Posts by Matthew Poole
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Angus, the hypocrisy on Act's part, if things play out as expected, will be in saying that referenda are good enough for keeping councils from raising rates but not good enough for stopping councils flogging off assets that they own on behalf of the rate-payers.
We all know that a core tenet of Act's beliefs is that councils shouldn't own anything at all, but that if they must own things it should be restricted to roads and such buildings are are necessary for the council to operate. Certainly they shouldn't be involved with ports, water supply, libraries (though Rodney's mum may well ensure we don't get deprived of those particular council assets), or any of a multitude of other fixed assets that Auckland's councils currently own. The big one, of course, being water. Rodney's on record as wanting water privatised, and that's why people are so terrified of letting a handful of his hand-picked apostles get absolute control of Auckland's water assets.
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And just to clarify why money isn't an "IOU", it's because fiat money isn't backed by anything. It has value because we all believe that it has value and because the government passes legislation to say that it has value. You can't redeem the money for anything by presenting it to the issuer, which is what an IOU actually represents: a promise to pay, not a means of payment.
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Given that that's what money is anyway, that's not too much difference.
huh? Money is legal tender, not an IOU. California doesn't issue money, it uses money issued by the Federal Reserve. If you have to call money an IOU, it's an IOU that's backed by the issuing bank. California doesn't have any issuing banks, ergo it's a really fucking huge difference since the IOUs aren't supported by anything other than the state's assets.
As for California's bankruptcy, I suspect people probably mean insolvency. That is, can't pay its bills as they fall due. If you were to liquidate the assets of the state, I think it'd probably be quite healthy. Plenty of prime real estate, lots of roads, etc. Bankruptcy is when liabilities exceed assets, and I really don't think California is that far in the red.
When you consider that California, were it to be split off from the US, would be the world's fourth-largest economy, it's pretty scary that they've fucked themselves right into such a massive hole. Gotta love it when you let self-interested folk get a hold of the purse strings. -
we may also find small groups of people who are genetically susceptible to poor driving in the coming years.
We've already found them. They're called teenagers. Fortunately, the genes mutate with age, as a consequence of the thing called maturation. But the howls of outrage if you try and suggest that the driving age should go to even 16, never mind 18 (or 20, which would be even better), make it unlikely that this group of demonstrably at-risk people will be kept from behind the wheels of lethal weapons.
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Agree with that stance Brian - will not ally myself with christians (or ANY religious group whatsoever)however-
In which case you're going to be leaving a lot of social problems well alone. Many causes are advanced by religious groups, and when it comes to penal reform the link with churches is as old as the concept itself.
That's actually a disturbingly blinkered view to have. Regardless of what you think of their beliefs, are you completely incapable of finding the points on which you share common ground and working together? I thought that kind of intolerance was one of the things that atheists claimed to find objectionable about organised religion.
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All I can really say is, commence frantic insertion of ditto marks throughout the thread. That's amazingly written, as one always expects of you, David. As others have said, thank you for making it. That includes thank you for not succeeding with your efforts to not make it!
My father didn't survive his stroke, 15 years ago in March this year. He's now been dead over half my life, which at the time felt like quite a surreal milestone to pass. Never any suggestion of recovery for him (life support discontinued 18 hours after he collapsed), so I know just how much these events are about luck - luck of timing, luck of the location of the bleed.
Kia kaha. I hope your body recovers to the extent to which your mind clearly has.
PS: You have my permission to dredge up those fantasies to which you alluded so many years ago on Usenet, if it'll help :P
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As for the computer timing, I thought that the point about it was that it was inconclusive and not particularly useful to either camp.
If the timing as reported to the initial trial was accurate, then David could have been home to turn the computer on on based on sightings of him. But once it came out that the watch used to estimate when it was turned on had an accuracy +/- roughly three minutes it was suddenly wide open. That was particularly sloppy work on the part of the police, since even in the mid-90s it was entirely possible to have digital watches that reported not just the minutes but also the seconds. I know that for a fact, because I'd had one for several years.
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That bit of Hansard is disgusting. No matter what kind of games Labour are playing around National's appointment of Rankin - and National have only themselves to blame because they appointed the silly bitch - to accuse people of "not caring" about child abuse is so far below that belt that Key should be thankful for parliamentary privilege.
As for the Bain article, he does a nice job of glossing over the fairly substantial doubtful elements. The computer timing was a huge hurdle for me, when so much hinged upon the time. Likewise the bloody footprint, since it's rather difficult to make a full-size footprint that's smaller than your own feet.
The better-made point is that the jurors sound like they weren't actually taking it seriously. I am curious as to why the judge didn't call out the ones who were reportedly writing notes to each other and giggling. Enforcing courtroom decorum is, after all, the judge's job, amongst other things. -
I felt the same way about the would-be Stadium New Zealand in Auckland -- although I'd have been inclined to add value with decent conference facilities
And were that to be proposed as a stand-alone concept, entirely divorced from the RWC, then it may well have stood up and become a reality. One of the biggest failings of the waterfront stadium idea was that it would have had to be completed inside five years, and that's starting with blank rolls of paper. No ifs, buts, or maybes, and absolutely, positively no extensions to the construction timeframe.
Buildings that have already been designed and will be built on solid ground take a couple of years, and that's the ones that aren't designed to be a big oval seating 60k people. The design can take that long again. The time period was so ridiculously compressed that it simply wasn't realistic.
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Much as I think the current facilities for cruise liners are woefully inadequate, and would like to see the wharf opened up as a real public space, I can think of better things to do with all that Auckland Region money. Like putting it into a proper integrated ticketing system, now that National have fucked us over and made it unlikely that we'll get a proper system that'll scale for future use.
The RWC is, largely, a Central Government wet-dream. They can pay for it, since they're busy taking money away from other things that Auckland really, desperately needs.