Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: British style

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  • Danyl Mclauchlan,

    Could some tech-savvy at-risk youth explain to me how I get Public Address radio onto my iPod . . ?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 927 posts Report

  • barnaclebarnes,

    So here is where I have visited:

    Places I have Visited

    Interesting to see the old overland from Kathmandu to London trail mapped out. It was from when I should have been in 7th form and dad wanted to go traveling. He was only allowed to go if he took me. That trip probably did me more good that a year of Accounting and English. Thanks dad!

    On a side note I also have a places I want to visit map on Platial:

    Places I want to Visit

    I highly recommend adding a map of your own. Mine is far from complete but it is a great place to store all those places you would like to visit after reading about them always kind of forget them after a couple of weeks.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 90 posts Report

  • Idiot Savant,

    For those who are wondering where the piece on election funding is, it's here

    Palmerston North • Since Nov 2006 • 1717 posts Report

  • Craig Ranapia,

    I'm rather less exercised by the actual cussing that some people are having conniptions about.

    Meh... If the poor little darling can't handle Question Time, then I respectfully suggest he had in his ministerial warrant and fuck off back to academia. I also pointed out on Kiwiblog the amusing irony that the MPs can stand up and flat out slander anyone they like under pariamentary privilege - and the media can spread the muck far and wide because they're protected by (qualified) privilege in reporting the proceedings of Parliament

    Of course, anyone smeared by this kind of sleaze has NO recourse under defamation law, and has precisely ZERO standing to lay a privileges complaint.

    And I also have to ask what the Public Sector Code of Conduct has to say about civil servants telling their political lords and masters to go engage in auto-etoticism?

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    For those who are wondering where the piece on election funding is, it's here

    Duh. Sorry ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    Could some tech-savvy at-risk youth explain to me how I get Public Address radio onto my iPod . . ?

    Coming your way. Radio Live initially wanted to host the full-show podcast, but didn't get around to it, so we'll do it this week.

    And then there were problems getting the individual show components as MP3s, and then I munted the new attachments system for the RA Radio blog, and ... hey! It's a whole new week already!

    Things will improve ...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Michael Burns,

    Dissapointed to see you haven't been to New Zealand Russell. You really should check it out, it's a lovely place.

    Here's mine (Russia and Canada do help make it look a lot more impressive than it actually is)

    http://www.world66.com/myworld66/visitedCountries/worldmap?visited=CAUSCZFRDEIEITNLRUCHUKVASGKRAUNZ

    London • Since Nov 2006 • 4 posts Report

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    I like how a visit to tiny li'l Hawaii also marks big ol' Alaska too.

    (But what about the carbon footprint?!)

    I'd rather do a map for areas of New Zealand. There'd be a lot of red on mine!

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report

  • Sarah Wedde,

    One of the joys of insomnia is that I get to watch a lot of BBC World (on the free telly, not the rich folks one). Watching his press conference this morning I found myself musing on how much Mahmoud Ahmadinejad resembles the Sylvanian Families hedgehogs. Surely someone who resembles a cute little woodland creature can't be all that bad?

    Lower Hutt • Since Nov 2006 • 66 posts Report

  • Jamie Anstice,

    Make a BSA complaint, take a ticket and stand in line with the rest of us

    But isn't the first stage of making a complaint to the BSA notifying the broadcaster that you have a problem with a specific incident, and then if you have no luck you then complain to the BSA?

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 16 posts Report

  • Neil Morrison,

    John Derbyshire supporting the British sailors:

    Once again, it's me and Ralph Peters on the same wavelength, deploring the cowardice of the British sailors and marines kidnapped by Iran. When it happened, I said I hoped the ones who'd shamed their country would be court-martialed on return to Blighty, and given dishonorable discharges after a couple years breaking rocks in the Outer Hebrides (which, believe me—I've been there—have a LOT of rocks). Now, I confess, I wouldn't shed a tear if some worse fate befell them.

    Since Nov 2006 • 932 posts Report

  • Kyle Matthews,

    As I understood it, the sailors were following rules of engagement (or in this case, non-engagement) and surely should only have been court-martialed if they'd ignored those and opened fire.

    Anyway, as Russell said, it seems to have worked out reasonably well. I don't think Western powers getting in a shooting match with another Middle Eastern powers is really what the world needs this week/month/year.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report

  • merc,

    Now there's a book, Generals Always Die In Bed, by Charles Yale Harrison. I mention this because don't you just love the way John and Ralph above can rant on about how sailors should fight or be court-martialed. Ever seen All Quiet On The Western Front, boys?
    Are these people for real?

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Jamie Anstice:

    Yes - but if Steve Maharey doesn't like that, then he's in a much better position than most to amend the Broadcasting Act. Maharey has apparently decided not to lay a formal complaint with Radio New Zealand, so let's just hope he's going to have a nice long nap over the Easter recess and come back in a better mood. It's not as if Education and Broadcasting aren't too portfolios where there's a lot of work to be done, and real political leadership needed.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report

  • Tom Semmens,

    I don't know how outraged opinion has been in the U.K. over this sailor thing. I assume its split along partisan lines with the Telegraph demanding that gunboats be dispatched to treat the beastly Persians to a lesson in Her Majesty's justice, and the Independent and Guardian insisting on a diplomatic solution.

