Posts by Steve Barnes
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Hard News: For want of some purpose, in reply to Myles Thomas,
Maturity brings the ability to ignore the voice that demands you to ‘buy!’
True but the business model of broadcast TV means that the viewer is no longer the customer, they are the product and advertisers are the client. It's a mixed up crazy old world we live in, the more mature you are, the less people listen.
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Hard News: For want of some purpose, in reply to Islander,
I may get Freeview – but it is uncertain the service is available in the wopwops.
Terrestrial Freeview may be a no-go but if you have a Sky dish all you need is a Freeview satellite box, same satellite (Optus D1).
I too have ditched Sky but they keep sending me bills and refusing to accept I cancelled. Am I liable for those bills if I can't prove I cancelled?. -
Hard News: The not-so-Evil Empire, in reply to Russell Brown,
Apple’s devices and the services attached to them do generally just work.
And Steve Jobs did make the trains run on time.
Oh, wait... -
Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to BenWilson,
I preferred conductors, frankly. I seem to remember that they ended up actually losing money putting in machines and taking away the conductors, just on the free riding. It only took about 10 people every hour not to pay for their ticket and that was the entire wage cost of the conductor lost.
+1
In addition it is also a job for a local rather than an overseas, in this case French, “Automation” company.
I haver said it before, back in the day we were told that automation would benefit all by reducing the workload for all, we were not told that automation would pave the way for individual employees (ie. CEOs) to walk away with multi million dollar wage packets.
Bring back the conductors, bring back station managers, bring back NZ Rail tea. The pies were rather good too -
In considering whether the verdict was unsafe, the judge at the pre-hearing must weigh up all the factors. One would like to believe that the judge will conduct a fair and balanced review of the material of the case, but it invariably comes down to something as simple as; was the original judge a close friend of the review judge? Cynical? Yes; add a corrupt police department to the wayward legal system, with a smattering of injustice and a tablespoon of lying deviants. Once baked you'll find a nice golden cynicism drizzled in a healthy sauce of disgust.
Not to suggest anything as dark is happening here.
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Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to Matthew Poole,
your insinuation that this is some kind of old boys’ network at play
I insinuated nothing of the sort but now you mention it...
doesn’t sit well with the reputation of our judiciary for being uncorrupted and impartial.
No, it doesn't, does it?.
He has had the most serious charge dropped under circumstances that demand explanation.
An unsafe verdict is one that will, most likely, be overturned on appeal as not being beyond reasonable doubt. In this particular case it seems, although I am not certain, that the daughter may have perjured herself while acting as a witness for the prosecution. This is enough to bring the prosecution case into doubt.
Was it a deliberate ploy? who knows? but sure as chips are chips when you have Paul Davison QC as your defence lawyer such manoeuvres are not that much of a surprise. -
Hard News: If wishing made it so ..., in reply to Sacha,
There’s collective value and concern as well as individual. Neoliberalism seems to attract the selfish.
Indeed it does, the attitude is “My “Hard Earned Money” no longer makes me special now those plebs can travel for free”. Hard earned my arse,. When the greedheads get to own our assets and pay the stuffed shirts and skirts fistfuls of filthy lucre for sitting at a big table plotting the next ripoff, the rest of us will all be worse off and that, my friend, will make the bastards feel special. Let’s just dump the financial system all together and revert to a barter system then we can say “Oooh, look at you with all your bits of paper covered in complicated numbers, what have you got to offer, what can you do?. Sod off ya wanker”
Whilst we are on about these sad excuses for people I see that Whitey gets to go home again
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I think you will find many instances of brilliant ideas designed to make social services (public transport, power, telephones etc.) a little more efficient, reliable and equitable, have been stymied by the "need" to monetise them. Free is the new price for such things. The social benefit of affordability of the basic needs of society greatly outweighs the need for a few individuals to become wealthy and should be the blueprint for infrastructure, nationalisation is the only way to achieve that goal. Unfortunately the mantra that the Private Sector is far more efficient than Public Ownership is still the battle cry of the right wing.
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Hard News: The frustrating politics of…, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Otherwise called attacking the symptom, which effectively is the new PC.
With reference to my earlier suggestion of compulsory cannabis for National...
"Well, I'm relaxed about that, pretty happy, really quite happy. But we must attack those bats and I believe our 120 point plan will see a reduction of the number of lizards crawling on this carpet... Man" -
Ahh, Helen Clark. I'd almost forgotten what a proper Prime Minister was like.
Perhaps the first move could be compulsory cannabis for the National Party, party on dudes.