Hard News: Taking the rise
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Hurrr...hurrr... he said "pubic"...
Oh, and it always happens when you're stuck for the morning at a conference ....
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[Deep Inside the Labour Party Strategy Building]
Strategist 1: "...cheaper health care, free child care, incentivised savings - these are all good policies but...the trouble is...the public might realise. And then we might end up, like, popular again."
Strategist 2: "hhhmmmm...indeed...and that wouldn't do"
Strategists 1 & 2 together: "hhhhhhhhmmmmmm"
Strategist 1:"I know! why don't we advertise the policy using the same technique that got us into so much trouble in the first place"
Strategist 2: "No, no - silly. It would be no use. We made that legal. Remember?"
Strategist 1: "Ah but you miss the point: it will still remind the public of the the whole fiasco and..."
Strategist 2:"It will give the other side something to attack us with!"
Strategist 1:"Exactly"
Strategists 1 & 2 together: "Pure Genius"
[Curtains Draw]
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Having said all that, speaking as someone who lives on an NGO sized salary and suffers from a chronic disease, when I went to the doctors yesterday and found my bill halved I was sorely tempted to hug the poster of Helen Clark they had hanging in the waiting room*
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*Ok - so there wasn't actually a poster there. But if there had been I might have hugged it. -
On ya, Terence. If I started hugging posters in my GP's waiting room, it would all end in tears (I suspect she was a Victorian nanny in a previous life), a round blood test and some new pills in very short order. :)
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Strategists 1 & 2 together: "Pure Genius"
Brilliant. I presume someone will be laughing darkly on the ninth floor. But not too loud in case herself should hear ...
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I'm in two minds:
1/ Yes, it probably will remind some of "the whole fiasco", and yes it clearly entangled "the government" and "the labour party" - two institutions which aren't synonymous ... yet ;-)
but...
2/ The public needed some educatin', at least if I'm anything to go by. Despite being relatively interested in politics, and in the age-group which benefits from the newly-reduced health care fees, I had no idea about this policy. I was also a little hazy on the childcare thing. I think some measure of direct communication was appropriate ... but this one's clumsy.
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Craig,
I'm with you: while I may occasionally have the urge to hug posters of Helen Clark, I'm real keen to leave the doctors with fewer rather than more pills and (grimace) blood tests...
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ron,
These people really are crazy.
By "these people", I'm assuming you're referring to people with whom you disagree. Nice. Although I might disagree with you, I'd never suggest you deserve to be put in a straitjacket.
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The public needed some educatin', at least if I'm anything to go by. Despite being relatively interested in politics, and in the age-group which benefits from the newly-reduced health care fees, I had no idea about this policy. [...] I think some measure of direct communication was appropriate ... but this one's clumsy.
Well, dc_red, clutch your pearls but I actually agree with you. "Some measure of direct communication" certainly was appropriate - which is why the Health Ministry allocates money and resources to public information campaigns. Ditto for the Education and Social Services portfolios, and I doubt any reasonable person would find that out of line. And if they're doing such a piss-poor job that they need an assist from the Prime Minister's 'leaders budget' (with a coincidental PR push for her party), then someone's got a lot of explaining to do at the relevant select committees.
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What I'd like to know is did Trelise get in the ear of One News? Not seriously, of course, but given last night's report you could be forgiven for thinking as much. The reporter, Juliet McVeigh I think, spent the whole report referring to Tamsin as Tasmin, despite frequent shots of the brand showing the correct spelling, even alongside the footer graphic showing her name incorrectly spelled Tasmin. It was hysterical, but also pretty tragic. I wondered whether McVeigh simply couldn't get her emms in front of her esses, or whether there hadn't been any editors on duty. Anyway, I agree, it was a dumb suit to take, but thanks to One News Trelise got the last laugh anyway.
