Posts by papango
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Hard News: Hate and guns, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
But I’m seeing people who are glomming onto “a self-hating Muslim queer did it” with indecent haste (present company very much excluded) because it’s a narrative that neatly side-steps hard and ugly questions about homophobia and gun culture.
For me, if he was a self hating gay man, that actually makes the questions about homophobia even more stark and pressing. Because a gay child doesn't grow up into a person who hates themselves so much they commit the mass murder of LGBT people in a vacuum. It's an 'it takes a village' situation. A village where homophobia is not just accepted, but encouraged.
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Polity: Is being a tax haven worth it?, in reply to izogi,
You'd think. I suspect that it was done as part of the weekly meetings with officials or as an item in the regular weekly report. Should be there, could be tough to get.
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Polity: Is being a tax haven worth it?, in reply to Alfie,
he’s currently the only member of the government support team actively criticising our tax haven status.
As if he didn't have eight years as Minister of Revenue to do something about it.
I do not buy for a second that he wasn't informed by IRD of the situation with foreign trusts (and it's worth noting that he is claiming he 'can't recall' any advice, which is not the same thing as not receiving it, or as rejecting briefings before they arrive). It's convenient for him to lay the blame with civil servants who can't dispute him.
The tax haven review was on the IRD action plan in November 2013, and an IRD report to Ministers from August 2013 states "However, our foreign trust rules continue to attract criticism, including claims that New Zealand is now a tax haven in respect of trusts" It'd be a hell of a thing was an issue that only came to IRD's attention after Peter Dunne left office in June of that year.
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Polity: Flaccid balloon, mite-ridden bees, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
No, no. It's not a back-up. It's where the G-G lives in Auckland. And also where we officially stow the Queen if she ever shows up.
It was gifted to the country in the 1960s and it's actually pretty modest as far as these things go. It doesn't have the reception rooms and ball rooms and whatnot that the Wellington one does.
It's got a really nice garden, though. It'd be nice if they opened that up a bit, you can go for a guided tour, but it'd be nicer if it was part of the domain.
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OnPoint: H4x0rs and You, in reply to Russell Brown,
My guess is that it was all her own work. I have interacted (I was going to say worked, but that's really the wrong word) with her when she put some OIA requests into the department I work for. She's not the sharpest crayon in the drawer.
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OnPoint: The Source, in reply to Dylan Reeve,
You'll laugh (or cry, or both), but we actually already have one. The New Zealand National Cyber Security Centre is an actual thing. It's got strategy documents and forms and an info security manual that runs to 297 pages. You'll be shocked, shocked!, to learn that they are ignoring this and hoping nobody asks what it is they do again or why we're paying for it.
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OnPoint: The Source, in reply to Ben Masters,
How bitter do you have to be, when finding a breach in “national security”, that, upon realizing you weren’t going to be paid for your “troubles” you felt the need to go behind the back of MSD and break this story.
I'm not really convinced by that to be honest. It looks to me like he asked at MSD and got a pretty slack response. Which doesn't surprise me because the chances that he was actually allowed to speak to someone in IT who understood the problem are nil, at best. They didn't think they had a problem and they weren't interested in listening to someone tell them they did.
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OnPoint: MSD's Leaky Servers, in reply to Joeseph Bloggers,
a local admin login to any government terminal in NZ
That's what makes me sure you are not on the level. There is no such thing as a 'government terminal'. Having worked in various departments, it's a miracle if the department is able to consider itself a whole in terms of IT. The systems don't match up even when we really want them to, there is certainly no single government system and they are in no way linked.
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Field Theory: Man Moments, in reply to Tristan,
It's not just one photo. It's also the text. And the other photos, the way the men are named individuals and the women are swappable ornaments, that sort of thing.
You don't think "our aspiring drinkers - those in the super-premium end of modern manhood" is alienating to women? Because I can't see any interpretation of that that doesn't specifically and deliberately exclude me as a customer.
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Field Theory: Man Moments, in reply to Scott A,
And me, too. I'm not a huge beer drinker, but I always like to have some good ones on hand for my Dad and other visitors and to take when I go out. I honestly had no idea that my lady parts would curdle Moa beer, I thought that was just old timey milk. I will of course immediately switch brands and pass my sincere apologies on to Moa, I would never have bought any of it had I only known my purchase was detrimental to the brand.