new zealand – Page 142

The Solution to Nelson Drunkenness is Cannabis Cafes on Bridge Street

Nelson does exceptionally well as a tourist town over the summer. We get thousands for the Abel Tasman alone and the Black Caps played here twice this season. It means big money for Sun City – but it won’t continue if we continue to get a reputation for mindless violence.

Retail group Uniquely Nelson is especially concerned by what they see as a spike in antisocial activity, in particular “drunkenness, violence, abuse, theft, rubbish and broken glass.” But as anyone who has lived in Nelson for any length of time knows, violence, abuse, theft rubbish and even broken glass are natural consequences of the first problem named – drunkenness.

Neither can we glibly blame everything on ‘North Islanders’ as if Nelsonians are not subject to the same loss of inhibition as everyone else on the planet who drinks booze. Drunk people in Nelson do the same things in Nelson that drunk people in any low-wage area get up to.

The problem with the drinking culture of Nelson is this – most of the intelligent people who have lived here for long enough have secured cannabis hookups and use that instead. Cannabis has driven out alcohol among the sort of consumer that is most sensitive to being turned away by dickheads, and this has left the drinking to the lowest common denominator.

Anyone new to Nelson looking for a good time will quickly encounter this lowest common denominator, and the results are usually as described in the examples given in the opening paragraph.

The sad thing is, there is plenty of opportunity for people to come here and have a good time. Being the oldest of Kiwis, we Nelsonians naturally represent what is the best of us, in particular a sunny nature, a social attitude and a genuine joy of life.

But we’d rather smoke weed at home than come into town to get our heads kicked in.

So the solution is obvious.

We ought to demolish the dive bars of Bridge Street and replace them with a handful of cannabis cafes, so that Nelsonians and our many visitors can relax in public without fear of being attacked by some drunken animal.

As it is, if I’m driving East on Bridge Street late on a weekend night and I see some young backpackers heading the other way for a night on the town, I feel sorry for them, knowing that they will not get to see the best of my city or of its people.

Cannabis cafes on Bridge Street would provide the revitalisation that Sun City needs. It would bring the young people back out of their homes and life back into the streets of the CBD. It would also create a festive atmosphere in the city centre to replace the fighting, vomiting and vandalism.

Not least, the local retailers of Nelson stand to make a packet from the idea. The wider Nelson region is already, along with Coromandel, the most popular destination in New Zealand for underground cannabis tourism owing to our widespread local embrace of the plant medicine. International visitors know that they can come to this region for some of the world’s best natural cannabis.

If Nelson could get it together to take advantage of the impending repeal of cannabis prohibition we could position ourselves first in the queue for the hordes of young tourists that would flock here to escape from the drunken shitheadery that plagues most other Kiwi towns and cities.

If we did it right, many of those tourists would be other Kiwis. These people should leave Nelson with a sense of being impressed by our forward-thinking, gregarious and positive attitude, not with relief at getting out before they were glassed by some pisshead.

Bangladesh in New Zealand Test Series 2017, Second Test Preview

The Black Caps, the Tigers, and cricket fans will all be on the same side for the Second Test, their adversary: the Christchurch weather. It is forecast to rain on at least three of the five days of the Test, and anyone who has lived in the Garden City knows that this could mean anything from five days of blazing sun to five days of hammering down.

BetFair doesn’t seem too concerned about the possibility of the Draw, though. At time of writing this was paying $6.60.

On the face of it, this looks very high when you consider that the first two innings of the First Test went for over 1,100 runs for only 18 wickets. In fact, at Tea on the fourth day, the Draw was paying a mere $1.05, and the majority of cricket fans were astonished by how rapidly the second Bangladeshi innings fell apart from that point.

Probably the market is anticipating that Bangladesh will have difficulty replicating their batting feats of the first innings in Wellington – after all, Bangladeshi batsmen cannot break the record for their nation’s highest ever Test score every match, as Shakib al Hasan did with his superb 217 from 276 balls.

The Black Caps are paying $1.26, which is very marginal value at best.

Although they showed in Wellington that any of Tom Latham, Kane Williamson or Ross Taylor can play a matchwinning innings, it’s doubtful whether the Black Caps have the firepower with the ball to justify accepting a margin of twenty-six cents in the dollar.

The Black Caps bowlers may have knocked the Tigers out for 160 in their second innings, but aside from skilled bowling from Mitchell Santner, and Neil Wagner setting up Mominul Haque, this was mostly due to poor shot selection and being injured by the ball.

Certainly there is motivation for Tim Southee to bowl well in Christchurch because his claim to a spot in the team is arguably more tenuous than anyone else beside Henry Nicholls.

With match figures of 3 for 192 in Wellington, and with an average of 36 at a strike rate of 70 since the start of 2015, he will have to improve to keep the next generation of strike bowlers from replacing him in the first choice side.

Bangladesh are paying $16.50 at time of writing, which appears good value but not as good as the Draw. They were paying $24 before the First Test so the market has taken account of how impressive they were.