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__These people really are crazy.__
By "these people", I'm assuming you're referring to people with whom you disagree. Nice. Although I might disagree with you, I'd never suggest you deserve to be put in a straitjacket.
No, I'm referring to people prepared to advance an argument by entirely fabricating - in quotation marks - a citation from a scientific journal. It's not a matter of agreeing with me, ron. It's a reality thing.
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While arguing about bare faced lies let's remeber Gore lied about us.
The NZ will take in the population of Tuvalu and other threatened pacific nations. Na ah.NZ is clean & green, right? 100% Pure, right?
Our National State of the Environment report is 10years over due.
AKL water comes from the sewer - Waikato
Had a Northern Oyster lately?Regional Councils give good reports of the extensive pollution and the RMA allows it to continue as it is designed to protect property rights not the Environment.
Dear Old Tranny Cooper - did the botox go too deep?
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The reporter, Juliet McVeigh I think, spent the whole report referring to Tamsin as Tasmin, despite frequent shots of the brand showing the correct spelling, even alongside the footer graphic showing her name incorrectly spelled Tasmin. It was hysterical
Thank you Nick - I thought I was going mad! I posted about this in the Radiation (TV) blog last night but no-one responded so I thought I'd been imagining it. I taped the 10.45 bulletin to double check but TV1 had cleaned the whole thing up completely.
But onto more pressing matters:
Meanwhile, I'm pleased to see that that the trademark suit taken by Trelise Cooper against her namesake Tamsin Cooper has been settled - because it should should never have been launched in the first place. Tamsin Cooper trades under her own name, but that's about where the similarity ends. She's in Arrowtown; Trelise Cooper is in Auckland. She makes accessories; Trelise Cooper makes frilly frocks for middle-aged women. The two businesses are very different in scale, and, as far as I can tell, there was to be no direct similarity in the trademarks. It looked like nothing so much as a big, wealthy businesswoman trying to bully a small one, and I'm glad that it didn't pay off.
I have to disagree completely RB. I'm not remotely interested in fashion, but I have had some experience in protecting trademarks. If Trelise failed to take action against Tamsin when she did (ie early) then Tamsin could later start producing dresses and claim (if challenged) that Trelise had failed to assert her trademark earlier (ie that Tamsin had been trading unchallenged for X years) and the court would likely find in favour of Tamsin.
This is why McD's jump on anyone trying to use the name McDonald. A Trademark is only as good as the funds you have to protect it, which is why trademark lawyers love it. Any battle is usually won by the one with the deepest pockets because the litigation lasts for years. Which is probably why Trelise bailed out, she knew it was going to be expensive and she'd already lost from a PR standpoint eg: It looked like nothing so much as a big, wealthy businesswoman trying to bully a small one, and I'm glad that it didn't pay off.
Your latter comment makes me wonder how you would feel if someone usurped your blog; started one called -- say -- Public Redress but insisted it was not about politics, it was about citizens being able to express their dissatisfaction with whatever is bugging them. (yeh yeh, I know: you're only a 'small' site yourself - but imagine how you'd feel if you built this site up to something big in 10 years and then Public Redress popped up)Other points in Trelise's favour were that Tamsin Cooper was 'only' her married name and the marriage didn't last long; Tamsin originally started importing accessories sourced from Asia before 'designing' her own, also made in Asia; and that Tamsin's range has already progressed beyond accessories, as has her distribution - she is no longer a cottage industry producing goods for the lower Sth Island. Trelise is a big business and exports overseas - that would have been her motivation to protect her trademark.
Anyway, it's over now. I wonder how long before Tamsin decides to try her hand at frock-making! Maybe start with a line of denim jeans ...
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Other points in Trelise's favour were that Tamsin Cooper was 'only' her married name and the marriage didn't last long
Hum... I know I'm setting myself up for a beating here, but I wonder what high-profile divorcees who kept using their 'married' surnames like Cath Tizard, Roseanne Meo, Pam Corkery, Christine Rankin, and Jenny Gibbs would have to say to that? I suspect the response from at least one woman in the above list would be short, sharp and physically impossible. :)
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While arguing about bare faced lies let's remeber Gore lied about us.
