Posts by Angus Robertson
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Admiral of Rare Vice
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Helen Clark is likely to be offered a title before Don Brash.
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Like for instance, if President Obama & Ron Kirk agree to an FTA with NZ, on the condition that NZ sings up to an ETS.
ETS beget carbon leakage and that increases pollution. An ETS is a highly regressive tax of no discernible benefit.
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Warning - cynicism follows.
Dear PSM
Good news this is all about to be changed. Bad news is it is unlikely to get better.
Committee-ing to the nth degree is being targeted by the new government as they seek to eliminate backroom wastage. They will probably be cutting a lot of these committees. However the state will still need to have some mechanism of presenting the illusion of accountability by achieving blame avoidance.
Left wing governments provide for blame avoidance in the manner you describe - spreading blame so thinly across so many committees that accountability is only ever ascribed to "the process" (even though this is what "the process" is largely designed to achieve). Left wing governments then form committees to look at the procedural short comings identifiable in "the process".
Right wing governments do away with much of the committee process in favour of a market solution. Right wing governments hire consulting experts to take accountability (carry the blame). This works by deflecting direct criticism from the government to the expert.
The transition about to occur one of form. No longer will ideas and initiatives of merit be lost in committee, soon they will be rejected out of hand by an expert consultant.
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Ouch...
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Velodrome to be built around the otherwise useless (ie. not yet catering to gamblers) tower at a level just below the orbiting restruant, so that diners may place bets whilst enjoying a pleasent meal.
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And my very limited experience has been that Auckland's casino is mindnumbingly depressing, while Sydney's was good-times-fun.
True dat. There used to be a bar with band/dance floor in Auckland casino proper, which was good. But they removed that and stuck in another 40 pokies. Killed off any redeeming atmosphere in the place. Now it is just wall to wall gambling.
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But I found it interesting enough to talk about afterwards. I've certainly no wish to intrude on your fun Angus, but it must surely strike you that a lot of people at the casino don't look like they're having fun?
Imagine you purchase some E for 10c, but knowing only 1 in a 1000 have any MDMA. Now someone could watch you popping those for hours and come to the conclusion E is crap. And those are real good odds compared to most pokies, point being all the people you were looking at weren't winning.
A couple of years ago I was standing behind a Maori gentleman on the Carribean Stud table, waiting for a seat. He caught royal flush diamonds and cleaned out the $138,000 jackpot, turned white & started looking like he was in shock, then he became really happy. That is a one in 2.5 million chance, so the chances are I will not see it again ever.
Once saw a Pakeha lady strike a $10,000 jackpot on a slot machine, she and all her friends looked real happy. But on a 20c machine the chances against winning mean I am unlikely to see to many of those again.
I play low stakes texas holdem almost exclusively, where the chances of winning are much higher and the payouts much lower, and because of the nature of the game try to show no emotion at all. But it is enjoyable.
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Gambling is not a spectator sport. If you want to enjoy going to the casino try gambling.
I visit the casino almost every weekend, sometimes twice a weekend, to play texas holdem poker (tucked off upstairs and to a side) and do enjoy it. It is fun for us particpants when getting the rush from winning.
Socially it has bad effects but they are not worse than the alternatives or the costs of prohibition.
Imagine all the cars in Sky City carpark gone, instead they are at the pub drinking beers or as someoneelse suggested attending a rave with E on demand. Now I as a gambler am biased towards the casino and against 5,000 cars driven by the pished or those feeling a deep meaningful love for the world.
Imagine if there was a drug with no physical side effects that was real simple to manufacture - it would almost be as good as gambling. All gambling costs is money, all it takes is two people in agreement. Make it illegal and you'll have to bust into people's homes and watch them all the time to enforce the law.
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Did you gamble?