Murder

Former University of Otago lecturer Clayton Weatherston has been committed for trial after pleading not guilty to murdering ex-girlfriend Sophie Elliott.

From the ODT.

Depositions are over for the Sophie Elliott murder which I've been following since day one. As an economics student at Otago myself I found this quite shocking.

It's interesting that Weatherston has elected to plead not guilty. I'm no lawyer but the evidence seems pretty damning and everyone I've talked to seems convinced of his guilt. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out.

This could be quite dull

Mr English raised the issue in Parliament today, and said if Mr Benson-Pope urged people to vote for Labour it would amount to election advertising under the Electoral Finance Act.

From the ODT.

You know. I really hope that this election isn't all about violations of the Electoral Finance Act. I can't think of a more boring way to conduct an election.

Which is better?

vs

My Favourite Paragrah of the Moment.

I would have just said, "the man was fat" but I guess that's why I'm not a novelist.

Rabbi Heskel Shpilman is a deformed mountain, a giant ruined dessert, a cartoon house with the windows shut and the sink left running. A little kid lumped together, a mob of kids, blind orphans who never laid eyes on a man. They clumped the dough of his arms and legs to the dough of his body, then jammed his head down on top. A millionaire could cover a Rolls-Royce with the fine black silk-and-velvet expanse of the rebbe's frock coat and trousers. It would require the brain strength of the eighteen greatest sages in history to reason through the arguments against and in favor of classifying the rebbe's massive bottom as either a creature of the deep, a man-made structure, or an unavoidable act of God. If he stands up, or if he sits down, it doesn't make any difference in what you see.

From Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union. A book I picked up at the library randomly based solely on the cover. I hadn't even heard of Michael Chabon at the time. I was then further convinced by all the praise and the crazy sounding plot.

I've been very impressed so far.

The end of one particular kind of madness.

It's over.

Internal assessment is over. Such a thing just makes me so happy.

This essay I wrote ended up being one I just couldn't care about. I am so bored with a topic like "media imperialism". It's my own fault really, what could I expect after doing papers like "understand contemporary media", "political communications in new zealand" and "theorising digital media". I'm burned out on the media after doing my fourth paper on it.

It's a relief that this is my final semester (providing nothing awful happens.... again.). Though it should be added I still find all aspects of microeconomics to be fascinating - macro bores me.

I stayed up until 4am writing before deciding to go to bed, I think I should have just done what I did last week and stay up all night fueled by unhealthy amounts of coffee but I decided to sleep. I woke up and felt ruined for the rest of the day. And today. I felt pretty good last week - I'm clearly not up for sleeping 4-5 hours at a time. It's either none or nine.

After handing in the essay I was so tired that I made my way to the AV center in the library and just watched Battlestar Galactica for four and a half hours. I had recently found out it was in the library and heard it was good so I thought I'll give it a shot. I don't know if it was the crazy talking but it was pretty fucking good. I totally want to watch more.

The way home was surreal, it was raining and everything just seemed weird, from the polynesian singers who had hidden themselves in some crevice of the postmodern library outside to the pot smokers who meet every friday at four o'clock or something who were just standing there - smoking in the rain. Just seemed weird to me.

The next couple of days will be dedicated to relaxation. Before I start getting into exam prep. The madness has only just began.

Review: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Well, the new one has had its premiere in Cannes so I thought I'd give the first one a watch. Introduce myself to the whole Indiana Jones thing. It's good for someone who studies pop culture to actually acquaint myself with some of it.

The most interesting thing about the movie for me though, watching it 27 years after it's been released was that I felt that I had watched it all before - everything seemed so familiar. My theory is that the entire movie has been parodied and referenced by so many different people that you could actually reconstruct the entire movie from them. The first place you'll start would be The Simpsons and then you'll move on.

The movie itself was great - everything you could want from an action film really. And what most action films have been aspiring to do since. I'll have to grab a copy of the second and watch it as soon as I can me thinks.

8.5/10

Cake & Lentil Loaf

It was my turn to cook last night... I managed the cheapest night of the year so far. Spending a mere 59c on new ingredients and using stuff we already had like brown lentils (about $1 worth), carrot (30c?), 1 egg (30c maybe?) and a couple of other ingredients such as herbs to make lentil loaf. Throw in some rice and mixed veges and you got one of the cheapest student meals out there.

