Posts by Matthew Poole
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Totally off-topic, I reckon the new NZ passports look cool.
Fully. I'm really gutted that they're not coming in until the middle of next year, though. My passport expired last year, and with a measly five-year life (bastards!) I'm not going to get one too much before I'm going to need it. But odds are that I'll need one for work next year before the new ones come out, so now I'm tossing up between getting a new passport now, so that it'll expire that much sooner and I can get a new one quicker, or waiting in the hope that I won't have to jump the ditch before the new ones are available.
-
Ambassadorial appointments don't bother me so much, but it would be A Good Thing if the New Zealand Government decided that treaties are the business of the house, rather than the prerogative of an unelected executive. Like the ability to set an election date, this is another anti-democratic FPP hang-up that both Labour and National are quite happy to hold on to.
You mean like in Australia, where even a trade treaty as utterly ruthless and devastating as AUS-FTA can be rammed through over the top of objections from elected representatives? Yeah, fuck that.
The counter to giving the entire Legislature power over concluding things like trade treaties is that you end up like the Yanks, with FTAs getting shot down because they don't pander adequately to the needs of the lesser weevil farmers of Lower Bumfuck, or they pander too much to the lesser weevil farmers but not enough to the greater weevil farmers. Fuck that, too.
Speaking of the gummint of the day setting election dates, can you point me to a country that has proportional representation and has a fixed election date? A quick look at the likes of the UK, Australia, and Germany, shows that they all have government-set election dates. The Italians and the Japanese obviously do, because they like changing governments as often as they change their underwear. The US looks to be the anomaly, not the rule, and that's helped by their strong two-party, non-proportional system of government. As soon as you have to achieve coalitions to form a government you're vulnerable to losing motions of confidence. That means that you cannot have a fixed election date and a proportional system of representation, unless you're prepared to have a powerless government hanging on for, potentially, years until the next election date is reached. And fuck that, too.
-
Trucks smash the road up real fast, and are de facto subsidised by other users.
Yeah, but the general populace are happy with that. Were you living under a rock on the day of the truckie protest? </rant>
If I, as a cyclist, were to receive a true accounting based on costs of providing roading, I'd get a hefty check, while the trucking companies would go broke.
Well, as an erstwhile cyclist, now train user, I'm in an even better position :P
You're right, of course. Cyclists do less damage to the roads than the weather does, never mind motor vehicles. But heaven forbid that we encourage people to use bicycles. That'd just hinder SUVs and other worthwhile forms of personal transport. -
I want a city that takes cycling from the cyclists (spandex wearers) and gives it back to the people (wearing normal clothes and going at a reasonable pace).
What's "a reasonable pace"? I wear semi-normal clothes (sports clothing, but not spandex), and easily hit 40-45km/h on the flat. If I push it I can do 50, and getting to 60 on a moderate downhill isn't much of a stretch. Am I somehow unworthy because I can nearly keep pace with cars? Or do I get a pass because I don't feel the need to clad myself in lycra?
People have some really strange ideas about what is and isn't "fair" for cyclists. If I want to commute by bike, which I haven't done since I did my shoulder (largely because the weather's been so shit, but also because I'm a bit gun-shy now), why should I have to dawdle just to keep you happy? I want to get off the road as quickly as possible, rather than spending extended periods of time inhaling diesel particulate spewed forth by buses that were past their use-by dates 10 years ago.
-
The high profile, and contentious, ones that require Senate confirmation ... tend to get all the press attention, but it would certainly not be good for New Zealand if McCain was equally slap-dash in appointing the next Ambassador
Just a point of order, Mr Ranapia, Ambassadors also require Senate approval. For some bizarre reason the Constitution wants elected representatives to conduct cursory examinations into appointees who have the authority to declare war in their country's name.
But your overall point is spot-on. Palin, by all appearances, is a second-best (if that) choice. How many other second-bests might be foisted upon the US people, and the world, if McCain's elected? He couldn't find a solid candidate to be his number-two (wo)man, and that's arguably the most important position he ever has to fill, maybe excepting SCOTUS justices.
-
Damn straight. It repeats that silly idea that people choose to emigrate because of tax rates. Maybe applies to the several ACT voters, but anyone else who falls for that line deserves the government they get
Act actually do seem to believe it. According to a Herald article Prebble campaigned overseas in '05 "because he said the 174,255 young, educated and skilled people who had left the country under Labour best fitted the profile of ACT voters." Unfortunately for him (and thankfully for the rest of us, I feel), reality struck in the form of "parties' shares of offshore votes in the last election was mostly aligned with their share of the total vote, except for the Green Party, which gained 11 per cent of the offshore vote."
What that tells us is that it ain't the gummint, stupid. It's the traditional Kiwi urge to get overseas to bigger opportunities, and that transcends politics and the other bollocks of which National and Act are so fond. Dunno whether to send that to my precious mate or not. He might have a hissy if I shoot another of his sacred cows.
-
I have one group of friends where we frequently "communicate" (for values of communicate that don't include actually conveying any meaningful message) in lines from League of Gentlemen. Or use what could possibly be the most brutal put-down in history, as variations of "He's just got nothing going for him as a person." That was the original line, from one female friend explaining why she just wasn't interested in a particular male of her acquaintance. In our company it now leads to such witticisms as:
Rose (Who coined the line) - "Why can't I find a job?"
Me - "Because you've just got nothing going for you as a person."I've also been known to use lolcat for communications with flatmates. Such as the semi-irate text at midnight one week night, to the occupants of the room across the hall who were being noisy, asking "I can haz sleep now? kthxbai"
-
John, I didn't say she was qualified. I didn't say it made her suitable to be VP. But saying that she's not CiC of the Alaskan NG just because she doesn't control them when they've been mobilised for federal service shows a total lack of understanding of how the whole system works.
Clinton actively avoided military service. Dubbyah's record was pretty questionable. But nobody suggested that they weren't qualified to be CiC of the entire US military establishment simply because they only had experience commanding their respective states' National Guard units as governors. -
It gets better: the Republicans have started referring to her as the "Commander in Chief" of the Alaska National Guard.
It turns out that not only does she not make any decisions, she's not even due briefings. All the command is federal. The governor is as much in command as my cat
You obviously don't understand how the system works, Russell. No she doesn't have any control over the Guard once they're deployed through the Federal Government, but that doesn't make her any less their CiC for local matters.
The Air National Guard/National Guard are controlled by their respective states unless seconded to federal duty. At that point the governor is as entitled to briefings on their activities as they are to briefings on any other federal national security matter. For civil emergency deployments, the governor used to have the last word, until a law passed last year (against the objections of every state governor) allowed POTUS power to take control of an intra-state deployed Guard even if the governor of the state was capable of exerting control. -
everyone in NZ with get up and go has got up and gone.
Which explains why Act is left sucking the political dregs through a used cigarette filter to try and get candidates? :P
I cannot believe that nobody pointed out to them that saying something like that reflects just as poorly on the quality of people Act'll be able to attract (by extension, they've got no "get up and go") as it does on those supposedly responsible for the departure of those who do have it.