Random Politics

[pxpx]

A review of Russell Brand's "book"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...or-morons.html

[Ab]

pure pwnage

[Rince]

Originally Posted by pxpx

A review of Russell Brand's "book"
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...or-morons.html

Woah. Don't hold back....

[leadinjector]

i never really got why russel brand was famous. he was barely decent in some movies, and does boring stand up. oh, and hes a fuckwit.

[Lightspeed]

Stuff like this I think:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynUjo99Gzbk

I'm talking about his swagger and how he handles people who are probably used to feeling quite powerful and self-assured. Not so much what he has to say about topics.

[Ab]

Brand strikes me as an incredibly quick, sharp, shallow thinker. His love of words and his uncanny ability to verbalise complex articulate sentences without pausing for breath - often without seeming to even pause for thought - can, I think, leave one with the oft-mistaken impression that what he's saying is deep and sensible.

He's in his element in that Fox clip. In an environment that defines itself by its superficial shallowness, he's a fucking GOD.

Back in 2010 he played the part of Trinculo the Jester in a production of The Tempest. A rehearsal clip of Brand just jamming his character's backstory is one of the most amazing pieces of spoken-word improvisation I've ever seen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBOMSzhIfjk

[Rince]

Originally Posted by Ab

Brand strikes me as an incredibly quick, sharp, shallow thinker. His love of words and his uncanny ability to verbalise complex articulate sentences without pausing for breath - often without seeming to even pause for thought - can, I think, leave one with the oft-mistaken impression that what he's saying is deep and sensible.

I think the review article said it best by saying he says things stupid people think are smart.
"incredibly quick, sharp, shallow thinker" is probably just as good a description :-)

[Lightspeed]

Hahah, this is funny:
Winners have a monopoly on reality

[Lightspeed]

State Service Commission labelled 'incompetent'

Ms MacLennan strongly criticised those who supported Mr Sutton following the public announcement saying she was "extremely disappointed that politicians and leaders…all spoke out to praise Sutton and not a single one of them condemned his behaviour."

What rape culture, lolz. /s

[Ab]

This Sutton debacle looks like a right um, debacle.

[Ab]

So it appears I'm banned from The Standard AND Whaleoil! Achievement unlocked!

[CCS]

Not hard to get banned from The Standard though, is it? These days, pretty easy to get banned from WO as well.

[Ab]

Killjoy. Why you be negging?

[CCS]

Because I've only been banned from Whale Oil :P

[Lightspeed]

This sucks.

Anti-terror bill 'rammed through'

I don't know what Labour's game is:

Labour Party defence spokesperson MP Phil Goff said four working days was a deplorable amount of time for a select committee to consider the bill.
...
But Labour did offer support for the bill's first reading yesterday, which passed by 107 votes to 14 with only the Green Party voting against it.

Greens doing solid work as usual.

[pxpx]

The bill will extend the period the Government can cancel a passport for, from 12 months to three years. It will also allow the Security Intelligence Service to carry out greater surveillance than it does now, including in special cases without a warrant for up to 48 hours.

Sounds good to me. So long as we cancel those passports after they leave or before they try and come back.

I'd support this bill regardless of the party in power.

[CCS]

Exactly. If some cunt wants to go to Syria or Iraq, let them go. With a bit of luck they'll die in battle. Either cancel their passport before they leave, OR when they come back charge them with belonging to a terrorist organisation.

[madmaxii]

Originally Posted by CCS

Exactly. If some cunt wants to go to Syria or Iraq, let them go. With a bit of luck they'll die in battle. Either cancel their passport before they leave, OR when they come back charge them with belonging to a terrorist organisation.

Yup

[Ab]

War Nerd says "yup"

http://pando.com/2014/10/24/the-war-...usiness-class/

[CCS]

Alternative: cancel/block their passport so they can't leave NZ, let them spread their radical ways in our country.


Yeah nah.

[pxpx]

So apparently Rawsharks identity is well known by the media and various people who have better google skills than I do.

There's no name suppression (afaik?) so I'm assuming we can speculate as to who it is here with no worries?

[Cyberbob]

I've been googling and it's not bringing up much. Go for it.

[pxpx]

Cool - from a comment thread on whaleoil,

- 'the media and everyone in wellington' already know who it is.
- the person was arrested 7 years ago and recently boasted about it (assuming on twitter??)
- sounds like they were imprisoned and 'recently' released

All I've found so far is this:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/200...g.jamessturcke

edit: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10479450 ??

[pxpx]

Pete from Whaleoil, says the Rawshark a was a customer of his in the 90s, so that probably rules out Owen Walker.

Another commenter who professed to know the identity also said it was someone who you wouldnt immediately associate with being a hacker.

[Lightspeed]

John Banks is looking happy:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/nation...ion-overturned

[Ab]

In his decision, Justice Wylie had said Kim Dotcom and his wife Mona had been credible witnesses.

well duh

[Lightspeed]

What concerns me about our current efforts to improve our anti-terrorism laws, is they're being prompted in part by law changes made by the UK government, who are responsible for laws like this:

Sex acts banned in UK porn

Yes, spanking is really on that list.

[Ab]

IIRC NZ's laws are even more fucked up already; again, IIRC, spanking during sex play is illegal in NZ. Not just in porn, DOING it.

[pxpx]

You call it spanking, I call it percussive foreplay

[DrTiTus]

I don't recall seeing anything like that in the legislation. Happy to be schooled in what I may or may not do with consent.

[chubby]

when is racism not racism?

[Juju]

When it's precluded with "I'm not a racist, but". It is common knowledge that the sentence nullifies all following racist remarks. Even black people are happy with this approach.

[fixed_truth]

I don't think that banning the sale of gender based toys is the answer; though some of the gender-typing that goes on with toys is a bit redic.

[Lightspeed]

It seems National MP Katherine Rich also has yet to discover the oppositional nature of our government.

Rich slams conflict of interest claims

Mrs Rich responded Mr Hague's move was ''just the latest phase of his opposition to my appointment, which began years ago''.

Yes, years ago when you were elected to power and he was elected to the Opposition.

[Ab]

A) she's not an MP,

B) he's not part of the Opposition

C) the complaint is about her work for a Crown Entity, not the government

other than that, bang on

[Lightspeed]

OIC. Still some learning to do myself.

I guess then it's just a story of someone working a public role unhappy with public scrutiny. I.E. nothing to see here.

[blynk]

Can there only be one party that is in Opposition? I assumed every party that is not in government.

And I do agree that there is a major conflict of interest in those 2 roles. Although they may not break any laws??

[chubby]

^^not any laws,but the requirements for the role....

but 'at the end of the day',kiwis dont really care.
and no-one likes to admit that they're wrong,and no-one likes to hear 'i told you so'-so oh well.

[fixed_truth]

Income inequality stunts NZ growth - OECD

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/n...ectid=11371860

[chubby]

will they copy and paste the articles about the same braniacs deciding that taxing the wealthy will most likely benefit the economy (in a broader sense than 'more income') that have been in the economist,the listener,and the guardian recently?.
well of course not.its a lefty smear campaign,stupid.