Taskin Ahmed was impressive without reward with the new ball on debut, suggesting that much of his promise in the shorter forms will carry over to Tests once he makes the adjustment. He may have only got one wicket but it was Williamson with a delivery of excellent line and length, and if a bowler can dismiss Williamson he can dismiss anyone.

Subashis Roy, the other debutant, did not have an action that suggested he would be dangerous but he did pick up 3 for 121, very good figures in the context of a defeat of this magnitude.

The main difficulty for Bangladesh is that – although Mominul Haque and al Hasan are a match for the Black Caps bowlers with the bat – Williamson, Taylor and arguably even Latham and BJ Watling outclass with the bat anything the Tigers can put forward with the ball.

So – as was amply demonstrated in Wellington – the Tigers may have the potential to put up a huge innings on occasion but probably lack the firepower to break the Black Caps defences twice themselves.

Certainly with regular captain Mushfiqur Rahim out injured for the second Test, the Bangladeshi men of silver will be having nightmares about how to get Kane Williamson out twice. Williamson was dismissed once in Wellington for the McCullumesque match return of 157 runs from 145 balls.

Considering that there are very few match outcomes that could result in the Black Caps being shorter than $1.26 at the end of the first day, the optimal betting strategy might be to lay the Black Caps before the start of play. In doing so, you will be in a position to cash in on both the possibility of rain and of a large first innings from Bangladesh.

This bet will very likely have value until at least late in the fourth day, given the fact that the batsmen in both teams are collectively more skilled than the bowlers in both teams.

The trader may also wish to consider that in the previous Test at this venue, the Black Caps lost Latham, Williamson and Taylor for a total of 16 runs in the first innings – and still won by eight wickets. So if the rain does not play a role there may well be a result.

Ranking The New Zealand Political Parties In Order of Kiwiness

This essay is based on a premise that will aggravate some and endear us to others: that Kiwis born in New Zealand are significantly more representative of what constitutes Kiwi culture than Kiwis born outside of New Zealand, and so much so that this factor alone can tell us things about ourselves.

To put it more precisely, the premise is that the higher the correlation between voting for a particular party in the 2014 General Election and being born in New Zealand, and the lower the correlation between that and being born overseas, the better that political party represents New Zealand and Kiwis.

With that defined, here are the political parties of New Zealand, ranked in order of how unlikely it is that a Kiwi born in New Zealand would vote for them. This unlikelihood is expressed as a correlation.

-0.74, ACT: It isn’t really surprising that the Get Rich Quick party has the lowest correlation with being born in New Zealand. The entire point of the ACT Party is essentially to rape the country and then sell it off, not to the highest bidder, but whoever comes up with some cash first.

The ACT Party has a relationship to New Zealand roughly analogous to the relationship a medieval Arab slave trader had to his Nubian slaves. Perhaps the best example of how the ACT Party fails to be Kiwi is that, even in a political environment where the centre-right National Party has completely crushed all opposition, they can’t manage more than one single seat.

-0.36, National: This correlation is fairly similar to that between net personal income and being foreign-born, which suggests that most of the immigrants that we let in on the grounds of being rich vote National.

As for those of us born here, we tend to not like National much because they’re not really the party of the Fair Go. They’re more like the party that charges First World prices while paying Third World wages. They don’t have quite the lowest correlation though because there’s something Kiwi about capitalist exploitation, as we are, after all, children of the Empire.

-0.22, Conservative: There is something mildly Kiwi about a party that just won’t give up in the face of insurmountable odds. Especially when that party is led by a weirdly creepy fundamentalist Christian fellow who sets off all kinds of sexual predator alarm bells in the heads of those watching him talk.

There is a well-established conspiracy theory that the British dumped their sexual deviants in New Zealand in the same way they dumped their criminals in Aussie. If there is any basis at all to this sort of thing then the Conservative Party are perhaps a natural long-term manifestation of this policy.

-0.01, Green: The Greens are a mixed bag. In some ways they represent the very best of us, and in others the very worst. In so far they represent the best of us, the professional, scientific and technical class – those with the best understanding of the systems we rely on to support ourselves and the challenges facing their sustainability – tend to vote Green.

In so far they represent the worst, there is no party more puffed-up and self-righteous, and supporters of no other party are as likely to hate you for disagreeing with them. In that manner the Greens represent the kind of of arrogant elitism that has used New Zealand as a social psychology laboratory for over a century.

It’s easy to imagine that the Greens might want to bring in ten million refugees in one hit and make it a criminal offence to raise public opposition to the idea. Which is exceptionally unkiwi.

0.01, Labour: Labour are basically the same as the Greens, and for similar reasons. This is why the strength of the correlation between voting Labour and being born in New Zealand is essentially nil.

The Maoris, who have the highest positive correlation with being born in New Zealand, are likely to vote Labour, as are the Pacific Islanders, who have a negative correlation with being born here. European Kiwis, who tend to vote National, counterbalance the immigrant Europeans who tend to vote Green.

