Hard News: Not so much evil as stupid ...
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My guess is that the extra candidates in Auckland local body and the billboards may get more people to actually vote which would be a good thing.
On the rugby that piece by Inky was definitely one of the best.
There is also a wider issue which is the death of the invincible mythology around the AB's. That mythology has been a security blanket that is clearly out of place now as the rest of the world has caught up. Heck some of thethem even play like the AB's used to!
When we spend years (decades) exporting our rugby union players to UK, Europe and Japan those teams have to get better at some point.
It is time to get past that old mythology and think about playing smarter. One definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
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Yes, it is serious -- shouldn't someone have the wit to tell the boss about this stuff? -- but damn, it was also funny.
Perhaps not quite so funny for MFAT secretary Simon Murdoch who was (not to put too fine a point on it) comprehensively shat while being in no position to respond. But hey, nice to see Combined Threat Assessment Group reports aren't considered of any particular import in the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
God, I can only hope the electorate is finally going to wake up to Peters and finally put a stake through the heart of his political career.
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Maybe, but they'd also have to cut off its head and bury it face-down at a crossroads.
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Maybe, but they'd also have to cut off its head and bury it face-down at a crossroads.
And then get to play guitar like Robert Johnson?
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Inky's right, and I felt just the same way as him straight after. A brief mope, then I stuck my head outdoors and it was a gorgeous day to spend with the family and I figured "so what?". These things happen. A 90% chance of winning every game means you lose one in every ten. If one of those happens to be during the eliminations, we're screwed. We still had probably the best chances of any team, but that's the cool thing about the World Cup - strange chances can happen. Both Oz and NZ eliminated within hours, during the quarters? Pretty low odds, but makes for a very interesting international tourney.
I can't get into slamming everyone involved. There's no way on the planet I could have done a better job, or anyone I know personally, or any of the commentators. We sent our best team and luck caught us out again. I'm sure everyone involved is a harsher critic of themselves.
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God, I can only hope the electorate is finally going to wake up to Peters and finally put a stake through the heart of his political career.
With you on that. The crap he was spouting on national radio last night and this morning was just atrocious. How many elections can retirement homes around New Zealand lump us with this moron?
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"Don't vote City Vision. They are the fun police."
I think we could use some fun police after the trials this year. Maybe they could hire bouncy castles for their parties and make balloon animals instead.
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With you on that. The crap he was spouting on national radio last night and this morning was just atrocious. How many elections can retirement homes around New Zealand lump us with this moron?
Yes. Although the interview was funny for all the wrong reasons, and Sean Plunket was in most excellent form, it is also very poor indeed.
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Oh, but I do agree with you - Sean was on, and more evidence that chilling out is really working out well both for him and the audience. Though reading Peters' own words back to him is really dirty yellow journalism. :)
And then get to play guitar like Robert Johnson?
I prefer zombies myself.
And I really wanted to avoid any more local body campaign-induced depression, but yeah... I have to agree with you that it would be a little easier to take seriously I/S and the City Vision blog he cited, if they weren't squealing about 'Brethren' under the bed. I binned my voting papers because (as you put it) "the relentless banality" on all sides is intolerable; and voting for the lesser of two evils is no longer an acceptable option. Looks like a record number agree with me on that, which should be a wake up call - but probably won't.
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Under a City Vision council we've had higher user charges levied to pay for an upgrade of the central business district. There is a difference between City Vision and C&R?
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When they fire that fuckwit Deaker they should give his job to Inky.
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I saw one of those mobile billboards hooning down Mt Eden Road on Monday. It said "CITY VISION = NO VISION" and the "fun police" claim. I laughed outloud at its silliness.
Actually, the Hero Parade was always quite fun. If I vote for C&R, will they help bring it back?
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a sheer lack of time have kept from from doing much with the humans.org.nz site lately, but we're fully back in action this week
I mentioned it to Russell in an email, but for everyone else, next Thursday's Oprah episode is about autism.
There's a lot of dross on Oprah - celebrities, life-style "cures" etc. - but occasionally there are incredible shows - at her best Oprah is one of the top current affairs shows around - hopefully this is one of them.
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City vision's policy is to raise rates and user charges and then subsidise their voters out of council income. Then they try to kill the goose that lays the golden egg by imposing massive fines and compliance costs on business over signs. They have hurt so many hard working small business owners that the anger is bearly containable. Try walking up and down dominion road and talking to people - can't say I've seen a single CV candidate doing that while I've been out and about!
Why do Labour and City vision hate small business owners so much? I really would love to know.
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Maybe, but they'd also have to cut off its head and bury it face-down at a crossroads.
With holy wafers in its mouth...
Why is it so much easier on Buffy?
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Vote Buffy '08!
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Hmmm. I'm not sure evoking the Brethren is a good idea. And as I/S notes in an update to his No Right Turn blog, this would appear to fall well within the relatively loose restrictions of the Local Electoral Act 2001.
Of course it's legal. So was the Brethren's campaign (except for being naughty about disclosure). At the same time, it also poses serious problems for our electoral system when parties can evade their spending and disclosure restrictions by using a third party and an anonymous negative campaign as a front. If we are to preserve the integrity of our elections and ensure the political equality of all New Zealanders, then Parliament is going to need to look seriously at amending the Local Electoral Act, just as it is currently looking at the Electoral Act.
(And no, it's not supposed to inspire you to vote. In fact, the people who run these campaigns would be more than happy if you didn't. Better that you simply left the running of your city to the rich men (and they are almost all men), just as god intended).
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On the autism thing, a friend of mine wrote a piece for the Age about her experiences growing up with an autistic brother:
which I thought was lovely.
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While the billboards might be ugly, they are on private property, and look a lot better than Glenda "I want to ban billboards, then I'll use them to promote myself" Fryer.
The whole anti nutbar brethren campaign is pretty disturbing. Imagine what it would be like everyone replaced "brethren" with "jews".... I wonder if it would still be as socially acceptable to wage war against them like this?
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That's an interesting analogy MikeE.
Of course accusations of covert influence are a classic slander against Jews, whereas with the Brethren it appears to be an established fact...
Nonetheless I too would prefer that the issue was about "anonymous donors", not the Brethren bogeymen.
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City vision's policy is to raise rates and user charges and then subsidise their voters out of council income.
Can you even come close to backing up that claim?
For goodness sake, the whole CitRat campaign in Western Bays is basically "the council isn't spending enough money on you" (actually, given the sweeping upgrades to roads and footpaths in Western Bays, they seem to me to be spending quite a lot).
I'm on record as saying the new signage restrictions are ridiculous, but claims like that above are part of what drives me nuts about the current campaign.
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Of course accusations of covert influence are a classic slander against Jews, whereas with the Brethren it appears to be an established fact...
And I think alleging that anyone is "waging war" against the Brethren is overstating the case just a wee bit, for goodness sake ...
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It'll be interesting to see how RAM do. They’re by far the scariest group out there.
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I should just make it clear that this isn't actually about the Brethren at all. They discovered the exploit, so it bears their name, but there's no suggestion that they're involved in Auckland's local body race.
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Actually, the Hero Parade was always quite fun. If I vote for C&R, will they help bring it back?
One of the major causes of the demise of the late great Hero Parade was the vitriolic homophobia that the organisers had to face from C&R councillors when they were trying to get Council backing for the event.
If the event is ever to be resurrected it will obviously have to come from within the GLBT community that started it in the first place, and despite a couple of their (straight) candidates making nice noises about supporting the idea, I can't see a C&R council actually doing so, going on their track record.
{This is a party political broadcast from one of several GLBT City Vision Candidates - who have and will continue to support any future Hero events}
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