Posts by Christopher Dempsey
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One sign of getting old is the fact that I don't understand how something gets to be number 1 these days.
In my day we bought tapes or records. What happens today?
Will this be covered in the Media 7 segment? If so I'll watch it online. :)
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Wearing my elected rep hat...
Could someone tell me how a detailed enough Statement of Intent would not form a suitable democratic control over the behaviour of a CCO?
For the simple reason that words on paper mean diddly squat when it comes to action, and even more so when there's no big stick to wave at the said CCO about not following the SOI.
You can have SOI's for Africa but really, they won't be worth the paper they are written on; warm bodies directing officers to do X (and not A as envisioned by the SOI) is what counts. That explains why a great deal of men, straight white men of a certain age, are keen to be on the board of the transport CCO.
Whipping off said hat...
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I'm with Sofie on this.
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Agreed Stephen. Corruption. Apropos of much seen.
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If I could slip in between the pearl barley recipes and chicken soup for the soul tips could I just say:
Old. Boys. Network. Crony. Capitalism.
Indeed a fine example of this network, but it's the scale that's interesting; when did Nactional start going from Pipi Foundation scale to this?
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When the only country in the OECD with a lower tax burden than NZ is Mexico, and still we're being told that we must cut taxes, it points to some interesting absence of lateral thinking on the part of our politicians. If taxes are what holds an economy back, we should be going absolutely gang-busters. Instead we're trailing the OECD on most of their other measures of economic performance. Maybe Key has realised that the only OECD ranking at which we have any shot of being number one is the lowest tax burden, and he's acting accordingly?
Essentially Key et al's argument betrays a vision of an atomised individual, divorced from family and friends, seeking to maximise their 'return'.
Earth to National party! Earth to National Party! People love their family and friends! People aren't selfish pricks!
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Like the additional $40 million loan the Auckland Transition Agency got through Vote Local Government. That's a total of c.$74 million that Auckland ratepayers have to repay the gummint.
I kinda like this move - it's endearingly similar to that scene in 'Whatever happened to Baby Jane' where what's her name beats the living shit out of her sister in the wheelchair saying that the clothes hanger is good for her. Tories and wingnuts like Wodders are soooo into S&M it's freaky.
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Forgive me, and no dis-respect to Russell's cold, but what do people think of the scale of patronage seen here; rocking up and getting a whoppingly cool $4.8mil for ummm what again? Oh yeah some CDs and things. And flights to drop them off to the islands.
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I've a deep desire to reframe door stop speeches such as given by Cameron along the lines of "there are no challenges, the people are happy, well fed, better housed, more healthy than they were 10 years ago, we enjoy a standard of living better than our grandparents. Our government will do nothing as there are no challenges. Our values are a boho lifestyle, a terrific unfairness to nasty things, and above all, adherence to the slow city movement." etc etc.
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I don't understand; what if a judge was in fact drunk or incompetent, or dishonest? What does one do then?
For what it's worth; I think judges have, like any other profession, rogue judges - those that do not do a professional job. 90% of judges do a professional job - and for the most part, well. I don't think that the cloak of justice should necessarily hide the remaining 10% of variable quality.
So long as the sanctity of justice is upheld, means should be found to ease such judges out, swiftly, before they cause much damage.