Posts by Mikaere Curtis
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Given the big personal changes that he's made in his lifestyle and health, and that "you're only worth promoting if you achieve the incredibly hard" is a terrible message to send to society, I'd have to disagree. 'Success' can have more than one measure.
The message was "If Rodney can do it", which seems incongruous with what he actually did, which was not finish. It would seem odd if the organisers of a lengthy harbour swim would be happy with people to just give it a go even if (like Rodney) they hadn't trained properly for it.
I agree that "rescue" is a bit harsh, maybe I should have said "pulled out of the water".
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On the back of the buses in Wellington there are ads for a round-the-bays-charity swim, featuring a photgraph of a smiling Rodney Hide and the slogan 'if Rodney can do it, so can you!'.
That would be the same Rodney Hide who has had to be rescued twice whilst swimming across the Waitemata.
@Craig:
USA probably doesn't engage in state terror. Stop blowing shit up, and chill
Fixed. Oh, hang on...
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Carly Binding Referendum
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I hope the not so subtly coded supersonic race-baiting we've seen from Labour recently is going turn out to be a polling flop, and end up being quietly forgotten... Win-win-win, to dredge up another ghastly cliché.
Agreed, and my other hope is that when Labour finally wake up to reality and accept that Goff is unelectable, they will dump him and their new leader will firmly distance the party from Goff's reprehensible race-baiting rhetoric.
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Porkbone politics
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My favourite recommendation is that to increase wages to catch up with Australia, we need to reduce the minimum wage.
Seriously, WTF ?
Apparently this Task Force was a sop to ACT as part of their support agreement (hence the pre-load with ACT ideologues), so I'm not overly concerned that it represents a stalking horse as such, just more BRT/ACT propaganda, this time paid for by the tax payer.
To me, the real risks of the National government lie more in the feral nature of their ministers, and their overall policy vacuum, than in some kind of coherent hidden agenda.
Smith's ACC botching, McCully's MFAT derailment, Brownlee's Schedule 4 mining, Tolley's National Standards, Collins anti-boy racer authoritarianism etc - these all seem to be individual ministers given free rein.
The ETS, OTOH, reads much more like an orchestrated attempt to transfer wealth to - as I/S puts it - National's cronies.
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I asked the question about sites having a case brought against largely out of self-interest as an owner of a site. I was in no way belittling the concern, and certainly wasn’t suggesting PAS should be a test case.
Didn't mean to criticise your question, but was miffed that others (not you) seem to be taking light of the issue because they didn't think there was any risk. Hence my answer to you question quickly morphed into a rant about risk mitigation.
But has there ever been a case in NZ where a site has had a case brought against it because of comments left by people unconnected to the site?
Well, if someone graffitied my fence with the suppressed name, I could argue that I wasn't responsible since that was not the intended use of my fence. And as long as I arranged to get it removed I'd probably be OK.
Unlike a fence, PAS is actually intended to be a publishing mechanism, and it is open to the whole world to publish via the discussion forum. So, the publisher (Russell) is rightly the one who needs to take responsibility for what is published. I suspect the court would weigh up how closely he moderates any potentially suppression-breaking posts. Given that he can't physically prevent an illegal post, I think the court would reason that as long as he acted in good faith and within a reasonable time span (which would be quite quick, IMO), then he would have a defence.
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But has there ever been a case in NZ where a site has had a case brought against it because of comments left by people unconnected to the site?
I can't recall one, but Russell's only defence in such a case would be to prove that he's genuinely attempted to comply with the suppression order.
Even if the chance of being taken to court is low, the consequences are such that prudence is the only sensible course. I'd rather not have PAS shut down because someone - be it through ignorance or arrogance - breaks a suppression order. Especially when Russell has made it totally clear that he wants no skerrick of information about the celebrity being posted here.
For goodness' sake, if you can't RTFI, bugger off to the TradeMe forums !
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IMO, there is a connection between this kind of march and the Nanny State meme that National ran for years during the Labour government.
The problem being that anyone ill-informed enough to buy into the meme is typically unable to tell the difference between "Labour Government" and "Government". It all meshes into some kind of Over-reaching Authority, I suppose, so they end up being angry at whoever is the Government. Factor in the all-things-to-all-people PM, and there is some cause to feel let down if you expected your pet peeve to be put to rights.
I had a bottle of Bombay Sapphire riding on the outcome of the 2008 election. I rang my wife's uncle to concede the bet, and he said "Right, now that National is in the next thing they'll do is get rid of that bloody smacking law."
He was quite surprised when I pointed out that National voted for it.
I wonder if it is too much to hope that the marchers, having vented their spleens, will find something else to angst about while the actual issue goes the same way as Homosexual Law Reform, Civil Unions etc i.e. the slow dawning that the sky is, in fact, not actually falling ?
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and yes it's sad but alot of maori are defined and stuck in an 1840's mindset. i think it would have been better if maori never signed the treaty at least in the form of hapu and iwi cos it institutionally factionalised them and never allowed for new hapu or iwi while fixing disputable tribal boundaries into pakeha law allowing the good ol divide and conquer tactic to prevail. it stopped maori from becoming one people and one nation.
Actually, no. It's attitudes like yours that attempt to timefreeze Maori at 1840. Look, we'll define ourselves, 'k thx. The only immutable in Maoridom is whakapapa. Why is that ? Because it can not be changed, and everyone has whakapapa. You can (and do) have whanau who establish a distinct identity for themselves as a hapu within their wider iwi, which proves that traditional Maori structures are still able to evolve.
And while you may have extreme capitalist behaviour by some iwi, it does not follow that all iwi will follow suit. I'd like to see maximum participation and accountability in iwi organisations, but IMO it's all a bit like Europe: The Brits have not business telling the French how to run their country, same goes for me and any opinion I might have about Ngai Tahu (or anyone) out to conduct their business.
The long term strategy is widespread education, and this is demonstrably best achieved in a bi-cultural context.
just look at that wally in his suit and tell me what culture he's representing while talking about his family?
That's an incredibly narrow perspective. If you saw a Japanese businessman in a suit, what culture do you think he would be representing ?