I'm not taken by Save The Planet Man's latest role as The Reluctant Bride but it's bit harsh to call over-heated rhetoric a lie.
But this is funny - Al Gore's son caught doing 100mph in hybrid car containing marijuana and pills
A hybrid car. Let's hope the dope was organic.
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This is why McD's jump on anyone trying to use the name McDonald. A Trademark is only as good as the funds you have to protect it, which is why trademark lawyers love it. Any battle is usually won by the one with the deepest pockets because the litigation lasts for years.
And this doesn't strike you as somehow wrong?
McDonald's does "jump on" unfortunate people of Scottish descent (including the actual Ronald McDonald) and even people daring to use the "Mc" prefix, but fortunately
it doesn't always win.Not sure what happened with Starbucks' foul attempt to claim exclusive use of the term "doubleshot":
http://www.doubleshotcoffee.com/blog/2006/04/coffee.html
Your latter comment makes me wonder how you would feel if someone usurped your blog; started one called -- say -- Public Redress but insisted it was not about politics, it was about citizens being able to express their dissatisfaction with whatever is bugging them. (yeh yeh, I know: you're only a 'small' site yourself - but imagine how you'd feel if you built this site up to something big in 10 years and then Public Redress popped up)
I honestly can't see why I'd care.
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"I honestly can't see why I'd care."
What if their pageads were all for Starbucks?
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I honestly can't see why I'd care.
heh heh - good for you (I mean that). I consider myself fairly liberal, except when it comes to business/money. At which point I become very defensive of my stash. (I was sending emails to parents & friends warning against Bridgecorp 12 months ago)
McD's are definately the worst offenders, even going after non-food use of the word McDonald. You're also right about how wrong it is that expensive litigation is req'd to defend a TM. The TM attorneys definitely skim over that bit when they take your money to register your TM.
NB - for those too lazy to click on RB's wiki link, it's worth it just for the item on HR PufnStuff (amazing!) and Viz.
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heh heh - good for you (I mean that). I consider myself fairly liberal, except when it comes to business/money. At which point I become very defensive of my stash. (I was sending emails to parents & friends warning against Bridgecorp 12 months ago)
I didn't bother kicking up a fuss when Sir Humphreys took our RSS feed on their site and ran comments under our posts (although the content of the first comments thread did quickly become vile and offensive, and I made my feelings clear about that) - I just waited for it to die.
I guess I come from a place where being the subject of a knockoff or parody signals some sort of cultural arrival. And even if someone launched something with a clearly similar name, they wouldn't have our lineup.
Although I guess they could have David Slick, Keith Thing, Seeming Mock and Jesus Christie ...
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Your latter comment makes me wonder how you would feel if someone usurped your blog; started one called -- say -- Public Redress but insisted it was not about politics, it was about citizens being able to express their dissatisfaction with whatever is bugging them. (yeh yeh, I know: you're only a 'small' site yourself - but imagine how you'd feel if you built this site up to something big in 10 years and then Public Redress popped up)
That's not really a valid comparison with Cooper. People have names, and they're logical things to use in a business name. Your example is an entirely more valid trademark dispute, no matter if Russell cared or not.
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Although I guess they could have David Slick, Keith Thing, Seeming Mock and Jesus Christie ...
Very good!
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Neil
The importance abouit addressing lies told about us is to address lies we tell about ourselves.
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The importance abouit addressing lies told about us is to address lies we tell about ourselves.
yeah, but have some sympathy for Al Gore. In the Circus of Spoilt Brats Going off the Rails his son does it in a Prius. Can't help his presidential ambitions. I prefer the High Bad Tatse of Paris - she woudn't let a trail of fine white powder lead her into a Prius.
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