Posts by Chris Waugh
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Capture: The Colour Of Spring, in reply to Nora Leggs,
and more purple
Wow! Astounding!
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to mark taslov,
I agree. I'm just more inclined to give MFAT the benefit of the doubt than I am McCully or Key, and if Rodney Hide wrote it, I'm inclined to add the kind of grain of salt that would have even the most hard-boiled hutong born and bred Old Beijinger muttering "go easy on that".
So, sure, if it was an MFAT screw-up - and they certainly do happen - then somebody should face the appropriate consequences. But I'm not convinced it was. Not yet, not from the evidence that's out there.
A propos of nothing: Was at Chaoyang Park this morning. Patriotic music piped over the speakers. We were up the northeast side, where there was some Cross-Straits shindig going on. S3kurity. On our way out some fresh-faced lad who looked all of 18 and just in from some village on the outskirts of Dachang tried to smile at me as we left. In other circumstances, especially had he not been dressed in 特.警 style get-up carrying a truncheon at a gate swarming with other gu@rds, some dressed like him, others in normal uniforms, checking bags, m3tal detectors, I may have responded other than by glaring at him and walking on. My impression is the situation was more normal in other parts of the park away from the shindig.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Trevor Nicholls,
On that basis you’d have to reject the result of every election that is held for a single position, unless it was unanimous.
Why?
Brazil is heading for Round 2 of its presidential election. France and (I believe) many other countries have a similar system: If no candidate wins a majority in Round 1, the top two candidates have a run-off. Winner is first to win over 50%.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to mark taslov,
Further marks lost in Beijing (2008);
That's odd. I've renewed my passport here twice now. First time the Embassy was totally up front about how they most likely would not be able to get the new passport back within the PSB's time limit, but would give me a letter to explain everything. The PSB officer didn't look happy and asked me if that really was as quick as I could get in to the PSB, and I said yes, I'd just come straight from the Embassy, then it was all good. Second time round the PSB officer didn't even grunt, just did it.
We also had an incident here involving a staff member in distress (privacy; no details), and Chris Holah and her husband both went way above and beyond the call of duty helping us sort the situation out and get said distressed staff member safely on a plane home.
As for Rodney, I thought he was just gratuitously slagging off bureaucrats because... well, I only bothered reading because you linked to it with a strong hint there was more to his rant than I normally associate with screeds written by Rodney Hide.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to mark taslov,
The dragon opens an eye; a most unexpected contender. Well done sir.
Except that my experience of MFAT is the complete opposite of what Rodney Hide describes. In my experience they are superb, highly professional, highly competent. I'm still surprised at how badly they apparently screwed up in this case.
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I like how the setting sun two-toned this building.
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More lost furniture…
...but something tells me it needs something done with the colours. Better than I can manage, though.
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Capture: Upside Down, Inside Out, in reply to JacksonP,
Ville Close
Belle. And the top one - water colour? Post card? Dreamscape? One of those ones where the reflection shows more depth* than reality.
*just to be clear, I don't mean "Strong swimmers only, and for crying out loud, take your boots off before you jump in". I love those reflections that go surreal like that.
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dew drops
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Speaker: Compulsory voting and election turnout, in reply to Steve Parks,
No, I meant about some prisoners not being able to vote.
Oh, right, sorry.
I would say that death should be where we draw the line. Citizens should have to die before they lose the right to vote. And no, I do not support the death penalty. So, basically, .... no, let me rewrite that all.
The line at which one loses the right to vote should be where one ceases to be a citizen. So, normally that would be death, as dead people aren't citizens. But I'd also be quite happy with those who renounce their citizenship losing the right to vote.
So, for prisoners, I don't care how heinous their crime or how long their sentence (even preventive detention), they should have the right to vote.
Also, what Ben Wilson said about extinguishing people's rights against their will. It was, as he said, a thousands years struggle to get where we are (and many a country, like the one I've been resident in these last 15 years, still have a long way to go to reach equivalence with NZ), and now all of a sudden people are trying to roll back these hard-won rights. Disappointing, to say the least.
