Posts by Idiot Savant
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In context, his description of the proposal as "not necessarily rational" seems perfectly alright.
It's a pretty crude policy. But given the legal limits on taxing international aviation fuel, it may be about the best they can do.
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No Right Turn has poor understanding of the confidence and supply agreement between National and ACT. First the flow of public funds is determined by negotiation between the PM (Minister of Ministerial Services) and the Leader of ACT either in bulk of on a per project basis. This gives ACT the capacity to analysis public policy issues and to respond quickly to requests for Parliamentary support for a proposed programme.
That is exactly how I understood it. Where we differ is that I also understand the funding rules for Ministerial Services rules. This sort of broad, cross-portfolio funding is simply not within the appropriation. And that makes it illegal.
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Oh and I see first of the baubles of office are falling to the national Party's faithful lapdogs at the Herald, with Paula Oliver getting a fat comms job in John Key's office for a job well done.
I'm sure there's an interesting study in that: compare the tone of reporting from those hired by national to those who aren't, and see if sycophancy really is rewarded.
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Vernon Small in the Independent today (offline): "Key should follow Obama, not Act"...
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[about 14] European countries have announced that they are [withdrawing/defaulting/not going to meet their commitments or something]
Does anyone have any idea if there is a piece of information he is distorting here?
I suspect he's conflating the internal EU target with their Kyoto target. The EU-15 have a bubble which requires them collectively to make an 8% reduction. They've divided that up in a way which allows less-developed European nations (e.g. Spain and Greece) to significantly grow their emissions, while requiring others (e.g. UK, Germany, France) to make deeper reductions. Some EU nations are missing their targets - but what matters to Kyoto is that overall, Europe is making it.
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In the evening, we watched the 90-minute premiere of the BBC's remake (contains spoilers) of the 1975 series Survivors, which screened in Britain on Sunday night.
damn, I haven't even seen the original yet. But there are Friends In The UK for that as well.
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Does this mean courts now have to take into account unreal and insignificant risks?
I doubt it. Or rather, unless the law says that explicitly, they will refuse to. Natural justice again...
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Clearly, climate change is a myth.
It was sunny yesterday, but now we have nasty cold rain again. Clearly, you must be right.
Still, there is one upside: grad students will still be able to write theses about the failure of NZ climate change policy, with exactly the same conclusions as the last such exercise.
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Smart move, having reviews chaired by the private sector so they can be blamed for unpopular decisions.
And it lets you hand out even more pork to your business mates!
The first thing they should be looking at is why the government is creating a whole parallel bureaucracy outside the public service (and so not covered by the usual norms of the public service - professionalism and neutrality amon them), paid at consultants inflated rates.
But somehow, I doubt it...
( isense a rich vein to be mined here should anyone want tohave fun with the OIA...)