Posts by Gareth Ward
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Can you chuck a CD in the recycling? I've got a whole bunch that aren't used and just piled up in the cupboard...
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So there was a splintering of the Lhaws vote that allowed Pie to sneak through to take the number one spot.
If only the same thing would actually happen in Whanganui...
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There was also the small technicality that while Titanic was massively over-budget, behind schedule, and looking like the mother of all fliops, nobody was going to hand his initial estimated budget of close to $400 million.
Amazingly he went to the studio when they were going from $100m to $200m and gave up his salary AND his profit share. On what turned out to be the highest grossing movie of all time!
Studio realised he was a big fish that they wanted to keep happy though so wrote him a cheque for a reported $75m even though they contractually didn't owe him a cent -
Firstly, I'm not sure we should be complaining that real spending on public services will decline over time - I prefer it to the alternative myself.
You want to maintain spending growth? Then pitch for tax rate increases to go with it. Anything else is irresponsible avoidance. -
Interesting what you say about Star Wars - Cameron saw that in 77 and instantly decided he had to make something like it. Avatar was written mid-90's while Titanic was in production, and when it was finally looked at late-90's he canned it because the technology couldn't create his vision of his own Star Wars.
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'm sure we've talked about this before, but I've always been tickled by 'guide her in the nations' van'
Ooooh, the full version. I've only ever seen that in print, does it ever get sung as well?
I like to think of us bundling along in a Bongo... -
Almost makes me think we should revisit the whole flag issue, along with the republicanism debate, and the constitution
So long as we revisit the republicanism/constitution debate and a change to the flag just falls out of that.
The thought of changing our flag without that other stuff just because we don't like the picture on it sits really poorly with me. -
I like the idea of Treaty partner flags flying side by side on the national day, but if the the flag is going to be given de facto statutory meaning, I'd much rather see some kind of statutory process make it so.
Yup, I agree with that. I must admit part of me kinda likes that Key has recognised that something like that could open the whole thing up to some pretty nasty attacks on all sides and has just sidestepped those and "made it happen". But a larger part of me realises that's not really the way to run a pretty serious part of our national identity.
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it is ghastly
Yeah, I agree, not a big fan of the design. But that ain't my call really!
(Middle-class white man, aka the Families Commission defence) -
I'm either not making myself clear, or I have timing issues - I'm not looking for a "happy ending", I've said a number of times that I'll let Maori as a whole, through whatever voice they have, say if it's acceptable or not. I have never once made a claim as to the acceptable view or otherwise. I'm simply doing what you and most commentators here do most days - taking negative claims made by a political party with a pretty hefty grain of salt.
Given the recent behaviour of the Labour party, I will not take their spokesperson's soundbites as representative of that voice - they have proven a pretty serious lack of principle and love for populist jabs that I can't take their view as the correct one by default. That's not negating the view they represent, it's negating their reputation to be the sole voice of truth on such a view.
And I was referring solely to Labour commentary; Kingi Taurua and Tau Henare are potentially a different matter and a good start at trying to understand the overarching view of Maori (where that's possible). That needs to be tinged with the fact that they are only two voices and the well-known tendency of certain media to establish a storyline and then print the quotes that match, but if it becomes genuinely clear that this is all a Maori Party beatup that is causing serious strife within Maoridom then I'll be against it to.
But yes, my take on it for now is that the claims of dissent, tokenism and "flying a political flag only" are political in their own nature. The Labour Party holds little credibility with me these days as to the genuine principled backing of their press releases. And if we're going to piss all over the flying of "a" Maori flag alongside that of the Crown on Waitangi Day then we better be damn sure we should be.