Written By: - Date published: 7:14 am, July 13th, 2010 - 10 comments
Who’d be an MP? In many ways it’s a dog of a job, and the prospect of really “making a difference” seems remote. Politics seems to bring out the worst in people, and too many politicians have earned the low esteem in which they are held by the public. But despite all this, some people are drawn to politics for all the right reasons. Good on you all. It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.
Written By: - Date published: 5:32 pm, May 30th, 2010 - 13 comments
From the RSA, a short video based on a seminar by Dan Pink.
Dan was once Al Gore’s speechwriter.
Here he “illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace”.
Written By: - Date published: 9:50 am, May 2nd, 2010 - 10 comments
Nat MP Michael Woodhouse was speaking on the amendment bill weakening workers’ rights to a break and said “I was heard it said that political discourse requites two things: trust and understanding. And it’s certainly true here. Labour don’t trust us and we sure as hell don’t understand them”. I think it’s very enlightening that he chose to put it that way.
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, April 25th, 2010 - 8 comments
News is already suffering from the “downsizing” of reporting and editing staff. What happens as the process goes further, with the automation of the collating, ranking, and even the writing of the news? How long before gaming news rank is the next political battlefield?
Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, March 28th, 2010 - 18 comments
Anyone who has been involved in debating issues has probably come to suspect that facts don’t matter. Facts don’t change people’s minds, there are other, stronger influences that shape opinions.
A recent article by George Monbiot in The Guardian reviews some of the psychological evidence for this fact blindness in the context of the climate change debate.
Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, January 27th, 2010 - 56 comments
Before they were swept along by the latest incarnation of US Right anti-intellectualism, National used to have some smart people. One of the last to go was Simon Upton. You might not always or even often agree with the man but at least he is informed and has the capacity to engage in serious debate …
Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, December 13th, 2009 - 38 comments
I think it is a pity that the currently dominant country / culture in the world, America, has had such a short history. Pakeha history in New Zealand suffers from the same limitation. All of our history has been about expansion and growth. “Progress”. It seems to us to be the natural state of affairs. …
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, November 29th, 2009 - 14 comments
The delectable Mr Stephen Fry doesn’t like the people who comment on blogs, and says so in his usual forthright, erudite and whimsical way: “I don’t know about you but whenever I read a blog I do not let my eye drop below half the screen in case I accidentally hit the bit where the …
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, November 8th, 2009 - 5 comments
A shout out on a Sunday to a family who are walking the talk: Pastor Murray Smith preaches a message of generosity in his sermons and says people need few material things in order to live happy and fulfilling lives. So Pastor Smith, his wife, Michelle, and their three young children are giving up their …
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, November 1st, 2009 - 11 comments
I read a fun piece by Charlie Brooker in The Guardian recently: There’s too much stuff. We live in a stuff-a-lanche. I’m fairly certain I recently passed a rather pathetic tipping point, and now own more unread books and unwatched DVDs than my remaining lifespan will be able to sustain. I can’t possibly read all …
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 22nd, 2009 - 14 comments
I thought I would take the time to point out this excellent article by Tapu Misa. It has gone with out saying that the emotional and intellectual centre of the Labour movement in New Zealand, from Wally Nash, the welfare state and the first Labour government, has often been from the Bible. It doesn’t hurt …
Written By: - Date published: 11:42 pm, October 5th, 2009 - 14 comments
This the kind of garbage isn’t usually worth my time, but that’s what wee gripes is for: Why are Key, Henry and Watkins so excited that the Youtube vid of John Key’s clowning on Letterman has more hits than the vid of Obama on the same show? For a start, Obama’s vid has more hits. Anyone who …
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, October 4th, 2009 - 11 comments
Maybe it would be good for my blood pressure to try not to be grumpy about politics on Sundays. So here is a site I found last week which both rekindled my sense of wonder, and re-calibrated my sense of perspective. The site displays a full 360 degree spherical image of the night sky as seen …
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, September 23rd, 2009 - 13 comments
Espiner the Younger wrote: Hutch’s biggest mistake wasn’t reading and driving, in my opinion. It was reading and driving in a sign-written car with his name on it. Now, that is silly. No. The problem is doing something dangerous and probably illegal (got to constitute reckless driving, surely). It’s not a ‘bad look’. It’s dumb …
Written By: - Date published: 10:47 pm, September 17th, 2009 - 11 comments
I just read that the Troy Kennedy Martin, the screenwriter responsible for Edge of Darkness died earlier this week. I wanted to mark his passing because I think Edge of Darkness is one of the best things I have ever viewed on television. I was pretty young at the time but I remember being riveted …
Written By: - Date published: 1:04 pm, September 17th, 2009 - 10 comments
Westpac has this ad campaign about how they’re doing their bit to reduce their environmental impact. The dumb thing is they make begin green appear unattractive. You know the ads. The kid trying to get the idiot dad who works at Westpac to be more enviromentally friendly. Dad zips up his wang after peeing …
