Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
People are entitled to change their minds, and so are politicians
One of the scariest things about Brash is that he hasn't changed his economic views in over 20 years. He still believes ardently in minimal regulation of the financial sector, for example, even with the evidence from the last five years.
He's so tightly wedded to his ideas that Rod Oram, as espoused in a recent RNZ interview that I was listening to in the gym, suspects he'll really struggle with the compromises that are integral to really playing in politics. -
Hard News: Playing the Man, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I think a defamation claim against the sitting PM and the head of the military would be quite entertaining. Key might be able to use Privilege - I don't know where he made his statements, but I'm not sure that he's as astute as Winston and Helen about where he makes bold claims - but Jones sure as hell can't.
Plus, if the claims by Key were made in Parliament, a complaint to the Speaker about misleading the House would be entirely in order. I'm sure Labour would just love to get their tooth (they haven't displayed enough competence to credit them with a full set) into that particular privilege issue in an election year. -
Apparently I managed to get Public Address name-dropped into the latest Metro (I've still not seen it, just been told about it), with the second line of this post, so I'm also doing my bit to raise our public profile ;)
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Hard News: Asking for a Contribution, in reply to Ant Timpson,
I think all PA readers are avid coffee snobs and would like a collectable mug each year.
There's got to be someone on here who's sufficiently artistic that they could come up with a novel, PAS-relevant mug design every year. Probably several someones. Hell, why not just go down the full-on merch route using one of the many websites devoted to such things? Pretty minimal time overhead to get it setup, and an on-going revenue stream that would support the functioning of PAS.
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Done.
The community you support here is quite enough “reward” for the majority of us, I suspect. You don’t ask us for much – just the odd reminder about our tone, and your tolerance for our intemperate outbursts is saintly – so consider the contributions our tangible expression of gratitude for running a place where so many come to enjoy the company and the discourse. -
Hard News: A welcome return - and pirates!, in reply to Leopold,
And apparently one of the advantages of piracy along the East African coast is that fish stocks are recovering – the great commercial fishing fleets have been scared off
Right. So we've got a policy plank (coat, getting) for the NZ Pirate Party - recovery of our fishing stocks, by hook or by crook.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Or perhaps Israel’s when they put Adolph Eichmann on trial, just 16 years after WW2, and not only demonstrated to the world that they had treated a monster fairly, but for all time showed that there was a moral gulf between them and us.
That said, I’m doubtful we could expect the same of that nation now.
These days he'd have an unfortunate accident involving a bus, or perhaps top himself and leave a beautifully-crafted suicide note expressing his regret for his actions. Mossad are fucking scary, and not without reason.
ETA: Or just killed when his car explodes, since it seems that Mossad aren't at all opposed to overt lethal action.
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Hard News: A welcome return - and pirates!, in reply to Joanna,
I can't wait for the Pirate Party to get into parliament, have a member go rogue, and then for there to be a by-election and an electorate gets taken over by ninjas.
This would be an appropriate time to present a billboard I prepared earlier. How's that for foresight!
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to James Bremner,
he “sang like a canary” on a continuing basis, presumably because he didn’t want to do anymore involuntary snorkeling without a snorkel
And one of the very good reasons for distrusting torture as an interrogation method is that its results are not consistently reliable. Terrify someone enough, and they'll say anything they think you want them to say just to ensure they don't have to be subjected to the torture again. It's a well-known and unavoidable flaw with coercive interrogation techniques, and no amount of hero-worshipping Dubbyah and his minions for their brutality can change that.
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Leon, electing law enforcement officials can go horribly, horribly wrong in so many awful ways that I'm immensely glad that NZ doesn't directly elect its Attorney General. I'll point out that not even the United States, that home of elected officialdom at every tier of civil service, elects its AG. Their AG is an appointee of the President, which means they're even less accountable to the prolles than is our AG.