Posts by tussock
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to petard,
There is nothing new here except that i should comment that the media interest may have worked against the interests of Mr Smith-Voorkamp.
The police started that by parading him in front of the cameras. As you say, not good for Arie, but that's the whole point. Media will always go for a demonstrative face for their long-running stories, especially when they can see it might have a twist in the tail.
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Hard News: Angry and thrilled about Arie, in reply to Russell Brown,
The “dissociative event” wording is helpful for me in turn, thanks.
Yeh, and naming your demons is a term for that feeling. Learning more about Asperger's has been a slow process of understanding all the strangeness in my life. I suspect I'm done with that now, as I can't recall any strange things that remain unexplained.
I mean, I'd heard of that, but I've never felt "dissociated". The things I'm trying to do just stop happening, no matter how much I want otherwise. There's a lot of times in my life when there was a form to fill in, or a door to open, a box to tick, and I just could not do it, and I could never explain it when I tried (often getting stuck then too). Shit, mid-conversation, something big comes up, brain lock. Plenty of words, none coming out. Not often, but always important to me.
1: Work tirelessly at interesting project.
2: Miss something important because head stuck in 1.
3: Try to fix 2, but freeze, unable to explain 1 or 2.
4: Give up on 2 in confusion, try to stay away from 1.
5: Repeat until no more 1's.6: Depression (sucks).
7: Understand 1, 2, & 6. "It has a name! It's a real thing!"
8: Understand the rest. "Oh, all that too. Right. Bugger."
As to Arie, people with Asperger's can be prone to breaking laws in order to pursue their main interest, as long as no one gets hurt or loses out (no one mention copyright infringement, eh). Saving things that were going to be destroyed if not retrieved is a bit like saving a drowning child; would you let a law against swimming stop you, or instead feel compelled to help?
NB: not wise to try and save drowning children by swimming in flood waters. Use a long pole or other material, get on your cell phone for emergency assistance.
Lighting fixtures are likely really important to Arie, he'll probably know everything there is to know about them, and be very familiar with any associated science, engineering, and history, and these ones will have some noteworthy place in all that.
The cops are just stuck in that mindset were they think they're the only thing that saves us all from going feral and burning everything on the way to a mass suicide, which is historically very inaccurate.
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Those with personal or family experience of Asperger's will probably recognise what was happening there: an autistic meltdown. It’s an overwhelming and disabling response to stress and confusion.
Oh, shit.
Right.
Thanks, Russell, for another "that's what that was" moment or three. "Dissociation" being another term for that result, and can result from all sorts of sensory inputs for Aspies, not just high stress.
So, yay, I've had quite a few dissociative events from mild stress, and the odd (mild, I hope) tantrum about being touched. So much for all the rationalisations that never quite made sense. That's all just more typical Asperger's things, which I just need to tell people I'm interminably not good with.
<sigh> No wonder the bullies wouldn't give up on me in school. They could control my reactions far better than I ever could. More fun than a robotic dog, and not at all mild with the tantrums back then. 8[
Shit.
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Oh, I should add to usual moan, I'm quite looking forward to seeing the AB's go out in the quarters again, or win the thing, either way really. I'm quite the rugby fan when I get to see it, but having lived overseas a bit I prefer to cheer whoever's playing the best looking game at the time, and France are ever so good at making us look like a bunch of schoolboys. At least we'll only get knocked out by them in the final this time, if we get there.
NZ vs Eng, Fra vs Arg, Aus vs Sam, SA vs Ire.
Eng vs SA, Fra vs Aus.
SA vs Fra. (Eng vs Aus).
France win, England 3rd. 8]I think most of the games we've been knocked out in are brilliant games, as most of the knockouts and top-2 pool games are. '99 was the French adapting well to our "pass it to Lomu" strategy with something we failed to adapt to. '07 was the same defence (adjusted for boring-ass rule changes) and us still failing to adapt after 8 years. Kick the damn ball already, guys.
Wouldn't it be awesome if Japan and France knock us out in Pool play? Ridiculous I know, it'd be like a semi-pro NZ soccer team knocking Italy out of the football world cup finals in pool play or something. -
I'd welcome lower corporate taxes - for exporters
You know, you can tax exports extra. Works the same as an import tax, promoting local businesses who serve local needs, only without driving up local prices or encouraging inefficiencies, all while ensuring any externalised costs of our export industries are recoverable. Just 5% of sales, or something modest like that.
