Posts by izogi
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The question now is not just how much you trust the executive, but how much you can trust an executive that presides over the screaming absence of constitutional empathy that this one does.
It should always have been the case, really. Even if a presiding executive is trusted, it's likely that an executive such as the current one, or some other which you might happen to dis-trust (if you somehow trust the current one), will be along sooner or later.
One of my regrets is that New Zealand is in the midst of scheduled constitutional and related reviews, such as for the electoral system and a constitution itself, which could fundamentally affect governance for decades or longer. The processes for these issues are likely to be politicised enough, even without being subjected to a PM and Cabinet which have demonstrated a destructive contempt for any constitutional processes which happen to be politically inconvenient at any given time.
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Hard News: U: It's about the combos, in reply to Aidan,
Go here to get a feel for the content:
Wow. I'm in Melbourne about to return to NZ, so I checked out the NZ freeview guide. At least in Australian Freeview, the infomercials have dedicated channels, like TVSN, and electronic guides that include specified quality programming like "The Roomba Hour".
TV doesn't form a great motivation in my life's decisions about where to live, but I'll miss SBS and to a lesser extent ABC.
The rationale for a +1 channel is dead in the water now that we have PVRs
For viewers it is, and also with internet streaming replays. For networks I'd imagine that +1 channels a very cheap way to make use of bandwidth they've probably already paid for, push the same advertising down a slightly different line of viewers who missed it the first time around, marginally raise the ratings and perhaps charge a little more to advertisers?
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Hard News: A different kind of country, in reply to Barnaby Nicholls,
There's nothing more disturbing than a government granting itself more power and failing to construct adequate accountability or oversight mechanisms.
It's something about trying to run the government as a business, where in business freedom and openness aren't automatic givens. (Try asking Coca Cola Amatil how many bottled water units it sold last financial year, for instance, and it'll just ignore you.)
And now that business has discovered it can either ignore or re-write its own rules and free itself from the constraints that normally inhibit businesses in ways that are inconvenient (for the business), and generally get away with it.
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Hard News: Who else forgot to get married?, in reply to Emma Hart,
I don't understand this. That doesn't mean I condemn it, or that in the least I think women shouldn't be doing it, I just don't understand it.
I don't get it either. I grew up with a mother who repeatedly told me how much she regretted changing her name when she married---not because she disliked her new name, but because she discovered afterwards that she was suddenly anonymous and very difficult for many of her old friends to find. These days, with social networks like Facebook, that specific issue is probably less of an issue, at least as long as social network corporations continue collecting screeds of personal network data about everyone in the world.
We were married in 2010 after 7 years together, as much to keep the families happy as for any other reason, and I managed to convince my wife to keep her name. She added mine as a middle name on the marriage certificate, but after shifting to Australia we discovered that marriage certs aren't accepted as name-change evidence as they are in NZ. Therefore she can't use her new middle name for anything official here anyway... at least without a completely new name-changing process that we couldn't be bothered with during all the other complexities of shifting.
With a baby on the way, about to return to NZ, and with her passport finally up for renewal, she's made up her mind to change her name properly with the new passport. The child surname simplification thing is an excuse, but she's also concerned about either of us having issues being accepted as the parent of a child without having the same name. I wouldn't know if this is actually a significant issue these days or not.
Ultimately though, I think she just grew up in her extended polish and not-very-good-at-being-catholic family, always assuming she'd lose her surname when she married.
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Legal Beagle: $420,259.33, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Well, I think it's fair to point out that "yadiyadiyada" is not the attitude successive National and Labour governments have taken to beneficiaries, superannuatants and student loan holders.
No argument there, Craig, and I'm disappointed that the Labour Party isn't being taken to the cleaners over this. I just happened to disagree with Graeme's assertion that the "confusion" explanation must have meant they were smart enough for it to actually twig in someone's head at the time that they were doing something potentially wrong.
If it's somehow reasonable for the Labour Party to be let off for this, the logical next step for any political party wishing to follow suit, and get away with similar things, is to ensure their money isn't handled by someone with the slightest amount of legal competency.
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I simply cannot accept "confusion" as an explanation. Being confused about this means you received the money and thought about it whether it had to be disclosed, and just couldn't make up your mind for certain either way.
Does it? Maybe under a strict definition within a domain, but casually to me it could mean that they were wrong but were completely convinced they were right, then realised afterwards that they'd been "confused", maybe when a smart person showed up and pointed it out.
I don't think this is a valid excuse, nor does it show anything but unacceptable performance for the important role they were in and maybe that kind of thing should warrant a penalty for parties or individuals on its own, but....... malice... incompetence... yadiyadiyada.
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Hard News: The Wogistan form book, in reply to Johnny Canuck,
I get that one probably every 3rd-4th flight in North America (swab of the hands, carry on bag and laptop followed by not-so- suspenseful wait as swab is entered into a little machine).
As far as I can tell, this is a standard thing at Australian airports (domestic and otherwise) and has been for at least two years that I've been travelling around here. It's supposedly random but I get swabbed nearly every time, I think because I tend to make friendly eye contact with the security people as I walk past.
From my subjective experience it seems they'll generally grab the next person going through once they're free from the previous person. I expect anyone who wanted to avoid being swabbed could quickly figure out a way to reduce their chances by messing around re-packing their things from the scanner conveyor belt until they could see the officer was busy testing someone else.
It's totally made for helping people feel safe, rather than actually safe.
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Hard News: The Wogistan form book, in reply to Johnny Canuck,
but there's probably a decent constituency for it. More than the crucial 5% anyway...
Despicable as I think the man is (and his party for accommodating and defending him), he probably represents at least 1/120th of the populace. I don't know whether to consider it an MMP success or failure, but I tend to think that people over a certain proportion should have an opportunity to have their views aired by parliamentary representatives, even if those views disgust me. Maybe it helps to keep others in touch with what some others think, if nothing else. I just hope that talk is as far as it gets.
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Does anyone happen to know why New Zealand presently has a three year term? Is it something that was inherited from Great Britain in the beginning, or was there a conscious decision to set it to three years from some other reason?
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Russell Brown,
Which was mangled in the editorial thus:
Russell, maybe it's been noticed, but the text of the Herald's mangled editorial seems to have spread uncredited to something suspiciously similar in the Fairfax world, though they cut off the worst bits.
In relation to what he told the NYT: "Joy told the newspaper the reality of New Zealand's environmental record came nowhere close to matching the 100% Pure brand."