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It's quite fascinating watching this government blunder from one misstep to another. So far, the only thing that hasn't gone wrong for them is that a high-ranking party member hasn't been caught with a dead child prostitute. That's probably for next month.
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Feb 17, 2012 01:35
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Varkk posted:It looks like the idea behind assett sales is based on numbers which Bill English just made up to make it seem like it makes sense. The only problem with that plan is that even with his imaginary numbers it still doesn't make any financial sense to sell the assetts. With projected savings in the debt servicing around $250-300 million in 2016 and lost revenue from the assetts around $350 million "It was a guess; it wasn't even our best one"
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Feb 17, 2012 03:19
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It's almost as if the National Party don't serve the public interest and are more interested in making money for a wealthy minority.
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Feb 17, 2012 05:52
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Vagabundo posted:http://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2008/10/30/election-08-10-science-questions-for-the-green-party/ In the same document they also say: quote:We want to see in New Zealand what already exists in many countries overseas — traditional healthcare like homeopathy, acupuncture and naturopathy recognised and accepted throughout our health system... Sue Kedgley in the past has mentioned stem cell in the same alarmist tones as CLONING WHICH MAY CHANGE THE HUMAN GENOME FOREVER! quote:Banning human cloning would only address some of the issues concerning human genetic engineering, Green Party MP and Health spokesperson Sue Kedgley said today. http://www.greens.org.nz/press-releases/call-debate-germline-engineering I'm glad they at least shifted to a some what neutral position, but if you apply the logic people apply when talking about John Banks and his comments about gays vs. his somewhat more nuetral stance these days (or just denying he ever said it) then it should probably be viewed as somewhat tarnished.
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Feb 17, 2012 06:11
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ClubmanGT posted:In the same document they also say: So when asked to substantiate your claim that the Greens are anti stem-cell research you supply a quote supporting natural medicine and one about human cloning requiring caution and nothing at all about stem cells. Maybe you should apologise for spreading lies?
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Feb 17, 2012 06:22
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Ratios and Tendency posted:So when asked to substantiate your claim that the Greens are anti stem-cell research you supply a quote supporting natural medicine and one about human cloning requiring caution and nothing at all about stem cells. Maybe you should apologise for spreading lies? It says nothing at all about stem cells if you ignore the fact it's mentioned in the same breath as cloning in a release that's basically panic bullshit about cloning and modifying the human genome. If you want to argue that Kedgley wasn't tying stem cells into her alarmist poo poo then knock yourself out. And I quoted the part about the Greens wanting state funding for homoeopathy because that's literally the last thing the health system should spend money on, unless someone develops a machine for the express purpose of giving people cancer, in which case that would be the last thing, and even then homoeopathy would run it pretty close to the line. But sorry for
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Feb 17, 2012 06:40
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Don't say sorry for criticising the Green Party. Own up to the fact that you were wrong and misrepresented their position.
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Feb 17, 2012 07:22
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Ratios and Tendency posted:It's almost as if the National Party don't serve the public interest and are more interested in making money for a wealthy minority. I, for one, am shocked, sir! Shocked, I say!
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Feb 17, 2012 07:28
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Ratios and Tendency posted:Don't say sorry for criticising the Green Party. Own up to the fact that you were wrong and misrepresented their position. I didn't misrepresent their position. You can choose to ignore the fact they mentioned stem cells in a press release about the evils of 'genetic code tampering and the end of mankind' or whatever, but just be aware that you're choosing to do so.
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Feb 17, 2012 08:15
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I don't see how "we need more debate" is freaking out about anything actually. If you wanted to show them going a bit mental, you should've quoted this part:quote:"If we don't act soon we could end up on the slippery slope to a Brave New World where children are treated as a consumer commodities that parents can choose by selecting genes from a catalogue." Although that also has dick-all to do with stem cells.
