Posts by Steve Withers
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I'd rather hear the ruth than worry about who and how it was recorded and revealed. If National weren't misleading people they would have nothing to worry about.
-
It gets worse.
The official US policy on security is, in parts, a cut / paste of the PNAC document cited. The rest is a slightly more palatable re-expression of almost all of the fundamental points in the PNAC "draft".
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf
The trashing of competing centres of power (UN and EU) and dismissal of international law (implicit - not explicit)......it's all there.
What has amazed me for the 6 or more years since I read the PNAC material is that how little attention it has received through the media and through official channels more or less anywhere.
China read it. Russia read it. They signed an alliance explicitly to counter it back in 2001. They could see it for what it was and the roles of those involved. China has a space program with the goal of landing people on the Moon and mars BECAUSE of the policy approach outlined by the PNAC founders who ran the US government once Bush was elected. Bush's response to China was to announce the US, too, would go to the Moon and Mars.
For anyone who has been paying attention, the events of the past few years were broadly predictable....and the consequences (higher interest rates, more expensive oil, declining US dollar) were also predictable....and I have been predicting them since 2002 if not earlier, based in large part on the chain reaction one could anticipate as a consequences of idiots like Wolfowitz, Cheney and Rumsfeld being allowed anywhere near the White House.
-
Jim Mora may well be one them.
-
I can see the aftermath of the drinks and late night reflected in the messy sentence about BSing out on the deck. LOL! I shouldn't say anything....I write sentences like that when stone cold sober....and don't see them until the 3rd re-read.
Re "The Jackie Brown Diaries", I found I had wandered off well before the end and didn't really care what happened. To put that in context, I don't watch much TV and failure to engage my attention doesn't necessarily mean a show is bad. It just means I had something better to do with my time. That happens a lot.
-
Re Ford: I have theory that US automakers don't want to make cars in the US any more which is why they ignored all the warning signs that small cars would be very much in demand the longer G W Bush stayed in the White House. If they run down the US arm of thir businesses, they can break the unions and / or import cars from their factories outside the US. Ford owns Mazda, after all.
-
I've had enough troubles with 3rd parties trying to manage Telecom lines that I have stayed with Telecom. The only real alternative was the several years I spent with a phone on Saturn Cable (later Telstra Clear) in Kapiti.
-
I came to much the same conclusions on my own blog yesterday. Neither Labour nor National have any ambitions to make TVNZ a local equivalent of the BBC.....an ambition that require more oney than TVNZ has received from either party now or in the past.
I'd like to see TVNZ become more like Radio NZ with pictures and few or no ads. TV is an information wasteland with a very few exceptions (Media 7 and Willy Jackson's "Eye to Eye" among them). Last night, CloseUp chased a whale around Auckland Harbour. I turned the TV off.
I'd rather they chased Naitonal around for some policy, frankly.
-
What I find interesting is that so many people are suckers for the 'treatment" Crosby / Textor has been dishing out.
Particularly in the media. You'd think journalists would be insulated from the policy-free appeals to fear and prejudice.....unless of course, they are in on it.
BOTH the Herald and the Fairfax newspapers (Stuff) simultaneously jumped (erroneously) to the defence of dimmer switches when the Government announced phasing out incandescent bulbs and saving 20% of all residential power use.
Sometimes you just have to accept the fix is in......
-
<quote>Holly, and here's another from the Herald of 28 June 2008: "PM's blocking of disabled carpark 'unacceptable', says pensioner." [...] Does the headline imply the the PM has little regard for the little people, like crippled pensioners? Yes. Is this quality journalism? Over to you.<quote>
This was disgraceful. In the same vein was the Herald's (erroneous) campaign against the nanny-state in defence of dimmer switches and chandeliers. Non-incandescent options are available. While wringing its hands over dimmer switches, the Herald overlooked the fact phasing out incandescents will mean a 20% power saving. That is 20% of 6.5GW average daily use. One Project Aqua was to be 520MW.....so now we don't have to build THREE Projeect Aquas.....worth $2 billion AND we get to save $500m in power charges. Total saving: NZ$2.5 Billion approx.....and several rivers.
The herald made that look like a bad thing if dimmer switches were in any danger.
Does anyone need any more proof of significant, ongoing bias against the present from the Herald?
I don't even vote for Labour. But a corrupt press is the enemy of everyone.
-
Matthew: As far as i can tell, it was the Pentagon that told the NY Times it was a practice run for attacking Iran. That's why they leaked it.
http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnL22601515.html
Citing unidentified Pentagon sources, the New York Times said on Friday more than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 jets took part in a long-range Mediterranean exercise this month that appeared to be a rehearsal for real missions over Iran.