Posts by Steve Withers
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
My wife and I stayed at the Langham last year…and we got a free upgrade to the Presidential Suite. I’ll do my best to get them a good deal on dental practice management software when the time comes.
As for Len Brown….he’s become something of a Bill Clinton figure. Obviously talented. Obviously flawed. It becomes a calculation of sorts: Do we balance the risks of his flaws against the benefits of his intended programs and try to come to some kind of conclusion? Or do we assume there is some other leader in waiting who will promote the same agenda and ask Len to make way for that person by resigning and having an election? If we have an election now, won’t the Right buy it, aided by an NZ Herald deeply in love with business interests? If that were to be the case, we would probably lose the Central Rail Link, Watercare may be privatised and the low-density sprawl to the horizon will continue unabated….and so on.
With all that in the balance….I hope Len enjoyed his stays at the hotels. Would I vote for him again? Maybe…if the only alternative was a Palino-like proxy for the robber barons who would pillage Aucklanders.
-
I got into smoking dope back in October 1977. I was 19. I quickly progressed to eating a gram of Moroccan hash / day. Perma-stone. By February ‘78 it was obvious even to me my ’new’ lifestyle was a four-lane highway to Nowhere. Emphasising this, two my mates at the time (who had been doing this for much longer) required psychiatric care. Another had been accepted into medical school, but decided doing heroin in Central Park in NYC was a better option.
I smoked my last joint in April ’78. I wouldn’t recommend drugs of any kind to anyone. I’ve given up alcohol, too. They are all brain wanking….and I find a properly functioning brain (or as close as I’m able to manage it) is much more fun than the drug-degraded version.
Not saying no one else should do drugs. Just that for me it was obviously a waste of time, money and – ultimately – potential.
-
Speaker: Gender quotas (and helping…, in reply to Peter Graham,
Peter: The Green party list alternates male / female right from the top. As they do not win any local seats the result is 50/50 for gender if Green MPs are even in number and only out slightly if the number of MPs is not even. Their list is also regionally balanced. The rankings overall are also shaped by preferential postal ballot of all party members nationally.
The Greens are arguably the most democratic party in the country. National, on the other hand, is arguably high in the ranking of least democratic. Their local candidates ARE their list and the party HQ ranks them...and gets to pull 5 names out of a hat and rank them wherever they like. It is one of the perversities of the National party 'view' of MMP that they practice the very things they object to most about MMP: party bosses controlling the list rankings and "appointing" people to it.
-
I gave Gower the benefit of the doubt for quite a while, but now he’s been moved to my to my “Duncan Garner Response Protocol”.
Turn the volume down until over, or change the channel or turn the TV off and do something useful.
I did see that story about the 'man-ban' (violating my own protocol)...and I wish I hadn't. It was not the sort of 'journalism' I have any time for.
-
Hard News: Housing: the Feudal Model, in reply to Mark Graham,
Mark: I'll check it out. Things like that can be well worth reading.
-
Hard News: Housing: the Feudal Model, in reply to Russell Brown,
Intensification can also mean buildings with body-corporate setups that I have found to be uniformly unattractive and potentially hostile when I hear the experiences of friends and acquaintances. The Sentinal in Takapuna is typical. The developer contracted to a private company to be the effective arm of the body corporate. People who live there spend loads of time dealing with things are done they didn't want...and things that aren't done that they do want....(speaking broadly). Sounds awful.
Whereas...in places like Ontario, Canada, the provincial government essentially several corporates (like Cadillac-Fairview) the right to build endless apartment tower blocks all over the place...and people just rent. No ownership hassles. A ready pool of apartments available in most major cities....and rents are generally quite reasonable.
I don't know what's best. but I've lived in apartments and it can be a great life-style. But I have no idea why anyone would want to OWN one.
-
Looks like more privatising the profits and socialising the costs. That pretty much sums up the current government's economic policy. I can't vote for such greedy, ultimately stupid people.
-
If the police knew about these guys for 2 years….what role did the police father of one of them play in any of this? Completely unaware? (Possibly). If not unaware…….then what was said between father and son about such matters?…..(never mind any prosecutions or not). This doesn’t smell right.
-
Done.
-
I just saw this. If the NSA have ensured there are weaknesses in encryption specs / standards, how useful is PGP encryption?
Also.... "SELinux" came from the NSA. Everything based on it can only be hopelessly compromised.