Posts by mark taslov
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Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to BenWilson,
Though it only begins 70,000 years ago, Andrew Marr’s History of the World might be worth checking out. I Haven’t watched it, but I’m enjoying the book.
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Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
Thanks for the Marx fix there, that accorded to my needs just brilliantly. And then.
Well, this is all fun and games till someone loses their faith.
We here at Agnostic HQ were absolutely primed for imminent certainty, jaws agape, eyes wide, breath held, but further analysis revealed the proselytiser clipped that very last hurdle and broke our fucking microphone. The word substitution game:
It’s not mysterious, […] There were thousands of stories invented about intelligent extraterrestrial life, and just a handful of them survived into the modern world in a persistent enough meme to overcome the starkly obvious lack of intelligent extraterrestrial life, backed by the evidence of every single thing ever turning out to not have intelligent extraterrestrial life […] All of it, everything, there’s no intelligent extraterrestrial life …
As Joe said earlier:
Making a strident belief of unbelief can be as risible as its opposite. In some cases it can be an absolute toxin to creativity.
[Tussock, respectfully, jotting you down as a… Scully]… Kudos WH, I never cease to be fascinated by the way two people can observe the same scene yet reach entirely different conclusions
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious; It is the source of all true art and science.."
Or as that same wiseacre – with his topical quotes for Jesus – also dished:
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.
Closer to home, and though it doesn’t make for great soundbites, when pressed on policy detail, I’ve found Cunliffe’s refusal to commit on issues of uncertainty rather refreshing:
"I think, I think, uh, that it’s really important, uh, not to tell porkies to the public and I’m being very very careful, if there are things that I don’t know about in the future, not to get ahead of the public."
Hoskings interview
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Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to B Jones,
NZ Democrats for Social Credit as Lynx, mainly just:
It is considered an elusive and mysterious creature
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Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Agnostics everywhere will be shamed by this.
We'll be releasing a statement shortly.
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Hard News: But seriously, drug policy, in reply to Russell Brown,
Apart from an odd section promising to lean on Pharmac to ”take a lead role in seeking to reduce the inappropriate prescribing of drugs such as anti-depressants” (let’s leave that up to doctors and health researchers)
A lighthearted rundown of some issues here (links within):
In 1997, GlaxoSmithKline did something similar when they released the well-known antidepressant Wellbutrin as a pill that helps you quit smoking, but only after rebranding it as Zyban.
The Sept 2014 Pharmac Schedule (PDF) shows Zyban is being subsidised to the tune of $4.95 (manufacturer’s price). Regardless of the merits of Zyban specifically, there’s a case to be made for heightened vigilance in the current market:
GSK is under investigation by Chinese authorities over Rmb3bn (£320m) in potential bribes to individuals at every level of the healthcare system,
etc…
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Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to andin,
With their Rhotic-accents and the [ɔr]/[ɑr] merger, I’d assumed kicking Equus africanus asinus was preferable to the possible misinterpretation: kicking Equus ferus caballus.
mantellum/petasus
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Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Surely that would be "asses", no?
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Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to Brent Jackson,
most of them end up with a vague “there is something more to life”, and something has to last after death because the alternative is too bleak to accept.
Perhaps attributable to the size of your sample, you’re trying to pin people down(?). I’m as skeptical about the deeply held beliefs of theists as I am about the authenticity of these beliefs as characterized by athiests. Taking what someone claims to believe at anything more than face value has never struck me as a significant revision. Take Judith Collins for example:
WRT to rationality; personal conflict between the Wertrational and the Zweckrational is not unusual. Which is more rational? I guess that depends what you’re rationalising. As far as debating or discrediting what anyone else believes, obviously like anything the pastime has its devotees, but as I see it organized religion exists to plug a hole and provide some semblance of meaning to inate sensations that a vast demographic are susceptible to.
The egg came first there and I can tolerate that, doesn’t mean I’ll respond mind. However when these beliefs are exploited or serve as a springboard for political/ social action/ activism, that’s an entirely different kettle of fish, Colin Craig doesn’t oppose adolescent access to abortion because he’s a Christian, he opposes it because he’s anti-certain-human rights. There are correlations, but when I see someone wearing a crucifix, I lack the clairvoyance to know more about a person than assuming they might just like wearing one.
Quite arbritrarily, and speaking exclusively for myself, I recall being pinned down by this piece of fluff for all seasons from a religious fulla a few years back:
“Now, Kalamas, don’t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, ‘This contemplative is our teacher.’ When you know for yourselves that, ‘These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness’ — then you should enter & remain in them."
Siddhārtha Gautama, 563 BCE-ish
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Cunliffe better pray there’s no imminent hair shortage on the horizon.
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“Of course it would be exempt. Why wouldn’t it be exempt, John?”
Except that would not be an entirely honest answer to the question Key asked. It wouldn’t necessarily be exempt, that depends on the use of the property.
