Hard News: Ready to Fly
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Sigh ... Phil Wallington has now weighed in on the Press Council story, declaring ""That article was absolutely fine - it's freedom of speech".
is this guy the worst media commentator RNZ has ever dug up, or what?
nine-to-noon is bad enoughas it is...
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3410,
Can't find any link for video of DC's story on the linked-to Close Up page.
A little help, please? -
Your mate Scott Young is obviously a big fan of Withnail and I. On their angsty pissed trip to the lake district the desperate neurotic drunken thesp Withnail (Richard E Grant) proposes to change his name to Donald Twain.
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Can't find any link for video of DC's story on the linked-to Close Up page.
A little help, please?To the right, under Related Video: 'Melting Pot or Not?'
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3410,
Ta.
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I was shocked at Ryans ref to Maori & Asian as THEY have THEIR own media.
Is she proposing Apartheid or justifying the exclusion from the mainstream?I was listening to the item with one ear, and I don't think Ryan was doing any of the above - just stating a fact. This might give APN and Fairfax the shits, but they're not the only voices out there - and, frankly, why the fuck should the 'mainstream' be the be all and end all for minority writers? As Wallington fairly pointed out, why should educated Maori want to be the token 'Maori issues' go-to, especially when there are more satisfying and lucrative career paths out there. (And I don't think that's a minority issue either - I'll put it this way, how many ministerial spin doctors or PR flacks have you seen leave the profession and go back to journalism, as opposed to the other way round?
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So WTF was Bollard thinking when he spent $1.5 Billion of our surplus funds on this dumbRs attempt to devalue our dollar? Surely he knew what happened when the British tried the same in 1992?
There is a fairly key difference between Black Wednesday, and Bollard's little play. That is, consensus is that the NZD won't stay at this level in the long-term and that it is at the outer end of its range (and Bollard was betting that it would go back toward the middle of the range). If, in 12-18 months, the RB starts to lower the OCR, and various other elements of the economy cool, then the RB will be making a pretty nice profit on this. In contrast, I think the GBP was not at an extreme, and the Bank of England was betting in the less favoured direction.
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I'll put it this way, how many ministerial spin doctors or PR flacks have you seen leave the profession and go back to journalism,
Well, there's Richard Long, although I'd be inclined to characterise his tenure as editor of the Dom as spin doctoring and political PR, anyway. David Kirk wasn't a journo, but he's in charge of them now.
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Forgive me if I'm wrong as I'm no expert but I always thought that the British government interviened on black wednesdayby raising interest rates to get punters to buy stirling so that it could prop value of the pound up. The fundamental problem was that Major overvalued the pound before entering stirling into the fixed rate ERM. It appears to me that Bollard and just about every economist in NZ seems to think that the Kiwi Dollar is artificially high and the bank is buying Us Dollars to drive the KD dollar down. The only thing it has in common with the british experience is that it is a central bank intervention and that's about it. Also the central bank here is politically independent unlike the bank of england in 1992. I'll never forget the look on Norman (the badger) Lamonts face as he announced that his attempt to rectify major's f*ck up had failed. The Tories lost the confidence of the city from that momnet on.
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I've sworn to ignore Coddington and Franks - I just find the stream of numbing ignorance too much. Hopefully they'll disappear with a thwok* up their respective arseholes one day.
But in the same swear I have vowed never to let an instance of ignorant destructive prejudice pass without comment in my company.
Now I'm off to randomly select some victim based on flawed interpretation of data. I'm sure the public won't mind, especially as I'm a WASP.
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* Thwok is the official sound made when full rectal inversion takes place.
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I think this is the place where we sing that old refrain:
The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent...
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Those that fail to learn from the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat them. So WTF was Bollard thinking when he spent $1.5 Billion of our surplus funds on this dumbRs attempt to devalue our dollar? Surely he knew what happened when the British tried the same in 1992? Squillionaire George Soros thought he'd accept the challenge, took a punt, and won.
That's like saying that the Titanic sinking proves that ships are inherently dangerous and should not be travelled on.
The problem in 1992 was that the pound was being held to an unrealisticaly high parity in the ERM, there was a lack of political will to maintain the parity, interest rates were under political control, etc.
So the currency was an easy target for speculators.(If the Bank of England had wound interest rates up and held them there for a few weeks (as other countries did), they could have stabilized the parity and Soros would have gone spectacularly bust - that's the risk he was taking)
There have been innumerable instances where central banks have intervened succesfully to stablise a currency against short term pressure - the current situation is, I think, one of those.
the last 5 days shows that (as of 5pm Tuesday) the Reserve Bank is ahead - they sold NZ dollars which fell in value. -
Craig
I think Ryan reflected alittle of the 'institutional' racism mentioned in the interview. I suspect IR was added by Phil as a calculated move to deflect attacks for supporting Coddington. -
Stephen Franks seems to have the idea that Stephen Franks is very intelligent, politically astute, and that NZ is a state somewhere near Montana.
