Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Apparently they will consider a complaint about any print media source ... with a large enough circulation/readership -
But what happens if they uphold a complaint and the blogger just ignores them? I doubt they'd persuade Google or another blog hoster to remove the pages without an American court order.
Is there an agreement that large advertisers only use Press Council members?
Yes, I could ring them up and ask, but isn't original research banned on the Interwebz to avoid outbreaks of accuracy?
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it's scary to imagine what it would take for Fairfax to show her or any other editor the door.
Oh, I'm sure that if Fairfax acquired Bebo then negative references to it would all get spiked.
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she's got a pass to say and think what she likes
But I don't think we should take much notice. If a tragedy like that happens to you, it'll colour your views and remove any chance of a rational response. If my family were eaten by tigers escaping from a zoo, I'd want all dangerous wild animals banned.
I'm of the view that any increase in violent crime that isn't made up my the media is actually the *result* of harsher sentences (since the 2002 Sentencing Act, for instance). There are more people in jail, and more people in the community who've been in jail - sentenced for minor crimes, out in a few years or months as embittered violent criminals.
I'd go completely the opposite way to the SST (criminals themselves, they stole my fax paper) by making jail sentences open only to violent crime and the most heinous dishonesty.
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According to Wikipedia: As of March 31, 2008, China has unblocked access to some Internet Web sites, including English Wikipedia, at the request of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)
The banning appears to be mostly uncoordinated and ad hoc, with some sites being blocked and similar sites being allowed or even blocked in one city and allowed in another.
You could imagine that you'd get a lot more restricted access if you tried to access www.freetibet.org from Lhasa, maybe.
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Oh, I forgot to pimp the link.
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Right now in Wellington (well in the Top End Of Cuba St Autonomous Zone, which I guess is regarded as Wellington) there is an exhibition on at the Thistle Gallery of artworks about the Zapatista movement in Mexico.
Now these guys have been, since 2004, engaged in a rebellion against the Mexican government.
Has the Mexican government been calling the mayor and other dignitaries and demanding they don't attend? Were there middle class Mexican students picketing the place? Has anyone written to the paper attacking the Zapatistas as unrepresentative political extremists?
And if the Mexicans did these things, would anyone care?
I just think people are being really disingenuous in saying that: the Chinese have a point, they're a wonderful booming nation, they have their own forms of democracy, the Falun Gong are slightly scary extremists, etc.
When the subtext is really that the Chinese have loads of money and we want to sell them milk.
I guess that's the price of being South Pacific Milk Sheiks!
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I spend a few weeks in Zimbabwe in 2001, and from casual observation, you could think the place was going ok. You had a semi-black market for money (as opposed to the rest of Africa where that sort of thing's died out and you just go to the bank) and the range of toppings at the pizza shop was pretty limited, but apart from that it all *seemed* to be going fine. I even met some English people who had just bought a campground.
But that was pretty much illusory then, and it all looked a bit sicker when the ZID went from 60 to 25,000 against the US and Gadaffi stopped sending cheap oil.
I'll go to China one day (if they don't sniff me out and ban me) but I'm unconvinced that the tiki tour gives you a real view of a country.
For a (very moderate, but realistic) view on China, I'd recommend Chris Patten's book East and West.
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I read the Simon Grigg article. What do the Chinese put in the water? They seem to seduce so many people who go there into thinking that it's a fully wonderful place whose people are wonderfully happy with progress and don't need any of that nasty democracy stuff.
Actually, I think the NZ/China relationship is pretty much a mirror of the UK/Saudi one, with the exception that the Chinese aren't bribing any NZ politicians (I hope). In both cases one country (UK/NZ) is convinced that they need the other (China/Saudi) and are prepared to sacrifice any principle in order to keep the other onside.
Incidentally, we're not the only favoured trading parner of China, it seems.
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On the global warming side, and again assuming base commercial motives in the media: I guess that an acceptance of global warming might interfere with the aspirations of the Listener's readers. A BMW, McMansion in the eastern suburbs, "bach" in Whakatane and powerboat in the marina aren't really sustainable, are they?
I guess that's what happens with lifestyle mags. If you want incisive political comment, read Metro.
Well done Russell for bagging your boss, though! (next week - read how Mikey Havoc is a pseudo-scientific nutcase...)
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Just to be horribly meta for a moment:
Mr Brown, is there a good non-commercial reason why you wrote:
yes, it has a scan of the page everyone's talking about. You can see that in the Media7 blog.
rather than:
yes, it has a scan of the page everyone's talking about. You can read about it in the Media7 blog.
Are we being herded here? :-)
(I don't mind being herded, but just found it an interesting insight into the world of professional blogging, maybe).