Posts by Eddie Clark
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Wow, you really hate Keith Ng, eh, Steve Curtis? Not sure you're adding anything to the debate other than repeatedly saying you dislike him and looking a little bit racist.
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Just curious if any of the "it's not racist ok" crowd are of Asian descent or have Asian loved ones. Because my Canadian-born Chinese partner is about to move here, and I'd be embarrassed as hell to show him this thread. Easy to be pious and clueless when it's not you facing the bigoted backlash Twyford is prompting here.
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OnPoint: My last name sounds Chinese, in reply to Katharine Moody,
Did... did you just compare Anti-American sentiment during the GWB years to racism? Good lord.
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I listened to Polly Harvey's latest a lot this year... 10 months after it's release I still think it might be my favourite released this year. Also been thrashing the excellent reissue of Archers of Loaf's Vee Vee.
And finally, one of the nice things about moving to the other side of the world is finding local acts that don't quite their way to New Zealand. Ohbijou is an excellent local TO band, and their latest album was super awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/QRuYYC3p5EE (If someone can tell me how to embed I'll embed it here instead of linking. Can't work out how right now!)
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Glad to see Tom Semmens pulling out the unsurprising "if only we threw women, maori, and homos out, we'd do so much better line". Easy to run that line if you're none of those things.
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Apparently turnout is not as bad as media was wittering on about on the night. They neglected to count special votes. Via Edge, Elections NZ says the turnout was about 74%: http://www.elections.org.nz/study/news/preliminary-results-for-the-2011-general-election-and-advance-voting-for-the-referendum-on-the-voting-system.html
Not great, but not as bad as 65%.
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Legal Beagle: Adventures in the OIA or:…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
On Media7 last night, Jon Stephenson said it took Jerry Mateparae six months to deign to even respond to his last OIA request, and it was basically (I'm paraphrasing) a long "fuck off, I'm not telling you shit." That's blatantly flouting the law, but unless the Ombudmen get real enforcement powers what's the downside? Stephenson didn't have the time or resources to be constantly taking the NZDF to task and research a complex story like that.
Having done a fair few OIA's in my former evil lobbyist/lawyer life, I can say that NZDF was the worst for quick responses, and the quickest to redact absolutely everything they could. However, they DID cough up most of what was being asked for once we complained to the Ombudsmen. Which is to say they could tell the ombudsmen to eff off, but in practice they don't (Southland Institute of Technology is, as far as I recall, the ONLY organisation to ever refuse to implement an ombudsman's recommendation. Our Office of the Ombudsmen is a damn good one as far as these things go internationally (even if it is massively overworked), as is our OIA. I was shocked at how secretive everything is in Canadia.
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I was expressing my surprise at the topic being raised at all! I agree that nothing has been spoiled.
Canadian EI was raised and, oddly enough, PAS-ers such as you and Kyle are the only NZ-based hockey fans I've come across. I takes my chances to talk hockey!
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I protest! There are no spoilers in any of my posts for any of the four games played tonight!
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I assume you've yet to see it and are hiding from the results? If so, will indeed zip it. No comment on that game 1, though I'll be supporting the Sens. For some reason I loathe Crosby.
Looking forward to soccer scores when my Bs play Buffalo (even though I lived in TO, the Leafs are too hopeless for words so I latched onto another NE team). I think there'll be a lot of 1-0s and a lot of OT. Hopefully they can pull it off, but expect them to go down in 6, unfortunately.