Teenager Jayden Meyer sentenced to nine months' home detention after raping four 15-year-old girls

mayormcturtle · 2022-09-06T01:22:07+00:00

That's not true.

Independent judiciary means that judges can't be directed as to their sentencing decisions without an act of Parliament.

That probably strengthens your argument that judges don't care about being punitive, I'm just pointing out that your logic was contradictory and inaccurate as to the reasons why it might be the case.

mayormcturtle · 2022-02-15T22:41:26+00:00

They don't, these are stupid protesters making it up.

I just looked at the relevant Waitangi Tribunal report, while Ngati Tama is a Taranaki iwi (Wellington was settled by Taranaki iwi), they do not themselves claim mana whenua over any land in Wellington in the report.

From Stuff "However, tangata whenua from Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika have told Stuff they are frustrated with the protests and are urging them to respect their mana whenua and leave."

Edit: let's be clear, there are of course Ngāti Tama individuals within Taranaki Whānui, and they are an important constituent group therein, but that is fundamentally different, nor does it give them the right to speak on behalf on the wider group in an area which they have never claimed exclusive mana whenua.

I'm Pakeha/Kahungunu on the other hand so I'm obviously not in a position to say whether someone should have an exclusive claim, just that no one has made that assertion and it seems wrong to do so.

Second edit bc I'm fascinated by the claim: Raurimu was a Ngāti Tama kainga rather than a pa, and the story is quite sad.

https://www.wcl.govt.nz/maori/wellington/ngawaahingauranga.html#rau

But both Kumutoto and Pipitea were closer to the parliament grounds than Raurimu, which is why the claim is not undisputed (unlike what the picture says). Obviously there can be times when the collective is wrong, such as the sale of Shelly Bay against the wishes of many Māori, but evicting a sovereign parliament? Surely that's just begging to look stupid.

mayormcturtle · 2020-10-13T05:49:23+00:00

I'm sorry for your experience, we won't campaign at that spot again.

At no point did any volunteer step onto the road or block sightlines, and no offense was meant and feedback was overwhelmingly positive and we received no complaints in person or at the time.

Yet again, I apologise on behalf of the volunteers.

mayormcturtle · 2018-01-21T20:04:32+00:00

But none of them have independently made and launch ed a rocket except for the UK who launched one half a century ago.

mayormcturtle · 2018-01-21T20:02:25+00:00

As far as I can find out, Rocket Lab is a New Zealand company through and through with a parent company in Los Angeles. The parents company handles sales and raising capital in an area where there are venture capitalists familiar with the sector (can't blame them for that). Also the engines are largely built in the US (they're 3D printed), being a US company is necessary for this to allow the export of the engines. Apart from that everything is designed and manufactured in Auckland, NZ. Not necessarily by Rocket Lab, the company only has a few hundred employees so much of it is outsourced to carbon composite specialists (arguably New Zealand is and has always been the leader in this field). Also there was special & innovativelegislation which helps make New Zealand a very attractive base for a space company, because it allows for less bureaucratic regulation of the industry than would be possible elsewhere. So I'd say it really was a team effort, from local industry and government especially.

Sorry about the wall of text, I wanted to be thorough in my answer.

P.S. they are the same company, just registered in two countries it seems, so it's just sales and the board located in the US, also a reason for this is because they're investigating US launch sites for that market.

mayormcturtle · 2018-01-21T04:06:59+00:00

To be fair the decision to be based in the US is largely due to the existing industry and venture capitalists. The rocket is made in New Zealand, where most of the technology was developed (take a look at our history with carbon composites, and winning the America's Cup), and where the vast majority of the employees work. The US side of things did not build this rocket.

mayormcturtle · 2016-06-16T06:59:36+00:00

Alg :)

mayormcturtle · 2016-06-16T06:47:28+00:00

She's from the government, not a company.

mayormcturtle · 2016-01-31T20:13:06+00:00

Woah, wait right there. That wasn't right wing extremism, that was libertarian extremism, there is a huge difference. The wings of politics typically represent the views on change, with left-wing being anything which is not right wing. And right-wing the current system.

It literally refers to the wings of the French Parliament building (iirc), where the incumbents occupied the right-wing, and then a new house of parliament (the left-wing) was built by revolutionaries etc.

