Posts by Alex Coleman
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Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Hickey was asking some rather prickly questions about the quality of of information (and poor reporting and analysis of the dubious assumptions behind them) coming out of the Treasury even when it was politically convenient for Labour – which headlines like “surplus higher than forecast, again” certainly were.
I'm not so certain. I seem to remember that the general reaction, certainly from the opposition and less forthrightly from the media, was along the lines of 'OMG Cullen is stealing all our money, we should have massive tax cuts, and generally be like Ireland'.
Cullen then had to go out say that actually, the surpluses are a lot more fragile than the headlines look. And got mocked for his trouble.
Your perception obviously differs, and that's cool. But the idea that those headlines were 'certainly' good for Labour does kind of ignore what was being said in the articles.
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Hard News: Playing the Man, in reply to johnno,
I guess the problem for Stephenson is that some/most of his NZDF and SAS sources will have talked only on conditions of anonymity. If the official NZDF sources say one thing, and his say another, then he might run into some problems.
True. But there are other things in play. Are the official NZDF people prepared to go on oath and make the denials? And while Stephenson can't produce witnesses or affidavits, his claims of having serving SAS members as sources will be lurking in the foreground. They're being called liars too.
Might not win in court, but in public opinion? Would pollies really want that fight?
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,
Agreed, however the question was also put to Pita Sharples.
Was a bit interesting that a Minister of the Crown calling it an "assassination" didn't get any attention at all.
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Nice reference Craig.
The other point that looms large is that when your opponent is trying to convince his co-religionists that you hate their religion, it’s not rocket surgery to avoid acting like a spiteful dick WRT their religion.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Russell Brown,
Actually, according to the timeline that Wired has put together, KSM didn’t cough up the name until 2007, after Bush had stopped waterboarding, and well after his 183 waterboarding sessions. As the authors point out, if the timeline is correct, that means abusive techniques failed to get the information.
Steve Benen has a round up of links, including a denial that the intel came via waterboarding from Don Rumsfield, here:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_05/029251.php
And on James' broader point that Obama turned his back on his campaign promises and followed Bush's lead, this is a useful reminder of what his policy was like then, and how the right wing reacted to it: -
Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Lucy Stewart,
Like Russell says in the other thread, most of these young people have known nothing except the post 911-world, the idea that a terrible tragedy happened and no-one was ever really brought to justice for it. This might not be justice, but it’s closure for this thing that’s loomed over all their adult lives. I don’t think it’s worth celebrating myself, but I can understand why people would.
Closure aside, how is this different from the Palestinians dancing in the street?
I'm not saying this was the same thing as terrorism. But if I lived in Gaza I'm not so sure that I'd draw such neat lines about what is and isn't a legitimate target when cathartic images start rolling.
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Andre Alessi,
But sometimes the death of a person invested with symbolic significance acts as an attack on that idea. It isn't as if people like Bin Laden were irrelevant to jihadism, or as if the entire thing could simply be argued out of existence with a few forthright blog posts.
I think this also relates to the kill/arrest question. OBL himself was well aware that the war he was engaged in with the US was taking place as much in the mind and the media as it was with bullets and bombs. (I think there were letters trying to explain this to the AQ in Iraq guy who was playing too rough even by OBLs standards)
While a trial and western justice would have been great, it wouldn't have been easy.
A raid in which OBL managed to blow himself up taking out a couple of navy seals would have seen very diffrent headlines around the world today, and I suspect the planners may have had that on their minds.
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Nick Shand,
For a time atleast we should see a much cleaner conversation representing what amounts for democracy in America.
hah.
So far I've learned that Obama didn't smile enough in the speech, he didn't seem happy about what he was saying, he was too flowery when talking about 9/11, used the word "I" too much and didn't thank GWB enough.
I seem to remember back when he was a candidate, Obama copped flack for saying that he would go after OBL in Pakistan with or without a green light from Islamabad. McCain said he wouldn't.
If the dem surrogates were anything like the gop's we'd be hearing about nothing else for the next two years.
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Brash and Banks hatched their plans for a comeback about four months ago but the decision to make a run for ACT was not finalised till last month, when Hide offered Brash the co-leadership, which he rejected.
Brash and Banks confirmed yesterday there had been talks with people within the wider National Party, but would not say who. But there had been no talks with Key or his inner circle.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/4939515/Key-talks-down-Brash-Cabinet-role
They are not just not denying it, as it were.
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Sorry if I was unclear Craig. I certainly never meant to imply that Maori were of a hive mind.
So are you saying that if he had of won a parliamentary majority then that would mean he had the assent of Maori to abolish the seats? Or that such an assent is unnecessary?
Because gaining that assent is what I took Mikaere’s comment of ‘by your leave’ to mean.