Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, September 22nd, 2011 - 39 comments
Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, September 6th, 2011 - 41 comments
The “Urewera 18″ are now down to four. The police persecution has now been dropped for eleven of those charged in the Operation 8 raids four and half years ago. Crown Solicitor Simon Moore said the effect of a recent Supreme Court ruling on the case – which is suppressed – was that there was …
Written By: - Date published: 6:39 pm, September 4th, 2011 - 36 comments
The right sure won’t be able to criticise Labour about a lack of renewal in their list after National’s release of their party list. If you want an actual example of what a non-renewing list really looks like, I think we now have the definitive one. It looks a lot like their energy policy this week – lots of pious talk about renewables but really just mining the same old things that have been doing for generations.
Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, September 4th, 2011 - 66 comments
Reading the political spin from David Farrar (channeling Bill English) over the weekend, I have to keep reminding myself that he really has very little idea about the practicalities of business. Where he is concerned about political costs, I find from a perspective of an exporter that I’m far more concerned about reliability of services.
Written By: - Date published: 10:11 am, August 31st, 2011 - 20 comments
Some advice if you are planning on joining the many kiwi’s that have left the country to go to Australia since National made it their aspiration to do something about that migration trend. They certainly have massively increased the outflow - one of their few success stories. But where to go to in aussie?
Written By: - Date published: 12:17 pm, August 28th, 2011 - 21 comments
Like many countries worldwide, New Zealand has an aging problem. Digging around the available charts it isn’t hard to see why. But New Zealand has less of a problem than many developed countries because of the demographics of our Maori and Pacifica populations plus the continuing immigration. It is still pretty bad.
Written By: - Date published: 3:10 pm, August 26th, 2011 - 7 comments
As we all know, John Key is the most effective Minister of Silly Ideas that the country has had since Robert Muldoon. Of course no-one can follow that closely in the great chuckler’s footsteps – John Key hasn’t even got close to bankrupting the country yet. He has been trying though. But here is another silly idea for him to look at. It is a developing industry that should be as effective as the cycleway or youth benefit cards!
Written By: - Date published: 4:18 pm, August 21st, 2011 - 31 comments
About now or very shortly, Trevor Mallard and Cameron Slater should be dismounting from the cycling race that has obsessively awaited by the right on the blogosphere. I’ve been aware of that this ‘political’ event was going to happen because of the frequent waffling that shows up on posts from the right. But it was nice day – I went along to exercise the car and to see the start.
Update: Trevor won..
Written By: - Date published: 11:01 am, August 21st, 2011 - 11 comments
Peter Sinclair has been putting out great videos for years on climate change as Climate Crock of the Week. They focus on having a close look at climate change deniers claims. The following video looks at a series of talking heads claiming that the world is cooling. Such a pity that their own favorite crank …
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 4th, 2011 - 34 comments
KAL (the cartoonist for The Economist) expresses my feelings about the political process over the last couple of months in the US. Their Washington correspondent after looking at the detail of the eventual ‘solution’ concludes with In the end, hopes for a grand bargain that addressed entitlements, taxes and near-term economic support ran aground on …
Written By: - Date published: 3:42 pm, July 30th, 2011 - 23 comments
Cooperation is one of the characteristics that defines humans in evolutionary terms. However true to their intellectually intransigent nature derived more from their enjoyment of a good old randian tantrum, the tea party is holding everyone to ransom. I suspect that the republicans are not going to like the consequences because voters value cooperation more.
Written By: - Date published: 11:42 am, July 22nd, 2011 - 98 comments
It has been long known that the name “Fox News” should really be known as “Faux News” because it doesn’t believe in reporting reality. It just makes crap up and spins everything to avoid dealing with reality. This video looks at their performance on climate change.
Written By: - Date published: 2:10 pm, July 6th, 2011 - 23 comments
The 1,916 special votes got pared to 769. Of which Hone Harawira got 454 and Kelvin Davis got 204. There really isn’t anything in it with a by-election majority of 1117. It will make this a tight contest at election time because Labour will now view this electorate as being quite winnable. IMHO as an long time electorate campaigner, some of the Mana supporters have been over-blowing their result.
Written By: - Date published: 1:11 pm, July 4th, 2011 - 27 comments
Well, our hard working authors have pumped more than 8000 posts into The Standard since August 2007. A thousand of those have been done in the last 150 days (we passed it on Saturday) since Feb 2nd. This is a pretty awesome performance considering that the prolific Marty G put down his overworked fingers on …
Written By: - Date published: 4:46 pm, June 28th, 2011 - 4 comments
Just a reminder (because I’d forgotten) that the InternetNZ et al NetHui starts tomorrow in Auckland and runs until Friday. There are some interesting sessions that I’m going to have to fit around the coding that has to be done. So my question is (and one that should be highlighted on their otherwise excellent website) – is there WiFi available?
