Posts Tagged ‘authenticity’
Tripping over the paper trail. Spokesman says Mr Key advised cabinet about Fletcher link ‘orally’.
I remember writing a post before the last General Election, Hansard can be a real bitch, eh Mr Key? wherein I sympathised with noticed the difficulty some politicians seem to have remembering what they themselves said and how awkward that can be for them when they’re questioned about it in any detail. It’s not easy. Reporting […]
John Key is getting a reputation as a liar
This, from Emmerson in the NZ Herald today is pretty sharp: The euphemisms — ‘economical with the truth’, ‘not forthcoming’, ‘selective’, ‘evasive’, ‘spin’, ‘telling porkies’ — continue to fly (like pigs?) but how long will it be before the media and others in the mainstream start to describe the New Zealand prime minister’s performance by shorter, sharper […]
Misunderestimating* a player’s willingness to ‘burn the rules’
Reading a quite good column from Marco Arment about the Google Reader shut down, emerging competition and ‘free’ services (he’d earlier said, and I agreed: “It may suck in the interim before great alternatives [to Reader] mature and become widely supported, but in the long run, trust me: this is excellent news.”) I came across […]
See? This why I just don’t trust Google
Yeah, like a lot of people I use the Google Reader API to sync my RSS — but only because they monstered everyone else out of the “market” * and many of the standalone RSS reader apps (especially iOS based readers, but also Vienna and NetNewsWire) switched to use Google Reader to sync feeds, subscriptions […]
Calling out haters like Cameron Slater
Recently, in a post Cameron Slater is social media “beef lasagne” I referred to the tactics of Pakuranga’s political attack blogger: Cameron’s schtick is fizzing up nonsense for the purposes of Shock! Horror! spittle-flecked and dishonest attacks on people with whom he disagrees online. His purpose is to ‘hurt’ them. If by his ravings and […]
I would have thought Dana Perino would have learned about the risks of ambiguity
Bob Woodward’s credibility-eviscerating ‘I been threatened by the White House!’ (er, not really, actually) episode has seen a lot of ink and electrons spilt. I don’t need to add to it. But this short statement (above) from former GW Bush press secretary Dana Perino caught my eye because it wasn’t clear. Even my favourite right […]
We are ALL self-righteous hypocrites
So, I’ve finally found the space to read Jonathan Haidt’s masterpiece The Righteous Mind which was a much-appreciated Christmas gift. I’m enjoying it. Very persuasive. A slam in the early pages is this: “… the take home message of the book is ancient. It is the realisation we are all self-righteous hypocrites.” Well! OK then. […]
Cameron Slater is social media “beef lasagne”
Oh dear. In another example of his near-pathological ‘I-can-dish-it-out-but-can’t-take-it’ mindset, Pakuranga’s social media thug Cameron Slater is emoting ‘upset’ about comments on Twitter. (sigh) This loutish, heavy-handed propagandist makes a habit of cyberstalking, goading and abusing public figures and those whom he perceives as the National Party’s political enemies … and some within the Party […]
Let a little air in, @BarnsleyBill
This evil-looking device (right) is a Trocar self-piercing ventilation tube, used in medical procedures where inserting one of these into a patient’s infected body will help save their life through ‘aeration’ or by helping with ‘drainage of secretions’. I bet inserting one of these hurts like hell. But it beats suffocating … or festering in […]
Lighting a candle versus cursing the darkness
A friend I respect asked me today why I write here about some of the subjects (and people) I do. What do I hope to achieve? Coincidentally, I saw this (below) in the latest Parachute music festival magazine just this morning: That’s a different spin on Edmund Burke’s much-quoted saying: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph […]
Current affairs through partisan filters. David Bain in limbo.
It’s been intriguing to watch the messy political debate in New Zealand about the findings of the independent inquiry, conducted by an internationally respected justice, into the case for compensation for wrongful imprisonment of David Bain. I personally, largely ignorantly, thought David Bain was the killer of his family. A jury convicted him. But then […]
The non-sense of political labels and cutting friends because of their conclusions
From a wonderful article on recent US politics (Really. Please read it.) Revenge of the Reality-Based Community: My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong by Bruce Bartlett. The final line for me to cross in complete alienation from the right was my recognition that Obama is not a leftist. […]
Liberal. One definition.
I stumbled across this on Pinterest today … “If by a ‘Liberal’ they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — […]
