Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, October 27th, 2011 - 22 comments
John Key’s try-hard failed handshake at the RWC has gone viral. What looked like a minor footnote to the affair came out last night, when it was reported that YouTube had taken down the clip at the request of the IRB. But today the IRB denied it.
Written By: - Date published: 6:43 am, October 9th, 2011 - 6 comments
The music for the morning….
Written By: - Date published: 12:36 pm, September 21st, 2011 - 3 comments
Very, very funny. Where the fuck is Webb Ellis? hat tip: Trevor Mallard at Red Alert
Written By: - Date published: 3:10 pm, August 26th, 2011 - 7 comments
As we all know, John Key is the most effective Minister of Silly Ideas that the country has had since Robert Muldoon. Of course no-one can follow that closely in the great chuckler’s footsteps – John Key hasn’t even got close to bankrupting the country yet. He has been trying though. But here is another silly idea for him to look at. It is a developing industry that should be as effective as the cycleway or youth benefit cards!
Written By: - Date published: 1:29 pm, August 6th, 2011 - 37 comments
January 2009. Jobs are being lost at 4,000 per week. Key and his government have just come back from a month long holiday. First thing he does: makes an audition tape for Letterman. Notice how all the jokes are taking the mickey out of our country. Makes you real proud.
Written By: - Date published: 4:43 pm, June 24th, 2011 - 12 comments
Sometimes you have to simply start from 1.0 for Godwin’s Law. This pretty much applies to anything re-subtitled from the movie “Der Untergang”. The latest one that I have seen is this side splitting rendition of exactly what has been going on inside the EQC operation in Christchurch.
Written By: - Date published: 6:33 pm, June 17th, 2011 - 7 comments
From Canterbury TV (good to see they are still serving Canterbury) the first news report is better than most of the other stuff I see in the TV news about Christchurch. This is what people are telling us (one sent this clip through) in e-mails and comments. Now you can see them. It is a …
Written By: - Date published: 2:47 pm, June 17th, 2011 - 4 comments
One of my favorite bands and one of my favourite of their tracks. Barenaked Ladies playing “When I fall”. Great lyrics for the ongoing GFC. You have to love satirical songs…. Songwriters: PAGE, STEVEN / ROBERTSON, ED I look straight in the window, try not to look below Pretend I’m not up here, try counting …
Written By: - Date published: 4:16 pm, June 10th, 2011 - 3 comments
A few overlooked videos from plumedekiwi. The short and potty history of the pavlova going to its awful conclusion and a similar look at the Wellywood sign.
Written By: - Date published: 1:16 pm, June 2nd, 2011 - 112 comments
In my sleep deprived state I have to confess that I don’t like rugby supporters, especially drunken ones who argue about teams at 2am in the morning on the street. I suspect that will be the enduring memory I will carry away from this years Rugby World Cup. But I do like Dead Cat Bounce’s video about rugby.
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, May 20th, 2011 - 26 comments
I was listening to John Key on Parliament TV last night on the budget and he is bloody lazy when speaking. I had to watch his lips before I could figure out what he was saying. This morning there is a video of his remedial vocal work that illustrates this problem..
Written By: - Date published: 9:16 pm, April 15th, 2011 - 30 comments
1000 economists have written to the G20, about to meet in Washington, and to Bill Gates, asking for a tax on financial transactions known as a Tobin tax after its originator, or a Robin Hood tax as it is known in the US. 4 New Zealanders are among the 1000; Prue Hyman, Stefan Kesting, Peter Conway, and Petrus Simons. Good on them.
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, April 10th, 2011 - 21 comments
Two good vids. Seeing the history of Key’s ‘forgotten’ or ‘blind’ shareholdings laid out compared to how sharp he supposedly was as a money-trader is edifying. And the song is actually pretty good. Well done, NZtrillion.
Written By: - Date published: 10:54 am, December 18th, 2010 - 11 comments
Ok this is seriously weird, too cool, and as bad as the elevator music is. But at least it is not John Key mangling songs with syncophantic radio announcers declaring it to be music.