    But I do that amongst a lot of my friends,across the globe, the response has been curiously muted.

    And the reason for that, I think, is when you see the R.N. prisoners sitting about eating in a group, and compare them to shacked, hooded and sensory-deprived men shuffling from one isolations cell to another you lose the right to moral outrage.

    I am uncomfortable as hell that the "other side" treated its illegally detained prisoners with more humanity than "our side" treats its one.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • Riddley Walker,

    here's my 'Hater of Freedom' map.

    Meh... If the poor...[through to] ... engage in auto-etoticism?

    hope you'll be a little more compelling in your 3 minutes of fame Craig

    AKL • Since Feb 2007 • 890 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    But isn't the first stage of making a complaint to the BSA notifying the broadcaster that you have a problem with a specific incident, and then if you have no luck you then complain to the BSA?

    True. But if you're the Minister of Broadcasting, you do so in a very careful, by-the-book way. You don't pick up the phone and get angry.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Sonic,

    I think Mr Darbyshire is upset that someone took his causus belli (sic) away.


    I wonder what Mr Farrar is going to say now?

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 102 posts Report

  • Brent Jackson,

    Here's where I've been.

    Places Brent's visited

    I am not sure that a day in Hong Kong should entitle me to get all of China coloured in, but hey ...

    Very disappointed that Antartica wasn't there, that would've given a huge red swathe across the bottom of my map ...

    Cheers,
    Brent.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 620 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    As I understood it, the sailors were following rules of engagement (or in this case, non-engagement) and surely should only have been court-martialed if they'd ignored those and opened fire.

    Their "cowardice" apparently consists of (a) not shooting when they wre hopelessly outgunned, and (b) going along with the banal Iranian PR (which no one but the Iranians takes seriously anyway) rather than risk their chance of release. They're probably acting under rules in both cases.

    But now that the NRO chickenhawks have declared the British to be surrender monkeys too, who can they claim is actually on their side?

    This bit's hilarious:

    I nurse a quiet hope that if put to the test, I would stand up as well as any Marine. Whether or not I would, however, is irrelevant. Whether or not I could stand up well to torture, I expect Marines to.

    There's something deeply pathetic about that.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

  • Nobody Important,

    It's good news that the captured British sailors are to be released

    Anyone else bemused that while this story was the lead item on TV1's Breakfast news bulletins this morning, it came up LAST on Prime's Today Show news bulletins?? WTF?

    The Aussie news' lead story was about some Aussie schoolboys being arrested after raping a girl and then posting the cellphone video online; so that's valid - but last?

    (And since I've brought it up: the schoolboy rape story is awful; esp on the heels of our own Police rape allegations. When are MEN going to own this problem?)

    expat • Since Mar 2007 • 319 posts Report

  • Ben Austin,

    Isn't Prime news australian focused? So perhaps they just follow the lea a little too closely. I can imagine in Australia the cellphone case is far more important.

    London • Since Nov 2006 • 1027 posts Report

  • Ben Austin,

    *follow their lead (Australia)

    London • Since Nov 2006 • 1027 posts Report

  • Tom Semmens,

    Ohhhh, having just read the Derbyshire diatribe, I ahve to observe - it doesn't make sense. Firstly, he seems to think that everyone getting killed is a more a desirable outcome to everyone going home -

    "...It is the job of a Royal Marine to fight, and if necessary suffer and die, for his country..." Quite the armchair warrior then. But I am sure it isn't the job of a Royal Marine to get needlessly into a hopeless firefight when your only cover is an inflatable boat and the other side heavily outnumbers you and has much bigger guns. The he seems to think that one should only bow to the trivial (wearing a headscarf) after a suitable drawn out period of torture. Why one can't acknowledge that wearing a headscarf is eminently preferabl to having your fingernails pulled out and THEN wearing a headscarf is a lapse of common sense that baffles me.

    At the end of the day, U.S. commentators like Derbyshire have a disturbingly fascist bias towards the glorification of violence as an end unto itself. The attitudes expressed are disturbing not in the laughably childish logic behind his reasoning, but the way in which what he writes so spookily mirrors the attitudes one so often finds in reading the memoirs of ex Waffen-SS soldiers.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report

  • Russell Brown,

    I don't know how outraged opinion has been in the U.K. over this sailor thing. I assume its split along partisan lines with the Telegraph demanding that gunboats be dispatched to treat the beastly Persians to a lesson in Her Majesty's justice, and the Independent and Guardian insisting on a diplomatic solution.

    Actually, the Telegraph seems pretty realistic too, and is crediting diplomats on both sides and implying that the apologies from the sailors were a negotiated substitute for apologies from senior politicians in London. Which makes the brave Mr Derbyshire look even more stupid, given that would mean the sailors were acting under direct orders.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report

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