OJB's Page

I just listened to an interview featuring Theresa Gattung, the previous CEO of Telecom New Zealand, who has just released a book, titled "Bird on a Wire". It might be an interesting book to read because it sounds as if she hasn't hesitated to be critical of the people she sees as being to blame for the problems Telecom (which is still New Zealand's biggest company as far as I know) is currently experiencing.

Most of what she said in the interview (I haven't read

Everyone has heard of the old saying "you win some and you lose some". Its true, I guess, because no person, group, or cause ever wins every battle and there are always setbacks to any conflict, even if the overall outcome is a win.

It has seemed in the past that the battle for rationality against superstition, pseudoscience, and other nonsense has been a losing one, but there have been a few impressive wins more recently.

Maybe the gr

In the last few entries here on New Zealand politics I have been a bit critical of the current government so I think its time to be a bit more positive again. I try to avoid political affiliations - even though I concede I am basically moderately left in my political views - so I do try to compliment the parties I would normally be critical of when they get something right.

The issue I want to comment on is the management of New Zealand's crown research instituti

If you have read this blog much in the past you will have gathered by now that I'm a fairly vocal atheist. I'm not worried about expressing the opinion that every religion I know of is both untrue and detrimental to the greater good of civilisation in general. Of course I readily admit that none of this is absolute: we can't prove for sure that all religions are fake and I don't believe there are absolutely no good aspects of religion.

Although I'm certainly not