Posts by Sacha
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Sacha: I'm pretty unhappy with the Campbell's implication that Key is, by virtue of his mother and the acclamation of the Jerusalem Post, acting out some sort of traitorous solidarity with Israel, rather than being his typical ill-informed self.
Agreed, weakens the argument. And Key is hardly the source of the government's thinking either, such as it is.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The really key people in this are the grassroots (papyrus roots?) soldiers. By withdrawing their consent, they force the government to move.
The higher-ups need to be in on it too, surely.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to BenWilson,
The SWG does not recommend compulsory KiwiSaver at this time, partly because there is considerable scope for improvement without taking that step.
But mainly because it is ideologically unacceptable to the hand-picked righties on the working group and their masters.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to BenWilson,
Yes, there's an amazing lack of leadership and ambition going on.
If only Kiwis were allowed to apply for roles in the US government, eh.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
I can't wait to see Chris Trotter's take on all this.
It's bound to be uppity wimmins to blame, undermining the proud socialist peckers of the nation's menfolk.
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OnPoint: Election 2011: GO!, in reply to Paul Williams,
Despite pretence of a hands-off approach, the current government is clearly pinning most of its economic hopes on the farming sector - with targeted research funding (replacing broader R&D proposals), massive ETS subsidies, resource consent and regional governance changes, and now the suggestion of publicly-funded irrigation schemes as advocated by Conor English and chums. Real champions of private enterprise.
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Just found Gordon Campbell's story about Key's feeble response. I'm sure yesterday's Breakfast interview had more context and that Key is being poorly advised by craven toady McCully, but I can see why people are alarmed.
Key: Well, the concern is that there are some nations that simply do not recognise Israel. And, taken to the extreme, in Iran, Ahmadinejad has said he basically wants to see Israel wiped off the face of the Earth. So, it’s a very serious situation. Egypt’s provided stability and leadership and calmness. Obviously, the hope always being that that position would spread across the Middle East, that it would be possible to broker a two-state solution, with recognition of Palestine as well but this certainly looks like it’s taking things, potentially, in the wrong direction.’
Newsflash for Key: what Anwar Sadat and his successor Mubarak were offering wasn’t stability, it was tyranny.
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On the ground, New Zealand citizens have also felt abandoned by their leader during this time of crisis.
Other nations – including Australia, Thailand, Canada and the US – have put plans in train to evacuate their citizens from Egypt as the demonstrations approach crunch time. Instead, Key has indicated that there no immediate problem, and talked vaguely of asking the Americans for help if the need arises. New Zealand officials have been denying the need for government action, by saying that the fastest way out of Egypt is on a commercial flight.
Hopefully our government's position is becoming more constructive today, though they still seem to be putting their faith in the free market for evacuating our citizens, and hand-wringing over the impact of their failure to take action sooner. Muppets.
"What we don't want to do is create an expectation that there will be any particular outcome [on New Zealand Government action] occurring. We want people to be encouraged to continue to seek or to maintain any commercial options they've got," McCully said.
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"Inviting people to go travelling on the day that there's going to be a major demonstration might not be the best advice that we can give them." -
Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to giovanni tiso,
If I read the phrase "the Twitter generation" one more time in the coverage of this thing I'm going to kill somebody.
All part of the cunning plan to spread the revolution
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Egypt now shutting down its sole functioning ISP.
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Hard News: "Orderly transition" in #Egypt, in reply to Bart Janssen,
that doesn't mean twitter and facebook are major players in the protest. Yes those media are being used but I seriously doubt they are the major routes of information flow within Egypt. When they shut down the mobile phone network then I'll pay attention.
In places like Egypt, Twitter is used mainly on mobile phones, isn't it? Think of it as the social layer that helps route messages to groups. Like a telephone tree on steroids.
Not sure if anyone's linked to it already but I've read coverage that positions youth leaders in the driving seat alongside the Brotherhood and Elbaradai. Social technologies are business as usual for them, thoroughly integrated with older forms of social organising.
The regime knew that, which is why they took the unprecedented step of cutting off their whole country's internet access to the world and one another. I don't believe they're leaving the telecoms networks alone either (not that they were ever without interference), but others may have some info about that.
EDIT:
followed by the entire mobile phone network
Things moving way too fast for me, even just on this thread.