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Feb 17, 2012 08:38
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ClubmanGT posted:I didn't misrepresent their position. You can choose to ignore the fact they mentioned stem cells in a press release about the evils of 'genetic code tampering and the end of mankind' or whatever, but just be aware that you're choosing to do so. She says there needs to be a public debate about genetic research including human cloning and stem-cells and then goes on to express reservations about cloning specifically. There is no hysterical rejection of stem-cell research. You are assuming one because you are arguing from emotion and then when called on it you are doubling down because you are intellectually dishonest.
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Feb 17, 2012 08:40
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Ratios and Tendency posted:She says there needs to be a public debate about genetic research including human cloning and stem-cells and then goes on to express reservations about cloning specifically. There is no hysterical rejection of stem-cell research. You are assuming one because you are arguing from emotion and then when called on it you are doubling down because you are intellectually dishonest. Supporting a political party which thinks quack medicine is worth something isn't intellectually dishonest.
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Feb 17, 2012 09:28
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[Never mind, was a dick and misinterpreted someone.]
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Feb 17, 2012 09:30
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Ratios and Tendency posted:She says there needs to be a public debate about genetic research including human cloning and stem-cells and then goes on to express reservations about cloning specifically. There is no hysterical rejection of stem-cell research. You are assuming one because you are arguing from emotion and then when called on it you are doubling down because you are intellectually dishonest. She says there needs to be debate about something and then throws in a line about changing the human genome forever. If you believe that isn't loaded then please tell me how New Zealand First's objection to asset sales to Chinese bidders is based entirely on their concerns about farm affordability for young New Zealanders and nothing to do with the fact they're racist fucks. This is nothing to do with intellectual dishonesty or whatever you popped up in here to look down your nose at people for. Saying you want a debate about something in politics means you've made up your mind. Now had they distinguished stem cells from the rest of their loaded call for a debate, I would agree with you. But it's not. Now of course this is notwithstanding the fact that people can read different things into different texts. You might think it doesn't say something that I think it does. The fact that I see it one way and you see it another doesn't mean one of us is 'intellectually dishonest' or 'lying'. And to be honest, I don't care about this at all except for the fact you don't seem to be able to disagree with someone without getting in their face.
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Feb 17, 2012 09:43
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Dude it's OK if you can't find the Greens freaking out over stem cells, we won't judge you.
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Feb 17, 2012 09:50
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TetsuoTW posted:Dude it's OK if you can't find the Greens freaking out over stem cells, we won't judge you. There's no specific 'Steam cells are evil' line. This thread seems pretty good at seeing agendas everywhere (and for the most part the right wing ones are easy enough to guess), but it's just my personal opinion that if someone says this: quote:A call for widespread debate into issues such as stem cell research and germline engineering came after a report in today's New Zealand Herald that the first human clone may only be a few weeks away. and then uses this to follow it up: quote:"If we don't act soon we could end up on the slippery slope to a Brave New World where children are treated as a consumer commodities that parents can choose by selecting genes from a catalogue." ...then they mean they think the issues that need debating (i.e. stem cell research) could lead to babies being grown and killed for kidneys to be sold on Trade Me if left undebated. Now, does that suggest a neutral attitude towards stem cells? What sort of debate do you think that will be? (hint: people who are in favour of or ambivalent towards embryonic research don't talk about catalogues of designer children). Who gives a poo poo anyway. Their current position of apathy is piss-weak, but not as reprehensible as outright objection (or emotively charged calls for debate). Can we move on? E: Actually it's reprehensible that they want to fund homoeopathy and won't commit to stem cells. Butt Wizard fucked around with this message at 10:18 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 17, 2012 10:15
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ClubmanGT posted:There's no specific 'Steam cells are evil' line. quote:...then they mean they think the issues that need debating (i.e. stem cell research) could lead to babies being grown and killed for kidneys to be sold on Trade Me if left undebated. Now, does that suggest a neutral attitude towards stem cells? What sort of debate do you think that will be? (hint: people who are in favour of or ambivalent towards embryonic research don't talk about catalogues of designer children). She never said anything like your bolded section. She quite specifically referred to designer babies which has nothing to do with stem-cells. quote:Who gives a poo poo anyway. Their current position of apathy is piss-weak, but not as reprehensible as outright objection (or emotively charged calls for debate). Can we move on? Sue Kedgley has retired and there is no mention of homeopathy on the policy section of the Green Party website so presumably you can calm down now.
