Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: The Sharing Man, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
looks like some sort of anti-plagiarism / thesaurus substitute type programme,
Ah, yes. That makes sense.
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Hard News: So what now?, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
It’s a retirement village that literally has the North Shore Hospital over the back fence, has a major public transport hub across the road, is well served by amenities that are easily accessible. As I understand it, a lot of residents either can’t drive or choose not to keep cars (it’s a pretty serious expense if you’re on a fixed income) and they don’t have to.
Selwyn Village, in my suburb, has a fucking tower block. I guess they should count themselves lucky they got in when they did.
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Hard News: So what now?, in reply to Bart Janssen,
And how is this even published anywhere let alone in the biggest newspaper in the country, what a load of tripe.
As I noted on Twitter, the Herald has been on the wrong side of history quite a few times over the decades.
Orsman seems determined to take up the tradition.
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Hard News: UNGASS and the "Drug Free…, in reply to Alfie,
The National Drug Policy places a strong emphasis on alcohol and other drugs which is admirable.
And on drugs as a health, rather than criminal issue. And it acknowledges, for the first time, that a key component of the harm associated with illicit drugs lies in the laws against them.
The Law Commission has also done some excellent work in this area.
And two Parliamentary select inquiries, which came to similar conclusions after hearing the evidence.
But these sorts of commonsense reports unfortunately mean little when they’re so easily ignored by a government with an entrenched drugs are bad attitude.
Quite.
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Orsman's column today makes it pretty clear where his reporting comes from:
Last night's vote to scuttle housing density plans is a victory for democracy and another black mark against the Len Brown-Penny Hulse leadership.
Mayoral candidate Vic Crone hit the nail on the head when she said the Unitary Plan further undermines Aucklanders' low trust in the council after the port debacle and a sneaky 9.9 per cent rates rise.
Phil Goff, another mayoral candidate, said the main game turned into alienating residents' quality of life and value of their properties.
Either Goff or Crone will probably have to deal with the mess that will spill over to a new mayor and council after October's local body elections.
To recap, late last year a proposal was hatched to rezone thousands of homes in the city's leafy suburbs for intensification. No-one was consulted or had a formal right of reply under the Unitary Plan process.
Of course, they're not "plans" and they're not "scuttled".
This is so deficient an account of what actually happened it seems clear Orsman isn't really interested in informing his readers. All they need to know is that, like everything, it's Len Brown's fault.
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And the whole thing makes a Bloomberg blog that draws comparisons with similar battles in America:
I have cited, again and again, the estimate by economists Chang-Tai Hsieh and Enrico Moretti that reducing regulatory constraints on housing to the national norm in just New York, San Francisco and San Jose would increase U.S. gross domestic product by 9.5 percent. That's an estimate, and you may find the assumptions behind it debatable. But I'm willing to believe that it's directionally correct. And if you consider that similar forces are at work in Auckland and other cities around the world, it's hard not to wonder whether one of the major forces holding back global economic growth these days is old people yelling rudely at zoning meetings.
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Hard News: UNGASS and the "Drug Free…, in reply to Alfie,
It does feel like the winds of change are starting to blow when Peter Dunne starts talking about drug abuse as a health problem.
And it's actually been that way for a while, as anyone who has been paying attention knows.
I'm really out of patience with people who fancy that they're achieving anything by personally abusing Dunne on Twitter. If I was him, I'm not sure I'd still be bothering by now.
The most common misconception is that Dunne can change the law. He can't and frankly, the National government – which can but won't – is all too happy to see everyone validating their anger by abusing Dunne. It suits them just fine.
Granted, Dunne sometimes doesn't do himself any favours. But when I expressed disinterest this morning in yet another Twitter debate about who'd been a bigger meanie to who, I got lectured about my privilege.
I'd like to think some of the people abusing Dunne have bothered to read the National Drug Policy, but I'm not confident that's the case.
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Live Q&A with Sanho on Stuff.
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Hard News: So what now?, in reply to John Palethorpe,
Burton and his troops may be celebrating, but that is characteristic of people who literally cannot see beyond the short term. They've actually lost, and lost hugely. They just don't realise it yet.
This is exactly what I've been mulling over.
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