Wednesday 28 October 2009

More things I don’t care about

Never have local politicians looked smaller, or the issues with which they’re supposedly dealing look more irrelevant. Here’s just some of the things I currently don’t care about:

  • what Labour pollsters called themselves when they interrupted people’s dinner;
  • how many hours Gerry Brownlee wants MPs to spend in the House;
  • Bill English’s advice to taxpayers about setting up trusts to avoid tax (does he not own a mirror?);
  • whether the most boringly inept Finance Minister since the last one should be advertising a TV programme;
  • what (or who) Rodney Hide has for breakfast, and how much he charges for it;
  • how National will rearrange the deckchairs on the sinking welfare ship of ACC;
  • what Bill Liu said to who, and why;
  • how many “ethnic minorities” MMP puts into parliament (judged not by the content of their characters, but the colour of their skin);
  • what wriggles the Auckland District Health Board can make up to extricate it from the lab tests farrago;
  • what wriggles theologians can make up to deny the obvious;
  • what wriggles university philosophy graduates can devise to justify knowing less than they did when they were three years old;
  • speculation about what Alan Bollard will or won’t do (NZ’s alleged economists still seem to think that all their job involves is talking up “business confidence” and analysing Alan’s entrails);
  • National’s “hidden agenda.” It doesn’t exist.

And here’s a few things I’m still down on, but tired of pointing out:

  • how many excuses Rodney Hide has for not squashing councils’ rate-payer funded ambitions for empire -for supporting the Alliance policy on local government;
  • warmists denying the evidence that their “science” is collapsing;
  • Resource Management Act changes that aren’t;
  • governments (and councils) who spend like sailors with a leave pass when their revenues look like the beer table’s sales at a Salvation Army convention;
  • ACC ministers using a failed system as an excuse by which to raise taxes;
  • finance ministers using “tax reviews” as a device by which to hike taxes;
  • governments promising tax cuts and delivering the opposite;
  • Trolls.

Anything you’d like to add to the list?

21 comments:

Unknown said...

National’s “hidden agenda.” It doesn’t exist.

Unfortunately.

She backs entirely the wrong party, but Cactus Kates blog of today is first rate regarding our Minister of Finance:

http://asianinvasion2006.blogspot.com/2009/10/english-on-ropes.html#links

Russell Fletcher said...

Mark, there was a blog post here at Not PC last year about an allegation that Bill English has been a Labour mole inside the National Party for years. So, I think his cover as a mole is all crumbling around him.

Libertyscott said...

Something to not care about:
- What the Labour Party thinks (exchange Labour for National, Green, ACT, Maori, etc)

Barry said...

There was no new evidence presented this past week regarding Climate Change. I thought that your comments were about events happening in the media.

Seems you have confused an opinion poll in the US with real news like most Climate Change deniers.

Clunking Fist said...

Add Barry to the second list?

Falafulu Fisi said...

I know you don't care about Michael Jackson as a great entertainer, which you should add to your first list.

BUT! You're missing the best entertainment movie ever known to mankind and here is a short movie-clip of the man himself:

This is it

I'll tell you about the movie, on Saturday.

Falafulu Fisi said...

PC, would you care about if the entertainers are machines or humans?

Here are some Dancing Sony Robots which you can compare those machines to Michael Jackson's Robot Dancing.

It won't be too long into the future that technology will catchup so that robots will replicate exactly the way humans, especially Michael Jackson's dance moves. I'll go and watch a concert where the performers are robots if they can learn how to dance like MJ. It would be awesome.

Falafulu Fisi said...

There is no doubt that the Sony's dancing robots have been embedded with inductive learning algorithms. There are various inductive learning algorithms available today, so I don't know which ones are being embedded in Sony's robot's. The robots are very good at learning by induction. I came across the same dancing robots, from the following research which uses an inductive learning algorithm called ANN (artificial neural network), in which ANN models human neuron functionalities. There is no pre-programmed at all involved. The paper briefly describes of how ANN guides the robot in its dancing.