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Feb 17, 2012 10:56
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Ratios and Tendency posted:
I get all  just imagining how hosed off angry parents must get when they are stopped handing out a smacking by the nannying hand of Sue "That Bitch" Bradford. I just can't stop smiling at those strung out mums and dads: screaming child in one hand, their other curled by impotent rage into a fist.
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Feb 17, 2012 11:39
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ClubmanGT posted:E: Actually it's reprehensible that they want to fund homoeopathy and won't commit to stem cells.
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Feb 17, 2012 12:07
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I will definitely give you the point that the presence of unscientific fear based/disgust based views RE stem cells and on the inverse support for crap like homeopathy among some 'green' circles and in any GP news memos is regrettable and poo poo piece. But basically it cant be stretched any farther- Greens health policy/ACC policy etc. is solid. And as has been pointed out- its not actually policy in any present form. The level of respect for science generally is incredibly high in Green politics in NZ IMO (science basically does support the whole dont gently caress up the environment for good health and prosperity idea). Lemonus fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Feb 17, 2012 |
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Feb 17, 2012 17:05
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Vagabundo posted:No and yes.
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Feb 17, 2012 19:05
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ClubmanGT posted:I'm glad they at least shifted to a some what neutral position, but if you apply the logic people apply when talking about John Banks and his comments about gays vs. his somewhat more nuetral stance these days (or just denying he ever said it) then it should probably be viewed as somewhat tarnished. Except John Banks is a person and the Greens are an organisation and the two things are different.
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Feb 17, 2012 20:21
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ledge posted:Except John Banks is a person and the Greens are an organisation and the two things are different. Good point. John Banks is an individualist and entrepreneurial Randian style gay-hater, whereas the Green Party tends towards collectivist commy stem cell research hate :iamafag: Clubman seriously though its not hard to get more neutral than saying this bill will destroy the family as well as destroy democracy as he yelled RE homosexual law reform in 1986 :P
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Feb 17, 2012 20:31
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More NZ is awful RE cost of living- http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10785653 quote:The Economist intelligence unit has released its worldwide cost of living survey for 2011, to show both Auckland and Wellington moving up the ranks to become more expensive. Fuckkk. I saw stuff earlier in the thread about the cost of living being so high for not really the wages to support it but woah, I didn't realize it was that expensive.
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Feb 18, 2012 06:02
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Lemonus posted:More NZ is awful RE cost of living- Wellington is ridiculously expensive, particularly transport. Between the price of petrol, parking and ever-rising public transport, getting around was my biggest expense bar rent.
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Feb 18, 2012 06:07
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miss_chaos posted:Wellington is ridiculously expensive, particularly transport. Between the price of petrol, parking and ever-rising public transport, getting around was my biggest expense bar rent. I remember my flatmate telling me some really down to the cents yarn about bringing your car into the city buying the smallest possible parking ticket and then a sort of calculated risk of getting a parket fine (which is at a reducated rate if you have expired time instead of having got no ticket at all) working out basically cheaper than public transport for a significant number of people. Is this is a widespread practice?
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Feb 18, 2012 06:25
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Wellington's bus system is fantastic compared to the rest of the country, if you live out of the CBD you should bus. I get the thrilling sight of Russell Norman, Guyon Espiner and other D-grade Wellington celebrities on the bus. There's not enough room in this tiny wonderful city for every fuckhead to get a carpark all day.
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Feb 18, 2012 09:09
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dusty posted:Wellington's bus system is fantastic compared to the rest of the country, if you live out of the CBD you should bus. I get the thrilling sight of Russell Norman, Guyon Espiner and other D-grade Wellington celebrities on the bus. Patrick Gower occasionally gets the same bus as me back out to the Hutt and he is one of those people who tries to talk to other passengers (or the driver if no one will put up with his poo poo). As if you needed another reason to hate him.
