Posts by giovanni tiso
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Muse: Hooray for Wellywood (Really!), in reply to jessica scott,
I think another reason the sign has caused so much outrage is the process of it being announced in advance, yet the public being told that it's a done deal. If it had suddenly popped up over night, people still would have been upset, but I think would have come around to it, or grumbled but not made too much fuss.
I think the biggest irritant for me - besides the idea that the airport gets to brand the whole city, and without consultation, which is appalling - is that when it became clear that everyone hated it, they opened the floor to suggestions for other signs. As if the hill couldn't possibly survive without of any number of stupid-arse huge-lettered monikers.
Of course there are more egregious things to worry about in the country, possibly worthier of our outrage, but that people reacted to that particular act of imposition by a corporate board of a message designed to define who we are makes me not sorry at all. Kinda proud actually.
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OnPoint: Budget 2011: Now with 70% less wordiness!, in reply to Sacha,
I'm not expecting socialism any time soon
There are about a thousand discrete steps between "yes, the Tories are right that we need to cut spending, but here are some tax credits for R&D" and "socialism".
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OnPoint: Budget 2011: Now with 70% less wordiness!, in reply to Sacha,
Our views on what constitutes recognisably different policies appear to be wildly divergent.
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OnPoint: Budget 2011: Now with 70% less wordiness!, in reply to bmk,
When I talk to the average person about politics they can kind of agree that National haven't enacted good policies but then they usually finish it with '... but John Key seems like a good bloke so I'm going to vote for them again.'
So long as the other major party in Parliament fails to come up with coherent and recognisably different policies from National's, it makes perfect sense for people to choose the leader who projects a more competent image.
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Hard News: Budget 2011: While you wait, in reply to Russell Brown,
I regard Cunliffe's recent efforts in arguing from evidence as a rather cheering development for the Labour Party.
Here he is on the budget on Checkpoint.
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I agree with Hilary, Goff didn't speak too badly (now that's not something you hear me say very often). And it wasn't the day for offering concrete policy alternatives - sometimes you just have to make the point that the government's recipe is bankrupt and leave it there.
However the best speaker by far was Alan Johnson of the Child Poverty Action Group. Can we get him to write Goff's speeches from now on? It was rhetorically excellent.
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Hard News: The witless on the pitiless, in reply to DexterX,
I responded in Bomber's blog about some of the things he is saying re the Hobbitt and RB which I know to be wrong - and as it so happens these responses along with those of others remain hidden.
Blogger has this great comments moderation feature called "Stalinism". Works superbly.
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Hard News: The witless on the pitiless, in reply to tussock,
it's just a lie the Right...
and the alleged Left...
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I was introduced to the world of porn for women the Year Before the Internet Happened and yes, I can testify that the sex wasn't explicit at all. Not did it last for like a dozen pages per act.
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Hard News: And we may never meet again ..., in reply to Peter Darlington,
I also have a theory that it destroys music for the grabber. If you nabbed the 70GBs of music off one of my hard drives you'd have an instant ridiculously good (ahem) music collection but it would be a hard thing to penetrate. Gems would be lost, whole back catalogues would be rendered valueless and unlistened. Part of enjoying music is the finding, researching, the context of place and time, and always the listening.
Yes. And that goes for legitimately free content as well. With Kindle-like products (and possibly the Kindle as well) you can download thousands of out-of-copyright classics for free and a friend was just telling me the other day he had done so. Good on him, but... how is he ever going to read any one of them? The obsession for whole back-catalogues kills your actual listening or reading I suspect.