The band running on iPad’s and iPhone – North Point’s iBand
Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, December 12th, 2010 - 16 comments
A documentary that aired in Sweden last night. Fascinating. The origional can be viewed here. The following is from YouTube as it is more likely to handle the load.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 27th, 2010 - 1 comment
![[AllCDCovers]_everything_but_the_girl_acoustic_1993_retail_cd-cd](http://thestandard.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/AllCDCovers_everything_but_the_girl_acoustic_1993_retail_cd-cd-100x100.jpg "[AllCDCovers]_everything_but_the_girl_acoustic_1993_retail_cd-cd")
One of my favorite Bruce Springsteen tracks from when I was somewhat younger is “Tougher than the rest”. As heresy I’d have to say that I like the version by Everything But The Girl somewhat better. It has been coming up a lot on my playlist while pushing through the last month of coding. It was also the track that was playing when I heard the news about the second explosion at Pike River earlier in the week. I’d guess that will stay embedded as an association for a while.
Written By: - Date published: 2:36 pm, September 30th, 2010 - 19 comments
Do you watch 5 second films?
If not, you’re wasting your life.
Now, waste some more. In five second increments.
Written By: - Date published: 2:54 pm, September 13th, 2010 - 11 comments
Reading the New York Times this weekend, I found this wee gem.
Compared to my iPad, I’d have to say (sadly) there is at least one thing that newspapers are better at. However I don’t think that this will prevent me from avoiding bloating landfills.
Written By: - Date published: 2:24 pm, July 11th, 2010 - 20 comments
This is based on a lecture at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
It is a hell of an effective way to present an economic argument.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 pm, July 2nd, 2010 - 2 comments
Enigma have for a long time one of my favorite sounds to listen to while programming from the early 90′s onwards. There have been bug-hunting exercises where Enigma has literally been on my playlist all day. You can just queue all of their albums, knuckle down, and kill those tiresome and frustrating bugs. Since it is going to be a programming weekend, including some site tweaking….
Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, June 6th, 2010 - 2 comments
Fancy wasting a little time on a slow Sunday? Some viral video, courtesy of Guardian blogger, Jemima Kiss.
Written By: - Date published: 6:59 pm, May 23rd, 2010 - 44 comments
“The Bechdel test†requires a movie to pass three questions:
1) Does it have two or more women in it (who have names)?
2) Do they talk to one another?
3) Do they talk to one another about something other than a man?
This two minute video explains…
Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, May 17th, 2010 - 1 comment
As well as releasing its yearly report on World Development Indicators last month, the World Bank opened up its data. It has included a public API and access to over a thousand indicators. In the video below, World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick speaks about the Bank’s open data initiative.
Written By: - Date published: 11:06 am, May 2nd, 2010 - 7 comments
In Florida, a legislative plan to close as many as five state prisons and ship inmates to a private prison run by GEO Group was scaled back last month.
The feds may be searching to see if former state House Speaker Sansom received any kickbacks from the company. The GEO group are also contenders for running private prisons here.
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, April 19th, 2010 - 24 comments
Here’s a catchy tune for all you pirates out there. Get your kids to sing along!
Written By: - Date published: 8:01 pm, April 5th, 2010 - 3 comments
This is eleven minutes of pure Patti Smith singing about Vietnam in her usual ambiguous poetical style. Came up on the playlist while coding, and I had to stop to listen to the sheer menace in her voice. I had a look for a video. A powerful song, and a powerful rendition by its creator.
Written By: - Date published: 3:55 pm, March 19th, 2010 - 19 comments
New instalment from John Key impersonater “Plumedekiwi”, in which the PM gets his linguistic knickers in a twist over national standards….
If you haven’t seen the other vids by Plumedekiwi, check him out here
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, March 12th, 2010 - 14 comments
Who would have thought that a Facebook group advocating to keep Radio NZ funded and commercial-free would overtake Prime Minister John Key’s fan group for number of members? Well, yesterday at 9.30, just over three weeks since it was founded, the Save Radio New Zealand group reached 18,973 members, passing Key’s 18,972. That gives a …
Written By: - Date published: 3:52 pm, February 19th, 2010 - 10 comments
In Fear the Boom and Bust, John Maynard Keynes and F. A. Hayek, two of the great economists of the 20th century go out for a night on the town and sing about why there’s a “boom and bust” cycle in modern economies and good reason to fear it.
Written By: - Date published: 9:19 am, February 19th, 2010 - 8 comments
Click through to see Phil Goff take John Key down a peg. Sloppy home insulation. Sloppy, broken cycleway promises. Sloppy, unfilfulled Youth Guarantee. Sloppy & uncaring on unemployment. Sloppy abuse of the people of McGehan Close. A sloppy, do nothing PM.
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