Author Archive
Fun stuff
Written By: - Date published: 10:50 pm, December 23rd, 2009 - 15 comments
I must say I love the Christmas season. You spend a lot of time catching up with all sorts of interesting people, having a few too many drinks and sharing some gossip. How much of it is true is anyone’s guess but here’s a few things I’ve picked up around the traps. John Key’s office […]
Dear advertisers, ditch Paul Henry
Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, December 8th, 2009 - 133 comments
Rather than start facebook groups and make complaints to TVNZ or the BSA about Paul Henry, someone has decided to hit them where they really hurt: in their back pockets. Good. Expressions of outrage do nothing but generate media for this little sh*t and confirm to TVNZ that they’ve got a ratings winner. And higher […]
A world gone crazy
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, December 3rd, 2009 - 29 comments
It started with me agreeing wholeheartedly with Fran about youth unemployment. Now I can add Garth George and Bruce Sheppard to this strange confluence of opinions. For a start Garth George has provided one of the few decent media critiques of Brash’s batshit crazy proposal: The description of the report by Finance Minister Bill English […]
Shifting the centre
Written By: - Date published: 8:05 am, November 30th, 2009 - 51 comments
Well the productivity task force is reporting back today and some of their ideas have been forward released. As we expected they are a grab-bag of unpalatable, short-sighted and frankly mad measures from the loony right including putting interest back on student loans, flat tax and means testing free childcare. As the official announcement comes […]
970 words of hollow platitudes. How ambitious.
Written By: - Date published: 11:21 am, November 19th, 2009 - 18 comments
Classic, I was just saying yesterday that Key is probably concerned about focus testing turning up ‘do-nothing’, ‘weak’ and ‘visionless’ memes and today he’s got a little puff piece in the Dominion Post that purports to lay out his “vision”. Of course like every other missive from the great leader this one says exactly nothing. […]
Fran’s got it right
Written By: - Date published: 11:52 am, November 18th, 2009 - 8 comments
For the first time ever I wholeheartedly agree with Fran O’Sullivan’s column. In today’s Herald she writes about the government’s inaction over youth unemployment and what it will mean in terms of a lost generation. The percentage of young people who can’t find jobs snowballed after the global economic crisis hit New Zealand. But (so […]
ACC misdirection
Written By: - Date published: 9:05 am, November 18th, 2009 - 11 comments
It looks like the government’s sleight of hand on ACC is about to pay off. Having put up a clearly outrageous proposal to hike motorbike levies and thus made it the focus of anger over the ACC changes the government is now signaling they will back off. Thing is, they were never going to ramp […]
What stimulus spending?
Written By: - Date published: 8:17 am, November 13th, 2009 - 7 comments
According to Stuff Bill English is planning to pull back the stimulus spending. The problem is there hasn’t been any significant stimulus spending. So my question is what exactly is the government going to cut back on? Will they cancel the cycleway? Or are they going to take all of the budget lines they crammed […]
We are New Zealand
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, November 7th, 2009 - 10 comments
Hattip: tumeke
Key is weak
Written By: - Date published: 11:50 am, November 5th, 2009 - 100 comments
Let me start by saying I understand that Key is loved for his laid-back common touch, I don’t think it makes for good governance but I realise it makes for a good political product. However there’s a big difference between laid-back and weak and letting Rodney Hide spit on him in public only to claim […]
Where’s Paula?
Written By: - Date published: 12:39 pm, November 3rd, 2009 - 23 comments
The Herald’s creepy lovefest with the National Party continues today with Simon Collins’ profile of Paula Bennett, who is apparently “one of us”* Unlike Danyl over at the Dim Post who seems to have finally realised that *gasp* the Herald might be a little pro-National, I’ve not really been troubled by this “first year of […]
Restoring the right to a day in court
Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, November 3rd, 2009 - 49 comments
I see that repeal of the Foreshore and Seabed Act is finally a foregone conclusion. There’s going to be some dithering about what to put in its place but there shouldn’t be. Instead the Act should be repealed, nothing should be put in place and Maori should get their day in court. I’m not alone […]
A thousand words
Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, October 26th, 2009 - 19 comments
On Midway Atoll thousands of albatross chicks die from ingesting plastic mistaken by their parents for food. More photos here.
Just ‘cos it’s Labour day
Written By: - Date published: 12:01 am, October 26th, 2009 - 3 comments
Credit where it’s due.
Take a stand Phil
Written By: - Date published: 1:01 pm, October 20th, 2009 - 32 comments
John Dalley makes a good point in the comments section of our last ACC post: About now would be a good time for Labour to state publicly that they will do away with private insurers when next in government. I say absolutely right. It would throw a spanner in any plans to privatise the ACC […]
Crimestoppers!
