Posts by chris
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Its refusal to release documentation that should be publicly available showed a lack of respect for the law
-
To ensure appropriate decisions are made about such applications there is a robust process in place to ensure that they have benefits for P̶o̶l̶i̶c̶e̶
…society?
-
Polity: A hazy, intriguing crystal ball, in reply to tussock,
Do you have any concept of how much building a sea wall around NZ would cost?
Yeah you’re quite right, I’m not qualified to provide the figure.
So just to be clear here; you are advocating Jan Wright’s opinion that we are out of engineering options, that the engineering feats required of us may work a bit for a while but they’re not even a middle term option? Or is it that you’re captivated by an obvious 900 year old ongoing functional engineering example to the extent that it’s motivated you to shift the heat off a Government minister with a physics but no engineering qualification who is broadcasting that the field of engineering is out of its depth with regards to conjuring up any middle term options appropriate to our country's situation?
I have to admit, there is a distinct possibility that you are absolutely right, I’d wager that those astronauts orbiting us in that hocked together international space station looking back at the Pyramids, and the Great Wall and the Suez Canal and the Panama, at the dykes and the Three Gorges Dam, at Venice, at The Palm, at the Aquaduct of Segovia and the Millau Viaduct, at Kansai Airport and The Bailong Elevator through their miniature digital cameras zoomed 40,000x while discussing the Large Hadron Collider and the Chunnel would probably agree with this New Zealand Government minister that engineering is incapable as a profession of providing middle term options for dealing with H²O. In fact they’d probably agree in a professional capacity as astronauts that we should focus exclusively on dykes and about what we can’t do and neither contend nor discuss alternatives because it’s end of days, apocalypse now; the major opposition party wants to ban investment by foreigners while old Gov’s racked up $90 billion debt in less than a decade on – well we don’t actually know – and that does absolutely mean that we couldn’t possibly consider forking out exactly as many dollars as may be required to pay for middle term options prioritising the protection of our urban areas because doing so would entail building a sea wall around New Zealand regardless of coastal altitudes, and that all things considered there are not enough true kiwis left who would – knowing there might be a bit of heavy lifting involved – pull up sleeves and offer to chip in for future generations and the long term protection of our country because we are just not worth it.
-
Hard News: Ten Thousand Maniacs, in reply to Alfie,
Which hinges largely on how much trust you’re prepared to place in the sources. The Updated Statistical Analysis of Documentation of Killings in the Syrian Arab Republic Commissioned by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights notes (p.20):
Of the 189 739 unique killings, only 4877 were reported by all four Syrian human rights groups.
Discussed here:
The UN’s count is based on data from these 8 sources:
‘1. The March 15 Group
2. The Syrian government
3. The Syrian Center for Statistics and Research
4. The Syrian Network for Human Rights
5. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
6. The Syrian Revolution General Council
7. The Syria Shuhada Website
8. The Violations Documentation Centre, the documentation arm of the Local Coordination Committees’.
All of them, barring the Syrian government, are opposition sources. If you don’t want to take my word for it, even the most cursory of Google research efforts will reveal that to be true. The report states that ‘each data collection organization determines their own methods for data gathering and verication‘ (p.4, emphasis mine).
It hardly needs pointing out, then, that problems could arise when the vast majority of your raw data is being provided by one side in the conflict.
Faith of almost religious proportions is required in order to assume the veracity of reports about a country that Reporters Without Borders ranked 177th (and dropping) out of 180 countries for press freedom.
I’d sooner put my faith in whatever those who get their kicks mocking the religious are calling God these days. That is not at all.
-
Legal Beagle: Voting in the Flag Referendum, in reply to izogi,
It’s probably not without tactical consideration, though. If she’d not previously told people to spoil their ballot papers, it’d be harder to later say “See! All those people agree with the exact reasoning I expressed for spoiling their ballot papers!”
The thing I’m unclear of is will there be any records showing how many votes were intentionally spoiled or will those votes ultimately end up indistinguishable from genuinely fluffed votes on a list like this; classed as ‘Dual Votes’ or ‘No ground stated’ or something of this ilk?
In the likelihood of a significant enough number of spoiled votes I can envisage Key manipulating the situation by blaming the Electoral Commission for not clearly outlining the process or Labour for proposing an alternate referendum which muddied the waters for genuine hardworking New Zealanders trying to have their say.
-
Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Alfie,
Following on from the success of Heather’s fraudulent gun purchase, it was announced on Thursday's Story that this week one of the reporters will be breaking the rules for cellphone use on planes.
-
Legal Beagle: Voting in the Flag Referendum, in reply to weka,
couldn’t be bothered/don’t care
In the context of this first referendum:
Prime Minister John Key has made his big pitch for why he thinks the country needs a new flag.
it’s a rejection of this need.
-
Polity: A hazy, intriguing crystal ball, in reply to Kumara Republic,
The thing with climate change is that for a country the size of New Zealand, rising sea levels is not the most pressing of concerns, in that report Jan Wright says:
engineering options there may work a bit for a while but they’re not really a long or even a middle term option
The modern word dike or dyke most likely derives from the Dutch word “dijk”, with the construction of dikes in Frisia (now part of the Netherlands and Germany) well attested as early as the 11th century. The 126 kilometres (78 mi) long Westfriese Omringdijk was completed by 1250
An age old problem with tried and tested responses. You mention a NZ housing bubble as opposed to something more localised while living in a capital city where a 1 bedroom studio apartment can be purchaced for $100k, a 3 bedroom house for under $300k.
Talk that we should start planning for the financial fallout from rising sea levels is good sense. In addition, Labour’s proposed UBI or some equivalent will be essential to battle inequality arguably a leading influence in our low house ownership rates.
New Zealand is the 75th (by area) largest country in the world and the 122nd (by population), it’s difficult to argue that we’re even close to nearing our capacity.
What we currently have is considerable sums of money flowing into the a country for little more than a plot of earth, the space between four walls and the accompanying infrastructure, this is money that is driving the construction industry to produce more sorely needed accommodation as well as develop infrastructure.
Labour’s plan to outright ban instead of proposing the implementation of a hefty stamp duty and increased rates for offshore buyers in order to harness some of this cash flow to use in building subsidised housing for first time buyers; for the development of infrastructure; to help fund a universal BMI; is staring down a gift horse.
Despite its mixed fortunes among New Zealand voters, Labour’s lack of imagination and vision with this proposal should be cause for concern for overseas buyers and New Zealanders alike leading up to 2017. Another “show me the money” moment looms.
-
Hard News: Friday Music: All Being Well, in reply to Russell Brown,
Yeah it was cool to hear their reactions, they came across superbly.
Awkward yeah, made for some entertaining live TV, the Wigmore/ Moa bird off, Dominic Bowden talking over the haka, Michael “Harry” Harallambi’s “cocksucker”, all quite memorable.
-
All being well I will have crawled out of bed and hit “publish” on this post after a late one at the VNZMAs
It looked like one hell of a party, I’ve never seen any NZ awards on that scale. Huge.