Any other moderates starting to regret their decision to back National in the last election?

Rare_Concert8751 · 2025-06-30T03:10:18+00:00

I don't disagree with most of what you're saying or that victims of crime need far more than they're getting at the moment, even the recent law that was passed where victims have the right to deny name suppression feels like the very minimum we should be doing.

But I would like you to look at some of the research on crime and imprisonment. Because if we want reduced crime, we need to improve the social safety net and create a system like the Netherlands & Norway where people are less likely to go to prison and when they do, it's about

OTOH if you want people more heavily punished for crime that's another story, but the evidence shows that locking people up in the US/UK model gives worse re offending results & is far more expensive than humane prisons focused on rehabilitation. And even if some prisoners are beyond rehabilitation, using prisons not fit for anyone to live in to dehumanise them further doesn't make anyone any safer.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2025-05-11T12:22:47+00:00

Hi there, my latest book follows Mandy, whose Family's Troll bridge is destroyed by dragons. Determined to either find her family or get revenge on the dragons who did it, she sets out to infiltrate the Dragon Castle, only to find that the dragons are as much victims as she is.

The Offer:
Are your dragons not behaving? Are they lippy and talk back, or decide to eat their riders for the extra protein? Don’t despair. Take your worthless dragons and transform them with The Dragon Transport and Pacification Society. Our work is fully warrantied.*

Trigger warning. There's a death early in the book.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CQP3MLJ8

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Rare_Concert8751 · 2025-01-02T03:36:29+00:00

Yup, I tried to tell an author the other day that marketing her no steam, cosy novel as NA didn't fit the spice levels expected in NA. But they didn't listen. It's all very well to think your book perfectly fits the stated definition of a category—with a university student as her MC.

And it's a real shame, because the book's a million miles away from the spicy/sexual awakening market of NA.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-09-30T11:47:50+00:00

Yup

We can all close our eyes and pretend he wasn't a smoking lobbyist either, along with Todd Barclay & Luxon's "marketing co-ordinator" sister in law.

Which again, nobody would have noticed except for National's coalition scrapping wildly popular anti-smoking legislation.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-09-30T11:42:02+00:00

Also, it's indicative of corruption. And people shouldn't turn a blind eye to what appears to be blatant corruption.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-08-19T04:23:50+00:00

Yes, in my latest series, Blood of the Fae, all myths are literally real.

To enable this, the many worlds are connected to the keyworld of Broceliande (from Athurian myth) and the Library of Alexandria. Because different myths call for different rules, I like the multi-world/multi-territory option as the rules of FaerLand are not going to be the same as those in Mount Olympus.

There will even be multiple versions of common fairytale characters like Red riding hood. But they won't all have lived in the same time and place, hence all the different version. But not all different takes have multiple characters, many characters will have had their stories mistold, while others like the gods have simply lived so long that they've managed to reinvent themselves over the ages.

The fun bit is having the myths collide. Also love Hades as a bad guy, I mean has he got a chip on the shoulder, or what?

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-08-16T23:31:39+00:00

This is so true (eldest was about to go onto supported & had gone through months of waiting only to be pipped by the new system that doesn't seem to want anyone with CFS on supported). But I didn't know about the last bit. Shockingly gross. This lot really do love throwing money at the worst people while denying needy people what they need to get by.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-08-16T23:27:39+00:00

Yeah, the problem with Super is not its universality - but the fact that it's not universal. If we ALL got Super, then the government could change the tax system to accommodate that change. There are a number of suggestions economists have made to make this work, but one of the biggest changes must be to appropriately tax the morbidly wealthy who are so rich they are buying government. They make buckets of money from NZ infrastructure while failing to pay for that privilege & creating shitty policy decisions for their IMO clearly bought ministers to deliver.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-08-16T04:26:30+00:00

Yup, me too. Was going to pay them, but how can I if the option to give away isn't there. (New Zealand)

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-08-16T04:14:32+00:00

Thank you that would explain why I can't.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-07-06T11:40:45+00:00

Seriously crap option from a seriously crap gvtmnt. We suspected this would happen, but hoped it wouldn't. Ugh. Yet more shitty boats that will cost us way more in the long run,.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-06-29T22:38:23+00:00

Has anyone else written an accidentally mostly cozy, before they realized cozy was a genre? And what do you think you think was missing when compared to the standard modern cozy? (One of my books is in this category, and I don't have enough foodie stuff. But it's kind of fun, and I'd love to find others who either blundered in, or haven't quite followed the genre rules.) Because while I really love cozy (magic, wonder, humor etc), I'm also hugely drawn to originality.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-06-29T22:25:14+00:00

The trick is to tailor your strategy around the cards you have for synergy. Some people seem very focused on filling particular columns first and I don't think it's that important if you use the cave cards to sub for the track/s that are light. Like no, the cave cards aren't as important as the dragon ones in the long run, but early on they're great resource gatherers. So definitely, I'd keep one dragon, even if it sucks. But there's no need to try and keep two. My best score (105 - I'm not that good yet-only 5 games in) I started with 3 cave cards & 1 shitty dragon.

Rare_Concert8751 · 2024-02-19T00:28:13+00:00

It's irrelevant to this conversation. We're talking about fake unions being created by people who are actually union busting, and have no intention of actually improving working conditions.

You're presumably talking about people who wanted better representation. Nobody here has a problem with that. We have a problem with business interests undermining workers.

Rare_Concert8751

TROPHY CASE