Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Chasing the Trans-Pacific Express, in reply to joseph,
Wow, I normally agree with most of what you write, but irritating and confusing? Yikes! I love my TiVo, and find it highly enjoyable to use. The kids can use it to put Hi5 on after kindy, it cant be too confusing if my 5 year old can use it! (the TiVo kids zone function is great!)
Fair enough. But compared to MySky, it's a mess. Things like recorded programmes being under "Now Playing" were too cute. The number of clicks to record a programme was too many. I really just started to hate having it as my default Freeview decoder.
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Raymond A Francis,
Sofie, there are strict rules about diversion, it is only given once for example, it could be that Arie is not eligible
Something nether you or I knowHis lawyer wouldn’t have applied if he wasn’t eligible. The police simply refused, as they can do.
Wait till sentencing before you get grumpy
It does appear that the judge, having heard a range of submissions, has a good idea of the situation. My guess is that the police are simply being pricks.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
…All that, and Labour’s official coalition partner (Alliance) totally imploding too. And they got 9 per cent in 1999, three times the popular vote of ACT in 2008. When you look at it that way, the sheer comprehensiveness of Labour’s 2002 mandate was a pretty strange result.
Thing is, they were tracking for 50%+ before Corngate. Perhaps they'd have shed that vote anyway when it came to it, but it did hurt them. A no-Corngate alternative history, with the Greens holding up too, might have been a staggering result.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Christopher Dempsey,
Yes, which is why I commented (sarcastically) on the absurd suggestion David paid for his list position.
Sincere question, Nick: what was the nature of the agreement then?
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Mr Mark,
Yeah, I seem to remember they were polling in the mid/late-teens (behind NZ First) going into the 96 election campaign.
Why, I believe Chris Trotter even hailed the impending demise of the Labour Party :-)
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Danyl Mclauchlan,
Instead they seem willing to blunder on, moaning about how mean the media is and irritably wondering when the electorate is going to ‘wake up’ and vote them back into their rightful place as the government.
However much you love that one, it might be time to make another point.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Rex Widerstrom,
After throwing up in my mouth, I’m now seriously contemplating sticking a fork in both eyes before I have to read some inane lynchmob blog comment or letter to the editor citing this pile of putresence as “evidence” or “research”.
Dalrymple trades on his genuine experience in prisons to a remarkable degree. I read a couple of things he wrote about the New Zealand justice system after his visit here, and they had all the factual rigour of a conversation down the pub. He was repeatedly just wrong. But I presume people who read him are inclined to believe him.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Lew Stoddart,
Russell, true, it is crucial in politics to bear in mind how things might be, but in order to win, you fight today’s battle according to the conditions of today. Too much wishing the ‘MSM’ was better, or the people were smarter, or whatever – all gets in the way of crafting politics which appeal to them. A not-especially-contentious statement which has probably gotten lost in the noise.
On the other hand, it was Goff being all realistic and recanting on the lightbulbs that made me write this:
http://publicaddress.net/hardnews/be-the-party-of-good-science/
I think it's possible to make a virtue of acting on evidence, even in a world where half the country seems to think Ken Ring has a point.
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Jan Farr,
Bear in mind Hughes offered to resign for the good of the party and possibly cos he could see the long and winding road ahead.
And Goff didn't accept the resignation. But now Goff says that no matter what the police find, Hughes' "lapse of judgement" was such that he won't keep his positions.
So why not stand him down in the first place?
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Hard News: Limping Onwards, in reply to Jan Farr,
It seems to me that Tracy Watkins is deciding the country’s political direction at the moment.
I don’t really read Watkins often, but when I do I’m struck by the shallowness of her commentary. She seems to embody the worst of Beltway culture.