Written By: - Date published: 12:46 pm, October 11th, 2011 - 51 comments
Dr. Don Brash has pulled out of a debate on Treaty issues to be held on TV3′s ‘The Nation’. Which is curious considering Act’s ‘one law for all’ policy is directly concerned with treaty issues. Average Joe points out his take on why Act isn’t there. Plaudits to The Nation for having the debate, brickbats to Act for avoiding the debate – at least send along the person who knows the policy….
Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, December 19th, 2010 - 19 comments
NIWA has had some of their data, methodology, and results checked by the aussies. As expected by anyone who knows something about the subject, they came back with substantially the same result. For the others like the nutters at the CSC and their political allies – well I can just see another conspiracy theory arising…
Written By: - Date published: 9:49 pm, December 13th, 2010 - 31 comments
How journalists make a hypothetical question based on a nutty claim and manufacture a sensational headline out of it. The really sensational headline is that western journos appear to have picked up the story from that world renowned nutter Anthony Watts raving about a fictional war between Russia and Poland. It looks like you can only rely on hard checked science news from some of the rational blogs, and a Chinese news agency…
Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, October 25th, 2010 - 40 comments
One of the strange things about helping to run a left blog like this is looking at the varied opinions of those on the left of the political spectrum, and then looking at the monolithic opinions that the right seem to have of the left. I was musing on this while reading Matt McCarten’s excellent Saturday article. Now you have to understand that Matt and myself are almost at the ends of the spectrum when it comes to politics on the left….
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: 7:10 am, October 3rd, 2010 - 27 comments
One of these things is not like the other, One of these things is not quite the same. Can you guess which one is not like the other, Can you tell me before I finish the game?
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 pm, September 29th, 2010 - 62 comments
After picking up my award for worst ever ‘Standard’ post title, I’d just like to say that there seems to a penchant these days to leave too many things up to higher powers, or perceived authorities. And authorities and those who are ideologically aligned with them or reliant upon them, naturally enough encourage such a giving away of agency. It’s not always deliberate. And it’s certainly not a conspiracy. It’s just the way it is and is borne of habit. This morning afforded a fairly clear example of it.
Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, September 9th, 2010 - 13 comments
At last, the left has its own version of Investigate magazine. As you might expect it’s a bit saner and better substantiated than anything Ian Wishart’s written since his conversion, but there are obvious parallels. Hooray for the internet!
Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, July 4th, 2010 - 5 comments
The current incumbent of the Bagehot column at The Economist is stepping down with a few relevant comments about current relationships ebtween the politicians, journos, and the public.
The opinions could have been written about the poor state of journalism here.
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, June 27th, 2009 - 72 comments
National’s 2008 election victory was undoubtedly a great success for the Party. Just two terms after humiliating defeat under the leadership of Bill English, National rose from the ashes to claim a convincing win. Forming a broad coalition that brought the Maori Party into the fold, thus simultaneously broadening National’s coalition options and lessening the necessity to …
Written By: - Date published: 1:59 pm, March 6th, 2009 - 16 comments
Adrian Orr and Brian Fallow‘s pieces on the New Zealand Superannuation Fund and the economics of long-term investment in a declining market. A+ The same arguments you’ve seen here and neat rebuttals of this ‘we’re borrowing to invest’ nonsense. Orr, the head of the Fund whose reputation is unquestioned, sums it up nicely by stating …
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, February 27th, 2009 - 4 comments
Trevor Mallard for getting himself into one of those complex, multi-blog conversations and pulling it off. A Started when he commented on a Kiwiblog post about the Backbenches show he was to be on that night. Mallard noted that, once again, no Nat was fronting on the show. Torrent of abuse from righties follows. Farrar asks people to …
Written By: - Date published: 1:04 pm, February 20th, 2009 - 23 comments
The praiseworthy and the pitiful is our weekly post on the little things that caught our eye but didn’t lead to a full post. This week: Tracy Watkins’ new blog A best of the political journos’ blogs I reckon. Watkins has been responding to comments, showing a bit of a sassy side, and her pieces …
Written By: - Date published: 12:33 pm, February 13th, 2009 - 14 comments
Lockwood Smith managing of Question Time. B. Lockwood has made a commendable effort to get ministers to answer questions and cut down on some of the other bollocks that ruins Question Time. National MPs clearly expect that after years of complaining of ministers skirting questions it’s now their turn to do it, and Lockwood has …
Written By: - Date published: 1:35 pm, February 7th, 2009 - 3 comments
The praiseworthy and a pitiful is a weekly compilation of some of the comments we’ve seen around the traps that warrant some response, whether praise or criticism, whether for the substance of what has been said or the quality of the rhetoric. David Haywood’s piece on what would happen if the Herald had a ‘your …
Written By: - Date published: 1:58 pm, January 30th, 2009 - 21 comments
Last year, we had The Standard Week as a regular feature on a Friday. We might resurrect that if there is popular demand but, first, I’ve been talking with some of the others and we want to try out a new Friday feature . Every week there are little comments from politicians, media, bloggers, and commenters …
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