I am a fan of Obama, however, this video is a very good piece of political satire.

This job was advertised on seek.com.au yesterday. They took down the ad pretty quick, but not before it got tweeted and I got a screen grab of it.

The ad was placed on the site by Microsoft as part of a viral marketing campaign for the new game Mass Effect 2.

From the wonders of xkcd

Hat tip No Minister

Living Colour – Cult of Personality

The news coming out of destiny church is becoming more alarming by the day as the herald reports this morning on members paying to see the swearing of an oath to Brian Tamaki by 700 men.

Scrubone at Halfdone Blog has written a good post on the issue: http://halfdone.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/cults/

His key comments are:

Someone commented over there (sarcastically) asking what the difference between a cult and a church is. Well, if you’re not “permitted” to listen to Radio Rhema or “attend any other Christian ministry”, you’re in a cult.

Cults try to shut down all independent thinking. The activly control what members do and say. Only the thoughts and idea of the leader are allowed.

On the other hand, a good church will encourage (Biblical) independent thought and study and cooperating with other churches in the Lord’s work. Naturally, there are plenty of bad churches out there, on both extremes.

Update: Immediately after I wrote this Scrubone just did another great post: http://halfdone.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/brians-cult/

All I can suggest is Tamaki should get a new theme song, how about this one:

If you desire more entertaining information on Tamaki’s background here is the Uncyclopedia article on him:

“the development of his theology, a radical and innovative doctrinal system that dispensed with annoyances like humility and love for fellow man and replaced them with the more progressive and modern virtues of materialist greed and unbridled judgmental bigotry. They kept their doctrines nice and flexible so they could make them up as they went along. The only thing set in stone was that the congregation had to give them plenty of money.

such a skilled orator was Pastor Brian – it was positively ingenious the way he could turn any sermon on any subject around to the subject of money, and how God needed more of it. No matter what the theme of his sermon, whether it was “Socialism is the Tool of Evil”, “Homosexuals and Women with IQ’s higher than 50 will burn in hell”, “Thinking is the enemy of righteousness” or “Fundamentalist Indoctrination is the true path to Holiness” – all would eventually find their utmost expression in the familiar mantra – “It’s time to take up the tithe and offering now” – at which point the Armourguard security van would back up to the door of the church and the security guards would cock their weapons.”

Can you imagine the near orgasmic state of the civil defence leaders as their pagers or cell phones went off this morning.

All over the east coast of NZ bearded men in walk shorts and long socks would have leapt to attention full of self importance, their partners would have asked them if they had time for breakfast, “no, we have an emergency” would have been the well practised reply.

Thermos’s would have been hurriedly filled, cut sandwiches would have been cobbled together and high visibility vests and hard hats donned as they walked briskly (no sense in placing ones self in danger by running) to their Lada’s.

The drive to civil defence headquarters would have been made at just over the speed limit (102km per hour), headlights would have been blazing, the radio’s would be tuned to national radio looking for updates, and thoughts of “I live for this” would fill their heads, as they arrived at headquarters they would again walk briskly up the stairs before grabbing hold of their favourite clipboard.

One can almost see the disappointment on their faces when the news came in that the approaching tidal wave was only 1 meter in height.

Posted by Big Bruv at Kiwiblog (http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/09/tsunami_warning.html#comment-613162)

from XKCD.com

From: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sideswipe/news/article.cfm?c_id=702&objectid=10594361

A prank sign has appeared on the side of the Bristol Zoo Garden’s popular cafe, designating the area as the best place to spot Homo sapiens. The sign reads: “The human is one of the world’s most widespread species, and is present on all continents. In adolescence, the offspring adopt a more nocturnal lifestyle and engage in ritualised activities of drinking fermented liquids and dancing to rhythmical sounds, which scientists believe may help them to find a mate. The human diet is very adaptable to regional crop varieties and personal taste, with some groups able to live almost exclusively on chipped potatoes and sugary drinks. Groups of humans are often fed by unrelated individuals in exchange for tokens made of paper, metal and plastic – behaviour which can frequently be seen inside this enclosure.”

I shouldn’t have got distracted by Facebook and Blogging.

Front page of the Herald website this morning. Seems someone doesn’t know what John Key looks like.

It appears that Jetstar has hired the same public relations firm as the Iranian Government.

Over there they blame civil unrest on England and the media, and all the people protesting are really foreigners who are acting as spys.

Over here Jetstar is blaming all its issues on Air New Zealand and is claiming conspiracy.

from: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10582629

Jetstar chief executive Bruce Buchanan has accused Air New Zealand of attempting to “sabotage” his airline during its troubled launch in the domestic market.

…

Domestic travellers galore have complained about late and cancelled flights, and of being turned away for failing to check in 30 minutes before takeoff.

Claims of rude and unhelpful staff have flooded internet messageboards, and some have accused the airline of overbooking flights, leaving passengers stranded.

But Buchanan said many rumours about Jetstar, including those concerning poor pilots and old, unserviced planes, had been circulated by Air NZ.

So according to Buchanan complaining travellers are just Air NZ people in disguise, and there is really nothing wrong, Jetstar staff have not been rude, unhelpful, and people haven’t been turned away are all just rumours… umm… I smell fire… oh it looks like it is Jetstar’s pants that are on fire.

“We’ve experienced some tough competition before but we’ve never experienced someone trying to sabotage our business, or specifically go after us to try and discredit us.

“There is zero overbooking in the New Zealand market. It’s a complete fallacy that our competitors are spreading throughout the media.

“It wasn’t something we were prepared for and we are surprised at the dirty tricks they are playing. They have a dedicated team of individuals running a campaign to try and ruin our launch.”

Oh there is a dedicated team alright, but it isn’t Air NZ, it is your customers who are out against you after you stuffed up. For the best commentary check out the posts on Whale Oil: http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/category/industryterm/airline (and others you made need to search).

Air NZ respond:

“Surely, Mr Buchanan doesn’t expect Kiwis to believe that we are responsible for his Aussie airline’s woes? We didn’t dream up his draconian check-in rules, his schedule that often cannot be met, his endless schedule changes and his decision to operate ill-equipped aircraft to Queenstown that cannot achieve the same punctuality as Air NZ’s fleet.”

“If Fred Dagg was in his prime, I am sure he would be revelling in all the material Mr Buchanan and Jetstar are dishing up,” Parton said.

Ha. I knew I wasn’t hearing things wrong.

From 3News last night:

“Within 90 minutes of that press conference 500 million people had logged onto staples centre dot com causing it to crash multiple times…”

http://www.3news.co.nz/Jackson-fans-scramble-for-chance-to-win-memorial-tickets/tabid/418/articleID/111252/cat/100/Default.aspx (click on watch video, 3mins 55 seconds in).

What was funny about this statement was first how insane it sounded, but then it got me thinking, this was not a live cross, it had be prerecorderd. So why did no one editing pick up on the error and do a retake of it?

The actually figure connecting was 500 thousand people. http://dailycontributor.com/staples-center-server-crash-michael-jackson-memorial/5925/

Of more interest would be if it had been 500 million. There are currently around 1.5 billion people with access to the web (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). 1 in 3 people would have to have connected within 90 minutes. Now that would be an impressive feat.

TVNZ News gets it wrong.