This political ad campaign video by German metalworkers’ union IG Metall uses viral YouTube videos to pose policy questions in the run-up to the German elections on 22 September. Angela Merkel’s conservative coalition has a strong lead over Peer Steinbrück’s Social Democrats (SPD) in opinion polls.
It’s an idea worthy of Simon Lusk.
– P
via The Guardian
Jay Laga’aia as the Wizard of Oz. Cool! (Pic: Jeff Busby via NZ Herald – click)
I love seeing ‘barriers’ like this ‘broken’. See NZ Herald report: Milestone on hold for the Wizard of Oz which tells us “Jay Laga’aia says the Wizard is a huge deal for him, and he is the first Polynesian to portray the iconic character.”
Yeah. Go Jay. I’ll like it even more when the race of a particular actor playing a particular role has no ‘news’ impact whatsoever. Roll on that day. In the meantime, great.
– P
via Laura. Wow.
As I have disclosed here before, I am a pretty shallow person. Like most of us, I’m taken up most of the time with matters in my own circles of concern and influence. (Apologies to Stephen Covey.)
So, until I saw these bananas (above) on my kitchen bench today, it had never occurred to me that there could be such a ‘thing’ or issue — fair trade vs (I guess) unfair trade bananas.
Does anyone know what this is about? What’s the deal?
– P
I am digging the America’s Cup races so far. But one thing that perplexes me is how far out of the water these catamarans ride. (That, and their astonishing speed.)
Held on the sea by the physics that I don’t properly understand: Oracle Team USA and Emirates Team New Zealand racing in San Francisco today. Wow.
At one point in one of today’s races, the Team NZ boat made a turn (tack? sorry, I’m not up on the nautical terms) and to me, it looked like there was not a lot holding it on the sea! Crikey! Talk about bleeding edge technology.
Very impressive.
– P
PS: And how do they steer them?
So, what messages is this law firm sending by having such an expansive “reception area”?
Looks expensive, huh? (It’s just me sitting here at the moment.)
– P
Click to read (and weep) at Der Spiegel. Crikey dick!
In Der Spiegel …
The United States’ National Security Agency intelligence-gathering operation is capable of accessing user data from smart phones from all leading manufacturers. Top secret NSA documents that SPIEGEL has seen explicitly note that the NSA can tap into such information on Apple iPhones, BlackBerry devices and Google’s Android mobile operating system.
The documents state that it is possible for the NSA to tap most sensitive data held on these smart phones, including contact lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information about where a user has been.
see: Privacy Scandal: NSA Can Spy on Smart Phone Data
And special honourable mention for New Zealand in How the N.S.A. Cracked the Web in The New Yorker magazine …
Continue reading →
I’m not snooping, I promise… but I love seeing what others are (anonymously) reading on my blog (see the ‘Recently Viewed’ list in the sidebar on the right) … today someone(s) read my post about the uncomfortable-for-both-parties situation where police powers are applied to sickly white liberals (er, like moi) discussed in Put yourself in her shoes.
Interestink! – P
He wasn’t the first to say it, but he was the first I heard say it, and he said it with such passion.
Then Prime Minister1 Geoffrey Palmer, whose book Unbridled Power? was one of the texts I’d studied in politics at Victoria University, said, with feeling:
“In politics, perception becomes reality.” — The Right Honourable Sir Geoffrey Palmer
Visit the Chocolate Frog cafe in Miramar for this and other fine self-aware slogans. Then sit on them. Quote attributed to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. (Pic by Peter Aranyi.)
He was, of course, quite correct.
The world of ‘spin‘, and ‘framing‘ and all the other Hollow Men-esque voodoo arts ‘activists’ like local yokel Matthew Hooton (and offshore, the mythical Crosby|Textor et al) connive to practice and promulgate on unsuspecting voters, and how various ‘perceptions’ are created, nurtured, then trafficked, can be fascinating to watch. If you’ve got a strong stomach.
I spotted this chair (‘A lie told often enough becomes the truth’) in the Chocolate Frog cafe in Wellington last week when my son and I met my beautiful (really) niece for a birthday morning tea. Obviously, it caught my eye. Hence the pic.
