Posts by dc_red
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The universality of GST is meant to be its key feature, the thing that broadens the tax base. The world won't end if the principle is diluted, but it shouldn't be idly dismissed either.
Except that there are already exceptions (quite a few of them, and many in quite a significant area: real estate).
As "gobsmacked" put it quite eloquently in the Standard discussion thread:
It’s a headline-grabber, easy to understand, fills a political news vacuum in the recess, goes down well in Mana by-election, etc. So yes, it’s A Good Thing.
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@ Tom
I don't have much time for pot smokers - far to many of them are tediously addled losers from abusing the stuff and/or tend to make it the topic of their conversation at every opportunity
I suggest Tom that the group you identify are a small proportion of all pot smokers - the great majority of whom will say nothing about it whatsoever, precisely because they are neither "addled" nor "abusers", and are well aware of the need to avoid aggravation from the law, from their employer, and indeed from people with views similar to yours.
It would be helpful to move beyond the "tedious" caricature of the dreadlocked, Cannabus-driving self-styled marijuana activist (not that they don't have a point to make).
Your second paragraph reveals an ignorance about the many ways in which cannabis can be and is enjoyed - a dirty splif is far from the default option.
As for the profit motive, you do know cannabis is a plant, and that it's really easy to grow, right?
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@ Rich
Do they have further earthshattering discoveries to import.
Major taxpayer funded study to reveal that marijuana is linked to sitting around and getting high?
I think the original source for that article may have been theonion.com
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But no retail bank has the ability to immediately disburse all its deposits in cash, on demand. A bank run -- if it were to happen -- becomes self-perpetuating. You want to get your money out while there's still some in the vault to get.
Didn't this happen to/at Countrywide Bank at one point?
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Mr McVicar did not return calls yesterday.
Possibly the first time that sentence has ever been written?
In terms of the victims of this type of "prank," RadioNZ had an insightful interview yesterday with a father whose dead son's identity was stolen in similar circumstances. I'd be surprised if it didn't bring a tear to the eye of many listeners.
This may just be me, but Key's description of Garrett's offence as "bizarre" doesn't cut it. I would have thought a much stronger adjective ("repugnant", perhaps?) would be appropriate. Still, at least he's not "relaxed" I guess....
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@BenWilson
We can leave to another day what to do about the likes of heroin, meth, coke, LSD.
I'm not sure why you include LSD there, since it ranks lower on Nutt et al.' index of harm than cannabis (and therefore lower than tobacco and alcohol too).
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@Tony
I'm not surprised she yelled at them with a name like that. In my teaching experience certain names crop up as always presenting challenges in the classroom. Jaydin/Jayden/Jaydan is one of them.
Well, you'll be pleased to know that there were 248 Jayden's born in NZ in 2007, 250 in 2008, and 208 in 2009. It's hovering between the 14th and 20th most popular name for boys.
And that's just the conventional spelling.
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Cue another hissy fit from McCully.
I would think he'd be on a warning by now.
McCully has a long leash because he's National's fixer (of leadership contests).
I say the rugby heads party on John Quay.
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... until the landlord attempted to move into our living room...
Now that really sounds like a story that should be shared.I second that! Only the best stories begin with "Everything was going quite well ... until the landlord tried to move in!"
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I feel lucky, only having one bad neighbour story, and it amounting to no more than a standard-issue drug dealer - steroids, I'd guess, given the size of the gorillas who frequented the place (no, I never saw their tongues) - eventually raided in the middle of the night by the cops. We presumed he'd been dobbed in by his ex-girlfriend, "Barbie", who had left amid a raging argument, and a custody dispute over a doberman, several weeks' prior.
His $600k house then sat vacant for a year, in the possession of a decidedly dodgy realtor, who had the power disconnected and then tried to "borrow" ours to do the vacuuming, without asking, via a long extension cord.
Now a neighbour with enthusiasm for odd tomato plants is one I could appreciate.