Posts by SteveH
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Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to Alfie,
Slater hasn’t appeared in court but his lawyer has
So Slater can only afford to represent himself against Blomfield, but suddenly has a QC for this case. A QC he's previous tried to smear. And then he didn't even show up today. Is this Slater's case or someone else's case in Slater's name?
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Hard News: Show some decency, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
"(literally “shitter” but also used to refer to deceivers)"
I think you're saying that if we use "shitter" to describe these people we'll avoid any accidental offense? That's what I'm going to infer until otherwise refuted anyway.
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Hard News: Show some decency, in reply to Rob Stowell,
You don’t think the sudden talk of $10, no $20 or no- maybe $30 a week! tax cut! and for the plebs! is a coincidence?
A few months back, English said tax cuts were unlikely, and if they did happen, would be small.
Now there’s a billion or several being dangled. Show us the money, Mr Key!I don't think $10 or $20 or even $30 per week is going to buy off many people who have a strong moral revulsion to the behavior of Slater et al. I hope people also realise that any tax cuts will have to be offset by reduced spending or tax increases elsewhere (c.f. the last time Key graced us with tax cuts and then promptly raised the GST rate). Government debt has already more than doubled under this government and they've repeatedly promised balanced budgets.
I do find the hypocrisy of painting the left as prone to fiscally irresponsible handouts and then hinting at tax cuts quite stunning.
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Hard News: Show some decency, in reply to nzlemming,
National (45%) down after ‘Dirty Politics’ revelations
If National's internal polling matches this (and Collins' falling on her sword suggests it does) Key might have to widen the scope of the inquiry to be seen to be doing something.
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Hard News: Show some decency, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Or they just don’t believe it.
If you trust Key, and he keeps saying ‘yes we talk to bloggers’ as if that’s all it amounts to, and ‘left-wing smear campaign’ – maybe that’s all it takes. Seems to be the end of the story for many.
The other refrain is ‘I’m tired of it’. That’s harder for me to fathom, because it’s a half- acknowledgement there’s ‘something to see here’. But let’s not talk about it because it’s- nasty? boring? difficult? clashes with my other beliefs?I have a couple of right-leaning friends who just seem to want to ignore it all. I'm sure at least one of them would be all over it if it were a Labour government involved with a blogger doing this shit. They do seem to buy the line that Hager is a left-wing conspiracy theorist but the main one I hear is "everyone does it". Yet they don't actually want to look at it closely enough to even identify what it is that they claim everyone does. I suspect they know that if they actually examine the evidence they'll have to admit that it is a serious problem for National so they're indulging in a degree of willful ignorance. There is definitely some interesting psychology going on.
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Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to Rich Lock,
As we know, ‘Rawshark’ is the pseudonym of the anonymous e-mail leaker.
In Alan Moore’s graphic novel ‘Watchmen’, one of the vigilantes has the pseudonym ‘Rorschach’.
I thought of that too. The wikipeida page for the comic character says "he is introduced as the only remaining active masked vigilante not employed by the government" which seems sort of apropos. But rawshark is also the name of one the tools that makes up the Wireshark network packet analysis suit. So the name could also be a nod toward one of the tools used by the hacker.
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Hard News: Earning Confidence, in reply to James George,
Those criteria: that the issue which brought Collins undone be both completely unconnected with any of the revelations in Nicky Hager’s book, and that there be no real evidence connecting Collins to the alleged conspiracy she was dismissed for, are so transparently of help to the National Party long term that they would have taken quite some refining. There is the added frisson of embarrassing the NZ Herald whose loyalty seemed to be in question a little more than a week ago. Remember double is the rule. The Herald journo will be feeling that sting for years to come.
The whole thing is ridiculous. Key refused to sack Collins for several acts of corrupt behaviour that had her dabs all over em, but he flicks her for an issue where she is involved 3rd hand & circumspectly?
C’mon give me a break.I think you might be right about this.
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Hard News: Never mind the quality ..., in reply to Russell Brown,
This really interesting: David Fisher on dealing with Slater, then deciding to step outside the tent.
Very interesting.
I wonder how much the abuse Fisher and others has received has made other reporters reluctant to report anything negative about Slater. It must have a chilling effect.
Key's failure to condemn Slater's behavior is very telling. It amounts to tacit approval and I'd like to see more attention paid to that.
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Hard News: Didn't see that coming, in reply to Damian Christie,
It’s the same as can be seen in the winky face I-wonder-who-hacked-Whaleoil message he allegedly sent to Wayne Tempero. Even if it’s not true, he seems to like creating an inference.
He may like keep the inference going, I suspect as much because it makes Key and Slater look like idiots as anything, but I really doubt he was the hacker. If he was, he wouldn’t have been hinting at a bomb-shell to be dropped 5 days from the election, he would have been hinting about the book. For that matter I think it would be more his style to release the stuff himself (anonymously or not) rather than go to Hager with it. I also don’t believe Hager would categorically deny it was Dotcom if it was – no way would Hager be willing to risk getting caught in a lie.
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Hard News: Never mind the quality ..., in reply to Pete George,
Rodney Hide has emphatically disputed what Hager said about him being blackmailed.
Are you for real?
Hager said in the book, and Hide quoted it in the story, that there was no evidence that Hide had actually been blackmailed. He presented evidence that there was a conversation about blackmailing Hide, that is all.
Stop treating us as idiots. We will check the links you post so if they don't actually support your argument don't bother. Seriously.