Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Hebe,
Who would be liable: elected officials, council staff, the council itself?
Council itself i.e. ratepayers. Elected reps have indemnity in law, and I think Council pays for staff indemnity.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to Sacha,
Snipped from Fran O'Sullivan and reposted by Sacha
Cabinet Ministers would have been well aware that more than one international reinsurer has been contemplating legal action against the Christchurch City Council over why developments took place on land which could obviously be compromised by a significant earthquake.
Wearing my elected rep hat:
It's a shame that a court case hasn't occurred. It certainly would give much needed spine to planners and hearing commissioners who apparently cannot seem to put the letters N and O together in any emphatic fashion.
Blaming a shonky District Plan is wearing thin.
Doffing said hat.
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Southerly: Tower Insurance Have Some Bad…, in reply to David Haywood,
2. In due course, the government will onsell our land to property developers. Given that it’s a prime riverfront section, given that the land isn’t significantly damaged, and given that all the state and council houses will be gone – then the government could well make a profit on this also.
I suggest that people check out last month's Metro story about a Government selling Crown owned land in Albany, North Auckland to err "property developers" (Singaporean/Malay 'developers') at a fire sale price who then onsold a few years later at a hefty profit margin.
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Muse: Some Link Crack To Tide You Over..., in reply to Rich Lock,
How weird. I was only yesterday afternoon looking at Boroditsky's work...
But definitely - if you learn another language, spatial dimensions are slightly different, depending on the language.
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Muse: Some Link Crack To Tide You Over..., in reply to bmk,
In fact I learnt more about grammar taking German than I did in English which seems silly - for some reason they don't seem to teach grammar as part of English any more (or at least not where and when I went to school).
That was my experience. Grammar wasn't taught at my school (presumably because it was assumed you 'learnt' by osmosis) and so I learnt about English grammar by learning French in Montreal. I realised one day that learning about English grammar would help me in learning French grammar, so I got out grammar books and started reading.
I have also heard that if you get to the point where you can think in another language that is very mind expanding being able to conceptualise your thoughts with two different symbol systems.
My experience as well. Learning French really brought home to me how language structures our world. Surprise surprise, my PhD is on discourse and planning. I throughly encourage people to learn another language, and it doesn't even have to be foreign; learn engineering/legal/medical language, or sign language.
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Hard News: Here's one I prepared earlier, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Oh FFS... can we please call moral panic/slut-shaming bullshit on this? I know the HeraldFail and ComPost never quite got over the passage of the Prostitution Reform Act, but Calvert has a financial interest in a brothel. Her eyes were... oh, I don't really give a shit. Neither is illegal. Neither is even vaguely improper. Most pertinently, neither has the slightest relevance to my stunned disbelief every damn time she opens her mouth as an MP.
Sorry love... just stirring there. FWIW I agree. Her eyes atop her brothel? Where's the story in that? I couldn't believe the 4th Form behaviour of some male reporters. Snigger snigger they went. Sigh. Boys. Really. The product of Enlightenment. We really can't escape our base feelings can we?
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Hard News: Here's one I prepared earlier, in reply to Dave Waugh,
Yes I had backbenchers on in the background as I potted about the other night and Calverts even more barking than normal perfomance stopped me in my tracks!
I was gobsmaked at just how appalingly thick that statement was.
She is NZ's answer to Palin. :-(Yes, but have Palin's eyes ever graced a brothel advertisement?
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Southerly: One Hundred and Thirty-one…, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
You might as well go the whole Priscilla Queen of the Desert :)
Oh! There's an idea...you mean like the outfits those miners wear... workboots, singlets and stubbies?? ;)
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Hard News: Bishop Brian: It's worse than…, in reply to Jo Malone,
You’re a little behind the times in your thoughts on the work the Sallies do, and perhaps a little stuck in the 80s too when talking about their public stand against the Homosexual Reform Act in 86. They’ve moved on – and so should you. Read up on their discussion papers about homosexuality and the behind-the-scenes history of those Sallies who supported the HRA and all it stands for.
Perhaps they have. But it took until oh, 2006 or so for them to partially apologise for their behaviour in 1986.
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Hard News: Bishop Brian: It's worse than…, in reply to Lyndon Hood,
I’d like to see journos ask about why the ‘church’ have had funding applications for their programmes turned down
On morning report Lewis maintained he hadn’t the faintest.
Put very simply public money comes from taxpayers. Public money is subject to the Human Rights Act in the sense public money cannot be used in a manner that discriminates against gays / women etc. Given the virulent homophobia and misogyny of DC it's perhaps not surprising that sober and sensible public servants turn them down.
Anglican's don't get turned down because generally, the don't breach Human Rights. Nor do the Presbyterians - generally - but it's a little dicier with the Sallies and the Catholics.
The other thing is this; which politician wants to be on the receiving end of a newspaper report linking their approval of funding with the discovery of child abuse (smacking etc) or wife beating in a DC run space?