Also made a chocolate cake on my flatmate's orders. She bought all the ingredients, I supplied the labour. Turned out alright.

Talking about cake... because I haven't posted a video in a while. Here's the music video for Crowded House's Chocolate Cake song (from their Woodface album)

Little Rocket Ships.

Calvin and Hobbes.

Hunting Zebras.

Pearls Before Swine.

Who even cares?

Why must the likes of TV3 rabbit on about the "golden rules" of politics? Apparently Phil Goff has broken them by acknowledging that Labour are behind in the polls and that they might lose the election and by discussing leadership after Helen Clark steps down.

What are these golden rules? They're just a buzz-phrase that reporters/journalists throw out that have no real significance in, well, anything. Phil Goff does something different, like stating the obvious and suddenly he's broken the golden rules. He might as well have raped a table. The media are just trying to make a mountain out of a molehill (to use an often-used phrase).

It's a pity that we live in an environment where the media are looking to grab onto anything to make a story out of. It would be so much nicer to live in a world where things were less sensationalised and rather have more intelligent discussion going on. I guess this just doesn't add up to big dollars for the media though. Pity.

One can hope?

National leader John Key wants to have a referendum on MMP. While he didn't say whether it will be simply MMP vs FPP or with STV thrown in it is still scary. While I don't actually object to there being a referendum on the subject (it seems like a reasonable one to me) and while I don't think that FPP will be voted back in. A referendum on the subject sends chills down the part of my spine that is interested in electoral systems. The prospect of returning to FPP seems awful. MMP may have its oddities but FPP is a system that delivers results like:

• The 1978 General Election. Labour gets 40.4% of the vote compared to National's 39.8% but National wins anyway by 11 seats. The Social Credit party manages to get 16.1% but only one seat to show for it.
• The 1981 General Election. Again, Labour beats National in the popular vote but still loses to National by 4 seats. The Social Credit gets even more of the vote - 20.65% any only manages to increase their seats by one.

So, we have a system that allows a party that gets less votes than another to win? Some may accuse of MMP of allowing this to happen (i.e. in a situation say in 1996, where NZ First could have signed up with Labour/Alliance combination) - the fact remains that those parties in power would have still represented the majority of the population.

I could spend a while discussing the negatives of a FPP system. Idiot/Savant has a large number of posts about MMP here that can be read. The main problems I have with MMP is the 5% threshold (which should be lowered) and the overhang seats (excellent example: the Maori Party) which affect the proportionality of the seats.

The Newspapers have seemed to all run editorals on the subject: my "favourite" is from the Hawke's Bay Today by Louis Pierard which attacks the existence of minor parties as the major failing of MMP, a system that, according to Pierard, makes a mockery out of our politics and takes honour and dignity out of the system.

Bah, that's enough for me.

Didn't know it was that bad...

Unknown to me, I'm on ACT's mailing list and I got an e-mail today from them asking for my vote. One bit of the e-mail was interesting..

The average New Zealand worker is now $450 a week poorer than the average Australian worker.

If we were a state of Australia, we'd be the poorest - $100 a week poorer than Tasmania.

If we were a state of the USA, we'd be 51st and last - $120 a week poorer than Mississippi.

I must say, I didn't know it was that bad. If I could be bothered I'd be tempted to check those figures. Seems a bit dodgy. I did do a little looking about Mississippi on wiki though. They were once the fifth richest state in the USA. That's what slave labour can do for you.

Joss Whedon is back!

Joss Whedon, the man behind some of my favourite TV shows of all time like Buffy and Firefly is working on a new show: Dollhouse. A trailer of which can be seen here though the show's not due to appear until January next year. Now that is a bummer.

This is probably my most anticipated new series for now, along with Alan Ball's new series True Blood which will be premiering the 7th of September in the States (according to wiki anyway).

Such a long time... sigh...

More Pearls Before Swine

After finding out about Pearls Before Swine the other day I thought I'll post a couple more...

Truth.

From PHD Comics. I tend to deviate between Mid-Center, Nearest Exit and Against the Wall.