Posts by KevinHicks
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Ah yes the life of Brian had nothing to do with Jesus. It did however have a lot to do with politics - whenever the politicians are getting me down I take in a good dose of it or The Holy Grail and remind myself the Python team had already grown up by the 70s.
What Bob has to say about Californication seems hardly worth debating, but certainly doesn't discredit his opinion on other issues. I doubt that he is in the anticscience camp so thats a bit of a red herring. Yes there has been a large antiscience movement for many decades (of which the evolution debate is one example) but thankfully more and more people are fighting back now (eg http://quackfiles.blogspot.com/).
Oh BTW hope to see you all at the March against the Electoral finance Bill, 10 am Aotea Square, Auckland tomorrow. Fun.
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Oh damn. Nothing much happening here today except an irrational anachronistic outburst unworthy of a 70s fortune cookie just because you disagree with someone. The only conclusion possible is you really are desperate to defend our ruling junta who have left us with little more than pineapple lumps (and I gather from TV that god gave us them). Comeon Russell, Craig, you’d call it in if the mitten was on the other paw. If its good enough for the goose and all that.
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There is absolutely no way on the planet that bail is a right. It is a privileged of living our modern first world justice system and if you breach it you can have that privilege taken away from you.
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Oh I'm glad they don't have sopphistocated mind reading equipment.
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The media only focus on one thing - stuff that creates controversy and emotion and therefore sells. hence the media must take a large proportion of the blame for the current circumstances.
And no amount of backtracking and trying belatedly to support the "silent majority" by opposing the EFB nd releasing the evidence in the public interest can change that culpability. If the media had not been complicit by always reporting the fringe whackos with an axe to grind and telling every faction imaginable that they are hard done by then we wouldnt have gone so far down this Northern Ireland track. The Northern Island situation is a good analogy because it is an example of a wealthy country that had to go through 30 years of violence for no better reason than the poliktical elite stirred up a tiny minority of nutbars for their own political purpose.
"but anyway I understand the majority of those arrested weren't maori"
Yes. Generally what happens in terrorism is the political elite stir up jealously and resentment, often where it does not exist, for their own selfish political goals. Thereby they coopt a small fringe of mentally unstable people to do their dirty work for them. Nowhere is this more apparent than in "conservation"/"animal rights" field, where, for psychosocial reasons, it is easy to get recruits.
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This sort of thing has been going on for decades to a certain extent. I was in protest movements in the 70s but got put off by their talk of violence and retribution against anyone they perceived to have some small advantage over them.
Are we really so politically naive to think that that this hasn't been going on much and it is new, or that no one in NZ/A would want to harm it - given that politicians for one have been harming this country for their own selfish political ends for decades. One example is the harm done to generations of kids by bringing them up in a society where politicians, greedy MSM and crackpot lobby groups after pippi foundation government handouts tells them constantly that they are "deprived" underprivileged" "underclass" etc until they end up believing the falsehood.
TV since the early 70s would have to be one of the worst culprits in the MSM category, so to a certain extent it is reaping what it has sewn. Instead it should be praising success and holding up great role models on TV every night.
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Yes peer pressure is a great informal institution for keeping the public in line for a small country like ours. Free speech has been almost banned in this country for decades for fear of being called sexist or racist by peers and the MSM. Now our pathological obsession with being "open minded" is coming back to bite us on the bum.
Remember there is a protest march Auckland town hall 10am Saturday against the Electoral Finance Bill. Hope to see you all there.
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The absollute worst part of all of this is that Maori orgainisations including the Maori Party have not been on TV every day and noght condeming the threat of violence and the actions of these nuttas. They have either not been doing it or the MSM has not been reporting it. Which is it - either answer is a very scary scenario for the short to medium term future of our country.
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My way out is to develop clean lean green industry to solve our problems in a high tech fashion while still preserving our environment and not overpopulating. I would certainly hope that you and your US partner would consider coming back under those circumstances. The alternative is a low tech solution where we slip off the bottom of the OECD or invite you and your partner back after you have made your fortune, to buy a beach and live happily ever after in your Mexico look alike gated community. We are a democracy - its up to the NZ public to decide which future we want - time is running out.
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Ben. I think those are all very good points. You have to take learning in its totality, not try to break it down into bytes, credits, points, etc. That is the worst message NCEA and very detailed syllabuses send.
Russell, we did complain to the school. The teacher insisted it was an exercise in distilling facts and coming to your own conclusion. but my daughter was still very distressed that most of her classmaates had got the wrong message and had even gone so far as to giver her a hard time about it. You have to be very careful implementing theis "newthink" type syllabus at primary, intermediate and even secondary school. A lot of it is just stuff people have dreamed up in coffee bars at uni and it is at uni where a lot of it should stay.
I have another little story about rote learning and strangly it has to do with Minto:
I remember standing outside the Big I in the pouring rain in the middle of winter chanting over and over again "one race, the human race". And I ending up believing it; I still do. What a sucker eh John?