Posts by BenWilson
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The size of the overhand
what a lovely eggcorn. An overhang is like an overhand - the punch that everyone sees coming but few can ever stop.
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Matthew, I was aware, and am also aware that the NZ MMP system was very largely based on the German model. I don't see a grand coalition as bizarre. What is bizarre is the refusal to accept the idea, to insist on party politics unto the death. Particularly now when what looks like the biggest political challenge during my lifetime is unfolding simultaneously. A strong bipartisan and centrist leadership is actually vitally needed now, not the pissly wrangling with the likes of Peter Dunne, Winston Peters and Rodney Hide that we are going to get.
If blame for this lack of commonsense must be leveled, it unfortunately finds it's way to most of us. We're the ones who insist on the quite arbitrary splitting of massive blocks of votes into parties, when the intention of representative democracy is actually that you have human beings with individual discretion in Parliament, not blind followers of party whips. The insistence on partisan arguments over everything from the trivial to the colossally important is stupidity that we only find it hard to see because it's at such a high level.
Yes it was a fascinating film. Not for insights into history, since McNamara doesn't seem to understand any of it. The insight is into HIM and how such an obviously clever person can be so damned wrong. It's an insight into power and technocracy.
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Sacha, the man has made so many totally crazy conclusions over the years I lose track. One of the ones that always blew my mind was him heralding the internet as the success of private enterprise and the free market, when we all know it was a government funded military project.
He reminds me of the sort of memory deficient madness I'd hear when I worked in a stockbroker, where they would praise a technology one day and damn it the next, entirely on account of the stock prices of the major vendors. As if the viability of the technology had changed in that interval at all. The weirdest part was how incredibly confident and plausible they sounded, set against a backdrop of the incredible sums of money they were throwing around.
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As for coalition wrangling, the one partnership that is always ruled out seems to me one of the most natural - Labour and National. Then there would be centrist government with absolutely no influence from minor parties required, and the will of 80%-odd of the people would be represented. But as a nation we're too stuck in our memory of the Westminster system to even think of that possibility, and instead squeal in an insane way about how crazybad it is that minor parties could hold the balance of power. The ONLY reason they even CAN hold the balance of power is because we insist that they do.
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Meanwhile: is Alan Greenspan losing his religion?
Hardly. It reminds me totally of Robert McNamara's Mea Culpa in Fog of War in which he totally misses the point at every turn and the most guilt he can possibly concede over Vietnam was that it was handled badly. The idea that he as Secretary of State could have actually opposed the war before it began, and at every escalation point, and every sick order he executed, seems not to have occurred to him at all.
Similarly Greenspan is in shocked disbelief that his steady and consistent policy of trying to maximize the amount of money being lent by holding rates down forever and opposing regulation of a lot of risky instruments could have had any bearing on the 'once in a century credit tsunami' that he talks about. Instead he tries to micro-analyze some of the contributing factors, and blame the Fed's inability to perfectly foresee the direction of the economy on a monthly basis.
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Hey I'm always very diligent about watching any advertisements for products I will actually buy. Anything else also amounts to stealing. Irresponsible watching of advertising for mere titillation is what is responsible for the recession. If you don't spend you're stealing from the whole system, especially the children.
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I don't mind watching the prime-time ads. Some of them have as much production value as the shows within which they are embedded.
That is true, a lot of TV is very, very poor.
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Isn't TV stolen all the sweeter?
Product placement in shows has been happening for years and years. Doesn't really seem that much of a problem to me. Sometimes there's cognitive dissonance when I see everyone using Apples in movies, but then I remind myself "This IS fiction. There just isn't that much money in the whole world".
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That would suck for everyone else, for sure. But watching ads sux anyway. Don't most people take a piss, make a coffee, get a snack, take a nap, with the sound off? I always did before the miracle of ez timeshifting. If not, they deserve to be indoctrinated.
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I'm jealous of the children. I'd much rather be born now.
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