Posts by Andre Alessi
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to giovanni tiso,
In my hubris (a word that sounds so much better than arrogance) I used to think I didn’t have much of an accent, or much of an easily recognisable Italian accent at any rate.
My father was unmistakably a FOB Italian, even twenty years after he arrived. I was so used to hearing his accent that I didn't even realise he had one unless someone specifically commented on it when I was growing up-and they did comment, because small-town Hawke's Bay was so very beige. Even now, it's one of the first things people we knew back then remember about our family.
-
Juan Cole (one of the few people who seems to consistently get it right on Middle Eastern and North African politics) has written An Open Letter to the Left on Libya:
I would like to urge the Left to learn to chew gum and walk at the same time. It is possible to reason our way through, on a case-by-case basis, to an ethical progressive position that supports the ordinary folk in their travails in places like Libya. If we just don’t care if the people of Benghazi are subjected to murder and repression on a vast scale, we aren’t people of the Left. We should avoid making ‘foreign intervention’ an absolute taboo the way the Right makes abortion an absolute taboo if doing so makes us heartless (inflexible a priori positions often lead to heartlessness).
It's an extremely comprehensive piece, even if you don't agree with his conclusions.
-
Hard News: Getting dressed for the party, in reply to Rich Lock,
<gasp!> You had that dream, too! Now, if only we can persuade another 998 cats…erm, people to dream it, too!
The cats of Devonport are already relaying messages to interested parties. The short-tailed bossy black cat that lives near the walkway north of New World is their (and therefore our) leader.
-
Hard News: Getting dressed for the party, in reply to Paul Campbell,
The whole RWC seems like impending cultural doom – we were looking last night into cashing in all our frequent flier miles to escape for the duration – but it seems that most of the dates a blacked out …. we’re trapped
The People's Republic of Devonport is putting a plan into action to disable all ferries across the harbour (possibly with trained giant otters, details TBA) and sticking a roadblock at Narrowneck to keep out anyone who responds to the prompt "Rugby?" with "Maaaaaaate."
-
One of my favourite webcomics, Cat Vs Human.
-
Surely we can't have a "cute animals" thread without pygmy jerboas:
-
Standing Cat-In-Boots:
-
Hard News: Kittens and puppies for happiness, in reply to Joanna,
That's the popular AFox Twin's 'Window Licker', right?
It's the cleavage-free version!
-
Yay kittens!
Firefox has encountered a problem with Windows:
-
Hard News: What Now?, in reply to Ross Mason,
Finally. Anyone for Nuclear power in Aotearoa??? We would have ended up the long white shroud after an event like that.
After a 9.0 earthquake here, there wouldn't be enough infrastracture (or people) to worry about any sort of nuclear event. You can't plan for something this massive, any more than you can plan for massive meteorite strikes in urban areas, etc These events don't say anything about the safety of nuclear power in non-exceptional situations.