Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: The long road to Hit and Run, in reply to Kevin McCready,
You’re the one who is phrasing it as though they have been mildly naughty, and has expressed disquiet over some pretty fundamental aspects of the mindset of elite military all over the world. It is unclear what, exactly, you’re talking about, especially as all I know of this is what I’ve read second-hand in the media as I haven’t read the book. Stop being oblique and speak clearly.
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Hard News: The long road to Hit and Run, in reply to Kevin McCready,
Some SAS are clearly liars without honour who don’t perform to their own standards integrity.
Oh, so they're human. Goodness, what a shock.
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Hard News: The long road to Hit and Run, in reply to Kevin McCready,
I was disappointed with Guyon saying the SAS was a respected institution.
Within the military, nationally and internationally, they are absolutely respected. Any objective assessment of their capability puts them on par with any other special operations force in the world. You may disagree with their ethos, and you clearly have a problem with at least some aspects of the mindset of elite soldiers, but they are a very capable, competent outfit.
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Hard News: The long road to Hit and Run, in reply to Russell Brown,
The high command of the New Zealand military, they argue, is increasingly dominated by former SAS officers: a tiny but highly influential component of the overall organisation.
They’re not wrong.
Lieutenant General Keating, Chief of Defence Force, did three stints with NZSAS, including as Commanding Officer.
Major General Kelly, Chief of Army, has served with NZSAS including as CO.
Brigadier Parsons, Deputy Chief of Army, has served with NZSAS including as CO.
Warrant Officer Class One Mortiboy, Sergeant Major of the Army and the highest-ranking enlisted soldier, is a former Transport Sergeant in the NZSAS.
And those are just the current serving senior members who have online biographies readily available. When one considers the small size of the Regiment, that’s a lot of representation at the top end.
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Legal Beagle: On Gell-Mann Amnesia; or…, in reply to st ephen,
If Kingi had been white he never would have been charged with ‘assault with intent to injure’ in the first place,
O'rly? Statistically speaking, the offender in this case is highly likely to be white.
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Legal Beagle: On Gell-Mann Amnesia; or…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I don't get how moving to Auckland, where his family home and treatment centre are, would make monitoring so difficult as to preclude a sentence of community detention.
Graeme will doubtless correct me, but could it be because district courts are, for reasons that I don't entirely understand, discrete entities? Move to Auckland, no longer under the jurisdiction of the Dunedin court.
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Speaker: Apocalypse on the count of…, in reply to Tristan,
the sign saying no loan zone is terrfiying
Not at all unusual. It's just good security practice to not let individuals be in high-sensitivity areas.
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The most stomach-turning part of that piece (nice work, btw), for me, was HNZ's internal discussion about drug-testing potential tenants. That is truly, truly vile. As others have observed, HNZ has become completely devoid of any cognisance of its role as a crucial part of the social safety net.
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An adult conversation would not include lies through omission of the fact that up-zoning of a property is not followed by a bulldozer and a wrecking-ball to enforce said up-zoning. Oh, and should also include the denunciation of anyone who tries to claim that their objection to up-zoning is "property rights".
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Well, the situation with Meredith McIver just got serious for Trump. He's now alleged to have broken federal elections law by having a corporate employee carrying out duties on his campaign.