Posts by Steve Withers
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There is little that is positive or good in "I told you so"....but sometimes it does need to be highlighted that there are people around who said months ago that 30 years of under-investment in Auckland's public transport would likely be rewarded with system failure during the Rugby World Cup. Which is a serious shame. Such an obvious and predictable gap in the infrastructure should have been addressed as a primary priority.
But it wasn't...and is unlikely to be by this government. Instead, they will likely use last Friday night as a reason to push their more roads, more sprawl, more buses agenda.
That will run aground on the effects of Peak Oil in the not too distant future...and we'll get to say "We told you so" yet again.
The real problem is that a huge chunk of voters don't know any better than the people that elect.....and Friday night the guilty and the innocent were all punished together not not electing people who actually know how to do this stuff right.
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OnPoint: It's real, in reply to Stephen Judd,
I turned Mora / Farrar off. I already know the dogma.
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Hard News: A nation bullied, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Stephen Judd: Papers like the Guardian are distinguished by ownership via a trust or foundation with a charter stating the values they must adhere to. The Toronto Star has a similar charter and while it isn't the Guardian it isn't a shrill journal owned by any billionaire with a political axe to grind. These newspapers stand out as being more independent than the "7-Eleven" chain of convenience store journalism that has sadly become the norm almost everywhere. Maybe there is a model here that could / should be encouraged if not legally mandated. Or maybe we should dig into our own pockets and make one. (Too many people aren't digital yet. They don't here what happens here unless it spills into the print or conventional broadcast media).
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National and ACT lied about how much the super city would cost. Now there's a surprise.
Even more clever is the same people trying to blame Len Brown for the apparent dysfunction of the structures these same people imposed.
WHO VOTES FOR THESE PEOPLE!!!!
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Much worse in my view was the way First Past the Post and the ward system resulted in 62.5% of all votes cast for the Council electing no one at all. All 20 Councilors were elected with a combined 37.5% of the vote. To me, this is a democratic disaster of epic proportions. But most people don't seem to care at all. Makes me wonder why they bothered to vote if they don't care if actually elects anyone. As for the money....well we all knew it was a scam. That was a given.
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We recently hired a Christchurch "refugee" here in Auckland. I can easily understand young, single people not tied down by mortgages just getting out of the place. maybe for a few years...maybe forever. You only live once...and marking time in a disaster zone isn't a very useful way to live a life if you're desperately unhappy doing it. Maybe those who find it too much should get out. Come back later. Better for them and better for those who choose to stay.
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Dismissing facts as opinions is one of the existential problems with the modern conservative movement. I have come to see it as an extension of the same mechanism that makes religious faith possible: You just believe something and that's that. Evidence doesn't matter. Facts aren't relevant. They merely endanger belief and must be rejected. The problem they face is that ultimately reality asserts itself and they are bewildered. "Who knew?"
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I've always wondered why anyone would vote for ACT. I'm still wondering.
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Hard News: More Secrets and Lies, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Craig: NZ's "moral high horse riding" was based on working through the UN using legal means to deal with the problems. What NZ (Labour, actually....as National were happy to ignore the UN Charter). asserted was the primacy of the UN in resolving situations like Iraq. As we now know, the United States - at best - was grossly, lethally incompetent and at worst was cynically murderous in its pretext for invading Iraq. NZ would have had no problems joining that crew had there been an obvious, verifiable danger to the world. There wasn't. It was the right thing to do. The UN supported the invasion of Afghanistan....and still does. No high horse required (or deployed).
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Hard News: Time to get a grip, in reply to Rex Widerstrom,
Rex: As arguments go, it is insupportable to hold voters who vote for a party do not also support its list. The votes for the party are evidence that people supported the list - whether they know who is on it or not. If they care, then they know. If they don't care....then they may not know...but support it anyway with their vote. Any voting system will suffer the laziness and ignorance of many voters. The recent Auckland elections saw many of us voting for people we'd never heard of before...and hoping the brochure that came with the ballots wasn't a pack of lies.