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Feb 18, 2012 09:15
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Lemonus posted:I remember my flatmate telling me some really down to the cents yarn about bringing your car into the city buying the smallest possible parking ticket and then a sort of calculated risk of getting a parket fine (which is at a reducated rate if you have expired time instead of having got no ticket at all) working out basically cheaper than public transport for a significant number of people. Is this is a widespread practice? Back when I was a student and worked weekends, I used to park in the two hours limited car parking all day. I got a ticket roughly once a month, which worked out cheaper than paying to park in a parking building, and about the same as paying for a bus. But I lived quite a way out of town, on one of the routes that are clearly run because Stagecoach is contractually obliged to do so.
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Feb 18, 2012 10:06
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dusty posted:Wellington's bus system is fantastic compared to the rest of the country, if you live out of the CBD you should bus. I get the thrilling sight of Russell Norman, Guyon Espiner and other D-grade Wellington celebrities on the bus. Overall the coverage is decent, but there are still some weird gaps. I'm looking at moving at the moment and I recently had to turn down a nice affordable place in Owhiro Bay because the bus service into town consisted of 3 buses per day on weekdays, all between 7 and 9am, and nothing on weekends. 
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Feb 18, 2012 10:13
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Torka posted:Overall the coverage is decent, but there are still some weird gaps. I'm looking at moving at the moment and I recently had to turn down a nice affordable place in Owhiro Bay because the bus service into town consisted of 3 buses per day on weekdays, all between 7 and 9am, and nothing on weekends. There's a review on at the moment - http://www.gw.govt.nz/wellington-city-bus-review/ Gonna get on my submit 
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Feb 18, 2012 10:35
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As if Auckland house price weren't bad enough it's also the 15th most expensive city in the world to live in. Reasons like this and the rumour about interest on student loans make me want to ditch this sinking ship as soon as I can. Here's something funny related to public transport in Auckland. It is only $2 cheaper to use public transport to get to uni for me which in involves two buses and a train ride which takes an hour and a half. Driving takes 35 minutes. 
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Feb 18, 2012 11:06
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Red_Fred posted:Here's something funny related to public transport in Auckland. It is only $2 cheaper to use public transport to get to uni for me which in involves two buses and a train ride which takes an hour and a half. Driving takes 35 minutes. Auckland's transport is so loving broken that it barely rates talking about. My work has three shifts that overlap in the main part of the day. If you work the early one, you start at 7-730. If I drive in, I'm there before traffic and can usually land a park. If I choose a later shift and caught the bus, I'd have to leave at the same time I do to drive in for the early one. And if I caught the bus, I'd have to bus back to Britomart to get on my bus home, which would then be slower than driving even in rush hour because the bus lanes on my route are only on the side of the road leading into town, with no bus lanes in the opposite direction. There are so many things wrong with the above that I don't know where to begin, and that's before you start talking about how much those bus rides cost.
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Feb 18, 2012 11:50
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ClubmanGT posted:Auckland's transport is so loving broken that it barely rates talking about. My work has three shifts that overlap in the main part of the day. If you work the early one, you start at 7-730. If I drive in, I'm there before traffic and can usually land a park. If I choose a later shift and caught the bus, I'd have to leave at the same time I do to drive in for the early one. And if I caught the bus, I'd have to bus back to Britomart to get on my bus home, which would then be slower than driving even in rush hour because the bus lanes on my route are only on the side of the road leading into town, with no bus lanes in the opposite direction. There are so many things wrong with the above that I don't know where to begin, and that's before you start talking about how much those bus rides cost. Aucklands public what now? Since leaving NZ for Europe I've had a grand time describing just how laughable Aucklands infrastructure is to virtually everyone I meet. It's like we've had 70 straight years of deliberately bad town planning just as an experiment in loving a city up. From the bridge and the clip-ons to the Britomart to the Cloud/slug waterfront debacle I struggle to think of anything in this city that has been done right. It's as if the consecutive councils have been trying to out do each other in bat poo poo short sightedness.
