Posts by Russell Brown
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A good friend of mine developed a pokie addiction -- we had to watch him in pubs where machines were present. That was a bit scary -- although not as scary as my friends who got addicted to the other P.
I once had a go at Peter Dunne, that tireless defender of the vulnerable, for actually bragging about his party's role in legislating to allow pokie operators to let their machines take $20 notes.
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Would you really, that would be great. I am about as political as a teatowel but this pisses me off and I don't know the political process well enough to do anything useful.
Perhaps a few of us could get together and agree some non-hysterical wording and as many readers as wish to can then add their names to it.
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Ditto.
I don't want the PM to have the power to designate an individual or a group as terrorists.Me neither. It's an absolutely retrograde step.
I/S says the Greens plan on moving some amendments to test the major parties. If anyone can give me a heads-up as to when that might be, I'd be happy to organise something on PA in support.
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vNot that I'm tieing the two together
Nah, and we really can't. I just don't like seeing fuckwits celebrating it.
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I think UK pubs are/were allowed one or two pokies (or fruit machines as they call them) with a fairly small stake/win (coins, not notes). That would seem a good compromise to me. The pub gets a few quid but it doesn't lose their core concept of being somewhere to socialise over beer/food.
It's quite different here. Labour tightened the regulations last year iirc, a but a lot of these places are pokie dens that happen to have a bar attached for convenience.
However, the real solution to all these problems of gambling/substance abuse is not to try and patch over the symptoms, but to build a society where people have a better level of self-respect and personal resilience.
Sure. Call me when you're done with that ...
I have huge respect for Inia Taylor, who bought the Grant Hotel in Helensville and -- much to his financial cost -- called the pokie company and told them to take their infernal machines away. They wouldn't believe he was serious, so eventually he just carted them out to the footpath and told the company where they were. Then they picked them up quickly enough.
The idea that pokies operate as harmless fun doesn't really wash. In places like North Carolina in the US, where they're barely regulated, they're a very serious social blight.
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All I know about Browns Bay is that it's the "small town" outside of Auckland that Rachel Hunter comes from.
I'm gonna guess it's not known for Tuhoe radicals?
Brown's Bay is part of the suburban North Shore and the station keeps gentleman's hours. It's near Takapuna, where the conference took place over the weekend, but that may not mean anything.
It seems the bomb was stuffed with .22 bullets. Bit more than a kids' prank by the look of it ...
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Who's to say if it was the looney left or some bored East Coast Bays kids letting loose on Guy Fawkes with a larger than normal "banger".
Several thousand dollars' shrapnel damage, multiple broken windows and the front counter likely to be out of action for days sounds a bit more than a banger.
But you're right, no sense jumping to conclusions. It was more the guy applauding the throwing of a bomb I didn't like.
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Oh, in response to those racist comments, which are a clear violation of posting policy, I should also mention that Aotearoa Indymedia has been struggling to moderate properly, as two of the three active admins are currently in custody, and the other is very busy trying to sort out things related to their arrest. See Aotearoa Indymedia needs your help
I'd noticed that. I genuinely appreciate what Asher's done with Fight Dem Back and I don't envy him at the moment, trying to keep Indymedia on an even keel.
But look below the anti-Asian post -- there's a guy cheering on the throwing of a pipe bomb into Brown's Bay police station last night, in pursuit of the "revolution" he seems to think the rest of New Zealand is going to embrace. I'm afraid that really gives me the shits.
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And I'm sure we probably annoyed the neighbours a bit last night, but not beyond a reasonable hour. I fancied that the fireworks were very good this year, although the big expensive ones didn't seem any better than the more modest ones.
Even without the Khandahar analogy, it was a silly thing for Clark to say. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the issue's safety, and not an important person's right to read the New Statesman in peace ...
OTOH, that was a few hours after Len Richards' effort, so perhaps she wasn't in her happy place to begin with.
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Yes, dopamine's bad. It should be confiscated from anyone in possesion of any.
Ha ha.
But seriously, I recall getting really pissed off once hearing a Tainui representative rave on about how terrible marijuana was and how much Tainui should be allowed to open a casino (full of pokies, no doubt) in Hamilton. In the same bloody interview.
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