Hard News: A fairly weird encounter
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LOL. Confession
I've read the Truth more than once. A friend buys it religiously. The boxing commentary is actually quite good. The personal classifieds are incredible in their sheer size, you really get the impression there's a hell of a lot of hookers in Auckland working for bugger all. And the rest is amusing in a Viz magazine kind of way, once. I always chuckle at their headlines, in which 'vice girls' and 'gangs' have a lot to say, particularly about P and 'crooked cops'. I suspect all 4 topics are permanently on the payroll.
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Well Ben if you include each subject in a variant of the other that is at least 16 stories a week to fill the paper (or is it 4 factorial?)
crooked cops in vice girls and gang p shocker
P blamed for vice girls getting crooked cops involved in gang
vice girl's p from gangs pays off crooked cops etc etc -
Could one of our hard-bitten journo contributors explain the origin of the term "vice girl?"
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Liked the point the victim was named and shamed but that cops have a special protection by the media. One rule for all dogs comes to mind.
I don't think the name suppression rule works when one of the "dogs" is dead. You can't be prosecuted for defaming, slandering or libeling a dead person... can you?
Just like the last shooting (also a Stephen - there must be a conspiracy theory in there somewhere) the officer's name will eventually come out.
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I think Evan's right. If a civilian had shot a cop, they wouldn't be named til after their first court appearance.
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I want to know what National are going to do.
I'd rather no Government writes policy via press release and speech notes - because I think it's fair comment to say both National and Labour governments have been bit in the arse on that score in living memory. (Most recently, Steve Maharey exasperating the usually unflappable Geoff Robinson while trying to explain his definition of 'free' is somewhat different from... well, everyone else's.)
And sorry for being tediously pragmatic, but an incumbent Government does actually have one massive advantage over the Opposition at this point in the electoral cycle -- one more budget to cannibalise any policy from the other side that's going over with the focus groups. And I don't think it's naive to assume there's some nice fat spending bombs tucked away in the Budget process and the campaign strategy.
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Yeah sorry "dogs" wasn't a good choice but had the micro chip of all dogs and exceptions for farm dogs argument in mind. Poor choice of words.
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Craig, the incumbent also has an easier job communicating policy believably. They can just point to the current situation.
Your 'tedious pragmatism' does basically assume that National and Labour intend to share a huge amount of policy. If they had a bold new direction with detailed plans, which the other side couldn't swallow, then we might actually get some choice. As it currently stands it's Pepsi and Coke.
Not that a choice between Pepsi and Coke is worthless - if that really is the narrow band in which the overall public sentiment works. I personally doubt it, but I'm only one vote.
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Could one of our hard-bitten journo contributors explain the origin of the term "vice girl?"
I'd guess that it's a shorter, less sexual sounding way of saying prostitute/hooker/whore/lady of the night. It fits nicely in limited headline space, and isn't going to morally corrupt any innocents who happen to glance at the headline.
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If you're glancing at the Truth there's a pleanty of moral corruption. I think it might have more to do with prostitute being too long for their readers.
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Could one of our hard-bitten journo contributors explain the origin of the term "vice girl?"
Yeah it is strange. I guess they want to convey girls who deal with a broader range of the seedy side of life, rather than just hookers. Although probably most hookers fit that bill anyway.
insider, don't ask me to do that math on that! I did have a friend who wrote a spamming program to generate such titles, and the possibilities are endless. He had a collection of some of the funniest combinations it had come up with. I still reckon "You'll shag these b*tches so hard your c*ck will write a stern letter to the UN" was the all time best.
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Of course you can argue that the Iraq war is over if you define war only as the one-sided fortnight preceding the occupation of Baghdad in 2003, rather than the longer, messier bit since, in which perhaps hundreds of thousands of people have died and four million fled their homes.
Oh, you mean as Helen Clark did this week at the Oxford Union:
Iraq did not meet our criteria for intervention in 2003 and we did not participate in the war there. We did, for one year, send New Zealand Defence Force engineers to do civilian reconstruction work, believing that was consistent with the United Nations mandate established in the course of 2003.
Sorry, but is Iraq at war or not? Or does it depend on whether it's politically useful to the Government - if this is the Clark Doctrine at work, it's a wee bit troublesome.
Then again, we've seen a Government who seem to be a little confused about the current status of Kuwait - which is, as far as I'm aware, is neither part of Iraq or at war with New Zealand, or anyone else. Well, at least that's what Air New Zealand thought.
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Hadn't realised that Truth was still around - probably because they no longer have those in-your-face billboards that I recall from my distant youth, e.g.
