Posts by Luke Williamson
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Oh, also meant to say that I voted for Kakapo. Always loved the idea of a giant, flightless parrot that snoozes all day then stalks about the bush at night making booming calls.
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Does that actually make sense?
I think I might have stopped watching television subconsciously to avoid having to learn new dazzling acronyms and gatherings of letters.
Does anyone else find themselves lost in all this?
I'm reminded of Rip Torn's line in the Larry Sanders Show:
"My television goes up to 13 like a normal person."
Quite! After 15 years of the same 20" old-style telly, I've started shopping around for a new LCD screen. But by the time you try to figure out which has Freeview built in, which doesn't, why, what's HD and what's full HD, and how you can try and future-proof yourself for these things like internet TV and pay per view etc. etc. I get very tempted to just give up and go to the library for another book.
Is there anywhere on-line that gives a simple breakdown of what is available now and what is coming up, and the implications? Or is it all just changing too fast? -
I don't think scoring - that's so 1980s computer games. It should be based around "achievements" so everyone gets to be a winner.
Like achievement standards in NCEA? Students could get credits towards their degrees based on their performance. It could be a paper in the Sociology Dept - Undie 101. It's coming together nicely.
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Thanks BenWilson. That's more like it. To coin that obnoxiuos phrase, "We need to work smarter, not harder". We already have a whole pile of kids who want to have an annual riot so let's make something useful out of it. We could fly in young tourists who want to join in direct from anywhre in NZ or the world. It could be big! The police could invite police from other countries to come and try out their tactics. Some sort of scoring system maybe?
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What annoys me is that the police never do these things properly. They need to use the Undie 500 as a training exercise for new recruits and old haters - lots of police! Encourage the Undie 500 and herd them all into Castle Street. Then seal the whole place off and go in with riot gear, tear gas, pepper spray, water cannons, batons, boots and maybe a bit of speed. Beat the crap out of anyone who gets in the way until the police meet in the middle, then beat the crap out of anyone left on your way back out again. Don't arrest anyone or charge anyone so no careers are destroyed. The next year, anyone who joins the Undie 500 knows what they're signing up for. Police riot training. Possible reality TV rights available.
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Perhaps Russell you could ask Larry Baldock if he could put all his funding into something productive for families at risk rather than advertisements and printed pleas for the right to continue to hit children. Rough calculation over dinner last night: $10 million to run referendum = 400 half time ($25k per annum) "family helpers" who could spend a couple of hours each week just going to visit at risk families to check how things are going, offer budgeting and parenting advice, help out with whatever is making life difficult for them. Add to that the amount spent by Baldock, McCroskie, et al, and you've got some serious assistance going on. Naive, I know but our kids seemed to see the logic - once I'd bashed some sense into them.
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Yeah but I wanted to sulk. Anyway, I should be more careful but I have to admit that I was unaware of that particular trait. In my defence, the word usurer was coined before it became unfortunately associated with Jews so I plead innocence. However, I also plead guilt as usury is in fact the charging of interest on loans and I believe that JK made his fortune as a currency trader. Strictly speaking that makes me a cad and a liar.
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Kerry, that's what I was trying to say but I was too busy taking anti-semitic shots at JK and not staying on thread.
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Noted Craig. It was purely a "sneer" at his past as a currency dealer. I guess it does come with baggage and I have no idea about JKs heritage. I hope that the message in my post was a little more elevated in urging our political leaders to see the potential in Maori seats rather than the drawbacks.
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What pees me off is that having the Maori seats is always portrayed as a negative thing by Hide, Key et al. Basically because they don't see money in it. Something that makes NZ unique in the world is our (albeit tentative and paranoid) relationship with Maori and things Maori. The seats on a Greater Auckland Council are another wonderful opportunity to embrace what is good and creative and productive about Maoridom. As with the knee-jerk reaction we went through with the Foreshore and Seabed Act, this won't just go away - it is delayed until another day. The problem with having a usurer as a Prime Minister is that he has to have advisers to make up for his own lack of imagination and innovation. When the adviser is Rodney Hide, who has no purpose in life other than to demonstrate how f@*king stupid the majority of voters in Epsom are, then you are not going to make much progress on seats for Maori. I would be surprised if there are still no Maori seats by the time Greater Aucks gets to its second election but I'm always surprised when it comes to how narrow the view of this country's future is from our leading lights.