Posts by BenWilson
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It's been an incredibly eventful year. Far too many things happened for any of them to take precedence. It's been full of surprises, most of them unpleasant, but many with seeds of hope. I think Levi Hawken takes the prize for summing up the Kiwi bemusement at downturns, a wry shrug, a quick look at the pitifully broken thing he had, and then back to bombing the hills like nothing changed, living as he has since my first memory of him as a little boy doing just that on the hills in Herne Bay, like there is no tomorrow. I like to kid myself he got the idea from me - I bombed those same slopes thousands of times. But more likely he simply got something similar out of it - adrenaline rushing down the spine, and that connection with the equipment that makes it feel like a part of you, an unselfconscious feeling of exaltation.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Yes, I had seen that, but you didn't ask him a question about his politics, you asked him a process question.
I'm not entirely sure there's a major distinction. The way in which a political party chooses its people is a very political question. He had every opportunity to suggest that he favored a more democratic process than the conclave we have just seen the smoke from.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Damian Christie,
I always assume anything that needs to be done in my area will be done by the council. Those other folk are all too busy down in Wellington trying to defeat each other's plans for global domination. :)
Me too, which is why I find electorates to be a strangely archaic idea. If they want people to be able to randomly contact them for help, then the party could put offices wherever they like, whether they win or not. In what way is Shearer (whose office is further from me than Cunliffe's) uniquely empowered to help me if I've got some strange dispute that defies all other processes?
I lived in Mt Albert, only a 1 min walk from Clark's office, for 5 years, never saw her even once. The only time her little building was of any note was the night that Tim Selwyn lobbed an axe through the window of it, and was sent to prison forthwith. Not democracy's finest hour in NZ.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to giovanni tiso,
(I'd love a link to his response to your question, I missed it.)
The whole thread is not very long. It gets silly at the end.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Case in point: have you heard much in the last month about the actual political differences between Cunliffe and Shearer?
I have not. I specifically asked them, as they invited on Red Alert. Shearer's answer was so vague it was no answer. Cunliffe at least admitted to the question being curly (which it was). Robertson had some much more promising suggestions, and Mahuta actually spoke of specifics. It would seem that the more they refer to policy, the less their chance of leadership.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Shearer
Oh goody, that's settled. Now, after the media has formally introduced us to our new savior, and all the dust of this stupid process has settled, we might begin to hear what actually matters coming from Labour. What the fuck are they going to do?
On a side note, something that I've long felt once more raises its head. I no longer have an electorate representative. I voted for Shearer to do what's right by my electorate, but now he's going to be far too important and busy for any of that.
Not that I'd ever avail myself anyway. I expect the local swimming pool that has been slated almost as long as national broadband, will end up being built by the headmaster of the local primary school. At least someone has a plan.
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to nzlemming,
I think he's subtly referring to a "sticky wicket"
Nah, they seem simply unconcerned about sex at all. They're just addicted to something that is, to them, far more powerful, the drip feed of random tosses of a ball, interspersed variously with good and bad outcomes. Intermittent reinforcement at it's most powerful, rather like gambling or WoW. I can see why people love it, but I'm also thankful that I don't.
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OnPoint: Dear Labour Caucus, in reply to Pete Sime,
Indeed. How many times has this government announced ultra-fast broadband? Despite the fact that it was already established as policy in Labour's Digital Strategy of the mid 2000s.
I've given up on that ever being delivered. Even if we get something, I'm not expecting to go "wow, that's so much faster, it's like a different experience". More likely it will be "wow, that's really expensive" We've been capable of laying fibre optic cabling with capacity in the Gbit/s since the early 90s. The underlying technology of networking has got faster and faster and faster, yet somehow our internet hasn't really got much better since DSL absolved the richest company in this country from the cost of delivering something physical to me, and I have paid tens of thousands of dollars for the use of it.
It's not because it's hard. It would seem that the thing holding our development in every arena back is a lack of available finance. This lack of finance seems to have flowed from high levels of indebtedness. I can't think of any reason that something as simple as digging trenches and putting cables in them has defeated government after government for my whole life.
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Sacha,
you're not saying cricket nuts are wankers, are you?
I'm not entirely sure if their genitalia ever enter their minds. Crowded out by cricket.
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Up Front: The Up Front Guides:…, in reply to Emma Hart,
And it's not entirely off topic because "intelligent interest in cricket" = "hot".
Curious, the deepest cache of middle aged virgins in my acquaintance are all cricket lovers. It seems like a game specifically designed to make you content sitting around at home on your own for days on end.
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