Posts by Grant McDougall
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If by some fluke that kid were to actually learning to shear, he / she would be on to a winner, financially.
When I was growing up in Gisborne, the folks of a mate of mine owned / ran a large shearing gang, doing a lot of farms in the East Coast, Hawkes Bay areas.
As a result, they were utterly loaded, huge, flash house, etc. It's a common misconception that shearing isn't a very well-paid gig; quite the opposite, it's big money.My mate's younger brother, who became a shearer like his dad, married into the British royal family about three years ago, incidentally.
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The interview with His lawyer, Gary Gottleib and the police this evening on Close Up was pretty interesting.
Gottleib asked the officer when the relative police unit was set up and the cop answered a week or so before the incident: the obvious implication being sought from Gottleib being that Ropati was a "trophy scalp" being used to kick things off nicely for the unit.
He also pointed out that in terms of the actual evidence, it comes down to consent. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it was something like the complainant may simply have been too wasted to recall that she had given consent. (He then outlined how much and for how long she'd been bashing the booze / drugs before Ropati turned up).
Don't get me wrong, rape is a heinous crime, but the jury has to go on the actual evidence, which appears to be a bit too insubstantial and contradictory to get a guilty verdict.His supporters should have acted with a bit of decorum, too, I agree.
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Craig - thanks for explaining what a "koan" is.
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The more I think about the Key and Clark "youth announcements" the more I think it's humbug.
I don't think they're humbug as such, I'm sure Key and Clark are fairly serious about them and will babble on about them now and again 'til election day.
But in terms of the big picture, it's merely the equivalent of the first tentative punches in a boxing match, or the first scrum in a rugby game. Both parties are just seeing what sort of form the other's in before trying to land the heavy blows, or spinning the ball wide with the major policies on education, welfare, health, etc.
So far, they've both fended off a few jabs or kicked to touch, but not much else. (I will no shut up with my lame sports comparisions).
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And here's a Kōan to mull over
What's a "Koan"? I could google it I suppose, but it'd be nice if someone could explain its meaning.
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I played host to another of Fallowell's luvvie-friends, the brilliant interviewer Lynn Barber, several years ago. She was perfectly pleasant, if rather high-maintenance, but after our event she took up a holiday to Rotorua and Queenstown.
In her subsequent write-up she got the wrong end of the stick about us calling Rotorua "Rotovegas".
She was under the illusion that we thought of it as being our equivalent of Las Vegas in terms of scale, etc, whereas it's called that because it's cheesey like Las Vegas. -
This is bullying, unnecessary and just dumb PR.
Par for the course for Telecom. I know criticising Telecom is "shooting fish in a barrel" territory, but their blatant, flagrant, unrelenting arrogance really sticks in my craw something rotten.
I could really biatch and moan about them 'til the cows come home, but I wouldn't be telling you anything you didn't already know, sadly.
They really are an obnoxious, objectionable outfit.
They epitomise the cliche of someone (or something, in their case) who knows the cost of everything, but the value of nothing.
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I'm just amazed at Brownlee's hypocrisy - like the Nats would put their money where their mouth is and slash their spin staff or govt dept spin staff should they win the election.
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We are tired of the whingers who fail to contribute then moan about the state of the nation
"Pot", "kettle", "black", etc.
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i had a cat in auckland that i trained by making nothing more than kalamari bushmen noises!
I think you'll find it's Kalahari bushmen, not k/calamari; the latter being a seafood. (Though there was an early '90s Rotorua indie band called "Kalamari Bushmen" so maybe you trained it by making droney guitar noises? ;)