Posts by Tom Semmens
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I had a good look at at the iPad. I want the device mainly for WiFi web browsing on the couch in front of the telly, email, movies and above all as an e-book reader.
Once again, Apples arrogant pricing policies have put me off - $200 to upgrade from 16GB to the 32GB that might make the bloody thing useful?? Steve Jobs can fuck right off!!
I am going to wait for an Android 2 based device. It'll be based on open standards, won't tie me to Apples shitty apps stores and probably come with a -*gasp* - USB port.
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if people use public toilets and cemeteries more than rugby stadiums we should spend more on them
What a pointlessly stupid assertion to make, but one which to this (Auckland) observer kinda sums up the unreasonably miserly mindset of those who opposed the new Dunedin stadium.
Which isn't to say there might not have been good arguments against a stadium, just that the opponents of it seem to me to be a remarkably bitter and small minded bunch.
As for the decline of rugby - my home province is Hawke's Bay, and I see no evidence of this down there in terms of audience, but in participation I detect our now very class riven society rearing its ugly head, with soccer becoming the fashionable amateur sport de jour for Mummies little darlings, and league and rugby being seen increasingly as a career option for the rest.
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I caught the guy next door taking photos from his lounge window of my girlfriend as we waited on the veranda for a cab. When I asked him about this, he refused to talk to me, went inside his house, and called the police to report my car was illegally parked.
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Cue another hissy fit from McCully.
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The yellow card - the Springboks have shown a surprising level of foolishness around foul play these past two tests. He did it right in front of the referee almost as if he was challenging the referee’s authority. The referee had no choice but to tell him who was boss. My view is player goes from fresh and boundlessly fit at the beginning of his career, then as he gets a bit older and a bit slower cunning and experience keeps him in the hunt, then, imperceptibly at first, cunning becomes dirty and experience becomes just old.
Despite all the euphoria over the All Black wins - and they are fine wins indeed - I am still uneasy. I am not sure if the style we are playing is a RWC tournament winning style. All I see is the same coaching panel playing the same sort of "total" rugby and heading for the same sort of ignominious exit at the hands of a negative, penalty kicking, stifling defensive effort as the last few RWC's.
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So I was both a drug smuggler and a terrorist?
Sounds like they had you as one of those people who illegally download movies.
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I’d say the pot growing aspect of their lives was merely peripheral to a far more lethal mindset.
in the case of Molenaar, a cop going for his evening jog smelt pot from Molenaar's house, and this was the immediate catalyst for the routine raid that followed.
In this case, the police were looking for someone else, got a whiff of pot and realised they had happily stumbled upon some serious dope growing whilst persuing their routine inquiries.
The common thread here is the police don't seem to take pot raids seriously. If an officer in either case had spotted buckets marked "HCI" and got a strong chemical smell they would have backed off (I note one officer in Christchurch was shot escaping out a window, one presumes therefore he was inside the house) immediately and initiated the full blown AOS/decontamination bizzo.
One would have thought that in the wake of the Napier siege police procedures would have changed, but clearly they have not. My guess is they haven't changed because to do a full scale call out and cautious entry for every whiff of pot they smell would be completely impractical, and simply serve to highlight the ubiquity of marijuana use in this country. The thing is though, five officers have been killed or wounded DURING "ROUTINE" POLICE RAIDS ON DOPE GROWING OPERATIONS.
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The cost so far of busting small-time pot growers: Two police officers and one police dog killed, three police officers seriously wounded, and armoured vehicles on the streets.
What a victory for law and order.
Whatever the disease everyone here is trying to prevent, the cure is worse.
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To be honest, Tom, I don't give a shit if Deaker was "setting up" Haden. He's a grown-up who has to take responsibility for his actions, and their consequences.
I disagree about your lack of interest in Murray Deaker. Deaker is as big a hypocrite as anyone he seeks to derride with anti-PC tirades.
Deaker professes to be Haden's mate - Murray Deaker is a man who has made his career running around preaching about homely old-time Kiwi virtues like mateship, accountability and honesty but he has come out of this looking like a mercenary creep who would sell his mate for 3 points in the ratings.
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The more I look at Party Central, the more I am convinced Key announced the idea off the top of his head at the "opening" of the wharf, with little thought going into a politically expedient announcement designed with a 24 hour news cycle in mind.
Probably a more competent minister than McCully would have taken the PM's burblings to the audience and "investigated" it, before quietly dropping the idea a few months later on a Friday afternoon.
As for Haden - he is entirely entitled to freely express his opinions, God knows they are shared by enough of his fellow New Zealanders.
But if Andy Haden can't understand that when you are appointed in an official capacity as an ambassador you should moderate your public utterances is entirely his own fault.
Murray Deaker was doing his outraged old blokey thing routine about the "PC" brigade stitching up his "mate" on his Sunday show - but Deaker then also frankly admitted he got Haden onto his show because he says stupid shit that gets him his ratings. So in other words, Deaker knew exactly what he is doing. He set up Haden for the second time, knowing that all he had to do was hand good l' boy Andy the rope.
With friends like Deaker, Haden doesn't need enemies.