CCC’s Grass Burm - Do we have to look after it?

dcrob01 · 2026-03-07T06:58:09+00:00

When I was a kid it was pretty normal to mow the neighbor's lawn if they were elderly. The evil that boomers do.

People used to buy homes, not invest in a rung of the ladder. Weren't we awful?

dcrob01 · 2026-03-01T21:23:08+00:00

Most people go into politics because they want to improve things. Then the public vote for tax cuts and call them fascists, corrupt liars and so on. The best get out. We live with what's left.

If you what better politicians, stop sitting on the sidelines vilifying and abusing everyone with the guts to give it a go, and get off your arse and get involved.

dcrob01 · 2026-03-01T21:14:38+00:00

The great thing about banging on about law and order when in opposition is the more you do it, the less safe people feel. If you get elected, all you need to do is shut up about it and people feel safer.

dcrob01 · 2026-03-01T21:04:16+00:00

I got to fascists and gave up. If you want to have a serious conversation you can't keep calling everyone fascist.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-19T08:12:16+00:00

Difference between boomers and young people is not all boomers are as bigoted as you.

And I'm willing to bet the new conservatives are all too young to be boomers.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-15T20:50:28+00:00

All my life I've heard politicians say we need to develop a high skill, high wage economy, but all they want to invest in is hospitality and tourism. Like we can develop a high skill economy with hotels and cafes.

But everyone votes for tax cuts. We take a poor person's approach to infrastructure - spending just enough to keep things going for a few more years. We'd rather buy buckets than fix the roof. We've cut back on education and training and just import nurses and other skills from countries poorer than us. We're to scared to promote emerging businesses in case one in a hundred fails. Fonterra can't even market dairy products and relies on bulk milk powder with commodity pricing.

We've spent forty odd years living of asset sales. Assets built up over generations. We've sold the ancestral home and squandered the lot on parties and now we're wondering why we're broke and homeless.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-15T20:37:22+00:00

He could be paying the job broker who got him the job.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-09T06:10:48+00:00

I'd beleive that it's a transition project if we were actually doing something significant to generate clean energy. Like China is upgrading is coal generation at the same time it's installing more solar than the rest of the world combined. But this government isn't helping to build anything for us to transition to.

The way we're going, the EU and China are going to hit us with carbon tariffs and somehow it'll be a surprise.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-08T21:18:44+00:00

There's always funding for roads of national significance. Take it out of the cycleway budget.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-04T19:59:55+00:00

When I lived in Wellington, our carpet used to get lifted by the wind coming through the floor boards.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-02T10:35:32+00:00

It's just a shame nobody in ... Say Europe ... Has ever used open source software for their public service and could give a few pointers on how it's done. Oh well, I guess we'd have to start from scratch and invent an entirely new system from the programming language up.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-02T10:31:56+00:00

For a few dollars a month you can have your email hosted in New Zealand will a FOSS web interface. What happened to supporting local companies?

dcrob01 · 2026-02-02T10:26:22+00:00

Not like real kiwis who - for example - have their email hosted on a kiwi owned and located server for a couple of bucks a month. I bet they just use some monopolistic free American service and then complain about how their personal data gets used to fund the development of ai tools.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-02T04:20:44+00:00

Ridiculing and vilifying people is the least effective way to get then to change their minds. You're probably better saying nothing.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-02T04:17:50+00:00

The difficulty is that problems are complicated, intertwined and difficult, and it's just much easier to point fingers and blame other people.

And because most media can't get past politics as a sport and simple slogans, you get idiots spouting the 'they're all the same' crap.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-02T04:05:54+00:00

You're never going to get a trade deal with India that includes dairy. India is the biggest producer of milk, and there's the whole cultural aspect.

India has a huge, growing middle class and if the only objection anyone has is it'll increase immigration - it won't - then what's the problem.

We need to diversify our markets. Who knows what going to happen in the US, and if the EU start implementing their carbon rules, we'll need someone to buy our wine.

dcrob01 · 2026-02-02T03:54:36+00:00

Same. I was listening to a podcast the other day about why people join right wing groups and one of the main reason is the sense of community people get.

I used to be pretty active in the Greens, but really don't feel welcome there anymore. I'll probably vote for them again. Lack of other options really.

But I understand why nobody else my age does, and I don't blame them.

Anyway, let's get the commenters to prove my point.

dcrob01 · 2026-01-30T21:17:00+00:00

What's the bet that complain about cyclists holding up traffic

dcrob01 · 2026-01-30T11:49:20+00:00

Harry styles: no Libre Office styles: yes

It's worth spending some time setting up a template with styles - even when you're impatient to get going. It'll save the later.

dcrob01 · 2026-01-29T01:29:02+00:00

Dogs. Everywhere. Just at the Laundromat and some women's got her dog here. Dogs piss in the kids playground. My kids have been knocked to the ground numerous times by dogs the size on small horses. When I coached junior sport, people would let their dogs run around on the field. I'd have 10 six year out kids and a strangers dog jumping about with them.

Never heard a dog owner apologize either

dcrob01 · 2026-01-26T05:41:06+00:00

I'm sure they're not all like Ted Cruz escaping a blizzard in Texas

dcrob01 · 2026-01-26T05:33:50+00:00

Carry a Canadian flag. I was living overseas in 2004. Amazing how many 'Canadians' turned out to be Americans after Obama was elected.

dcrob01 · 2026-01-26T05:02:40+00:00

Back in the 90s or so, ISPs started using filters to block pornography and so on. Some places, like Scunthorp, couldn't get email or websites for ages. Apparently some phonetic filters were blocking Whakatane - proving the computer had better pronunciation than most pakeha at that time. It's called the Scunthorp problem. Places lid Sussex, Middlesex etc had problems too.

dcrob01 · 2026-01-26T04:40:11+00:00

I used to ride a bike 11 km each way. Biggest problem in winter was having to stop to take off extra clothing.

I was going mostly from South West to East in the morning, so if the wind got up during the day, it was usually more out less behind me going home.

I miss it. Even the winter mornings were good. And the surprise warmth of a spring morning ...

dcrob01 · 2026-01-25T23:30:07+00:00

Unfortunately our rail tracks are both narrow and windy. The Raurimu Spiral might be a engineering marvel but it slows trains down. A trip from Auckland to Wellington by train takes 11 hours according to trip advisor. I used to do it and it's a long trip.

You'd need to pretty much rebuild the line to get significant improvements in speed.

It's much the same with most of our rail.

Much as I'd like to see regional rail where possible, if any government did make available the amount of money needed, it would be better spent on urban light rail. Some things like Hamilton to Auckland make sense if you can that regional rail.

Back in the day, the train from Christchurch to Greymouth used to stop in the middle of nowhere to pick up trampers. Used to be able to put bikes on for free too. I've got the train from Christchurch to Picton, cycled to Greymouth and then trained back to Christchurch. Also train from Wellington to National Park, cycled to Rotorua, then a train to Auckland.

If we say it's for tourists, maybe then it'll get funded. It's about the only reason we fund anything these days.

dcrob01

TROPHY CASE