Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, November 10th, 2009 - 4 comments
Fancy a link to a well laid-out repository of comparative social statistics with sound credentials, all arranged to demonstrate why inequality is bad for society? Here you go.
Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, November 7th, 2009 - 2 comments
God knows you’ll never hear this sort of stuff from the transnational corporate duopolies that are our erstwhile msm, so many thanks to one of our readers who kindly put me on to this excellent US grassroots site by Jerold Block. It’s a repository of podcasts that basically just contain countless well put counter-arguments to …
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 pm, November 4th, 2009 - 13 comments
And so my nomination for the 2009 Best Named Site Award goes to a fan club for our beloved Mayor of Whanganui Mr Lhaws: Michael Laws is a complete twat Probably unduly flattering when you think about it, but hey in the overall scheme of things you’ve earned it Mick. More than 3000 members and …
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, November 4th, 2009 - 12 comments
From Phil Twyford over at Red Alert on pig farming. This is Red Alert’s first video blog. Twyford manages to impress me on two of my favourite topics all in one post – technology and animal welfare. Hopefully on both topics this signals Labour moving forward. As the title of his post says: Time for …
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, November 4th, 2009 - 27 comments
The New Zealand Herald have disabled all online polls on their website until further notice, after a hacker (or hackers) severely skewed the results of three polls. I say well done, and I’m sure I’m not the only one sick of online polls being carried out by the media and reported as news. Firstly there’s …
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, October 2nd, 2009 - 14 comments
A couple of young nats and young labourites have created an online NZ Politics simulation game. It officially starts on the 3rd of October, but you can sign up now at www.politicsnz.com. It looks like it could be fun, but while I’ll play initially, my addictive personality means I might not want to get too …
Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, September 22nd, 2009 - 40 comments
On Wednesday last week, Labour released new information on Bill English’s housing allowance rort. Naturally, the media raised the issues with English. TVOne and TV3 ran stories that night. They weren’t particularly harsh stories. They didn’t really editorialise. They didn’t even say English should give the money back or resign. Later that night, in a fury …
Written By: - Date published: 3:26 pm, September 17th, 2009 - 1 comment
‘In these tough economic times, the government must buy smarter,’ said Vivek Kundra, the US federal chief information officer, as he unveiled the Obama administration’s new government storefront for cloud computing applications and services. It’s not ok for the government here to blame it’s lack of ambitious policy initiatives on the recession. What Obama is …
Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, September 7th, 2009 - 62 comments
Marty G’s last post just reminded me of this – visualise who goes under as the oceans rise with Flood Maps. And yeah, before you start, 14m is a big big rise. Just let it serve as a warning to all you Aucklanders to swap out those incandescent bulbs.
Written By: - Date published: 3:45 pm, August 25th, 2009 - 11 comments
Denis Welch educating the broader public about the New Zealand political blogosphere on RNZ’s 9 to Noon today with Lynn Freeman. A pretty fair synopsis and well worth a quick listen. (9:19 mins total)
Written By: - Date published: 8:46 am, August 25th, 2009 - 17 comments
For what seems like the fiftieth time, we’re being told to expect an announcement from Steven Joyce on the shape of the Government’s ultra-fast broadband investment programme. It’s been nine months now and he hasn’t managed to produce anything solid, let alone get the legislative process underway. Before the election, we were told that $1.5 …
Written By: - Date published: 10:27 am, July 16th, 2009 - 29 comments
Does it seem odd to you that on March 20th 2009 the Minister for IT & Comms, Mr Steven Joyce, said the following: “We have been following the internet filtering debate in Australia but have no plans to introduce something similar here. … The technology for internet filtering causes delays for all internet users. And unfortunately those who are …
Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, July 10th, 2009 - 3 comments
American news report from 1981 about the coming age of “newspapers by computer”. Classic.
Written By: - Date published: 4:34 pm, June 18th, 2009 - 19 comments
Taken just now from the front page of Stuff.co.nz: Here’s something a little more substantial you might enjoy.
Written By: - Date published: 2:47 pm, May 24th, 2009 - 109 comments
No, not because we’ve overtaken Kiwiblog in readership just yet (although ours is growing at a healthy 10% a month) but because I don’t think we can call Kiwiblog a political blog any more. 1) A blog is meant to be writers giving their views on issues; a web-based log of their thoughts, if you …
Written By: - Date published: 2:02 pm, May 22nd, 2009 - 1 comment
I just came across this. It’s the first part of a video by a US organisation called A New Way Forward. They’re organising nationwide video screenings of the extended version as well as town hall meetings and demonstrations to demand that their government “break up the insolvent banks and never again let them get so …
Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, May 21st, 2009 - 3 comments
Floor plans, photos and explanations, even a comparison of the real west wing with the set from the TV show The West Wing. Cool.
