Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Yes. I've never been squeamish about these things, but PCP and datura never seemed like a good bet.
There was a teenager in the mid-80s who had (tea I think) datura and walked off the cliff at Murrays Bay, just a couple of blocks from my house.
Anything that removes inhibitions enough that you fall to your death after walking off a cliff, can come off the list of 'a safe high' I think.
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That still includes Scientology
Yes, but if we rule that one out, we probably have to rule out "Jedi", which is at least as valid, and there's some 30,000 of them in NZ as of last census.
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I can entirely see why John Key stepped in and agreed to this 'compromise':
1. He's been sidelined by the debate which has really been between Bradford on the left, somewhat supported by Labour and smacking opponents, and Burrows etc, supported by fundamentalists and smacking supporters. He wasn't in the game because it was a case of a plague on both sides. He needed to get in the game because it's one of the major political issues of the year, and he's the new leader of a major party who isn't at the forefront of it.
2. He needed to be in the game in the middle as the 'sensible alternative' of 'middle nz'. He can now go out on the campaign trail and say he saved ordinary nzers from getting prosecuted from becoming criminals for 'just being loving parents', while recognising the problem of child abuse and not allowing parents who go too far to get off.
I don't think the compromise did anything at all, and I don't support him, but politically I think he'll do fine out of it. Labour got tagged as imposing 'nanny state', were unable to distance themselves from Sue Bradford enough, and supported laws that '80% of the electorate are opposed to'.
Labour's already had their feet to the fire for a whole heap of time on this, the damage has been done already. If I was Key's political advisor I would have told him to do exactly this - sweep in at the 11th hour and look mainstream, sensible, cross-party, and Prime Ministerial. Heaps of people who were part of that 80% will be looking at him in a better light now.
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Yes, well done you guys.
I've previously enjoyed the cricket world cup, so I think it's an entirely workable idea, but it really was a shocker this time around. Half-a-dozen interesting games, most of them involving Ireland. The only close, exciting matches that had any impact on anything other than statistics were Ireland knocking out Pakistan, and Bangladesh knocking out India. Neither of the semis, or the final came anywhere near being an exciting spectacle.
Bad atmosphere, no crowds, terrible viewing times for antipodean sorts, and a NZ flop after looking promising for the most part. Shane Bond and Styris did very well, I can't think of many other NZ players that got beyond 'OK', and a few were well below that. The less said about the last bit of the final the better.
The test match tournament is an excellent idea though. You could even put the two pools in different parts of the world - one pool in Australia, one in South Africa, then the finals could be in one of those two, or even in a third country.
Of course, the inability of the ICC to stage tournaments where there are two events going on simultaneously, would mean that a two pool round-robin between 10 teams, with semi-finals and a final would take some 90 days.
Or I dunno, we could have cricket on two channels at once, just as an idea.
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I'm a dog owner of a still fairly young dog. It's proven to be more difficult than I originally thought before we got him. We've done all the right things (chopping off hits bits, registration, puppy school), but he's still too full on when meeting strangers, and we're going to have to take him back to school for more training. He tends to jump up and scare people, and while he's not massive, he's well above 'medium' and it's not good. I live out of town so we don't get many visitors, so he's not socialised enough with people.
I find the idea of owners letting their dogs wander really bizarre. We put a fair bit of work into securing our property so that he can't get out of either the front or back yard. Anything else, no matter how good your dog is, is irresponsible. Round the dogs up once, and charge the owners the hundred dollars or so to get them back. If you get the dogs a second time wandering, clearly the people aren't up to owning dogs at present, and the dogs should go the pound.
As for unregistered dogs. Seriously. Apart from anything else, this is people avoiding the cost of important services for dogs - parks etc. If more people paid that, perhaps I'd have one within ten miles of my house.
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Well I for one would like to see the spot light on Shane Jones
On paper he seems like a prospect for our first Maori PMOur first Maori PM was Carroll I believe. He was Deputy Prime Minister about a century ago, but was Prime Minister for some months while the top chap was off on a boat overseas.
The piece of history that is up for grabs is first elected Maori PM, much like Helen Clark was first elected women PM, Shipley was first women PM.
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John Key has called a halt to relitigating history and said National's vision for the future has three themes – economy, education and environment.
Good to see that National's policy priorities are apparently chosen on the basis of alliteration. Lucky 'climate' could be converted into 'environment' or he really would have been stumped for a third.
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I just went and had a look at nz.general - it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, although it does seem that the topic generation is in the hands of the loonies: Stuff like "When will NZ stand up to the Muslims like Australia has?"
Christ, is still up and running? How very 1995. Things online really don't die do they?
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I still get blank stares when I say the word "wiki".
Which rugby league player holds the record for most number of team appearances?
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But on the long drive home after the Easter break, one of my five year olds obviously spent lot of time thinking, and thinking, and thinking. As we were driving out of Wanganui, in a nice demonstration of inference, half worried and half puzzled, she said, "Mum, if the Easter bunny is really just your parents, then maybe Santa Claus isn't true, and it's really just your parents."
Oh dear. There goes the last magical Christmas.
My ex told our son that Santa Claus wasn't real when he was five. Some sort of philosophical anti-believing in magic thing. I mean really.
I was able to con him back into it however, I think by asking him "do you really think that Dad would make stuff up?" and letting him draw his own conclusions. So much so that he moved the cookies and milk to the side of the fireplace so that Santa didn't trip over them when he came down our (tiny flue) chimney. It's important that Santa leaves crumbs on the plate, as evidence that he's been.
I could tell some of them that we are building a bridge to the US, or a flying fox from Mt Cook to Christchurch and they would believe me.
The flying fox would be sweet. Can we have that, please? Though pushing the 'fox' back up to the top for the next kid would be a real bitch.