Posts by Keith Ng
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I mean, what were we looking for? What were we anticipating? It was more than "killed or not killed", it was "redemption or judgement". It was about whether Tony did something that earned him the right to live, or whether he got what he more than deserved.
And of course, the point of the AJ arc - and the title of the episode - was to draw the parallel with America: the sins, the violence, the mindless consumerism, the greed, the post-9/11 feelings of apocalyptic doom, the brief burst of patriotism, and finally, the reversion to the old hedonism, as if nothing happened.
That was the ending. There is no redemption, there is no judgement. Despite all the life-changing, nothing-will-ever-be-the-same-again events, everything was exactly the same. Tony has been to Hell (well, purgatory) and back, he'd had 7 years or therapy, and he's the same man we started with.
But saying that there's no judgement, he's still living in constant fear, seeing dangers all around him (that was what I thought the last scene was all about). And saying that there's no redemption, there's still the family man in there - he might not be redeemed, but there is redemption within him.
And isn't that beautiful?
(I actually found it really satisfying.)
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I doubt that North & South will. To sack Coddington would be an admission of guilt, which would put Robyn Langwell's head on the block, too. Which I think would be fair enough, but I suspect that the publisher wants to make as little of a scene as possible. There'll probably be a quiet failure to renew Coddington's contract at some point in the future. If not for the magazine's reputation, then at least for the morale of the staff.
The HoS, though... they should sack her for writing such shit, but she's an op-ed columnist - they're beyond the law. In fact, the more she's hated, the more valuable she becomes as a columnist.
(Note to self: Clone Hitler and pimp him out as a columnist.)
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Have you seen the final episode of the Sopranos? What did you think? (SPOILERS!)
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Juha - it *is* Hainan ji fan, also Hainanese chicken rice. That's why the rice tastes all chickeny. Unless you add Deborah Coddington instead. Then I don't know what it would taste like.
Warning: Metaphor reaching maximum extension levels. Do not extend further.
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I have to note the irony of Fairfax and the Herald -- not exactly the gold standard of truth, justice and basic statistical literacy and numeracy - being on the Press Council...
If you take away Fairfax and the Herald's APN group (which also owns the Listener), then you don't have much to work with...
And Juha - the chicken is cooked by the steam, and the rice is made tasty by the chicken. Everyone's a winner! Except the chicken.
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Origins sounds kinda cool - but does it mean that the series will totally whore itself out and become Mutant Idol? Will the humble everytelepathman like Parkman have a chance to make it, with big flashy super-strippers and kitana-wielding-timelords around?
I worry sometimes. I hope that Marketing doesn't use Origins as an excuse to have its wicked ways with the show.
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My bad and I humbly apologise if you admit my knowledge of obscure economic stats is clearly superior to yours :-)
Aye. I apologise unreservedly. Will endeavour not to rant at 5am in the future.
Re: Capital productivity, the StatsNZ report suggests a lag effect - capital invested but not yet yielded productivity growth. But perhaps exploding property prices and high cost of capital plays a role, too? I'm not sure about the latter, as I'm unfamiliar with their aggregation methods and whether capital costs are factored in.
Re: Growth, wouldn't lowering the interest rate, generating more NZ capital, and lowering the dollar for our exporters be good places to start?
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Sagenz... what the *hell* are you talking about?
[Cullen's] policies have caused the decline in productivity growth from a positive growth in growth trend 93 to 2000 to almost no productivity growth in last recorded numbers.
What last recorded numbers? *These* last recorded numbers?
He has also been responsible for the decline in the average real income of New zealanders in the most recent recorded year.
*What* decline in the average real income? *This* real income?
Real National Income per capita has declined. by more than 1% with nothing to suggest things will change for the better
"Real national income per capita" is not even a real statistic! Are you talking about GDP - a measure of productivity, GDP per capita - a measure of average productivity, or average income? When the hell has real income - or real productivity fallen by 1%? Over what period? Are you just pulling some monthly fluctuation out of context?
Look, Sagenz, everything you've said is flat out wrong. Where are you getting this stuff from? This is not the place to be extrapolating "trends" out of thin air. You know how I get worked up about these things.
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What scares me about the Kiwisaevr scheme is that it is not govt guarranteed. If the fund you enter craps out in 10 years because the provider was crap then you are left with nothing.
It's not like they're just going to spend half of it on Enron stocks and take the other half to the tracks. With funds like these, the risk is spread over a whole range of stuff. You'd need something awfully, irrecoverably, globally catastrophic to make it crap out, and if that happens, you'd have bigger things to worry about. It might not achieve its maximum gains, and you might be able to do better investing elsewhere, but it's nothing if not safe.
Anyway, here's a very likely scenario: some time in the future the govt makes Kiwisaver compulsory, and some time after that it signals that in 20-30 years time that's all the govt super you're going to get when you retire.
It could all be moot if the plan is gutted in 15 months, assuming National can get a governing coalition. This may just become another left/right "lets change it radically everytime we get power" situation like employment or ACC.
Relax... nobody's going to get nuts when it comes to retirement. They know all you babyboomers are only going to get crankier from here on out. Thank god you'll all be too cool to join Greypower.
In the end, I don't think your grandchildren are going to look back on us with too much generosity. In their own ways, both Key and Cullen want us to believe there is such a thing as a free lunch -- as long as you don't think too hard about who's eventually going to be stiffed with the tab. And why should they: Baby Boomers and Gen Xers vote. Children don't. And why should we? It's a very comfortable lie to believe.
I thought the whole point was that Cullen was sticking us with the tab right now?
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At the risk of sounding a tad Grinchy-y. I find it hard to muster much sympathy for a chorus of 'poor, poor pitiful me'from folks who have serious debt monkeys and very little to show for it. And I'd be eternally thankful to Doctor Cullen and Mr. Key if they even began to deliver a reality check on the downside of easy credit.
(Sorry about the late reply, Craig - time differences plus sickies.)
Yeah, me too. Still, there's going to be an awful lot of such people when the house bubble bursts and everyone with huge mortages realise their house is worth half as much. Suckers.
And interesting to hear it coming from you, because way I figured it, the philosophical divide was going to be on the choice issue: Do we give money back, knowing that the debt monkeys will stuff it all up, or do we keep the money and squirel it away for them?
It's one of those fundamental left-right divisions, ain't it?