Posts by Russell Brown
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I know Anton as well, terrific guy.
Yes - and always an independent thinker. You should ask him about his rock 'n' roll years ...
-
So I say Key's speech is distinctive enough if one is prepared to be minimally charitable. Sadly, however, that's not Slack's metier.
Oh, I've known him a few years now and always found him very charitable, especially in the matter of buying one lunch.
-
I'm given to understand that we very nearly saw something significant happen at www.apple.co.nz this week, but there was a hitch. Next week then ...
-
Such malevolence and smallness from Slack. Blogs are so revealing.
So are comments. Enough of that please Stephen.
-
My 12yo l337 expert insists there's a shade of meaning between "pwned" and "owned" that I don't fully understand.
He pronounces it "pwinned", anyway.
-
Hager is not a fraud, as Michael Bassett would have it. The material, as usual, is sound – but the conclusions he draws from it can be wanting, and there’s evidence of some sloppiness in his secondary research (by which I mean the example above and the misattribution of Russell’s column).
That's pretty much what I think.
-
Found this rather interesting political obituary for DB in yesterdays Australian.
Who would have know what greatness we had in our midst, what fools we all are ;-)James Allan feels no need to actually verify what he says. Take this:
While Labour's been in government, New Zealand's growth has not matched Australia's, to say nothing of Ireland's or Singapore's.
Er, no. I think you'll find that for at least part of that time, New Zealand's GDP growth didn't just match that of Australia, it outstripped it.
...we can expect more Labour election wins, and a continued inflow of talented young Kiwis.
Oh really? According to this Treasury report ...
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/mei/feb06/default.asp
... the number of PLT departures slowed down last year and has never reached anything like the high point it reached in 2000, after climbing through the 1990s.
Departures to Australia fell sharply from 2000 and have been flat ever since. Here's the graph:
http://www.treasury.govt.nz/mei/feb06/images/fig10.gif
Allan, a Canadian who taught law at Otago and is now in Queensland, is a noted Treaty revisionist who was strongly in favour of the Orewa strategy. He also seems a bit of a jerk.
-
Hmmm ... went and refreshed my memory of the Shandwick complaint:
Hager's response:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0105/S00067.htm
Shandwick's response:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0105/S00065.htm
I think we can agree that the whole thing was a mess on the part of PRINZ, especially if, as Hager maintains, three quarters of his complaint was legalled out on a technicality and couldn't be presented.
-
Out of multiple reviews into complaints against Shandwick only one tangible thing stuck. Rennie posed the question: was it unethical of Shandwick to label Native Forest Action members "extremists" in correspondence to newspapers on its client's behalf. The Public Relations Institute, in an appallingly gutless decision decided it was and gave Shandwick a ticking off, despite ...
Woah! I think one of the whiffier aspects of the Shandwick campaign was that the letters to the editor were written to order by Shandwick employees, but signed by local residents. Maybe that's not a formal breach of ethics, but it's bloody duplicitous in my view.
-
Might Labour's response to the F&S issue have been different if they hadn't been spooked by Orewa and its reaction?
No, Orewa came after the Appeal Court decision on the F&S, and aimed to take advantage of public disquiet. Although the final shape of the legislation was doubtless influenced by Orewa.
And, yes, Labour was seriously spooked, not least by the NZ Herald, which went mental over the issue and had to crawl its way back. (Can anybody think of a more recent case of the Herald losing the plot?)
The amazing thing about the F&S debate at the political level was how almost everyone seemed to change their stance at least once. Act had about five different stances, from offering its votes for the government to legislate over the court decision without further ado, to publicly supporting Treaty Tribes. Its supporters probably had a right to be confused.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 2254 2255 2256 2257 2258 … 2279 Older→ First