Posts by Kyle Matthews
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is one of the more facile and insulting questions I've come across. Cullen's response was equally insulting and deplorable but I don't blame the guy for getting his back up at insults like that.
You clearly haven't watched question time very often. That's relatively tame.
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Isn't it more likely that our government can positively influence China's internal politics, over time, if we are involved in positive kinds of collaborations like trade agreements?
The reality is we don't know very well what will move China to respecting human rights. In theory positive engagement will work, but it might just drag things out and enable the current system to struggle on for another 50 years before it has real reforms.
I always like the answer that the West Wing put forward on this subject, where the guy says that international trade will move China towards a free democracy, and then admits that he should add onto the end of it "we think". And that there's a fair chance that the answer is bullshit, but that we might as well sell them some hamburgers since we don't have the answer anyway.
Maybe Keith Locke and other people who argue for disengagement from China are wrong. At least they're arguing from strong principles, rather than "China is too big a country and too important in economic trade for us to boycott them", which seems to be what a lot of other people are saying.
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To all intents and purposes the definition of news journalist has now simply become: "One whose job is to retype press releases".
One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about getting your story in the media (from Grant Robertson) was to use double-line spacing.
For two reasons - one, if your release still fits on one page then its the right length, and two, it means the journalist might re-write between your lines, and then your media release becomes the basis for the story. A few times I've gotten my releases simply reprinted with a journalist's name added to the top.
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The way National will get ahead in corrections won't be by reducing the muster. Their crime policy certainly won't be leading with less time in prison for a lot of people, which is what it would take.
The only way they'll get ahead, is that Labour has gone full steam building several prisons, to catch up with reality. They could catch a break on that capital spending by letting it slip again.
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He’s a very talented debater and a man whose intellect we should celebrate, not demonise.
Something that will no doubt reassure the people of Tibet, who'd like governments around the world to at least debate the issue of "what should we do, if anything, about Tibet?", rather than deflect it by cutesy personal slurs.
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for every poll I can provide you can counter it with another.
Yes. And ignoring "for every poll that's done, there's umpteen places that aren't polled that might like a little more attention on either the occupation of their nation, or the lack of occupation of their nation."
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The post was questioning what the act party actually brings to our political forum apart from crazy economics (which by the way are well catered for by the right wing of the national party) and bad dancing.
Bad dancing is catered for by all parts of parliament. Particularly Pete Hodgson and Trevor Mallard, I saw on TV last year. Permanently scarred.
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Keith Locke is taking it a little too far for an MP in my opinion...
I'm not sure what Keith Locke said, but there's an important role for the radical opinion in these debates. Keith Locke is often pushing the minority opinion, and he's raising important issues.
Him being out there frames one side of the debate, and helps us all find the 'sensible middle ground' if there is one.
Can anyone name an example of a country against whom we took a strong stance and AND with whom we have had a significant trading relationship?
Our stance against it varied greatly, but we have very significant trading relationships with South Africa. It's not big in traditional trade as far as I know, but the sporting relationship with South Africa, is worth tens of millions of dollars each year. And the significance of rugby is probably viewed as a lot more than that on both sides, hence the debate that both countries have had).
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The daily show last night had the funniest clip of Bush talking about the economy, and the reasons why it's gone belly-up. He basically listed all the crap that has happened while he's been in office. The look on Jon Stewart's face as classic. His comment was "I've been paying attention, and even I don't remember your Presidency being that bad."
It can't be too soon for Bush _and_ whoever cuts and pastes his speeches together to shuffle off somewhere else.
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Yeah. Obama's chief speech writer, is Jon Favreau. He's 26. His two assistants are 26, and 30.
Not bad really.