Hard News: A voice of reason and authority
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Fox the new liberals?
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-19-2009/fox-news--the-new-liberals
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It's different of course, but Helen Clark took New Zealand to war in Afghanistan in the knowledge that it would split the Alliance, and then used the opportunity to declare an early election (despite having the confidence of the House).
George, that might be something you genuinely believe but absent some evidence of Helen's knowledge that Harre et al would divorce Jim, it seems to unduly harsh to impune her motivation. She might have felt it was the right thing to do regardless of the internal issues. Of course, it might also be the case that Harre saw the opportunity to rid herself of Anderton... gotta say I think Labour would've been far better of had they shed Anderton and kept Harre.
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As for coming along and posting every now and again, and then disappearing for a while, I don’t have an interest in many of the topics, and I don't have the time to post that many of you apparently do!!
And there was I thinking it was you who posted the Fox-lite aside that China was unlikely ever to "come on board".
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One thing that struck me about the wingnuts gnashing their teeth about Obama and all that he does and their totally batshit crazy fixation with his birth certificate, is the fact that they seem to get all their opinions from a media mogul that hails from Australia. Murdoch became a US citizen for the sole purpose of controlling a vast media circus which is now corrupting the thought processes of the feeble minded.
Way to go morons, screw over the best presidential material you've had since Kennedy and follow, blindly, the whims of an Aussie drongo as he pillages your news and information infrastructure.
No wonder the US has lost every one of its ill conceived wars since WW2.
Clueless. -
No wonder the US has lost every one of its ill conceived wars since WW2.
US 1, Grenada nil
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One thing that struck me about the wingnuts gnashing their teeth about Obama and all that he does and their totally batshit crazy fixation with his birth certificate, is the fact that they seem to get all their opinions from a media mogul that hails from Australia. Murdoch became a US citizen for the sole purpose of controlling a vast media circus which is now corrupting the thought processes of the feeble minded.
In the case of FOX news, I don't know how much (if any) editorial control Murdoch actually exerts over the channel. The received wisdom is that he's left operations of the channel almost exclusively to Roger Ailes, and if Murdoch has any say over it, it's probably more likely to be in terms of corporate and profit matters. He's probably just happy that FOX News seems to be rating well and offsetting the losses he's making in the newspaper industry.
Which, of course, shouldn't absolve him completely from funding and profiting from such a genuinely deranged news network. But I'm not sure whether it's completely cut and dry.
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Craig, I'm becoming frustrated with you not getting what I am saying. You seem obsessed with the party political process, which I am simply not talking about. Got that?
I am not being cryptic, though I may be assuming some wider knowledge of similar discussions here, which you have been part of. I don't think that's unreasonable. However, here goes my final attempt to spell it out for you.
Rodney Hide is using his role as Minister of Local Government to push for changes which - based on experience elsewhere - seem highly likely to disrupt real people's lives.
That includes both his proposals to cap spending across all Councils and redefine their scope, and in particular the Auckland region's sweeping governance changes which he has had a major influence in shaping so far (though his latest dummy-spitting shows some limits of that power).
Forcing the man out of that role seems far from disruptive by comparison. I encourage any moderate National voters to lobby their representatives for Rodney's bluff to be called.
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Tell me exactly what "disruption" would go down if Hide handed in his ministerial warrant.
But what would Aucklanders do, Craig, without Rodney to guide them? What would they DO?
(I think actually the argument might be that if Hide flounces off it will lead to drama and delays and generally more speedbumps in the road of an already chaotic process, but I'm more overcome by the tantalising dream of Hide flouncing off in a snit, so.)
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US 1, Grenada nil
I think Grenada was quite well conceived, if "easy win" is your goal.
Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Korea, not so much.
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US 1, Grenada nil
Sending 10,000 heavily armed troops to an island that has a population of 100,000 is hardly a war, it is more of "a flagrant violation of international law"
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By all accounts, other than those from the Pentagon, the operation in Grenada didn't go all that well.
USA Today had this to say;When the United States invaded Grenada in 1983, it did not permit the media near the place during the critical first 2 days, and only a small pool of reporters was admitted thereafter. The media were hence forced to rely almost completely on accounts provided by the Pentagon. These described a smooth, successful operation, although in actuality intelligence was poor, supplies were fouled up, and confusion was rampant — all in the face of tiny, Third World opposition.
