Posts by George Darroch
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If blue jeans became unfashionable tomorrow, Old Navy would be in trouble.
Half the world wears jeans.
Jeans protect people because they already occupy this personal intimate space and there is no empty feeling inside that can be colonised by this external gaze. Furthermore the very anonymity and ubiquity of jeans protects from judgement. You may not be especially right, but you can’t go far wrong with denim jeans. As a result, despite all the attempts by the clothing industry to broaden the appeal of more exciting, exotic, stylish, interesting, impressive and costly clothes, denim is likely to become if anything more and more powerful as the central foundation of the individual’s wardrobe, and commerce has to simply try and adapt to this use of denim.
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We should be reluctant to impose criminal penalties on those who lack a ‘guilty mind’.
Very roughly, what part of the law of the requires 'intent'? Is it a small fraction, or a large one?
If I kill someone, and there is intent, it's murder. Without intent, it's manslaughter. However, there's no question about intent if I'm driving above the speed limit, the charge is simply handed down.
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And as if to illustrate things, here's Norman being very conciliatory on breakfast television over the leadership contest.
What is the Green Party’s strategy to avoid the fate of many other minor parties in coalition? Obviously every minor party is different and the Greens are no Lib Dems or Alliance (sorta), but are they strong enough to survive the unpopularity of government?
At the moment it's to gather the party together and work out the terms under which an arrangement would be acceptable, and the way in which the party could work with others after an election. Negotiations would occur, and then the result of those negotiations would be sent back to delegated representatives of the party for approval. An optimal agreement is unlikely, but given that any agreement would come from the party and not the leadership, the party is likely to feel bound. There'll be tension at points, without doubt.
However, that's all procedural. The best hope is in building deep, respectful, and often warm relationships. That's when you get others treating you with humanity rather than as merely a lever for power, and when you get others realising that your occasional objections come from a real place and are not merely tantrums. Norman's niceness above is such an example - he could land punches, but it would do him and the party no good (though too deferential and you breed a different kind of relationship).
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It would be a given of such a government that Russel Norman would be its deputy leader.
I don't take anything as given, actually. They'll look to make the Greens fight for a lot of things, so they can give some things while denying others. Positions of power will be rationed, and unless the Greens come close to getting half the Labour vote (unlikely, even for an optimist), deputy PM wouldn't be handed over without negotiation. Thankfully my party has rather robust processes and has had plenty of elections to consider this possibility.
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Congratulations on the birth of your two year old!
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I never did get Springsteen. Too far before my time, I suspect. But good on that man Mr Donnell for expressing his love.
Bobby Womack, on the other hand.. and isn't that Ladi6 a bringer of strong grooves?
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Nobody remembers the 1976 Olympic Boycott. Almost nobody at all. 28 countries boycotted that Olympic Games, because NZ maintained sporting links with apartheid South Africa. 28 countries.
Our out NZ speed skater Blake Skjellerup is taking his stand to the Olympics (as well as magazine covers – SFW, roughly). Louisa Wall is now making representations to the NZOC and Sport NZ on his behalf, and I’m confident he’ll have some level of support. But he can do with more.
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9%.
From data compiled by Tony Alexander (pdf). That’s the percentage of houses sold which go to non-residents. Of those, about half say they intend to reside in NZ at a later point (how many do is unknown).
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Emma, I read ENTITLED to, then six inches. My mind's in the gutter.
We're shifting our standards rather rapidly, and some people will always be on the forefront. That's clear enough to me. What's clear about this is that Yahoo is tidying up Tumblr so it can be accessible to advertisers, who want clean brand associations. Coca Cola doesn't want to be set down beside penetration close-ups, no matter how they're curated. (Tumblr did, a year or two ago, restrict its terms in order to shut down pro-anorexia and pro-selfharm sites, of which there were many).
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I think Yahoo/Tumblr’s biggest risk is if they’re taken to task for the huge amounts of copyrighted material they host. While they do have some talented content producers, the vast majority of their sites rely mostly or exclusively on work from elsewhere. With porn, that’s especially so. The users have however fostered a culture of expression and self-representation (particularly in staging the self) which is still growing. That's not enough to sustain the platform, however.