Archive for February, 2010

ACT’s ugly racist face exposed

Written By: - Date published: 11:51 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 57 comments

Former ACT Deputy Leader Muriel Newman has launched into a racist tirade that amounts to ‘bloody bludging Maoris’. Incredibly, Rodney Hide agrees, saying that Maori have a culture of dependency. To ACT, poverty isn’t the result of an unequal and unfair economic system, it’s a lifestyle choice. They say Maori are morally deficient and to blame for their poverty.

Rosemary McLeod on Barbarians

Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 23 comments

One of the best pieces I’ve seen about the idiotic minister of broadcasting Jonathon Coleman wanting to starve or bend National Radio into the level of stupidity that the NACT’s prefer. Rosemary McLeod writing “Quality radio easy target for the barbarians” in the Sunday Star Times this morning.

Another Nat lie on GST

Written By: - Date published: 12:27 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 51 comments

You have to double-check every ‘fact’ the Nats tell you. Bill English, for example, has been caught out lying on Labour’s growth record.
For the last couple of weeks, John Key has been claiming that when Labour increased GST from 10% to 12.5% in 1989 there was no compensation for taxpayers. That too is a lie.

Tsunami warning

Written By: - Date published: 8:57 am, February 28th, 2010 - 16 comments

The alert has now been downgraded to an advisory (4:30pm), though surges and rapid changes in sea level could still occur for the next 24 hours.

According to Newsroom “A series of ongoing large offshore earthquakes continue to rock South America with widespread destruction in Chile…

Open mike 28/02/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 28th, 2010 - 23 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

High ministerial standards

Written By: - Date published: 6:54 pm, February 27th, 2010 - 13 comments

 No, it’s not one of the Nats or their hangers-on. It’s Shane Jones. Following revelations that National ministers have been essentially stealing taxpayer money by using their ministerial credit cards for prohibited purchases, Jones has recounted an incident from his time as a minister. When Jones was Building Minister in 2008 he hosted a dinner […]

Heatley’s redherring cover for Brownlee

Written By: - Date published: 11:45 am, February 27th, 2010 - 20 comments

Fran O’Sullivan agrees with my theory on the real reason for Phil Heatley’s resignation and the reason why an excuse was invented. The real reason was what amounts to Heatley’s theft of taxpayer money by using his ministerial credit card, and the receipt excuse was invented to protect Gerry Brownlee who had also misused his credit card

Free Market Failure

Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, February 27th, 2010 - 56 comments

It’s time for the National Party to issue an abject apology to the nation… for the 1992 Building Regulations that directly led to the astounding public crisis we now face. Building and Construction Minister Maurice Williamson told the Weekend Herald the official $11 billion figure – which experts believe is half the true cost – […]

Re:Cycle (re-run)

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, February 27th, 2010 - 18 comments

We received this guest post about half an hour after John Key announced his cycleway. At the time, the very sensible criticisms it raises were ignored by an enamoured media.

How prescient it looks now, on the anniversary of the Prime Minister’s Jobs Summit.

Open mike 27/02/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 27th, 2010 - 3 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

Lovin’ Alice

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, February 26th, 2010 - 4 comments

A burst of ‘popular’ culture to mull over the weekend, with the Guardian providing comment on the upcoming Alice in Wonderland. According to Xan Brooks : the films of Tim Burton are not so much released as laid on, staged and mounted like lavish masked balls. The interiors are opulent and the tables piled high […]

I’ll book the billboards, you ring Roger Kerr for a donation

Written By: - Date published: 3:53 pm, February 26th, 2010 - 26 comments

The Human Rights Commission has come out swinging at the anti-democratic nature of the Super City consultation.

Will the Free Speech Coalition leap into action as it did last time? Probably not.

Looks like Rodney Hide was lying (again)

Written By: - Date published: 3:41 pm, February 26th, 2010 - 6 comments

The Government’s Auckland Transition Agency today released a discussion paper on the powers of the boards and briefed a public hearing of the select committee considering the third super city bill.

Telecom XT

Written By: - Date published: 2:39 pm, February 26th, 2010 - 41 comments

The heart of the telecom XT network?

Seriously though, when the 111 call system fails, lives are at risk…

Unions call for secret ballots for lockouts

Written By: - Date published: 10:40 am, February 26th, 2010 - 46 comments

If National is going to legislate democratic procedures for unions taking industrial action, aren’t they bound by consistency to do the same for employers?

Requiring a secret ballot of shareholders before lockouts are allowed would be a good start.

