Posts by Tom Semmens
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Hard News: #JohnDotBanks and all, in reply to BenWilson,
Except that they need that one seat otherwise they might not actually be the government. Which would also be a political strategic error.
Are you telling me National wouldn't have won Epsom? The error was twofold. First of all, in assuming that ACT would coat tail more than one MP into the house and secondly that keeping a Zombie alive in the hope of a miracle vaccine only ever works in the movies.
As it is, ACT's only use is to be a figleaf for accelerating rightward drift of Key's government.
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The general point from 2011 hasn't changed - ACT is now so politically toxic that if Jesus Christ himself were to become leader of that party he'd be linked to Judas's silver scam. National made a serious political strategic error in choosing to keep alive a party that should instead have had it's life support switched off and left to die.
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Hard News: #JohnDotBanks and all, in reply to 3410,
Question: Why would someone ask for 2 x $25k rather than 1 x $50k?
Putting on my "think like John Banks hat" I see that Banks got five "anonymous" donations of 25k, of which only two were from Kim Dotcom. As a paid up member of the sharp practice, smart-alec Auckland business elite, Banks probably thinks he is safe in claiming that he doesn't know which PARTICULAR 25k donation came from who.
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There is an old observation that an army reflects the politics and culture of the society that created it, maybe the same claim could be made of the Auckland provincial and Blues setup.
The stories of the Blues/Auckland being a canvas for all sorts of factional infighting (North Harbour vs. Auckland, various white Grammar school old boy's network vs. everyone else), of connections and patronage being the prime qualifier for a job, and all sorts of accusations of cronyism and nepotism from club rugby and up come from to many different sources and are to consistent in tone to all be easily dismissed as nonsense.
Presiding over this disaster is Andy Dalton, a man whose main credentials appear to be that he was once an All Black captain noted nowadays primarily for getting his jaw broken on an illegal rebel tour of apartheid South Africa and being the guy that didn't get to hold aloft the 1987 Rugby World Cup. it seems to me Mr. Dalton is a thoroughly ineffectual leader who is hopelessly out of his depth running a modern professional sporting franchise. It seems to me the NZRFU, the primary external change agent, is mainly concerned with protecting it's public reputation and nurturing it's own culture of cronyism (ask yourself - are Steve Hansen, the worst of the three previous coaches, Ian Foster, the man whose coaching ineptitude is best summed up by looking at the Chief's performance in 2012, and Grant Fox, a man complicit is Auckland's decline - really the best three coaches for the All Blacks we could find? Or is it more a case of muggins turn?) than restoring the Blues. Change will only come when an absolute nadir is reached. My fear for Auckland rugby is the size of the franchise catchment means they can limp along on with just enough indifferent results to preserve the skin of the current bunch of bozos in charge.
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And what’s best, they are poaching all the really good 1st XV talent around now too and if they don’t come through the Warriors Toyota Cup side they go off to one of the other Toyota Cup sides. There’s roughly 300 NZers playing first grade, NSW Cup or Toyota Cup now. There’s money in dem der hills.
QED to my comment above!
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The entire Blues franchise is completely off the pace in the professional environment, from top to bottom.
An illustration: A person I know has a son (Auckland born and bred) who is good enough to have had three professional teams come beating a path to his door. First up were the Warriors, whose recruitment manager and talent scout gave a full presentation, discussed the club and the prospects for the young man, and were - in the words of my friend - well organised, well briefed and had answers to all his questions about his boy.
Next up was the Blues manager. He arrived late. He had no presentation. He "waffled on about himself for ten minutes minutes" and didn't have clear answers to any questions. He left with vague instructions to call someone if he was keen to play for them.
The last to come courting were the Crusaders. They were as well presented as the Warriors, but in addition had done some analysis and discussed the lad's strengths and weaknesses and had a full timeline of the potential career path for the player in the franchise.
I won't say where he went, but it wasn't the Blues.
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The first two comments are gold.
Almost certainly National party trolls trying to derail the comments thread. They were so primed and ready with on-message dog whistles in terms of the politics of division that it wouldn't surprise me if they were ninth floor National Party staffers posting under different pseudonyms.
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When you're a one trick pony government that has managed to get the economy into a death spiral, you have to take the money anywhere you can.
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oddly enough, they’ve now switched to Heineken and Monteith’s Pilsener, at a mere nine dollars a bottle.
Looks like it is not just POAL that has to make a 12% return to the SuperCity.
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The people whose credit card details were published all deserve it – they part of the global elite that fuck over workers everywhere. A teansy tiny taste of their own medicine is great to see. Posting your outrage at the temerity of a non-government organisation engaging in political crimes is beyond ironic considering you are probably doing so from a Mac made in serf-like conditions in Chinese factories by a company that sacked tens of thousands of American workers in order to get that dirt cheap labour in China. Who can say who the criminals are these days?
You naively assume this about journalistic ethics. That has been left way, way behind. This is part of a war. Very powerful corporate elites are going to be out to get Anonymous & Wikileaks. Credit card details? Credit card details? Really? What do you think would happen to any member of Anonymous if the US government – increasingly little more than a corrupt front organisation for global capital – found out who they were? Credit card details wouldn’t be the half of it. You’ll see them labelled terrorists, and treated like an enemy right down to the Supermax.
Wars have different rules. In a war, one man’s criminal is another man’s freedom fighter.