Posts by TracyMac
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Blendle sounds great. Yes, international, please! I do most of my news reading on the Guardian, but I do troll thru WashPost and NY Times reasonably regularly. It'd be nice not to get the whinges without paying the full subscription.
I've been enjoying Vox and Narratively, and I've found that the quality of Buzzfeed articles - because some of their long-form stories are truly excellent - is in inverse proportion to the clickbaitiness of the headline.
Now if only Spotify would start paying reasonable sums.... I think I'm going to cancel my subscription, since the money obviously doesn't benefit the kind of mainly-NZ (smallish) artists I want to support.
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Hard News: To have a home, in reply to chris,
I won't keep banging the drum, but here's an encouraging story from just today: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11509633
:-)
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Hard News: To have a home, in reply to chris,
If she's gone past the rubbish trial period, then you can't be fired for discussing your employment terms and conditions.
No sick pay is illegal. No holiday pay is illegal, except in limited instances of your truly being a casual worker, in which case you must get a holiday loading on your hourly rate. You must have a reasonable opportunity for a rest break, but this is a bit industry-dependent. For example, restaurant kitchens can be a bit useless for breaks. But not factory or most service work. It is illegal to fail to deduct PAYE or pay it to IRD.
I suggest talking to the Unite Union (or Service Workers). I personally would be also cutting straight to the chase and phoning the Employment Ministry on 0800 20 90 20, to find out her rights. She should explain that she is worried about losing her job if she approaches the employer directly. The union will be good for support and advocacy.
Please check out media reports of successful employer prosecutions. There are plenty, including a few employers who are relatively recent migrants themselves, and who were perhaps seen as "helping" their compatriots, when in fact they are fully aware of their obligations, and are simply ripping off the more vulnerable.
While our employment rights have been seriously eroded, there is still a core that remains, and which is actionable. Not just if you have fancy lawyers.
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What Lucy said. While Labour may not be as bad as some, they're hardly leaders in immigration policy - at least not of the welcoming kind.
And if you think this site is vehemently anti-Labour, you're mistaken. The mark of maturity is to be able to take "you could do better" criticism appropriately.
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Red Peak was my fave out of the 40. Distinctive, strong, proper use of colour, and easy enough to draw! And as Toby says, it looks like a flag … rather than a logo. That said, it’d lend itself as a design element of things like sporting uniforms really well.
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Heh, I'm glad I wasn't the only one to rant on FB about the constitutional implications of changing the flag (none). With extra bonus link to the Flags Act and observation that I doubted the Ministry of Culture would be put in charge of anything constitutionally significant. I actually got some "thank yous" from that.
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Welp, Nandor is certainly saying it for me right now: http://nandor.net.nz/2015/09/02/getting-our-flag-off-a-weetbix-box/
As for weirdo conspiracy theories going around on FB right now - somehow changing it endorses the TPP, and the first referendum is a "write in" option according to the RSA - what is up with all that?
It's a general thing on FB at present - people expressing their valid concerns by "sharing" some pre-baked nonsense that's a pack of lies. Certainly undermines their arguments, and lefties seem to be particularly prone to it right now.
Probably a symptom of distrust of the media, and getting all one's political news off FB. Bleh. (Actually, I get alerted to plenty of good stuff via FB, but as an authoritative source? Nup nup nup.)
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Hard News: Not yet standing upright, in reply to Stephen R,
Yeah, I like the Tino Rangatiratanga flag, but I think it'd be odd to use it without a lot of consultation, since we don't have what it was intended to represent.
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I liked the triangular/maunga one as well as those above. And I agree that all of the final submissions look more like indifferently-designed corporate logos than proper flags.
The koru design is the least offensive (although not great, as Ian points out, but too much black for a national flag. Some black is fine.
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Polity: New Zealand and the TPP: “Or…, in reply to Don Christie,
While unions are far from perfect - look at Australian corruption - why do you seem to think modern unions are incapable of collaboration (they patently aren't), and how do you think we got to the point where workers are sometimes deemed worthy of being collaborated with?