Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to David Cormack,
It’s funny isn’t it, for some reason, we become detached from the fact that we are witnessing vigilante justice play out. It happens in an online world and we perceive no-one to be hurt by it, so we are ok with it.
I've voiced my misgivings about Anonymous and LulzSec before -- what is paraded as activism often looks more like vandalism. And it's often done for no better reason than that someone said something mean about Julian Assange or something. It can be a nasty, pointless way of shutting down speech, and some of the exploits have caused needless harm.
But I'm actually more okay with this. It's a media protest in a media space. And (unlike, say, NPR) the villains are actually villains.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Tim Michie,
the paper had apparently previous admitted to bribing officials but no charges came of it.
It was Brooks in a 2006 select committee hearing. She admitted to paying police officers for information. It just sort of slid by ...
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Hard News: An inspirational record, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
I’ve been bonding with the @peace album over the last few days. It is good.
I didn't have my own flow on quite right on Friday morning -- been rewriting in my head. T=rather than "one of the better records to come out of this country, ever", which is a bit of a crap phrase, I'd now say "Without knowing they were doing it, they have, I think, turned out an instant classic."
I'm also quite hung up on Tom's great, rhythmic use of assonance in the intro to the first track, 'Home'. It is poetry.
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Up Front: How About Now?, in reply to nzlemming,
Clearly, it is time to deploy Phase 2 of the Homosexual Agenda.
Oh, good. I need a new toaster oven.
The rewards system has been updated. You have to get six times as many stamps, but you get an iPad in the end.
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The Times website is now also down.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Toby,
Credit to Sky for broadcasting the comte hearing – unlike its comedy stablemate in the US, Sky News UK has by most accounts been doing a thorough job on hacking (and gave it more play, from memory, in the days when no one wanted to know, than the Times and, sometimes, the BBC).
Ditto for Sky News Australia. Unlike the rather more under-the-thumb Murdoch newspapers.
p.s. Heather Brooke not Brookes
Oops. Ta.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
I think everyone is being mean to Rebekah Brooks because she has red hair.
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Hard News: The scandal that keeps on giving, in reply to Steve Reeves,
You’re right about PMQs in the UK—always brilliant.
Indeed. I was reminded of why I used to down tools and watch it when I lived in London.
Perhaps we could have question here on one day a week JUST for the PM. And NO READING OUT OF PREPARED NOTES either, please :-)
Oh, c'mon. Where's the photo-opportunity in that?
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Oh, okay. MORE WEIRD.
The Sun's website has been hacked, with readers redirected to a page carrying a fake death notice for Rupert Murdoch.
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Bryan Gould's column in the Herald is very interesting:
Does any of this matter to us, in New Zealand? Yes, it does.
The power that Murdoch has, whether real or perceived, means one man, with extreme views that would be rejected by all but a tiny minority, is able to shape the international political debate behind the scenes, and dictate terms to elected governments, whatever the views of the voters themselves.
We have to live in the global economy that he has helped to shape. And, it is worth registering that no New Zealand government has dared to introduce the "anti-siphoning" legislation that would have prevented Sky Television from using their monopoly of sports broadcasting to develop a position of dominance that means the death knell of public service television.