Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Asking for a Contribution, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Ok, I’ve paid the bribe, now I just have to decide what I want Russell to do for me. Mwahahahaha
:-)I hear he makes good coffee
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Paypal had a spaz so bank account was very useful.
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On a less serious note, I remember going to Star Wars IV, I think it was at His Majesty's on Queen Street.
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On a slightly serious note. One of the big problems with US relations with the middle east was the failure to recognise that people with different upbringings and religions could deeply offended to the point of violence by casual disregard of their ideology.
Don't park your bum on your Maori host's dining table, don't spit on kiwi sidewalks. Little stuff matters and ignoring it does real harm.
The thing that I found somewhat heartening in the death of bin Laden is that someone took the time to think about how best to do this without inflaming more hatred than necessary. They didn't immediately release gory photos of triumphant SEALs with a dead body and there have been times when they have behaved that way.
The simple act of treating the body with respect shows that even if the US military hasn't learned to actually care about the sensibilities of others then they recognise that ignoring them can cause more harm. Small steps.
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Hard News: For the kids, if nothing else, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
You really think they model their organisation on the New Zealand Defence Force or the Jupiter Mining Corporation?
What you mean they don't have to submit a travel report after delivering timing devices and they don't have to keep receipts for their expense claim???
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Richard Aston,
Why not Bin Laden ?
Ok fair enough. As I said the cost of getting this wrong would be enormous - the president would be laughed out of office, several heads of department would go as well. These people really like their pay packets and the power of their jobs and will do pretty much anything to avoid such embarrassment. They have a huge incentive to avoid being shown up in this way.
Why no gruesome pictures? Well oddly I think it's an attack of sensitivity and intelligence. I know it's unusual to ascribe smarts to the US military but showing body shots would only create icons for the terrorists and offend both supporters and opponents. Pictures would have inflamed even moderates in the Islamic world, rightly. the picture will exist and we will probably see them someday - but not the day after. But seriously what self respecting conspiracy theorist would believe a picture or a movie - I mean they faked the moon landings and that was with technology decades ago - they could easily fake dead bin Laden pictures.
They probably wouldn't have minded capturing him alive and putting him on trial but that would have been risky and on balance no better than simply killing him in a firefight.
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Richard Aston,
Call me a skeptic
Can I call you other things as well?
Claiming bin Laden is dead without being sure would leave the US open to the most embarrassing rebuttal eg a photo of bin Laden with a copy of the NYT.
It really is a remarkably bizarre thing to suggest, it would be laughable except I have no doubt there will be conspiracy groups that will suggest this for decades to some.
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these are things that may be amenable to symbolism
That's it! That's why this feels different. I know that the death of one terrorist shouldn't make a difference, but symbols are important to us apes.
Or he's just a grown-up
Yeah, nah. I really don't think many grown ups could do as well as he did. In this case I think he was presidential, credit where it's due.
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to Craig Ranapia,
but I’m not as relaxed as the Prime Minister about senior military staff who treat the law like the pick ‘n’ mix bins of lollies at the supermarket. X10 when one of those gentlemen is now the Governor-General designate.
I guess my interpretation was that the GG elect was "following orders", so it seems entirely reasonable that an officer that follows instructions as well as he did gets rewarded with the GG post.
Essentially it feels to me like it circles back to the politicians in the end (not just Key but all the others before him). Of course it would have been nice if the officer had told them to F'off.
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Hard News: You know what ..., in reply to BenWilson,
and asked with genuine curiosity whether the news was considered good in NZ
What did you say? My own answer would have been "I guess so".
And most importantly did you ask where to get good coffee in Utah?