Posts by tussock
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PS: Cigarettes are an anti-depressant (depression rises in nations as smoking falls), an appetite suppressant (obesity rises in nations as smoking falls), an anti-anxiety (more OCD type disorders as smoking falls), and a stimulant (much less dangerous than many other ones so powerful, but most folk use coffee instead) all rolled into one, with the individual effect controlled via rate of blood level changes depending on draw technique.
So it's not so much that cigarettes have a health cost, it's that no one bothers measuring the upside. People don't just take pleasure in smoking, they gain a real pharmacological benefit. Rather like alcohol use, which can act to dull doctrinal repression of character and enable the initialisation of good (and bad) relationships, or you can just drink it until you choke on your vomit and die.
Self-medication being a bit of an art, and prone to abuse in particular people. Ideally we wouldn't be depressed, or eat too much, or get anxious, or need a bit of pep, or to just chill and talk, even without cigarettes and booze, but we ain't ideal.
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I smoked a cigarette once, it was awesome. I climbed a mountain once, even more awesome. Got drunk once, not so good. John Denver was right.
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Tobacco related illness. Gods but I hate that expression. Of course everyone dies of tobacco related illnesses: strokes and heart attacks and a lot of cancers are related to tobacco use, and that's what most people die of anyway, smokers and non-smokers alike.
Those same things are also related to alcohol use, not enough vegetables, lack of basic aerobic fitness and strength, and time. But beer adds are cool and so is bloggers pining over an old pub, and you couldn't possibly put any regulations on cheap vitamin-free fast food, or make people walk anywhere, or stop time. OK, the last one's fairly well intractable.
Know what's dangerous? Skydiving. Mountain climbing. Flying light aircraft. Adventure tourism. Walking down stairs. Wet floors. Ice. Not cigarettes, which are less dangerous than things still promoted locally as health tonics, like red wine.
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FPP makes it really hard to throw the bastards out. That’s the problem with it. Government can stay in total control on 30% of the vote, and so can local MPs. Disaster. All about the vote-splitting nature of the system, particularly hard on the more fragmented left.
There’s systems around to make it explicitly easy to chuck out individuals, but we’re not voting for any of them this time. We’re deciding who goes in, not who goes out.
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Regarding murder, yes, war is. Can't see how such a notion is off-topic in a discussion of how soldiers are behaving in a war. Seems specifically on-topic when said soldiers are disobeying the proper chain of command in order to get some more murder done; because they were embarrassed about not having killed enough people yet.
Just wars? Please. Wars are fought over resources, not justice.
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Problem: the US wants us in their pet war and the people here don't. Normal enough, the people in the US don't want the wars either.
Solution: send our regional team of murder specialists over, with strict orders to not murder anyone. Wink, wink, nudge nudge. Like those English paratroopers sent to Northern Ireland back in the day.
Requirements: orders not to murder anyone, plenty of murdering, and confirmation that no one is murdering anyone. Lots of winking, guided tours for the tame journalists, guided missiles for the native ones.
No problem. Quite why anyone expects the corporate media to tell us different escapes me. They never do that, not unless someone high up in the bureaucracy has an axe to grind, as one does here for some reason.
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Re: is (not) a Sport.
Sport is a thing where what you do to win directly opposes what the other person is doing to win at the same time.Ball sports involve moving a ball to the opponents end of the field, as they try to take it from you and return it to your end (or, like tennis, where you hit it in such a way they can't easily hit it back, as they do the same).
Fighting sports involve making the other person stop fighting you, by fighting them. Often somewhat abstractly to preserve the competitors.
Games are not sports in that your opponents cannot oppose you, as such, you just take turns doing similar things and see who's done best at the end. Contract bridge.
Races are not sports because applying opposition is generally frowned apon, even when you race simultaneously. Some sporting elements in many races, but only in a very abstract sense.
Skydiving is not a sport, but it is really dangerous, considered on a death-per-hour basis. Life in general, meanwhile, is six times more lethal than cycling, but they don't make you wear a helmet for it.
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Pfft. Everyone knows poor people are poor because they make bad decisions. Obviously, if you let rich people make their decisions for them then they won't be poor any more.
Or, once you get away from the line they use on National party voters, there's got to be a profit to be had out of all this welfare stuff. Billions of dollars, even a lousy 1% rake is good money, and you can basically guarantee they'll never get off the benefits if you're careful about it.
Why, with all that money, you could push for policies that create high benefit dependency. Get everyone on them. Help low wage workers with their money too. Hell, get a cut of those retirement funds while you're at it.
Needs a name that, something to do with National's socialism. Hmm.
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That Auckland Uni one needs to go back to the 70's and 80's era elections. Alt History FTW.
Muldoon needing supply and confidence from Social Credit means the Clyde dam is built on currency devaluation, which means less transition shock when the Labour / Social Credit government comes in and frees up the financial market and removes farm subsidies in it's one term of government.
No threshold means the left fragments into Labour, New Labour, Social Credit, Democrats, Greens, and Mana Maori, while the right breaks into National, Christian Heritage, Winston, and Libertarian/Republican. United sits in the middle. Rise of the Hunting&Fishing party sees them hold the balance of power, creating massive new wildlife preserves on sea and land.
How about older stuff? No Labour government in the 30's as the old parties unite to block them? Power lost from rural seats early means no large farm subsidies in the first place? More individual and dynamic farming practices, less bandwagon thinking? Or subsidised organics and renewable energy leading the world (to default on debts)?
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So, high youth unemployment, abandoned youth busymaking programs, recently limited youth opportunities for self-betterment, endless police powers used to constantly harass youth, and a youth holiday period, => riot!
Do any of these austerity countries have a plan for the future of intermittent oil supplies, with modern growth being a function of fossil fuel burn rates? Maybe this is the plan, divide and conquer.
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Needs more Orcs from Mordor, hunting unionised actors at government expense. The actors have been playing the stormtroopers, but aren't actually Māori at all. Hone's outraged, but the Maori party explains it's the cost of being in government.
The ACTzis™©, the ones in the Orc suits, they'll sue. They were promised Māori! Equality, damn it! No special treatment!
Hone to the Red Zone, Hone Harawira to the Red Zone. Te Reo may be an official language, but you can't give oaths in it. It's just not cricket. Swear on a Koran all you like, you cheeky darkie, just do it in the Queen's English as the big O intended.
Unless that's all to political, this close to an election. Can you imagine the capital gains to be made in the Red Zone? W00t!