Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Dropping the Bomber, in reply to JLM,
Interesting then to note the total lack of “green” voices among panellists, as opposed to fleeting guests. I will be happy to be contradicted.
Sue Bradford is a regular panellist.
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Hard News: Where are the foreigners?!, in reply to Hilary Stace,
there has been a 30% drop in business confidence over the last month, and some are trying to blame the RWC.
Key's shameless attempts to paint the RWC as National's Party could yet blow up in his face if the sentiment that the tournament is to blame for a big drop in turnover foments and continues through to the election. After all, it's not like National have got any economic progress to really cheer about (though the media's not calling the bullshit that's being passed out as propaganda), and they've been using the RWC as an election campaign. If that turns out to hurt the economy overall, it's more evidence that they're economic clowns who couldn't run a banana republic.
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OnPoint: Sock-Puppeting Big Tobacco to…, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Here in Thailand the smoking laws make New Zealand’s seem disinterested by comparison. Puffing in parks, on walkways, any bar or restaurant and in markets is forbidden with wardens prowling.
Shuddup. You're making me jealous!
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OnPoint: A Friday-Appropriate Hager Excerpt, in reply to Rich Lock,
However, there is an implication in the story which suggests that they didn’t have a plan B
But they did. They called for extraction.
If you're on a covert mission, if you're compromised that's the end of things. You can't just go and find another spot to recon the same location. There is no Plan B for covert reconnaissance being discovered, because in the same manner as Heisenberg, if you interact then you change what you are observing. Being discovered is an interaction. -
OnPoint: A Friday-Appropriate Hager Excerpt, in reply to Rich Lock,
1. Don’t confuse US special forces, which the are ‘vote’ troops in question, with the SAS.
+1. It was US SEALs, not SAS, who put up execution as an option. The SAS appear to have retained their moral compass through the entire sorry affair.
I do wonder, though, whether the same goatherd stumbling across the same team in a declared war on a nation state would've survived.
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OnPoint: A Friday-Appropriate Hager Excerpt, in reply to Rich Lock,
Yes, one might assume that ten years later they might have found an effective way of dealing with being found by goatherders. But apparently not.
You mean a change in their ROE to mandate summary execution? That'd do it.
What has changed, in the intervening 10 years, that would've given them a better way out? A reduction in morality so that the qualms about killing someone who's innocently going about their daily business are dispatched with? A marvellous advance in technology so that they can't be discovered? Those are really the only two ways that wandering goatherds could cease to be a problem. -
OnPoint: A Friday-Appropriate Hager Excerpt, in reply to Just thinking,
Vote?
Very possibly, yes. One interesting consistency of at least the English-speaking special forces (I haven't read too much about the French and German ones, but the SAS (of all national persuasions) and Delta/Rangers/SEALs have also trained a lot of the rest of the world) is that until it comes to giving an order, everyone's opinion carries equal weight.
This is, at least in part, because officers mostly don't have the time-in-service of the men they command, either in uniform (a lieutenant might have five years, but be commanding corporals and sergeants with 10 years or more) or in the special forces. Assuming that your senior position imparts greater knowledge is a great way to get people killed; it's not even a very good idea in civilian life, as most people who've worked for a few organisations know from first-hand experience.
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Hard News: 2011: The Year Of What?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
So how is it justified to say that an NZ-born violent nutcase is entitled to the full benefit of the law, but a refugee (who, remember, has been conceded the right to come here based on international law) is judged by a different standard.
Oh, and also because a person is not a refugee until they are determined to be such by the contracting state. Where there's a question about whether a person is deserving of refugee status or not, they have not "been conceded the right to come here". It's not automatic.
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Hard News: 2011: The Year Of What?, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
So how is it justified to say that an NZ-born violent nutcase is entitled to the full benefit of the law, but a refugee (who, remember, has been conceded the right to come here based on international law) is judged by a different standard.
Because Article 32 doesn't require that a refugee facing legitimate expulsion be found to be a risk to national security or public order on the same terms as would apply to a citizen of the contracting state. There must be due process of law, but there is nothing to say that the standards cannot be lower than would be required to achieve conviction of a citizen.
ETA: And also because, as Russell has pointed out, proof to the criminal standard is likely to be impossible by practical measures.
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Hard News: 2011: The Year Of What?, in reply to 3410,
Probably “Psychopaths and big money – it all adds up” from NZH.
Oh, and that's Vic, where first-year economics is even more heavily tilted towards microeconomics and the theories of perfect markets and perfectly-informed consumers. Auckland's first-year economics papers are split in two and the second one introduces macroeconomics in quite some detail, which helps to neutralise some of the perfect market theory that is spoon-fed in the microeconomics-focused ECON101.