Anyone who has been involved in debating issues has probably come to suspect that facts don’t matter. Facts don’t change people’s minds, there are other, stronger influences that shape opinions.
A recent article by George Monbiot in The Guardian reviews some of the psychological evidence for this fact blindness in the context of the climate change debate.
Before they were swept along by the latest incarnation of US Right anti-intellectualism, National used to have some smart people. One of the […]
I think it is a pity that the currently dominant country / culture in the world, America, has had such a short history. […]
The delectable Mr Stephen Fry doesn’t like the people who comment on blogs, and says so in his usual forthright, erudite and whimsical […]
A shout out on a Sunday to a family who are walking the talk: Pastor Murray Smith preaches a message of generosity in […]
I read a fun piece by Charlie Brooker in The Guardian recently: There’s too much stuff. We live in a stuff-a-lanche. I’m fairly […]
I thought I would take the time to point out this excellent article by Tapu Misa. It has gone with out saying that […]
This the kind of garbage isn’t usually worth my time, but that’s what wee gripes is for: Why are Key, Henry and Watkins so […]
Maybe it would be good for my blood pressure to try not to be grumpy about politics on Sundays. So here is a site […]
Espiner the Younger wrote: Hutch’s biggest mistake wasn’t reading and driving, in my opinion. It was reading and driving in a sign-written car […]
I just read that the Troy Kennedy Martin, the screenwriter responsible for Edge of Darkness died earlier this week. I wanted to mark […]
Westpac has this ad campaign about how they’re doing their bit to reduce their environmental impact. The dumb thing is they make begin […]
John when you say ‘overtly’ you mean ‘overly’. Like on Monday when you told Paul Henry “I’m not overtly stressed..”. Sometimes, you say […]
Diffusion of responsibility means that the bigger the group the less chance that anyone in the group will take action. In a typical […]
I’ve been thinking about the different ways ministers from the Left and the Right approach governing. I think it goes back to where […]
This endless crime-porn. Night after night of fetishistic coverage of the latest unusual crime or trial. Call yourselves journalists? Bollocks. You run this […]
Business New Zealand and other assorted tossers. Stop calling our country ‘New Zealand Inc’. This is our home. This is where we live […]
Maori unemployment is ballooning day by day but the most important thing that Maori Affairs Minister Sharples can spend his time on is […]
It takes two days from folate blowing up as a political issue for Key to get Crown Law onto finding a way for […]
This evening, Labour tabled in the House, with her permission, a statement from the woman that Richard Worth harrassed with his corrupt ‘jobs […]
A little while ago we had some discussion here about the Sensible Sentencing Trust and their status as a charity. That’s not what […]
In the age of the media politician, where catch-phrases are given more attention than laws and good politics is awarded more points by […]
There’s all this rubbish at the moment about people moving beyond ideology. At the Jobs Summit, attendees were harangued to ‘leave your ideology […]
I’ve been thinking about the concurrent crises we face – peak oil, climate change, and tightening food supply – how the limits to […]
I had some good conversations with journos at the press gallery drinks. We’re often critical of the media, and sometimes specific journos, and […]
[I’ll just preface this post by saying I have no love for Winston Peters’ politics and I’m happy to see New Zealand First […]
The fundamental question of politics is how the wealth of society should be divided among the members of society. We live in a […]
A utopia, an ideal socio-politico-legal system that we can work towards if never reach, should lie at the heart of ones political philosophy. […]
There are two core strains to left-wing thought. Both of them can be seen as rooted in the evolution of the scientific method […]
I’ve had some interesting conversations with people recently that have me thinking we need to get back to some political basics to build […]
