Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Hard News: Tooled Up for Food, in reply to Islander,
Really? It's the glass I need and I understood they were all different and impossible to buy.
I have a better one, but if I had a glass top I could sell it working.
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I have a microwave oven with no turntable.
Free to a good home - obviously won't cook too well, but you could use it for science experiments (AT OWN RISK).
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Tumblr did, a year or two ago, restrict its terms in order to shut down pro-anorexia and pro-selfharm sites
Which presumably were put there by people who believe that anorexia or cutting themselves are valid forms of self-expression. They do not, I notice, suppress anti-vax sites which are probably a worse public health issue than self-harm (not to mention the harms-self/harms-others thing).
I think that basically, one can have a "published" site like this (or CIF) where the publisher chooses what they want to present, or one can have a communication service like Twitter, etc. I don't think the former scales, and I don't think the latter should be in the censorship business.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to BenWilson,
There *are* parties in local government.
In Auckland, STV results in ad-hoc alliances. City Vision is an alliance of the local Labour, Green and Alliance Parties with community independents. Similarly, NACT form "Communities and Residents" (the former CitRats) but aren't as upfront about this.
In Wellington, we have STV and Labour and the Green party endorsing candidates, and NACT trying to pretend that their people (Kerry Prenderghastly, for instance) are *independents*. We also have a mayor who played on being a Green Party member, but wasn't endorsed by the party and has been notably ambivalent on ungreen polices like motorways and runway extensions.
I'd prefer to just be able to vote Green, get (if we succeed) a Green/Labour council that implements a policy programme associated with those parties.
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STV is better than FPP, but not much.
We could have MMP for local government, with some councillors being elected by ward and some on lists, and then the council electing a leader/mayor with majority support.
It'd stop local government being a biggest-ego competition and mean that council;s would usually have a clear majority group able to enact their platforms policies and seek re-election on basis of those polices.
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Legal Beagle: Council Elections: STV Q&A, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Health board elections would be less stupid if the boards were actually independent and had the ability to set the amount of tax they needed to operate.
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I have been to Trondheim (for work) - it's like an antipode of Invercargill. Are you aiming to sell your children into the oil industry or something?
On US airports, they are typically operated by local government. The dominant ideology of the US is that government is terrible at running things, and they work very hard to live up to this. Also, after the fashion of the imperial Roman and Chinese empires, they consider their society and practices to be perfect and refuse to comprehend any improvements that may have occurred in the barbarian lands beyond their borders.
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Will they play "if you tolerate this..." ?
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Legal Beagle: MPs' Pay, in reply to BenWilson,
I'm totally in favour of a UBI, along with measures like a cap on public service salaries (as practiced in that hotbed of socialism, the USA).
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Legal Beagle: MPs' Pay, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
I'm not sure anyone has ever suggested such a system would be practical without a radical change in attitudes. Most models of socialism start with to each according to their work and the migration to to each according to their need is expected to take many generations.
In our current system, earnings are determined by such factors as:
- the altruism of people in the same profession, so teachers and caregivers earn less than accountants and bankers
- the rarity and demand for one's professional skills
- the perceived attractiveness of the job, so media attracts poor or no pay at the low to mid levels
- the influence your profession has in determining salaries, so public sector CEOs work in concert to boost their rewardsI'm not sure that's any fairer than paying everyone a flat rate, even.