Posts by Steve Withers
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: To defame and deflect, in reply to Adam H,
Modern conservative parties are essentially fascist....though they lack the historical understanding to see themselves that way. They aren't Hitler, after all! (As though that makes any difference).
-
The “business friendly” party has demonstrated over and over they aren’t very good at business.
For example: The partial privatisation of public assets returning rates higher than the cost of the debt they planned to retire with the sale cash. D’oh. That completely unnecessary and counter-productive process cost over $100m to boot. Add that pile of wasted cash to this one…and let’s not talk about roading vs public transport.
Billions wasted there on several roads with dubious rates of return.
If these aren’t mistakes, they are a crony-cash lolly-scramble at our expense.
-
I’m one of those who sees Dotcom as a flawed person in many ways, while also recognising that to greater or lesser extents we are ALL flawed people. What I am absolutely grateful to him for is exposing the extent to which our own government was turning a blind eye to the law governing spying on us all. Further, he exposed the extent to which our own government allows other governments to spy on us all…and do it with impunity.
Give the guy a medal. He’s done more for the cause of civil liberties in NZ than anyone else in recent times, despite the fact the government responded by eroding our freedoms even further. At least we now see them for what they really are.
But I’ll be voting Green because they are the only major party that hasn’t sold out on exactly these issue. Sue Bradford, Keith Locke and the other Green MPs past, present and deceased – Rod Donald – have been our consistent champions for the past 25 years. I respect and support that.
-
National misleading people for the benefit of the - usually foreign - corporates? Really? How could anyone think the Multi-National 1% Party (NZ) would ever do such a thing? They must know too much history.
-
Hard News: The Web, in reply to Grant McDougall,
Ask Jeeves was pretty good until they started ranking paid-links ahead of the links one might be looking for. Several search engines went that way. Google resisted and was then able to persist. Certainly this is why I kept using Google. They provided results we wanted. But now they only provide the results they are allowed to provide and what we search for is being watched by the security agencies of several countries. So far, I’ve refused to allow that to “chill” my internet freedom…..but at the same time I’m aware that one day my stubbornness may be used against me or my loved ones.
I remember the lessons of WW I conscription. First people were required to register for conscription. Then later they were conscripted. It was MUCH harder to hide if you had registered in the first place…and much easier to hide if you avoided the whole thing right from the start.
I keep that lesson in mind every time I open a web browser…aware that for me, it’s already too late. In for a penny…In for a pound.
Aside from all that....USENET Newsgroups were the battlefield upon which I regularly made a dick of myself, firm in the belief that if someone said something wrong on the Internet it was my sacred mission to put them right. I'm much humbler now and I learned about trolls, too. The web.....it's awesome.
-
Hard News: Spring Timing, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Looks like Peters may be there either way.....
-
Elections in NZ have devolved into a contest between "Me" and "We" factions. The split is too close for my liking. I thought NZ had more regard for "We" than recent elections demonstrate.
-
Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Love that Wiki article. Thanks for posting the link.
-
Hard News: Making it up on smacking, in reply to Russell Brown,
All credit to the Herald for taking Craig to task.
However....the Herald and the Dom Post are past masters at dog whistling in a dozen news stories…and then repudiating that message in an editorial read by far fewer people. This way they look “balanced"….but they know full well the overall impact of the two tips firmly one way….
I’ve been watching media for almost 40 years. This is one of the oldest methods around for shaping public opinion while pretending not to.
-
SOP; “Standard Operating Procedure”: Usage example: “A conservative politician just making stuff up in support of unfounded beliefs is SOP.” See G W Bush / Iraq War.