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Tough, But Tinder
What political secrets might we conceivably find lurking within Tinder dating app profiles? by Gordon Campbell All too often, politics is about the exercise of raw power for its own sake. Yet...
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From the Hood: Not flag-waving; flag-drowning
Running a few ideas up the flagpole to see if anyone repeatedly chops them down By Lyndon Hood I‘m not complaining about this flag referendum: as a process it sounds at least as reliable and...
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From The Hood : Trench Lawfare
Shouldn’t forging a nation from blood and sacrifice be against the law? by Lyndon Hood A court. The judge is squinting over his spectacles at the figure in the dock. It seems somehow indistinct, or...
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From the Hood : Where Engels Fears To Tread
History, In A Grain Of Salt by Lyndon Hood The chain of events that ended with me dragging a duffel bag full of live pigeons into Salt’s Mill will make sense to any student of Marxist theory. I was,...
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From The Hood : We Called Him Tortoise, Because He Deports Us
Australia and Other Nonsense by Lyndon Hood Australia has shown some interest in our flag process, and the fall of prominent user of the multiple current flags Tony Abbott may provide a chance to join...
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From The Hood : Illegal in an Illegal Land
Reading the fine print, except it’s not actually fine at all. by Lyndon Hood Last week I got one of the new five dollar notes as change and I was quite struck by the quality of the design – though...
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From the Hood : The Afterlife of Pablo
Kanye do something with this album cover meme? Ye kan! Recently Kanye West, whose Twitter presence is as self-centered as a spinning top that’s mistaken itself for a planet, announced a new album. The...
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From The Hood: Home, And A Way
Auckland struggles to cope with its over-supply of advice on housing affordability… by Lyndon Hood Recently I’ve noticed a lot people want to buy a house in Auckland. We live in a pluralist society...
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From The Hood: Caught With Your Panamas Down
Panama’s in PajamasBy Lyndon Hood New Zealand’s international trust regime has been under the spotlight with the release of the ‘Panama Papers’. The often murky and suspicious offshore finance industry...
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From the Hood : Work and Grimmcome
Work and Grimmcome Satire by Lyndon Hood Homeless people are finding themselves thousands of dollars in debt to Work and Income for money loaned to them to stay in motels.— Radio New Zealand News A...
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From The Hood: An Unexpected Bill
It’s been a bit confusing trying to follow the government’s priorities lately, so Scoop thought it was about time to catch up with our old mate Bill English and get the beltway insider skinny over a...
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From the Hood : The Second Time as Farce
I watched the coal smoking in the fireplace and tried to relax. My breathing slowly calmed, despite the occasional wet belch of a whoopee cushion as I sank lower into the overstuffed red leather chair....
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“UNIFIED.” Or, Ignoring the Elephant in the Room
Click for big version. After the US elections, VP-elect Mike Pence took a selfie with more than 100 Republican members of the House. The House GOP shared a making-of shot with the caption, “UNIFIED.” A...
View ArticleA Small Ode on a Trump Inauguration Poem
The Scotsman reports that a poem “inspired by Scotland” has been released to celebrate the coming inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States. Poet Joseph Charles MacKenzie, of The...
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Transcript: Donald Trump Takes The Presidential Oath
Click for big version. DONALD TRUMP: Let’s get this over. I’m in a hurry for everyone to clap me and then I have a party and later some President stuff I would like to do. You would not believe the...
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Donald Trump: “For The Most Beautiful”
Click for big version. In its first hundred hours the Trump administration has continued his style of aggressively courting appearances, in preference to truth and at the expense of everybody he has...
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That’s The Way You Do It
Click for big version. The Comic Tragedy or Tragical Comedy of Mr Trump As the President continues trying to throw the immigrant-and-refugee baby out with the bathwater, there is increasing attention...
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From the Hood: In Which My Computer Develops A Bug
By Lyndon Hood Click for big version. When I arrived at the office this morning I noticed the strangest thing. I had, as is my way, left my workstation on over the weekend with a view to getting right...
View ArticleThe Social Investment Model, Explained
Hello everyone, please be seated. As Chairman-at-large of the National Committee for Ideas that Sounded Good at the Time, I get asked a lot about this social investment strategy lark. It looks to be a...
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Social Welfare, Explained
There’s been a lot of talk lately about social welfare. Now, speaking as someone who has seen better times and nowadays mostly operates by being really annoying and humiliating to deal with, I have...
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Notes on National’s Election Campaign, in Poem Form
Because English is nothing is not Shakespearean by Lyndon Hood Next Generation Roads Of National Significance Cuckoo Song Traditional English Nationyl’s bitumen-ing As they du du Seed groweth River...
View ArticleFrom the Hood : Policy Captcha
Do Politicians Dream of Electric Sheep? By Lyndon Hood I’ve recently taken an interest in concerns about social media robots may try to influence New Zealand elections. [Spoilers: maybe, maybe not very...
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From the Hood : The Campaign Strategist’s Lament
A National Party Spin Doctor Writes by Lyndon Hood On a personal level, I was really looking forward to this election. It was exactly what I’ve been waiting for: a chance to prove who was really...
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From the Hood : Election Lists
Bringing Order to the Election Result by Lyndon Hood A List of Phrases of the Form Adopted by Patrick Gower to Promote Newshub Political Polls, for His Use in Coming Months Shouty and Hyperbolical...
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Your F**king Guide To Government Formation
The following message is in no way endorsed by the Electoral Commission. They are fucking done with this election. By Lyndon Hood So you’ve held a national election? Well fucking done. Wondering why...
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From the Hood : Mateship
A boat person, apparently. A List of Thing Mates Don’t Let Mates Do, Based on a Google Search and/or the Fact Asylum Seekers are Human Beings For the information of anyone who finds New Zealand’s offer...
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From the Hood : Category Error
An interesting moral conundrum has arisen in the United States. On the one hand we had their government (among other things) building special detention camps to hold asylum-seeking children they had...
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Quiz: Advice for National on a Judith Collins Leadership Bid, or Quote from...
Senior National MP Judith Collins seems to have been taking her cues from certain prominent overseas authoritarian populists somehow associated with conservatism. Perhaps most notably on Twitter, using...
View ArticleLyndon Hood : Te mea nui o te ao
What our deal is down here, our thing, if it was up to me, For us living on these sanctuary piles of rock in the sea, I’d choose one where the murder of people just over their religion (If things like...
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From the Hood : J’Hackuse
Better Analogies for National Pilfering Budget Data by Lyndon Hood “Imagine you’ve got a room in which you have placed important documents that you feel are secure, are bolted down with a lock and key,...
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