Posts by Steve Withers
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
McCully is a poor choice for any portfolio. I guess National's problem is that they have so many lightweights and no-hopers in their ranks that they have to put duds in some jobs.
Tony Ryall, Judith Collins, Gerry Brownlee, Lockwood Smith and Murray McCully are the short-hand version of a longer list of people who collectively are all excellent reasons why any sane person would not vote for National.....whatever their ideology might be.
-
Fascinating watching Republicans accidentally speak the truth...and then be forced to recant their heresy. These brief moments of intellectual integrity are all too fleeting and rare....and too easily quashed. Funny the party that is most bellicose and individualist is at the same time locked into a deeply-flawed group-think few dare repudiate .
-
I lump Bill Ralston in with Garth George and others who shoot from the lip without caring too overly much about the wider picture. So of course these people have columns in daily newspapers because while they confirm prejudice and preconception for many of those who read them, they also spark useful debate, provoke some thought (my hope) and - of course - sell papers.
Having worked in prisons, I know very well that most people who thump the wife to a pulp do blame her and it may even be that she did her bit to provoke it as some people are twisted in that way. But at the end of the day the swinging fists belong to someone....and it's usually a man.
Raltson can cry "PC" if he likes....but it won't change that simple fact.
One of the reasons domestic violence gets worse as we get older is that the toll of 'life mistakes", including alcohol and other drugs, accumulates over time and reduces some people's ability to restrain themselves.
The law holds the owners of the fists are accountable for what they do with them.
You aren't smug, Russell. If anyone is smug it's Ralston and his own preference for preconception and prejudice over some very simple and obvious realities.
-
I'm at work, but those links to the Ferguson "Ascent of Money" video appear to be dead. We have no trouble accessing YouTube, but who knows. I'll test them when I get home.
-
In the Canadian province of Ontario, beer is sold via "Brewers' Retail" stores operated by the brewers, who have a monopoly under laws that give the provincial government a monopoly on all sales of alcohol. If you want to buy imported beer, wine or spirits, you go to the "LCBO" (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) stores.
They tend to be few and far between, though they are much more numerous now than they were 20 or 30 years ago.
In the tougher neighbourhoods of Toronto - like Dufferin and St. Clair - the LCBO store is guarded by three security guards wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying batons.
Bottom line: Big liquor stores are even MORE attractive targets for robbers.....especially armed ones.
Maybe the liquor lobby is trying to shut out the small players....and the law has nothing to do with security at all.
-
Having just bought (not inherited) my first actual Apple product, I'm finding adjusting the the "culture" a challenge. I have an iPod Touch. I don't need an iPhone - I already have a good, cheap, phone. But the Touch! I LOVE the very cool software, the look, the feel, the sheer joy of using the thing......but do not enjoy having to import by ripped-separately 256k MP3 files through iTunes...and then not being able to copy them back off again. I use several PCs (mainly Windows laptop and desktop and a Linux system) at home.....not just one....so having the iPod "tethered" to one PC is limiting and sometimes inconvenient. Of course it doesn't work with Linux at all.
Being used to doing whatever I want, whenever, wherever with Linux, adjusting to the more restricted Apple 'system' hasn't been pleasant.
I want the Apple goodness......but ultimately, the freedom means more. I won't be a loyal Apple customer.
-
I may be wrong, but Judith Collins has always come across to me as the worst sort of party hack. I'd be very surpised if she took a stand on principle on ANYTHING......that wasn't pre-approved by anyone owning a butt she needed to kiss.
-
Wow.....keyboard weirdness. This:
"If anyone hasn't got hat they yet, get it soon."
Should be: If anyone hasn't got that yet, they should get it soon.
-
The Herald is campaigning for a multi-term National Party government enabled by the death of MMP.
If anyone hasn't got hat they yet, get it soon.
Auckland's only daily newspaper is no longer about journalism and all about enabling a political agenda they intend to do their very best to bring about.
I have seen nothing inconsistent with this assessment for the past 3 years....and I doubt I will any time soon.
-
In response to the OP, something defintiely doesn't add up.
Using credit we could not afford, the world engaged in levels of consumption it now can't sustain......and the answer is MORE credit we (still) can't afford?
Meanwhile, savers are seeing their returns evarporate as the debt addicts driving the central banks encourage ever more borrowing (backed by the taxpayer!) at interest rates lower than seen for years.
This will either fix everything (can't see how with no savings) or it will move us all to the next bubble which will pop either in a welter of hyper-inflation or implode in a blizzard of defaults......by governments.
Or maybe both as everyone, everywhere prints money to prevent the defaults.
Whatever.....none of this is adding up.