Hard News: Unreasonable people vote
407 Responses
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I wouldn't worry about a Blackwater-style shift to the contracting model in the NZ defence sphere.
What about a shift to a US-style military-industrial-complex with the use of PPPs?
I have no problem with some functions being performed by civilian personnel who are, despite being non-uniformed, employed by the military, particularly things like back-office IT. I do, however, have a very serious problem with the private sector operating or owning any capital military assets. Even the most ardent libertarian believes that the state has a duty to provide militarily for the defence of the nation, and I consider that duty to not extend to enriching the private sector beyond the ordinary competitive processes for supply for consumable and capital goods.
The US military and its relationship with the private sector is endlessly corrupt. The opportunity for corruption just increases when you have private companies bidding to not just build, but also operate, aspects of the fixed military establishment.To the comment about civilian medical personnel, until such time as field medics are no longer required I don't see how that role could be civilianised (dictionary suggests civilised. *chortle*).
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You really should get out of the house more, if you believe that.
I will.I'm not here to wind you up so sorry.
I agree with everything Danielle said. I'm not saying you don't have a right to your views and I have no stereotype for a womans role. I guess I do see the worlds solutions as primarily political ones.
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I think, at this point, I will just link to this.
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Speaking of Buckley...
Every time I watch Buckley and Vidal bitching each other with their perfectly circular patrician vowels, I think of otherwise sensible lefty friends who still turn to mush as Mr. Vidal is busy losing what's left of his once formidable mind:
So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?
I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?
I’ve certainly never heard that take on the story before.
First, I was in the middle of all that. Back then, we all were. Everybody knew everybody else. There was a totally different story at the time that doesn’t resemble anything that we’re now being told.
What do you mean?
The media can’t get anything straight. Plus, there’s usually an anti-Semitic and anti-fag thing going on with the press – lots of crazy things. The idea that this girl was in her communion dress, a little angel all in white, being raped by this awful Jew, Polacko – that’s what people were calling him – well, the story is totally different now from what it was then.
Isn't it adorable seeing the object of a statutory rapist's affections being trashed as a "little hooker"? Are Vidal, Stephen ("ladybits don't like to fuck") Fry and Chris Trotter sharing a half-wit or something?
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I think, at this point, I will just link to this.
That's an upsetting reality.I agree.
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Jeremy, you've been around here for a while now so I'm curious. How did you think what you said would be received?
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Personally, I always like to level things out with a bit of this.
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here we are in whatever this is.
Now that is one hell of a T shirt.
and, story of my life so far :) -
Megan, my very favourite part of that comic is the 'group hug' panel with the very tiny 'no homo' on it. Heh!
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I think, at this point, I will just link to this.
Whatevs. Here's A Kitten. Only Connect.
That is soooo going on a t-shirt.
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Remember your English, people: woman (singular) - women (plural)
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According to an old Slovenian guy I used to work with, you could get away with referring to both one and many women as "voomenz". Usually prefixed with "bloody".
Pretty sure he wasn't a feminist, though.
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Keep your authoritarian hegemonic discourse off my free expression. Or not. Lookit - kitty!
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@andre Heh. I have that pinned up next to desk at work.
@danielle I KNOW! I've been linking to it all over the show. It's just brilliant. Made me feel so much better about being called names yesterday.
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I don't read every thread sacha.
The point I am trying to point out is I haven't said anything about stereotypes. I respect the Women on this thread and they make great points and every point they made was right.
This is the third time I've pointed this out. -
here we are in whatever this is.
+1
(The idea of stopping talking doesn't seem to have occured to Jeremy)
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(The idea of stopping talking doesn't seem to have occured to Jeremy)
Dude, clarification is important sometimes. I've seen you do it;)
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(The idea of stopping talking doesn't seem to have occured to Jeremy)
If that doesn't meet the definition of "silencing and patronising" (a tone Jeremy was accused of just one page ago) I don't know what does.
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Is it mansplaining if you do it to a man?
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Could I haz my thread back plz?
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Is it mansplaining if you do it to a man?
No, it's complaining.
Argh I cracked a joke!
geddit.:)
Ok, coat gettingoops, sorry Russell, returned.... in good order.
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Could I haz my thread back plz?
Certainly. Here you go.
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Hopefully -- but not likely -- with a sounder understanding of TARP than you have expressed above. Did you miss the part about how the TARP money comes back?
No. I was aware of that. And the money being repaid is not the point.
Loaning money to vast corporations owned by very rich people because those corporations are so big that they cannot ever be alowed to fail - politically that is a hard sell. It sets up those rich arseholes as set for eternity, they officially can only ever prosper.
And the point wasn't to "cause growth" -- it was to stave off a collapse of the banking system. There were some hideous policy failures in the years leading up to the crunch, but once it had happened, there weren't a whole lot of other options, for either Bush or Obama.
Well you say that and Bush said that and Obama says that, but theres these guys down the street who say differently. They say America didn't need to bail out the bankers.
And even if they are wrong, politically it sells.
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a tone Jeremy was accused of just one page ago
Actually, that's not quite what I said. I said he was using those tactics, but FWIW, I think quite unwittingly.
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One of my favourite bloggers ripping into Stewart's rally. Long quote, but do read the whole thing:
Stewart began his speech by saying that we live in bad times, not end times. This is dangerous bullshit. To pick only one example, there is an almost complete scientific consensus that global warming represents an existential threat to the existence of human life on earth. The Obama administration has done virtually nothing about it, because petty politicians in places like Kentucky don’t want him to do anything about it. And so he hasn’t. Certainly a news media that is beholden to energy companies is part of the problem — NBC is owned by General Electric, for example — but the more basic problem is this: if you accept that Global Warming is a big fucking deal, then you have to acknowledge that our system of dealing with that problem is broken. The image Stewart gives us of American citizens nicely deferring to their fellow man in order to get through the tunnel is dangerously wrong, on this issue at least. But you can make a similar point about all the other completely unacceptable elements of the status quo that our system has not so much failed to solve as it has refused to address or admit exist: health care, civil liberties, war, Wall Street, the “war on drugs,” etc. When Jon Stewart pretends the system isn’t broken — or presents us with a false choice between insane irrational panic and satisfied liberal quiescence — he hides this fact under comfortable illusions. The rational response to the state of the nation might not be panic, but the fact that so many people who are panicked are also reading the situation wrong doesn’t mean they’re wrong to panic, it just means they don’t understand why the system is fucked. Because the system actually is pretty fucked.
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