Posts by st ephen
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
No, no Jolissa - never pluralise "feminist". It will only lead to such constructions as "Feminists think that...".
-
"...seeking to disable an opponent..."
This is pretty much the role description of #1 and #3, but then our commentators do like to gloss over the "mysterious dark arts of the front row, ho ho ho".
-
Graeme has already said that he thinks that making personal purchases on the Ministerial credit card with the intention of reimbursing them AND actually reimbursing them is worse than sneaking something a bit marginal onto the card to see if you can get away with it.
Good luck with finding another 11 (or 69) people on a panel who'll agree with that. The public cares about "use of public money" only to the extent that the public's money is , you know, used. And while they hate politicians, they're also not too fond of lawyers. Graeme admits himself in his post that he speaks as a lawyer, implying that he knows us lay people are happier to apply 'common sense' in many cases. Such as this one, I would suggest. Which is exactly why the media have been playing it as they have.
-
Personally, I don't object to politicians making one credit card transaction instead of two. I presume their hotels are booked on a charge-back basis, and they hand over a credit card for any additional expenses, which will be a mixture of personal and official. I'm not sure that having them go through the printout line by line when checking out is sensible use of their time while in Tokyo or Copenhagen or where-ever.
I do expect them to reimburse personal spending as soon as is possible. And it seems that mostly they have done this. Yes, in theory it's dangerous to have pollies ignoring the strict rules around ministerial credit card use. Because if they do that, then next they will....what exactly? Well, now we know - they will forget to reimburse the taxpayer for a few relatively trivial things. So I'm not feeling the outrage, but I am glad that this is all sorted now before the current lot go too far down the "be more like Australia" route.
-
And apropos of nothing, gee Boy is a great film.
Yes, where is the PAS discussion of NZ's All Time Number One movie? Because I really hated it, but I'm usually a sucker for the powers of persuasion exhibited around here (though you're going to have to work harder with Paul Henry).
-
You have to laugh when they cite the Maugers as proof that Polynesians are welcomed into the ranks. The Crusaders thing is really no different than many (most?) New Zealand work places - it doesn't matter what colour your skin is, just as long as you think like us and act like us. And in Canterbury, that means thinking and acting like Robbie Deans and his ilk.
Graham Henry may be a Canterbury boy, but all those years teaching in Auckland have obviously given him an appreciation for other cultures - or at least a few tools for negotiating his way through cross-cultural issues. The farm boys running rugby in Canterbury? Not so much.
-
Kids are taught a huge array of scientific facts without ever being asked to challenge any of them, or being shown how it was that other ideas might have been compelling, and then disproven.
Really? They've dropped stuff like Thomson's "plum pudding" model of the atom from the syllabus? When I were a lad, we were endlessly learning stuff only to find that it hadn't held up to later scrutiny. Like how giraffe's got their long necks. Maybe a teacher can tell us when all this was dumped?
-
Andre, not France in 2003. The correct list is:
1987 - won easily, one of the few to take it seriously at the time though.
1991 - past their best, struggled through pool, well beaten.
1995 - Poisoned (whether accidentally, or deliberately. If deliberately, then instigator was one or more of Louis Luyt (known to be evil); Mandela (known to believe there are more important things than sport); or sports betting syndicates (known to have considerable leverage in SA and elsewhere). Or just a random punter. An unholy alliance between Luyt and Mandela would have made a great movie.
1999 - According to Anton Oliver, the AB forwards were absolutely smashed and only individual brilliance from Lomu had kept them in the game. Unfortunately, being so far behind on points only encouraged France to take a few chances, and they won by two lucky bounces. C'est la vie.
2003 - ABs remembered putting 50 points on Australia in the 3N and Wales in the 1/4 final - but forgot about all the points they conceded in the process. The home team was never going to lose the semi.
2007 - Hopeless ref - France had at least two break-out tries stopped by ABs illegally killing the ball, and should have won more comfortably. AB's had bad luck with injuries to two first-fives, but effectively the AB captain lost the game. And he knows it. Shame though - that was a great team.Nobody whinges about 1991, 1999, or 2003. 2007 was tragic because of the gulf between ability and outcome, but again nothing really to whinge about - hosts are even money against the ABs in RWCs. Unless the final is in SA...
-
I'm just pissed we have to use an american sports metaphor...
Pissed off , surely? ;-)
-
It isn't meant to be "alternative" like Jonathan Dodd seemed to think. It's simply commercial music picked to attract 40,000 plus people in the 16-25 core age group.
No, I think he's closer to the mark than you are, Rich. INXS were hugely popular and commercial in their day, and kept begging to be allowed to play the BDO without success. And no, it wasn't just because they were shite - that hasn't been a barrier for countless Aussie pub rock acts since then. The BDO "brand" is not built on randomly selecting acts off commercial radio. And that isn't entirely due to budget constraints.
Anyway, there are plenty of comments on the Herald BDO review page from teenyboppers that directly contradict everything Mr. Reid said, as you'd expect. Quality writing, not so much.