Posts by Idiot Savant
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Ruthanasia
Now we're talking. I raise you "Rogernomics" and "Revolution".
While I am no-doubt going to be suffering from a hefty-wallop of self-blindness (though at least I can acknowledge that), I find it difficult to see the level of sheer pooiness in the left's discourse. And the words the right would probably like to claim are poo-lables ("privatisation", "tax cuts for the rich", "inequality") are both well short of the frothing we see over there, and actual descriptions rather than sheer hyperbolic invective.
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the extreme left
You forgot the qualification "all three of them (and they're having a schism)".
Which is a roundabout way of saying that you should be comparing apples with apples. What's scary about the Kiwiblog right and associated poo-flingers is just how mainstream (for want of a better word) they've become. Whereas Marxist clades - the only people who use the language you gave as examples - are very much on the fringes of the left's conversations, trapped in their own little bubbles of ideological purity, schism, and denunciation (great example - involving apples, even - here).
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I'm looking forward to the Foreign Minister testing his.
Don't those things explode?
(Jet packs or foreign ministers - take your pick)
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Craig: Yes, unless they go to jail; its not a specified offence, you see.
As for Thatcher, I stand by every word of that. She's a criminal, who deserves to be reviled, not honoured with a state funeral when she dies. And given the depth of hatred there still is for her in the UK, she would probably be wise to take precautions to prevent people from taking their revenge after she's dead. These things happen to despots - and while the right love her, in reality Thatcher is as hated as any despot ever was.
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[Now if someone would like to explain to me why rape under the Crimes Act 1961 isn't one of the specifies sexual offences ineligible for clean-slating, I'd be a ver happy man]
To hazard a guess: teenagers. Which seems fair enough, when you think about it.
Meanwhile, I'm more interested in knowing why those persecuted for their sexuality pre-1986 are ineligible. Surely this is simply continuing their persecution?
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Maybe National should change its slogan to "vote for change! Elect the status quo!" ?
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Re: Nat's characterisation of offsets: emissions trading is the same, except that in addition to being able to pay people to cart your turds away, you can also pay people not to shit in the first place (whether they will accept depends on whether they can make more money by shitting). At which stage, the metaphor breaks down, because while we all need to shit, we don't need to drive SUVs or produce our electricity by burning coal.
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The bronze of elephants sitting on each other. I like that.
Actually, yes. I quite like it too. But they keep it very well hidden.
(For the curious, its called All Creatures Great - One Whale = Ten Elephants )
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correct me if I'm wrong, but if you cut down the pine trees before they rot, all that atmospheric carbon is turned into timber. Which doesn't get released back into the atmosphere, unless you've got a leaky home and your house rots.
Sure. But because no-one has a damn clue what happens to the wood, for accounting purposes, its treated as if it was all released the moment you cut it down.
This obviously overestimates emissions in the short term, but if it leads to people reducing them, then that's a Good Thing. And its seriously difficult to see any better way of doing it without introducing massive loopholes which will allow polluters to completely rort the system.
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Born and bred in Palmy
I've heard an awful lot of PN victims (palmers?) say that over the years, and I still can't understand why they think its something to be proud of. The place is a parochial, wretched little hole, that doesn't even have a giant fibreglass vegetable or corrugated iron footwear to call its own. Let alone culture, industry, or a decent cafe scene. Its seat of "higher learning" is most notable for doing strange things to sheep, while its architectural "highlight" is a concrete monstrosity that looks like a beached aircraft carrier. Its ambitions for the future have revolved around, alternatively, a casino (because that's what makes Auckland and Chch so great - the exploitation of people who can't do maths), a fake lake (because there aren't enough real ones), or the expropriation of New Zealand's sole surviving air force base to serve as a "regional transport hub" (good luck, when peak oil will push airfreight even further into the luxuries market). WTF is there to be proud of?