Posts by Steve Parks
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Russell Brown,
The widespread believe now is that it was planned, to, as Tracey Watkins puts it, drive a wedge between the public and the media.
If it’s a stunt, it’s a bloody risky one.
If it’s a stunt, it’s one Key handled ineptly. He really did come across very poorly during his ‘what I’m here to talk about’ performance at the media conference. I had exactly the same flashback as Martin Lindberg to the Ed Miliband interview.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Carol Stewart,
An utterly bizarre poll result.
Text message poll results such as this one would be flawed even if they were free. Given a 75 cent per text cost... doesn't even deserve to be called a poll.
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Hard News: The perils of political confidence, in reply to Rich Lock,
A lot of the stills and footage I’ve seen show a number of Joe and Josephine Punter-types sitting at nearby tables studiously attempting to ignore the WTF-ness going on a couple of metres away. Assuming they are punters and not cunningly-disguised DPS officers, this would tend to add some weight to this point. And also undermine the ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ defence.
Campbell Live tonight looked at this matter, and that the press were allowed to remain so close and record. They showed one camera operator standing in a spot where he wasn’t cut off fully from Key and Banks, and where earlier another journalist seemed able to take notes. No one told him he had to move. I don't see how you put yourself in that situation and seriously not expect the media that you invited there might not try to record what you're saying as well as record images.
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Haven't caught up with this discussion yet, but I found this 3 News item interesting.
"He says Mr Key’s comparison to News of the World tactics was a “cheap shot” with little relevance to the British scandal."
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OnPoint: Fiscal Responsibility is the…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
The only argument against it is one based on the purity of a universal goods and services tax, which is all very nice but really, when you get down to it, fundamentally an aesthetic argument about clarity and tidiness.
The argument against is stronger than you make it seem here. I’m not sure that it has anything to do with aesthetics. The two main benefits of GST are the difficulty of avoiding it, and the ease of administration. Reducing GST on certain items obviously undermines the latter aspect (by how much is a matter for debate – Goff says not by much in this case).
Whether the other points you raise make up for this is another matter, but the objection to the GST change isn’t superficial.
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Legal Beagle: Up to 11, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Another amendment that has been proposed is to prevent MPs from sub-5% parties ‘coat-tailing’ on an electorate MP, which would probably make more sense.
Well, that is what the post was about...
I must say I was a little uncertain also that was what you meant by the end of your article. I thought you were saying: keep threshold, get rid of coat-tailing. But you might have meant: get rid of threshold, therefore coat-tailing not an issue.
Idiot/Savant, if I recall correctly, has argued for the latter, with a default 1/120th 'natural' threshold.
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Russell Brown,
Anyone know who’s responsible for it?
Anyone know who's responsible for National's?
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Hard News: We interrupt this broadcast ..., in reply to Kracklite,
... the Labour Party [have] spent so much of the last three years demonstrating that there’s no-one they won’t throw under the bus, no principle they won’t compromise, no cock that they won’t suck (such as the members of Brian Tamaki and his Blackshirts).
Good reminder. I'm leaning towards voting Green because of just that sort of thing.
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This could have worked had it been compellingly produced, but it’s bleakly lit, horribly edited …
Yes, this was mainly what struck me about it. I didn’t expect to agree with the content of National’s ad, but I thought it would be slickly, or at least competently, produced.
The lighting and editing were distracting, and made it look amateurish. It could be, as you suggest, that they didn’t want to look too slick, but there are classy ways of doing that, and this was not classy.
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Hard News: Dropping the Bomber, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
There’s nothing close to defamatory about the “meth addict” comment – Bradbury merely compared Key to one, not implied that he was one.
You know, 3410, that’s not a pinhead dance I’d really want to bust out in a defamation suit. If I merely compared Bomber to a child molester – but didn’t actually, like, you know say he ran around dicking kiddies – I wouldn’t expect him to have much of a sense of humour about it.
Bradbury said (quoting from memory) that Key's behavior was like "the sort of ravings one would expect from a meth addict on a bender." That's obviously not the same as trying to suggest that Key is actually a meth addict. It was clearly hyperbole. (I believe some people who post on PAS sometimes also engage in this.)
I'd never bust out the "pinhead dance" in a defamation suit, though. I'd just look ridiculous.