Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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Must add it to my towering 'books I must read over the summer' pile. First in line is the fascinating 99 Ways into NZ Poetry.
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Speaker: The great New Zealand phone…, in reply to merc,
Reported as suicide, there was recently a biography written. I mean, suicide by cyanide delivered in an apple, and the apple was not tested for traces of cyanide?
Indeed there was a biography, which I picked up a few years ago. Interesting to read if one skips over the mathmatical bits. Who knew; brilliant homosexual saves the day?
Unfortunately his sexuality came into conflict with the 'morals' of the day and indeed underwent chemical castration. Not surprisingly he killed himself by eating an apple laced with cyanide. This was a mirror image of Snow White who was 'put to sleep' eating an apple (read the biography). Apple apparently continue to deny that their logo has anything to do with the image of Turing's mode of death, but one wonders.
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Me, envious? Not at all.
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Oh Epsom, what a clusterfuck you are.
I live in the electorate, which includes the liberal enclave of Parnell. We can't seem to outvote the blue rinse set just down the road. However, please note I quite sometime ago declared my home to be a seperate republic, distinct from Epsom electorate, so just in case anyone is wondering, it's the rest of Epsom electorate that's a clusterfuck, not my place. :)
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to 81stcolumn,
Buses ? I'd rather walk...last time that happened I just got off in the middle of nowhere.
Yet 'nowhere' is somewhere as well.
All I can say is that this Police behaviour is somewhat typical; once on their high horse they are inclined not to get off the horse. The Urewera 18 is one example. Arie is another. Police need training in humility - public esteem would go through the roof if they were to practice it.
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Many think psychopaths are slick masterminds, like Palpatine or Lecter, but really, they are aimless, deeply needy people and what strikes me most about Key, apart from his desire for self-aggrandisement, is his desperate need to be liked by everyone.
That explains the heavy DPS presence then. What better affirmation than that, natch on a daily basis? The added bonus is that it neatly fills an empty hole a.k.a feeling inferior by throwing the DPS around like bling.
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Hard News: Radio NZ: Sailing on in…, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Just a reminder to watch the documentary on leaky homes tonight. My sister is the producer. It was her idea to document the saga and raise the funds to do so, and she has been working for years getting all the right people in front of the camera and getting it to screen.
Thanks and all power to your sister! I watched with great interest (not because I live in a leaky building). The documentary was well put together and told a very coherent story in an economical manner. Excellent stuff. My partner said that the documentary should be screened every night for a month - to get the point across.
I particularly appreciated the Swiss cheese hole analogy.
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I certainly felt last night at my sister's place in St Heliers. Loud noise then the whole house shook (2 storey wooden villa). We thought something had crashed or something so went outside to check - all was calm. We managed to figure out it was an earthquake, and texted friends etc. But the net was pretty quick - GNS was quick off the mark in telling where and what power.
Just that little jolt of two seconds was enough for me to glimpse what Chch people might be going through - a small panic - and wondering - was there going to be another... (fortunately in Auckland - nope, rarely happens apparently) and to have this experience a couple of times a day for months would be very very wearyingly on people...
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Capitalism has its uses, but preying on the stricken should not be one of them.
Actually, it is one of its raison d'etres. Otherwise as a beast, how could it survive?
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Hmmm, so there were warnings including warning about sub-strate problems leading to serious damage. These were well known at the time. So who's at fault now?