Posts by Tom Semmens
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Well Ranapia has had a narrow escape, i had to spend five minutes calming my dear old Mum down, a more formidable women I wouldn't care to come across.
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I guess I've managed to get under your skin at some stage Mr. Ranapia. Oh well, if it makes you feel better...
Generally speaking I tailor my response to the quality of my audience. Kiwiblog is run by a fundamentally dishonest man who likes to pass himself off as an independent commentator and its comments section is inhabited largely by idiots. I derive much recreational merriment from by annoying them.
I regard PA as an altogether more grown up place.
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Its hard to know what to make of the Herald's grandiose self importance.
However, given the frenzy David Farrar has also worked himself into over the issue the only thing I put down the Herald's outburst to is general hope on the part of those who don't like the government that they can generate the same sort of momentum and beat up over the EFB as they managed over the pledge card issue.
So far though the whole thing seems a bit of a fizzer for them.
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This case - http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,2207426,00.html - raises some disturbing questions about terror laws and their application in the UK. I mean, what is she actually guilty of? Thought crime?
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Like every other English speaking society it is impossible for us to have a sensible debate about drug policy. The debate (since Churchill is still on the mind) quickly become ignorance wrapped in moralising inside hypocrisy.
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The banning of BZP is pretty small beer really compared to the growing scandal of alcohol abuse in this country. Despite the claims to BZP being a far more healthy alternative to P (which it is) the primary use of party pills in the wider community has been to use them as part of poly drug abuse so the user can stay upright and drinking all night. Once upon a time drunken munters seldom lasted past 1am down at the top 40 nightclub, now these pests hang around at clubs all night, fall over, getting in the way and generally disturbing the more refined psychoactive experiences of an aghast dedicated late night crew.
Why we are expending so much time in the grip of a BZP moral panic when its obvious to anyone over 35 that alcohol use is soaring (I heard somewhere the other day a amazing statistic, that NZ has more liquor outlets than Australia - can this really be true???) escapes me. Neither the government nor the main opposition party seem inclined in the slightest to buy a fight with the powerful pushers of the liquor industry, but it seems to me that the Herald should spend a lot more time debating the merits of 24 hour off-licences and allowing anyone with an indoor lavatory and no serious convictions to put up their shingle as a "sports bar" in your local suburban shopping strip than on BZP.
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Stephen J, I was just exploring a potential line of defence.
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"...Participation is not the same as an alliance. .."
Hmmm. With that sort of tortured logic I can understand why so many of the arrested think they are innocent:
".Your honour, my client submits participation in terrorism is not the same as being an ally of terrorists..."
I am afraid the subtleness of the argument dissolves in the face of common sense.
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Rich of Observationz: I am afraid I belong to the "Churchill was pretty much an big idiot" camp, a man whose incompetencies cost many New Zealand lives. The Grand Fleet was largely Fisher's and Louis Battenburg's creation. The Dardanelles was his baby and an utter fiasco. In his next incarnation in office his delusions of imperial grandeur finished off the remnants of British industry with his grandiose return to the gold standard. In WWII, he loathed Ghandi and was utterly opposed to home rule for India, rightly seeing it as the end of his beloved British Empire. His decision to send Imperial troops (including the New Zealanders) to Greece before finishing off the Italians was a strategic error as disasterous the fall of France. His dispatching, and the subsequent loss of, Force Z to the Japanese along with his blind committment to strategic bomber offensive showed his propensity to cling to failed strategies rather than admit Britain was no longer a great power. His three towering achievements were to early recognise the danger to democracy presented by fascism, his rallying of the British people in 1940 and his realisation the war would be lost unless he got the Americans involved.
It seems odd that an anarchist can be so enamoured of a man who was basically a 19th century aristocratic super-patriot.
Sorry for th diversion, as you all were.
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"...If Hitler invaded hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil..."
That sort of parallel with the government of New Zealand is frankly offensive.