Author Archive

Can Bernie find a clutch and change gear?

Written By: - Date published: 8:54 am, March 5th, 2020 - 33 comments

The basic problem with Bernie Sanders campaign is that his sole political role since the start of his career has been as the archetypal outsider. He injects ideas into the political debate that didn’t get play time, but he didn’t concentrate on making those things happen. Now it is costing him.

Postal voting – essentially dead

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, February 25th, 2020 - 62 comments

Stuff has an article up about last years local body elections in Auckland. As usual  the interesting parts are at the end. But I have to reiterate – online voting isn’t the answer. As a programmer, I’d just call it stupid and dangerous.

The demise of single use plastic bags and the limp vege problem

Written By: - Date published: 8:16 am, February 14th, 2020 - 80 comments

The rapid demise of the single use plastic bag has just left one hole in my life. I haven’t (so far) been able to replace the one and only second life use that I ever found for them. They were great at keeping the broccoli and carrots from going limp in the fridge. 

Trump impeachment trial – gold for comedians.

Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, January 22nd, 2020 - 63 comments

The hypocrisy of the defenders of Trump defenders in the US Senate is providing grist for comedians and satirists. Here are a few examples looking at Trump supporters in the US Senate.

‘Donations’ or bribes

Written By: - Date published: 9:58 pm, November 19th, 2019 - 95 comments

It has been ironic at our media frenzy on political ‘donations’. I suspect that our legal structure has been setup for bribing politicians with ‘donations’. Let us just make all politicians and donors guilty until proven innocent of false reporting of ‘donations’. It’d be more interesting than the current farce. Start with Simon Bridges – currently still under investigation by the SFO.

Small start to inflated bullshit.

Written By: - Date published: 11:05 am, October 29th, 2019 - 14 comments

I was reading one of Chris Trotters reflections which looked at the Corrections Amendment Bill 2018, that just passed its 3rd reading. “Putting The Check In Right-Wing Prisoners’ Mail”. It sounded odd and oddly lacked detail. I came to the conclusion taking press releases at face value without thinking was a very bad idea.

Farmers given a chance. I think National will screw it up for them.

Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, October 24th, 2019 - 21 comments

One of the less endearing traits of National is their ability to screw almost anything up for short-term advantage regardless how it impacts long-term. Usually this comes from the results of in-fighting within the party. The agricultural emissions deal is likely to get caught again.

The fast death of broadcast free to air TV

Written By: - Date published: 8:19 am, October 22nd, 2019 - 37 comments

That free-to-air TV are getting creamed doesn’t surprise me. TV3 is essentially being given away (or closed). Blame the broadcast model, the pain of noisy advertising and the rush to bottom in taste by chasing the few remaining people who won’t change the habits of a lifetime. What does surprise me is just how fast it is changing.

 

It is a matter of trust. Few trust Boris.

Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, October 21st, 2019 - 13 comments

As a direct result of the lack of trust by a majority of parliamentarians about how committed Boris supporters are to the process of parliament. They want to see the details of the legislation, debate and pass it before the actual Brexit. Details are the job of MPs.

Reality kicks in for US trolls.

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, October 18th, 2019 - 17 comments

It has been an interesting few days looking at political reality kicking in on politics and the net in the UK and the US. The first story I read yesterday was in the US, about one of the lying dimwitted conspiracy nutcases who claimed that the 2012 Sandy Nook school massacre never happened, but was […]

Brexit built on lies – still suffering.

Written By: - Date published: 5:16 am, October 18th, 2019 - 45 comments

In the UK, Boris Johnson has just had a rather nasty setback in trying to get support for his Brexit package. It looks remarkably like the last one – which failed three times in parliament. It looks like the clone with tweaks will fail again.

Online voting – no. Try polling booths

Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, October 14th, 2019 - 42 comments

Amid calls to install online voting from the technologically illiterate who are appear to be unaware of the risks, there is clear disagreement from those who do know the risks. Politicians should listen to them. While postal voting is an expensive and failing system, online voting as a system is certain to be way worse. 

Rates, debt, growth and PPP

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, October 8th, 2019 - 33 comments

Stuff had an interesting piece looking at rates, taxes and local infrastructure “Rates are much lower than you think, and they’re responsible for miserable growth in cities”. They just missed out one crucial factor. The way that PPP debates often block infrastructure. Interesting that got missed..

On ‘free speech victims’.

Written By: - Date published: 8:25 am, October 1st, 2019 - 66 comments

Good to see that the courts upholding the right of venues to decide how they are able to use their facilities and assess risks. There is no ‘free speech right’ in our law including the Bill of Rights Act that overrides owners assessment of risk. The rights that are in the BoA are not exclusive – anyone can express their opinion peaceably – including protesters like myself at the doors of bigots.

Parliamentary TV – should we shut it?

Written By: - Date published: 8:44 am, September 30th, 2019 - 51 comments

Occasionally, this site puts up a video from parliament. Probably happens a few times per month at best.  Not a whole lot of interest. It is put up for the public to observe parliament when required. While it’d be fun to make clips mocking National politicians – why should the public pay to provide feedstock for juveniles to do that? Either have and follow the simple rules similar to every other content provider or shut down parliamentary TV.

