Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Speaker: After the Apocalypse, in reply to Russell Brown,
Of course, natural background radiation isn't any better for you than artificial, and a substantial number of cancers result from it. (Both where natural radiation is concentrated, in the form of radon, mostly, and just from general exposure).
The generally accepted theory in health physics is that biological damage is directly proportional to the dose, so if we receive 10% higher radiation than background, this will cause a corresponding increase in radiation injury. Obviously this is rather inconvenient to the nuclear industry.
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Also, Mr Greenpeace Nuclear tests won't aid security.
Kim Jong Il is alive and has his job. Saddam Hussein isn't and doesn't. I think the former is probably happy with his decision to make nukes. An unfortunate side effect of deciding that 'regime change' is a good idea.
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Is it enough to merely get people fired up?
Sometimes its just easier (and the right have no qualms about getting their desired policies through using whatever means work).
E.g. whisper it not, but fracking doesn't cause (noticeable) earthquakes. However it's a Bad Thing because it enables more oil to be extracted - but it's an easier sell to tell people their house will fall down and their water will be poisoned than talk about climate change in 50 years time.
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Hard News: Medical cannabis: a polling experiment, in reply to BenWilson,
what proportion of young people are actually much into the dance scene, though
Wellington anecdata: 300 people would be a big turnout for a dance party and a lot of the people won't be all that young - say half under 25? A lot more if it's some (overseas) commercial performer they've heard of on ZM, but I wouldn't say those people are into dance music.
How many 18-25's in the Wellington region? 40,000? Dance parties are a minority interest.
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"Treated as herbal remedies" => unethically pushed by pharmacists without the proper assessment, diagnosis and prescription process required for licensed pharmaceuticals?
I don't think government has any business telling me what I can put in my body, but that seems to be going a bit far.
(Mind you, I'd favour stopping pharmacists pushing 10x doses of vitamins or phials of distilled water).
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Hard News: Orcon IRL on Journalism: The Video, in reply to Alan Perrott,
Fleet Street's finest: Lunchtime O'Booze...
I used to work next door to Fortress Wapping in the pre-internet days, and it was quite common to be buttonholed in the pub by cub reporters seeking comment on the issues from the day from a typical local. They usually mangled the story and names quite unrecognisably in the process of getting back to their desk and typing it in.
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Well, I'd be even less likely to vote for Nick Leggett because he sees Nicola Young as a political soulmate. This also rather backs up the Labour party's ostracism of its former member.
Not to mention that suggesting alternates undermines the whole local politics deception of politicians who last week were party members/supporters/candidates pretending to be pragmatic independents in local politics.
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So did anyone ask why it is that, while to most observers Wellington has a dynamic and successful economy (and measurably the highest average income in the country), a preponderance of the mayoral candidates consider the city to be 'broken' and requiring the transfer of large sums of public money to construction companies in order to fix. (Airport runways, tunnels, highways, conference centres and the like).
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But we *love* digression?
Since I don't know what your argument is for direct election of mayors (beyond 'local government is different') then I can't really come up with an alternative view. Indirectly electing council leaders does work reasonably well (for most councils in the UK) and used to work for the ones that have gone to direct election (bringing Boris Johnson and dodgy corrupt cop Ray Mallon into mayoralties).
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Legal Beagle: Voting in an STV election, in reply to Steve Todd,
Ok, so Auckland council, 1.4mln people, must have a directly elected leader.
NZ in total, 4.5mln people, must *not* have a directly elected leader.Why?