Author Archive

Piggy in the middle

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:19 pm, June 5th, 2009 - 27 comments

Key is describing himself as ‘piggy in the middle’ in the Worth sexual harassment affair. Says he had two conflicting stories and couldn’t choose between them. What rubbish. Key accepted Worth’s version of events. He let the matter drop. No punishment for Worth. If he had been in a dilemma on who to believe he […]

Housie

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 9:39 pm, June 4th, 2009 - 9 comments

I was listening to Parliament on the wireless this afternoon. First. Question Time. Bennett was asked how many jobs the Jobs Summit has saved. Proudly, she announced ‘223’. But wait! A few minutes later she corrected that to, wait for it, 303! After all that 223 303 jobs saved. A $65,000 talkfest of our mortal gods, the leaders […]

Barrel scraped

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:16 pm, June 3rd, 2009 - 41 comments

A dude told me a good political rule of thumb the other day. â€˜If Farrar won’t go near something, it’s pure political poison. Farrar can be low but he’s got good instincts for saving his brand. Look at the way he dropped Lee and his Mt Albert blogmobile’. So I had to laugh when I […]

If you’re gonna cut, make it clean

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:28 am, June 3rd, 2009 - 97 comments

How titillating. Worth has resigned and he won’t say why. ‘Personal reasons’ eh? Heard that one before. Key’s not talking either. He describes it as a ‘private reason’. Got to wonder what’s in the Tories’ heads on this one. Don’t keep a secret unless you really need to. Bad look. The public has a right […]

Step-dad state gets it right

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:55 pm, June 2nd, 2009 - 31 comments

The principle of liberalism is that there should be no restriction on the freedoms of the individual except to realise a greater benefit for others (and, sometimes, the individual themselves). Society (or its tool the State) should do no harm to individuals unless to create a net benefit for the members of society (it shouldn’t […]

Tip of the spear

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:32 pm, June 2nd, 2009 - 16 comments

You’ve done your job as a spin doctor when journalists start repeating your spin sub-consciously. The credit downgrade ‘issue’ is a great example. There was never any threat of a downgrade, as long as the tax cuts were dropped. The journalists all acted like there was a huge threat. They parroted the government’s line that […]

The man in the mirror

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:04 pm, May 29th, 2009 - 28 comments

The Budget is already costing jobs. AirNZ has announced that it will be cutting flights. 80 jobs will go. The EPMU has said it will fight hard for the jobs. It’ll be tough to save them all. Why is AirNZ cutting the flights? Not enough passengers. AirNZ was hoping for something for tourism […]

The battle and the war

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:00 am, May 29th, 2009 - 28 comments

It’s a bleak budget alright. No jobs package. That’s scandalous dereliction of duty. The 70,000-100,000 people who will loss their jobs this year and their families will remember that the Tories sat on its hands when it mattered. Boy, they know how to manage the journos though. People whose major mathematical skill is having the right change […]

If everything goes well..

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 5:32 am, May 28th, 2009 - 23 comments

Good politics is meeting or exceeding expectations. Good spin is setting expectations. Key and English have put a lot of effort into setting expectations for the budget. (2000 Kiwis a week a probably wishing they would put effort into protecting jobs). The fruits of which will be this, if everything goes well for them: English […]

What we need in the Budget

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:00 pm, May 27th, 2009 - 81 comments

We need to keep paying into the Superannuation Fund. Never heard anything so dumb as the idea of stopping making payments right now. Invest now and make a tidy sum to pay for super in the future. If we don’t we’ll have to put up taxes in the future or cut super. I’m looking forward […]

Crusher crushes rights

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 5:33 pm, May 26th, 2009 - 86 comments

Collins has given us a little teaser of what’s in her car-crushing law. As any fool could have predicted the fascist in her couldn’t stop just at crushing the cars of repeat traffic offenders who don’t pay their fines. A new penalty for illegal street racing would allow vehicles to be seized and destroyed. Vehicles […]

Fair weather friends

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 2:21 pm, May 26th, 2009 - 32 comments

Watch as the Tories try to distance Key from Lee. Remember that Lee was Key’s personal choice. Young, pretty, smiley, not too sharp on the detail – he must have seen a lot of himself in her. He believed that she would win on the back of his popularity. In Key’s mind this would be […]

Let them eat oysters

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:37 am, May 25th, 2009 - 36 comments

Remember – March against National’s undemocratic supercity today 25th, noon, Queen St [More info] Thousands of protesters take to the streets of Auckland today to save local democracy. Key’s response: ‘let them eat oysters’ Nah, what he said was the hikoi is “unlikely to make a difference, is premature and the wrong forum to raise […]

The god of small things

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 12:07 pm, May 24th, 2009 - 7 comments

Herald: Key negotiates talks in Hillary papers dispute Stuff: PM wants the facts on Veitch What’s next? Key joins hunt for couple who fled with $10 million? Key’s wasting his time getting involved in minor stories he saw in the news. Meanwhile, our country’s losing 2000 jobs a week. His government is doing nothing about […]

Smoke ’em out

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:00 am, May 24th, 2009 - 24 comments

Let’s give Brash his inquiry. The poor demented shell of a man thinks there’s some great conspiracy against him. He’s so deluded he even thinks the Police are biased against National. That’s why they couldn’t find who ‘stole’ his emails. I’ll tell you why no-one can find who ‘stole’ his emails. They weren’t stolen. Say what […]

Auckland’s new overlord

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:45 am, May 23rd, 2009 - 39 comments

Remember – March against National’s undemocratic supercity Monday 25th, noon, Queen St [More info] Sometimes democracy’s a pain in the arse. So Aucklanders are in luck. Local democracy’s been done away with. Now, there’s a junta in charge. The councils Aucklanders elected a year and a half ago are now subject to five people hand picked […]

The root of the problem

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 1:45 pm, May 21st, 2009 - 58 comments

I reckon New Zealand’s a bit of an economic miracle really. Small country, new country without centuries of infrastructure, middle of nowhere, good only at making dead animals and animal products. Yet we’ve got one of the highest living standards in the world. Not that you would know it from our ‘business leaders’. Always whining […]

Berating the Herald

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:53 pm, May 19th, 2009 - 19 comments

from Beck Vass: “With an average jury trial taking at least 12 months, and judge-alone trials taking just six months [that’s actually from charging to end of the case, not the length of time in court], trial times would be halved, reducing the trauma for victims and backlogs in overloaded courts. Mr Power said his […]

The racist tory edition

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 10:40 pm, May 14th, 2009 - 91 comments

In his blog, Colin Espiner asked: “But my question is this: National has known for months it was going to torpedo the tunnels. It knew this decision would kill its chances of winning Mt Albert. So why did no one tell Lee? And why did Key allow one of his new stars to stand in […]

Why so afraid?

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 11:21 pm, May 13th, 2009 - 30 comments

Labour asked for an urgent debate in the House today on the Waterview announcement. Smith denied it because the announcement hadn’t then taken place. A minute later Joyce made the announcement. Labour then asked leave of the House for an urgent question to Joyce, Brownlee denied leave. What are they so afraid of? When did […]

Going backwards

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 8:49 pm, May 12th, 2009 - 46 comments

I don’t know about you guys but when Family First says something is great I get worried. So when those reactionaries say NACT has strengthened the Families Commission with its new appointments it’s worth having a second look at what’s going on. The Families Commission is Peter Dunne’s baby he wanted it to protect the ‘family’ by […]