Posts by Matthew Poole
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We wouldn't like it if China or Saudi Arabia tried to stop somebody blogging from here on their poltics, would we?
There was a strong suspicion at the time that the Craccum thefts were "encouraged" by diplomatic figures from China, which is pretty close to the same thing.
I dunno whether it's true or not. When it comes to Falun Gong, nearly anything is believable, but there's also so much bullshit that it's hard to tell the difference.Certainly the Chinese don't like letting people in other countries exercise their rights to protest *coughbusescough*.
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walls made of polystyrene sandwiched between two sheets of gyprock
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Hey, what could go wrong?
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It's pretty flammable, and produces toxic fumes when it burns. That's not so good. Ask that cold store up in Tamahere...As if it wasn't enough that fire loadings in dwellings have increased so much in the last few decades that house fires now burn in the vicinity of 850-900 degrees C, courtesy of all the synthetic materials in furniture and carpets, let's make the walls out of stuff that burns with great gusto when it's not doing a splendid job as an insulator and raising the internal temperatures even higher.
Yup, sounds like a fucking genius idea to me!
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If the election carries on this theme, I'ld be happy.
MPs call for improved ambulance services
Fat chance. There's mud to be flung and shit to be stirred. Can't see National being too keen on getting in behind a policy that'd require tens-of-millions more dollars being pumped into health, and sure as hell the money's not going to come by getting people to take out private health insurance. The bureaucracy isn't that fat!
I notice that there wasn't a single attributed comment from a National MP in that story, despite the fact that at least one will be on that committee (can't be arsed going to check the exact composition). -
Does anyone know why, after Transit built a no-doubt expensive motorway spur to the port, trucks still use Symonds St?
Not that I was a student at the time, but I imagine that truck traffic has reduced a lot since the port link was built. Trucks are common, but it's entirely possible to have several light phases pass without a truck going through. At a guess, they're heading to destinations around the outer-CBD - Mt Roskill, etc. Or possibly taking an alternative route to Onehunga/Auckland Airport, given that the Market Rd offramp is now a nightmare to navigate even in a car.
Is it just so the truckies can ogle the students - Auckland Uni boys aren't *that* hot...
Oi. I resemble that remark!
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Oh, and PS: when it comes to expenditure on health education, I'd say that it's hard to consider such a relatively small sum "waste" or "a rort". Even if it only gets some kids to eat better, and probably encourage their families to eat better, it's successful. $5.5m is a rounding error in government spending. At least give it a chance to fail before you all start bagging it!
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Here's a question for the doubters: Would you have expected a quite-expensive-to-develop video game to be a successful recruiting tool for a physically-demanding, risky career? Because US Army is considered to be pretty good at getting gamers to look at the army as an employment option.
Don't knock tech-based ideas for reaching out to kids, because they can work remarkably well.
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where (on the federal level alone) you have a bicameral legislature and independent executive branch.
That's three people to elect: President, Senator, Congress critter. Drop that back a layer, and it's another three. Entirely manageable with paper and hand counting.
I also have my doubts that we're ever going to end up electing whole swathes of our judiciary, senior law enforcement and what here would be roughly equivalent to senior civil servants.
And thank goodness for that. Elected judiciaries are a scary concept, and there are plenty of stories about the shit that elected sheriffs get up to. Hell, look at Arpaio in Arizona, who keeps getting elected because he does things that are popular despite the fact that he costs millions of dollars in lawsuit settlements.
If they want to elect ever layer of 'crat, that's their lookout. Doesn't make them any less ludicrous.
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ACT are pretty unlikely
Oh how I hope. I will actually stoop to voting for my National electorate puppet in order to try and keep Rodders out, and I'm hoping that Labour and the minor parties will push their voters to do the same. Rodney's majority in Epsom in '05 was smaller than the number of votes cast for parties other than Act and National, so a swing could easily turf him out. Given that the alternative may involve Roger, it should be a pretty easy sell.
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Why not have the council and general elections on the same day?
For one thing, they're currently on different cycles and aligning them would mean some pretty dramatic tinkering with term limits - 18 months one way or the other!
Also, it's not just councils. It's councils, DHBs, and probably one or two other bodies. Before you know it we're like the Yanks, where voter turnout is abysmal because nobody wants to wade through a 10-page voting sheet while standing at a polling booth.
General elections are of sufficient importance to justify their own day, IMO, and I think many people who know of the idiocy of American elections would agree. -
But dimmers are toast. The end of civilisation is nigh.
The open fire is already on the way out. Now dimmers. Before you know it, romantic evenings will be mere history.
Of course the end is nigh!
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