Posts by 3410

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  • Hard News: iPad Impressions,

    what has happened to Google Image Search?
    it looks like rubbish...

    It does, and it loads 2700 images at once, while not telling you where any of them are from unless you hover over them individually. As you say, rubbish!

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Hard News: Watching the Watchmen,

    we can only deal with what is, not some counterfactual world in which the United States had not invaded, or had invaded and done things "nicely".

    Except that they do this sort of thing fairly regulary; at least half a dozen times in the last 30 years. I'd like the world to tell them it's not acceptable. That would save a lot of lives in the next Afghanistan or Iraq.

    You're right, of course, that the situation as it is now is what must be dealt with; how best to proceed with that is really beyond my purview.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Hard News: Watching the Watchmen,

    Time magazine's cover this week is a brave one.

    I find that cover something of a disgusting distortion of the truth. "What happens if we leave?"?? It happened during a then-8-year-old American occupation.

    It's a cynical manipulation of an atrocity, and the usual US-justifying intellectual contortionism we've come to expect from TIME.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Hard News: Watching the Watchmen,

    As far as I know, the afghani is a unit of currency.

    Yep. 'Afghani' also = 'from Afghanistan', like 'Scottish' = 'from Scotland'.

    Slightly confusing, I suppose, when the Afghani prime minister is an Afghan (though not really, since the English prime minister is an Englishman).

    (ETA: at least, that's how I understand it).

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Hard News: Watching the Watchmen,

    Or, if you are an Afghani who has helped the US Army, does having your name published on Wikileaks really constitute "opening up information" as opposed to "being dead meat"?

    That could happen, but US military action actually has led to the deaths of something like 10-30,000 civilians in Afghanistan and God knows how many hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq in the last decade, and much more devastation and misery, not to mention confirmed coverups of same (and, very likely, a culture of coverups).

    We have all been and remain "good Germans" about that, so questioning the potential deaths caused by Wikileaks' recent document dump strikes me as a comparative triviality.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Radiation: This Is Not My Dan Carter,

    Quite a few positions between us and full blown fascism.

    I'd hoped that my comment implied that.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Radiation: This Is Not My Dan Carter,

    Is it even the least bit plausible to depict fascism in NZ?

    Yes, it is, if it's - for instance - a warning about where we might be headed if we were to adopt certain positions; "eternal vigilance" and all that.

    I couldn't support the idea that it's only proper to depict fascism after it's happened. ;)

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Radiation: This Is Not My Dan Carter,

    And strangely quiet.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Radiation: This Is Not My Dan Carter,

    Lest I appear overly curmudgeonly, Outrageous Fortune & Go Girls are both eminently watchable, and there's no reason yet to think that TINML won't be too.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

  • Radiation: This Is Not My Dan Carter,

    As others have pointed out, the blandness of the This Is Not My Life environment is explicitly intended to be creepy.

    Yes. It took me a while, but - as mentioned above - that did eventually occur to me.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report

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