Posts by dc_red
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@Tom
treaty of Waitangi. To my mind, most of the treaty is now relevant only to academics
Several universities have far-reaching policy statements to the effect that their employees are to be guided by Te Tiriti (or its principles), including in teaching and research. Most academics have no idea what this means as a practical matter (how would Statistics 101 look different, for example?), and therefore ignore it altogether.
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Watching online to transcribe the test for our mutual amusement:
Pride is to downfall as overconfidence is to:
A) Setback
B) Comeuppance
C) Failure
D) HumiliationLisa: "Huh? They're all equally valid. But that can't be. In life everything only has one answer."
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There's a surprisingly good Simpsons episode from last season (SE20EP11), entitled "How the test was won"
The basic premise is that on the day of the standardized test day (pursuant to the "No Child Left Alone Act"), Superintendent Chalmers conspires to have Bart and a bunch of the other ne'er-do-wells sent off on a 'fieldtrip' (with Principal Skinner) so as to prevent them from bringing down the school's average score.
Some brilliant dialogue. Such as:
Principal Skinner: At the end of the month we'll be participating in the Vice President's Assessment Test.
Nelson (standing up in audience): He stinks!
Principal Skinner: We're assessing you, not him!
Nelson: Withdrawn.But the part that takes the cake in my book is Lisa's battle with the questions, where all the answers are synonyms. Unfortunately I can't find the script for that part, however.
The kids who stay behind for the test learn nothing, while those on the 'fieldtrip' learn the law of conservation of angular momentum (and how to apply it).
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Ironically, the performance of Microsoft Office 2009 under Snow Leopard is one of my problems.
About 2/3rds of the time when trying to log out or shut down, I get "Microsoft Word could not close properly" error messages - irrespective of whether Word is actually open. I then have to click through a bunch of windows before trying to log out or shut down a second time. Grrr.
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Or, as they say in Ohakune, "three thumbs up!"
I think it's about time we had a similar check box labeled "Rugby" - that way we can create a Ministry of Rugby, fund them with a yearly budget from the check box and hold them to it, no cost overruns. If they want to do really big things they can save up for them like the rest of us.
Take whatever figure Sneddon is currently quoting and triple it as representing the best estimate of the loss on this event. The taxpayer will be footing the bill for 2/3rds of that loss.
Setting up a Ministry of Rugby would be more honest than the current situation (in both the intellectual and accounting senses), but the more appealing option surely would be to tell the rugby union to fuck off.
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However, that current plan does come at a cost of around $3.7-$4.1 billion. Ouch.
Pfft, doesn't Joyce run up a billion dollars of promises a week anyway? A harbour crossing or two is at most a month's work for a man of such energy. ;-)
When it comes to roads, Labour and National are really tweedle dumb and tweedle dumberer.
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So he's regarded as merely having done what he often does -- padding out huge stretches of his column with quotations he doesn't even need to retype.
In some ways I'm grateful it's not Darth's standard offering of trite quotations from the Bible. Me thinks, though, he locates the quotation marks on his typewriter with ease when that is, indeed, the original source.
Come to think of it, his column sure could be made spicier if he'd quote the more repugnant parts of said book: the divinely-commanded genocide, infanticide and incest; the war-mongering; the racism; the bit about marrying your brother's wife, etc.
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A repeat of the Simpsons is likely to do well on TV2, following the All Blacks' inevitable QF exit? (Something which, itself, only attracted 1 million viewers last time around).
Following on from the latest Audrey Young story, it's doubtful that maraes would make ideal sites for backpacker accommodation, given that, err, you can't drink on them.
And are backpackers really the target audience here?
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It wasn't good enough in the Shipley years when Murray McCully spent taxpayers' money without telling Cabinet and it's not good enough now.
The whole saga does have a wonderfully Shipleyesque quality to it. Perhaps Pita and Muzza had dinner, but didn't talk politics? If only we could find the link to Tuariki John Delamere it would be like the late '90s all over again.
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@ DeepRed
French language still seems to be a bone of contention in Canada
Huh? Haven't seen or heard much in the way of contention for a long time. The fact that some Canadians speak French, while others speak English (and a lucky few speak both), is not really grounds for contention.
No trouble accessing Canadiens games with English commentary throughout Western Canada (where they have a pretty big following).