Let's Give These Ratbag Students A Hiding
Girl-Crazy Dictator Pins Down NZ Troops
(That was Sukarno - something to do with NZ troops in the newly-created Malaysia during the Konfrontasi episode of the 60s).Girl's Riverside Ordeal With "The Pig"
Last time I looked - back around 1989 - they had Hine Elder as a columnist and a story about little green men being sighted on the Wairakei golf course.
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Oh, and for anyone who is still interested (and do hope you'll mention this Russell) Fran O'Sullivan has an interesting column on Phil Goff's Iraq-induced political Alzheimer's.
Money quote:
The Defence Minister should not be allowed to get away scot-free with this criticism given the statements he made as Labour's Foreign Minister in April-May 2003 after the US coalition of the willing disposed of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.
In April 2003, Goff issued a number of statements foreshadowing that de-mining was one of a range of options that the Government was considering to ensure New Zealand played its part in humanitarian and reconstruction efforts in post-conflict Iraq.
In May 2003, he set out the Government's position on Iraq. After reaffirming the Government's principled opposition to the precedent-setting potential of pre-emptive military action to effect regime change, Goff went on to say: "We should all, however, acknowledge with great relief and satisfaction that the conflict was short. Anticipated refugee flows did not take place.
"There were, inevitably and tragically, civilian and coalition losses. All will welcome the fact Saddam's apparatus of terror has gone. The death, destruction and abuses inflicted by this dictator on Iraqi people through self-initiated wars and civil repression has at last been stopped. It is now time to look forward. The strategic stakes in Iraq are too important not to."
Goff later welcomed the passage of UN Security Council resolution 1483. "New Zealand supports the establishment of the Governing Council of Iraq and welcomes the passage of this new resolution. It provides a sound basis for the engagement of the international community in the post-war reconstruction of Iraq."
Prime Minister Helen Clark was also in no doubt that the war was over when she later made a statement to Parliament trumpeting the Government's decision to commit non-combat engineering troops to Iraq.
"The Security Council resolution provides for those countries like ours, which did not participate in the war and are not occupying powers, to play a role in Iraq without acquiring the status of occupying powers. The Government has always said that New Zealand was prepared to play a role in post-conflict Iraq, but that there needed to be appropriate multilateral cover and authority."
As these quotes show, Goff was quite happy to use the terms "post conflict" and "post war" to justify the Government's contribution of engineering troops to Iraq in 2003. But four years later, he ridicules Key for making the same judgment.
To honour Clark's recent performance at the Oxford Union, I smell someone on Clark and Goff's breath - but it's not uranium. More like bullshit.
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I smell someone on Clark and Goff's breath
Ewww.
More seriously: it's somewhat unfair to compare statements made in 2003 (when we got the whole ridiculous "Mission Accomplished" blitz, and, if you defined the opponent as Saddam, he was gone, ergo no war) with statements made in 2007, when we should damn well know better (if you define your opponent as "terror" -- which is what happens in an unfriendly occupation -- then the war never ends).
Clark's Oxford Union speech also explicitly places the action "in 2003".
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linger:
Eww, indeed. Some__thing__ not someone. I believe that's a case of what Private Eye used to call unintentional vileness.
Otherwise, I'm not buying it. I did actually quote a speech Clark made at the Oxford Union earlier this week. There's nothing 'unfair' about noting what Goff and Clark were saying in the House, what they're saying now and pointing out an apparent 'flip flop'. Or does that only apply to John Key?
Sorry, folks, Clark and Goff can't have it both ways. If "the war" never ended, then Helen Clark and Phil Goff sent NZ troops into that war. What part of that don't you understand?
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What part of that don't you understand?
The part where the usually reasonable Craig Ranapia appears to clutch at straws. ;-)
In May 2003 the conflict seemed to have ended. In 2007, that appears not to have been the case. Phil Goff's comments, when placed in their proper historical context, appear sensible. We know now that the initial war against the Iraqi state was over then, but that the long and intractable guerrilla war hadn't got started.
Clarke's comments also make sense in this context -- they sent troops after the pre-emptive invasion, after the UN Declaration, and withdrew them when it became obvious that the war was still going on, despite Uncle Sam's assurances to the contrary.
It's all beside the point, really. The real point is not whether John Key was "technically correct", which would lead us into all sorts of digressions about whether a war has to be between states to be a war (no), or whether the war at the moment is the same war as the one that took place in 2003 (probably not). The point is why would a party that wants to be a government neglect to mention its policy on the major conflict of our times, a conflict which it has been asked about time and time again, with ever more evasive responses? We know what Labour's policy is -- they sent some engineers, didn't like it, now they're against it to the point of getting into histrionics over Air New Zealand sending a few Australians to Kuwait. We still don't know what National think, and apparently their leader thinks there isn't a conflict worth discussing. How odd.
