Author Archive

First, tranquilize the bear

What a photo! via @AnnieLowry NYTimes who linked to a news story on Yahoo

Responding to criticism can be tricky

Ha! No win situation? “If you ignore criticisms people make of you, you’re arrogant & elitist – if you engage them, you’re thin-skinned & overly-sensitive.” Glenn Greenwald For my own part, I tend to take the risk and engage. Others don’t. No worries. – P

Property Tutors’ Sean Wood is ‘not of good character’ – according to Authority & Judge

I’ve entertained questions of my own about former Richmastery (now Property Tutors) mentor and property spruiker Sean Wood’s credibility and marketing methods for some years (see here). Now the Financial Markets Authority’s conclusion that ’15 million dollar man’ Sean Wood is not a person of ‘good character’ for the purposes of the Financial Advisor’s Act (and […]

Colbert on Fox’s Steve Doocy: ‘Journalism plus’

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Laws for sale, UK style

There’s lobbying and then there’s this corrupt garbage. Jeremy Hunt and the Murdochs: how minister oiled wheels of BSkyB bid A haul of email, text and phone call records appear to show how minister aided News Corp takeover Blistering stuff from The Guardian — my hat’s off to Nick Davies and David Leigh. Is it too […]

ANZACs

Two people I care very deeply about are serving in Afghanistan this ANZAC Day and, like their parents, I am holding on, hoping, expecting, ‘praying’ for their safe return from dangerous duty a long way from us. They seem to me, as they did two years ago, implausibly young, impossibly young to be caught up […]

I think my cat must read my blog

I took this photo (above) this morning: my cat, looking for company, reaching under a door … which was what a recent You Tube video I posted six days ago showed. Just a coincidence? Hmm. – P

America, Land of Dreams

A shorter version of this Rosanne Cash song and video is being used as a US tourism advertising campaign. It does it for me. via Jeff Bercovici at Forbes.

Chuck Colson RIP

I’ve just seen the news that Charles Colson has died. He was most famous as one of President Richard Nixon’s henchmen but spent more of his life building a Christian evangelical ministry — which, long ago, was my only contact with him. From Slate: Watergate Figure Charles Colson Dies at 80… Charles Colson, often described […]

Young ACTOIDS are revolting.

(‘Civil war’ or simple Generation Gap?) (1) Is ACT entering a Winter of Discontent? (2) Does anyone care? (Zero percent, remember.) Joan of Arc oops, Cactus Kate seems to think so … apparently exasperated that John Banks isn’t adhering to the ‘principles’ of the ACT Party. (Well, we sort of agree about that, then. But […]

ACT: ‘Zero backing. Zilch, nil, nothing at all.’

John Armstrong attended the ACT Party conference over the weekend, with “80 or so party members present” … introducing his wrap up piece in the NZ Herald this morning like this: Act kicked off its annual conference on Saturday having just been kicked in the teeth. Delegates woke up to the news that the previous […]

An obituary for Facts

Read and enjoy: Rex Huppke’s Facts, 360 B.C. – A.D. 2012 – an obituary. To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet. Though few expected Facts to pull out of its years-long downward spiral, the official […]

Ouch

Negative attack is one way to diminish your rivals, but it’s not building a vision … “You have to campaign to govern, not just to win,” [Gov. Mitch] Daniels told Matthew Tully of The Indianapolis Star. “Spend the precious time and dollars explaining what’s at stake and a constructive program to make life better. And […]

Parody of the ‘booty shot’

Classic: Revised: Artist Kevin Bolk: This is a parody of this promo art for the Avengers movie. I couldn’t help but notice that in most of the ad material, the guys are all in heroic stances but Black Widow is almost always in an impractical, curved-spine “booty shot” pose. Figured I’d flip it around for […]

Leonard Cohen’s manager sentenced. He wishes her peace.

Leonard Cohen’s former manager Kelley Lynch whose [alleged] theft of his retirement funds while he was, for years, in a Buddhist retreat has been jailed — not for the theft, but for her harassment of the singer after he fired her. Here’s a sentence from his statement to the court: “I want to thank the […]