Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, February 6th, 2011 - 7 comments
An estimated 500 people gathered in Queen Street Auckland, to show solidarity with the Egyptian people in revolt against the Egyptian dictatorship.
Yesterday’s march was part of international solidarity actions.
Written By: - Date published: 12:19 pm, February 3rd, 2011 - 68 comments
John Key has been less cunning than some thought he would be. Going for a November election, he thinks, will let him leverage off the World Cup mini-boom, and enhance running Michael Jones and Inga Tuigamala as candidates. But it means 5 months for the Budget cuts to hurt and gives us 5 more months to work. So, what are we going to do?
Written By: - Date published: 2:27 am, February 3rd, 2011 - 12 comments
Periodically I run a scan to identify network parasites that are sucking up our bandwidth and processing resources in excess. Of course I leave the benign parasites that provide search facilities alone. But I stomp on the nasties.
Tonight the biggest parasite appears to have been a New Zealand government department – the Department of Internal Affairs.
Written By: - Date published: 9:47 am, January 29th, 2011 - 15 comments
Food and oil prices have sparked unrest across North Africa. The Tunisian Government has fallen. Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak has declared martial law. In Cairo, thousands of protesters shook hands with the soldiers, and chanted: “The army and the people are united” and “The revolution has come.”* Yup. Mubarak’s screwed.
Written By: - Date published: 10:21 am, December 25th, 2010 - 21 comments
So, it’s Christmas; the season of good will and all. But for some of our institutions, juggernauts of bad will that they are, they just roll on regardless . For what it’s worth there is an on line letter you can sign calling on the US to end it’s inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning. Maybe signing it constitutes a Christmas message of sorts.
Written By: - Date published: 8:34 am, December 22nd, 2010 - 107 comments
National and Act are attacking student unions. The cover story is freedom of association, but it’s bollocks, freedom of association is already protected. Without the unions students will still have to pay. But they will lose the rich social and cultural heritage of the unions, lose the learning experiences that the unions provide, and lose their independence. Hey students – does that sound like a good deal to you?
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, December 8th, 2010 - 49 comments
Now that the Swedish prosecutors have finally given the British police a document that they can work with, Assange turned himself in, and has gone before a British court on the extradition request from Sweden. The court has remanded him without bail. I have already commented on exactly what I think of the charges – …
Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, December 5th, 2010 - 29 comments
David Cameron made the commendable decision to create a national happiness index to compliment GDP but there’s a lot of unhappiness in Merry Old England under his rule. To avert fiscal disaster, while allowing bankers and the elite to keep their wealth, Cameron is making savage cuts to public services. And the Police are going old school on the resulting protests.
Written By: - Date published: 4:28 pm, December 4th, 2010 - 114 comments
The Wikileaks release of US government diplomatic wires is less interesting to me than the behavior of the Sweden’s director of public prosecutions, Marianne Ny. Her charges and actions against Julian Assange indicate that she is driven more by the politics than respect for the law. I fail to see why Interpol is involved for such a minor charge. Apparently the charge is question is something pretty weird called “sex by surprise”
Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, November 19th, 2010 - 32 comments
John Key tried to dismiss the activists who confronted him in Mana yesterday as “rent a crowd”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Left wing political protests are grass roots movements. It is the right wing of politics that needs to pay to get its “crowds”…
Written By: - Date published: 7:42 pm, November 18th, 2010 - 37 comments
Mana locals rallied loudly against Key and Parata today. Key says “we treat them with respect even if they don’t treat us with respect”. Nah. McCarten talking to a guy who opposes him was respectful. Key could’ve shown respect by taking time to defend his record: wages down, no jobs, rising crime, service cuts. He didn’t. No respect.
Written By: - Date published: 9:31 am, November 14th, 2010 - 55 comments
It’s disconcerting to see National and its blogging lackies running smear campaigns against anyone who has what they deem to be “political connections”. The government’s current strategy to deal to individual opposition is find a link to Labour or the Greens and dismiss the outspoken person on the basis of political bias. This tactic is …
Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, November 14th, 2010 - 8 comments
Aung San Suu Kyi is a Burmese opposition politician. In 1990 her National League for Democracy won the general election, electing her Prime Minister. The results were “nullified”, and the military refused to hand over power. Despite being under house arrest for most of the subsequent years, Aung San Suu Kyi has remained a symbol and a leader for her people. She has just been released…
Written By: - Date published: 2:07 pm, October 27th, 2010 - 95 comments
Matt McCarten is chucking his hat into the ring for the Mana by election. This is a typically gutsy move by McCarten, but a third candidate on the left simply isn’t going to find the space for a win. My guess is that he will split the Green vote. But with Key quietly campaigning in Mana, Labour needs to stay on top of their game. Labour activists — with greetings and thanks to you all — get out there and give it all you have!…
Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 22nd, 2010 - 30 comments
Vernon Small had an atypically disappointing piece in the Dom yesterday concluding that everyone must be happy in NZ because the 20,000 protesters who turned out on October 20th did so peacefully and legally, whereas in France there is rioting in the streets. I/S explains why people have to take to the streets to get affect political change in France.
