Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Nick Shand,
Just the niggardly dumbing down
Can't use that word either. Sounds too much like t'other.
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Hard News: Behaving badly at the bottom…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
You'll still get summonsed, and be expected to front up to the court.
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Hard News: Behaving badly at the bottom…, in reply to Rich Lock,
Is there a limited number of challenges for each side
I believe it's six per side, but whatever it is can be varied by the judge with the agreement of counsel - as is the case with the majority of the rules that apply to running a trial.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Ah, the gold standard. The fall-back of anyone who doesn't completely understand the concept of a closed system. It's awesome if you don't trade with any other countries, I guess, but unless you produce lots of gold yourself your economy is fucked.
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Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason, in reply to Annie,
What I want to know is, who owns the land adjacent to the said Highway? They must be expecting some serious increases in land value. I have also heard it said that Stephen (Joyce) is tipped as the future National man to replace Lockwood when he retires. So are these things mere coincidences?
Mostly the land is in private hands, and a lot of it is going to have to be acquired before Puford can be built since there's no existing designation. Not all the land-owners are terribly happy about that, and the ones who're expecting to have their land devalued by being next to a highway are far from thrilled. Being next to a major through road is not good for property values, as opposed to being next to a through road's destination.
Yes, rumour does have it that our illustrious Minister for the RTF is angling for Lockwood's seat this year, though I've not seen anything that rises above the category of rumour. He may be overestimating the electoral benefits that'll accrue to him for being the driver of the Puford white elephant, but the seat is so safely National's that the opposition would have to be nearly universal before it cost him the election. Pity.
As far as coincidences goes, who knows? National's pandering to the RTF is no secret, and their general disdain for anything that's not private transport is demonstrated in the comments in the House from English and Joyce both as well as from utterances by the Dictator for Canterbury.
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Hard News: Behaving badly at the bottom…, in reply to andin,
The registrar draws by ballot a bunch of names (how many is determined by the type and predicted length of the trial) from people who've been summonsed and have reported to the court that day, and that’s the jury panel. The panel are then escorted to the court room, and seated at the back. Your name gets called, you walk from the back of the court room to the jury box, and if the defence or prosecution don’t like the look of you (or don’t like your occupation or address, since they only have your electoral roll details) they call “challenge” before you sit down. If they do, you’re not on the jury for that trial, if they don’t you take your seat and you’re a juror. That’s the extent of it.
We don’t do voir dire in the manner of courts in the US, and I don’t think that’s at all a bad thing. -
Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Russell Brown,
3 News is reporting that the autopsy believes a fall combined with his heart condition is what lead to Cem's death. Given that they talked of "injuries", I'm not surprised the Herald kept on with the "suspicious" line. When it takes an autopsy to determine that the injuries were likely accidental the Police would have been remiss to not consider that foul play could've been responsible.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
So what does the US do? Their economy is the basis of all the IMF and World Bank recommendations, right down to the effectively-unregulated financial sector, weak employment protections, heavily-privatised provision of essential services, limp environmental protections, etc.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to andin,
It's only a lot if it's your debt.
As for what happens if a country defaults, well, they have lots of guns and they also have nukes. I don't like the odds of anyone who tries to sic Baycorp onto them. -
Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 1: Beach…, in reply to recordari,
I've been loving cycling the last few days. There's no traffic worthy of the name (I've cycled to uni in morning peak, so I know the difference), and that makes it much easier for car drivers to be considerate.
Of course there are still the wankers, like the guy who told me to perform a carnal act on myself when I shouted "Watch out for cyclists" as he performed a meandering turn across my path into Mobil Otahuhu. But that's been the only negative, and I had fun this morning toddling about taking photos of the work at Papa-two-toes for AKT blog as part of my ride.