Posts by Eddie Clark
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Hard News: The music I listened to,
I listened to Polly Harvey's latest a lot this year... 10 months after it's release I still think it might be my favourite released this year. Also been thrashing the excellent reissue of Archers of Loaf's Vee Vee.
And finally, one of the nice things about moving to the other side of the world is finding local acts that don't quite their way to New Zealand. Ohbijou is an excellent local TO band, and their latest album was super awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/QRuYYC3p5EE (If someone can tell me how to embed I'll embed it here instead of linking. Can't work out how right now!)
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Glad to see Tom Semmens pulling out the unsurprising "if only we threw women, maori, and homos out, we'd do so much better line". Easy to run that line if you're none of those things.
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Apparently turnout is not as bad as media was wittering on about on the night. They neglected to count special votes. Via Edge, Elections NZ says the turnout was about 74%: http://www.elections.org.nz/study/news/preliminary-results-for-the-2011-general-election-and-advance-voting-for-the-referendum-on-the-voting-system.html
Not great, but not as bad as 65%.
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Legal Beagle: Adventures in the OIA or:…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
On Media7 last night, Jon Stephenson said it took Jerry Mateparae six months to deign to even respond to his last OIA request, and it was basically (I'm paraphrasing) a long "fuck off, I'm not telling you shit." That's blatantly flouting the law, but unless the Ombudmen get real enforcement powers what's the downside? Stephenson didn't have the time or resources to be constantly taking the NZDF to task and research a complex story like that.
Having done a fair few OIA's in my former evil lobbyist/lawyer life, I can say that NZDF was the worst for quick responses, and the quickest to redact absolutely everything they could. However, they DID cough up most of what was being asked for once we complained to the Ombudsmen. Which is to say they could tell the ombudsmen to eff off, but in practice they don't (Southland Institute of Technology is, as far as I recall, the ONLY organisation to ever refuse to implement an ombudsman's recommendation. Our Office of the Ombudsmen is a damn good one as far as these things go internationally (even if it is massively overworked), as is our OIA. I was shocked at how secretive everything is in Canadia.
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Hard News: Misadventure and Muppetry,
I was expressing my surprise at the topic being raised at all! I agree that nothing has been spoiled.
Canadian EI was raised and, oddly enough, PAS-ers such as you and Kyle are the only NZ-based hockey fans I've come across. I takes my chances to talk hockey!
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Hard News: Misadventure and Muppetry,
I protest! There are no spoilers in any of my posts for any of the four games played tonight!
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Hard News: Misadventure and Muppetry,
I assume you've yet to see it and are hiding from the results? If so, will indeed zip it. No comment on that game 1, though I'll be supporting the Sens. For some reason I loathe Crosby.
Looking forward to soccer scores when my Bs play Buffalo (even though I lived in TO, the Leafs are too hopeless for words so I latched onto another NE team). I think there'll be a lot of 1-0s and a lot of OT. Hopefully they can pull it off, but expect them to go down in 6, unfortunately.
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Hard News: Misadventure and Muppetry,
Kyle - I don't know. My info comes from reading the Canadian press when I lived there and my Canadian boyfriend.
(Meanwhile, really exciting start to the playoffs!)
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Hard News: Misadventure and Muppetry,
Not saying that the Canadian EI model is one we should move to, but its not the horrible awful capitalist nightmare of kicking people out in the streets that some people seem to be suggesting. You pay into EI while you work, and if/when you lose your job, you get paid out at a percentage of your wage, for a period related to the length of your employment. This percentage is a lot higher than the dole that we have here.
The minimum period you have to work before your eligible depends on the province you work in (i.e. the ones heavily reliant on seasonal labour have a lower minimum period). Most people get a job before it runs out, but obviously not everyone does. They then lose the percentage-of-old-income EI payments, and instead go on a subsistence dole like we have here. The advantage is that it means you have something to tide you over short-term unemployment that's close to your old income. The disadvantge, as others have noted, is that the bureaucracy is an added level of complication.
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Hard News: Transferring wealth to Wellington,
Luke - wtf does arts funding have to do with Wellington being the capital. Seriously?
And Sacha, its just not the usual metonym here. For years we've talked about "the Beehive" directing things, not Wellington. Just as in the UK they talk about directions from Whitehall, not London.