Abstract:
=========
We propose a technique to make a robot execute free and solitary dance movements on music, in a manner which simulates the dynamic alternations between synchronisation and autonomy typically observed in human behaviour. In contrast with previous approaches, we preprogram neither the dance patterns nor their alternation, but rather build in basic dynamics in the robot, and let the behaviour emerge in a seemingly autonomous manner. The robot motor commands are generated in real-time by converting the output of a neural network processing a sequence of pulses corresponding to the beats of the music being danced to. The spiking behaviour of individual neurons is controlled by a biologically-inspired model (FitzHugh-Nagumo). Under appropriate parameters, the network generates chaotic itinerant behaviour among low-dimensional local attractors. A robot controlled this way exhibits a variety of motion styles, some being periodic and strongly coupled to the musical rhythm and others being more independent, as well as spontaneous jumps from one style of motion to the next. The resulting behaviour is completely deterministic (as the solution of a non-linear dynamical system), adaptive to the music being played, and believed to be an interesting compromise between synchronisation and autonomy.

Making a Robot Dance to Music Using Chaotic Itinerancy in a Network of FitzHugh-Nagumo Neurons

Why would we dislike certain humans (eg - Michael Jackson), but I guess that we would prefer machines to be used as substitutes instead?

I also like electronic synthesized robot music (ie, machine generated music), but I prefer real human made music. I bet that most readers here, would prefer to listen to MJ's Thriller than a robot music.

Monsieur said...

@ FF: Re Dancing Sony Robots.
White robots can't dance very well.

Falafulu Fisi said...

I am sure that Sony will paint them black and when they do, those black robots will be awesome dancers.

El said...

Well, this is a bit off topic, I care enough about it to mention it, but don't care for the TV ad at all, if you get my drift...

That freaking Tower insurance ad, where the husband is biking to or from work (who cares about the finer details), stopping to tell his mate that he is trying to save money, petrol etc, then the wife pulls into the driveway in one of those suburban tractors and pulls out a lot of 'shopping'. It paints men as chumps, and women as bitches. A lot of PC crap if you ask me! Gimme a break!

El (a female who is not a bitch, and would not put up with such a chump as a hubby - his arse would be kicked from here until next Wednesday if he acted so (oops, perhaps I *am* a bitch!)

twr said...

Men are always portrayed as chumps on TV ads - it's PC to do so. Look at the Westpac ads for example. A succession of chumps either being green or being harangued by shrews.

El said...

TWR
Yes, I have noticed that about many ads and television shows too. It really irks me (and that is putting it nicely). Another thing is all these detective/cop shows where it is the female giving the orders. I don't watch much tv these days, it is all rubbish. Between that, and the brain dead reality shows...

Goofey said...

Men are always portrayed as chumps on TV ads

I think you're being over sensitive. There are plenty of ads where men aren't chumps. There are also plenty of ads where women are. It's this oversensitivity to led to political correctness in the first place.

I'm sorry to say this, but harden up!

El said...

Goofey
I don't think I am being oversensitive at all, perhaps you are being under-attentive to it all?

BTW, I am pretty thick skinned for a sheila/anti-feminist. I am certainly not PC either.

twr said...

"There are also plenty of ads where women are."

List three.

Clunking Fist said...

Not to do goofy's job for her, but the old australian ads for margarine always used to make me smile, all those burly husbands and smiling children singing "you ought to be congradulated" as the wife puts the dinner on the table.

Sus said...

"Old" being the operative word, CF. A crap ad for a crap product, wasn't it!

I'm with El & TW. The chaps aren't just plonkers as a rule; they're -- newsflash! -- usually caucasian to boot! ;)

Anonymous said...

There is one thing you really, genuinely DON'T care about:

Electoral Success

LGM said...

Yeah, you've gotta admit those electoral ads are full of plonkers promoting pronkerism.

"Have your say".

Plonkers

LGM

Clunking Fist said...

Sus, yes it was an old ad, don't see anything like it now! The ad confused me, showing Aussie women as somewhat subserviant and traditional. All the Aussie sheilas I've every met are more blokey than the blokes, you wouldn't cross them.