Maybe National (and their supporters) should stop getting pedantic about who is 'technically correct', and start fronting up with their actual opinions on the matter.
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The difference is that Clark's speech contained within itself the context needed to interpret it correctly. You have to wilfully ignore parts of the speech to get the interpretation you want. Key's utterance didn't contain that context, and so lends itself to uncharitable interpretations. But I agree, it's a helluva stretch to go from there to accusations of 'flipflopping'. (Now, if one were to look at National policies regarding whether NZ should send troops, that might be a different matter.) At worst, all Key's blurt might conclusively show is that he's still relatively inexperienced at political speechmaking (and/or is not yet thinking things through enough before speaking).
The MSM coverage is ... regrettable. What the MSM should aim for on such occasions is to force politicians to clarify exactly what they mean. Instead, too often, they immediately take the least charitable interpretation and run with it. -
In May 2003 the conflict seemed to have ended. In 2007, that appears not to have been the case. Phil Goff's comments, when placed in their proper historical context, appear sensible.
Or to put it another way, if Key had said the war was over in May 2003, when Goff used the phrase "post-war", it would have been unremarkable.
To use it in 2007, while thousands continue to die, is somewhat ill-advised.
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if Key had said the war was over in May 2003, when Goff used the phrase "post-war", it would have been unremarkable.
To be fair to Craig, Russell - he also quoted from Helen Clark last week as well:
Iraq did not meet our criteria for intervention in 2003 and we did not participate in the war there. We did, for one year, send New Zealand Defence Force engineers to do civilian reconstruction work, believing that was consistent with the United Nations mandate established in the course of 2003.
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Oh, and for anyone who is still interested (and do hope you'll mention this Russell) Fran O'Sullivan has an interesting column on Phil Goff's Iraq-induced political Alzheimer's.
Indeed, I was planning to mention it. I was planning to observe what a bogus argument it was. Of course no one turned a hair when Goff used the phrase "post-war" four years ago, just as no one would have if Key had said it then.
But in the interim perhaps hundreds of thousands of people of people have died, more than four million have been displaced (many as the result of ethnic cleansing), and it's still too dangerous for a UN presence.
Accusing Labour of being unwilling to discuss Iraq when National has issued a "discussion paper" on foreign policy that leaves out Iraq altogether is more than a little disingenuous.
And then there's this:
Iraq now has an elected Government whose claim to legitimacy is undermined by a ruthless insurgency operation which many US and Nato defence analysts believe is sponsored by neighbouring Iran.
What does she mean here? That the government is on the opposite side from Iran-backed militias (palpably untrue)? Or that its legitimacy is undermined because it's on the same side?
I like Fran, and I appreciate the fact that she pops in here occasionally, but this is one of her going-into-bat-for-the-establishment columns, and they're never good.
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Oh, and also: as The Standard pointed out Key was dishonest in subsequent interviews about the context in which he made the "war is over" blurt. The guy's all over the place.
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The guy's all over the place
which raises the point:
journalists may feel they have to take a (probably) uncharitable interpretation of a political speech as a way of forcing clarification when a party otherwise refuses to be clear about what their policy is.
If that's an adequate justification for the practice, then I think Craig's objection disappears. -
Maybe National (and their supporters) should stop getting pedantic about who is 'technically correct', and start fronting up with their actual opinions on the matter.
Jake:
Oh FFS... perhaps we could actually stop dismissing simple matters of clearly recorded fact as petty 'pedantry'. I actually think it kinda sorta matters.
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Craig, as anyone who knows me will testify, I'm about as pedantic as they come. However, I think the arguments being made by supporters of Key are dissembling and disingenuous, and that Key's 'technical correctness' and your (and others) 'so did Helen send troops to a war zone or not' lines of argument so completely miss the point that they're comical.
I note, for instance, that you didn't respond to the substance of my criticism of your claims, or to those that followed mine, and instead played the martyr. I think it has been well demonstrated that your 'simple matters of clearly recorded fact' are not so simple, and rest on a definition of the 'Iraq War' that is ahistorical and decontextualised, and fails to account for the not so subtle difference between the initial invasion and the ongoing conflict.
I agree, it matters. It matters so much that we should think through these issues with subtlety, and respond to arguments, not to concluding sentences.
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