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 - 31 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 - 12 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 - 26 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 - 2 comments
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 - 22 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 - 12 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 - 22 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 - 4 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 - 46 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 - 9 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 - 25 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 - 20 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.
Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, February 1st, 2010 - 18 comments
It was probably well intentioned – and to be fair we don’t know the full facts yet – but on the face of it putting kids in police cars at a school fair then doing donuts and figure eights around the field looks like pretty poor judgement. On the other hand, I’m just a little […]
Written By: - Date published: 10:01 pm, December 24th, 2009 - 9 comments
One of the stranger Internet campaigns has being going on in Britain. It has resulted in this excellent track being the Xmas number 1 single this year (it is in my programming playlist for special bugs). Far better than the usual mulch, and enough to wash out the taste of John Keys version of Snoopys […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:45 pm, October 5th, 2009 - 19 comments
Just found the trailer on youtube. No word yet when it’s coming to New Zealand.
Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, September 23rd, 2009 - 3 comments
More at: theyesmenfixtheworld.com
Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, September 21st, 2009 - Comments Off on Talking union
Eddie’s piece on the importance of joining your union if you want to avoid a pay cut reminded me of another Peter Seeger classic:
Written By: - Date published: 11:38 am, September 12th, 2009 - 7 comments
Following on from the workers’ rights/class war theme of the last few days, here’s an old classic:
Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, September 7th, 2009 - 3 comments
The last video I posted had Democratic Congressman Barney Frank taking the fight to a woman in the audience of a townhall meeting who had just compared the proposed health care reforms to Nazism. He finished by saying: “trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to have a conversation with a […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:20 pm, September 5th, 2009 - 17 comments
An old favourite came around on the playlist. It sounded like the ostriches that occupy the sewer and appear here for our entertainment… So I tracked down a live performance by Leonard Cohen. The Man from Uncle version with the studio soundtrack is pretty funny as well. Lyrics over the page… Everybody knows that the […]
Written By: - Date published: 3:47 pm, August 7th, 2009 - 20 comments
John explains how what he said was taken out of context, and he outlines his views on climate change.
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