Posts by Tony Judd
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Tony, I must have a higher expectation of people than you do. Which situation do you think would be better:
A) A mother as a part of a properly functioning family, or
B) A mother being paid because she is not so?Grant, I must have a stronger understanding that the world is not a theoretical fantasy land than you do. Which situation do you think would be better?
A) A mother has three children and recieves a benefit to help feed, house and educate them while she is unable to work, or
B) A mother is punished for not being in a relationship by being forced to somehow scrabble for enough money to allow her children to merely survive, thus re-enforcing the cycle of poverty?1% of the population being in genuine need is not justification for handing out money as a way of life.
Your repetition of this number without being able to provide a single shred of evidence that it is anything other than a figure that you have made up makes me think that this is some sort of article of faith to you. An article of faith is only true to the believer. Please provide evidence that in the real world (the one where we live) that only 1% of welfare recipients are in genuine need, or else quit making things up.
You continue to demonstrate your ignorance by pretending that people do not claim benefit out of indolence. All it takes to be indolent is a little encouragement. A benefit is a great encouragement to anyone who has only ever known a benefit, or worse.
Again, you are just making shit up. Are you truly claiming that 99% of beneficiaries claim the benefit purely out of laziness. You do not have a single shred of evidence to support that claim. All you have are your own nasty predjudices.
There is already legislation against the break-up of families. So you're going to have to issue challenges that make you at least appear to know what you're talking about.
I beg your pardon? What on earth are you talking about? Good god man. Are you hallucinating?
And, no, I wouldn't like a paycut. Why would I?
What do you think a cheaper workforce actually means in this situation Grant? Cheaper workforce = lower wages. I would argue that the people who are unlikely to want a cheaper workforce are those in the workforce. I assume you work. Therefore...
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Single mothers do not benefit from being given money. They benefit from being part of a properly functioning family. Some things money will never solve.
What, apart from having enough food for your children and a house to live in you mean?
A welfare state would do much better to issue laws protecting families rather than handing out money after families disband.
I'm sorry, that sounded like you were advocating that the government legislate against the break up of families. Do you propose that divorce become illegal? I sometimes struggle to understand if you are treating this entire forum a a joke. I truly don't know what stops me from believing that you are...
Why does a state sanction this sort of degradation? People are capable of finding there way to this level regardless of public policy. Without a benefit to keep them subsisting the motivation to work would motivate them to work.
You are either deliberately obtuse, incredibly badly informed or an asshole. What possible reason do you have for thinking that people claim benefits purely out of indolence?
Having no money is not a social problem. People's actions that cause poverty are. People's responses to poverty are. Clearly the idea of paying poor people for doing nothing does not end their need.
Quack quack quack. That doesn't even make sense. See above re: deliberate obtuseness.
More people in the workforce ... means a cheaper workforce.
Which should end all argument. Who doesn't want a cheaper workforce?Would you like a pay cut Grant?
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Less than 10% of annual US oil consumption as far as I can tell.
Should be:
Less than 10% of US oil consumption every year as far as I can tell.
That is ANWR could provide 10% per annum of the US oil requirements.
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As for the environmental aspect, follow this link to get an idea of the BS spread about ANWAR
Please. Nine photos do not an environmental study make. ANWR is a wildlife refuge. It's very purpose is to provide wilderness without development. It is not there to provide pretty photographs for rich tourists on their holidays. It provides an ecological function. One which is exceptional in Alaska today due to the massive development that has occurred in the state since its settlement in the early 19th century. Today less than 16% of Alaska is composed of unimpacted wilderness.
You are talking about a 2000 acre development in the middle of a wilderness refuge - a national park. For what? Less than 10% of annual US oil consumption as far as I can tell.
As an aside, in my role a professional ecologist, I would be very interested if you were able to point me to any data indicating that a development such as an oil rig has no impact on wildlife, despite what the nine photos on the link you posted might be trying to suggest. The scientific literature currently suggests the opposite.
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One of the few ways to make that happen is for the US to start drilling for oil domestically on a significant basis. With the way things are shaping up in the US and in D.C right now that may well happen. Congress has to vote to reaffirm the ban by Sept 30. if they don’t it automatically lapses. You would want to be in a very, very safe Dem seat to vote against domestic drilling right now.
James, laying aside the politics of whether the American people believe that it will help or not, as far as I can tell from this page the total US in-ground oil reserves are somewhere around 20 billion barrels. According to this site, the current US consumption is around 20 million barrels of oil per day. By my math that means that the total US oil reserves could only ever provide around 3 years worth of oil if fully exploited.
It seems to me that a more prudent policy would be to drastically cut oil use rather than manically destroying what wilderness is left on the continent in the vain hope of securing the national interest from "The Russians".
Ignoring the folly of talking yourself into another cold war for no good reason of course.
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I just found it rather ironic opening the Herald (which is supposedly the paper of record in these parts) and finding that lifting sanctions against a man who was at the center of a military coup in our own backyard wasn't actually considered particularly newsworthy.
I'm slightly out of the loop, but my feeling is that in general the coup in Fiji has now faded to "business as usual for Fiji" in the public consciousness. I know that I have friends in Australia who are planning on going there this year on holiday.
But it is still a bad place to be an Indian, a businessman, gay, a journalist, or a poor Fijian. Anyone except a chief with ties to the military or a soldier basically. I know the NZ government is still exerting pressure, but what else is there to do? I don't think an Australian invasion was ever truly on the cards, despite the gossip in Suva, and I don't really know whether a peacekeeping force would work either. It seems like there are some really serious underlying issues to do with race and the power held by chiefs that need to be addressed before that country will be able to have anything like a modern just and fair political and legal system free from the threat of coups.
So have these things been discussed in the NZ media? Is anyone talking about what to do?
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Well, it depends on whether you think travel bans are credible or effective when they're not applied consistently, or are no more than cosmetic window dressing in the first place.
I guess that I think that there is enough at stake that we shouldn't pick one strategy at the exclusion of all others and sit back, waiting for it to work. The fact remains that travel out of Fiji is now extremely difficult for everyone who was involved in the coup. That is pressure. Bainimarama will now attend the leaders forum. People will speak to him there. That is pressure.
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Well, I guess that is moral relativism for you. An inability to see the blindingly obvious. A sad place to be.
Fuck your moral relativism. The world isn't black and white.
If you're gonna be the judge of who should get to stay in power and who shouldn't James, is there anyone else on your list of governments who need to be overthrown for "freedom"?
Maybe you could list them alphabetically for me. No wait, list them in order of evil - maybe you could run a column next to that list of how many civilians would die in each "freedom excursion" too. Then we could find the point where a government was insufficiently evil to be worth that many deaths.
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The "American kind of freedom" that I referred to James is the particularly American view that war is necessary to preserve freedom
sorry, I should have said
The "American kind of freedom" that I referred to James is the particularly American view that war is only acceptable to preserve freedom
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Well, Tony, heavens forfend we actually ask if our own Government's rhetoric is a comfortable fit with its actions. Please, resume normal service.
I'm sorry Craig, forgive me if I seem dense, but I really don't get where you are going with this one.
So, as I see it, the NZ govt announced a policy to refuse NZ visas to all Fijian military personnel who were involved with the coup. One of the effects of that ban is that Bainimarama is unable to travel to Niue for the South Pacific Leaders' Forum. Presumably it was decided that there might be some value in engaging him at that forum, so the ban has been waived for a short time.
I'm looking for hypocrisy there, but I'm having trouble finding it. Perhaps I'm missing something?