Posts by Sacha
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Unrelated, but Danyl has discovered that Lhaws' mystery woman has her own blog.
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Emperor's clothes drawing second glance..
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John Armstrong unimpressed by ideological welfare report. Interesting tone.
If this was part of a strategy to manipulate at an early stage what promises to be a humdinger of an argument once some reform options go on the table, then it worked even better than its proponents would have been hoping.
The $50 billion was widely misconstrued as being an estimate of the future size of the annual benefit bill. For that to be the case, the total amount budgeted for welfare payments would have to blow out by nearly eight times its present levels. The benefit system would have well and truly become unsustainable.
That is about the only funny note in a document that amounts to polemic masquerading as analysis. It is highly selective in citing statistics that suit its argument. It uses the experience of other countries to point to the relative failings of New Zealand's social assistance policies.
Perhaps worst of all, it makes assertions that are just plain wrong.
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Social capital counts - as Malcolm Gladwell touches on readably in "Outliers".
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So they've debased the word "like" now, as well as the word "friend"
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What does Drinnan mean by "a racier approach"? More tabloidism?
The publisher is unveiling a major makeover of the Weekend Herald tomorrow and has repositioned the daily Herald - taking a racier approach to front-page editorial values.
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ooh er
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Interesting. Idiot/Savant characterises this discussion:
Yesterday I pointed at the Dim-Post's vicious but accurate description of their mood-swing against National. What I didn't talk about was their suggested strategy for Labour to capitalise on it: abandon "social engineering" (that is, any moves to ensure equality for anyone who isn't a white male).
That proposed strategy has spawned a large discussion over at PA System, with several Trotterites crawling out of the woodwork screaming for Labour to throw women, Maori, children and gays under a bus in a quest for the votes of its "traditional base" of (supposedly racist, sexist and bigoted) working class males.
Chris Trotter responds:
Clearly, being held accountable for his own words is not something Mr Savant relishes – and that’s a pity, because it forces the people he attacks to come back at him directly (and very publicly) on their own blogs.
Right, now that I've got that off my chest, the first thing I’m going to say about this recent, highly tendentious posting by Mr Savant is that, in the fine tradition of Karl Marx disclaiming the title Marxist: "I am NOT a Trotterite!"
By "Trotterite" Mr Savant appears to mean any person who opposes "social engineering" – which he defines as "any moves to ensure equality for anyone who isn’t a white male".
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when it goes undetected or unresponded to by the fourth estate?
It means they don't deserve their privileged legal position if they're not delivering a public service. Transfer that to bloggers etc who are willing to hold power to account.
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inadvertently worn mismatched pairs in professional situations
could be part of the test too, prehaps :)