Posts by Steve Barnes
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Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I really really hope this FUBAR is not a sign of things to come…
Me too because although that 90% may have been a poll of nine rabid Labour haters and one staunch Labour supporter. The fact is that it indicates that people will vote on an emotional level without a clue about policy even facts and Mr Smiley still holds sway.
There is also the possibility that the respondents thought it was about last years budget, who really knows?. -
For reasons I can't be bothered going into I stumbled upon this guy...
Also known as Dr. Ecstasy by the New York Times. -
Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
Mythbusters did an episode comparing drink driving and talking on a mobile while driving. Sure it was “fun” seeing the team get drunk but the eventual message – that talking on a mobile (something I’d done regularly) is almost as dangerous as driving drunk
That’s because driving drunk is not the real problem. The real problem is not paying attention whilst driving.
Driving is quite simple, cars are designed to make hurtling down the highway as simple as possible for those that really should be in a home for the demented. So simple in fact that you can do it off your trolley. Problem is many people do not understand the consequences of piloting almost two tonnes of metal down a road at 100 kmph is actually quite dangerous even at the best of times let alone when you have to close one eye before you can tell which white line should be where and how slippery the road is and all those other factors that are quietly ignored by car manufacturers hawking racecars off to pubescent youths trying to prove their manhood.
(Pause for breath)
If people were made more aware of the danger of their obsession of "owning the road" and believing their car is an extension of their egos we would have less carnage on our roads.I have a friend who claims his vehicle is an automatic, it’s a horse.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to vangam,
That is simply preposterous. If it were only used by the “criminal element” it would hardly be the scourge of society that we are told it us.
Ah but…
Drugs are illegal so they become the “criminal element”. It is a self perpetuating myth.
The fact that drugs not manufactured by corporations that lobby governments to prohibit natural substances, eg. cannabis, mushrooms etc., is the big problem, it is the deamonisation and labelling by those that gain from this abhorrent situation that needs controlling. -
Legal Beagle: Too long, didn't read, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
Wait, you got one wish with an MP and leader of a political party, and you wasted it on “sort your web site out”? No world peace, cancer research, teachers in schools, doctors, nurses etc etc?
I, too, work in mysterious ways.
;-) -
I have to add that this is why people want to live in affluent countries, we are still one of those in many respects, you can actually have a life as opposed to just struggling and surviving like many in "undeveloped" nations.
Since the enactment of Enclosure people have lost the right to just plain exist. Civilisation took a bad turn along the way I reckon and financial skulduggery is to blame.
What's next? a return to slavery?. -
Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Sacha,
More generally, it amazes me that no one held Labour to account for leaving benefit levels largely where Ruthless Richardson put them relative to wages.
I know people who choose not to work, sickness beneficiaries who believe you shouldn’t have to “Earn” a living (this is seen as a sickness by the powers that be) life is your only real right and nobody gets out alive and get by quite happily.
If you want to be part of the “consumer society” expect to be, in some way, consumed. The rational is that it wasn’t their choice to live in an economy, they just wanted to live on the same planet they were born on and not have to play silly games. -
Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Russell Brown,
I worry that it has become a kind of wage subsidy that allows real wages and salaries to stay low and/or gets eaten up by higher retail prices. So many working people now literally depend on it.
Why worry? The fact is that money is a bit like a car, it is only effective when it is in motion. By, effectively, paying people a basic wage, regardless of their productive worth, supports the economy by allowing people to spend money and therefore keep th economy running. The treasury collects revenue at almost every transaction, the exception to that is "unearned" capital gains stolen by money traders and share speculators.
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Hard News: People Take Drugs, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Personally I would go for the rule they have in Davis CA, where you can’t smoke within 50 feet of the entrance to a public building. Which means that you can’t smoke anywhere in the centre of town. It will happen in NZ eventually.
And this policy is based on what exactly? The flawed ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) "research" that boosted funds to the "Smokefree" lobby?
While we still send people into mines and claim working in a smoky pub kills you the work related harm concept is total bullshit. -
The latest joke is that based on Treasury forecast wages are going to increase rapidly – treasury really know and their the growth forecasts are so right you can bank on them.
And as JK said…
"There is a degree of putting one’s finger in the air when it comes to things like this.
I feel like doing that every time he opens his mouth.
How can we take this guy seriously? The only way for wages to rise and “outstrip” inflation is for prices to decrease in relation to that rise, Will this government achieve that? Tui moment…