Written By: - Date published: 5:09 pm, October 16th, 2009 - 25 comments
I’ve been meaning to post on the emergence of Crimestoppers in New Zealand for a few days now. While some might say it’s a nasty and divisive idea funded by a dodgy Tory and likely to encourage a fascistic culture of mistrust if anyone ever takes it seriously, I certainly wouldn’t. In fact I welcome […]
Fiasco after fiasco
Written By: - Date published: 4:23 pm, October 15th, 2009 - 33 comments
It seems National has a problem with numbers. First they fudge the numbers for ACC so they can claim a “blow out” and now they can’t even get the numbers to pass their legislation. You heard correctly. After all of that hoopla about how ACC is in crisis and how they need to strip entitlements […]
So what was phase one?
Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, October 15th, 2009 - 14 comments
Funny thing, I woke up this morning and thought to myself “what happened to the cycleway?” I was even going to put a “quick question” post up later today to see if anyone out there knew. Then just a few minutes ago a media release from Tourism New Zealand turned up in my inbox to […]
A quick question
Written By: - Date published: 8:14 pm, October 12th, 2009 - 26 comments
Do any health insurance companies fully fund long-term claims in the way ACC is being asked to?
Some advice for the Greens
Written By: - Date published: 1:25 pm, October 11th, 2009 - 66 comments
The Greens are continuing their idiotic policy of “neither left nor right” today with a calculated smear of Sue Bradford in the Sunday Star Times. As far as I can see the story has been fed out by someone high in the party as a way of distancing the Greens from Bradford and her Left […]
“Blow out” more like Blowup
Written By: - Date published: 1:29 pm, October 10th, 2009 - 11 comments
Readers of a certain age will remember an Antonioni film called Blowup. The title conceit involves a photographer who finds what appears to be a dead body in one of his photographs but when he blows the photo up to find out more all that happens is the resolution degrades. The more closely he looks […]
A fighting Left
Written By: - Date published: 10:58 am, October 2nd, 2009 - 32 comments
This live performance on CNN by Congressman Alan Grayson gives me some hope for the American Left. Unlike nearly every other Democrat I have ever seen Grayson doesn’t back down and when the Republicans try to attack him for lowering the standard of debate (ironic considering their “death panel” smears) he just slaps them right […]
Pulling together
Written By: - Date published: 10:41 pm, September 30th, 2009 - 1 comment
I think I can safely speak on behalf of all of the Standard when I offer my condolences to those who have lost family and friends in today’s tsunami. We forget sometimes that we are a pacific island nation but the grief that is being felt throughout New Zealand tonight reminds us exactly how much […]
The miracle of the fishes
Written By: - Date published: 2:07 pm, September 29th, 2009 - 11 comments
First they increase the number of endangered Hooker Sea Lions that can be killed as bycatch, then they voted down legislation to protect Hector’s and Maui Dolphins by extending the ban on set nets and now National are increasing the Hoki quota despite the minister for fisheries himself stating he is: still unsure about the […]
A sad day for the parliamentary Left
Written By: - Date published: 10:32 am, September 25th, 2009 - 40 comments
Stuff has announced the resignation of Sue Bradford from parliament. Over the years Sue has championed more pro-worker legislation than just about any MP I can think of and has in the last few years been a backroom powerhouse for the Greens through her ability to deal with people with a warmth and sincerity that […]
I don’t know if it hurts my eyes or my heart more
Written By: - Date published: 5:06 pm, September 16th, 2009 - 55 comments
WTF is this? I mean look at it. It’s got to be the worst website I have ever seen and I’ve been around since well before the web existed. More to the point, how did this get up? What kind of process could possibly have let this through? Who signed off on it? I wouldn’t […]
Note to DPF: stop playing victim and take some responsibility for your blog
Written By: - Date published: 12:15 pm, August 31st, 2009 - 61 comments
It seems I’ve hit a sore spot with David Farrar over the business of death threats to Sue Bradford. He’s now claiming I’ve dived for the gutter. At the risk of starting a flame war I’d like to point out that if I was aiming for the gutter I’d turn up in the comments section […]
Stopping the thugs
Written By: - Date published: 12:11 pm, August 30th, 2009 - 112 comments
The Sunday Star Times reports that Sue Bradford’s security has been stepped up following a series of death threats being made against her via blogs, email and twitter. I’m not surprised. Just about every poster at the Standard has had threats made against them by the thuggish elements of the right. Generally we don’t pay […]
NDU catches govt lying
Written By: - Date published: 7:31 pm, August 26th, 2009 - 15 comments
This morning the National Distribution Union put out a statement saying the Minister of Labour, Kate Wilkinson, had refused to attend an executive meeting on the absurd grounds that Telecom lines engineers belonging to a different union, the EPMU, had recently been on strike. In Question Time today Sue Bradford asked whether the Minister’s refusal […]
Let the bashing begin
Written By: - Date published: 7:45 am, August 17th, 2009 - 61 comments
I see Paula Bennett has been busy dog-whistling on beneficiaries, firstly by releasing figures showing 307 beneficiaries receive more than $1000 a week and then by claiming she “suspects” special needs grants are being abused. Given the hatefest her potentially unlawful release of Natasha Fuller and Jennifer Johnson’s income details caused last time there’s no […]
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