Posts by Ben Austin
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Capture: Someone, Somewhere, In Summertime, in reply to Jos,
Great photo - where is it? It reminds me a little of various Muslim palaces in Spain.
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The various speeches in support from those on the right - Banks, Henere, or Burrows are especially moving, given the expectation of a contrary view.
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I always find it rather hard to decide how to act in this situation. I did read Ender's Game a lot and the sequels such as existed before the early 2000s and greatly enjoyed them. On the other hand the author is incredibly vocal in his personal political views.
My view is that if the author or artist makes an effort to promote their views in that way and leverage's their fame to do so, then I am quite entitled to take that into account when reading their work, or not as it were
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I do like Providores although I've not been for a while, as it is slightly out of the way for me at present. Good to see someone is poaching talent back to NZ away from London and not the other way around
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Hard News: You down with TPP?, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Ian , surely five envelopes is a little excessive for an austerity Christmas?
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I have yet to see any sort of clearly explained cost/benefits explanation from the government on the TPP. I'm not talking about general "it will be good for X or Y industry" explanations, but instead one that specifies sector by sector benefits (dollar value), with the "working" shown.
Until I do I'm not planning to change my view on the matter that we will have a similar result as the Australia-US deal earlier in the century. I studied that a bit at uni as it was happening and was happy enough with the general conclusion that it was not worth the cost.
If you care to do so, try and track down the reports that were in favour of the FTA, they all promised massive benefits but then when it came to explaining the figures, things became rather woolly and ridden with assumptions.
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So, if we take a leaf out of Charlie Stross's novel Rule 34, where the big supermarkets were nationalised; a future government may be tempted to nationalise Sky in order to get a public broadcaster!
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Capture: The Castle, in reply to Jackie Clark,
Jackie,
I take it you have been to Port Chalmers recently? I went there myself in February or March when back last and thought the sculpture park (right term?) at the top of the hill was pretty neat. Great view over the harbour and peninsular too
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Interesting to see the photo of the Coronation Hall, or the Orange Coronation Hall. I went to Belfast last weekend and did the obligatory "political" tour. The taxi driver was vaguely interested to here that the Order had a NZ presence for a while.
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Many happy returns and all that.
I've appreciated having PA/S available since I left NZ in 07 and indeed before I left. I vaguely recall someone, maybe Che, helping me find waffles in Wellington, which was most kind.
Good luck with the future.