Posts by Mikaere Curtis
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What kind of response could be expected from the fishing industry if seal numbers were to reach 200k? 500k?
Is there anything more vile than an unsustainable fishing industry blaming their low catch results on other fish-eathing species ? As if these other species had a choice in the matter.
At least it would be reasonably straight forward to organise public sentiment against this kind of needless slaughter.
The notion that the state has an interest in the health of your body so that you can serve the nation better is at heart a fascist one and I do feel a teeny bit uncomfortable with the way some public health advocates carry on sometimes, all hygiene and imperialism and blithe assumption that keeping it in tiptop shape is the only point of having a body at all. But just a teeny bit, mind.
Another way of looking at this is that it is actually about the state doing something about the right of unaccountable private tyrannies to subject the populace to relentless campaigns to induce them to take up highly addictive, and potentially fatal, drug.
My position on this is that it should be legal to be a smoker, but totally criminal to supply tobacco on a commercial scale. If you want to grow your own, fine. Share it with your mates, fine. But we would no longer have such a harmful and addictive substance being available at every supermarket, service station, or dairy.
There are two dimensions when it comes to dangerous activities: freedom and accessibility.
I am loathe to take away freedom, especially when it results in criminalising the otherwise-law-abiding (e.g. dope smokers).
Accessibility is a whole different issue. You don't have a right to have immediate, convenient access to risk and danger.
Image what would happen if we provided free and convenient bus rides to alpine tramping tracks for all and sundry, regardless of their preparedness or the weather. Introducing almost unfettered access to something that is risky will result in more negative outcomes (e.g. more people lost in the alps, more dying of exposure). Same goes for smokling. We don't need to outlaw it, just outlaw its accessibility.
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Save yourselves some time. Just change your logo to a swastika.
roflnui
Great post, Keith.
On the indigenous whaling point, the article states that:
In regard to Te Ohu Kaimoana, the trust was not "interested in whaling", but would be interested in taking meat from stranded beached whales unable to be saved.
This is not what people typically think of when they envisage whaling. We already have DOC approved whalebone harvesting, and I can't see what's wrong with the local hapu having the right to harvest unsaveable beached whales. So, in this case, TOK may have retained Inwoods services not because they are interested emulating the Japanese approach, but that they wanted someone with industry knowledge to assist in their communications programme.
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Yeah, it's amazing the attitude some people have towards pop stars.
I took my daughter (who is right into the whole Justin Bieber thing) to Lady Gaga. It was a fantastic show, and a real contrast to the Pixies the night before.
Anyway, a good friend was holding her 40th in our back yard that night, with a fair number of guests I didn't know. And I'm, like, "Lady Gaga Rocks" and some guy said to me "Yeah, but she was rubbish."
I said: "Did you go ?"
He said: "No, but she mimes all her songs".
Imagine that, allowing Milli Vanilli and Betty Boo to forever colour your perspective on pop music.
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For those of you saying that Cannabis is a victimless crime... please prove this.
I assume you mean the recreational consumption of cannabis. There is no direct victim, apart from the plant. Nobody gets hurt if you have a session.
Using cannabis is not risk-free, and some people certainly should not use it (e.g. schizophrenics, non-adults).
But just because something is risky does not mean that it should be criminalised. Mountaineering and rock-fishing are risky, and lead to preventable deaths, and they are not criminalised. Same should go for cannabis.
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Under the Proceeds of Crime Act, the police stand to reap quite a sum of money from the nationwide franchise.
My reading of the act is that the proceeds go the the Official Assignee, not the police (but I could be wrong).
I suspect that the police motivation is that the SOG, like most cannabis smokers, represent an easy target - given the Proceeds of Crime Act. Oh, and a nice boost to the awesome Drug Harm Index, as Russell points out.
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Bob the show pony do seem cut from a similarly poor cloth as Banks and the "lets rip those hundred year old sheds down" brigade./
Actually, Banks wants the sheds to be retained, he asserts they are part of our architectural heritage. Heritage or not, the are an ugly eyesore, and need to be removed. I hope someone creative gets to do something cool with the wood, though.
Russelll is correct, Banks has been a lot better this time around, and was part of the push-back that put McCully's "party central" folly back in its box.
Back on topic: Maybe Christchurch's solution is to only elect mayors who are named after aging rock guitarists. Myself, I'd be shoulder-tapping anyone named Page, Gilmour, Clapton...
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But were they American children?
Because that seems to be all they care about. Everyone else is a wog to them.
Well, the soldier in the video seemed pretty keen to get help for the young girl he was carrying, and attempted to get her and her brother to a military hospital.
This reinforces my suspicion that the Apache crews have a more abstract relationship with the Iraqis on the ground, denoted by their cavalier attitude towards the atrocity they were undertaking.
Once you have dehumanised all Iraqis, and consider each one a potential insurgent, then the logical conclusion is to translate normal behaviour (in the context of Baghdad) into insurgent behaviour. Getting sign-off to kill from someone who can't see what is happening on the ground becomes a mere formality, as the video indicates.
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The implication is that all those Wellingtonians are sitting there with their hands out, waiting for Aucklanders to give them money that they (Wellingtonians) can spend as they wish.
More of an extrapolation than an implication.
Could the crux of issue be that Wellingtonians don't use the word "Wellington" as a proxy reference for the government ?
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Craig, ARTA is beholden to our District Plan, which is created via a democratic process. The proposed CCO will not be. Can you see a potential problem with this arrangement ?
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Re that Wellington thing, here's a compromise that I'm sure all you 'tonians will support:
Wellington=The Goverment
Wellywood=The City
;)