Posts by InternationalObserver
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Beat that for open-mindedness and respect for other cultures, the rest of NZ!!
A round of deserved applause for Dunedin, yes you've done well.
But first prize still goes to Carterton, who voted in Georgina Beyer
This made her the world's first transsexual mayor.
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This is all getting a bit depressing. Is it even worth voting for an Auckland mayoral candidate? Should I just bow down to my new mayoral overlord?
BANKS: "Yes, and while you're down there..."
CROWE: "Yes, but let me reposition the Tri-pod first..."
SWNEY: "Um .. er .. ah, fuck it!"
HUBBARD: "eh?" -
[A previous version of this rant has appeared numerous times on PAS; it hasn't stopped, so I'm venting again.]
Geez, I **really** hate how the LINK buses will stop for 5 minutes so that they can maintain their 'one-every-ten-minutes' schedule. And they always seem to stop at Victoria Park Market, when all I want is to get to the top of College Hill. Soooooo close ...
(and don't tell me to get off and walk up the hill, that defeats the purpose of catching the bus!)
(I saw Rudman on the LINK once -- he's shorter than he appears in the Herald)
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oh, yeah ... and as I've said so many times before here on PAS the angst over who will be Mayor is misplaced because the Mayor only has one vote. It's more important to vote in the Councillors/Ticket you want than one Mayor. Whichever ticket has the most votes will (largely) determine the way the council moves. Witness the last 3 years courtesy of a left leaning majority ...
And if you don't believe me, then read Rudman
who says it more eloquently than I:The flaw in the system is that it's designed to fail. We expect our mayoral candidates to promise the Earth, but give the mayor just one vote on the council, which makes decisions.
Mayor Hubbard was delivered that lesson early in his mayoralty when his deputy, then City Vision leader Bruce Hucker, was quick to put him in his place of one.
The only importance in selecting a Mayor is that s/he is the figurehead. What does it say about a city if it votes in a pornographer as Mayor? That we are an open and liberal society unphased by religious mores?
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And that's why Auckland has the Hero parade back, right?
it's back, but it's been re-named Boobs On Bikes.
I was fascinated that Banks could be 'neutral' on B.O.B., given his strident opposition to the 'immoral Gay parade of sexual deviance' [my paraphrasing]. Hmmm, which parade was all about nudity (and sex) and marched down the middle of out Main Street; and which one ran at night time when the children were safely tucked in bed? Hero may have contained some nudity and sexual themes, but that was as part of a greater celebration of diversity.
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BUT loving seeing Its Always Sunny... again. Can't wait for series 2 where Danny De Vito joins the cast
OMIGOD!
I wet myself watching this clip on Utoob. (nb on the comment "what the fuck is fred savage doing here?") This clip explained (to me) why FOTC was able to find an audience in America.
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__It may seem farcical, but if drivers won't get out of their cars and ride buses - what options are left?__
There are so many it's farcical. The public/private transport possibilities are huge.[list examples]
But that's not the point I was hoping to make Ben. You can provide endless options but people are still going to want to drive there in their own cars anyway. Witness daleaway's example of the couple who each took their own seperate cars to their same workplace at the end of their road.
So when you've done everything you can (at great expense to ratepayers/taxpayers) to encourage people onto public transport and yet still they won't budge from their cars, what options are left? Random Slapping?
Will more money solve the problem?
[ARC Chair Mike Lee] was bemoaning the fact that despite an 89 per cent increase in subsidies since 2004, from $45 million to $85.1 million, Auckland bus patronage had increased only 1.2 per cent - or within the statistical margin of error.
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Those American's sure take their Homeland Security seriously:
Officials yesterday defended the retention of highly personal data on travelers not involved in or linked to any violations of the law. But civil liberties advocates have alleged that the type of information preserved by the department raises alarms about the government's ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people. The millions of travelers whose records are kept by the government are generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting any errors, activists said.
But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.
RB may not come back, next time he visits ...
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That may achieve the challenge I set you of making public transport faster than a car, but only because it deliberately sets out to stuff cars up.
Which, in a nutshell, explains exactly the thinking of our Transport Planners. It suits them to have Auckland dissected by only ome motorway -- the more congestion the better. But since that hasn't stopped enough people driving on the motorway they have now instituted 'ramp signals' ie traffic lights to stop you actually getting on the motorway:
Waiting times for traffic queuing on Curran St signals averaged 2.8 minutes, and Transit had begun using the signals ... to tackle increasing congestion. Mr McCombs acknowledged that this compared with about 20 seconds spent by vehicles joining motorways without waiting for signals
Which is why back on page two I came up with the idea of Random Slapping:
On designated mornings Police should force drivers stuck in rush hour traffic to wind down their windows and receive an open handed slap to the face...
It may seem farcical, but if drivers won't get out of their cars and ride buses - what options are left? And BTW, I'm not seriously suggesting it - I do so merely to point out the wooly thinking of these bureaucrats. And if you want more proof:
Their solution was to hijack two of Queen Street's four vehicle lanes for buses only. This, they calculated, would speed bus passage between the new crossings by five minutes, thus cancelling out the [5 minute] delays caused by the new crossings.
I suppose we could start our own bus service and let everyone ride cheaply (or free!). That's a novel idea - altho' Grandad tells me that last century the ARC did actually own their own bus company and did just that. Until the National Govt forced them to sell it to Stagecoach. And now Stagecoach receive bus subsidies from the ARC greater than the price they paid for those buses! Each year!