Given the frenzy of spin and propaganda swirling around the NZ Labour Party leadership ‘contest’ — especially that from people like Matthew who, really? Remind me why we’re asking him for a comment again? Exactly? — I had to chuckle.
– P
1 8 August 1989 – 4 September 1990
Not that I’m remotely communist (‘not a communist bone in my body’ etc, etc) but another apposite Lenin quote, given NZ’s recent lurch towards a surveillance state (thanks to John Key’s GCSB Bill) is this over-the-top, revolutionary one:
“While the State exists, there can be no freedom.
When there is freedom there will be no State.” — Lenin
What does it even mean to say that in the 21st Century? Aren’t nation states here for good? A permanent feature?
Even Islamic states are states … mind you, they’re not demonstrating a lot of commitment to ‘individual freedom’, as I see it.
I love words.
Here’s the difference between the Oxford ‘British English’ Dictionary entry for the word antithetical* and Oxford’s ‘US English’ entry (arrowed):
Oxford British & World English
Oxford American English
Quirky!
Of course, when I think about it, a word like ‘syllabification‘ simply had to exist — but I’d not encountered it. (Perhaps I’ve led a sheltered life.)
– P
* a word I used, unselfconsciously and without definition, in a post last night about the irrepressible urge to ‘share’ (i.e. break) confidences: Sharing secrets? Isn’t that kinda antithetical?
I spotted this graphic in an All Things Digital article about Whisper: Why Should You Care About Whisper, the Secret-Sharing App That VCs Are Pouring Money Into?
And thought, yeah, it’s amazing how quickly ‘gossip’ (however you define that) gets around. If it’s a ‘secret’ people shouldn’t blab — but they do. There’s this irresistible urge to ‘share’…somehow, somewhere.
It’s like (as I’ve said before): Self-expression is the new black (said the blogger!)
Here’s another article about Whisper: Whisper shares information about your favorite subject: You. (LA Times)
Next big thing?
– P
See also: Sir Robert Muldoon: ‘Always On the Record’.
Update: Continue reading →
I had my phone playing songs in alphabetical order on this morning’s loooong walk around the coast, thinking about aspects of online and public reputation … when this cool song, Good Intent by Kimbra (from her album Vows) played.
– P
PS Another version of the song here as a comment on my post Let a little air in, @BarnsleyBill.
From ACT Party insider Simon Carr’s slender volume The Dark Arts of Politics…
In the end, despite attempts at distraction (or bluster) the evidence speaks for itself … and is often inescapable.
For my own part, I try to be a reasonable person, remaining open to negotiation where possible.
But only up to a point.
– P
* Yeah, right.
Daring Fireball‘s John Gruber cherry-picks a review of Samsung’s ‘smart watch’ (for the full review, see: Samsung’s Galaxy Gear Watch) then sums up:
About the best you could expect from Samsung without having anything to copy from Apple: overpriced, ugly, laggy UI, terrible battery life, dubious utility.
Oh.
– P
Ben Uffindell of The Civilian blog is seen as our latest Bright Young Thing of political satire — and rightly so. With his delightful mimicry of the ‘voice’ of news reporting (much like The Onion, although he’ll perhaps be tiring of that comparison) Ben manages to produce satire that is so soaked in verisimilitude that the illusion is on occasions almost perfect.
Look at this example, prompted by the NZ Police’s recent three minute media conference declaring that yes, the GCSB actually did break the law by spying on NZ resident Kim Dotcom, but the government spies didn’t have “sufficient criminal intent” to be charged (!) … and it wasn’t (in the Police’s view) ‘in the public interest’ to prosecute anyone at the GCSB.
Um. Bokay … over to Ben:
Ponzi schemer won’t be sentenced as he didn’t intend to break law
The Wellington District Court has determined this afternoon that 63-year-old financial advisor David Ross won’t be sentenced for running a ponzi scheme that affected over a thousand people, as he did not mean to break the law, and only intended to “take everyone’s money.”
Despite pleading guilty to serious charges of account manipulation brought against him by the Financial Markets Authority and Serious Fraud Office, the court found that Ross only intended to “deliberately misrepresent numerous details about investors in his company with intention of securing investments on false premises, effectively stealing money from clients who unknowingly funded his hedonistic lifestyle of excess,” but at no time expressed any intention to violate New Zealand law. …
Read on at The Civilian
