Author Archive

Caption Competition

Written By: - Date published: 4:08 pm, September 14th, 2010 - 43 comments

Cameron Slater, aka Whaleoil, found guilty today in the Auckland District Court on eight breaches of suppression orders and one of identifying a victim.

Wishart has new rival

Written By: - Date published: 10:45 am, September 9th, 2010 - 14 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!

Govt exploiting CHCH to sneak through abuses?

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 am, September 8th, 2010 - 10 comments

As our msm persist with their increasingly banal fixation on Christchurch’s troubles, I’m reminded of a story that appeared in 2001 not long after the horror of 9/11. It was about a political advisor in the Blair administration who was caught-out doing her job. On the day of the attacks Jo Moore sent an email […]

Caption Competition

Written By: - Date published: 6:28 pm, September 7th, 2010 - 41 comments

Yesterday Mr Key said he would leave for London to visit the Queen, only if he “could be confident Christchurch’s recovery was on track”, and appointed Big Jezza to oversee the Government’s Christchurch earthquake response. Today Key announced he won’t be leaving any time soon.

One of these things is not like the other XI

Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, August 18th, 2010 - 18 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?

PR301: Edwards and Ralston on Lhaws

Written By: - Date published: 1:50 pm, August 16th, 2010 - 27 comments

Brian Edwards and Bill Ralston give contrasting accounts of Michael Laws’ PR handling of his latest relationship issues. Edwards thinks Laws dealt with it well (and reduced the ‘story’ to a molehill), Ralston thinks Laws cocked-up by preempting any other media coverage and giving more away than necessary. On Ralston’s blog there’s a nicely caustic exchange […]

Fat little lapdog

Written By: - Date published: 8:58 am, July 13th, 2010 - 123 comments

New Zealand hero Pete Bethune isn’t one for mincing his words – now that he’s free to speak them. He’s described the New Zealand Government as a “fat little lapdog” to Japan, eager to roll over and submit to the bullying of any power, no matter how unprincipled its actions, just as long as there’s a promise […]

Should’ve done it before, John

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, July 9th, 2010 - 44 comments

It seems John Key is now belatedly wading in to look at whether it’s at last time to cut Andy Haden loose as a Rugby World Cup Ambassador. Apparently it was ok for Haden to talk about “darkie quotas” in the Crusaders and still remain a PR face of our nation, but now Haden has […]

Archives NZ merger set to be another “Super Stuff-up”

Written By: - Date published: 12:18 pm, July 9th, 2010 - 5 comments

The ODT has obtained a report from the Crown Law Office via the OIA, which rather diplomatically suggests there will need to be some very “carefully worded” specifications of the arrangement to merge Archives NZ into the Department of Internal Affairs. It states the Chief Archivist will require “protection from improper influence” to maintain the constitutional imperative that the […]

NZ hero gets suspended sentence

Written By: - Date published: 10:37 am, July 8th, 2010 - 72 comments

Pete Bethune has had his sentence for bogus charges laid by Japanese whaling interests suspended. My warm congratulations to Pete and his family. They’ve suffered a lot of distress over the past few months as Japanese extremists called for Bethune’s execution – all because he dared to hold Japanese whalers to account for illegally killing […]

Standby for INCIS II… pfzzzt

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, July 7th, 2010 - 20 comments

For some time now National has been quietly making plans to subsume Archives New Zealand and the National Library within the Department of Internal Affairs. That’s a dangerous plan for all sorts of constitutional and accountability reasons that can’t be justified by any imaginary, vague and as yet uncosted “synergies and efficiencies”. But let’s face it, […]

If real life were more like the internet…

Written By: - Date published: 12:14 pm, June 30th, 2010 - 7 comments

  Ring any bells? Tom Tommorrow at Salon is a great satirical cartoonist, for more of his work have a look at This Modern World.

TV3’s Garner confirms vendetta against Carter

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, June 28th, 2010 - 91 comments

A few months ago Brian Edwards suggested that TV3’s chief political reporter Duncan Garner was on a personal vendetta against Chris Carter, an observation also made on several occasions by Bomber Bradbury, Dimpost and The Standard. At the time Edwards invited Garner to refute the accusation that Garner had a vendetta against Carter, suggested by the […]

Edwards: Goff totally loses the plot

Written By: - Date published: 7:51 am, June 24th, 2010 - 125 comments

A government whose raison d’etre is furthering corporate interests can be pretty damned incompetent and still do okay, because corporate msm do the PR for them. And in return for this government favouring corporate interests over all else we’ve seen countless examples of NACT committing howling errors of judgement, if not outright illegalities, only to […]

I’m not sorry

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, June 22nd, 2010 - 48 comments

I’m not sorry about Russel Norman standing up to Chinese imperialism, I’m proud that he did. While I don’t personally have a lot of time for Norman, I very much respect his willingness to behave like an actual representative of the New Zealand people and voice his opposition to the immoral Chinese occupation and subjugation of […]

Creepy like Rodney, but intelligent

Written By: - Date published: 6:56 pm, June 12th, 2010 - 14 comments

If you have any interest in robotics or AI, or just want to be creeped-out by just how life-like the latest robots really are, you have to see this footage to believe it. It’s the spawn of DARPA’s Learning Locomotion Project and employs some very clever heuristics to allow the robot to learn how to […]

Ririnui: Ministerial Services approved credit card use

Written By: - Date published: 6:53 pm, June 11th, 2010 - 25 comments

Mita Ririnui has gone on the record on RNZ’s Checkpoint tonight insisting Ministerial Services advised him personal spending on ministerial credit card was ok as long as it was reimbursed. Of course that doesn’t let people like Hide, English and Heatley off the hook, because they only paid back their personal misuses of ministerial allowances after they […]

One of these things is not like the other X

Written By: - Date published: 2:45 pm, May 31st, 2010 - 18 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?

