Posts by Rich of Observationz
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: Members of the Press, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
This certainly shows Fairfax and TRN in their true colours. I'm not sure how independent and free of obligations to their news sources holding love-ins with the National party in the venue of one of the Nats favourite pork recipients is.
-
Hard News: The Internet Party, whatever happens, in reply to Keir Leslie,
So not only is it ok to bring a somewhat trumped up case against him at the behest of foreign multinationals (whose wealth dwarfs Dotcoms), but he should be disenfranchised from political involvement as part of his pre-conviction punishment?
-
KDC is clearly trying to use the political system to achieve a legal outcome
Isn't that what it's for:
- New Zealanders vote for a parliament that decides what our laws are to be
- Nobody can be extradited for something that isn't a crime in New Zealand
- It's highly debatable as to whether Dotcom's past actions constitute criminal copyright infringement
- As a permanent resident (and hence a person with a right to vote in NZ elections), Dotcom has standing to lobby for changes in our laws*
- Such a change might involve clarifying the law on criminal copyright infringement
- Which may block his extradition*** Actually, anyone does, but voters might get listened to more.
** Yes, I know it's the law at the time of the conduct that matters in theory, but in practice, it would usually be considered unjust to extradite someone for conduct that has ceased to be an offence. We wouldn't (I hope) extradite a gay man to some neanderthal regime just because the relationship took place in 1985.
-
The government (who ultimately own schools) could just snag a few dozen hectares of rugby fields from the high decile central Auckland schools, sell the land for development and use the money to build/extend schools in growing neighbourhoods.
-
in Jonathan Milne's very useful feature
Can we confirm whether the guy in the pub had a sickness beneficiary neighbour painting the roof of his house?
-
I imagine Mr .com's bottom lines will be fairly straightforward:
1. Copyright Act amended to make clear that indirect copyright infringement in plain view of plaintiff cannot be a criminal matter
2. Electoral Act amended to allow permanent residents to become MPs
and to allow parties to change their lists post election -
Hard News: The New New News, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Nah, I'm fairly convinced Fairfax and NZ Herald have had that for ages. Quake rocks Wellington/Christchurch/Waikekamukau every time a quake of over threshold gets detected by geonet.
-
Busytown: School bully, in reply to mic weevil,
Or just call yourself MIT, possibly in ignorance that the prestigious US institution with the same acronym even exists.
In the UK, they allowed every polytech or FE college to become a university, which doesn't really fool anyone, but has been good for a small number of higher-end polys like the [University of] Portsmouth [Polytechnic].
And like MIT, many top tertiary institutions don't use the term university: Imperial College, CalTech, Europaische Technische Hofschule, etc.
-
Hard News: Things worth knowing, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Yeah, I know Hebei doesn't have a Waikato climate (having Googled it). I guess it's strictly cows in sheds there, but it's near enough to Beijing for "town supply".
My point is really that there are plenty of places in the world with a reasonably cow-friendly climate and undeveloped dairying.
-
Hard News: Things worth knowing, in reply to Jason Kemp,
Interesting. It's probably a good idea for NZ to export expertise rather than milk powder (given that if we don't, someone else will) but it will eventually cannibalise the latter business. (I guess if you can do dairying in the Mackenzie, you can do it anywhere, but there must be a whole lot of places in the world with a Waikato type climate and cheaper land and workers).