Posts by Kyle Matthews
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Don't forget, this is the argument National ran against Kiwisaver when it first began, that employer contributions ultimately came out of employee's pockets.
I view it really as private benefit and socialised costs.
All those people who sign up for kiwisaver are having the employer kick in. Those that aren't get no kiwisaver benefit from their employer, but are going to get less pay rise as those employers spread the kiwisaver costs over their whole workforce.
The lesson: sign up to kiwisaver if you're not already.
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I’d done my spiel about the way they’ll move in a breeding swarm- she said sadly, “You should build them a tunnel-”
It's not building the tunnel that's tricky, it's teaching the little fuckers to use it.
Nothing to sell if you’re giving out placebos, therefore no drug companies lining up to fund your research.
Well that's not true. Someone's selling those wrist band things for lots of money, I'm sure you could sell placebo pills for money as long as you didn't cross legislation and call them medicine. "Life enhancement pills" or something with a swanky brand name.
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I can even cite a personal instance, albeit a “backwards” one in terms of this topic: Mythbusters did an episode comparing drink driving and talking on a mobile while driving. Sure it was “fun” seeing the team get drunk but the eventual message – that talking on a mobile (something I’d done regularly) is almost as dangerous as driving drunk (something I was proud of having never done, even in my yoof) – actually did serve to educate me in a way no amount of heavy-handed “road safety” commercials would ever do.
Mythbusters however is a scientific-based show, seeking to answer questions through at least reasonable scientific methods. Pretty different from the "ooh we got some people to take some drugs and look what happened" news shock stories.
You know, I’m actually not so sure. Sabin was conspicuous by his absence in discussion of the LawComm review – and he really only needed to pick up the phone to get himself on Close Up.
I wonder if that's the result of his selection? The media might have decided that now he's "wearing colours" they'd have to bring in a labour or greenite, and it would have taken away from the more fact-based enquiry of the law commission report to have a few politicians yelling at each other?
Basically if you plan on taking drugs in your own home the state doesn’t care, providing the duties and taxes associated cover the health costs to keep you alive.
This may be a good libertarian argument, but to me it's a terrible argument for a society. The idea that because you only physically harm yourself, no other people are affected by the use and abuse of drugs is whacked. If you smoke three packs a day and die in your 40s, a bunch of people are missing out on 40 years of your life and all that brings. There's no good double-entry accounting for that.
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It’s a constant refrain from Australian friends who’ve relocated to NZ. I’ve not looked into it in any detail to know the causes or even if the anecdata is correct. Perhaps someone else has?
A TV show (was it Campbell Live) tracked a family for a year and put the results on TV - last week? They were talking about a 20% increase from a year ago to now with the same shopping list. That matches what my partner and I are finding when we go shopping as well. People talk about cheese being expensive, but we think meat is a worst.
Like others, I wish Working for Families had been mixed in with a benefit rise. For one thing, Working for familiies lifted the minimum income from a family working, so that silly argument that some people push that it's as attractive to be on the dole was now even less true.
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I told him about the website and he said “say no more” or words to that effect, pulled out his phone, made a call and handed me the phone saying “there you go, sort it out”.
Wait, you got one wish with an MP and leader of a political party, and you wasted it on "sort your web site out"? No world peace, cancer research, teachers in schools, doctors, nurses etc etc?
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I bought a large number of the Harbour Union CDs at the Wundy re-opening shindig.
How good is that? I listened to a couple of 30 second samples and couldn't get into it, but ran out of time to go back and pick some more.
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Isn't money that is invested in kiwi saver, available for investment? which is what the government needs at the moment.
We have yet to see details, but from what Key said the other day the overall investment isn't changing, just the government is putting less in, and expecting employers (and employees?) to pick up the difference. I'm not sure if there's less going into Kiwisaver, though obviously there may be some flow-on effects from the changes which lead to less/more people signing up.
Jan Logie I used to work with and hold in the higest regard
Was it Jan who used to drink about 2 litres of coca cola a day? The dodgy past of a green candidate!
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I will miss the end of perfectly compiled, beautifully packaged, and intelligently annotated compilations in a physical format as they become less and less viable to do.
Personally, I find it weird when someone plays one song I know, and then not the next song on the album. It's one of the reasons I don't like greatest hits albums. There's comfort in knowing that the song that you really like is next up, when you love all the songs on the album.
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But it seems the Hobbit thing is catching on.
It really is quite silly isn't it. I didn't agree with everything you said on the Hobbit dispute. And yet I agree with much of what you say about the Operation 8 "terrorists".
Either one or both of us is a class traitor, or it's not actually that easy to put everyone into a clearly defined political box and give them no independent thought.
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Oddly enough, I did look at it yesterday, and the instructions didn’t work for a modern Apple keyboard – no alt key. So it’s the backtick then retype the vowel …
If you're under Mac OS X, with the Maori keyboard chosen, I think they key command is `-a ("back apostrophe"-a). I'm currently on an iMac booted into Windows, so I can't test it.
i’ve responded to your defamation here
You don't want to spell his name consistently right or wrong?