Greenpeace kicks coal in the Facebook

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, February 26th, 2010 - 3 comments

Nothing like a good IT stoush, particularly of the David and Goliath variety. Greenpeace has blown the whistle on Facebook’s use of coal to power its new data center in (note: renewable-rich) Oregon. The supposedly forward-looking social networking site picked this energy dinosaur (and the world’s leading cause of climate change), because it figures the […]

Heatley on spending others’ money

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, February 26th, 2010 - 1 comment

Russel Norman has an ironic adjunct to the ‘storm in a wine glass’ (as one wit on RNZ called Phil Heatley’s resignation)…

Heatley story full of holes

Written By: - Date published: 7:10 am, February 26th, 2010 - 84 comments

Ministers don’t resign for describing a trivial expense in a perfectly legitimate way. I’m thinking Phil Heatley really had a crisis of conscience over the credit card ‘misuse’ and wanted to resign but that would have put Gerry Brownlee in the gun too. So they invented the receipt excuse. What’s your theory?

Open mike 26/02/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 26th, 2010 - 74 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

A Power grab?

Written By: - Date published: 9:29 pm, February 25th, 2010 - 11 comments

The Electoral (Administration) Amendment Bill would allow Simon Power to appoint a new Chief Electoral Officer and new Electoral Commissioners for the 2011 election. This is wrong. These officials must be completely independent, they must not be or be seen to be political appointees.

Updating the blogroll

Written By: - Date published: 9:08 pm, February 25th, 2010 - 14 comments

I’m about to start sweeping the blogroll for dead or moribund sites over the next week. The general rule is that I mark sites private if the recent posts are inactive for more than 3 months (or I can’t read the site). If anyone wants to get their site added (or re-added) then use the […]

Cunliffe slams English; English misleads House

Written By: - Date published: 6:14 pm, February 25th, 2010 - 44 comments

Today in the House David Cunliffe took Bill English on over his lies regarding Labour’s record on economic growth. Rather than admit that he had been using the wrong figures in an effort to make Labour’s record look worse, English compounded his sins by lying to the House.

Poll good news for MMP

Written By: - Date published: 4:39 pm, February 25th, 2010 - 4 comments

No Right Turn covers the latest UMR poll on MMP, which shows a good but by no means unassailable lead for MMP over less representative systems.

With the forces of reaction once again emerging to undermine our democracy we all need to get in behind the Campaign for MMP.

British poll finds fewer believe in climate change

Written By: - Date published: 4:30 pm, February 25th, 2010 - 45 comments

According to a Guardian poll today, public conviction about the threat of climate change has declined with the proportion of adults who believe climate change is “definitely” a reality dropped by 30% over the last year, from 44% to 31%, in the latest survey by Ipsos Mori. Overall around nine out of 10 people questioned still appear to accept some degree of global warming.

I don’t buy it for one second

Written By: - Date published: 11:51 am, February 25th, 2010 - 111 comments

Has Phil Heatley really resigned his ministerial portfolios over a bottle of wine?

Or is there more to this story than meets the eye?

Heatley resigns both portfolios

Written By: - Date published: 10:59 am, February 25th, 2010 - 75 comments

According to Stuff Housing Minister Phil Heatley has resigned and the PM has rushed back to Wellington to hold a press conference. Apparently MP spending records for the last three months of last year were released this morning. Coincidence? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. Updated.

Punishing unemployed won’t help

Written By: - Date published: 9:11 am, February 25th, 2010 - 22 comments

Another day, another anti-beneficiary story beaten up by Paula Bennett to justify her bennie-bashing policies. Punitive measures against people who genuinely want to find work will not help them. All it does is waste WINZ’s resources re-approving genuinely unemployed workers leaving fewer resources for helping people into work.

Stealing Auckland

Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, February 25th, 2010 - 5 comments

Auckland is being stolen from the people who live there. It will end up like a christmas turkey – “decapitated, plucked, gutted, stuffed, stitched up, roasted and carved up. And when the diners have eaten their fill, all you have left is a dead carcass.”

Open mike 25/02/2010

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, February 25th, 2010 - 18 comments

Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…

David Farrar – A known hypocrite and a bit of an idiot (in my opinion).

Written By: - Date published: 4:04 pm, February 24th, 2010 - 130 comments

David Farrar obviously lost it today. In a post called “Anonymous Smears” he is upset about Eddie pointing out Murray McCully and his mining shares. There wasn’t an value known when the post was written, so Eddie reasonably asked if there was a conflict of interest.

David can get upset with an opinion from a author. However he has attacked this site as an entity. So as sysop of the site, he is getting my opinion about his opinion, and my opinion on his antics. It is an honest opinion, the same as Eddies. However in this case just for benefit of David, it isn’t anonymous.

Save Radio NZ protest today

Written By: - Date published: 3:02 pm, February 24th, 2010 - 19 comments

The Save Radio New Zealand group on Facebook now has 13,600 members and today (the 25th) there will be an event at Parliament between 1 and 2. It won’t be your typical rowdy protest, instead the idea is to bring along your radio and something to eat and drink, and have a mass picnic on the lawn.