Dupes

Great exposé on 60 Minutes (TV3) tonight on an English fantasist, Stephen Wilce, who managed to get himself a very senior job with the NZ defence force on a shonky, sexed-up, CV. As the reporter noted, an email or call to any of his previous employers would have revealed that he was inept and a chronic liar - and as the reporter demonstrated any conversation with the man regards himself and his career would have revealed he is a habitual bullshit artist. And since the wonderfully complimentary ad placement on the TV3 website for "Lie to me" begs the question: his body language in the hidden camera footage was eyes rolling upwards and across and his hands all over his mouth and grazing his nose with every outrageous claim - classic liar, and certainly not a good one.

The Defence Force has now decided a full investigation is warranted.

It's a dreary fact of life that New Zealanders are too dumb to know that they are dumb. The argument is not whether New Zealanders are dumb or not it is whether they are congenital morons or just socialised idiots. Either way the data accumulates by the day on every level that the residents here are gullible thickies - to a sheep. It's ripe for exploitation and rife with the wolves to do it. The Defence Force's hiring of Walter Mitty as their chief scientist is yet more indisputable evidence confirming this dire state of affairs.
Now we know the truth his NZDF profile becomes rather comic. Supercomputers. Astronomy. Aerospace. But no mention of his Olympic bobsledding at Sarajevo... or special forces... or MI5 and MI6... My favourite part:

He says that despite this pure technology environment, he has focussed in more recent years on the science of human performance, particularly in relation to critical decision making in the face of overwhelming information overload, and he expects this will come through in his new role.

In the face of tonight's "overwhelming information overload" the "critical decision making" regards his "human performance" is going to be coming through in his new role as unemployed.

I appreciate the irony of it all, so it was heartwarming that the rest of the 60 Minutes programme continued the theme of national institutionalised idiocy by way of an uncritical fawning over some ridiculous "mega-science project" that the NZ government was expected (by everyone interviewed) to pour millions into in the vague belief that somehow after the government "bids" on a commitment to spend mega-millions on this radio telescope array the losing countries would then subsidise it being built somewhere else. No real information was given on this bizarre enterprise, it was all photo and animated montages and 'golly gosh wow isn't the universe really really big and we're all so terribly tiny' unsubstantial rhetoric from men with leather elbow patches on their jackets. If NZ is successful in having out-bid the rest of the world for this array I think Mr Wilce may just have found himself another job.