Posts by Kumara Republic
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The way I see it, the smacking referendum isn't so much about child discipline, as it is about the re-emerging Kleinkulturkampf in NZ.
And there are a few common threads with the aforementioned Proposition 8, although thankfully so far there hasn't been the sort of bitterness from the "No' faction as seen in the States.
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James B:
but the biggest positive technological change for the environment and our lives will be safe small local nuclear power stations, if the environmentalists let it happen!!
The environmentalists won't shoot it down. The bean counters will.
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How telling is it when even Treasury is ambivalent at best, and sceptical at worst, towards subsidising private health insurance?
Even the free-market godfather Miltion Friedman once pointed out:
Health insurance premiums increased 78 percent since 2000, compared to wages increasing 20 percent, while over the same time period employers offering health benefits decreased from 69 percent to 61 percent (Kaiser Foundation 2006). In 2006, Ford Motor Company had a $3.5 billion health care liability, with a $1,100 per vehicle health care cost. In contrast, Japanese manufacturers spent $450 per car on health care for vehicles made in the United States (Associated Press 2006; McDonald 2006). General Motors spent $1,525 for every U.S. built vehicle compared to Toyota’s spending $97 per vehicle in Japan in 2005 (French 2006).
In the absence of universal healthcare, industry is forced to pick up the slack. And a large part of the premiums increase can be attributed to malpractice litigation.
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you can often link war and civil war to environmental issues, particularly water, but also food.
That also applies to any form of dire resource depletion.
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Wishart seems to be determined to turn himself in a local version of Robert Maxwell -- who had something like a hundred defamation suits against journalists and media outlets in train when he died. Not anything to be proud of.
Or Conrad Black, who's doing time for wire fraud and obstructing justice.
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Sorry for the jack but when it comes to voices of reason and authority, I think we can grade Auckland Grammar and Kelston principals John Morris and Steve Watt F for epic fail. I really hope these two are going to be ripped new ones by their respective boards.
And their beliefs that school violence only happens in low-decile schools ring rather a lot hollow now.
There was a similar kind of buck-passing with Christ's Col & CBHS in ChCh - at least from what I observed as a student of the former (albeit an unwilling one) in 1996.
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It's worth noting that former Business Roundtable speaker at the Sir Ron Trotter Lecture in 2002 has this week changed his stance on climate change. Take that, Muriel Newman!
And Gareth Morgan of Infometrics fame, initially something of a denialist, has come to similar conclusions to Prof Gluckman following the publication of Poles Apart.
In any case, the denialist holdouts are looking increasingly like the technological/industrial equivalent of creationists. And how would they deal with a worst-case scenario of the American Clean Energy & Security Act - throw eggs at the US Embassy?
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RichO:
I think it's quite a good thing that a google for "Paul Holmes Slash" returns various stories on Guns and Roses, but nothing of the kind that I was looking for.
Maybe this is more fertile territory. Imagination is free...
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And what of political lobby groups that think they're charities, like For The Sake Of Our Children, and the Sensibles? Greenpeace could also count, but at least it's generally open about who finances it.
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Does the acid-throwing on Ablett-Kerr's car count as perverting the course of justice, or is that only during a trial?