Sunday, 12 March 2006

This week at 'Not PC'

For those of you who disgracefully missed some of Not PC this week, here's a brief summary of the best of it. Feel free to use that little e-mail button at the bottom top pass it on to everyone you've ever met...
  1. Fallingwater: The story of how Frank Lloyd Wright drew up America's finest Twentieth-Century house in the time it took the client to drive two hours to meet him

    The story of how Frank Lloyd Wright drew up America's finest Twentieth-Century house in the time it took the client to drive two hours to meet him is the stuff of legend. Edgar Tafel
  2. God drinks Guinness

    Friday afternoon a week before St Patricks Day seems an ideal time to ponder a fairly convincing Ontological Proof of God provided by a skinful of Guinness, a pretty girl and a bright sun, courtesy of an old post at Manhattan Transfer [and a hat tip to St

  3. John Key - "More meddling please"

    Those of you have commented on John Key's speech to West Harbour Rotary in which he argues for the benefits of greater government meddling might be interested in yesterday's discussion of the speech with bFM's Simon Pound, now online.
  4. 'Australia's most important architect' dies

    One of Australia's most prolific architects has died. Harry Seidler (1923-2006) was an unabashed modernist responsible for many of Australia's well-known public buildings including Sydney's Australia Square and Grosvenor Place, and Brisbane's Riverside Bu

  5. Black holes existence questioned

    As if to demonstrate that we know far less about astro- and quantum physics than we think we do, New Scientist reports this week that the existence of black holes is under question...

  6. When partly true is untrue - More FM misreporting shows interview dangers

    More FM yesterday ran a story saying that the Libertarianz political party supported racism. More FM now accepts that this was incorrect. Libertarianz Deputy Julian Pistorius confirmed that his party does ~not~ support racism, but it does support people's

  7. Rugby, Physics, Philosophy & Beer - update

    As I mentioned when I first suggested this, "we plan to integrate BBQ, beer-drinking, physics and rugby": What could be better, eh? Schrodinger's Fridge Cat? Strange particles? The interconnectedness of everything? Beer! In a series of taped lectures...

  8. 'Country House' - Mies van der Rohe, 1923

    A wonderfully free-flowing 'pinwheel' plan for this country house project by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe from 1923. A plan that combines elements of Frank Lloyd Wright, De Stijl, Berlage and Malevich.
  9. TradeMe block a tipping point?

    It doesn't stop, does it. Hard on the heels of Carter's Whangamata Veto, the Communist Commerce Commission chair-thing Paula Rebstock says she wants to throw a spanner in Fairfax's plan to give TradeMe founder Sam Morgan a large cheque.

  10. Get Carter

    Chris Carter has done everyone a favour. He's made it clear even to the unwashed and unenlightened that meddling is in, that enterprise is out, that the separation of powers in this pathetic authoritarian backwater is non-existent, and that New Zealand op

  11. Rodney Hide. Legend.

    Herald: "Do you support widespread legalisation?" Mr Hide: "No."

  12. Baa Baa ~What~ Sheep?

    Nursery school bosses [in Oxfordshire, UK] ordered the words of the rhyme Baa Baa Black Sheep to be altered to Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep. The change was made to avoid offending children after teachers examined the nursery's equal opportunities policy. Stuart

  13. Larkin Building - Frank Lloyd Wright

    Frank Lloyd Wright's Larkin Building of 1905 was revolutionary. The first atrium office building -- indeed, the first atrium building of any type -- air-conditioned, fire-proof, a veritable 'cathedral of industry.'

  14. Breathing fire on Nanny's census

    The Wellington firebreather made short work of a stack of census forms tonight at the Botanic Gardens Soundshell, doing what he does best in front of a crowd of forty or so that included a group of scouts chanting "Burn, Census, Burn!"
  15. Meddling arsehole stops Whangamata project

    This is what a meddling arsehole looks like (left). Chris Carter, MP, has just stepped in to reject the application to build a $10 million marina in Whangamata after consent for the project had already been granted by the Environment Court. Carter knows best...

  16. Crimes against society

    ...discussing 'prisoner rehabilitation' and Rachaelle Namana over the last day or so, I've kept hearing the phrase "repaying their debt to society." Prisoners, people keep saying, need to to "repay their debt to society." What on earth are they talking about?

  17. The truth about cats and dogs and politics

    Liberals tend to like cats; conservatives tend to like dogs. Such is the result reported by the Washington Monthly...

  18. Oscars

    Didn't 'we' do well. Weta Workshops's Richard Taylor is now equal Oscar-wise with Clint Eastwood, Bob Hope, John Barry and Francis Ford Coppola as the winner of five Academy Awards. Says the Dom enthusiastically: "Wellywood and Weta have done it again, with King Kong grabbing

  19. 'Clash of civilisations' rubbished by Arab-American woman

    Wow! Dr. Wafa Sultan is a secular Arab-American psychologist, whose view of Islam can best be decribed as one of absolute contempt. On February 21 she confronted radical Islamist cleric Ibrahim Al-Khouli in a debate on 'The Clash of Civilizations,' not in

  20. Houses - when bigger is not necessarily better

    When someone buys a Mercedes Benz or Jaguar, they look for quality, comfort, and detail. Size has nothing to do with the appeal of these cars. If you wanted nothing but space, you could buy a truck. Why is it, then, that some people feel compelled to buy bigger when it comes to their house, even though bigger is not always better...

  21. Firebreathing over census at Wellington's sound shell tonight

    Meanwhile, Libertarianz has organised a protest at the Wellington Sound Shell, with a fire breather to burn census forms. The press release states: "Libertarianz leader, Bernard Darnton, announced the event today, saying that "the census is a blatant e

  22. National Farmer's Bank, Owatonna, Minnesota - Louis Sullivan

    In 1906 architect Louis Sullivan criticised the then-traditional bank with its classical ornament and layout in an article in The Craftsman -- read by musician-turned-banker Carl Bennett, Sullivan was challenged to "suggest how to obtain something better

  23. A republic. If you can keep it

    Democracy, as Bill Weddell used to say, is the counting of heads regardless of content. I talked the other day about the importance in a democracy of putting things beyond the vote, so that your life, liberty and your right to pursue your own happiness ca

  24. TradeMe changes hands for big money

    Good for Sam Morgan, the fomer owner of NZ's most popular website, TradeMe, the site he started just seven years ago that now accounts for sixty-percent of NZ's web traffic. He is "the former owner" because as you might have heard he's just sold it for th

  25. Where there's a census, let there be fire!

    Tomorrow night I shall be burning my census form. That is, I would be if I had one. Apparently I am amongst the third or so of central Aucklanders who haven't yet had a form delivered. How sad. Perhaps I'll need to download a form in order to burn it.
  26. Do the rich really make us all poorer?

    'The rich keep getting richer!' screams economist Paul Krugman. 'So what,' says George Reisman in his latest blog. Actually, they both say it far more learnedly than I just summarised, but what you got was the gist of it...
  27. Trees

    Four questions for you this morning: * Given that a man has been jailed last year for offending the state religion cutting down his own trees on his own property, and that yesterday a man was fined $100,000 after abasing himself before a room full of zealots...

Tags: Economics Education

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