Haden stays, McCully seeking 7ft carpet

Written By: - Date published: 10:02 am, May 31st, 2010 - 25 comments

It seems former All Black Andy Haden will keep his job as Rugby World Cup Ambassador after having apologized and withdrawn his allegations that the Canterbury Crusaders have a limit on the number of Polynesian players they recruit. Fair enough, perhaps. But Murray McCully’s decision to not “shoot” Hayden on the grounds that if he […]

Hey! Mr Tally Man…

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 am, May 29th, 2010 - 33 comments

Comments by former All Black and Rugby World Cup “Ambassador”  Andy Haden that alledge the Canterbury Crusaders have a limit on the number of “darkies” they have in their team have created more headaches for Key. After carefully reaffirming his love for the red-neck rump of voters with distasteful comments about Tuhoe – Key’s now faced with the […]

NZ Sharemarket plummeting

Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, May 21st, 2010 - 9 comments

John Key’s “Don’t Be Jealous” Budget has done little to stop the European contagion from ravaging our sharemarket – at time of writing down 2.4% and still falling. The NZX company itself has dropped more than 5%, leading other significant losses by Fletcher Building, Sky City, and Contact Energy. Telecom is now down to an historic […]

Eat the Rich

Written By: - Date published: 10:50 am, May 19th, 2010 - 22 comments

Some how it just seems right for John Key’s “Don’t Be Jealous” Budget. Or if you want something a bit more high brow but still with the big hair, there’s Brian Edwards on $50 Million PM Counsels Poor Not To Envy Rich. Me… I say Eat Them!

The New Zealand Herald: “Coalition is shakier by the day”

Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, May 16th, 2010 - 24 comments

The headline for the Herald’s editorial today says a lot about where the media are at with National at the moment. The Government and its actions have been savaged by a range of msm outlets this week in New Zealand – and internationally, which in turn became another source of yet more negative domestic coverage. This week […]

PM’s idiocy goes global

Written By: - Date published: 7:41 am, May 14th, 2010 - 64 comments

Hey thanks John, you’ve really helped put New Zealand in the international spotlight yet again. First it was your clown act on Letterman, more recently your cringe-worthy fawning over Biden and attempts to be seen as another Obama, your valiant pro-whaling pandering while leaving a New Zealand hero to languish in a Japanese jail, then your eagerness to mine […]

Gluckman’s apology for National’s science package shredded

Written By: - Date published: 7:57 pm, May 13th, 2010 - 38 comments

Peter Gluckman is easily one of New Zealand’s most over-rated, under-examined public figures. Although little more than a corporate frontman out to extract as many public dollars for private interests as he can lay his hands on, because he’s called ‘Sir’ and he’s all ‘sciencey’ a lot of the tripe he spews goes unchecked. Well, not this time. […]

Maxim scores own-goal, embarrasses National

Written By: - Date published: 3:03 pm, May 11th, 2010 - 15 comments

A recently released UMR poll commissioned by right-wing think tank the Maxim Institute shows strong support for the policies of the last Labour Government and little taste for the reforms National is trying to push through. It seems that if you ask Kiwis what kind of policies they want, the answer is ‘make mine a […]

Apologise

Written By: - Date published: 6:10 am, May 10th, 2010 - 46 comments

Congratulations John on your latest speech. We especially like the line “Let me be clear: there is no room for separatism in New Zealand.” Very masterly, clear and unequivocal. I know you meant what you said and weren’t just dog-whistling to the racist red-necks in the audience who’re feeling spooked by us signing up to […]

PM’s Technical Advisory

Written By: - Date published: 9:31 am, May 9th, 2010 - 12 comments

Prime Minister John Key has released a multimedia demonstration prepared by his Technical Advisory Panel to explain why, despite election ‘promises’, New Zealand will not be getting ultra-fast broadband any time soon under National. Yes folks, like John Key’s Magical Cycleway To Salvation, there are a myriad of previously unconsidered reasons why we just can’t […]

Creating life is disgusting, but destroying life is fine

Written By: - Date published: 2:02 pm, May 7th, 2010 - 11 comments

It’s puzzled me for some years how few people bat and eye at the countless portrayals of violent death and brutality we see every night on TV, while anything that portrays acts of physical intimacy are carefully vetted in case they cause anyone offence. This cultural oddity has been highlighted by a recent BSA ruling that […]

Meta Caption Contest

Written By: - Date published: 2:14 pm, May 6th, 2010 - 15 comments

Key “short-sighted, irresponsible”

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 am, May 5th, 2010 - 88 comments

Today’s Herald has a front page piece criticizing Key’s abandonment of his Middle East trade mission to return home for the funerals of the three airmen who crashed on their way to an ANZAC Day parade. Trade delegate Dr John Langley said the decision was not in New Zealand’s long-term interests and that Mr Key was […]