Posts by Stephen Judd
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"I'm particularly dubious about any peace activists having anything to answer for."
Me too. My bet is that the so-called peace activists will turn out to be dodgy hangers-on who used the phone in a co-operatively run office, hung out and drank coffee in the lounge, or something like that.
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BTW, isn't it Tam__e__ Iti?
I wouldn't be so sanguine, either, Che. If nutbars succeed in doing real harm, even if they are not popular in their own group, they can still create or increase friction between that group and other groups. They can inspire previously unmotivated nutbars, in their own group and in others. That's one of the frightening things about extremists, that they can suck people into their view.
Yeah, it's not very likely, but many a feud starts with a small slight.
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Hmmm, thinking about the ethnic composition of the NZ armed forces most military training camps for Maori are probably run in the open by the Army :)
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Posters here whose first instinct is to trash the police might just want to give some thought about what the consequences for NZ would be if a militia was allowed to set off an armed sectarian conflict.
We'd have people like you demanding we give every jackbooted wannabe thug in a uniform a blank cheque to do whatever they wanted with no public scrutiny or oversight?
I don't want armed sectarian conflict OR jackbooted wannabe thugs doing whatever they wanted with no public scrutiny or oversight.
How does that fit into your dichotomous world view, I/S?
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The quote attributed to Edmund Burke springs to mind "first they came for the communists"
*cough* *splutter*
There weren't any communists when Edmund Burke was around. Burke died in 1797, Marx wrote Das Kapital in 1867.
Also Burke was as crusty a conservative as you could get and I think would have been greatly in favour of rounding up troublemakers.
The quote you are thinking of is probably from Pastor Martin Niemoeller. ObWikiRef
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Sure, there are pedestrian idiots who endanger themselves. Nonetheless, Auckland is needlessly dangerous to pedestrians. Those things can both be true. And I'm not buying any argument along the lines of "nothing for you whining pedestrians until you shape up."
What I see is that in any given stretch of AK, the needs of people from far away to transit through are not well balanced with the needs of people who live and work there.
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"Auckland can be a rather pedestrian unfriendly city."
Amen. Great chunks of it seem to have been deliberately designed to kill you. Eg, the intersection of Ellerslie Main Highway and Gt South Road. Watch the old people coming back with the groceries try to cross that...
"the number of pedestrians who cross roads and don't use the cross walks in AK city is scary"
Well, all I can say is that there are far too many stretches where there are multiple lanes to cross and the pedestrian crossing is a long way away.
In the end you have to design systems around human behaviour. They are far more flexible (before they're built, anyway!) than our basic inclinations (eg taking the shortest route from A to B.
Another example: Gt South Road between the Harp of Erin and the motorway on-ramp. Every day you can see office workers from the two office parks on the motorway side risk death crossing four lanes of traffic as they try to get to the food places on the other side. Or Symonds St likewise. There are no islands to stand on in the middle and the crossings are a long, long way apart.
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The return of the prodigal Banks
Had us pulling our hair out in hanks
His commitment to cars-es
And startling faux pas-es
Were electoral candy to cranks. -
"John Ralston Saul"
JRS would probably also point out that the ascendancy of the professional managerial class, who in most cases no longer have any first-hand knowledge of the activities they "manage", has something to do with this, and illustrate this with a dense, periodic exposition of the decline of American industrial prowess as an inverse function of the rise of the managerial priesthood, only he would work Voltaire into it, and would do it in a sentence even longer, and more tortured, than this one.
"the price of protest is incredibly high."
I noticed the Herald's Sideswipe paid tribute to an Auckland rail announcer here and here. As soon as I read those kind reports from readers I thought "that poor bastard's going to get the sack if they don't shut up."
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OK. One business in Auckland I really miss is Icoco coffee in Royal Oak.
1. They remembered my name and said hi every time. OK, keeping loyalty cards in a box at the counter so you learn customers' names is a bit of a trick, but it's a nice trick.
2. Good for the occasional free coffee if you are a regular.
3. Counter staff keen to yak and talk shit if the place isn't too busy, unlike many places where they are too cool for you, just cos you're wearing tracksuit pants, jeez.
4. Playpen with toys to contain the sprogs
5. Really, really good coffee beans. I would buy no other in Auckland.
6. Jose knows everyone. Not often there, but remembers details from conversations you had two months ago. He is fabulous, and he is an accomplished master in the art of cheesecake.In the event that Icoco open in Wellington, and can keep their fine qualities, I will be first in line with my nose against the door.