Posts by TracyMac
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FWIW, the "CIA sting" theory regarding the sex abuse charges has been floating around since August at least - this blog by "Zennie62" in the SF Chronicle comes out and says it back then. Then there's even more explicit descriptions of possible "CIA ties" on Counterpunch in September.
Also back in August, Assange says quite explictly that he thinks the charges are a "smear campaign". Who it is carrying out the smear campaign is left to the imagination. His lawyers have not said anything explicit about the CIA theory, and certainly haven't been so stupid as to come out and say they believe the CIA is the source of the "smear".
Whether it's the Wikileaks crew doing a bit of their own spin and whispering on the quiet that it's the CIA (which I personally doubt), or it's their champions making the connection up out of whole cloth, I do think it's pretty moot. Wikileaks and Assange are don't appear to be running around saying that the CIA theory is ridiculous - of course, if they privately believed it was, they'd be stupid not to play the game at the moment and lose the publicity from the conspiracy-theorists and the more left-left wing types.
And I'd just like to add a +1 to the comments regarding the slut-shaming these women have experienced in the media in general, including by so-called lefties, and Catlin-the-lawyer can DIAF for claiming Swedish law will prosecute lack of condom use the same way it does rape. *eyeroll*
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...And now that I've played around a bit:
- endorse, sorry, VALIDATE the comments about placing the page navigation at the top of the comments as well as the bottom.
I like the numbering that goes << < 1 2 3 4 *5* 6 7 8 9 > >>, where the double arrows increment the navigation in 10s.- The font in the nicknames above the gravatar images is being cut-off for me. Letter descenders are missing (IE 7 on XP - I'm at work, so sue me).
On an unrelated note, equating a dislike of Comic Sans (ok for an invite to your home barbie, but not professional material) with a liking for obscure bullshit language in academic papers seems to to be an interesting equivalence...!
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MUCH BETTER!
*applause*
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♥ Ladi6. Glad to see the new album out; as you say, the last was pleasant, but underwhelming.
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Regarding station platforms that are too short for the trains, that's not much of a problem in the UK.
For some services, passengers for Station X are told to use the front two carriages only - if a FOB like me got it in my first couple of weeks in London, I don't think it'd be too challenging to implement in Auck as an interim solution.
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Oh, and agreed with Emma and Jolisa about Gladwell's brainfart. I mean, seriously, who doubts the role of communication in this day and age? It's not the same as action, but action can't happen when people don't know what's going on.
There is a bit of wank about the democratisation of publishing, but given the fact the world's mainstream media is stuck in the clutches of Murdoch et al, the fact that more people can broadcast more information is an increasingly useful way of getting some balance back.
There's a lot of moaning and grizzling about how much of what you get on the Internets is lies, but if it encourages more sophistication about received knowledge and improved critical thinking - something sadly missing in relation to mainstream media - that can only be of benefit.
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Regarding overqualified taxi drivers, it's always amazed me that the govt makes people jump through all the hoops, they get in precisely because they have amazing quals (although of course it depends on the institution those quals were obtained from), and then wastes them.
Why not start up industry schemes? You work for employer X, they get your expertise at a cheap rate (but better than taxi driving) for a year or two, review your work record, maybe do an industry exam at the end... like a cut-down apprenticeship. Can't think of any industry or profession that wouldn't work for.
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Actually, @Carlos, things like America, Australia and so on are reported on as nation of origin/immigration sources, rather than ethnicity per se. At least that's my understanding.
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To Graeme Edgeler, "NZer" was an ethnicity in the 2006 census. I understand there hasn't been another one since?
As for Pakeha, as far as I'm aware, it's the Maori for a white person - can't get more origins-neutral than that. It doesn't make reference to Europe, which I consider to be fairly irrelevant if you want categorise people in such a way.
And yes, I like the term for its social implications as well (that I am a European descended person from NZ), but that doesn't detract from it being perfectly suitable for use in a census.
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Oh, and for the person wondering what to do if you are of mixed ethnicity, select all that apply. It's not that hard.