never Knows” are geoblocked in Japan – and now are being systematically taken off YouTube altogether;
This one's still up. Back when NME first reviewed Here Come the Warm Jets, Brian Eno's vocals were likened to the sound of "a wounded hare shot up the arse with an airgun pellet". Not on this one he doesn't.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
The recent armed Kawerau stand-off also seemed to be more about a show of abundant force, with community policing ideas pushed to the background...
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Up Front: The Up Front Guide to Plebs, in reply to Emma Hart,
First it was the review of the Safe Schools Program, because Heaven Forefend children learn not to bully people because of their sexuality or gender identity.
David Pope, Canberra Times.
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Polity: Key Derangement Syndrome…, in reply to Mr Mark,
In fact, in the 70s and 80s, it was often pretty damn good.
We did have a semblance of public service TV, but even visiting Australians were often appalled by the studied parochialism of NZ's newspapers. Unity Books' approach to the Wilson & Horton Herald over its lack of serious book reviews triggered the terse reply "So we don't play your little game. So what?" 1980s Herald editorials were often showcases of literal in-your-face senility, as if that was some kind of reward for a lifetime of hackery.
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Up Front: The Up Front Guide to Plebs, in reply to Emma Hart,
This is why having referenda (or, okay, plebiscites) on human rights issues is inherently degrading.
Which is what Winston Peters wanted. Human rights debased to fodder for an idiots' auction.