As a seasoned debater in a hostile media environment Cunliffe would have been well aware of the risks and could very well have prioritised point scoring ahead of awaiting confirmation as to what exactly John was getting at, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Before launching into his spiel Cunliffe began “If your family…”. a heckler interrupted him, he stopped. Not a good look in a debate.
But anyone with any serious interest in this election should have known the answer. As a mildly disinterested and distant observer of New Zealand politics I knew the answer.
People have been discussing that very answer on the net for quite some time, in the comments under NBR’s article ’Lunacy’ that property speculators get tax-free capital gain – Cunliffe from April 13th, Telder Paper answered the PM’s question:
My understanding is the Labour CGT will include Trusts but will exclude a family home that is held by a Trust which would otherwise be subject to the tax as the owner does not use it as a family residence.
This is nothing new, the same answer has been available since the first iteration of this policy was introduced under Phil Goff, here it is clarified by Macnicol in 2011:
There will be various exemptions available to taxpayers in the CGT regime including:
the family home (“where you live most of the time”) including a family home that is owned by a trust and the primary dwelling and curtilage on a farm,
The Answer has been “Out there” for all and sundry to consider and discuss for over three years. So the issue for me, and excuse the spin, is not so much why Cunliffe didn’t respond this way or that. I myself have been stopped in my tracks by questions so elementary as if to almost seem rhetorical.
Initially I thought Key was attempting to put Cunliffe off his game; the shift in body language, the glimmer in the eye, the zinger:
"I’ve got this one simple question for you David, if I own a house in a trust do I pay a capital gains tax on it?"
How could The National leader debating Labour policies not know that? Labour’s policy is his schtick. Such a question shows no grasp of the policy at all. It’s positively Bushesque. There are numerous sensible questions one could ask about the policy as touched upon in David Snell’s recent CGT series on Stuff, e.g. how does Labour propose to minimise “flipping” and other methods of rorting the system? So I took it to be some sort of ruse.
So John Key actually believed in his heart of hearts(?) that this was an actual thing, as he stated after debate:
"My read of the [Labour policy] is that if you own a family home and it’s in a trust, under Labour you will be subject to a capital gains tax because that policy says that you don’t pay a capital gains tax on a family home… if you are the owner/occupier.”
“But, of course under a family trust the trust is the owner."So he has actually had a glance at the policy:
Labour will introduce a capital gains tax, excluding the family home
And that’s his reading. So that’s one thing, Cunliffe, thoughtful man that he is sacrifices debate points in order to confirm the party’s position. John Key, with the most limited understanding, used his platform to host an inane policy quiz, kicking things off with a toughy.
But coming back to Mike, and in fairness to him,those headlines graced the Herald homepage for a good few hours last night after the debate. As Sofie said:
Sound bites and suckers
Rings true. And then as Cecelia said:
That Herald folks opined that way
Which is one way of putting it. Toby Manhire not only provided the most comprehensive and balanced rundown of the debate but also devoted the least amount of space to this issue:
"when John Key challenged David Cunliffe on homes, family trusts and capital gains, he knocked him off his stride."
Fran O’Sullivan, spun the Prime Minister’s misrepresentation as
"catching David Cunliffe out when it came to the detail on Labour’s capital gains tax.
Both John Armstrong’s and Audrey Young’s entire pieces centred around this one exchange. The difference being that Audrey Young, so challenged by the policy, it would seem, qualified this as the answer:
"OK so the reason, let me explain this, the reason David Babbled on for a few minutes there [laughter] and wouldn’t actually tell you, wouldn’t actually tell you,whether if(sic) your family home, your principle family home is in a trust whether you’ll pay a capital gains tax or not, the answer you will, you will because you are not the owner occupier, and this is gonna be interesting news for New Zealanders, there are 300,000 New Zealanders who have their family, their home in their family trust."
And these are quote/unquote "The Herald’s top political correspondents". The topper most of the popper most. Fair enough John Key won the debate, and fair enough the he won despite being unable to answers Cunliffe’s question regarding the content of the TPP. But based specifically on that one exchange which culminated in the Prime Minister misrepresenting the opposition’s policy to the New Zealand public with a big old fib, if you’re going to award Mr Key the win without exposing his error, or for that matter, all the errors and misrepresentations these leaders try to slip past us, due to either your own political bias or more simply absolute confounding ignorance, then you are failing, quite marvelously, at upholding the role of the fourth estate. As journalists we rely on to bring the facts, you are absolutely failing New Zealanders, and so as political correspondents and commentators you are doing little more than warming seats.
I don’t care if a Prime Minister takes a holiday weekend to answer the question, I don’t care if a Prime Minister isn’t the best debater this side of Ohakune, what I care about, and this is my bottom line, is whether or not the Prime Minister, our Prime Minister, is telling the truth. In every instance. Penetrating the bullshit, Sirs and Madams, is your fracking job.
Sound bites and suckers
