Written By: - Date published: 6:54 am, March 20th, 2013 - 27 comments
Our wee James Bond wannabes had a code name for Kim Dotcom (you know, in case their comms were intercepted by the bad guys). They called him Billy Big Stepper. So witty! But Labour’s uncovered something more serious too. It seems that the GCSB was aware in February that they may have broken the law and went into a quite a tizz, before covering it up.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 20th, 2013 - 212 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: 7:00 pm, March 19th, 2013 - 60 comments
Rape culture is a culture in which rape and sexual violence are common, and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media normalize, excuse, tolerate, or even condone rape. (Thanks, Wiki!)
And if you want a really clear example of it, look no further than Steubenville, Ohio.
Written By: - Date published: 1:54 pm, March 19th, 2013 - 35 comments
Profit-driven private sector cowboys are damaging the reputation of our education system. Naturally, National wants to make matters worse by subsidising foreign owners of profit-driven charter schools. Brilliant.
Written By: - Date published: 12:44 pm, March 19th, 2013 - 13 comments
The withdrawal of News Corp from SkyNZ, & the new deal on press regulation in the UK are part of various shifts: from media moguls to financial investors, rise of the internet, & the balance between corporate media and politicians – not a fourth estate revival. [Update: tweeters/bloggers excluded]
Written By: - Date published: 10:18 am, March 19th, 2013 - 7 comments
I/S at No Right Turn on the insanity of scrapping the home insulation programme.
Written By: - Date published: 9:32 am, March 19th, 2013 - 189 comments
So, some Republican Senator has become the first of his ilk to, um, come out in favour of marriage equality after he learned his son is gay. Apparently, this is just lovely. The man wrestled with his prejudices and his Christian love and tolerance won. Yay! Bullshit. This just shows that the black hole where the heart of the Right should be is their inability to empathise.
Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, March 19th, 2013 - 114 comments
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 19th, 2013 - 114 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: 8:57 pm, March 18th, 2013 - 52 comments
So much for all this propaganda about the asset sales being all about deepening markets here and giving Kiwis a chance to invest. When it came to building the website for the pre-registration, where did the Nats go? To Aussie. They got an Aussie company to build the site, saying Kiwi companies weren’t up to it. Cause, you know, the site is soooo secure and all.
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, March 18th, 2013 - 48 comments
Apparently the government is concerned for the general health of people in New Zealand. Apparently, an expression of this concern is the roll out of policy initiatives that will result in New Zealand being smoke free by 2025.
Written By: - Date published: 10:43 am, March 18th, 2013 - 32 comments
Irrelevant fringe group “Family First” really only has one drum, so I guess that they have nothing better to do except continue to beat it.
Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, March 18th, 2013 - 50 comments
Micky savage of Waitakere News looks at John Key’s involvement in the Solid Energy fiasco. National’s undeserved reputation as sound economic managers takes another hit…
Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, March 18th, 2013 - 172 comments
Corin Dann interviewed Bill English very well on climate change and the drought yesterday on Q+A. It was clear that English has his head in the dust. Despite claiming that the government is leading on climate change, English would barely let the ‘cc’ words pass his lips and referred ‘dry cycles’, as if climate change is just temporary, so not really worth worrying about.
Written By: - Date published: 7:26 am, March 18th, 2013 - 5 comments
I’ve just been alerted to the fact that Danyl from the dimpost has a novel out called Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 18th, 2013 - 170 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: 10:44 am, March 17th, 2013 - 39 comments
The Draft Auckland Unitary Plan has much to commend it. It focuses on resource management, responds to the reality of climate change & aims for a more dense but ‘liveable’ city. It has weaknesses, embraces destructive “growth” and raises questions: e.g. about affordable housing & environmental management.
Written By: - Date published: 10:06 am, March 17th, 2013 - 61 comments
Remember the “underclass”? John Key pretended to be concerned about them for a while as a gimmick for the 2008 election. Thanks to Matt McCarten, Rodney Hide has been reminded of their existence. He then goes on to diagnose the wrong problems and the wrong solutions (of course). I’m sure that Standardistas can do better…
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, March 17th, 2013 - 25 comments
My regular Sunday piece 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. This week: the squeezed middle, tax avoidance, Sheryl Sandberg’s feminist non-manifesto and Pentagon technology.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 17th, 2013 - 167 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: 3:18 pm, March 16th, 2013 - 19 comments
You would have thought that, less than 24 hours after another 185 manufacturing jobs were lost, the Right might be keeping their head down when it comes to the crisis in manufacturing. But no. Farrar’s popped up to cite a rinky-dink survey from Business NZ. The real surveys are very, very clear: 17,200 manufacturing jobs lost in the last year.
Written By: - Date published: 9:29 am, March 16th, 2013 - 41 comments
In what is sure to be an interesting test of our amnesty, I want to point out that Steven Joyce is probably the most over-rated politician in living memory. The man has literally never achieved anything. He lost the unloseable election, his fossil fuels-centric economic policy is a predictable failure and he has completely failed on jobs.
Written By: - Date published: 7:55 am, March 16th, 2013 - 32 comments
Welcome to Poverty Watch, a weekly update on National’s lack of response to the urgent and growing issue of poverty in NZ. This week, seeds of hope – the P3 Foundation.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 16th, 2013 - 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: 12:19 am, March 16th, 2013 - 362 comments
Ah yes, we’ve banned a few folks in the many years we’ve been in the blogosphere. Some with damn good reason and some in the heat of the moment. But now we’re all older and wiser it’s time to open the comments to all of you ratbags and see if we can’t work it out somehow.
Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, March 15th, 2013 - 29 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: 1:06 pm, March 15th, 2013 - 43 comments
National are trying to blame their petty carpark tax on Peter Dunne, while he’s out of the country. Apparently his 1-vote is getting it through parliament by itself… (much like Charter Schools?). I doubt Dunne wants to die in a ditch for a petty carpark tax, so it’ll be good to see his response when he gets back.
Written By: - Date published: 12:26 pm, March 15th, 2013 - 13 comments
Bravo to TONZU, the first employers to sign up for the living wage for all its workers.
Written By: - Date published: 9:07 am, March 15th, 2013 - 40 comments
King Brownlee can do pretty much what he likes in Christchurch. And what he wants to do is fuck all. When I was in Christchurch recently, I was deeply disturbed by the lack of rebuild, and the vibe. People feel it. People get angry. When people get angry, Brownlee looks for someone else to blame. Now, he’s doubling down by interfering in the coming local elections.
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, March 15th, 2013 - 96 comments
A survey of real estate agents has revealed that 9% of house sales result in the house going to an overseas buyer. Half say they plan to come and live here – that leaves 5% going to overseas investors. For some reason, the BNZ is trying to pretend that’s a small number. I find it a staggering number. Until now, I would have guess maybe 1 in 50 house sales went to overseas buyers.
Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, March 15th, 2013 - 87 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…
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