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Feb 18, 2012 12:52
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I have a memory from when I was in Berlin that really stands out to me. My ex looked at her watch and said angrily 'the train's late!' I pointed at the approaching train and said 'no it isn't, I can see it.' She looked at me as though I was insane and said 'no, it isn't HERE yet, so it's late by 15 seconds.' She was deadly serious, and I would LOVE for Auckland's public transport to be that reliable. I'd also like a proper rail loop, more busses, and a real effort to cut down on the number of cars rather than just building more motorways, but if wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak. A friend of mine is actually employed quite high up by the NZTA and we had a sitdown chat about the whole business once. He basically said this will NEVER change, because for a proper public transport network to be built it will take someone with vision, drive, and the willingness to put their job on the line as it's a several year project at the least. Since governments come and go in three year cycles, there is no one willing to step up to the plate and risk their reputation - who would want to be known as the minister who got halfway and accomplished less than nothing with the taxpayer's money?
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Feb 18, 2012 20:11
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Two Finger posted:I'd also like a proper rail loop, more busses, and a real effort to cut down on the number of cars rather than just building more motorways, but if wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak. As long as the first two happen first before clamping down on motorists, then I'm happy for people to spend whatever they want. It'd be pretty unfair to have Aucklanders getting a disproportionate share of the roading budget for decades leading to our woeful transport situation, and then punishing them again for using cars instead of non-existent alternatives. The end result is the same, but at least this way you don't gently caress over people for something they can't realistically do anything about.
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Feb 18, 2012 20:58
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ClubmanGT posted:As long as the first two happen first before clamping down on motorists, then I'm happy for people to spend whatever they want. It'd be pretty unfair to have Aucklanders getting a disproportionate share of the roading budget for decades leading to our woeful transport situation, and then punishing them again for using cars instead of non-existent alternatives. The end result is the same, but at least this way you don't gently caress over people for something they can't realistically do anything about. My understanding was that the Auckland area got a disproportionately small part of the roading budget for the amount of road tax that originates from the city but I'm not going to pretend that I ever had evidence for that or have lived in the city for any part of the last 2 years Edit: Actually that might be what you're saying
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Feb 19, 2012 00:24
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Pozzo posted:Edit: Actually that might be what you're saying Yea. I can't explain myself for poo poo. Here's a source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/brian-rudman/news/article.cfm?a_id=1&objectid=10562190&pnum=1 quote:Good riddance to the iniquitous double-fuel tax the Labour Government imposed on Aucklanders to help fund roading and public transport improvements. I have the same opinion on the rail loop - Wellington has a commuter rail service that services the region, and not just slivers of it, and Christchurch has a stupidly cheap bus system. Maybe it's time for some of the other areas that benefited from pillaging Auckland's revenue stream gave something back. It's hardly fair to load the cost onto the people they actually want to use what is already a pretty expensive system - after all, they've paid for everyone else to have their treats as well. From memory, the roading budget only hit a proportional per capita distribution for Auckland in the mid 2000s.
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Feb 19, 2012 08:16
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Taking the bus was a daily evil in Newtown but at $4.50 per cash fare it's loving outrageous, and I could drive to work and back for half the price in petrol per week, plus not having someone cough on me the whole time. I wanted to support Wellington public transport, but it was honestly misery sitting on a drafty trolley bus in June with the population of South Wellington up in your grill as everyone slipped around because the bus driver overpacked the bus. Half the time I was late to work because the bus just didn't show up or was so packed I couldn't get on. I guess if you take the 2 or 5 it's ok, but anything going through Newtown was utter misery. The Karori 3 is pretty bad. I realised a few months before I left that taking the bus simply made me miserable so I stopped and my day instantly got better. Buses to Petone etc are much more bearable. Wellington tries to discourage cars by having really expensive parking, but regularly increases public transport fares to the point where having a car is simply a cheaper option. It's a great way to make cash for the council but christ did it get expensive when you use it both ways every day of the week.
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Feb 20, 2012 11:25
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miss_chaos posted:I realised a few months before I left that taking the bus simply made me miserable so I stopped and my day instantly got better. Buses to Petone etc are much more bearable. I still have nightmares about my times on the Britomart to Howick buses
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Feb 20, 2012 20:44
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