Posts by BenWilson
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Seems Key has achieved his real goal of setting the agenda of talking points. Doesn't matter a damn whether he has any solutions. The purpose of a speech like this is:
1. To differentiate him from Brash
2. To push some emotional buttons
3. To see the reaction to the buttons
4. To get people listening to himSuccess. His choice of emotional buttons is different from Brash. It attacks Labour where they are perceived as strong. And from government responses and the media including the blogosphere, it seems that we're all listening. The reaction provides National with feedback on which buttons to target.
Hungry kids is a good choice, it pushes lots of buttons. As a problem it's very hard, so no quick solution from Labour will just fix the issue. As many note, kids often don't eat breakfast because they don't want to. I was like that.
Underclass issues are always popular. There's always an underclass, depending on definitions. The bottom 1% pretty much fit the bill no matter what the actual state of their lives is. People living in shanty towns might think our underclass has it pretty sweet, but NZers have little perspective on the matter. Good button.
But Key is still on honeymoon. Brash already tried the approach of pushing buttons but offering no alternatives other than tax cuts, and it didn't work for him. Nothing has changed but the buttons. Key has chosen buttons that are actually a pretty hard ask for National whilst still maintaining a minimal state agenda. Labour can be expected to hammer this when the time comes.
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'I hate Auntie' or 'Uncle Tom' or both? But I don't have the solution for high Maori dole dependency either. I don't even know if it's a problem.
I can imagine it's stink to be on the dole if you don't want to be but can't live otherwise. But apart from people who are physically or mentally incapable of work (and should be on a different benefit?), I tend to think most people will get off it when they can, and that's great. That's the point. That worked.
There is a small group who really are too lazy too work. Should we force them to? Does it really matter? Isn't it their choice to be comfortable living in impoverishment?
I couldn't give a stuff if Maori are overrepresented. I see that as most likely because of historical reasons than for cultural or racial reasons. I don't think the Maori party will have the answers just because they are Maori either. If being Maori gave you the answer to the problem, then they wouldn't be overrepresented in the first place.
Would have expected more from a Professor of Education. Indeed, I would have thought he'd see education as the solution, since it was *his* solution. Hell, I could almost understand 'Education for the Dole', having lived through it myself.
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I think there are some blogs where 95% of the content is venom. But probably more like 1% of actual blogs. Most blogs are about the author of the blog, and comments are by their friends and family.
So slagging off bloggers is what you pay extra for in the Herald non-online version, huh? Oh, and Codders, of course.
Interesting choice that they give away all the real news for free, and all the tripe you pay for. I wonder if they're just trying to up their Google ranking.
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It's an insult.
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That Beast guy is a bit harsh on Suri Cruise. She can't do much about it yet!
As for BDO carnage: Thousands of pissed ozzies wandering around leering, making racist comments and acting like drongos? Sounds like every Friday night in Oz, what's the fuss? If a bouncer didn't like my tie I'd get refused entry to private gigs, I can't see that refusing tasteless paraphernalia like annoying big flags at a concert is any business of the federal government.
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Wii is so cool. But like you, I'm a reformed gamer, too many years of Quake. I'll have a game socially now, but never to excess.
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It is amazing how scared people are of kids these days. Glad Tze Ming had a pithy comeback which made them feel like dicks. As Benny "The Jet" Urquidez said 'People sense confidence, don't wanna try u no more'.
But I don't think being in a wealthy area is any guarantee that the local punks are safer. You can be viciously set upon by a group of wangstas every bit as much as by the real thing. Probably not the first time these guys have pushed an asian girl around, just the first time they got one with a sharp tongue.
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Yamis, you don't take solace that its little furry soul is in pussy heaven, surrounded by mouse sized dogs, on a pillow that never loses sunlight?
I'm feeling a bit like a chicken kebab today, but I blame it on overproof Fijian rum, not my segmented and shallow life, held together only by the iron rod of fear, roasting slowly over the coals of time. Coffeeeee....
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Robert, I couldn't find much to like in the old testament. The new testament was slightly better in that it at least said we should be nice to each other, sadly lacking in most of the older book. Hard to believe it was such a revolutionary idea, makes you think the ancient world must have been a shit place to be, and societies then are surely no model at all for now.
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Paul, I get that. I'm merely saying that it's tempting to deify the current set of prevailing beliefs in science, to hold them as totally true with a dogmatic sense of certainty. Tempting for non-scientists, that is, who are the vast majority of people.
I'm not saying science is identical to religion, but rather that if the religious impulse is turned towards science that devalues it. Which is why I don't really enjoy reading scientists who wax philosophical unless their philosophical angle really is wider than simple scientific dogmatism. I don't really think Einstein knew more about God than the next man. Yeah it's interesting that he believed, but I don't find that especially compelling, just because he was a famous scientist.
I always found the writings of scientists on the philosophy of science to be rather simplistic. The professional philosophers of science had taken the same ideas a whole lot further.
Not that I think the philosophers actually help science any with their after-the-fact observations, and their theories of method (or no-method, in some cases). Scientists generally don't need philosophy at all. When you're all about discovering exciting new things about the physical universe, you don't need some ivory tower pedant to tell you it wasn't really science because of some obscure issue in your method.
My personal favourite work on science was 'Against Method' by Feyerabend. He basically said 'anything goes', which pretty much means anything could be science, and a set of rules defining it is only going to limit it. It's kind of postmodern, deconstructive and unhelpful. But I think science needs that for real 'revolutions' to happen, otherwise it becomes another religion. A very successful one with many fruits, but self limiting and dogmatic nonetheless.
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