Posts by Hebe
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Isn't Lorde/Ella amazing? Wonderful talent, stage persona, and teenage-goofy. And she's still connected to her peer-group fans, the Auckland originals and the ones around the country -- like my two 15-year-olds who have dreams and have been riveted and inspired by her creative achievements and where they have taken her. Wearing school shoes to the Grammys: how real is that? They are especially taken by David Bowie's praise.
Thanks Lorde/Ella: you've uplifted us all in this house.
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I'll renege on the "polling must be crap". Beloved tells me National has risen. I am astounded by John Key's attack, even more so if they are popular. What does this guy not get about MMP: that it is a collaborative system designed to encourage co-operation rather than conflict?
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The Nats' polling must be crap to go on this suicide mission so early in the year. Smacks of desperation if it's part of the grand plan. Or John Key losing his patience and the plot if it's unscripted.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11193679
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Stewart,
Thanks for the link to the David Simon piece.
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Capture: Emma in Egypt, in reply to Emma Hart,
In my yoof I would have rather crawled over broken glass than go on a guided tour. Now -- whether it's wisdom or loss of bottle -- I would seriously consider it for some parts of the world. I have always loosely planned a route based on things I wanted to do, caught a plane and started from there. I believe Morocco is somewhat more tourist-friendly now, but I would treat the risks with rather more respect than I did.
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Thanks for doing the hard yards for us Emma! Great windows into other worlds. I didn't deal nearly so well with the Arab world: I would gather a pile of oranges, some rough bread and a good book and hole up in the room for a couple of days and escape and gather my strength for the next round. ( I spent a few months travelling rough around Morocco in the 80s: adventuresome and exhausting.)
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to nzlemming,
Well put. In a New Zealand context this government is right-wing, very. Globally, not so much but they're trying. And NZ is where we are, with one of the most workable of Western democracies, so why do we need to go down the path others have taken? They could learn from us rather than the reverse.
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Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I disagree Craig: the Key government is ideologically driven out of the very-definitely-right school of thought. It's present actions and programme are set at the pragmatic "what the electorate can be persuaded to accept" level of right wing; that will deepen next term as systemic changes wrought over the last five years bed in and as the inevitable arrogance of a three-term government (of whatever hue) kicks in.
A third term will see a right-wards path that will be very hard to reverse or halt for any subsequent government and that will be buffed to acceptability for several
years by a booming economy fuelled by the Christchurch rebuild and dairying and unhampered by inconveniences like the need to adapt our economy to a changing climate. -
Hard News: All John's Friends, in reply to Joe Wylie,
Sometimes we behave better than we want to.
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More of note than what JK is saying is the way he's framing it: Green as radical left, Labour as Left, National as centre. That line clearly shows the results of their recent polling and the strategy this year.
The key predicted driver of the economy for this year - the much announced rampant "rebuild" of Christchurch -- is stuttering. It's still a house repair process rather than a CBD rebuild. News that the owner has walked on plans to rebuild the key Triangle Centre block (Colombo, Cashel and High) because the numbers don't add up will worry the hell out of CCDU and the government. The $35 billion of insurance money may just walk out the door to invest elsewhere for at least a few years.