Posts by Matthew Hooton
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
I think Clinton lost because she and her spouse really are crooks and voters were reminded of this with the FBI stuff at the end, and a few hundred thousand Democratic women thought "nah, I''m not going to be told I have to vote for this crook as some sort of feminist exercise, especially as she is only where she is because of her dodgy husband."
No idea if this is right but the point is Clinton lost because of what a few hundred thousand people decided in the last few days not because of some global megatrend.
-
Legal Beagle: Just get the App, already, in reply to izogi,
No, it's no longer standard. Many people use the app so don't have a physical boarding pass (nor does the airline know they are in the airport) until they reach the gate.
-
Doesn't this mean the turtles will have to go all the way down?
-
Hard News: Obscuring the News, in reply to Stephen Judd,
Not to mention that if I wanted to read Daily Mail online, I could go straight to the source easily enough.
I spend a good two to three minutes a day reading the Daily Mail, mainly to enjoy their latest pisstake about Corbyn. It is the best of its genre. But I expect something different from the Herald. And what I have learned is that what the Herald takes from the Mail can be days old. It's really pathetic that the Herald has been reduced to re-running out of date Mail copy.
Overall, I think I agree 100% with everything in Russell's post. It really is appalling.
-
Polity: Key peddles cynical “interest…, in reply to Rob Salmond,
You miss my point. It is always true that one of the factors that determine what the OCR and other interest rates are is government policy, particularly fiscal policy. So it is always true for them to "claim credit" to a certain extent.
-
One of the factors that drive interest rates is fiscal policy, and so prime minister's can (and do and always will) argue that interest rates are lower than they would be under the other party because it its "irresponsible spending promises / tax cut proposals". You may try to fight this one blog post at a time but prime ministers will do what prime ministers do.
-
Polity: Hekia's waynebrave, in reply to Russell Brown,
I agree the government's communications on any substantive policy proposal are usually awful (they don't get to practice very often) but they get away with it because Key can do the hocky-docky thing so well when required and the leader of the opposition is the most hopeless since Jim McLay.
-
Polity: Hekia's waynebrave, in reply to Moz,
I have to ask, what makes you think Hekia Parata is a competent minister diligently working to make the NZ education system better for everyone?
I would not make any claim about competence, but I am sure her intention is precisely to make the system better for everyone, as it has been for everyone who has been Minister of Education in my lifetime . And the idea she is motivated by a desire to make things "cheaper and easier" (whatever that means) is certain to be arrant nonsense.
-
Polity: Hekia's waynebrave, in reply to Emma Hart,
I just want to note that this is not true. That is the traditional idea of who Te Kura is for, but it’s not how it functions any more.
Christ Emma. I hadn't seen this before I posted. It will do our reputations no good to be seen agreeing like this.
-
Polity: Hekia's waynebrave, in reply to Julienz,
I believe we are talking about choice not compulsion. Nothing I have seen suggests that the Minister’s move to facilitate online education amounts to compulsory home schooling.
Yes, I would have though the likelihood of more than a handful of parents taking up this idea (in addition to current homeschoolers) would be quite low. But the Labour Party, its shills and the teacher unions have presented it as - to quote Chris Hipkins - "a Trojan horse for privatisation and an end to free public education". Chippie has also added a nice bit of xenophobia to his messaging, saying the scheme would see "students sitting at home in their bedrooms with a laptop receiving their tuition from a foreign corporation". Of the horror!
But for any of this to be true, it would require vast numbers of parents to opt out of state-run schools, bypass integrated or private ones and decide to do online homeschooling. If the Labour Party, its shills and the teacher unions really think this is remotely plausible they are revealing a stunning lack of confidence in parents' perception of the quality of state schools.
This piece by a paid Labour Party strategist also mistakenly implies that distance education, such as that provided by Te Aho O Te Kura Pounamu, is about trying to duplicate the experience of a classroom, and doing so in perhaps a quite-close but nevertheless inferior manner. In fact, had Rob had professional or personal contact with Te Aho O Te Kura Pounamu or its parents, he would know that distance providers argue that what they provide is completely different from and - for some students - can be much better than the traditional model.
I don't know whether of those claims are true: I guess they sound plausible. But, as above, it seems highly unlikely more than a handful of parents would choose this option anyway, unless you want to argue large numbers of parents are desperate for an alternative to the traditional model.