Posts by Kyle Matthews
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I don't mind the government offering free contraception of various types to beneficiaries. Beneficiaries get offered a lot of things - WINZ grants for clothes and appliances, cheap loans, one off grants for special needs. Something that gave them family planning options would be good as well.
To me it really depends how it is presented. Options good, any compulsion of bonuses/penalties for doing so.... not.
-
Yup. Red Group Retail has debts of $50-75 million and breached banking covenants back in July. Of $25 million in annual earnings, $9 million went on debt servicing. Sheesh.
That's not a very long term financial model is it? I'm mortgaged up the wazoo and I don't pay that % of my income in debt servicing, and I'm not in a competitive market where my income isn't guaranteed.
-
Who said I was going to let it roam? We have a backyard with a trampoline and everything.
You put a bison in your backyard, you ain't gonna have a trampoline long. Those things are huge.
This is not "lifestyle feminism": it's my one and only life, with feminism and style in it, inextricable elements of its warp and weft.
I'm mentally underlining this sentence. Hurrah.
-
It seems like talking about the definitions IS one of the real problems, so ironically it is worth talking about. But yes, this is not a new debate.
I (and I'm in Gio's camp, I think feminism has some identity in it) think it's worth exploring why the debate about who is included as a 'feminist' comes about. To me it's a way of distancing 'ourselves' from our gendered past/current/future where patriarchy wasn't the best. "I'm not like that, I'm a feminist." No feminist is a perfect feminist, but the word doesn't have meaning to me if it includes everyone. There's enough debate about "I'm a woman but I'm not a feminist" without adding in the other half.
I also feel it's a distraction from the actual issues, what's the problem with (for example) men not being able to be feminists? Does the work change in any substantial way? Are we sulking because we're not getting the recognition we feel we deserve from women for no longer grinding them down as a gender?
One is a cheap and tacky stunt that will turn some men on whether the participant intends to or not, the other is an act of freedom and self-expression that is more likely to intimidate men than turn them on.
On top of Megan's response, feminist women aren't entitled to find turning men on as an act of freedom and self-expression? I'd imagine quite a few women feel empowered by their sexual influence over men, and I'm sure we can find a way for that to be feminist.
-
It’s what being a conservative is all about. Especially when the population is aging (median age is nearly 37, up 2.2 years in the last decade, according to Granny), and that means more voters who want to jerk their knees and rail about the queers ruining marriage.
Depends if people get more conservative as they get older, or if society is generally moving away from conservatism, but people largely retain their political beliefs from an age in their life. Probably someone has researched the extent to which it's one or the other?
Like that family first survey. I chose to interpret this:
New Zealand should develop and enforce higher standards for TV, film, radio and advertising content including levels of violence, sexual content and objectionable language.
As meaning, the violence, sex and swearing on Tv film and radio should be really good quality, not just cheap unrealistic shit.
I'm pretty unclear how the emissions trading scheme does, or doesn't, put families first.
The slippery slope argument of gay marriage -> polygamy -> incest -> beastiality implies that it's only lack of marriage that's holding these people back. I can see it clearly now: "Well I want to sleep with my horse, but not until we're married. Got to do these things right".
Our laws in this area really date back to the idea that sex only happens in marriage, so marriage is how we control who has sex with each other. And it's been turned around now that people have sex married or not, so that the laws around marriage are about protecting a social institution and ignoring that trying to stop people having sex was half the point of them in the first place.
-
You’re talking to someone who once woke in hospital and was surprised – nay, alarmed – to find that a plastic tube has been inserted in his penis. I am hearing you.
I refuse to believe that this is physically possible. A tube would never go up there. It's a conspiracy that Russell has joined of even greater scale than Santa Claus.
(actually I was watching Deadwood the other day, the scene where the doctor shoves what basically amounts to a small crowbar up a guy's penis to push around the stones in the bladder. A tube would be fucking luxury compared to how that felt through the TV)
-
I had to go through the rigmarole of WINZ each week, and being sent on courses I was either (a) overqualified for or (b)almost entirely irrelevant . I could understand their point of view (after all, I was technically “still on” the dole), but it was still frustrating to say the least.
I had the coincidence of receiving a phone call on my cell phone to offer me my first 'real job' while in the WINZ office with my case worker getting my unemployment benefit. She seemed to be quite happy to sign me on for about 4 weeks until the job started. Good timing :)
-
I think there is an immediate and pressing need for a Sufjan Stevens love-thread. What a fucking amazing show.
*sulks*
(my partner has offered to take me to Elton John at the new Dunedin stadium as compensation for not seeing Sufjan. This would just add to my pain)
-
This is supposed to be the money spinner for the country in 2011, fucking pay the people working on it. Instead of exploiting their time and effort by using some imagined rub off of the feelgood effect.
Well for starters, the RWC is going to lose many millions of dollars, and is being underwritten by the government. So more money to pay people will mean we lose more.
Secondly, all major sporting events use volunteers like this for a number of roles. The recent Olympics had tens of thousands of them. Speaking as a frequent sporting event volunteer, people know what they're getting in return for volunteering, and it won't just be the t-shirt.
-
I think Craig's implying that you're basically saying Key looked "a bit gay, and not in a good way".
Nah, not reaching at all Kyle Matthews – it was a sad-arse attempt to appeal to the rugby crew – who may not even have read/heard/seen anything about the asset sales stuff.
We're hosting the RWC here this year, and we're not expecting the PM to do some mindless media opportunities on the bandwagon?
On the list of things that I don't like about Key, the fact that he's sometimes domestically a bit dorky doesn't even make the list. I was quite glad to see him make that appearance with a couple of drag queens a few years ago. Model the RWC uniforms? Good on you.
It's part of his character as our PM, and I think most NZers quite like it, and I don't see it doing any harm. He's been about as up front as you can be with asset sales, he's even given NZers an opportunity to say no by putting it after election. There isn't exactly any "these aren't the droids you're looking for" going on via RWC appearances.