Posts by George Darroch
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The other half was of course down at the pub. Or 16 and hanging around the streets trying to get me to buy them alcohol...
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I might be an unrealistic idealist, but I refuse to accept that.
(I don't want to derail a thread though, so I'm not going to push the matter...)
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And be fair , the Greens IT policy was largely developed before Judith Tizard had signalled she intended to cut off people’s internet access on the say-so of apparent copyright holders. I was certainly working on in at the policy conference back in 2006.
Mikaere, I think that the spirited defense of the right to connection put up by Gareth Hughes and the party in the last 12 months speaks most strongly to that issue. The policy itself probably needs an update to reflect that reality.
That Labour's policy is vulnerable to attack reflects the absolute weakness of policy debate in NZ. Once again, I blame the media. It's very easy to attack Labour or whoever for having a policy that can be misconstrued or is not so tightly defined as to preclude any eventuality, but that state of affairs can only exist for the most important simplest parts of the policy landscape. If New Zealand is to ever grow up, it will have to get round to dealing with this fact. The other alternative is becoming the stagnant fetid policy pool that is the United States (where only policy driven by strong and vested interests survives because everything else is too vulnerable to a divided polity).
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It works well because it emphasizes off-beats, which are extremely useful in fighting arts – fool opponent by setting up a rhythm, and then catch them moving to it with a blow that comes half a beat early or late.
Yes, tension and release. Often heightened by a sweet female vocal.
There was an absolutely disgusting "remix" of Ka Mate recently. It fails on every level. I'm not going to post it. But despite that, I do think dubstep would make a good soundtrack to the not-so-beautiful game.
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Oh, and to echo Bart, a special thanks to the Tongan, Samoan, and Fijian communities, and the people of Mangere and Otahuhu, who taught New Zealand that rugby was a sport to be enjoyed. My neighbourhood still has flags everywhere (in lesser preponderance, but still), and the joy hasn't dissipated.
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Oh, and what's with the reflexivity of the Herald writers? I didn't watch the Wales - France game, but that tackle (as hosted for some time on YouTube, I'm sure it's down now) was entirely outside the law, and was very clearly within red card territory. Stoking the crowds against referees might be a fun sport, but it's ultimately unproductive, especially when it involves a tackle that could have killed someone. Intentionality has nothing to do with it; these tackles are banned and citable offenses in every football code, for good reason.
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I was resisting the game on Sunday. I was holed up in a computer lab in the University of Auckland's city campus, focused and trying to finish something. And then, at 5 minutes to 9, I realised that following Hadyn Green's tweets was not going to do it. I wandered through Albert Park, which was filled with drunk teenagers*, and made my way down to Vulcan Lane.
The emotion was intense, and I had never felt so emotionally invested in a game, lest of all one I had no intention of watching 20 minutes earlier. I do like rugby, but the hype that surrounds it makes me feel cold. The game was superlative, the most intense play I've seen from the All Blacks in a very long time. They wanted it as much as anyone can want anything in sports, and while they let up for a short while after their initial burst, they recomposed and put their entirety into it again. You could see the fans reflecting that. I felt for the one Australian, who got two hours of gentle ribbing. I've been there, having been in his situation for most of the last four years. Queen St was incredible afterwards. A roar of emotion flooding down the street. It will be hard to top that.
Actually, a question: what else were they going to do for 90 or so minutes? Our arrangements are hardly youth friendly, alcohol free Mangere Fan Zone aside.
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On the subject of skinny white soul, here’s something I described to Simon as “r’n’dweeb’. Not my coinage, and as he pointed out it’s more like juke than anything else. But good. Chicago, doing it again.
I also ended up discovering Melbourne artist Faux Pas. All over the place, in a mad decent way.
And last week, via Che, Kimbra doing her live thing in alleyways and studios. Seriously good.
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And capitalism really did pretty well in the 20th Century. This Australian Treasury paper on poverty and inequality in that century is worth reading. On life expectancy:
I’m a little too busy to craft a response right now (I have a term-paper on Indonesia’s primary healthcare system to finish), but if the rest of that paper is in any way like the introduction, it is quite frankly rubbish. Rapid and sustained growth in life expectancy has almost always been driven by state investments in public health, on both the treatment and preventative sides. China is perhaps the most striking example, going from a life expectancy of 36 in 1949 to 73 in 1997, but there are plenty of others, such as Thailand or Indonesia. The worst health disasters in the last 30 years have all accompanied massive disinvestment in health. It was the weakness and lack of funding wreaked by the World Bank and IMF on the healthcare systems African nations that left them unable to respond to HIV/AIDS before it had reached epidemic proportions, with all the consequences that entailed.
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Cryptogon, rather. Although readers of Neal Stephenson novels were more than likely concerned about such matters...