Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Hard News: Will the grown-ups ever…, in reply to nzlemming,
We had a chance to divide the succession a couple of years ago, with the Royal Succession Bill, which, in conflict with the (modern) NZBORA and our traditions of not having an established church, continues to deny Catholics the throne.
I notice that in the midst of the questionably sober bullshit from MPs on the last day of the session (who elected these people?) they never got a report from the Attorney General on its compliance with BORA. I wonder if, should a future Windsor convert to Catholicism and be denied the throne, the NZ succession could be challenged on human rights grounds?
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Hard News: Will the grown-ups ever…, in reply to Johnny Canuck,
what would happen if Tuvalu preferred Wills while the traditionalists in Belize preferred Charles
Same as when William IV (king of the UK and of Hanover (Germany)) was succeeded by Victoria in the UK but by Ernest Augustus I in Hanover, where women could not take the throne.
That sort of thing used to happen quite a bit as kings dropped and picked up territories. At one point the King of Spain ruled Spain itself, Belgium, bits of Northern Italy and a road between them.
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I think it's more about attitude than spending weeks at college?
It varies also what newly qualified cops are expected to do. I think UK police aren't allowed to drive a police car straight away, and they certainly aren't taught firearms unless they join a special unit (with aptitude tests).
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Hard News: Behind Baltimore, in reply to nzlemming,
The Secret Service has been taken over by Homeland Security. It was founded in 1865 primarily to deal with the then endemic counterfeiting of currency and didn't take on presidential protection until 1902.
The FBI (1908/1935) and CIA(1947) came later.
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Exactly. Renewable electricity in NZ peaked at 91% in 1980 and we’ve been going backwards.
We could readily get to 100% using wind and a bit of hydro (including pumped storage, mostly retrofit on existing dams). We can then move on to replace fossil fules in static applications like coal-fired dairy factories and in transport.
This would not cause much economic pain (except for the kind of over-mortgaged brats for whom a basis point on their income tax is untold grief). It would have the positive benefit that when oil prices (and carbon-based import taxes levied on recalcitrant primary producers) go back up, we would have a big competitive advantage by being a cheap energy nation.
But the government is doing the opposite. Building roads, tearing up the Wellington trolley wires and now the main trunk electrification, privatising electricity generation.
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How can you "remove" a prince? They are the elect of god, or so monarchists tell us?
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Hard News: About Campbell Live, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Interesting that you need OIA approval to buy a small paddock, but our largest broadcaster (or the twitching remains thereof) can be traded around tax havens with impunity.
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This kind of Vauxhall:
"we passed like ships in the night or cars in a contraflow system"
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the Auckland National Party scene that is perhaps the key to all this
Yep, all these people are only in jobs at all because their various parents and so on are plugged into a rich-Auckland back-scratching clique. Employing Pebbles Hooper as a "journalist'?
Also, does Mr Currie realise a fundamental commercial fact about people who read the paper in cafes?
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It's interesting that Key is in Saudi creeping to the local despot.
Had the Dardanelles landings succeeded (or indeed had Turkey remained out of WW1) Britain wouldn't have needed the Saud family's support in overthrowing Turkish rule in Arabia and the current incumbent wouldn't be on the throne.
Maybe Key is calling in favours?