Posts by dc_red
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Fair enough to talk about immigrant numbers (even including the number zero).
I hope not. Zero would preclude immigration on the basis of family/partnership, and deny the right to family life involving those with passports from places other than NZ and, presumably, Oz.
I secretly suspect the mustachioed Mr Brown wouldn't actually mind as long as the partners weren't these "horrible" Asian sorts. Although what better form of "integration" is there than joining an established Kiwi family I wonder?
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Well said! Although I, for one, am quite glad to have a physical appearance rather different from Mr Brown ... although perhaps not different enough for him to dislike me on an automatic basis.
Funnily enough there was a NZ First stand at the Kumeu A&P show attended by Mrs_Red and myself a month or so back. I was interested to see what sort of person staffs a stand ... a fat old white guy in a white cowboy outfit. He didn't do as much business as the Kiwi Party with its bloody referendum.
Back to the topic - I agree with you, and Dr Le-Ngoc, that the real danger in these kind of outbursts is that it encourages a substantial portion of the population (certainly much greater than 1%!) to be cruel to those they perceive as different. There are a quite a lot of NZers who, unfortunately, don't need a lot of encouragement in this regard.
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Eddie - try watching the individual clips on the "A taste of Media 7" page. You will also get to hear (I believe) Craig Parker's soothing voice before each clip.
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I have secretly been taking some solace in stories of Bad Baby Bob. "The forthcoming 'Lil Red can't possibly be as bad as Bob" I tell myself. It is a little reassuring.
Interestingly, as reported in the Bob/Rodney post, midwives do say "Oh that's perfectly normal" a lot. Given that this appears to be their standard response to any reported issue, I do sometimes wonder why they bother asking questions.
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The Codswallop Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence?
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Tom - your pertinent examples of blog-based primary research, combined with some other examples coming to my mind, make me wish to revise some of my earlier comments that bloggers often/usually only comment/analyze. It was a poor generalization on my part.
Your point about correcting factual errors made by the professional media (who are paid to know better) bears reiterating too.
RB's point about bloggers undertaking serious analysis of public documents ("secondary research" - or, rather, "research using secondary sources") is also important.
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No, but I do remember the pomposity of "The Ralston Group".
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Paul - indeed. The more I think about it, the more I wonder whether this little outburst is related to the fact that RB (and PA more generally) are not only refusing to follow the "Labour government in its dying days" media narrative, but have even had the gumption to criticize it.
Thoughts?
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BW - exactly. Either Ralston doesn't know about how the contemporary media works (in the manner you describe), or he doesn't care.
Whatever, from what people are saying it was a dirty, petty and personal attack on our gracious host for no obvious reason other than "he could".
As per yesterday's discussion, there is an unfortunate failure in some quarters to distinguish between professional and relatively polite criticism of someone's work and ideas, and being, well, a total bitch.
Although sometimes Darth's love of the cut-and-paste function does push even me over the edge ... ;-)
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Bitter babyboomer said in the Listener:
Most blogs are simply opinion, commentary or, occasionally, analysis. There is little or no original reportage in this new form of media. Seldom do bloggers unearth any genuine facts. Most of the time they simply repeat what they have gleaned from the traditional news media and then launch into a rant.
Well, reading National Party press releases (newstalk zb), columns devoted in large part to Bible quotes (darth george), and sky-is-falling hysteria (nzherald anti-EFA campaign) are hardly examples of "original reportage" either. The difference being that reporters are paid to undertake such reportage, while most bloggers write as a hobby. Which helps to explain why we often don't "unearth genuine facts" ... although quite often bloggers are able to point out that the "genuine facts" revealed by the professional news media are, in "fact", crap.
Even done so myself once or twice. Like here.
As BenWilson points out above, there is more analysis than you can shake a stick at on blogs. This reflects the fact that for most it's a hobby.