Posts by mark taslov
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Hard News: History repeats: New…, in reply to Shulgin,
Ah the good old days when you could bowl up to a hospital, plead cannabis and score a free bed for the night.
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Hard News: Terror panics and the war imperative, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
I really hope we’re not going to be basing our foreign policy on death threats. I’m not sure that ends up places New Zealand really wants to go.
What exactly is our foreign policy based on currently? When it comes to conflict our foreign policy looks like little more than a franchise operation for Five Eyes partners, we’re led around on a leash to sniff the advertised going conflicts of the day, one bark yes, two barks no. Many may argue that New Zealand is already not in a place it wants to be.
Have we ever entered any conflicts in a combat role independently? Why not chip in for the Mexican drug war? The Sudan? Somalia? Nigeria? Include a second choice if that’s your inclination, get STV with it.
Where my understanding of calls for conflict falls down, and perhaps you can answer me this Craig; what sacrifice should be made to fund the hunting party, and how will it serve the greater good?
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Nicholas Shepherd shares his opinion on the fears.
The fears are that an openly gay parliamentary leader might fail to connect with Maoridom
Quite distinct from the connection likely to be enjoyed with that paragon of enlightenment: the Pakeha
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Hard News: Terror panics and the war imperative, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Key has no sense of scale or proportion…
Loosely related to what Craig asked; earlier today when attempting to uncover details of George Key’s alleged involvement in the Spanish Civil War, this fairly exhaustive article by Tom Scott was the pick of the bunch.
There were some other interesting tidbits here (PDF):
"I remember one really weird instance…He’d been drinking, I remember that. He came home and he’d bought me a train set. Mum had a real fit at him [I was] thinking ‘This is really cool, I’ve got these new toys’, and mum was having a real meltdown because he was home late and drunk."
and at Kiwiblog:
To wind up his mother, he presented her a National Party rosette when Muldoon won in 1975 (she did not like him at all).
The $40,000 debt that George left behind in 1969 would be $626800 today, just stop me if anything’s sounding too familiar…
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Hard News: Terror panics and the war imperative, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And nul points for not answering the question,
I answered the question Craig. I emboldened it.
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Hard News: Terror panics and the war imperative, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
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Via your retweet Russell:
John Key doesn’t think any action New Zealand takes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria will put Kiwis at risk of retaliation.
However the Prime Minister says terrorists should never be able to prevent international retaliation.
“You’re saying that the actions of terrorists will stop them standing up to those terrorists and I think that’s a dilution of responsibility that New Zealanders wouldn’t want to take.
I want John Key to sidle up to God and prioritise the defence of New Zealand. Regardless of whether these risks actualise, to dispute their existence shows a reckless disregard for our safety. This ‘responsibility’ could be levelled at any number of international issues that we can more or less guarantee won’t be getting a look in.
As denting as it may be to national ego, it’s time to stop kidding ourselves that the resources and numbers we could send in any capacity would be anything more than a drop in the ocean. Our measurable contribution would be our flag and the safety of those over whom it flies.
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Hard News: Terror panics and the war imperative, in reply to Ken Double,
ISIL are like no other animal we’ve encountered
I found the thematic coherence and comparisons made in Media Take quite strong actually.
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to tussock,
so basically just stealing all his stuff, lawfully.
That’s exactly how I described it to my better half.
every experience in my life with police suggests they are much simpler than that.
Yep. The salt granule is that Dylan has never been party to a search warrant.
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Hard News: Doing over the witness, in reply to Kumara Republic,
For sure DeepRed, casual collaboration is the essence. I know all too well where Chris is coming from here. In this and many instances it is he and others functioning as the voice of reason. This voice of reason in turn facilitates the extremists pulling back and consolidating their lines. The value I see in the extreme expressing the wayward position – and this goes for Dylan too on the opposite line – is that expressing the least desirable better equips the reasonable to recognise and express those features which define the current circumstance – which in turn can aid the collective in expressing the most desirable, though as adults we tend to shy away from this.
Children employ these methods when playing and conjuring up imaginary worlds. Someone like Marc may attempt to limit the expansion, employing extreme examples to highlight flaws, Dylan may be construed as too lassez-faire in terms not accepting what the centre may view as reasonable limitations. The key difference here is that children will take this process to its natural conclusion – at the end of the day – of reaching some kind of consensus as to exactly what kind of world is most desirable and in turn manifesting that.
Obviously a very simplifistic analogy, but I’m sure someone’s gone to the trouble of writing some theory on this.
