Written By: - Date published: 11:15 am, July 17th, 2012 - 154 comments
School league tables are harmful to education. Tables based on “ropey data” are even worse. In this open letter 100 academics speak out against league tables.
Written By: - Date published: 10:38 am, July 17th, 2012 - 12 comments
Right now 28 miners are stuck down a Waihi mine with a fire causing noxious gases. 15 people are being decontaminated at Tiwai Point after an ‘incident’. At 3.30am the driver of a truck-trailer loaded pressurised cylinders died after crashing into Bulls RSA – probably asleep from the fatigue 24% of truck drivers suffer from […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:50 am, July 17th, 2012 - 103 comments
Could we be about to have our very own Scopes trial? In that famous Tennessee Court Case, the State prosecuted a teacher for teaching evolution. He walked free and it was a decisive moment in mainstreaming evolution and making the creationists the crackpots. Now, the climate change deniers are suing NIWA and their loss will be a dagger through the heart of denialism.
Written By: - Date published: 7:59 am, July 17th, 2012 - 21 comments
There’s some interesting speculation that the Government could collapse within months. The theory goes that the Government could lose its majority due to 1) the Maori Party walking away over the water rights issue and 2) John Banks being forced to resign over illegally anonymised donations in the 2010 Auckland mayoral election. I don’t see it happening, yet.
Written By: - Date published: 7:15 am, July 17th, 2012 - 62 comments
Even John Key is now admitting that the asset sale program is facing a serious legal challenge, and that delays in the sales are likely. Any such delay would have several implications…
Written By: - Date published: 12:03 am, July 17th, 2012 - 128 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 1:15 pm, July 16th, 2012 - 40 comments
Which will be remembered as the greater crime in Key’s legacy: selling off our strategically vital and profitable energy assets leading to higher power prices or standing by and doing nothing while another housing bubble fueled by cheap foreign credit leaves us more indebted and with lower home ownership? Or the smug, absent grin he wore throughout?
Written By: - Date published: 10:05 am, July 16th, 2012 - 31 comments
RNZ is reporting that National has spent $216m just on the investigation and design stage of its Roads of National Significance so far (and that’s only 5 of the 7 projects). Most of it on outside contractors Look, I get this kind of shit can be surprisingly expensive. But nearly quarter of a billion dollars just for investigation and design? With these projects involving a 260km of highways that’s nearly a million dollars per kilometre, a thousand dollars per metre, just on planning!
Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, July 16th, 2012 - 19 comments
Darkhorse writes amazingly insightful economic pieces on his ‘How Daft’ blog (the title gives you a clue as to what he thinks of the current state of affairs). The neoliberal experiment has been an abject failure by any rational measure. And there are alternatives. Darkhorse has given us permission to syndicate his posts, the originals are here.
Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, July 16th, 2012 - 29 comments
Threats to schools over the contents of their newsletters? The “brighter future” doesn’t like dissent.
Written By: - Date published: 8:33 am, July 16th, 2012 - 53 comments
The latest Roy Morgan poll has Labour+Greens neck and neck with National again on 45.5%. The trend is quite clear just looking at the Roy Morgan graphs. And when you look at the key levels that the two sides have to achieve, the change since the election is dramatic.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 16th, 2012 - 195 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 1:40 pm, July 15th, 2012 - 15 comments
The Government announced that it was withdrawing its Alcohol Reform Bill today and introducing prohibition after it realised that alcohol was used by the ‘Beast of Blenheim’ to stupefy young girls. “It’s what we’d do if it was any other drug, particularly as it’s associated with the ‘Beast of Blenheim’,” said Justice Minister Judith Collins.
Written By: - Date published: 10:16 am, July 15th, 2012 - 27 comments
Old rich man, Don Brash, arch-advocate of private property rights, arguing against the property rights of iwi because they’re Maori. He says we shouldn’t have race-based ownership. No-one’s arguing for that. Iwi are arguing for the contract they signed with the Crown to be honoured. You would think a rightwinger would be the first to support that.
Written By: - Date published: 9:24 am, July 15th, 2012 - 5 comments
I’m going to try and put up a piece each Sunday of interesting, longer, deeper stories I found during the week. It’s also a chance for you to share what you found this week too. Those stimulating links you wanted to share, but just didn’t fit in anywhere (no linkwhoring). This week: the bread & butter line, bankers, racism and the corporate speak of John Key.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 15th, 2012 - 123 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 9:47 pm, July 14th, 2012 - 7 comments
I joined Mighty River Power today. They offered me $150 incentive payment, no contract and a cheap rate. But couldn’t help wondering – am I part of a push to up their user numbers in preparation for sale? So the numbers look good on the books, even if people (like me) might not stay? What will happen to the share price when lots of users leave after the Government’s flogged 49% off?
Written By: - Date published: 3:46 pm, July 14th, 2012 - 126 comments
Written By: - Date published: 3:35 pm, July 14th, 2012 - 104 comments
When you have the legal power to control aspects of how something is used, those are property rights, and when you have the legal power to exclude use of something by someone -for instance, by allocating exclusive usage rights to someone else – that’s ownership. The Crown allocates water rights, ipso facto, the Crown believes it owns the water.
Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, July 14th, 2012 - 32 comments
The Government has binned part of the Northern Wellington Corridor ‘Road of National Significance’ – the four-lane expressway between Otaki and Levin that would have cost $400m. The government’s not getting enough road tax revenue and they had already cut all other transport funding to the bone – so something had to give. But it’s just the start.
Written By: - Date published: 8:47 am, July 14th, 2012 - 41 comments
So the plan to screw down police wages isn’t working, and National are having to keep going with their other approach. But not everyone is taking death by 1000 cuts lying down.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 14th, 2012 - 107 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 5:29 pm, July 13th, 2012 - 37 comments
This weekend the NSW ALP Conference and the New Zealand Labour Party Council will both debate and decide proposals for reform. Prospects look decidedly better on this side of the Tasman for internal reform as well as for relations with the Greens.
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, July 13th, 2012 - 34 comments
Weekend social is for non political chat. What’s on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no aggro, why can’t we all just get along?
Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, July 13th, 2012 - 10 comments
Social Development Minister Paula Bennett caused outrage when she suggested somehow banning child abusers from having children. The suspicion at the time was that this was a desperate and cynical attempt to distract the public from the deeply unpopular plans to increase class sizes.Now, thanks to FYI, the public OIA site, that interpretation looks to be the case.
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, July 13th, 2012 - 48 comments
Now, I’m no big city lawyer, but it seems to me that John Key may be walking on some mighty thin ice by telling prospective investors in Mighty River not to worry about the Maori Council’s water claim. If it goes wrong, isn’t he exposing himself (actually, us taxpayers) to some major law suits and very expensive damages payouts?
Written By: - Date published: 7:22 am, July 13th, 2012 - 82 comments
John Key has been running round repeating that no one owns water. He’s just being cute with semantics. What is the effective difference between owning water, and owning water rights?
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 13th, 2012 - 237 comments
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike…
Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, July 12th, 2012 - 57 comments
Climate change is causing the world’s temperatures and seas levels to rise but this isn’t a steady process. Instead we see more frequent and more extreme weather events. The record-busting heatwave in the US and floods in Russia are examples. The big problem is the effects of these weather events on our production of food and other vital goods.
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