Posts by Steve Withers
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The problems I see are the secret lists. That means no accountability. Not good.
So will hidemyass.com and other proxy servers also be blacklisted? Or can anyone use these to bypass the government-ordained filters?
How long before we see something like in New Zealand?
How far do we allow one group to foist its idea of morality on the rest of us or on some minority they disapprove of?
Absolutely DO prosecute people for storing and distributing illegal material.
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I bought a cheap terrestrial Freeview box from DSE a month ago and have been recommending it friends and co-workers ever since. I had marginal reception via analogue on most FTA channels......but on Freeview I get perfect reception on all with the same bunny ears I was using before.
If I want to see Juice, Triangle and Prime, I turn the Freeview box off and watch via the DVD recorder's tuner.
Why would get Sky? They have nothing on their I want at a price that's attractive. I wouldn't mind BBC World and CNN, but they son't sell me just those two. No problem. No Sky.
Sports? No time for other people's games. Too busy with my own.
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Having been involved in the campaign for a party this year, I'm not aware of anything we wanted to do and couldn't due to the EFA.
If anything had a chilling effect on this election it was:
1. The two larger parties refusing to debate with anyone else
2. Some in the media deciding that the minor parties didn't matter and giving them minimal coverage.
3. The Herald, in particular, refusing to print any good news about the Labour lead government, leaving them with little to write about. A change to CFLs that would save Kiwis hundreds of millions of dollars became - erroneously, as it turns out a campaign to save dimmer switches and chandeliers in Remuera. The fact that the dole was down to 17,500 - lowest in 30 years - was ignored by the Herald.
If the Herald wants insight into who played a role in chilling debate in the election, they need only look in the mirror.
I understand they would have had to do this in order to claim debate had been chilled....and they have a monopoly on 1.4 million people read in their newspapers every day.
That's a problem that also needs addressing.
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Hide's performance was informative. Clearly he is signaling hardball....and positioning his party to capture more of National's vote.
It may be ACT's game plan to have a bust-up at some stage and claim to be the "real" National Party. It has that feel about it. Maybe even an early election. That get's around the issue of a referendum on MMP....which ACT has said it would support but would be crazy to actually follow through on (based on what Hide said in that interview).
Key needs as many allies as he can get accross the spectrum. He may find ACT to be something of a poisoned chalice if he drinks too deeply from it. The Maori Party...and even the Greens and Labour should not be afraid to marginalise ACT in policy areas where National wants to do things ACT won't support or national can't stomach ACT's terms.
Key also have to be careful about what he does and who he does it to. many of the new voters he won over on Saturday were most likely loyal Labour voters through 3 elections who had grown tired of Helen Clark. A new Labour leader by itself may not be enough to win many of them back, but worse lower wages and conditions combined with reduced services could do it.
Also be alert for the "Shock Doctrine" approach to the global financial crisis. I am already hearing business leaders attempting to co-opt this event to justify their own pet policy changes.......
Combined, this could all quite easily make this National-lead government a one-termer....and it may not be the whole term at that.
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I haven't read Kiwiblog for months. The tone of that 'neighbourhood' is one I know too well.......and don't much like. The antipathy to anything resembling reasonableness in that community is its fatal flaw in my view.
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It's fascinating how the Right have used the "Nanny state" line over not being allowed to beat their children, but have no qualms in dictating to others on sexuality.
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I'd have a hard time getting too worried about a 20 year old transaction by a 26 year old John Key in any case. Even if completely true, it would be right up there with Benson-Pope's tennis ball.....so old and moldy (and the alleged perp now much older and hopefully wiser) that it's irrelevant.
Where key and national are concerned, the real "dirt" is the gap between their aspirations and the things they have said publicly.
The case against them on that score is an open and shut one, well documented. The bottom line IS that you can't trust them to do as they say because you'd have to work out which version is the true one.
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The Herald arguments on Saturday: "Feeble minded or disingenuous".
I'm voting for disingenuous by the feeble-minded.
The Herlad clearly want to condition people for a return to FPP in the referendum they clearly expect from the national victory they yearn for.
As newspaper go.....they have moved over into propaganda.
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The Herald's contempt for democracy is now a matter of public record. The newspaper that used to be a champion of MMP has become - thanks to a change in editorial staff - the paper that wants to get rid of MMP. The arguments for and against haven't changed - just the staff.
Similarly, they have been overtly campaigning for National and it must be galling for them to see that lead fading.
Declaring victory now may be the only taste of it they get.
We'll have to see how people actually vote.....funny that the Herald is so confused they don't get that.
I get more sense from blogs these days. The Herald editorial policy in NZ politics is bizarre and - frankly - dishonest.
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