Posts by Rich of Observationz
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I loved "Survivors" as a kid. It inspired a Stranglers lyric in the song "Down in the Sewer":
gonna make love to a water-rat over there.
and raise a family.
and we'll become the survivors.
ya know why?
coz we're gonna survive
see you in the sewer darling -
Nation states are for the benefit of their citizens, not the other way round. States and their governments don't have a right to our loyalty and support, they have to earn it.
It's the job of the opposition parties to oppose the bad things that National do. Like locking up innocent people on supposition. Which they want to bring in under urgency, without going to Select Commitee and overriding the Bill of Rights Act.
They're doing this *with* the full support of the Maori Party under their confidence and supply agreement. So next time the cops suspect any Maori kids of playing with petrol bombs in the forest, they can throw them in jail for two years until the case comes to court.
-
I'm still stuck at why the teams aren't called just Auckland, Wellington, etc
It's so the teams can be relocated to other cities at will. Like the Sydney Swans, ne South Melbourne.
In other countries, teams are named after the sponsoring organisation:
PSV Eindhoven is named after the Philips electrical firm
Dynamo Moscow was the KGB team.
Israeli team Beitar Jerusalem was associated with the Irgun terrorist group. -
I did mean that chooks taste like whatever you feed them - but you knew that.
-
The taxi driver I had last week assured me that black dogs are quite delicious.
I'm guessing it's down to what you feed them with. Like chooks.
-
What do we think about a South-East Asian immigrant falling foul of the SPCA and NZ law by slaughtering and eating a dog or cat
I'm fairly sure that if they're your dogs and cats and you slaughter them humanely and hygenically, you break no NZ law. They'll taste like shit though, as Mick Dundee might say.
-
..here is an interesting analysis and a way to test where your personal views sit. Political Compass
That's the concept I disagree with, that economics and social policy are independent axes. Like I say above, they're intertwined. If you favour economic liberalism, you'll wind up taking a social authoritarian stance because of the need to clean up after your economic policies.
-
I don't actually think you can take a "social liberalism" stance and divorce it from economic and other policy.
One of the main justifications for policies based on restriction and oppression is the tendency of people to have screwed up lives, involving stuff like drug dependency, bad parenting or general alcohol-fueled hooliganism. The socially authoritarian approach to this is to restrict access to drugs 'n' porn 'n' booze - trying to fix the symptoms.
But the underlying cause of most such people's problems is a spiral of social deprivation, leading to a lack of self-respect and responsibility. Delivering social justice is the real long term answer to these problems - not locking people up.
So for me at least, social liberalism and social justice both need to be pursued and the Greens are the closest NZ party I've found that's trying to deliver this.
-
Act'd get all kinds of pissy if National were to try and change that position, too, so we're probably safe.
I think expecting Act to be our bulwark against social authoritarianism is a bit hopeful, really. Some of them might have these libertarian ideas, but when it comes down to it they're just another bunch of hangers and floggers. And not in a good way.
-
I wish we had a "vanity" paper like the Independent, as opposed to National party pamphlets.
I wonder if there's a long term future for daily papers in NZ. They keep going mostly because they have a monopoly in each market and can sell lots of advertising. Trademe is eroding the advertising, and maybe a future left-wing government will do something about the monopoly.