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 21st, 2010 - 11 comments
In just two years, we’ve had three protests eclipsing anything we saw under Labour. What will the next year bring? What would a second term see as the public reacts to an agenda of privatisation and public service cuts that go well beyond the ‘back office’? Will this deaf and dumb government ever wake up and hear the concerns of New Zealanders?
Written By: - Date published: 1:02 pm, October 10th, 2010 - 18 comments
With all of the political activity over the last week, there are a few items that missed getting covered as well as the ones that we covered extensively. Rather than do individual posts on the idiots of the week, I’ve written an omnibus post of my notes from the last week.
Written By: - Date published: 8:05 pm, October 7th, 2010 - 40 comments
India’s External Affairs Minister SM Krishna has summoned the New Zealand High Commissioner in New Delhi to please explain Paul Henry’s ultra-racist outburt against Minister Sheila Dikshit, on New Zealand’s state broadcaster TVNZ. The Minister may also like to ask why Prime Minister John Key giggled in response Henry’s racist attack against our Governor General …
Written By: - Date published: 6:01 am, October 5th, 2010 - 78 comments
Join the protests this evening outside TVNZ in both Auckland and Wellington calling for Paul Henry to be sacked.
AUCKLAND: 5pm, TVNZ HQ, 100 Victoria Street West
WELLINGTON: 5pm, TVNZ, 86 Lambton Quay
Written By: - Date published: 10:39 am, September 27th, 2010 - 151 comments
The voluntary student union membership bill is based on a false premise, and a reflexive tory hatred for the word “union”. I have a suggestion for students…
Written By: - Date published: 8:32 pm, September 16th, 2010 - 104 comments
The Labour and Green parties’ activists are in uproar over their parliamentary wings’ decision to vote for the Gerry Brownlee Enabling Act. A lot of people are saying they won’t campaign for these parties and talking of voting for a minor party or independents. Is it time to damn them and leave them? No. We’re going to win our parties back.
Written By: - Date published: 10:44 am, July 27th, 2010 - 7 comments
The Yes Men have become famous for impersonating people and organisations in an effort to make political points. They’re now being sued by the US Department of Justice for one of their latest stunts. Unable to release the version of their latest movie containing the offending footage, “The Yes Men Fix the World”, they’ve instead …
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, July 23rd, 2010 - 113 comments
Halfcaste interviews a selection of Young Nats at their recent conference. Interviewer: “What’s your favourite tribe?” Young Nat: “To be honest I don’t have a favourite Maori tribe” Interviewer: “Top three?” Young Nat: “Ahh… I don’t think I know…” Interviewer: “Don’t know any Maori tribes?” Young Nat: “Noooo… No, hang on, Maori tribes… no sorry…” …
Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, July 20th, 2010 - 47 comments
Well done Kiwis! A rousing show of solidarity and strength has forced the Nats to back down from their plans to mine Schedule 4 land. We have preserved some of the most precious places in our country for future generations. This is a straight craven backdown driven by Key’s relentless need to remain Mr Popular. But whatever the reason – its the right result!
Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, July 16th, 2010 - 52 comments
At the National Party conference in Auckland this weekend, John Key is expected to announce drastic attacks on workers’ rights.
You can stand up and fight back against this madness by joining the protest at 10am on Sunday at Sky City Hotel in Auckland.
Written By: - Date published: 1:49 pm, July 14th, 2010 - 48 comments
The protest rally held in Rotorua, held its slogan high with nearly a hundred people in tow. “Kill the Future Focus Bill, or it will kill you!” was out in front along with cut outs of Paula Bennett, complete with fangs, risque cleavage and that famous leopard skin trenchcoat -all the props of an actor satirising the working class as she attacks us.
Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, July 13th, 2010 - 122 comments
New Zealand hero Pete Bethune isn’t one for mincing his words – now that he’s free to speak them. He’s described the New Zealand Government as a “fat little lapdog” to Japan, eager to roll over and submit to the bullying of any power, no matter how unprincipled its actions, just as long as there’s a promise …
Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, July 8th, 2010 - 71 comments
Pete Bethune has had his sentence for bogus charges laid by Japanese whaling interests suspended. My warm congratulations to Pete and his family. They’ve suffered a lot of distress over the past few months as Japanese extremists called for Bethune’s execution – all because he dared to hold Japanese whalers to account for illegally killing …
Written By: - Date published: 9:47 pm, July 5th, 2010 - 155 comments
Been a bit disappointed that there hasn’t been a post up here yet on the news out on Saturday that Steve Chadwick is seeking support for a Member’s Bill to make abortion truly on demand in NZ, to 24 weeks. Then I remembered that I still have posting rights from doing the 2008 General Election …
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, June 28th, 2010 - 21 comments
National are still cruising in the polls, and no doubt feeling pretty confident about the next election. But ticking the blue box is easy – how firm is that support? We’re seeing big protests against this government. Is there any significant National policy that isn’t attracting popular protest, criticism from the experts, or both?
Written By: - Date published: 12:41 pm, June 23rd, 2010 - 40 comments
The most disturbing aspect of the handling of the Chinese security guard’s assault on Russel Norman is the way that the Nats are going to use it as an excuse to further restrict free speech. Don’t let them set us on the path to America’s notorious “free speech zones”.
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