I voted for ACT once, sometime before 2005, when they were only slightly mad and acted more like a "keep the bastards honest" party. At some point they decided to run on a very American style of individualism with overt God, Guns and Gays rhetoric. Which is madness in NZ, and ridiculous when everyone knows you are not sincere about the God part. The people that aren't offended, are instead insulted by the obvious pandering
Frankie baby sent me a pamphlet during the last campaign that said ACT believed in freedom of religion, by which he clearly meant "freedom to not have to acknowledge that other people don't share your beliefs" or something similar. Anyway he was assuring me that the ACT party wouldn't oppress me by letting gay people do things that offended my religious sensibilities.
Which is a bit like his current babbling about the oppression of Coddington, who appears to have had her "freedom not to have your viewpoint contradicted or criticised, especially when it's wrong and/or dishonest" blatantly ignored.
Oh well, to look on the bright side, at least are taking full advantage of their freedom to make utter arses of themselves.
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<qupte>Well, there's Richard Long</quote>
Sorry, I don't consider op-ed columns - or what I do on PA Radio for that matter - to be journalism. Then again, I'm old school enough to draw a meaningful distinction between news and opinion.
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Another great example, unfortunately, of what an uncritical mess The Panel usually is - basically talk radio which subtracts the listener calls and replaces them with two or three ill-informed commentators and a presenter who soft-pedals every stupid thing they say, all in the name of 'light', 'funny' and 'provocative' radio.
Blecch.
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I too was annoyed that I went to the bank (an hour) before Bollard announced - but a 1c change is nothing - I want it down by 20% (the amount my income has gone down in the past few months) am I bitter .... noooo .... well maybe a little bit - my income is down and my mortgage is up (shouldn't life be the other way around) - I've been getting hit twice by the RB's recent actions, about time they took some action on my side ....
(I'm not a farmer - I'm a geek who lives in NZ and consults overseas - I earn the foreign exchange that you spend)
About Vietnam - my take on it was that it has to be about the most capitalist communist country on the planet - a nation of small store owners - any country where the main sign of beauty is a pale skin that shows you don't work in the fields (all those young women in gloves and hats) isn't going to make it as a worker's paradise .... if only the americans had initially sent in socioligists rather than military advisers ...
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I always thought Stephen Franks bore an unhealthy resemblance to Murnau's Nosferatu, myself. Silly man.
Craig Y
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any country where the main sign of beauty is a pale skin that shows you don't work in the fields
I'm always bemused and rather disturbed by the range of Skin Whitening products advertised and, I guess, sold in South East Asia. They seem to dominate the TVCs in Singapore and Malaysia.
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Many(read- not me) who would seriously consider voting for ACT as an economically and socially 'liberal' party are being put off by the 'outing' of ex-mp anti-asian and anti-gay sentiment. This voter segment may instead waste their votes on the unviable Libertarianz if they can't decide between whether economic freedom (read- taxcuts) are more important than all the other freedom's: civil-unions, prostitution, drug reforms, right not to be assaulted, resistance to DMCA type legislation etc. that the Green party(read- me) stand for.
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About Vietnam - my take on it was that it has to be about the most capitalist communist country on the planet
Yup, in that strange Sony-Wegas-piled-on-the-pavement sort of way.
Checked into my hotel in Ho Chi Minh City about an hour ago, and it's very, very hot and I don't have a lot of faith in the noisy AC unit's ability to get the temperature in my room down below the present 28 degrees ...
Still, can't moan.
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Kylie Chapman a marae fire-bombing skin head is running for Christchurch mayor again. He got 5th out of 10 last time.
A bit of a 2 horse race this time (usually a foregone conclusion) Bob Parker (Mr TV) & Dr Megan Woods (Phd in History).
He's with the National Democtratic Party not to be confused with Natioanl Front or National Socialists but maybe NZ First.
Kylie won't win but might get on a board somewhere. Campaigning on law and order because the police won't charge the guy who made death threats against him even though he knows his name. Just pick a number any number in the phone book Kylie.
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Don't diss Singapore. It's a nice enough place, despite the Lees.
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Don't diss Singapore. It's a nice enough place, despite the Lees
for about 72 hours...the foods better in Bangkok, KL RI & Vietnam, the beer is cheaper anywhere in the world outside Scandinavia, the electronics are much cheaper in Jakarta, and the people are better mannered anywhere else in Asia.
Its safe though.....
The guess the watered down semi Stalinist paternalism and the frigging dollar obsession has got to me in recent years.
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that said I'm getting a mighty craving for the crunchy baby squid at Lau Pau Sat....
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