Utopia, you are standing in it!

The election campaign is in its final, frenzied stage. I suspect most people have already made up their minds. Many have already voted. But our left-leaning media are increasingly frantic. The result looks like it is moving out of their reach and they are determined to make one last effort to get Chris Hipkins’ lamentable…

MICHAEL BASSETT: BEWARE OF THE MEDIA IN THE HOME-STRETCH

The Palestinian Arabs got a raw deal from their leaders in 1948 when their neighbours decided the right response to the UK decolonising the Palestinian mandate by enabling the creation of Israel and a parallel Arab state was to oppose it.  You may or may not agree with the creation of the state of Israel,…

The Islamofascist death cult of Hamas

The PM took time out from campaigning to express his “grave concern at the escalation of violence in Israel and Gaza”. This wording was similar to the wording in the opening sentence of  a statement from Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta, who expressed New Zealand’s “grave concern at the escalation of violence in Israel, the […]

NZ had been quiet about Israel-Palestine tensions for two years – but Hamas attack prompted our PM to express grave concern

(I believe you pronounce his surname Si-, to rhyme with sky, and -eed; Edward Si-eed.) Orientalism created a big splash when it was published way back in 1978, nearly 50 years ago. It opened doorways into radical new ways of thinking about imperialist history and culture. It has gone on to be translated into more […]

Orientalism by Edward Said (1978) part 1

We have been following the gradual elimination of common terms deemed offensive or microaggressive. The latest is the word “picnic.” After the University of Nevada Las Vegas law school’s Environmental Law Society announced a picnic, it was renamed “Lunch by the Lake” due to “diversity and inclusion” concerns. The ELS was able to avoid a […]

Law School is No Picnic: Environmental Law Society Pulls References to a Picnic as Offensive

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has caused another stir by suggesting that the millions of Trump supporters may require a “formal deprogramming” in a CNN interview. It was a moment clearly enjoyed by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who previously suggested that the FBI should have stopped Trump from making certain campaign statements.  Even former FBI […]

Deprogramming “Deplorables”: Clinton Raises Need for “Formal Deprogramming” of Trump Supporters

This is an object lesson not only in the pollution of science by ideology, but also in how to make a fool of yourself by not learning about other areas of science before you pronounce on them. A reader affiliated with a UK earth-sciences department sent me a letter circulated around that department, but it’s […]

Group of “science-savvy” UK liberals urge denial of the sex binary

“All armies get it wrong at the beginning; the question is who adapts fastest.” (British military historian Michael Howard quoted by Elliot Cohen, page 100) ‘All Americans make promises but nothing ever happens.’ Iraqi housewife complaining why there was still sewage in the street outside her house 5 years after the Americans invaded and promised […]

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006 to 2008 (2009)

The significance of the title of Emperor in Western Europe. From the time of Roman Emperor Constantine I (r. 306–337), the Roman Emperors had, with very few exceptions, taken on a role as promoters and defenders of Christianity. The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the Christian Emperor in the Church. Emperors […]

The Title of Tsar. Part II.

I still hope that NZ looks over in horror at Canada and pulls back from making it risky for platforms to link to news.Facebook’s clearly decided that being in news just isn’t worth the aggro. Look at this. Facebook referrals to top global news sites dropped from 120 million per month to about 20 million…

…and make the platforms pay for it

… and the results are statistically disastrous.   Summary of three pieces on Economist Melissa Kearney’s Research Freakonomics Radio: When did marriage become a luxury good? Related: Why Did You Marry That Person? (Replay) Related: Why Does the Richest Country in the World Have So Many Poor Kids? (Update) Related: The Fracking Boom, a Baby Boom, and the Retreat From…

US leads the world in single-parent households…

The title of Tsar (alternatively Czar, Tzar or Csar) was a title used by Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word Caesar. Caesar was a Cognomen which was the third name of a citizen of ancient Rome, under Roman naming conventions. Initially, a Cognomen was a nickname, but lost that purpose when […]

The Title of Tsar. Part I.

A few weeks ago, just before I went away for 10 days holiday, the latest in the saga of the Reserve Bank MPC, and the blackball on external experts when the first MPC appointments were made, appeared in the Herald. You’ll recall that it was widely understood that there had been such a blackball, put […]

MPC appointments, past and future