Posts by Kyle Matthews

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  • Hard News: Doing the Rounds,

    Kyle, you don't get Rod's game. He knows the Nats want this to go away. Only people like him stand to gain from further publicity of the inner workings of National at the moment.

    I think he and ACT stand to gain, but only at the expense of National. I don't think the right-wing parties in NZ have yet figured out coalition politics (the left hasn't always got it right either, but they seemed to have it sorted Labour-Greens-Progressive a couple of elections ago).

    The other people that will gain are the other parties. So he might gain something for himself and his party, but he's he's hurting his only coaltion partner. I think he'd be much smarter to shut up because people will keep on remembering just how much of an ACT man Don Brash was.

    And, regardless of why he's doing it, he still looks like an idiot. Wild pronoucements about how something has happened when he really has no idea, is possibly (probably I think) going to end up wrong. National have already had computer experts rule out exactly what he's mouthing off about. Sometimes people just need to learn to keep their mouth shut.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Remember where you heard it…,

    I'd also have to request a link on the front page which takes you to the last page of these discussions. Save me one click!

    Does anyone know what the story is with itunes bought stuff being transferred to an mp3 player that isn't an ipod? Itunes help doesn't seem to indicate anything beyond 'you can transfer it to an ipod and it doesn't count as one of your computers'.

    The pricing on this is good, but, not so good for me if I can't get it working on my 'cheaper than an ipod' mp3 player.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Doing the Rounds,

    It will be interesting to see what the email thieves have to say when they are caught: email thieves will be caught.

    Seriously, if they get caught, I suspect they'll have to say "I resign from my current position in the national party".

    Rodney hide is an idiot. I mean look at this dribble:

    Speaking in Parliament during a debate on the Government's spam-fighting bill, he said the e-mails used in Nicky Hager's book The Hollow Men revealed "a degree of political espionage we have never seen in New Zealand or any western country before".

    I can't see it topping Watergate. I heard that had a couple of flow-on effects. There was this "leader of the free world" chap who was implicated and resigned.

    "It's clear to me that what happened was covert surveillance of MPs, offices broken into, computers hacked from outside," Mr Hide said.

    It's clear to me because I'm an expert on... leaking stuff? Computer systems? Or an expert on liking to get my name in the paper talking crap.

    "We are closing in on them, and they will be revealed. There is a big story to tell here."

    What's this "we" Kemosabe? Did you bring a sniffer dog and spy glass to parliament Rodney?

    I mean seriously. What was the point of putting that story together?

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Doing the Rounds,

    Before we go off thinking Bill English is all that, I guess we should bear in mind this bit of gibberish about the Civil Unions Bill, pointed out to me a reader.

    I really hate how this stuff about child in married families doing better than children in split families gets dragged out as an argument for marriage, or for people staying together.

    I'd be really keen to see some research, if it was possible to do it, comparing children of couples who were on the rocks and stayed together 'for the kids' and who are now living their relationship as a lie, VS couples who took the different option and split up. That'd be comparing apples with apples. The inclusion of happily married couples who have never got close to living apart is a falsehood.

    Or something which takes people who are now back together, but who split up for a while, and puts them on the 'splitting up' side of the statistics.

    And people who have perfectly good 'together' parenting relationships without having ever put rings on.

    I get sick of people implying that my kids are going to hell because I've made personal choices in my life, which I think are going to be better than a false relationship with their mother.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Island Life: Stop Making Cents,

    I, for one, have never seen both of them in the same place at the same time.

    I have four twenty cent pieces in my wallet that I'm happy to post up to newmarket if they'll send me down a stamped self-address envelope, and two fifty cent pieces. C'mon guys, let's help Mr Brewer out.

    I'm flambouyant like that.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Island Life: I have aspirations going,

    Yes I would, if that's what the broad expressions of good intention mean, but that's my beef: it's so vague it could mean a great deal or not very much at all.

    I was listening to him being questioned on morning report this morning on climate change. His argument seemed to be:

    Key: There is a major problem with climate change, I am convinced!

    MR: You and your party weren't convinced a year when you said that the evidence was unclear.

