Posts by Rob Stowell
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to richard,
I suspect this comes under the heading of feeding the trolls.
Trolls have been moved from under the bridge, and are currently in intensive care. Giardiasis and lactose intolerance :)
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to BenWilson,
Ben Wilson agrees, and likes his style too.
Rob Stowell is not so sure about the style- or the gender :)
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Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Can we have a round of applause for someone who actually is a farmer coming in and very reasonably arguing their corner?
Applause! :)
(GF is not an ‘average’ farmer: but has thought about the issues and put some sweat and treasure into mitigating them. Good on ya!) -
It’ll be interesting* to see how other local/niche broadcasters cope in a digital world. $70,000 grants to move to Freeview- with its on-going costs- isn’t going to be very effective, I’d have thought. CTV have been talking about it for a while, but I think still analogue only, and time ticking away. Will SuperSkyman come swooping in and ‘help’ CTV too?
Anyone know what a Freeview channel costs in transmission fees? According to wiki, “Canterbury TV estimates it will need to pay NZ$1 million a year if it joins Freeview”.
The move to digital frees up so much bandwidth (which the govt plans to sell off for millions to telcos) it’ll be deeply ironic (and wrong) if we end up with less choice and an effective Sky monopoly on the platform.
*or depressing :( -
Hard News: Fact and fantasy, in reply to Mike O'Connell,
It was arguably a much better bet than the lousy diluted emissions trading scheme we have now
I’d put a $ on it :) The ETS looks like an orphan child of ‘markets will always find the best solution to anything’ (tragically died in 2008, not missed :)) Let’s hope it gets scrapped for a carbon tax. It’s been ruinous for a lot of small forestry people.
Re: Joy- “treachery” is an especially ugly word. NZ Inc is a bad enough idea just on economic, social and environmental terms, without strident nationalism.
Saunders-Unsworth: 100% Eye of Mordor :) -
Too late, too late… we start to get the numbers on TVNZ7 viewing, and they are far more favourable than TVNZ ever fessed up to.
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Capture: Two Tales of a City, in reply to Hebe,
That erasure of personal history is odd
+2 :-)
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Hard News: Triangulated by Fools, in reply to Sacha,
Why are Labour not arguing over arcane financial instruments
Pretty easy to frame PPPs in simple terms. It’s weaselly privatisation (“selling off the roads”) AND crony capitalism/corporate welfare (“pork barrels for fat cats”).
Actually national standards is the really hard one to frame negatively.
It’s probably far worse, as we’ve discussed here at length. But it seems so simple and ‘accountable’ and sounds like it’s just about insisting we do something (measurable) about the (indubitable) educational underachievement of many kids, and indeed about raising the standards for all.
Which is total hogwash, but you can’t explain that in a soundbite. -
Hard News: Calling the race before it's over, in reply to Andre Alessi,
You haven’t missed it, it’s been practically nonexistent. Which isn’t to say it’s not true, just that it’s never been laid out in public
Public speeches by both DS and DC make up the bulk of what I've gleaned, all discussed extensively here :)
DS began badly, with a speech that started with some drive-by beneficiary-bashing, moved on to claim a la Stephen Joyce that tech entrepreneurs will save us all, and detoured to aim a kick at teachers. He's learnt from this debacle- but it certainly dented his credibility (if it was cynical, it was nasty; if it was earnest, it's hard to believe DS is of the progressive left.)
DC may well have cynically played on this perception in speeches which emphatically excoriated 'leave it to the market' neo-liberalism. Cynical or not, they sounded cracking good to some in Labour :)
Are there substantial policy differences? Since DC has been (rightly) forbidden from publicly setting out 'his own' policies, that's hard to know. If as as a back-bencher he challenges for the leadership in Feb we might expect some serious policy debate.
But that's a big if :) -
Hard News: Calling the race before it's over, in reply to Russell Brown,
Mallard had some fairly blunt words about Cunliffe (without naming him)
It's the leader and whips' job to make sure this sort of underhand whisper campaign gets knocked on the head. They've had time, and it's still happening. So it's either a lack of discipline, or worse, semi-sanctioned.
If the former, there's work to do- and fast. If the latter (hope says this is unlikely) you can't credibly call for loyalty when you don't give it; or talk about unity while promoting division.