Author Archive
Siri dealing with a Rock God (ahem)
I was sure I’d posted this earlier … and even linked to it, but it seems to have disappeared, so … here you go: Douchebag Siri: the Fixed Apple iPhone Rock God Commercial and here’s the original: — I posted a tougher one here: ‘Poor Siri caught up in an argument‘
Ghastly Santorum’s JFK “throw up” line very un-presidential
The Washington Post’s E.J Dionne shares his opinion… Santorum: Weird extremism, or shrewd politics? By E.J. Dionne Jr. Just when you thought that Rick Santorum had gone as far toward social-issue right as he possibly could, he takes several steps farther off the edge. His statement that John F. Kennedy’s historic 1960 speech on religious […]
Excerpt: ‘The FOX Effect’ book
We discuss partisan misinformation campaigns — foreign and domestic — here on ThePaepae.com from time to time. Recently we discussed the Islamophobia campaign led by political ‘influencers’ and networkers (see Misinformation experts.) But the giant of twisted ‘news’ coverage has to be Fox News. Here’s an excerpt of The Media Matters for America book about […]
Privatisation goes into panic mode
For those interested, here’s Michael Coote’s very worthwhile article touching on the political management of the National government’s intended privatisation of State Owned Enterprises … Read it at National Business Review: Privatisation goes into panic mode – P
Window dressing
I was sorry to see this … Article here at stuff.co.nz As I said when the Lombard Finance charges were laid, I had quite a bit to do with Doug Graham and Bill Jeffries as cabinet minsters when I was a journo in the Press Gallery. I liked them both. This result will give pause […]
Not QUITE ‘annoyance free’
With all the hullaballoo about internet privacy prompted by Google’s recent actions, I followed a link to Life Hacker’s privacy guide. (Check it out.) … which led me to their first recommendation: Adblock Plus. Oh, good, I thought. Since I already use the very excellent AdBlock extension in Safari … well, ‘Plus’ has to be good, […]
Politicians will say ANYTHING
Spotted this tonight … The sight of Mitt Romney trying to out-Conservative the religious right’s darling Rick Santorum is breathtaking. Poll-driven fruitcakes. It’s like that here in NZ (and everywhere I guess) when people throw up clichés and then pillory and demonize their ‘opponents’ — rather than argue or debate issues with them. Here’s a clip […]
Every source leaks for a reason, Patrick
From Jack Shafer’s preview of Max Holland’s book Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat Every source leaks for a reason, and it’s usually not about preserving the constitution and the American way. As Stephen Hess writes, sources have many reasons to leak. They leak to boost their own egos. They leak to make a […]
Fattening the lawyers
Fran O’Sullivan, writing in the NZ Herald today about the controversial Crafar farms sales process has this exactly right, in my opinion: The door is open to Shanghai Pengxin to change aspects of its original application. The OIO said yesterday this often happens during the application process as “applicants refine their applications and agree to […]
@NZHerald puts its anti-Peters bias in plain sight
Can there be any doubt that the NZ Herald is taking an anti-Winston Peters editorial line? Here’s today’s story (by the intrepid Claire Trevett) about a recent dinner — gasp! — involving the NZ First leader and Labour Party leader David Shearer. Look at the photo of Peters. Distinctly unflattering, isn’t it? It’s also not […]
But can we believe anything Google says?
Apropos Another Google privacy FAIL (grrr) wherein we discussed Google defeating Safari’s privacy settings to plant ‘third party cookies’ despite my specific instructions to block them … look at the privacy setting in Google Chrome… Why should we believe them? ‘Unfair and deceptive practices‘ sounds right to me. “Google has clearly engaged in ‘unfair and […]
The fruits of propaganda
From Gallup: Americans Still Rate Iran Top U.S. Enemy China is second on the “greatest enemy” list by Frank Newport February 20, 2012 PRINCETON, NJ — Americans most frequently mention Iran when asked to name the country they consider to be the United States’ greatest enemy, and the 32% who do so is up from […]
Three faces of Eve … er, John Banks
One-point-one percent blogger Cactus Kate has written a well-worth reading column for the National Business Review website with the engaging title Who is John Banks? (I’m not kidding.) I agree with this part (below) and have said something similar for years: Three sides to Banks I believe there are at least three sides to John […]
Stalker Cameron Slater: new year, same bullsh*t
Before last November’s election I posted a comment about National Party proxy Cameron Slater’s intense and apparently undying hatred of Winston Peters in National’s desperados get perfervid about Peters. Of course, that was when it looked like the John Key/John Banks ‘cup of tea’ — plus Peters’ own campaigning ability and talent for capitalising on […]
WE WAS BRUNG UP PROPER!
This is doing the rounds at the moment … author(s) unknown — there are versions of this cry of the small c conservative all over the internet. WE WAS BRUNG UP PROPER! CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930’s 1940’s, 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s ! First, we survived being born […]