Written By: - Date published: 4:43 pm, June 24th, 2011 - 12 comments
Sometimes you have to simply start from 1.0 for Godwin’s Law. This pretty much applies to anything re-subtitled from the movie “Der Untergang”. The latest one that I have seen is this side splitting rendition of exactly what has been going on inside the EQC operation in Christchurch.
Written By: - Date published: 1:57 pm, June 21st, 2011 - 14 comments
My producer partner Lyn is back from Eire and has a theatrical release of their documentary underway in NZ. Director Briar March and producer Lyn Collie, along with two Australasian earth scientists specializing in oceanography and geomorphology looked at the effects of a rising sea levels and changing climate patterns are having on the people of the small Polynesian atoll Takuu in Papua New Guinea. Well worth watching on the big screen while you can.
Written By: - Date published: 6:33 pm, June 17th, 2011 - 7 comments
From Canterbury TV (good to see they are still serving Canterbury) the first news report is better than most of the other stuff I see in the TV news about Christchurch. This is what people are telling us (one sent this clip through) in e-mails and comments. Now you can see them. It is a …
Written By: - Date published: 2:47 pm, June 17th, 2011 - 4 comments
One of my favorite bands and one of my favourite of their tracks. Barenaked Ladies playing “When I fall”. Great lyrics for the ongoing GFC. You have to love satirical songs…. Songwriters: PAGE, STEVEN / ROBERTSON, ED I look straight in the window, try not to look below Pretend I’m not up here, try counting …
Written By: - Date published: 12:49 pm, June 13th, 2011 - 20 comments
There has been a repeated question over the last few days coming up in comments about auto-moderation. Well there is a battle against spam comments raging on the net. You’re getting caught as collateral damage.
Written By: - Date published: 3:03 pm, June 8th, 2011 - 86 comments
Darren Hughes will not be charged. “After this careful consideration, the allegations do not reach the evidential threshold required to bring charges. As a result, no charges will be brought against Mr Hughes.” “Some media outlets received an anonymous letter about Mr Hughes whilst Police were investigating this complaint. I can confirm those allegations contained …
Written By: - Date published: 1:16 pm, June 2nd, 2011 - 112 comments
In my sleep deprived state I have to confess that I don’t like rugby supporters, especially drunken ones who argue about teams at 2am in the morning on the street. I suspect that will be the enduring memory I will carry away from this years Rugby World Cup. But I do like Dead Cat Bounce’s video about rugby.
Written By: - Date published: 4:26 pm, June 1st, 2011 - 33 comments
Bob Clarkson is back into public politics. This time generously helping the Act Party. Long may this continue!
Written By: - Date published: 2:48 pm, May 27th, 2011 - 17 comments
I have been bemoaning that I’d missed the Operation 8 documentary. But there are more screenings around the country. Catch a showing near you because by the sound of the current state of the court case, this will not be resolved until next year at the earliest. It has been over three and half years …
Written By: - Date published: 12:25 pm, May 21st, 2011 - 7 comments
If like me, you’re are in Auckland today and not at the Labour election year congress in Wellington* – here is something interesting to do. There is a “Festival for the Planet – A Peoples Assembly on Climate Change” at midday – 5pm the Town Hall. Looks interesting apart from having Te Radar as the …
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, May 20th, 2011 - 26 comments
I was listening to John Key on Parliament TV last night on the budget and he is bloody lazy when speaking. I had to watch his lips before I could figure out what he was saying. This morning there is a video of his remedial vocal work that illustrates this problem..
Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, May 3rd, 2011 - 22 comments
A tornado hit Albany in Auckland City. There has been at least one fatality. Judging by the number of sirens coming over the bridge, there must be a number of injured. Small tornados are not uncommon in Auckland, but previously there has only been a single known fatality.
Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, May 1st, 2011 - 64 comments
In an act of pure vanity, David Farrar is whining about the a by-election that will probably be held in July – less than three months before the House dissolves for the election. Farrar even points out the relevant law Parliament can only resolve not to have a by-election if the resignation occurs within six …
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, April 28th, 2011 - 6 comments
Morgan Godfery at Maui Street blog is reporting that the police are preparing to raid Te Whanau a Apanui for protesting against the Petrobas geological survey. The police have to be crazy to think that they can do another raid like the one in 2007. What are they looking for this time? More 0.22″ rounds?
Written By: - Date published: 8:15 pm, April 25th, 2011 - 17 comments
Shifting the site to a GeoDNS with fallback capabilities this evening*. This involves changing the domain name server addresses again. Now like last time this is meant to be a seamless shift. However that may or may not be the case. Last time there were some quite ISP’s with interesting ways of interpreting what a …
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, April 20th, 2011 - 39 comments
The Family Court as far as I’m concerned is the only court that tries to act as the gate before the cliff, rather than the grave digger at the bottom. The costs to society both directly and in loss of potential can be astronomical when taken over a persons entire lifetime of not handling the family issues clearly and decisively. So why does Simon Power want to fiddle with it? Apparently to forestall urban myths which does seem to be his sole political ability.
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