Posts by James Littlewood*
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Hard News: On the Clark candidacy, in reply to Moz,
Isn’t there an important difference between tangata whenua and the Maori Party?
Oh, sure, take your pick. The Maori Party, Urewera people, the people who obtained the court ruling which her govt over turned ... more the merrier. Guess I should have just said Maori. Seems Tariana might have been a good reference to tap as well.
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I've been biting my tongue on the whole issue since she launched her candidacy. Surprised it took as long to come out as it did. Meanwhile, I'd been hoping that she'd have spoken to tangata whenua about it from the get go, considering the hand her government played. And dealt.
"Needing good" is not the main requirement for a leader, who should "give good." And "best person for job" is HR speak, which has little to do with senior political roles. The boxes those candidates have to tick are about charisma and representation. The first, if you have to write it down, you ain't got it. The second is _all about_ who you are and where you're from.
New Zealand is consistently ranked 1st or 2nd in the world for clean government, ease of business and low corruption. That's something we (she) can contribute (actually under Clark we were consistently 1st. We've slipped under Key). And, if we fared better than most through the GFC, that would be in large part due to the nicely stuffed coffers Clark and Cullen left behind them. Again: good outcome.
I well and truly sympathise for tangata whenua and the treatment Maori received at the hands of Clark's govt. I also dig the idea of her running the UN. But I still need to check out all the candidates before I figure which one of those views carries the most weight.
And also: who would the Maori Party prefer?
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Indirect relevance, but I met a climate change denier recently. It was at a thing where we all had to contribute something. He (a climate scientist) contributed a catalogue of human shortcomings which motivate people to subscribe to the idea of anthro CC.
I didn't have time to talk to him properly but I observed a tendency for him to make short utterances summarising deeply complex science, to the effect that there's nothing to worry about. And when questioned, he tended to respond by critiquing (i.e. attacking) the motivation behind the question, rather than considering the question itself. E.g. "How do you know that? Have you studied that yourself?" etc. etc.
In other words, if I was getting paid by someone to disrupt a set of well intentioned people acting on widely reported and widely held scientific consensus, I would do exactly what he was doing.
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Hypothesis: in addition to elders, another demographic watching broadcast media is those who can't afford tech.
Any mention of that kinda thing?
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Hard News: Understanding the Audiences, in reply to simon g,
81%. And the watchers are older, therefore they are more likely to vote.
Good point.
I'm rather hooked into SVOD. Watching a signal routed from my phone onto the TV screen feels like a somewhat dedicated network. I'd watch TVOD a lot more if a) they cut the ads (fat chance) and b) had online players that weren't completely hopeless.
That said, by far the best TVOD is on Maori TV, which has very simply configured its website to a player. Very simple, very easy: here's the show, click to play it. No registration, no ads, sweet.
Given that Maori TV can make it work, I can only assume that the only reason TVNZ and TV3 have garbage video players is that they've made it harder on themselves by requiring them to play regionally broken out ad campaigns.
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Hard News: DNC 2016: Beyond weird, most…, in reply to Russell Brown,
man up and declare for Trump!
Well, he opposes the TPP, for one. I know, I know. Neither of them are really believable on this point. Not even to get started on TTIP or TISA.
I look at the lunacy in the UK and I think, whew, at least our maniacal neocon tyrant hasn't fouled it up as badly as that, yet.
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Is it just me, or did I just see the same baby boomers who told their parents to piss off just do the same thing to their kids? Like Daleks, hard wired to destroy all signs of authority. Even as their own kids percolate into the new establishment.
Where's the Generation Zero donation page? Oh, here it is.
That image of reported racism tweets is chilling.
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How many other people are locked up in a similar fashion within mental health?
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I hate it when someone asks me what I do, I spend 5 minutes trying to explain it, and they go
"Oh, I get it, so it's a labour of love."
Yeah. 'Cause I have sooo much surplus labour to deliver.
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Going back to housing for a moment. Tolley said to Campbell this evening that while, yes, MSD's clients have an accumulated debt of $470 (17? Or 70?) million bucks, they're recovering 300 million bucks a year.
Two things. If there's any truth in that at all:
1. They're obviously still "lending" more than they're recouping, because the debt is getting bigger, and
2. The "recovery" is presumably achieved by cutting the borrowing beneficiary's benefit. Which leaves them even less able to afford housing in the first place.
Wow. Just, it's really staggering ...