Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Anyway, that hypothesizing aside, if the Americans are at one end of the spectrum in terms of reactions to would-be terrorist events, and the Brits are at the other, where would Kiwis likely fit?
I don't think we'd react as angrily as Americans tend to - I think such strong anger is a very American response - but I think we'd be a lot more traumatised than Brits.
I think terrorism is, as other people have pointed out, something that the British have a history of having. You couldn't say that of New Zealand, in any similar way.
I watched 'Out of the Blue' on Friday night, which was excellent. I walk my dog at Aramoana beach most weekends, so it was a little close to home and more disturbing as a result.
I think New Zealand is a country that would be deeply scarred by a major terrorist incident - a bus blowing up or something. We're a small country and everyone would know someone who knew one of the victims, someone would have come from our town, walked our streets. But I think we'd also have a healthy dose of 'keeping on with our way of life' as much as possible, rather than widesweeping changes.
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I think it disqualifies him from having the kind of dispassionate open mind on these matters that we're entitled to expect from a minister. If someone's kid had been killed in a police chase then I think that would disqualify them from being Police Minister on the same grounds.
If we start saying that Anderton isn't qualified to be dealing with some portfolios because of his family history, then presumably we're going to rule out any people who have attempted suicide but failed. And some otherwise excellent psychologists/psychiatrists who have had personal, private dealings with suicide from engaging as well.
I just get the feeling that suicide, depression, drug abuse etc, are issues that for a lot of us, are outside our experience, until it happens to a friend, family member, or yourself. And while there's two sides to every argument, I'd much rather have both sides engaged on the issue than shutting out one side because they know what it's like for these things to happen to a family/person.
And, I don't agree with very much Anderton does politically these days, and I don't know him personally at all. But I get the impression that in his political career that he's always worked hard to do what he thinks is honest and right, and best for NZ. That's not something you could say about every MP or Minister.
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I await with dread the trend of teenagers who decide the best way to get a replacement for BZP is mixing cattle drench into fizzy drinks.
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I'm wondering if mining and farming could provide enough employment in remote areas. I know mining doesn't provide many jobs.
I don't know how many jobs it provides, but the money must be pretty good. Couple of (early to mid-twenties) guys I play sports with are working over there in the middle of no where somewhere.
The money they're on is pretty good to them, but the company also flies them back home for a long weekend every fortnight - to Dunedin. They don't have any mining qualifications or anything past high school that I know of.
Relative to whatever small amount of welfare unemployed over there are on, I'm sure most people, aboriginal or otherwise, would snap it up.
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I've always thought that Ian Smith was by far our best sideline comments man - where has Smithy gone?
Yeah I agree, I think he's part of the next generation. I'd be keen to hear him make the trip up to the box more for rugby games. I've been impressed how he made the transition from cricket to rugby and still sounded like he knew what he was talking about and actually said some intelligent things. And was always able to do his job, like tell us when players were being changed, rather than us just having to guess from when everyone on the field is wearing a number higher than 15.
And Mexted's commentary is like being verbally farted on. My 8 month old daughter with six words and lots of grunting and growling would be more useful.
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RTD himself has said much as he loves it, he doesn't want to do Doctor Who for the rest of his life. I'd take what the guy says at face value: He's always been hired on a series to series basis, he's far too busy working on series four to even think about series five, and as far he's concerned Who is not dependent on him anyway. And, much as I love the guy's work, he's right.
I always thought it was compulsory for the Doctor actor to change... oh sorry, 'reincarnate'... every series. Not at all sure about this actor doing a whole heap of programmes thing.
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Yeah, squatting's the answer...just ask Jerry Collins.
That wasn't squatting. Any ice hockey player will tell you that's "taking a knee". Er, but no one piddles on the ice in ice hockey, you'd never get away with it.
Fisher spent over one million dollars in trying to perfect the ball point pen before he made his first successful pressurized pens in 1965. In December 1967 he sold 400 Fisher Space Pens to NASA for $2.95 each.
A million dollar investment to sell $1200 worth of product two years later? Which probably lasted NASA to the end of Apollo? Man, that's not good business sense.
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i'm thinking the application of the packwack probably would have speed this little farce up nicely.
I think they tend to discourage you using them on the doctors when they're not sorting your problems out fast enough. Something about an unsafe workplace environment I heard.
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I had a little bit to do with some members of the youth parliament in the late 1990s. The half-a-dozen or so that I met were mature, intelligent, responsible, diverse young people. They had debates in parliament that were considered, cultured, intelligent, and addressing exactly the issues affecting young people in our society.
Personally therefore I'm not only in favour of them being able to vote, I'm in favour of them running the country. Things would be a hell of a lot better than the power-hungry, immature twerps that we end up electing these days, who view parliament as some sort of sandpit battleground to be fought out through the media.
Like any age group you'll get a fair bunch of idiots, immature people, or people who are completely uninformed when it comes time to vote. I suspect though that they'll have the worst voting turnout in terms of percentage of eligible voters, and a lot of those ones will drop off.
And I'm not sure if being uninformed, idiotic, or immature are reasons to exclude voting anyway. There's plenty of potential in 16 and 17 year olds. The question really should be is there anything inherent to being 16/17 that should exclude you from making serious political decisions? I think the answer at that age is 'no'.
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Rents are determined by supply and demand. They go down when everyone can afford to buy their own home, and up when they can't. They could also drop if the number of houses were increased to the point that demand is satiated. At that point premium stock would be in demand and grotty old mouldy dungheaps wouldn't.
There are other factors than textbook free marketism. From memory, the accommodation supplement was paid as a proportion of rent paid. Which is all good, except it provided an encouragement to increase rents in the bottom end of the market. A proportion would get passed onto the accommodation supplement, and the rest onto the tenants.
Personally I'd put the government that sold off thousands of state houses at bargain basement prices well higher on the scumbag list than some rich landlords who bought them and have made big rental income, or massive capital gains since.