Posts by Steve Reeves
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
(related to Paul's question...)
Historical question: in books from some time ago the islands are called "North Island" and "South Island"---capitals and no determiners.
Does anyone know when these (clearly unofficial) names dropped the capitals (usually) and gained the "the"?
-
I heard Michael Barnett (??) on the TV this morning (and I've been up in Auckland for the last two days at the NZ Computer Science Research Students' conference, kept awake by the all-night drone (why??) of air conditioning on the roofs of all the blocks around, so I was awake early!) and he seemed happy that: (1) the plans would not save, indeed are not about saving, any money; and (2) it is going to achieve the (only intended?) goal of making "doing business" in Auckland easier.
Simple, really.
-
Agree with Hilary--and, please, can we have Paula Bennett? She is minister for, what, four ministries? I want to know what she thinks about the portfolios she runs, why she thinks it, what she sees as the future for them...
-
There are just 10 sorts of people---those who read binary and those who don't.
-
There may be objections that this is a link to 08wire, but I thought this article on "why not vote for National?" made a good point.
-
How can Marxism be social darwinism?
Absolutely, Keir: I think perhaps people are, as so often, conflating Marxism with some of its attempted (or claimed) implementations throughout history.
-
I'm sure the "if an infinite number of monkeys sat at an infinite number of typewriters they'd eventually produce the works of Shakespeare" conclusion comes into play here too---though I'd like to think the monkeys get paid (though numerically perhaps we look more like the monkeys.....)
-
Elections are run in the same way in the UK too---schools, mainly, are used as the polling stations. As many have said above, the community feel and the calm, quiet and friendly atmosphere is hard to beat.
But, in the UK, elections are always held on a Thursday, so, as school kids, with a polling station on site, we always got the day off school for elections (both local and national and EU)---that's what really instils a love of our democratic process (and probably teachers welcomed the opportunity to catch-up with work too!)
-
Something I noticed on moving to New Zealand (many, many years ago..) was that vets and dentists here use the "Dr" title! How pretentious is that, we all thought!
-
This from Polly Toynbee in The Guardian seems to have some resonances with this discussion---I don't think Labour are (yet?) at the relevant point, but the wolf tactics for National seem familiar.