Written By: - Date published: 10:34 am, April 28th, 2009 - 51 comments
And so another of John Key’s “big ideas” is shown to have been costed by monkeys. Treasury study suggests fibre plan will fall short: A study commissioned by the Treasury has warned it would cost between $5.3 billion and $10.4b to connect three-quarters of New Zealand homes with fibre-optic cable using the Government’s preferred active …
Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, March 31st, 2009 - 1 comment
My pick for word of the day.
Written By: - Date published: 2:48 pm, March 27th, 2009 - Comments Off
Over at his site Shepard Fairey, the creater of the Obama “HOPE” poster, has an update on his legal wrangle with the Associated Press. I’m sure a lot of people are wondering about my case with the AP over the Obama HOPE poster. I can’t talk about every aspect of the case, but there are …
Written By: - Date published: 4:37 pm, March 17th, 2009 - 42 comments
Well I’ll be, it seems Labour is finally starting to act like an opposition. They’ve set up a campaign website on home insulation – Healthy Homes, Healthy Kiwis – and have started a petition calling on the Government to commit to a home-insulation retrofitting programme. It’s not a bad looking website, and they’ve even managed …
Written By: - Date published: 4:12 pm, February 24th, 2009 - 2 comments
Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, February 24th, 2009 - Comments Off
I posted on this in the early days of The Standard but now might be a good time to check it out if you haven’t seen it already – the copyright, piracy, free culture documentary “Good Copy Bad Copy”. You can (legally) download the hi res version from bittorrent here – if you do, consider …
Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, February 20th, 2009 - 12 comments
Yesterday, Labour’s communications and IT spokesperson, Clare Curran, sought Parliament’s leave to introduce a Bill to attempt to fix s92(a), the ‘guilt by accusation’ provision in the Copyright Act that is about to come into force. Any MP can deny leave and National did so. Following that, and her comment on the blog yesterday, we …
Written By: - Date published: 6:20 pm, February 19th, 2009 - 39 comments
I’m not going to go over the whys and wherefores of this clause of the new copyright act. No Right Turn, Just Left, Public Address and David Farrar already have. I have a lot of sympathy for the intent of this clause. Many of the people I come into contact with do creative work, including …
Written By: - Date published: 5:01 pm, February 18th, 2009 - 11 comments
I’ve tried all day not to post this, now I’m giving in to get a good night’s sleep.
Written By: - Date published: 12:29 pm, February 18th, 2009 - 17 comments
Creative Freedom NZ has organised a protest against the “guilt by accusation” copyright law tomorrow in Wellington: When: 12:00, Thursday 19 February Where: Parliament forecourt Wear: Bright colours, with a black placard. Please head along and show your support for natural justice. [Hat tip (in fact nicked verbatim from) No Right Turn] [Update, time has …
Written By: - Date published: 2:49 pm, February 17th, 2009 - 13 comments
An hour ago No Right Turn posted a piece citing what was apparently a Ministry of Social Development press release, which he says was “confirmation that the government is planning to slash 500 to 1000 people from the Ministry of Social Development”. He gives a link to scoop for the presser. But Scoop has since taken it down …
Written By: - Date published: 12:47 pm, January 26th, 2009 - 58 comments
I’ve meaning to write a wee post thanking Young Labour for inviting me along to speak at their Summer School the other weekend. I’m told it’s a bit of a tradition at these summer schools to have some speakers from outside the party to give a different perspective, which is a bloody good idea. Falling …
Written By: - Date published: 11:58 pm, January 20th, 2009 - 6 comments
The embedded stream below is meant to work even outside the US. Fingers crossed. If you find/know of another good live source drop the link in the comments. [UPDATE: 10:30am Live stream below removed - replaced with recorded oath and address] YouTube’s “inauguration” channel is here, but it’s probably not live. Might be good to …
Written By: - Date published: 7:13 pm, January 18th, 2009 - 22 comments
Here’s a cool interactive feature from the NYT – “I hope so too”: The New York Times asked more than 200 people in 14 states (half red, half blue) to identify their greatest hopes for what Barack Obama might accomplish during his time as president. Their answers do not represent any kind of scientific sample—they …
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