Posts by giovanni tiso
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<quote>DPB mothers/fathers *are already working*. They're raising children.<quote>
Nonsense, everybody knows that after the age of six they practically raise themselves. What with the Internet and all.
Somebody (I think the child poverty action group woman) pointed out on Morning Report that single parents on the DPB are twice as likely to be raising special needs kids than the parent population at large. The policy will feel particularly kind to this lot.
How did Peter Dunne manage to make his inane views heard so many times in the course of the last few hours I'll never know. But that's so by the by.
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In reality, they would quite possibly try to say: the person misremembered, or misunderstood, and here's what I really meant.
The beauty of cellphone and portable mp3 players that work also as recorders, huh? Not so much big brother is watching you as big brother is you, watching, as somebody once said. I'm half expecting Bill English to be caught opposing his party's policies on Streetview next (a rashly worded yard sign?).
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National's response, however, has been disgraceful. Their attempts to dress this up as "gutter politics" is a redefinition of that phrase.
Worked a treat on the Jane Clifton and the Listener editorial board, who rose as one.
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Giovanni: I find that rather ironic considering the amount of hot air expended around these parts decrying the media's idea of what constitutes "news".
So you're saying it ought to be Nicky Watson's tits and nothing else from now on?
I love how you always push the other side of whichever argument you're on to accept an all-or-nothing position, so that you're free to occupy the reasonable, nuanced middle. Except of course when it's your turn to bombast about the media's idea of what constitutes "news", or whatever your outrage du jour happens to be.
Personally, I see no contradiction between wishing that our broadcast and printed media made a better effort the keep out of the gutter, and patting them on the back when they happen to follow the job description.
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If Garner's ethics regarding covert taping of individuals without their knowledge and consent are entirely situational -- as opposed to mine, which I guess you could fairly call legalistic and absolute -- don't we have the right to know what they are, and who they do and don't apply to?
He's a political journalist, his job is to report the news. Is it newsworthy when the person who is most likely going to be our country's next treasurer states that his party is adopting the policies of its coiunterpart, on account of how popular they are and the fact that they work, but hopes to gradually move on to the ones it believes in once in power? You bet it is news. If he had spoken to Garner off the record about this, then Garner couldn't have reported it, but he didn't. Somebody passed it on to him. Any journalist in his position would have done the same. Think of Obama's 'clinging to guns and religion' comments of a few weeks back (uttered in another public forum), and you'll find that nobody on his side cried conspiracy or faulted the fact that there was a recording of what he said.
I'll go one step further: Don Brash's emails, part of a private conversation. Were they news? With bells on. How were they obtained? We don't know. Do I have a problem with a journalist using them? Nope, I'm bloody grateful in fact. The courts agreed that they were fair game and protected Hager's right not to divulge his sources.
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And surely if I stand for public office, my history of mental illness (which I've been fairly candid about) is fair game and any ethical/legal issues around a therapist leaking patient records would be trumped by the public interest?
I'm perfectly comfortable with politicians being recorded when they speak in public forums about what they intend to do with the country; I wouldn't be comfortable with Key's therapist divulging information about him. Some of us are still able, nay eager, to discriminate.
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And perhaps you've not spent any time in psychotherapy, but I have. Perhaps it would be fair game if I stood for Parliament, and secret tapes of my sessions ended up in Duncan Garner's in-box?
Yes Craig. Politicians speaking to punters at their national party conference; you in a psychotherapy session. Same thing really.
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It's folks outside of China who are getting righteous about this, not the Chinese population who seem to be very supportive.
And the exiled Tibetan leadership has repeatedly said it wants the games to go ahead and be a success.
Anything that shines a light on a country with the Chinese record for censorship and imprisoning dissenters ought to be a good thing, the Tibetan leadership is not alone in recognising that. The press conference cancellation I linked to the other day was not surprising of course, but it's up to the journalists to chase such stories regardless, and being there in the first place should help them to do just that. Whether and to what extent they will or not will depend on the authorities' ability to conceal them, their own desire to pursue them, and the respective outlets' will to devote minutes and column inches to something other than Phelps' and their own nation's medal tally.
Just to add to my folk-outside-out-China righteousness quotient, I'll look out with interest also for stories about international relations with the country - ought to be a pretty good study on hipocrisy on a planet-wide scale - and especially about Chinese people abroad. I know Italy and my own town especially could use examining its attitudes there, we have bang on one hundred years of pretty solid racism to mull over.
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For an intimate, I'd go with BB KIng, 2am seedy(ish) bar in Sydney,him, Lucille, and about 10 of us.
Wow, my envy is strong.
For best concerts I have to go with musicians I didn't particularly care for, especially Eurythmics 1984 - that was an absolute cracker. Conversely, Nick Cave 1995 (or thereabouts) was a big disappointment. Although by fat the worst concerts I ever attended, hands down, was Crowded House, Milan 1993. It was badly promoted, the venue was empty, they fought on stage and buggered off - utterly disgraceful. -
I'v always wondered what 'neo-con' means, could someone like Richard Preble have earned that title?
You can say many things about Richard Prebble (I'll start: he's a despicable little man who thinks there should be no welfare in New Zealand), but a neo-con he ain't. You really only have to ask yourself one questions: Is this man (or woman*) bent on world domination? If the answer is no, move along. If the answer is yes, there aren't many other boxes to be ticked; personal knowledge of a member of the Bush family being perhaps the single biggest one. The group is pretty much entirely defined by its foreign policy aims, and those are a matter of public record (see Project for the New American Century, last week's conversation, etc.).
*Let's face it: man.
Neoconservative used to have another meaning, though: former liberal turned conservative; these types often became radical free-marketers so that definition would fit Prebble to a tee. (But it wouldn't apply to any of the people whom we currently refer to as neocons). In Italy we have a similar phenomenon but there neoconservatives also become anti-abortionists and church apologists - iit seems that you have to embrace all the things you used to despise the most - hence theo-con.