Posts by Simon Grigg
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Manakura
Here's a Tone Loc story for you. Go back 18 years to the time when Mr Loc was supposed to play Auckland but cancelled because he had a "sore tongue" (yes, indeedy...that's the best excuse for poor ticket sales I've heard). We were hosting the afterparty and decided to carry on regardless. Who should show but Tone and his minder....an immense black man..six foot something and god knows how many kilos. They sat quietly in the corner. The DJ, Andrew Tidball, a lovely, very humble guy who now runs the Cheese On Toast website, was doing his best to fill a half hearted dancefloor. He then played a track which included the lyrics "all the niggas, all the niggas, all the niggas in the house, get down" (not PC but that's hip hop for you)...Tone whispered to House who sneered then slowly rose and began walking very slowly towards Andrew with a huge frown on his face.
You could feel both the floor and Andrew shaking, and House's walk seemed to take forever as Andrew awaited.
When he finally arrived, he smiled, lent over and said "Can You Play Funky Cold Medina?"
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Even in Australia its been three years since Scribe was doing the business. An act like that needs to have a new album every twelve months, or at least radio singles, to keep any momentum going...especially in a time when hip hop is globally falling off the sales radar, as it is.
That said, Australia is the strangest nation in the world when it comes to pop music...some things last forever and things that nobody else wants to know about work there...putting it politely its a stylistic enigma.
That second Scribe album is years overdue but I hope he pulls it off...he's a master showman and one of the only things to have come out of the now fading NZ hip hop revolution that doesn't make me grimace. He's a true star if he wants to be, and Pete Wadhams is a masterful producer.
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A question to consider: If a discussion ends up being two people making long posts to each other, should it, as a courtesy, go to private email instead of being in the general discussion.
the thought occurred but once you start typing things tend to have a life of their own...apologies...
And instinctively I knew that they key comment on the thread, from Manakura, was yet to come.
But, yes, threading and editing would be a mighty thing.....
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I don't want to be a negative voice (although I guess I am being so) but, looking at it from afar, that BDO lineup ain't strong....maybe the weakest ever. I guess Tool will pull in the western Suburbs which is more and more what the BDO seems to be about. The boiler room in particular is lacking anything (and I exclude Hot Chip who are supposed to be fantastic live) to go Ahhhh about...I mean The Crystal Method DJs fer gods sake (who?)....and The Streets again....
The other oddity is the placement of Scribe, essentially a pop act...four years since any new material, a lifetime for his market...his timing on the main stage wouldn't have anything to do with the fact his management company is putting on the show surely....NZ Hip hop Stand The F up....again.....
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Hmmm...if I the funds were needed so quickly why have profits been funneled of to cover gulf war I costs whilst Iraqis had no fuel or why were Iraqis not allowed to tender for redevelopment contracts which were awarded US firms.
Much of the expertise you talk of is already there. Or across the near borders. Iraq has and had oil expertise the equal of anything else in the world. Even under Saddam last years they still maintained that pool of expertise. Its infrastructure that's needed. You forget they have developed and exploited their resources for decades.
And what in god's name is the "international left"???? Does it have an office??
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As for Iraqis wanting the US to leave, according to polls they want the US to leave after some stability has been achieved. Americans want that as much as Iraqis do.
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/27/iraqis-poll/
– More broadly, 79 percent of Iraqis say that the US is having a negative influence on the situation in Iraq, with just 14 percent saying that it is having a positive influence.
– Asked “If the US made a commitment to withdraw from Iraq according to a timeline, do you think this would strengthen the Iraqi government, weaken it, or have no effect either way?” 53 percent said that it would strengthen the government, while just 24 percent said it would weaken the government.
– Asked what effect it would have “if US-led forces withdraw from Iraq in the next six months,” 58 percent overall say that violence would decrease (35% a lot, 23% a little).
I note that the budget requests for the permanent bases and the massive embassy are still in there... I don't think Bush has any desire to get out of there anytime soon despite the public narrative.....history tells us that the truth and GWB are mutually exclusive zones...
