Author Archive
Ambition, self-selection and brainless tribalism. Bleurgh!
I’ve been thinking about the subject of deceit in politics and the sad idea that the voting public ‘expects’ a certain amount of spin and marketing (BS) in its political diet. I posted this comment in discussion about my musings about tribalism ‘National’s desperados get perfervid about Peters‘ before last year’s election: I usually enjoy […]
‘Earning’ your enemies
Earlier, I quoted from Margaret Pope’s elegant book At The Turning Point: My political life with David Lange. I heard the author interviewed by Radio NZ National’s erudite Kathyrn Ryan when the book was published 1 where Ms Pope answered (beautifully) a query about the enmity she’d attracted from Michael Bassett: …There are some things […]
Hollow Man Matthew Hooton recites his creed
Featuring extensive quotes from National Party sources, Nicky Hager’s The Hollow Men: A study in the politics of deception exposed and excoriated a cynical, deceptive team of politicians, spin doctors, professional deceivers and behind-the-scenes, shadowy political donors seeking political influence and ‘policy for sale’ — some of whom, judging by results, are still very much […]
‘Look it up’ as a put-down. I approve.
There’s apparently a little controversy about Madonna (the singer-songwriter) feeling that Lady Gaga (the singer-songwriter) has strayed a little too close imitation with respect to Madonna’s ‘Express Yourself’ worldwide hit and Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’. The last one of these I paid attention to was a fairly plausible Joe Satriani allegation that Cold Play had […]
Facebook price droops. Hands up if you’re surprised
See Facebook Stock Collapse Contributes To Mistrust Of Wall Street (Huffington Post) if you care. … the Facebook IPO had examples of pretty much everything that is wrong with the stock market today. Media and analyst cheerleading? Check. The destructive influence of high-speed trading? Check. A system built for insiders to profit while retail investors […]
Greed? On the sharemarket? Never!
Obvious Otis headline of the morning goes to the NZ Herald for this AFP story … The sell-off sparked more finger pointing and anger from those who had expected the price to zoom to massive gains like the immediate doubling of career-oriented social network LinkedIn’s IPO price last year. “Investors are searching for someone to […]
Rodney Hide, boy genius.
I knew Rodney Hide back when he was still using a Cassiopeia and I was using Psion Series 3a. (We used to compare features.) While he’s a pleasant man, and I personally like him, he’s never struck me as an intellectual powerhouse… So it was intriguing recently to read in the NBR online his vapid […]
‘A loathsome piece of filth’
That’s actually something I said about somebody. And I meant it, as harsh as it sounds. I didn’t say it to them, I didn’t say it publicly, nor did I post it online here or elsewhere. It was my personal opinion at the time, provoked by their actions. They stand out in my mind as one of […]
Why I use an ad-blocker (You must be kidding me @NZHerald)
I was using my non-ad-blocked Chrome web browser for something tonight and thought I’d just see what news was happening, so popped over the nzherald.co.nz You have got to be kidding me … Ridiculous over-the-top interruption marketing. Doomed to fail, in my opinion. – P Update: It certainly illustrates why I use AdBlock and Glimmerblocker […]
How we got to charter schools
I stumbled across this on the web, looking for something else. Worth reading. From the Autumn edition of Education Aotearoa: The influence of the business lobby, particularly the Business Roundtable and ACT, in pushing New Zealand into the hands of the charter school movement is shown in a timeline of developments put together by NZEI’s […]
David. Clever, but kinda creepy…
Similar in concept to Kara (right) here’s David … Clever marketing. But kinda creepy. via Christina Warren
