Posts by nzlemming
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Russell Brown,
I do still wonder how Farrar can face getting up in the morning and writing a blog post in the knowledge that it will be another opportunity for those people to air their inane and abhorrent views.
<opinion>The thing to remember about Farrar is that he doesn't actually believe in anything except getting people like him into government. He still thinks Karl Rove was a genius, and that the ends justify the means. Much like Prostetnic Vogon Joyce, actually.
He would, as someone said, defend the right to free speech and that's why he doesn't ban people, but free speech requires a certain honesty about owning the speech and that's a foreign concept to the Kiwiboggers. I believe Farrar will say anything that he thinks won't harm his brand in order to achieve whatever goal he has set himself. If that means dog-whistling the KBers, he's happy to do that as subtly as he can get away with (many of them seem immune to subtlety so has can't distance himself too much). </opinion>
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Hard News: How much speech does it take?, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Unlike like many here I don't believe free speech is a right. I believe it is a privilege earned and maintained by hard work.
I do believe that free speech is a right, but it's balanced by an obligation on the holder to use it responsibly. That's the part that most claimants of their right seem to miss.
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Speaker: This is your National Library, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
That is a very sobering (and scary) thought...
That's not scary at all. It's how the system should work. No one expects a new Minister for the Environment, say, to hit the ground running fully conversant with all the issues facing the environment both in the past and the future. That's what the bureaucracy is actually for - to keep track of the history and use it to produce evidence-based advice to the Minister. The Minister should make decisions and set direction and let the officials do what they do well.
The scary part of that is that that is not how this government is working, nor (albeit to a lesser extent) the last one. They are telling the officials what advice they want to hear and refusing to look at anything that contradicts their will, and they regard the government agencies as mere executive extensions of the 'Government of the Day" that should just follow orders. It's a politicization of the public sector and it's been happening since 1987 and the restructure of the state sector.
A perfect example is Prostetnic Vogon Joyce and the roads of national insignificance. He WILL not hear anything that says they're a bad idea, that they'll wreck the environments they pass through, that they're unnecessary, that we can't afford them, that they won't actually solve the problem etc etc. We know, down here in Kapiti - we've tried showing him the logic, the economics etc etc - and he has said "I'm not changing my mind". That is the scary part.
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That's a metric crapload of ground to cover. Are you doing an extended show?
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Southerly: Things to be Grateful For: A…, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I saw snowflakes here in Waikanae for about 2 minutes. None lasted long enough to land, and the rain was washing them away anyway.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Ah, but they weren't Americans, so that doesn't matter to the American media.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Sacha,
The real kicker will be if any similar activity is detected around 9/11
I think the FBI is already looking into that across the Atlantic. There will be no mercy for Rupert in the US if they find a sniff of that.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Jeremy Andrew,
Oh wow! I finally made it to 'cool kid' status. All my life I've waited for this *sniff*
I'd like to thank the Academy, and my teachers, and my parents and the guy that does the lighting...
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Jeremy Andrew,
Awesome!
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to Lilith __,
We're not actually sure whether Ian's posts are due to the drugs he takes, or the drugs he should have taken...