And seriously...you don't think the US military knows that the death squads are coming out of the Security apparatus as armed by themselves...I know their intelligence is bad, but surely its not THAT bad...
Saddam's Iraq was bad but its all relative...its absolutely terrible now courtesy of you lot...so which terrible is better...hundreds of thousands died under Saddam...hundreds of thousands have died just as brutally under the US occupation (and you can't just throw your hands up and blame Iran or Syria or Al Qaeda, the US opened the doors to the current violence and the buck has to stop in Washington)....I'm having trouble seeing one as better than the other. Saddam's death squads or your Iraqi government's death squads. Currently some 14,000 are sitting in US controlled jails without trial, many for years...which is better...
Clearly, the majority of those surveyed above think that what is better is that the coalition undertakes an orderly withdrawal as soon as possible. They won't though will they.....
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James, you miss the point...the lack of transparency on those deals calls into question how the magical 75% figure is applied...and thats just for starts.
You seem to have more faith in the "seven sisters" than most of us and I hope you are right, but the way similar deals have been applied in the past give one little faith, especially, as we write, in Indonesia and East Timor where the 80/20 split to Timor Leste looks fine but doesn't bear any scrutiny and certainly the poverty levels in the world's poorest nation indicate that the defined 80% may well be less than 80% of 100%. Profit sharing is the easiest way in the world to screw down the return. Defining the net is the key and when the net is defined by unequal partners behind closed doors....and hiding and inflating costs, as per the above named states, in the gross is the key
There is a reason no other country in the middle east has bought into these PSAs. And if you don't think these deals are going to resound badly with the people of Iraq who are already less than positively opined towards your nation, then I suggest you are not looking closely enough. You really don't think they are blaming Iran for the mess, do you?
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With the PSAs and the oil in mind, today's editorial in The Independent is a worthy read
The Iranian revolution was the bitter harvest of a previous generation's oil greed in the Middle East. It would be to heap a further tragedy on Iraq if, in a country where the appearance of things can be as important as how they really are, the perception was to grow yet further that it was American greed that took the country to war. The importance of reflecting honourable intentions towards the Iraqi people is all the more important in a week when, in the teeth of a new Democrat-controlled Congress, President Bush is expected to announce a "surge" of 20,000 troops to "secure" Baghdad. After spending the Christmas break reflecting on Iraq policy, the President seems to have chosen what his obstinate character always suggested: to ignore the conventional wisdom and dig the hole in which Iraq policy is mired ever deeper.
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Simon,
So you think it is perfectly fine for Iran to support Shia death squads?no I don't but I do think its worth pointing out that all available evidence is that many of these death squads exist inside the security apparatus bankrolled and supported by the US government. Secondly, we have no evidence they are actively "supporting" death squads as such, beyond right wing US sources claiming such. What we do know is that they are supporting certain power blocs in Iraq, and its reasonable to assume that certain of those power blocs, in particular the one that is a major player in the current government has contributed majorly to the bloodshed and the like in Iraq.
In one of the great ironies of this mess, Iran is probably supporting many of the same groups that the US is arming.
But the singularly most destablising group in Iraq over the past four years has to be the United States, whose contribution to this quagmire dwarfs Iran's. Ironically they are also the most unifying....the one thing that both Sunnis and Shi'ites groups seem to have in common is that they all despise you....its hard to get past that simple fact but it still hasn't sunk in stateside.
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James,
the problem with your logic on the PSAs is twofold:Firsly these are not, as far as I can see, being negotiated by equal partners, the terms are being, and have been determined behind closed doors, in secrecy by firstly the CPA, and now the executive level of the Iraqi government under US direction. Since the terms being negotiated seemingly are outside the norm, the lack of transparency is a real problem.
Secondly, the return to the Iraqi people comes from the net revenues of the PSAs. As the people of East Timor have found out when dealing with Australian Energy companies, the percentage of a net return is not always what it seems.
Especially when 75% of that net return is being raked off to cover capital expenditure negotiated behind closed doors.Your optimism and benign attitude towards these deals, and these companies is noted but I'm afraid I'm having trouble agreeing with you.