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US 1, Grenada nil
Sorry Steve, was just a bit of hit and run smartarsery, doesn't bear too much analysis.
Although the question, "Has the US won any of its ill-conceived wars since 1945? does have a passing resemblance to "Should a smack as part of good parental correction ..." -
Or "when did you stop beating your neighbour?"
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Sorry Steve,
No worries, I pulled that "fact" out of my ass. I was surprised to find out how true it was. :)
Referendum result,
I wonder how many voted NO because saying yes felt like you were agreeing with the smackwits? -
Sending 10,000 heavily armed troops to an island that has a population of 100,000 is hardly a war, it is more of "a flagrant violation of international law"
Only if you market it wrong. Which America does tend to do.
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the operation in Grenada didn't go all that well.
Indeed, it was a bit of a military fiasco from beginning to end, and came rather closer to defeat than admitted at the time. Notoriously they had to rely on tourist maps, which made the golf courses easy to find but not much else. And they forgot to synchronise watches so forces from different time zones arrived at all sorts of odd times. From that link:
We achieved our mission, but took heavy casualties. Nineteen men were killed in action and 123 wounded. The enemy was a hastily organized force of about 50 Cuban military advisers, over 700 Cuban construction workers, and one thousand two hundred members of Grenada’s People’s Revolutionary Army. Many of the casualties were from friendly fire.
To this day, I doubt that any one person knows how ineptly Urgent Fury was planned and executed…Operation Urgent Fury became the military equivalent of a Japanese Kabuki dance created by three or four choreographers speaking different languages, all working independently of each other.
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Regarding the referendum, firstly, it was a loaded and misleading question.
Secondly, 90% of 54% is 48%, which is not a majority.
Thirdly, it's sad that 48% of NZers are predicate child abusers. I think on that basis, it's ok to pick out random mainstream looking people, ask them how they voted and give them a bloody good kicking if they answered Yes.
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So long as you don't kick them for the purpose of correction.
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New Zealanders have overwhelmingly voted for the anti-smacking law to be canned.
That's contradicted by the actual story that links to, which says:
Almost 90 percent of people who participated ...
there was a 54 percent voter turnout. -
I believe Craig summarised it well on t'other thread:
a concentrated burst of innumeracy, functional illiteracy and plain making shit up.
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I was kind of hoping that the education campaigns on the referendum would have resulted in a better turnout for the Yes vote.
I just hope this story doesn't make the Oddly Enough circuit of the world's newspapers.
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Regarding the referendum, firstly, it was a loaded and misleading question.
Secondly, 90% of 54% is 48%, which is not a majority.
Thirdly, it's sad that 48% of NZers are predicate child abusers. I think on that basis, it's ok to pick out random mainstream looking people, ask them how they voted and give them a bloody good kicking if they answered Yes.
Er, when you said Yes, I think you meant No. And several people didn't notice (surely not all of them too reticent to comment if they had). Thereby nicely illustrating a significant part of the problem with the shit question.
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There's a remarkable pattern or two in the referendum results by electorate, so I'll remark on it/them.
The proportionate Yes-vote and overall turnout are negatively correlated, very strongly so for the most part. So 'high' turnout low Yes, and low turnout 'high' Yes, and it's much more than just the non-voters dilution effect. The pinnacle of this trend is Wellington Central with 43.2% turnout and 35.9% Yes. (There must be something special about this electorate?)
But all 10 electorates with less than 43% turnout do not share in this trend at all - they each have Yes votes of 8-16%, around average. These 10 low-turnout electorates are all 7 Maori ones plus 3/4 of the general electorates starting with Man ... . OK they are Mangere, Manukau East and Manurewa, with their South Auckland location perhaps a more notable common factor.Interpretations?
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There must be something special about this electorate?
Yes. We have brains.
I actually feel that only the electors of Wellington Central should be allowed to vote on anything. Other parts of NZ should be ruled on a colonial basis, with limited autonomy to decide on garbage collection and parking rules.
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Isn't that the staus quo?
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