Posts by BenWilson
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I can't follow Armstrong's point at all. He suggests voters are moving back to the two major parties, then uses that to suggest that we should change our system to accommodate that. Why would that be necessary? If voters want only 2 parties then that's what they'll get, under MMP. Why the need to legislate out the minority who don't want that, and the whole future in which abandoning the big 2 might become popular again?
I don't blame MMP for ACT having disproportionate power. I blame ACT voters, and the National party. Also the ACT party for proving to be unworthy of the power. All of these groups have in recent weeks taken a bit of a knock. This is a good thing, it brings out into the open what ACT is like. People can vote differently in the next election, and if National gets in again, they can choose better company, or at least hammer out a lesser role for the lesser party.
My feeling is the swing voters who pretty much decide every election will have been very put off by ACT this time around. Quite a few of them that I know who voted for National have expressed misgivings. Before the election it was "ACT and Rodney are all right, they just want us to pay a bit less tax, and bang away the crooks". Now it's "ACT and Rodney just made massive and expensive changes to Auckland, and now we find out they're the crooks".
Key can't hide away from this and blame it on MMP. MMP did not force National to accept ACT as a confidence and supply partner - a general agreement with ACTs principles did that. He might not like how that is going to look in the next election for National's chances, is all.
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Well, exactly; you get them out from the library so you can find out if you want to buy them.
And after reading them, the answer is almost always "no". Either I read it, so that's done, or I didn't want to read it, so that's done, or I didn't have time to read it, so I renew, or I decided I want to read it later, so I let others read it in the meantime.
It's been interesting how much more actual reading this has led to, rather than hoarding. When you've got 2 weeks to make up your mind, you either read it, or decide not to. When it's sitting in a shelf forever, you can endlessly delay the decision.
So basically I pretty much only buy books that can't be got from the library.
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There's very few adult books in my house. We need the space for all the children's toys. My office and garden shed have my old books, and in the lounge and bedroom you'd find small piles of the books I am actually reading, mostly from that amazing outdated idea know as a public library, which I discovered was vastly superior to my own pointless hoard since it contained mostly books I hadn't already read.
The longer that huge pile of boxes of books in the shed festers there without being missed, the closer to home it brings me that keeping old printouts is a curious habit. All those books could be being read by someone else. Or, in many cases, particularly old technical manuals, destroyed to make useful space.
I am, however, extremely embarrassed about the virtual absence of art from my walls. My wife and I differ too much in taste on that score.
ManSpace (as I call my office/art and recording studio/gym/workroom/brewery/armory/bike shed/grog cellar/server room), is a whole different story. Invitation only, entry to the house is no guarantee.
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Tinnie houses would seem to be a tiny part of the cannabis trade anyway. It's so widespread that most people are only separated from a cultivator by at most 2 degrees. This kind of crime is very hard to police - networks of people who already know each other, and can thus keep a low profile.
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I don't think our local democracy is broken, definitely everyone who cares enough can become informed. But I still can't put my finger on why I don't care, but do care about the national level elections. In terms of direct influence over my life, local body is actually quite powerful.
Some of it is that most of what local body is involved in is technical details rather than the bigger issues/picture. So in order to become more informed for voting purposes, I not only need to become informed about the candidates, but also what the hell it is that they are doing and responsible for. I'm not even entirely sure what the DHB even does, nor what the major/minor issues that are currently on the table for it are, much less what the connection is between those issues and the candidates. And the same goes for all the other areas of responsibility. The information just gets less and less, the closer to the detail we get, there are less people talking about whether or not my local industrial area should have widened zoning, or a particular shop should be allowed to sell spirits in my local shops.
To become informed enough does actually involve more than a few hours work. To say I can just read commentators and bios is pretty much doing the same thing as voting on party allegiance, I'm giving over my responsibility for making a choice to someone else I vaguely trust. I haven't spent huge hours deciding what my position is on various tunnels, business zonings, waste disposal mechanisms and responsibilities, park maintenance etc is.
And I'm lucky enough to periodically get hours to do research. Most people simply aren't.
It does make me a little sad that my choices about people who are responsible for some highly technical stuff will be based around the huge generalization that "I generally prefer people who want to invest money in making the city better, and that doesn't seem to be the far-right, but nor do I want an overly restrictive city, and that doesn't seem to be the far-left, so I'll be in the middle somewhere leaning to the left". But I seriously haven't got the time for much more than that. Reading a couple of bios seems more likely to be "A little knowledge, a dangerous thing" to me - I'm at least reasonably certain I'm leftward leaning, whereas I've got basically no clue about the best way to allocate health board funds, and the people on the right might actually have better ideas, I just wouldn't know.
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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
ACT WARS
Episode III: The Internet Strikes Back
Dark Forces surround the Party. Strife is everywhere. Amidst the chaos, the Emperor's Order 66 has gone unnoticed as Parties crumble, cities upheave, and cold powerful winds lash the Nation.
A small team of journalists, led by Prince Kiwi have stolen plans for the most devastating weapon yet, the Death Cuts. Custodian of the stolen plans, our intrepid news hounds flee before the executive power.....
<Pan down to an iPad showing Tweetdeck>
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If you you want to bugger off out of the country for more than 6 months and still be paid out of my damned taxes, well you shouldn't have voted for Rob in the 70s, that's what I say.
I'm pretty sure Dad didn't ever vote for National. He has, however, worked his entire adult life in NZ for the Government, helping problem children. Seems funny that the reward for that is having to check in with immigration about your travel plans, that retirement isn't a time to kick back and do some of those things that you never could when you had a full-time job, apparently. Like taking long trips.
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(And for the record, I also rate hot water slightly ahead of hair straighteners but some way behind the internet. At least in summer. So WHAT?!)
I think I'd agree with you only in proportion to how cold the cold water was, or more importantly, how cold the air is. Given that it's freezing down there right at the moment, I'd rate hot water really high.
I was in Melbourne when they had a massive explosion at the local gas plant, which took the whole city off gas for several weeks. It was the middle of winter and fuck was it unpleasant to have a cold shower in cold weather.
Interestingly, the way that I first heard about the explosion was about a few minutes after it happened. I was working in a stockbroker and a mini-news item popped up in my mail from one of the analysts which said something like:
"Large explosion at x gas plant. Short gas stocks and go long on heating appliance related stocks".I could hear the roar of the brokers through several floors of the building we were in as they scrambled to make a killing. I wonder how much Twitter has changed that business since then (late 90s). Every second counted for that kind of news.
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And yet if you collect a pension you must not be out of NZ for more than 6 months, otherwise you lose it. Whether you spent your life earning it or not.
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I'm not sure I'll vote on most of the questions. I don't feel the least bit informed, and that's mostly because I don't care. Sad but true. I'll probably vote for the mayor, but not because I know much about Brown, more because I just don't trust Banks. If I just vote on general left affiliation, it sounds like it would be no less thought than most people are putting into it.
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