Of course, then our dairy industry would actually be contributing to society, rather than ruining so much of it, and the local price of cheese, milk, meat, wool, and so on would drop by some 4-5%, helping out local manufacturers who might improve those raw products. Oh, the horrors.
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But CGT, well, they've got to do some damn thing about the housing game.
People have been running multiple houses in little shells at a 10k loss each per year, paying little to no income tax as a result, and making out by flipping on the ups and downs of the market. Sure it's a bit risky, but there's people making millions at a game that drives the housing market mad while acting as a tax haven.
And yes, they really "do up" a mouldy house with temporary patches just like the TV shows said to do whenever they've got some tax due, then sell the place looking all sparkly, shuffle the shells, pocket the profit, and pay no tax at all again, while leaving some sucker with a timebomb. Hooray for trust law and it saving such criminals from being sued, eh.
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I’m no tax expert but has there been any discussion on an asset tax?
Yep, mostly the idea is to tax the unimproved value of land, so that if it becomes in high demand the old folk living on it are encouraged to sell up and move on (and they all hate the shit out of that idea).
Kinda sucks for anyone hanging onto a bit of native wetland, forest, or rare animal habitat, all that has to end up on a list of recognised reserves for exemption. Discourages long-term investments like forestry for things that provide a constant (if lower overall) return. Pros and cons like all taxes.
But the guys who own giant productive assets already want to make them profitable, because they're worth millions of dollars and there's an opportunity cost to just letting that investment sit there doing nothing. A tiny tax on that does nothing when they're already chasing 10%+ on it.
Taxing other sorts of assets is tricky. We do it with rates on GV, because GV is useful for many things and setting it for the biggest assets like land and significant buildings is relatively inexpensive.
Oh, and rates can already be a cruel thing if some rich folk move in the next road over, the council builds them a lot of nice new services, and you end up in the same tax bracket with nothing to show for it. Worse still if you stick a bigger tax on unimproved value, because your unimproved nothing pays as much as their gold-paved oasis of perfection, just because they've built it down the road a bit from you.
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Grrrr. Rugby has cost the public of Dunedin (and the wider Otago) over $200,000,000.00 recently in benefit of a bankrupt professional sports team in action. It was bad when they were costing us a million a year in "forgiven debts", and more to the Otago and Southland teams. A thousand dollars a head, including the kids.
Hey, never mind the ancient sewers, the crumbling sea wall around South Dunedin, Oamaru's receding coastline, more flooding in the Taieri, the barely drinkable water, and public transport; because there's no money for any of that any more. Let's enjoy the fscking rugby instead.
Sure, there's lots of nice new cars in town. Nice for those who own the construction companies, and pay for their faithful councillors re-election.
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But I am saying that Green members really need to lay off the unthinking propaganda about party democracy.
WTF? It's not "look at us, aren't we awesome", it's "when people complain about not getting a say in certain things, that's one of the Green movement's fundamental beliefs around which policy is built, and this is how we manage that in the case you are complaining of". Not that I'm a paid-up member.
And seriously, the NZ Labour party is not too big to let people vote. If you want regional elections, have them. If you want informed voters, inform them. Cover the costs with your subs.
California's participatory democracy issues surround having the ballot stuffed with nonsense by unelected hacks and promoted with massive private funds, which unsurprisingly results in low taxes for the very rich and no social services for the very poor. Advertising is a science, it works. Other countries manage just fine when public servants write the questions at the behest of the government and the debate around them has tight limits on private spending.
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National could win Finance, but Labour could take Education, Maori Affairs going to Maori Party and Greens getting Environmental portfolios
See, in NZ, we have a parliament, and they have to vote on stuff to get it done, and if you're minister of something but have no say in it because you can't ever win a vote in the house and are thus stuck enforcing the opposition's new laws and regulations, that's really stupid. Just sayn.
And if you want a say on the list, join the Green party, whose members vote on their list. Be funny if about 100,000 Nats did that one year, eh.