Archive for November 19th, 2007
Electoral Finance – Apoplexy at Kiwiblog
Written By: - Date published: 2:23 pm, November 19th, 2007 - 84 comments
Now we know why Kiwiblog wants the Electoral Finance Bill killed – it could cost Farrar money! Kiwiblog “has some significant advertising lined up” which may be “at serious risk”. Certainly, Kiwiblog is a dyed-in-blue-wool National Party supporter. Kiwiblog also goes on a rave about other straw men, such as placards in demos having to […]
Electoral Finance Bill back from committee
Written By: - Date published: 12:50 pm, November 19th, 2007 - 47 comments
The Electoral Finance Bill is back from Select Committee and can be downloaded here [PDF, 500k]. It’s huge and will take a bit of time to digest, but it doesn’t look like there are any major surprises. The overly broad definition of election advertising has been fixed and the amount of anonymous donations a party […]
More hypocrisy from National
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, November 19th, 2007 - 53 comments
It’s interesting to see National is attacking Peter Davis, the PM’s husband, over a letter he wrote to the NZ Herald about the Electoral Finance Bill. Apparently Peter Davis – a respected university professor – is not entitled to views of his own and is merely parroting the lines of the ‘Clark household’. From Bill […]
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- Choosing your fights
My daily news diet is not what it once was.It was the TV news that lost me first. Too infantilising, too breathless, too frustrating.The Herald was next. You could look past the reactionary framing while it was being a decent newspaper of record, but once Shayne Currie began unleashing all ...9 hours ago - Hit The Road Jack
Hit the road Jack and don't you come backNo more, no more, no more, no moreHit the road Jack and don't you come back no moreWhat you say?Songwriters: Percy MayfieldMorena,I keep many of my posts, like this one, paywall-free so that everyone can read them.However, please consider supporting me as ...15 hours ago - Review: The Narnia books, by C.S. Lewis (1950-1956) – Part One
This might be the longest delay between reading (or in this case re-reading) a work, and actually writing a review of it I have ever managed. Indeed, when I last read these books in December 2022, I was not planning on writing anything about them… but as A Phuulish Fellow ...1 day ago - Sabin 33 #11 – Is solar energy more expensive than energy from fossil fuels?
On November 1, 2024 we announced the publication of 33 rebuttals based on the report "Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind, and Electric Vehicles" written by Matthew Eisenson, Jacob Elkin, Andy Fitch, Matthew Ard, Kaya Sittinger & Samuel Lavine and published by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia ...1 day ago - Our Health Isn’t Your Wealth, Shane Reti & Lester Levy
Kia Ora,I try to keep most my posts without a paywall for public interest journalism purposes. However, if you can afford to, please consider supporting me as a paid subscriber and/or supporting over at Ko-Fi. That will help me to continue, and to keep spending time on the work. Embarrassingly, ...1 day ago - No one could save me but you
There was a time when Google was the best thing in my world. I was an early adopter of their AdWords program and boy did I like what it did for my business. It put rocket fuel in it, is what it did. For every dollar I spent, those ads ...1 day ago - The disinformation grift in NZ.
A while back I was engaged in an unpleasant exchange with a leader of the most well-known NZ anti-vax group and several like-minded trolls. I had responded to a racist meme on social media in which a rightwing podcaster in the US interviewed one of the leaders of the Proud ...1 day ago - Anna Wilding, Bullshit Master
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters and Bob Henson Flames from the Palisades Fire burn a building at Sunset Boulevard amid a powerful windstorm on January 8, 2025 in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The fast-moving wildfire had destroyed thousands of structures and ...2 days ago
- Submission on Regulatory Standards Bill
..Thanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.The Regulatory Standards Bill, as I understand it, seeks to bind parliament to a specific range of law-making.For example, it seems to ensure primacy of individual rights over that of community, environment, te Tiriti ...2 days ago - There’s a solution in there, there really is
Happy New Year!I had a lovely break, thanks very much for asking: friends, family, sunshine, books, podcasts, refreshing swims, barbecues, bike rides. So good to step away from the firehose for a while, to have less Trump and Seymour in your day. Who needs the Luxons in their risible PJs ...2 days ago - Hamilton Central Station: Britomart 2.0
Patrick Reynolds is deputy chair of the Auckland City Centre Advisory Panel and a director of Greater Auckland In 2003, after much argument, including the election of a Mayor in 2001 who ran on stopping it, Britomart train station in downtown Auckland opened. A mere 1km twin track terminating branch ...3 days ago
- Geoffrey Miller: Christopher Luxon’s important trip to the Middle East
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A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, January 5, 2025 thru Sat, January 11, 2025. This week's roundup is again published soleley by category. We are still interested in feedback to hone the categorization, so if ...3 days ago
- Gordon Campbell On The History Of Doo Wop Music
The decade between 1952 and the early 1960s was the peak period for the style of music we now call doo wop, after which it got dissolved into soul music, girl groups, and within pop music in general. Basically, doo wop was a form of small group harmonising with a ...3 days ago - If You Tolerate This
The future teaches you to be aloneThe present to be afraid and coldSo if I can shoot rabbits, then I can shoot fascists…And if you tolerate thisThen your children will be nextSongwriters: James Dean Bradfield / Sean Anthony Moore / Nicholas Allen Jones.Do you remember at school, studying the rise ...4 days ago - Elon Musk Adores Chris Luxon
When National won the New Zealand election in 2023, one of the first to congratulate Luxon was tech-billionaire and entrepreneur extraordinaire Elon Musk.And last year, after Luxon posted a video about a trip to Malaysia, Musk came forward again to heap praise on Christopher:So it was perhaps par for the ...4 days ago - American Carnage
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- L.A. Burns
6 days ago - Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2 2025
Open access notables Large emissions of CO2 and CH4 due to active-layer warming in Arctic tundra, Torn et al., Nature Communications: Climate warming may accelerate decomposition of Arctic soil carbon, but few controlled experiments have manipulated the entire active layer. To determine surface-atmosphere fluxes of carbon dioxide and ...6 days ago
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Over the holidays, there was a rising tide of calls for people to submit on National's repulsive, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill, along with a wave of advice and examples of what to say. And it looks like people rose to the occasion, with over 300,000 ...6 days ago - Who’s Getting Annexed?
