Posts by B Jones
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Home is always my mum's place on the northern edges of Wellington, but a second sort of home is the government end of the city. Between us, my mum, my dad and I have worked maybe half a century within 300m of the Beehive. Seen governments and buildings come and go, new bus terminals and courthouses, protest marches and victory parades. I hadn't realised how much it had changed until I saw a film clip at Te Papa from the 90s showing Willis St with a clear view through Chews Lane to the Boatshed.
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Polity: Cold, calculated and cynical, in reply to Nick Russell,
The detainees are, as far as I can tell, people who left NZ, some a long time ago, and who are fighting to avoid being sent back here. Some have serious criminal records.
As I understand it, supporting them includes supporting their bid to stay in Australia. If they already have a ticket out of Christmas Island, but it's a one way trip to New Zealand, supporting them getting other options is logical, even if it's a purely self-interested motive in keeping them over there.
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I had a vision yesterday of Bruce Willis walking through Harlem in Die Hard 2 with a racially inflammatory sign on his back. You can't blame people for responding but someone had to do everyone concerned a favour and make him stop.
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I think we cod all stand to clam down a bit, seeing as things are getting a bit crabby round here. Russell's had his say, and eel need to bring out the Salmon of Correction if this goes on too long. Musselling in won't solve anything.
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The one thing discussions about food and nutrition always seem to ignore is the utility people get from food beyond its nutrients and calories. It's hard to measure, but it's real, which is why I'd pay $5 for a scoop of chips and -$20 for sardines. A tax has to be high to overcome that utility, and those affected by the tax are going to lose that utility. You're making people's lives less pleasant in the hope that there's long term gain - that's a big call, and you can't handwave it away by saying nobody should like fizzy anyway.
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Its usually about six pages in when the argument starts to become about the argument, right? I guess we've hit that point, which is a shame because I had some good recipes for hot gravel to share.
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I ate loads of sardines when I was a kid, and I even liked them for a while. But not any more.
Mussels and a baguette might be close, but that presupposes cooking gear.
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Also cost of table, knife, fork and toaster.
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You left out the $20 or so you'd have to pay me to eat sardines.
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I heard what might be an urban legend about the Kirk era Labour Party, putting up taxes on makeup as a ploy for the feminist vote, strange as that sounds. It's all sumptuary laws for a modern age.