Posts by Andre
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Some cafes pride themselves on making their customers feel subservient and others are rude. Not many could come close to Rod Seymour from the Puhoi Pub. I once saw a yuppie woman from Parnell demand a swizzly stick for her drink from him. He took out his false teeth and dipped them in her glass saying "there's your swizzle stick love". http://www.puhoi.com/history/rod-seymour/rod-seymour.htm
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I really enjoyed SOG's website. A five minute read online is enough to see that they specialised in marijuana cultivation. The books for sale include NORML's magazine and "Cloning The Way To Grow". Who knew that they sold fireworks too though?
Are the police going to now arrest everybody who ever attended the Daktory as well?
Smokers are being victimised by the current legal environment. The law is encouragng gangs to be involved in supplying the product and pushing prices to quadruple what they would otherwise be without earning a cent in tax revenue. -
They should legalise marijuana instead of increasing the drinking age - it does less damage and it's apparently quite easy to grow your own (but may be a little more difficult now SOG is no longer). Prohibition doesn't work. If Al Capone were alive and living in NZ he wouldn't be selling whiskey - he'd be running a p factory on a dope plantation. De-criminalising weed will give police more time to target p manufacturers. Imagine the decreased burden on low income people who smoke dope if they were legally able to grow their own.
Did anyone else see that Real Crime documentary on TV1 about Denmark's prison system? They imprison a third as many prople as we do per capita and have a much lower crime rate as a result. 50% of kiwis have smoked dope at some stage. Getting tough on smoking weed is going to criminalise a huge number of ordinary kiwis which will please the private prison companies and their lobbyists but will cost the nation millions in the long run. Our system is not working - we now jail almost twice as many people per capita than we did in 1992.
That's why the SOG crack-down is a worry. Targeting pot-smokers is a retrograde step.
http://penal-system.suite101.com/article.cfm/denmarks_prison_system -
I'm just waiting for John Key to say "Read my lips - no new taxes". Then they'll screw us over by threatening to triple our local body rates unless they can sell some assets. The uber-wealthy boomers needed another tax break - I mean the property market's been a little shaky recently and they're even talking about regulating our finance industry. What shall they do? Raise GST and lower the top tax rate. That'll sort it.
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Won't we all be at Queens Wharf watching it free anyway?
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Why does the government have such a burning desire to party at Queens Wharf when there are many existing party places already paid for and constructed and ready to go for the RWC?
Haven't we got better things to do with our money?
I wonder if they'll build a fake beach on the end requiring us to pay for more Pakiri sand every few years a la Mission Bay. -
What is wrong with the Viaduct, Vector Arena or Aotea Square again? We don't need a "party central" on Queens Wharf.
At least we're not being lumped with the cost of it. Ratepayer funds are already diminished by $40 million because the Eden Park Trust Board are incompetent.
There's a lot going on already for the RWC - I get the feeling we're going to be spoilt for choice. -
For two seconds there after his media release last night I thought that maybe I'd got it all wrong. Maybe John Key really did think that it was WRONG for the wealthy not to pay tax at the expense of low and middle income New Zealanders. Rick Barker from Labour made it clear that they are just going to look after their old mates too. Maybe we need a political party aimed at non-baby-boomers with an intention to level the playing field. In the mean time student loan debt is at $10 billion and rising by $1 bn a year. That's indentured servitude. Not being able to buy a house increases that servitude.
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Wayne Barnes was either paid or he is blind. 37 possible penalties in the game against the French and only 2 awarded (both in the first half). Proof?
The AB's were poisoned deliberately in the hotel. Only they were affected out of all the guests.
Members of the Togo soccer team were murdered recently.
We invest a lot in following a sport that seems corrupt when bigger forces are involved - and our small country is pretty easy to screw over.
1991 was a shocker. Nothing went right and we deserved to lose. The Fench beat us fair and square in 2003.
In 1995 and 2007 we had the best team in the world. By miles. Unbeatable except for the ref and the waitress...
The French were dogged in 2007 but then if I'd infringed ten times without penalty then I suppose I also would think I had nothing to lose by smothering everything and standing offside for 80 minutes. We can blame Henry for not playing a better team but the NZRU chiefs had the inside word on what really happened and have kept him on. Go figure!
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JC is always happy to talk to anyone in the street... he's fairly chilled out off-screen. He used to frequent the same takeaways as me.
Why the beat-up? We need his show to continue existing. It actually does more for us than The Simpsons. If you're interested in getting Sky you can get The Simpsons anyway - and we can't actually purchase another half hour attempt at real NZ journalism in prime time otherwise.
Two years ago - even 12 months ago - 3News was winning hands-down and TVNZ was in a slump mainly because Carole Hirschfield and John Campbell came up trumps for TV3. They've lost one of the dynamic duo (Hirschfield to Maori TV). Think of Newsboy and Havoc. Where's Paul Casserly when you need him etc. Jeremy and Paul forged ahead in Mikey's absence. Who is looking after Mr Campbell?
Has Close Up suffered since Janet Wilson left? Yes it has. The quality of both shows has dropped because of the loss of some bright sparks. But new people with new great ideas might arrive and currently the situation is a pressure cooker for anyone wanting the job(s).
Most importantly we need to keep both shows rather than having one replaced by an (albeit fantastic) US cartoon.