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Much like 2023, many climate and energy records were broken in 2024. It was Earth’s hottest year on record by a wide margin, breaking the previous record that was set just last year by an even larger margin. Human-caused climate-warming pollution and ...1 week ago
- Submitted!
Submissions on National's racist, white supremacist Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill are due tomorrow! So today, after a good long holiday from all that bullshit, I finally got my shit together to submit on it. As I noted here, people should write their own submissions in their own ...1 week ago
- The Treaty Principles Bill
My submission - made at the last moment because I'm a neurodivergent millennial - on David Seymour's terrible legislation. ...1 week ago - Rich Opinions
Ooh, baby (ooh, baby)It's making me crazy (it's making me crazy)Every time I look around (look around)Every time I look around (every time I look around)Every time I look aroundIt's in my faceSongwriters: Alan Leo Jansson / Paul Lawrence L. Fuemana.Today, I’ll be talking about rich, middle-aged men who’ve made ...1 week ago - 2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #01
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- “It’s Sad Watching Desperate Dave”
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And when a child is born into this worldIt has no conceptOf the tone of skin it's living inAnd there's a million voicesAnd there's a million voicesTo tell you what you should be thinkingSong by Neneh Cherry and Youssou N'Dour.The moment you see that face, you can hear her voice; ...2 weeks ago - Quality Ministers
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Open access notables Why Misinformation Must Not Be Ignored, Ecker et al., American Psychologist: Recent academic debate has seen the emergence of the claim that misinformation is not a significant societal problem. We argue that the arguments used to support this minimizing position are flawed, particularly if interpreted (e.g., by policymakers or the public) as suggesting ...2 weeks ago
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by John Wihbey. A version of this article first appeared on Yale Climate Connections on Nov. 11, 2008. (Image credits: The White House, Jonathan Cutrer / CC BY 2.0; President Jimmy Carter, Trikosko/Library of Congress; Solar dedication, Bill Fitz-Patrick / Jimmy Carter Library; Solar ...2 weeks ago
- Medley
Morena folks,We’re having a good break, recharging the batteries. Hope you’re enjoying the holiday period. I’m not feeling terribly inspired by much at the moment, I’m afraid—not from a writing point of view, anyway.So, today, we’re travelling back in time. You’ll have to imagine the wavy lines and sci-fi sound ...2 weeks ago - 2024 Reading Summary: The List
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Leave your office, run past your funeralLeave your home, car, leave your pulpitJoin us in the streets where weJoin us in the streets where weDon't belong, don't belongHere under the starsThrowing light…Song: Jeffery BuckleyToday, I’ll discuss the standout politicians of the last 12 months. Each party will receive three awards, ...2 weeks ago - Webworm’s 2024 Year In Review
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Hi,I wanted to share this piece by film editor Dan Kircher about what cinema has been up to in 2024.Dan edited my documentary Mister Organ, as well as this year’s excellent crowd-pleasing Bookworm.Dan adores movies. He gets the language of cinema, he knows what he loves, and writes accordingly. And ...2 weeks ago - Xmas then and now.
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- The End of the Horrifying Chris Luxon Painting Saga
Hi,Webworm has been following occasional artist (and Webworm writer) Josh Drummond’s unnerving portrait of New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon since he first listed it on TradeMe.Back on October 1, Webworm broke the news that the painting had been removed from online auction site TradeMe for reasons that included not ...2 weeks ago - Climate Change Christmas
We’ll have a climate change ChristmasFrom now until foreverWarming our hearts and mindsAnd planet all togetherSpirits high and oceans higherChestnuts roast on wildfiresIf coal is on your wishlistMerry Climate Change ChristmasSong by Ian McConnellReindeer emissions are not something I’d thought about in terms of climate change. I guess some significant ...3 weeks ago - KP 2024 year end review.
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I can see very wellThere's a boat on the reef with a broken backAnd I can see it very wellThere's a joke and I know it very wellIt's one of those that I told you long agoTake my word I'm a madman, don't you knowSongwriters: Bernie Taupin / Elton JohnIt ...3 weeks ago - Nikki Noboats adrift – have the wheels finally fallen off this inept government?
.Acknowledgement: Tim PrebbleThanks for reading Frankly Speaking ! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work..With each passing day of bad headlines, squandering tax revenue to enrich the rich, deep cuts to our social services and a government struggling to keep the lipstick on its neo-liberal pig ...3 weeks ago - A turn to the Big Stick.
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Labour expresses its shock and sadness at the death of widely respected Police Senior Sergeant Lyn Fleming. ...3 days ago
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The Green Party acknowledges the enormous life, contribution and passing of Dame Tariana (Kahurangi) Turia, the co-founder of Te Pāti Māori. ...2 weeks ago
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Democracy Now! AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman. We turn now to Gaza, where Israel’s assault on the besieged strip continues despite ongoing talks over a possible ceasefire. Palestinian authorities say 5000 people are missing or have been killed in this ...3 hours ago
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Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Brendan Walker-Munro, Senior Lecturer (Law), Southern Cross University Elon Musk is no stranger to news headlines. His purchase of Twitter and subsequent decision to rebrand the platform as X has seen it called “a true black mirror of the most worrying parts ...10 hours ago
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