Posts by BenWilson
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Up Front: Life on Mars, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
I'm thinking that Maui could provide enough helium for a few zeppelins, should the appropriate extraction gear be installed.
He could probably extort helium straight from the Sun, the poor thing is shit scared of him.
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Up Front: Life on Mars, in reply to David Hood,
Which logically means our own universe is not the prime one.
Yes, if it were somehow possible to make helium, rather than buy it from the United States, there might be more of them around now.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to nzlemming,
A boycott doesn't prevent freedom of speech
I don't think that's quite so obvious. It may not prevent it outright, but it hampers it. That is definitely the purpose of the boycott - they're not content to just let the fact that fuck all people will buy the book anyway do the job for them of keeping the words in the book away from the sensitive eyes of everyone including themselves. They're not asking that it just be taken away from the shelves, perhaps get kept behind the counter like a porno magazine. No, they want no-one else to be able to easily read the thing. I don't like the attitude, even if they do, of course, have the right to wield their buying power in this way, and the stores have the right to be scared by that.
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Also, Craig, the fictional examples don't really hit so hard as a comparison of moral equivalence as works of purported non-fiction do. Underbelly is a better example, although that is written from the point of view of police. I think the works of Mark "Chopper" Reid are a better example, and they do perhaps hint at this being a little trickier as a rights issue. I browsed some of his work and thought a lot of it sounded like bullshit he was making up, but quite a lot was also highly credible, and it was an insight into his mind. That's not a bad purpose, even if what he did in the stories is, for the most part, reprehensible.*
*something he freely admits, although he does use the horribly appealing defense that the people he hurt were all bad people. But that was also Clayton Weatherton's defense, and it struck me as irrelevant and possibly bullshit too. Particularly the guy he claimed to have shot in the face, just because the guy was being too friendly to him in a bar and he thought he was being set up.
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Muse: That Book, The Ban That Isn't,…, in reply to nzlemming,
I'm not the biggest Farcebook supporter, but don't those people have a right to opine and act as they see fit (as long as it's lawful - I haven't read the page and will not, but I can well imagine the lunacy that some will bring to it)?
Of course they do, indeed they have the right to opine that others don't have the right to opine. I disagree with this opinion and have the right to opine about it, just as Craig does. I also disagree with nearly everything that Ian Wishart says - except about the right to freedom of speech.
Anyone out there actually read the book yet, to know what it says, and whether that is bad or not?
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Legal Beagle: Referendum Fact Check #1, in reply to Rob S,
I like this idea in theory.................but, from what I've seen with the public ballots in the US it seems to wind up with people wanting mutually opposing situations where tax cuts win out over education and other fluffy social needs that are harder to sell.
Just as well the US is not the only place that's ever used a referendum to decide something. But I don't think it's necessarily the best thing either, it's just a comeback to the never-ending dream for more account being taken of public mandates - it both can be done, and isn't guaranteed to work out. I don't entirely rule out that US voters are fucking idiots and participatory democracy won't work there, for reasons that don't translate to here, though. Nor do I claim it, perhaps the US is getting the system it both wanted and deserves, and just has to learn the hard way.
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Up Front: Life on Mars, in reply to Lucy Stewart,
You people need to take better care of the place while I'm gone, is all I'm saying.
You do realize they've dug up Bagshot row, while you've been "away North?".
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I can't talk to quakes, but I distinctly remember the blessed relief during the traumatic period of my firstborn's entrance to the world, of time spent with people NOT talking about it. I played a lot of pool during that time, a very therapeutic activity. If I slammed the balls harder than usual, can anyone blame me?
Of course, talking about it is vital. But so is respite from that. It's the biggest thing I owe to Public Address during that period, and I was most heartened by your SlutWalk thread just to be seeing the Emma we all remembered again. Then the earth hit you again...
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We'll be twinkly, but can't promise that it will be warm.
That's the only way I know how much I'm not myself any more, and you know, I don't much fucking like it.
I guess part of grieving is learning to let go of painful memory, which involves learning not to remember it all the time, which is a hard act, but what else can you do? I remember after breaking up with my first long term love, that I could only do it by actively suppressing the constant memories of her that arose. It felt awful, but the memories also felt awful, viscerally so. If you are like me, and don't feel that you owe yourself a lifetime of misery, you have to do these things, and learn not to blame yourself for being a human determined to protect your own birthright of happiness.
I remember the first time that I noticed that I hadn't thought about her at all for at least a week. It was years later, but it was also a mighty feeling, because it showed that I was finally at a point where the future had become more important to me than the past.
Thanks for continuing to share with us - that's part of you being you again, too. The abusive spouse metaphor is horribly apt, it seems. The violence of the earth itself hits to the core of something we instinctively feel we should be able to trust. I recall that many people in Samoa felt the same way about the ocean which had for so long been their best friend, was now the frightening monster that had swallowed their village and taken their children. How could you ever forgive it?
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Yes, wouldn't it be great to have the Tories set the tax rate and Labour spend the money? We wouldn't go bankrupt or anything...
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Also, I suspect whoever holds Finance has an effective veto over anyone else's programs... otherwise, I like.
Yup, coordinated use of funds would be the hardest part of this to work out, and turn into something driven by process. But there are endless possibilities for systems that would be a lot more transparent than "whatever the finance minister and the PM reckon".
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