Posts by tussock

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  • Hard News: Privacy and the Public Interest, in reply to izogi,

    Taking it further, I'm not even sure where to look for official info about who's even standing as a candidate in my electorate... short of turning up at the polling booth and reading the options on the ballot paper. Is there somewhere?

    It was directly linked on the front page until early voting came up. Events, 2014 Election, Information for Voters.

    http://www.elections.org.nz/events/2014-general-election/information-voters-who-when-and-where

    Select the pull-down, gives candidates, polling places, and a link for finding your electorate on a nice google map, if you didn't notice when they sent the enrollment checkup. Everyone's enrolled, right? Not too late.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Paul Williams,

    All that said, I'd be interested to know the view of commenters here from the media as I suspect one of the problems is finding competent 'talent' without bias (and though I think little of the far right, excluding them isn't an option).

    Not "from the media" but have opinion to speak, and also bicycle to ride and axe to grind. As it were.

    Speaking fluently in media res (heh) is a professional skill. The people who pay for folk to gain and hone that skill are generally very wealthy. When those wealthy people speak their own mind in the media, such as the original anti-MMP campaign, it always backfires. NZers generally don't like being told what to do by rich folk, which goes back a long way and isn't changing even if they're coincidentally accurate.

    So they leave it to the professional talkers, who pretend to be not those guys, and do it well. As a person whose livelihood is talking in place of money, talkers like what the money likes. That's how you keep your talking job. Believing what you're saying is not a requirement, just saying it like a professional. The emperors new suit being lovely and all.

    There's a few people on the other side, the reality-based community if you like, who can talk too. Elegant, and you've never heard them because there's no real money in that. No sponsorship. No advertising. Those talkers, they're tight with the sponsorship people. Money-voice gets on RNZ, adds get bought. Union-voice gets on RNZ, adds get dropped. Is what it is.

    And now, a little group of them from cigarette money (has anyone asked the Māori party what they think of those chaps?) has the National party tied up in knots. Which is interesting, in that National is a bigger tent than that. The wrong people are in the press for the wrong reasons, all the money's hidden and that "nice Mr. Key" persona was all warmed up and then boom: Judith Collins and Cameron Slater getting their frowny face photos on the front pages for a while.

    But there's one thing the media won't put up with, won't promote, it's being made to look bad by association. Because add money can't compensate for lost viewers, the viewers are what the adds are buying after all. Whale oil beef hooked, as the man said.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Up Front: Oh, God, in reply to Moz,

    Their response to "ethics education" was the kind of uncomprehending "without God there can be no morals or ethics" stuff that you'd expect from uneducated persons of impaired intellectual ability.

    It's cannon. Disagreeing with it means you don't really have faith and will go to hell. Only very bad people go to hell. Ergo, thinking ethics can be taught without God is a sign that people are very bad indeed. They're just trying to save your childrens from your Evil ways.

    They're seriously supposed to hate on people who are good atheists, because you have to know God to be good, and if you know God and refuse Him, you're exactly the same as Satan. Tempter. Deceiver.

    It's turtles all the way down, man. The whole thing. Everything is proof that God loves you and because of that will instantly burn you for an infinity of time if you even think about how that might possibly be a load of ass for even a second without begging forgiveness afterward, and also giving a bunch of your money to the man who told you that.


    It "makes sense", it's just circular and lacking objective proof. They're not stupid, they're just trained to fear objectivity and respect circular logic in the same way that you're trained the opposite.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: Show some decency, in reply to Hebe,

    Is it all too big, too complex for people to understand? Do they refuse to believe that level of systemic and sustained wrongdoing could exist in New Zealand? Do they not care? Do they despise Hager so much that they cannot hear or see what he is saying? Have they swallowed the spin so fully that our democracy is under threat? What don’t they get?

    It's called cognitive dissonance.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

    In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.

    The face they make is a stress face. Hager's book is literally a challenge to their core beliefs and value system. The fair deal and everyone can make good by working hard story the right tell when cutting taxes and public services. The idea that you make your own way in the world soon after casting off the nipple, and poor people are really just lazy or mumble mumble don't think about it too hard. Why, look at John Key, bootstrapped himself right out of the gutters, a virtual Oliver Twist.

    Part of it is that when John Key talks about driving down New Zealand wages, that's just a slip of the tongue because he's a nice self-made hard-working kindy-goofy guy who'd be a great mate to have and not at all a professional back-stabbing hyper-intelligent sociopath capable of long-game scams and deceits for the benefit of his very small monkeysphere.

    When they say they're selling state assets, again, despite Labour always having to bail the fucking things out after they're looted, that he means well, and they're really trying to help out everyone who got screwed by the finance companies, like their Mum and Dad. "Mum and Dad investors", you see, dog whistles all the way down.