All in all, the Labour Party is a big mess of confusion about which little can be accurately said.

0.54, Internet MANA: Perhaps fittingly, the next three parties on the list are all led by Maoris. Hone Harawira, whose family name is deeply entwined with the entire New Zealand power structure, was the public face of this abomination.

However, a party funded by a big fat criminal from Germany has an upper limit on how Kiwi it can ever be, and despite Hone’s best efforts Internet MANA tops out at 0.54.

0.62, Maori Party: Blundering mindlessly forward into your own destruction despite both obvious signs that the path forward is suicide and many chances to turn back is quintessentially Kiwi (this is essentially the spirit of Anzac).

So when the Maori Party stakes the entirely of its political capital on a hamfisted attempt to “help” Maori people by taxing them into the local Mental Health Unit on account of them using tobacco, it’s perfectly representative of them to double down and to keep increasing the taxes despite repeated warnings from academic researchers that it is counterproductive.

0.69, New Zealand First: Maybe no-one should be surprised that New Zealand First has come in second place in this study. After all, they are called New Zealand First, as opposed to Global Banking Interests First (as National should be called) or The United Nations First (as Labour and the Greens could combine as).

Being led by a Maori who doesn’t know if he’s left wing or right wing and who is a little bit shy about even identifying as Maori in the first place is like a Kiwi caricature.

And that leaves us with the most Kiwi party of them all, which is…

0.77, Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party: The Legalise Cannabis Party represents the best of New Zealand – full of young people, free thinkers and Maoris, these are the kind of people who will not believe any kind of rubbish simply because it is handed down from an authority figure.

Apart from the All Blacks, Vegemite, and being shy about getting naked, cannabis use is the strongest identifier of actual Kiwi culture out of the lot of them. There’s nothing else that brings Kiwis of all classes, races, cultures and occupations together like smoking weed.

If any of this reasoning has failed to convince the reader, just ask yourself: who would Billy T James have voted for?

This article is an excerpt from Understanding New Zealand, by Dan McGlashan, the complete guide to the voting and demographic patterns of New Zealanders. First ediction published by VJM Publishing Winter 2017.

Why So Many Kiwis Hate The Police

“If you were to come and ask me for a tinnie of marijuana and I give you a tinnie of lawn clippings, you’ve still committed an offence, even though you haven’t got drugs in your possession.” Sound reasonable? Perfectly reasonable according to Senior Sergeant Rupert Friend of the Hamilton Police.

In the odd case of Betty Tamihana, who tried to purchase some cannabis on Facebook to treat an anxiety disorder, she found that if you try to buy some medicine and get ripped off, the New Zealand Police will not help you if that medicine was cannabis. In fact, they will attack you.

Such an attitude is especially galling for the tens of thousands of Kiwis who use medicinal cannabis. Imagine being told that not only is your medicine illegal but if you so much as get ripped off by someone falsely claiming to sell you it then you are a criminal.

It would be more honest just to make it a criminal offence to suffer from a medical condition that could be treated by cannabis. Perhaps specially equipped Police units could raid the houses of cancer sufferers and if it was found that cannabis would be an effective medicine for the terminal pain then the sufferer could be charged with the crime of ‘Having a Reason To Want To Try To Purchase Cannabis.’

If your light is on at night because you can’t sleep, perhaps that could be taken as sufficient evidence that you might end up wanting to buy some cannabis to cure the insomnia, and so the Police should have the right to pre-emptively break into your house and put you in a cage (for your own safety of course).

Joking aside, that shows how ridiculous cannabis prohibition is. Should we accept that, in New Zealand, after all the time and effort we’ve put into building a decent justice system, a Police officer might sell the sufferer of a mental illness some grass clippings in the guise of an anxiety medicine just to arrest them under a law that was supposedly enacted to protect the public?

None of this is to blame the Police. The Police are men of iron, and the key to understanding them is to understand dogs, who are also of iron.

The thing about dogs is that they have absolutely no concept of right or wrong – they just obey dominant males in their group. Anyone who feeds them, or pays them in the case of Police officers, is their total and complete master, and they will rip to pieces anyone who fails to pay this master due respect.

The real bad guys of this story are, as usual, the Paedophiles of Wellington, who are the ones responsible for maintaining the law against cannabis freedom that is mindlessly enforced by the Blue Dogs.

The refusal of the New Zealand political class to accede to the public will to repeal cannabis prohibition has driven a wedge between the Police and the public, as it has induced the Police to spend forty years attacking the citizenry in the War on Drugs, instead of acting as peace officers, which is their warrant.

This has meant that there are now several large demographic groups – the under 40s, Maori, the mentally infirm – who distrust the Police to the point of seeing them as no less oppressive than an enemy army.

Of course, the biggest irony of this story is that the only person to behave in a rational manner was the drug user who called the Police to report a fraud. The Police officer did not act rationally, because to have a total lack of sympathy for the sufferer of a mental condition is the kind of hatred that ends up getting reciprocated, even if indirectly.