Posts by Josh Addison
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As ever, John Rogers is the king of metaphor:
Modern American Conservatives have sunk to the intellectual and emotional level of the guy who thinks the stripper really likes him.
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Possible TMI: As a child, I used to have some sort of icky fungal skin thing on my feet that would flare up every summer when my feet got sweaty in their shoes, meaning I'd spend as much time out of shoes as possible. (It also meant that come winter time, I'd be left with big scars down the sides of each foot, which went a lovely purple when we had to run - barefoot - around the cold, wet school field for PE...) I have no specific dislike of shoes, but I still tend to take them off as soon as I get home every day - it doesn't feel like my feet can breathe otherwise.
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The nice Lufthansa people at Frankfurt airport were very helpful when it turned out that my flight home had been cancelled out from under me. When the woman at the counter took a look at my flight details and grimaced, I knew something was up. It turned out that I had been booked on a new flight already - one that arrived in Shanghai and hour after my flight to Auckland was due to leave. I immediately assumed the worst - I was going to have to book hotel rooms at no notice and spend extra days in a city I knew nothing about etc etc. She took me over to another guy, who shook his head and made a few "what monkey booked this?" remarks, before sending me home on a nicer flight through a nicer airport (Hong Kong) in the emergency exit seats, with all the hallowed leg room they entail. I imagine it was a pretty routine thing they did - must happen all the time - but it made a big difference to me.
This was all conducted in perfect English, by the way. The only time I was forced to rely on my half-remembered schoolboy German was in a little hotel in Berlin. The woman there spoke no English, but very good German-for-people-who-speak-hardly-any-German. Despite having last taken German lessons 13 years previously, I found to my surprise that I could follow everything she was saying.
Sorry, that's not true - the other case on that trip when I had to deal with a non-English speaker was on a train. The conductor made an attempt to tell us that we were in the wrong place, and went off after he'd said his piece, despite our blank stares and "kein Deutch"es. Luckily for us, a nearby passenger (a German man whose wife was apparently Australian) overheard and came over to explain everything to us. It turned out we were in the wrong carriage - if we hadn't changed at the next stop, we'd have been on the way to the wrong city when it separated...
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Oh, I don't doubt that it's true -- everyone was on amphetamines in WWII. How it's in any way relevant to P use in modern day NZ, I'm not quite sure...
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That Listener cover: "Did Hitler use P?"
They are taking the piss, right? Right?
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I think you'll find that the police didn't "slander" anyone as a terrorist, and in fact carefully avoided using the term. They were obliged to advise people that warrants had been issued in relation to potential offences under the Terrorism Suppression Act and the Arms Act.
Yeah, can someone clear this up for me, please? I've been hearing a bit of talk about people being "charged with terrorism" or "treated as terrrorists" -- my understanding is that some evidence was gathered using warrants issued under the Terrorism Suppression Act, but that none of that evidence has been used, and all the charges issued have been Arms charges. Is that correct?
The media has been a piss-poor source of information, I've found -- I recall seeing Broad (was it Broad?) giving the press conference, where he seemed to be making an effort to downplay the terrorism angle, but as soon as the media heard the T-word, everyone went mental.
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I'm down the with Sullivan-Ranapia doctrine. Could these people get over their culture war and their novelty VP candidate and start acting like old-fashioned conservatives? Their chump champions have been wandering in the wilderness for eight years and the world is a bit scared.
It's a couple of years old now, but John Rogers' I Miss Republicans post still seems appropriate, even if it does contain:
How did they become the party of fairy dust and make believe? How did they become the anti-science guys? The anti-fact guys? The anti-logic guys?
I'm not talking McCain, Hagel, Snowe, or Lugar, here, the cool hard-ass Republicans who still operate in the real world. I'm talking specifically about the guys running the party right now.
(emphasis mine)
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I just find it hilarious reading right-wing blogs complaing about how the Herald has such a liberal bias, then reading left-wing blogs complaining that it has such a conservative bias...
If you ask me, it has nothing but a populist bias -- people like to bitch about the Gummint, and the Herald gives tham what they want.
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I used to love Wizards, especially the monks, and the ending. I found a torrent of it a while ago (there is no DVD), and was, well disappointed. A work of its time perhaps and things have moved on and it has stayed static.
There is a DVD - I know a guy who owns it (the same guy who used to own a red car with the number plate NECRON). Wizards was quite the formative experience for me, and while it doesn't really stand the test of time, the nostalgia factor more than makes up for it for me. And seeing a Mark-Hamill-voiced fairy get shot in the chest...
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I've never lost a bag, but I almost stole one once. I was flying to Wellington for a wedding, and coincidentally ended up on the same flight as my boss, who was flying down for a funeral. My bag was a company branded one we'd been given as a Christmas present the year before. When I got to the baggage claim, I was able to grab it straight away, since it was easily identifiable with my company's logo on it. As I walked off with it, I noticed that it felt heavier than I remembered, but I figured it must be mine -- who else on that flight could have a customised bag from my company? ... Oh, right. I quickly checked the tag, realised I'd just pinched my boss' luggage, put it back on the carousel and found my one. Good thing I thought of it when I did, otherwise I'd have been unpacking in the hotel room before I found out what I'd done...