Battery power gets way more interesting

Written By: - Date published: 10:10 am, September 27th, 2019 - 35 comments

Anyone who has been around tech for the last couple of decades will be aware of the liberating and industry disruptive effect of batteries. This caught my attention – “Tesla May Have Invented a Million-Mile Electric Car Battery”. It was well worth the read.

Civilian offers a bleak look at our future.

Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, September 26th, 2019 - 13 comments

The Civilian ‘reports’ in “Trump repeatedly asked Ardern if New Zealand gives asylum very often”. Oh shit! We need to reverse National’s large donation policy and proactively and preemptively pass a law against bolthole refugees.

Lying : the preferred denier behavior

Written By: - Date published: 3:45 pm, September 22nd, 2019 - 26 comments

In a striking example of the typical climate change denier, the “Australian Young Coal Coalition” released a photo bemoaning the mess left by friday’s climate change strike rally in Hyde Park. Pity that it was a lying fake. Being put out by climate change deniers, of course it was just a lie. That is all […]

Legitimate target, daft war

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, September 16th, 2019 - 30 comments

The war that Saudi Arabia and its allies has been waging against the Houthi side in the civil war in Yemen took a interesting turn yesterday. Houthi claimed an attack on Saudi oil processing facilities using drone strikes. It is likely to significantly reduce the output of the Saudi exports for a while as the […]

The Civilian has a fish-hook

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, September 6th, 2019 - 2 comments

The Civilian is New Zealand’s pre-eminent source of online news, and indeed the purest form of news that you can consume without having an apoplectic seizure. Today they detail the course of a vaccination on live TV. Please put your hot drinks down before reading.

NRA: a international terrorist organisation

Written By: - Date published: 9:13 am, September 6th, 2019 - 22 comments

I was joyful to see that the San Francisco board of supervisors has declared what I have long thought; that the National Rifle Association in America has for many years been acting as a terrorist organisation.  We should add them to our register of terrorist organisations as well.

Talk is cheap Tamihere

Written By: - Date published: 5:13 am, August 22nd, 2019 - 56 comments

I am really not a fan of political candidates bullshitting. John Tamihere – candidate for Auckland city Mayor, is this kind of blowhard. He is the epitome of the kind of fool who seems to keep his brain mounted right next to his testicles to inform his mouth what to say. He released a transport policy fantasy… I’ll vote for Goff.

Police and computers: incompetent or just unbalanced?

Written By: - Date published: 8:26 am, August 21st, 2019 - 23 comments

I’ve just been reading the decision by the IPCA on their botched and blatantly political searches on Nicky Hager. But there is a more serious problem. The police appear to be technically and legally incapable of enforcing our 2002 legislation about computer crimes. Perhaps a specialist office like the SFO who can garner the skills to deal with it – without political linkages being an issue.

Police – ignoring their job in Southland

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, August 12th, 2019 - 49 comments

“Allegations of trespassing and intimidation as Southland winter grazing protest escalates” yesterday. The reporter completely missed the most important salient point – the police don’t seem to be doing their job. Leaving a pissed lynch mob of farmers trying to force people out of their house to ‘talk’ to them is pretty clearly an act of intimidation. And that doesn’t even cover the original idiot farmer who is alleged to have rammed someone’s car.

Taking out the trash – Whaleoil site sold to Blomfield

Written By: - Date published: 2:29 pm, August 9th, 2019 - 67 comments

Matt Blomfield has brought the Whaleoil site from the official assignee. This fulfills a long held wish of, not only Matt, but a whole pile of people that this arsehole-run paid-for defamation lying site have damaged over the years. Chapter 27 of the Margie Thompson’s Whale Oil book is now available online…

Simon – only good at the bottom of a cliff

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, July 31st, 2019 - 78 comments

The interview between Jack Tame and  Simon Bridges was revealing. Circumlocutions and the wheedling of a conniving prosecutor around the National party hypocrisy over cancer drugs. Making a token amount towards funding super-expensive cancer drugs – but don’t want to deal with root causes or prevention of cancer? It beggars belief that this fool is a politician.

The weasel accurately dissects National.

Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, July 26th, 2019 - 36 comments

Matthew Hooton has a piece on National’s chances in the next election this morning entitled as “National stumbling to defeat”. Personally I think he is a PR weasel who is on the border to dirty politics. But he did cover the salient points that will be on the mind of the National party conference. 

Brian Easton on methane

Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, July 18th, 2019 - 4 comments

Brian Easton has put up a interesting post at Pundit which looks at how we should measure and constrain in our methane emissions. My initial impression is that his approach defeats the purpose of trying to reduce the effects of climate change over the coming century.

Watching the rain radar

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, July 16th, 2019 - 35 comments

lumos helmet

Of all of the inventions that currently make riding bikes safer and more convenient in urban environments, I’d have to say that the rain radar would be number four on my list.

Nats must hate Auckland’s building consents boom

Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, July 15th, 2019 - 59 comments

The rate at which the building consents have increased in Auckland, and the shift to a more useful mix, has been incredibly fast. You can understand why National after their decade of failure for housing and transport have been targeting the authors of that success. It highlights National’s economic incompetence.

Aussies – utterly predictable right down to the last words.

Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, July 14th, 2019 - 30 comments

It isn’t often that I read a sports story. My view was that if you aren’t doing a sport, then what is the point in watching others doing it? Work on something that you can do. However a title on an aussie ABC article caught me – “New Zealand earn genuine respect”. Now that was unusual…