Yeah, I looked into emigrating to New Zealand or Australia in 2004, when Dubya got re-elected...my faith in this country being completely shattered by that stupidity. And apparently that was just 5 years too late. I have the skills, but at my age that wasn't enough. I'd have had to have a few hundred thousand dollars to bring along, in order to have enough points to be allowed into either.

It's not exactly easy to move to Canada anyhow. Like most countries they want only people with very limited skill sets, which sadly I don't have. I can't move to New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iceland or any of the places my ex-wife and I looked to move to ages ago. But yeah, semi-moot point about Harper now that Canada finally ousted him and his brand of crazy. They sadly didn't go far enough and still have a guy who favors things like the Keystone Pipeline (though I hear even Alberta itself no longer wants it).

I find it more amusing when Republicans voters threaten to move to Canada or the UK if a Democrat wins... everything they hate about the Democrats is there, times 10 or more. Leaving the US because of our crazy slide further and further to the right nearly makes sense (not the reason we were looking to leave, we genuinely wanted to move to New Zealand, and the others were secondary thoughts just to really change things up).

Coz NZ http://videosift.com/video/A-Most-Epic-New-Zealand-Road-Trip

He talks so much sense my head hurts.

In my home country (Australia) we have some pretty good statistics on firearms (and knives, and just about everything actually). Yet they are routinely ignored in favour of the simple solution - to blindly further restrict law abiding citizen's access to firearms. It makes the government look as though they are tackling firearm crime (which in Australia is almost never committed by a licensed firearm owner) even though it has no appreciable effect on firearm crime.

This is happening again right now. After the Lindt place siege last year they held a lot of enquiries. The one on firearms concluded that no further restrictions needed to be made (the gunman had an illegal firearm as those who commit firearm crime almost always do, in this case a pump action shotgun) and that licensing and registration should be made easier. The first thing the government did? Put an import ban on perfectly legal lever action shotguns with magazine capacities of more than 5 rounds, calling them a "dangerous new technology". Firearms owners are expecting (from a historical trend) further restrictions at the National Firearms Agreement review next year.

Once a right is given away it rarely comes back, no matter how badly you want it. So I hope America chooses its path carefully. If I moved there I'd want the right to own firearms and to use them to defend myself (the first of which in Australia has nonsense restrictions, and the second of which is almost totally illegal . Word has it that self defence in the home by firearms will shortly be made totally illegal and if your firearms are stolen you may be charged with crimes committed by those firearms).

If you want to look at what the data says you also have to extend it everywhere (my preferred scenario). And in regards to others aspects of people's lives, I think people won't like the numbers and so will simply ignore the numbers.

Or you get people in America saying "hey look Australia solved its firearms problems by restricting them" - using it as a quasi-statistic. Except:
1. We never had a big firearms problem to start with.
2. We had a linearly diminishing rate of firearms deaths starting well before the restrictions that didn't change with the restrictions.
3. The majority of studies looking at the topic say the restrictions didn't work.

Australia is very similar to New Zealand in every way (and really are hardly like the US), and NZ allow access to all almost all the firearms we banned and yet they have a lower homicide rate by firearm, and a lower homicide rate overall. Basically if America wants a model that arguably works as a template, look at NZ. But probably more important than that, I'd be fixing America's health system, mental health system, and poverty rates first. I bet an analysis will show many incredible flow on effects in American society as a result of doing that.

Non-embeddable Mirror: http://www.funnyplace.org/stream/air-new-zealand-mib-safety-defenders-24595/

$14k is more than a business class airfare, but less than first class return to Europe... I would guess that the speaker went first class and her staff went business class. The $5k was for a helicopter charter, not ground transport... it's only an hours drive, so not more than $200 for a taxi or a government car.

I am equally bewildered about Abbott and Harper. All I can say is that I think my countrymen were rather naive... it was obvious to me that the claims he was making prior to the election were so ridiculous that the best thing for the country was for him to simply turn around after the election and say "I lied!"... and he has pretty much gone back on every claim, only without actually admitting he lied.

I'm not sure what happened to Canada, either.

Maybe one day I'll have to move to New Zealand...

The skin of kiwi fruit is edible, and my colleagues from New Zealand eat them skin and all.

Let's play a game where we decide what New Zealand needs, next.

A little history can go a long way. They were in the fight by choice 3 years before we were dragged into action, and over 15% of their nation enlisted, over 10% of their nation fought overseas, a higher percentage than the US for much longer. We hardly protected them from the Japanese, they protected and hosted US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_New_Zealand_during_World_War_II
When Japan entered the war in December 1941, the New Zealand Government raised another expeditionary force, known as the 2nd N.Z.E.F. In the Pacific, or 2nd N.Z.E.F. (I.P.), for service with the Allied Pacific Ocean Areas command. This force supplemented existing garrison troops in the South Pacific. The main fighting formation of the 2nd N.Z.E.F. (I.P.) comprised the New Zealand 3rd Division. However, the 3rd Division never fought as a formation; its component brigades became involved in semi-independent actions as part of the Allied forces in the Solomons, Treasury Islands and Green Island.
Eventually, American formations replaced the New Zealand army units in the Pacific, which released personnel for service with the 2nd Division in Italy, or to cover shortages in the civilian labour-force. New Zealand Air Force squadrons and Navy units contributed to the Allied island-hopping campaign.

http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/us-forces-in-new-zealand
"The American soldier found himself ‘deep in the heart of the South Seas’, in the words of his army-issue pocket guide. He usually came here either before or immediately after experiencing the horror of war on a Pacific island, and he found a land of milk and honey (literally), of caring mothers and ‘pretty girls’."
"So the ‘American invasion’ (as New Zealanders affectionately called it) brought a considerable clash of cultures. "

Sorry to inconvenience your feelings and expressions of superiority with some facts.

Has ChaosEngine left New Zealand? Is he living in the US now? It is remarkable how much time he spends thinking of the US and how awful it is.

Did we invade NZ? I suppose our troops were there during WWII when we were trying to keep the sword-happy Nipponese from playing 'who can lop off the most heads this week' game.

Sorry to inconvenience you.

I actually got almost all of it (missed 2-3 words to a combination of crowd noise and the accent) without subtitles. But I've got several UK friends and coworkers, English and Irish, plus having English friends of the family that visited often when I was growing up.

A lot of the folks in my small hometown in Kansas are the type that have never been out of the state, and who need the TV subtitles even for accents that seem really easy to me like BBC English, New Zealand, Sydney (not broad Australian), etc. Just hopeless with accents.


But actually, the best thing about the video was her story -- which was actually quite funny assuming I got the "IRA" implication correct.

new zealand has some great music-lorde-royals has been added as a related post - related requested by Zawash.

Adding video to channels (Livemusic) - requested by Zawash.

*livemusic, *related=http://videosift.com/video/new-zealand-has-some-great-music-lorde-royals

@lv_hunter, why is New Zealand in the tags?

Video indicates this was shot in 'strayia