Posts by Stephen R
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11152671
Police Minister Anne Tolley has referred the Police handling of the Roast Busters to the Independent Police Conduct Authority after meeting with Police Commissioner Peter Marshall this morning.
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Matthew Poole,
But being a worthless douche with the compassion and moral compass of Genghis Khan is merely reprehensible.
That's a bit harsh. Genghis had a very strong moral compass, though it didn't necessarily point in the same direction as ours. He was very big on enforcing the laws. It was said at the time that a virgin with a bag of gold on her head could walk from one end of the Mongol Empire to the other without fear of being robbed or molested.
I'm don't think that's true in New Zealand.
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If we're going to have fireworks, I'd be happier with doing it for Matariki - y'know, sometime when it gets dark early, the ground and foliage is usually damp, and less likely to catch fire...
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to nzlemming,
This is Cory Doctorow's approach. It seems to be working for him.
Yes, I've read his comments on the stuff (and downloaded some of his free ebooks, and paid for some paperbacks) but I originally encountered the concept from Eric Flint in the Baen.com free ebook library ( http://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx ) where Eric claimed that releasing free e-versions of his books had seen his sales increase. (Though I can't find the actual letter from Eric right now).
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Hard News: Mega Strange, in reply to bob daktari,
Samuel Scott's idea of having a digital version of books as part of buying the physical copy has massive merit, something publishers should take up (learn) from the music biz
If I recall correctly, David Weber included a CD with one of his hard back "Honor Harrington" books that included E-formats of not just that book, but much of his back-catalog.
One of the claims I've seen is that with so many new books coming out, an author is more at risk of not being noticed than of being pirated, and that giving away e-books (especially of older back-catalog stuff) can lead to increases in both the sales of the back-catalog and new books by the same author.
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Hard News: The Crazy Gang Nation, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
what would Skippy do?
According to the list, ( http://skippyslist.com/list/ ) there's a lot he's tried, and a lot he's been told he's not allowed to any more.
including such gems as
10. Not allowed to purchase anyone’s soul on government time.
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48. I may not use public masturbation as a tool to demonstrate a flaw in a command decision.
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176. Any device that can crawl across the table on medium, does not need to be brought into the office.
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195. Shouldn’t use Photoshop ® to create incriminating photos of my chain of command. -
Hard News: Everybody's Machiavelli, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
What does seem to be the elephant in the room is that while we’re all busy heaping (well-deserved) ordure on Cameron Slater, where’s the hate for the allegedly “responsible” mainstream media that could have shut down this story by refusing to give it any play?
From my somewhat innocent point of view, I thought Cameron Slater was providing the NZ Herald with enough cover to do what they wanted to do - i.e. try to get rid of Len Brown.
The NZ Herald, and Stuff, are not, in my view, behaving like responsible main-stream media. They're pushing a barrow, and seem to get quite snotty when the voters don't do what they're told.
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Hard News: The non-binary council, in reply to SteveH,
I suspect she was willing but conflicted at the time and now regrets what happened.
I suspect the same can now be said of Len Brown...
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Hard News: The non-binary council, in reply to Tom Semmens,
Well, you could observe that that waiting to unleash a ‘scandal’ until after a result you know you won’t win to try and nobble (and neutralise) the winning candidate is a piece of political filth direct from the good old USA. Since Cameron Slater’s father was John Palino’s campaign manager I expect Slater would have been privy to Palino’s polling and timed this release accordingly.
I would have thought releasing it before voting started might have meant Len Brown didn't win (although I freely admit I do not understand the Auckland political scene). I did read somewhere that Cameron Slater said he'd known for some time, but chosen not to publish until the woman in question signed an affidavit, and this controlled the timing.
Has there been an answer to the question "Why did she go public?" - not just the timing, but at all?
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As someone who hasn't paid a lot of attention to the Auckland Mayoralty, it rather looks like the NZ Herald doesn't like Mr Brown very much. Their insistence that he should resign based on an online poll on their website seemed a little too pat to me, and felt a bit like they think they have an opportunity to reverse the election results they didn't like.