    So it's, they've done it twice now, voted for John. That nice man. Because he tells them his obviously horrible and socially destructive policy framework bludgeoned through under urgency and endless character assassination of anyone who speaks against, surely they mean well.

    Otherwise. If that Hager book ... if it's true ... what have they done?

    wikipedia:

    "The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce the dissonance and achieve consonance"
    "When dissonance is present, in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance"

    NB: John Key "is not going to read the book", though of course he's briefed in intimate detail on it's contents. That's also a dog-whistle, one promoting further cognitive dissonance in his fans.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: Show some decency,

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10421329

    A little 2007 history, as the post-87 stock market controls basically worked, the crooks all fled to the private finance industry. As a broad hint, when "everyone knows" how good some investment or another is, sell it. Faith and promise is absolutely lethal.

    Cambell Live running stories about the dairy boom? Sell the farm. Wall-to-wall adds for great returns on investment? Divest. Waiter at lunch chatting about the stock market? Sell your stocks. Newspaper article about a company's bright future? It will crash.

    No one tells you if they're onto a good thing. They don't talk to the press about it. They just sit on it and keep the return for themselves. Telling people about real profits floods the market with new capital and destroys profitability. People who tell you how awesome something is going to be, they are confidence men. Thieves. All of them.


    Want to know if a business is worth investing in? Walk in on a Tuesday afternoon and check if they've got any customers at all. If the business is some complex financial structure that's hard to explain and doesn't actually sell anything? Don't put your money in it. People getting around "building society" laws by calling themselves a "finance company"? No.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: Why we thought what we thought, in reply to oga,

    Is it just me, or is my perception of Labour as being basically a centre-right party that leans to the left correct?

    http://politicalcompass.org/nz2014

    That's a long-term international view. It's the doohicky that one news ripped off, and then shifted National to the middle of. It rates the policies they intend to implement.

    As it notes, the TPPA signed under the next National government will likely kill off ACC and Pharmac, while giving various US senators veto rights over our future lawmaking processes. It's a bit of a silent runner, but the Greens and Labour have both said it needs made public before signing, because they haven't seen it (other than the leaks, no doubt).


    Oh, someone noted our "left" is left of the US, which is true, because the US left is in the same damn place as their right.

    http://politicalcompass.org/uselection2012

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Speaker: Election 2014: Mental Health Policies, in reply to ,

    That’s bullshit. The event was that a man killed two people,
    because he was angry. Thats not political, it’s criminal.

    It's a tragedy, bloody murder. Two innocent people dead and one more likely carrying horrific injuries. Families lost loved ones, colleagues deeply traumatised, a country town in shock at the loss. Lost trust, security, possibly even community.

    Fuck that guy, right? Fuck him for trying to sleep in the park where people could see him. Fuck him for demanding to know why he can't sleep in the empty state houses in town. Fuck him for being angry when he was told by his MP to stick around and wait out the system, and a month in the cold and it just got worse. Fuck him for getting trespassed from WINZ for whatever he yelled at, or threatened to the staff. Fuck him for just stewing about it, alone, not having anyone to talk to, long ago worn out his welcome.

    Fuck that murderer. Talking about him just doesn't respect the dead. Like it's ever anyone's fault but the criminal. Why didn't he just kill himself like all the rest?

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Speaker: Election 2014: Mental Health Policies,

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11317351

    A recent history of the man in question. Homeless on disability in Ashburton, a month sleeping rough with failing joints, only at WINZ in the first place because those on disability have to seek work now, like the shiftless lazy bastards we all know they are, only out of a home because privatising state houses is hilariously profitable and building them is a private sector matter.

    But of course, there's no DPS for the staff at WINZ. The front line that National cares so much about. Can't politicise it? How is that not political? The man was asking for help from MPs for over a month, in the fucking southern winter, with stuffed joints.


    Did I mention in another thread here how people were angry at the punitive shit this government puts on our poorest?

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Hard News: Why we thought what we thought,

    I have no recall of being born on Earth. So I presume I was born on Mars unless proven otherwise.


    I have no recall of writing that either. So I presume it to be a forgery unless proven otherwise.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

  • Legal Beagle: Crown appeals in criminal cases,

    True, Steve. AFAICT, our justice system says that a rich man losing 100% of his high-status executive job is a bigger punishment than a poor man losing 100% of his flexible hours minimum wage job. The judges probably aren't free to ignore that.

    In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread.

    Having said that, how many 17 year olds do we have on community service for minimal-injury fights in school? Because I'm imagining it's zero. Someone would have to point me to some convictions first, even the police trying a case, before I'd believe this particular one stood out from the crowd. Maybe there's some male-on-female cases could compare for the age difference?

    Can't really get outraged at someone not getting a penalty that no one gets anyway. Maybe I'm out of date, but most of my school would've been in court, at least one of them. Myself several times, no doubt, before the days of ubiquitous portable cameras to show my side of things.

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report

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