Posts by Moz
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Hard News: Things that do us good and ill, in reply to Joe Boden,
There must be some good agribusiness brains out there who could put together a workable proposal for a legal trade in cannabis.
Farmers are exactly the wrong people for this. Once someone decides how much and under what conditions, farmers are well set up to produce the crop. But letting the supplier decide what and how leads to the Fonterra problem that's given us rivers of shit. Cannabis is already an exotic weed in some places, seeing a boom-bust in growing it legally would make that worse (and that would be the least of our problems).
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Speaker: I am a Really Useful Engine, in reply to BenWilson,
while I work my way through the literal mountain of unpaid work I'm doing
This is so easy to get into. I'm not kidding at all when I say that I have spent periods voluntarily unemployed so I can do full time unpaid work, and found myself saying "I should look for a job, when I can find some time". Because activism is not "a job", but being paid to screw poor people is (I was once offered work programming gambling machines, and that's how I felt about that).
I'm not even sure to describe some of what I've done, because it's often been purely self-interested effort expending to make my own life better... while also being aimed to improve society and the lives of people in my community. Co-housing, for example, or bicycle activism. I have talked myself into seeing that as "valuable service to the community" but it still feels very selfish at times. My recent submission to council on their bike plan really was driven by me reading the draft plan and going "you have got to be f***ing kidding me"... some editing of the initial draft was required :)
Some of what I've done is even less "a proper job" and more "widely agreed to be criminal" whether that's Critical Mass bike rides or forest occupations. Anyone recall the outrage when the government stuck explosives on a logging helicopter and blamed us? Outrage that eventually flipped to electing a Labour government, fortunately, but not everyone is so lucky (and no-one was ever punished or compensated for that outrage).
Also, I have repeatedly said to NGOs that I won't do work in my profession as voluntary work. Partly because it seems unreasonable to ask for my normal pay and they can't really afford it, and partly because they can and do hire people who have used non-traditional paths to get into my profession (because those people will work for the pay offered) and that's one of the few paths those people have. OTOH I have used them as an opportunity to develop marketable skills... which I've then used for paid work.
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Legal Beagle: Geoffrey Palmer has…, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
a 75% majority in Parliament, or a 50% majority at a referendum.
That seems both risky and useful at the same time. Yay, what remains of my basic rights are safe as long as 50% of the population and 25% of parliament agrees that I should be allowed to keep them. But correspondingly, unless that 50% of the population can agree on the wording of an amendment and get parliament to agree to put it to a referendum, it's not going to happen.
I suppose where I'm most cautious is with clearly stupid legal situations that don't have 50% of parliament willing to stand up. Abortion springs to mind, the 20% of the population who don't want legalisation seem evenly split between those who think it's already legal in all situations and those who think it should never be legal in any... but it seems that 80% of elected MPs will not go near the subject.
We really should have some means to force a referendum in an unwilling parliament, purely so that we can override stupidity when necessary. Lèse-majesté and treason spring to mind as possible examples.
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Hard News: This. Is. Crazy., in reply to Lucy Telfar Barnard,
that’s not even natural justice.
I think you have mistaken the purpose of the system. This is not a just system, it is an economy.When justice conflicts with money, we choose money. Yay us! Vote money! The good news is that people are increasingly voting for more justice even if it means less money (not least because it's become obvious that they're not going to be getting the money)
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Hard News: This. Is. Crazy., in reply to Russell Brown,
But it’s been twisted and used for advantage in deeply misleading ways.
Specifically, what should be an indication that extra help is required is being used to dump people on the streets with no help at all.
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Hard News: This. Is. Crazy., in reply to Ian Pattison,
What I'd like to know is: how many of the private testing contractors also provide clean-up services?
Much better question: do any of the cleanup companies only get paid when the house tests negative?
For that matter, can a former tenant pay for their own test and what are the consequences when it's positive?* Can a prospective tenant insist on a test, and remediation until the tests are negative?
Also, what auditing is in place? I assume there are more expensive, more accurate tests available that could be used to check. And how specific is the test? In the worst case, imagine a particular household mould or cleaning product triggered false positives... or a common contaminant in cheap imported cleaning products.
* any test, no matter how reliable, can produce a false positive. Multiple tests at multiple locations within a home would be required regardless, but if the test is over-sensitive (see also: PCR errors) you'd want serious over-testing and retesting.
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Hard News: This. Is. Crazy., in reply to Ian Dalziel,
The Earthquake (recovery) idea would have worked better if...
... the government had wanted it to.
I know of more than one investor who was willing to take low/deferred returns if they could pile into Christchurch and help with emergency accommodation or repairs. It could have been a bureaucratic nightmare to administer, but "luckily" the bureaucracy was instead focussed on making sure nothing like that was allowed to happen.
It especially peeved me reading the (predictable) reports of people living in garages and caravans when the people I was involved with were prevented from supplying prefab insulated sheds. Our suggestion was that council overlook people setting them up without permits, or defer that until after the recovery (admittedly we never imagined that ten years in we'd still be waiting for "after the recovery"). ModPrefab in Wanaka sell a similar system but shed kits are common and you just need to supply insulation with them to make them comfortable to live in (and have them inspected to get a permit). Instead... investment idea abandoned. None of us wanted to spend the time battling PTB or running a public campaign.
You could look at that as successfully preventing vulture capitalists taking advantage of vulnerable people. Or you could look at it as government preventing rich people helping poor ones.
I still remember the Nelson City Council "cheap but liveable" public housing program that was explicitly all about building houses to a minimum standard in order to house the maximum people per dollar of council money spent. A lot of design work was done cheap or free to produce houses that were insulated, dry, and repairable while being cheap. It worked really well, but was politically unpopular (everyone say "shock, horror" now)
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Hard News: Crowded houses, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
Anglican Action is a “justice through service” mission. This makes a positive identity statement
I like that. And I can sympathise with having a dig at the pillagers.
One thing that still amuses me is "social justice warrior" used as a pejorative by mostly US geeky bigots. I always go "I fight for social justice, yes, and that's a good thing". Possibly because a very similar term is used affirmatively in green movements, a quick search for "Environmental Warrior" produces a lot of positive hits. And interestingly the cruches have started to realise that AGW has social welfare implications.
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Hard News: Crowded houses, in reply to Rosemary McDonald,
The consultants want flash signs at the gate, a reception area with serenading fish tank, and cold glass-tabled boardrooms
Translation "government funding to mitigate homelessness should go to wealthy parasites".
It's very John Key, isn't it. I have exactly the opposite approach when I donate to charity - I prefer to see the money go to people working at ground level rather than paying rent on a nice office. There's definitely a place for nice offices, unfortunately, because not everyone thinks like I do. But I'd rather those people paid for it. I'll keep trying to point my donations at the coal-face (so to speak... we need a modern version of that for a "we have decided to mitigate global warming" world... mirror-face?)
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber Driver…, in reply to BenWilson,
He seemed to think that getting $20/hour from Uber was an excellent deal.
Well if it was after costs, it would be a living wage. But before costs that would be appallingly low, could easily come to something like $8 per hour in real terms.
It was very much before costs. He was getting screwed, and after a while couldn't afford to pay rent to us so had to move back to his parents house. He was already eating there more often than not, because he quit his other job when Uber was paying well, but couldn't go back when they stopped. Ooops.
I am pretty confident that it would require the elected government to intervene before Uber would suffer particularly from their non-employees falling foul of the law. They are pretty good at making sue their own arses are covered.