    Key: I was sticking to my party line then, you can understand that.

    MR: Ah. So no independent thought entered your brain then?

    Key: We need to be able to trade carbon credits!

    MR: Like, the Kyoto Protocol, which your party is opposed to?

    Key: Well the problem with the Kyoto Protocol is that major countries like USA and Australia aren't signed up to it.

    MR: Ah, so the problem with a tradeable carbon credits scheme is that major carbon polluters haven't signed up to it. However if we have a tradeable carbon credits scheme suggested by national, then that would fix the world?

    Key: Exactly!

    OK, so I'm misquoting and paraphrasing horrendously. But the whole, "Oh my god, I've just learnt there's a climate problem in the world, let's re-brand the solution we argued against last year and say it'll now fix the problem..." What sort of political advisor came up with that quickstep? Is anyone going to be suckered in by his new green suit?

    I'd have some respect for the new national party leadership if they admitted that they got it wrong and 'greenies' have actually been right for... I dunno, a couple of decades now... and maybe they'll start to fall into line with the solutions that people have been working on for ages now.

    If parties like National had figured this stuff out ages ago, maybe the solutions would be better and be further down the track to a solution already.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Maxim-ising the vote,

    So then Rutherford College in West Auckland would simply become "College" ?

    I suspect changing all those signs and letterheads would be way too expensive for a school these days.

    They'll just be henceforth known as named after Ken Rutherford, NZ cricket batsman and captain who's on field performances never seemed to quite justify either position.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Hard News: Maxim-ising the vote,

    Woah! I want some of the drugs that Craig is on. He put 'critical acuity' and 'mainstream media' in the same sentence!

    Just to back up myself here. The front cover of today's Otago Daily Times:

    http://www.odt.co.nz/article.php?refid=2006,11,29,1,00102,5ca41c08cde67f6781bf069ba8fe2be3&sect=0

    Or on stuff:

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3881855a10,00.html

    Yes, we have icebergs off the coast, and people have been flying out to see them. And we have a world famous sheep, who hasn't been shorn in the past two-and-a-half years.

    "Oh yes!" I hear you cry. Put those two things together! Fly the sheep out to an iceberg, and de-wool him on an iceberg! And then put it on the front page of the ODT (formerly Qantas Media Daily Paper of the year).

    The iceberg apparently cracked and a major chunk broke off and collapsed into the sea, but unfortunately not the bit the damn sheep and the other morons that flew out there were on.

    I eagerly await the next time a volcano erupts in New Zealand and they take the damn thing up there, at least we'll get some roast out of it.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Speaker: The Hollow Men: Initial Impressions,

    dammit. region should be 'reign'.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • Speaker: The Hollow Men: Initial Impressions,

    I'm no lawyer either, but I do understand that material can be stolen for the purpose of 'whistle-blowing' in which case it has to be relevant to public service, and has to be of a nature that justifies it being made public. I also believe that the whistle blowers do have to have some close connection with the blowee/target/hapless victim such as be an employee or such. If Hager's book were taken to court a judge is likely to agree that it is in the best interests of the public to know the contents.

    Yes, I noted the whisteblower legislation. However, I can't imagine that the court order would override this legislation, as parliament is sovereign. So while there might be some whistleblown material in the book, I would presume that some was literally stolen (as an employee) and leaked to Hager, or to someone else who gave it to him.

    There would be many in National who support the existence of this book. It ends, without question, an embarrassing and unconstructive era for the Nats and it is now the beginning of the end of the Labour govt. It will be interesting to see the next set of polls. I'm figuring that, so long as Key provides no unwelcome surprises that National will be polling well ahead of Labour from now to the election.

    I'm sure there's lots in national that support this book, but they've just lost the leader who took them from almost dead, to leading at the polls. I'm not sure I've heard a good explanation as to how he was able to do that, and yet how he was so bad for the party, from people who attack the Brash region.

    I mean I didn't like him at all, but I'm a long way away from National's target audience. Everyone however seems to be laying the credit for their resurgence with him, and then they're happy he gets dumped, book or no.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

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