Posts by Keir Leslie

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  • Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…,

    It is possible that there is no connection but whatever, I’m [inclined] to wait and see just what this [guy's] motives are. They may or may not [suit] my political prejudices.

    There's a woman lying in a hospital bed with her brains blown out. She received death threats over her political views. Her opponent at the last election held a campaign event where supporters helped remove her from office via the good offices of the fully automatic M16. She was quite literally targeted for elimination by a woman who makes a political sport out of hunting, who calls upon her followers `not to retreat, but reload'.

    It doesn't matter if Palin pulled the trigger. What matters is that she legitimised a culture of violence where shooting your congresswoman seemed the responsible thing to do.

    That's why she's standing in the dock tonight, here and around the world.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

  • Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…,

    Good grief. Everyone who can ought be pointing out right now that, while it is true that this guy appears to be a nutter, as Bill Clinton put it

    [...] the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

  • Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason,

    The tram here in Christchurch is utterly useless, it has to be said.

    (& in fact personally speaking, it's been pretty harmful, given that I've fallen off my bike when my front wheel has got trapped in the the tram tracks.)

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

  • Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…,

    Er, yeah. You know, that website makes me think that banning niggardly is a really really good idea. It would piss off exactly the right sort of people.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

  • Hard News: Media 2011,

    At present, however, he’s bailed to a big house in the country, and I really can’t see the Brits making more than a perfunctory fuss.

    Er, really? The English justice system is in point of fact not run out of the White House.

    It would be, firstly, the Norfolk Constabulary investigating the abduction of a very famous man with a great many powerful friends* by a foreign power. Then, certainly, it would be a major issue in both Houses of Parliament. There would be a series of cases brought against any one involved in any way, in the civil, criminal, and European Courts.

    That is merely the official reaction; every newspaper in the country would have a field day, and so-on. There would be a fuss, unless you think that the US can suborn pretty much the entirety of the British political and judicial systems, the British media, and the British public. (Which, let's be honest, they'd already have done if they could.)

    * I mean, he's getting legal help from a former judge of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone; this is not a man who will be swept under the rug.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

  • Hard News: Media 2011,

    It’s not like the US is lacking in people with the requisite skills and capabilities to have Assange miraculously appear on the doorstep of the office of a US Marshall with no evidence as to how he arrived.

    I really strongly doubt that this is true, at least as long as Assange is in another country's justice system.

    PS:

    Sounds to me as if you have never done a real budget Christopher

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

  • Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys,

    Hell, did you read the Shipley bio? A women's mag editor would have sent it back with `too grovelling' written all over it.

    The US Embassy in Wellington appears to be, to put it politely, a bit of a backwater.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

  • Speaker: It's called "planning" for a reason,

    Can I just note that using Wellington as a metonym for the Government in these discussions is a really annoying habit, and rather confusing to boot?

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

  • Hard News: My Year in Culture,

    And best thing of all, without the chemicals and preservatives, you can avoid the worst of the hangover just by staying hydrated.

    What do you mean, without the chemicals & preservatives? If it doesn't have C2H6O (a chemical and a preservative) in it, you can barely call it beer.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

  • OnPoint: Pay Attention,

    Leaking Plame’s identity was an example of what happens when a ruling group with bad intent are the only ones with access to the information.

    Something that Wikileaks makes far far more likely.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report

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