Posts by Rich of Observationz
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I wonder what the reaction would be if some backwoods Australian MP stood up on his hind legs and opined that Helen Clark was a racist bitch in thrall to the politically correct dykeocracy
I think he/she/it would be perfectly entitled to do that. Or for any politician, anywhere, to opine that Robert Mugabe, Hu Jintao or Nicholas Sarkozy are dorks of the first, second and third orders, respectively.
Of course there are considerations if one is a government minister and obliged to creep to foreign despots so that we remain allowed to buy their cheap flat-screen tellys. Otherwise I don't believe the Pacific should act as a moat across which criticism may not pass.
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Any fifteen year old with internet access should be able to make a bomb
I tried hard and only managed to singe my eyebrows. It's the KNO3 that's hard to get. Plus the right grade of sulphur and charcoal. Plus your proportions are wrong - read Clive Ponting's book "Gunpowder" for the details.
I read in some wingnut rag, the Guardian I think, that it was likely that furrin anaesthetists would kill their patients as an act of terrerism. Secretly. I'm not sure how marginally increasing the death rate under anaesthetics would help the cause though..
I do have a better suggestion, which would be for the "Al" to pretend that they have hundreds of activists in key positions in the NHS, London Transport, the power utilities, etc. Then, after they're all sacked, the resulting staff shortages would lead to death and dislocation on a scale that would far outweigh anything they could do by the "self-immolation in carparks" method.
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The portion from Mayoral Drive to Wellesley Street is complete and looking really nice
Yes, but I think the real problem is the shops. They're mostly dodgy internet cafes, dodgy fast food joints and the odd chainstore. The bit around Aotea Square is a bit better in that respect.
I guess this is a general problem when you get retail moving out of downtown (e.g. Oxford St).
If the street was closed to traffic, maybe we could have more bars and cafes using the pavement area.
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I guess John Banks set such a low bar that even Hubbard could be considered to have performed "relatively well".
But what has he achieved?
- Rates have gone up a lot, *as well* as water charges (which are basically an extra stealth rate).
- Queen St. has been dug up. I'm not sure if it will be so nice when finished that it justifies making it a building site for two years.
- The government had to sort out the stadium debacle, not Hubbard.
- Hubbard has helped resist us getting a single Auckland city.
- Very little has been done to limit urban sprawl - about the only council that has done anything in that regard is Waitakere.
- I guess the only positive side is that, being so ineffective, Hubbard hasn't been able to spend our money on much in the way "grands projets"
- Plus he's a religious social conservativeI only voted, very reluctantly for him, because the dumbass electoral system gave a choice of two candidates - Banks or not-Banks.
Personally, I favour (aside from a single Auckland City) replacing the Mayor by a council chair elected by the councillors - ensuring that council and leader are aligned. (Not to mention cutting a lot of the egotrip out).
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Isn't there some (highly illegal) system out there that lets you view broadcast TV streams over the net?
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A moments silence please... to remember those that now have health problems as a result of building boat out of chemicals.
Pretty hard to build one *not* out of chemicals. I assume you mean synthetic ones like epoxy, as opposed to natural ones like cellulose.
It's perfectly possible to work with synthetic materials without exposing yourself to hazard - you just need to follow the safety rules.
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I guess the lack of posts signifies a certain ennui about the whole thing.
Something I noticed when I moved to NZ was the lack of sailing that goes on (at least compared to the amount of available sea).
I grew up sailing in the Solent area of Southern England, and there, on a typical summer weekend, there will be thousands of sailing boats out. The stream of boats returning to the Hamble on a Sunday evening resembles the Southern Motorway. Cowes Week has, I would guess, 5,000 people packed into town, the majority of whom are there to sail as well as party - nothing like that here.
Of course NZ is a lot less populous, but I do get the feeling that while there are a lot of people with boats, mostly for fishing, actual sailing is very much a minority interest.
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I'm yet to hear anyone suggest that a small amendment to the US Constitution might be in order so no President can pardon their staffers or big ticket donors on their way out the door
Consider it suggested. With maybe some sort of judicial body allowed to make pardons instead.
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And to be fair to the US, at least their pardon system makes sense. In New Zealand we only pardon the innocent - who, by virtue of their innocence, in fact have done nothing to pardon.
Didn't some soldiers executed in WW1 get a posthumous pardon - or was that just the UK?
I think it's better to have an independent judiciary with proper appeal processes than to have politically inspired pardons.
I think the only cases where a pardon is justified would be where:
- there has been such an obvious miscarriage of justice that it justifies shortcutting the judicial process
- where a law has been or is about to be repealed and there are individuals still serving a sentence under that law (e.g. if anyone were convicted of sedition in the next few months)
- where (as in the WW1 soldiers) society has moved on and wishes to recognise its mistakes -
Two points:
- Firstly, I think the US system of grand juries, where someone can be hauled up in front of a prosecutor, forced to testify and jailed if they either refuse or lie, is an affront to human rights. It's a 17th century artefact that most other democracies abolished long ago.
So it follows that I don't think people should be jailed for that sort of thing anyway.
- Secondly, second-term presidents have very little accountability and can do anything they like as they will never need to be reelected. Which is an argument against term limits.