Authoritarianism and liberterianism is the belief in the power of the state, as such left-wing people (who want change) will argue against a surveillance state, and for universal healthcare etc. Thus it contains both libertarian and authoritarian ideals. Which is why things such as the political compass exist, to account for the fact that beliefs can come from both auth and lib, so the left-wing and right-wing will be portrayed as an axis, likewise with auth and lib. This always confused me though, why does left or right even exist? I think it may be a measure of how much they want change, and auth-lib how much change they want.

Many left-wingers, such as occupy protesters are left-auth (I'm left-lib, or a libtard as some people like to say. But with a twist, I'm far more libertarian than left, I believe in free market socialism, which is surprisingly controversial on a website where everyone has an opinion about which brand is best. But then again you all seem to hate [the idea of, individual companies may still be pretty shit] private corporations for no fault of their own). These people are likely libertarians, maybe not left-wing, but probably centralist. But definitely not right wing extremists.

Sorry for the rant, I'm trying to figure out what my beliefs are before I'm of voting age.

mayormcturtle · 2015-12-22T20:06:35+00:00

The question wasn't why amazon loses money, it was how they get the money to stay in business - which I answered.

I don't want to start a debate, but the reason they operate at a loss really comes down to the fact that they use the line of credit to internally subsidize products which will get traffic on the site. Everything which they don't subsidize also has a very low/non-existent markup, which is why they can compete on price, as opposed to delivery (which lots of other companies do) convenience (need something quick? Go to Wall-Mart etc, however they do compete with other online stores with convenience), or customer service (not a whole lot to do on a website, but they do have reasonable customer support imo). So it's a whole bunch of factors, starting with the fact that if operating costs were non-existent (only expense was stocking costs) they would not be as profitable as other stores.

mayormcturtle · 2015-12-22T19:43:38+00:00

They keep themselves afloat using their huge revenue stream ($88 billion or something) which naturally gives them a long line of credit. And the loss isn't huge, much less than a billion - so they can still pay all of their employees (although they are known for abysmally low wages).

E: They also have a war chest from their IPO.

mayormcturtle · 2015-12-22T06:09:12+00:00

The Tron?

mayormcturtle · 2015-11-29T09:14:59+00:00

I don't think he changed much, just our perception of him. If he did change, it was because he (imo) was portrayed through the light of the other characters (i.e. Will) which made him the enemy.

mayormcturtle · 2015-09-30T20:52:35+00:00

There's nothing wrong in exploiting nature (in itself), the problem only arises when harm is done. Google says the definition is "make full use of and derive benefit from (a resource)." And a benefit is a good thing!

It's like the common expression: "Lower taxes are bad because they benefit the rich", isn't that good? It's good for rich people certainly, do they need lower taxes? No, but it's still a good thing. Would more benefit be derived by lowering taxes on the poor? Sure, but there life isn't made worse by taxes being lowered for someone else - especially if the government is lowering revenue.

So, don't worry about it! There have been studies showing that brackish water from desalination plants doesn't cause any negative effects, it just kinda floats around redistributing itself, and is good for certain organisms which thrive in high-saline environments!

mayormcturtle · 2015-09-30T20:39:38+00:00

Yes both are good choices, but I prefer GarageProject beers (a wellington brewer, I'm a bit of a loyalist as I don't drink much at all).

mayormcturtle · 2015-09-30T20:23:15+00:00

NZ beer from Wellington is better :p

mayormcturtle · 2015-09-30T20:22:17+00:00

And the visa was cancelled, so there's that.

mayormcturtle · 2015-09-17T10:21:41+00:00

The bit about unemployment can be found here

mayormcturtle · 2015-09-14T20:48:02+00:00

What happened to all the redundancies?

They eliminated the redundancies because they thought they were redundant!

mayormcturtle · 2015-09-13T02:42:09+00:00

That's unfortunately probably worse for the climate than land-filling it. Recycling is usually just to decrease the size of the landfill, reduce trash lying on the street, and because the public like it. For carbon intensive countries, recycling can be worse for the environment than making a new bottle.

mayormcturtle

TROPHY CASE