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, September 9th, 2009 - 7 comments
John when you say ‘overtly’ you mean ‘overly’. Like on Monday when you told Paul Henry “I’m not overtly stressed..”. Sometimes, you say something like ’we’re not overtly planning X’ when you just mean ‘we’re not planning X’. Here’s a little hypothetical test. What’s wrong with this sentence? “I’m not overtly concerned by scuttlebug from various …
Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, September 5th, 2009 - 54 comments
Diffusion of responsibility means that the bigger the group the less chance that anyone in the group will take action. In a typical experiment people are left to wait in a room, which is rigged so that smoke starts coming in under a door. A person who is alone will usually leave the room and …
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, July 31st, 2009 - 88 comments
I’ve been thinking about the different ways ministers from the Left and the Right approach governing. I think it goes back to where they come from, where their ideological roots are. Ministers from Labour and other leftwing parties tend to have backgrounds in serving a wider community. Teachers, professors, union officials, public servants. Those roles …
Written By: - Date published: 9:59 am, July 18th, 2009 - 27 comments
This endless crime-porn. Night after night of fetishistic coverage of the latest unusual crime or trial. Call yourselves journalists? Bollocks. You run this because it’s titallating and it’s cheap. There’s no news value. And there’s certainly no respect for the people whose lives are at the centre. You don’t get these are real human beings. …
Written By: - Date published: 2:57 pm, July 17th, 2009 - 40 comments
Business New Zealand and other assorted tossers. Stop calling our country ‘New Zealand Inc’. This is our home. This is where we live our lives and raise our families. It’s not some profit-maximising engine for your shareholders.
Written By: - Date published: 3:52 pm, July 16th, 2009 - 30 comments
Maori unemployment is ballooning day by day but the most important thing that Maori Affairs Minister Sharples can spend his time on is debating which flag will fly on the Harbour Bridge next Waitangi Day. “Having a flag under which Maori can rally under is really, really, really important. And people might see it as …
Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, July 16th, 2009 - 7 comments
It takes two days from folate blowing up as a political issue for Key to get Crown Law onto finding a way for us to get out of it. It’s been nine months and there’s still no action on the economy and jobs. Priorities? By now, we know what Key’s priorities are: Dampen down any …
Written By: - Date published: 8:06 pm, June 4th, 2009 - 58 comments
This evening, Labour tabled in the House, with her permission, a statement from the woman that Richard Worth harrassed with his corrupt ‘jobs for favours’ proposals. Journalists got copies and have quoted from it but not shown it. Except, the Herald briefly posted an image of it. Here’s why we’re in a quandary. We’ve been …
Written By: - Date published: 12:03 pm, April 4th, 2009 - 17 comments
A little while ago we had some discussion here about the Sensible Sentencing Trust and their status as a charity. That’s not what this post is about. Rather, I’m going to write a little bit about the functional role groups like the SST play in the political process and how they are successful. The SST, …
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, March 4th, 2009 - 12 comments
In the age of the media politician, where catch-phrases are given more attention than laws and good politics is awarded more points by the commentariat than good government, it’s not fashionable to worry too much about the health of our constitutional arragnements and our institutions. But I do. Here’s some of the things that have …
Written By: - Date published: 2:39 pm, February 27th, 2009 - 48 comments
There’s all this rubbish at the moment about people moving beyond ideology. At the Jobs Summit, attendees were harangued to ‘leave your ideology at the door’. Everything I’m hearing out of the Summit says they haven’t. The business leaders want weaker work rights, lower tax, and subsidies. The few workers’ representatives that were invited want …
Written By: - Date published: 6:57 am, January 5th, 2009 - 16 comments
I’ve been thinking about the concurrent crises we face – peak oil, climate change, and tightening food supply – how the limits to growth are starting to hit us and how, each reinforcing the other, they constitute the major challenges to our collective welfare in the years to come. I’ve been thinking about how we …
Written By: - Date published: 10:14 am, December 19th, 2008 - 45 comments
I had some good conversations with journos at the press gallery drinks. We’re often critical of the media, and sometimes specific journos, and I don’t resile from that – criticism is criticism, it’s either well-founded or not and people are free to take it or leave it based on that. I’ll admit sometimes writers express …
Written By: - Date published: 4:06 pm, November 12th, 2008 - 117 comments
[I'll just preface this post by saying I have no love for Winston Peters' politics and I'm happy to see New Zealand First out of Parliament but, then, I would also be happy to see National out of Parliament and, surely, we shouldn't base an electoral system on particular outcomes for particular parties, rather, on ...
Written By: - Date published: 10:17 am, November 7th, 2008 - 44 comments
The fundamental question of politics is how the wealth of society should be divided among the members of society. We live in a capitalist society. That means it is the people who own the capital (businesses, factories, farms) who own the things that are made and get to choose how to divide the wealth between …
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