blogs

Categories under blogs

David Farrar (95)
dpf (194)

Nats’ polling

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:55 pm, January 31st, 2010 - 9 comments

Fran O’Sullivan wrote about how she was called by David Farrar’s Curia, National’s polling company, recently. What she was asked is revealing. She was asked to rate the National front bench plus Steven Joyce and Murray McCully. I’ve never heard of this been done before, asking for people’s views on individual ministers. It suggests an […]

Discussion: The usual suspects in 2009

Written By: lprent - Date published: 3:30 pm, January 29th, 2010 - 43 comments

Ok, I promised a review of the comments in 2009. Here are the usual suspects with both the number of comments and the number of bytes in the comments so you can see who talks a lot and how much. This was a little tricky because I used the e-mails to select the top e-mails, […]

33% nonsense

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 9:00 am, January 22nd, 2010 - 13 comments

David Farrar has one of his dodgy maths posts, where he argues that getting rid of the 33% rate is necessary because typical New Zealanders are paying it: “You see [not] only should people not be paying a 38% rate, most FT workers shouldn’t even be paying the 33% rate.” Quite why 33% is such a […]

Lots of good posts in 2009.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 10:26 pm, January 21st, 2010 - 24 comments

I was pulling out the stats for 2009 so I could update Tumeke blog rankings about who authors on this site so Tim could update the names under our site name. Rather than just send it to him, I thought I’d post it here and send him a link 😈 Because I wanted to understand […]

A little knowledge

Written By: John A - Date published: 7:46 pm, January 21st, 2010 - 17 comments

David Farrar on Kiwiblog says When Labour reduced the top tax rate from 66c to 33c in the 1980s, the amount of tax paid actually increased. Wasn’t that because they introduced GST as a new tax?

Covering for ‘Vacation John’

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 3:00 pm, January 15th, 2010 - 69 comments

Both David Farrar and Cameron Slater have posts up attacking a comment by roger nome in one of our comment threads, and it shows they are worried about Key’s image as a do nothing ‘Minister for Overseas Holidays’. On the surface level, it’s kind of cute that Farrar and Slater are obviously reading through our […]

I wonder if he’ll ask for a name suppression order.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:45 pm, December 24th, 2009 - 27 comments

No Right Turn has a post The blogosphere is not above the law. Since the beginning, there’s been a meme on the internet that the law doesn’t really apply here, and that we can get away with anything. But while there may be practical difficulties (particularly if people are smart and careful), it certainly does, […]

Scientific conspiracy on a global scale

Written By: r0b - Date published: 1:54 pm, December 15th, 2009 - 40 comments

In a recent post my good friend and fellow concern troll DPF covered the Associated Press review of the leaked “climategate” materials. The review concluded that the science of global warming was genuine. But DPF had some concerns: “My worry is that there is now a mindset where only data that fits the thesis is […]

Fomenting happy mischief. Indeed!

Written By: lprent - Date published: 4:41 pm, December 13th, 2009 - 53 comments

David has a new innovation at the sewer. The old comment voting system has been enhanced to, amongst other things, hide comments when they receive enough votes against. I had some fun testing this last week under various logins that I set up some years ago and keep active. It looks like an innovate quantitative […]

New Kiwi blog

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 4:30 pm, December 10th, 2009 - 9 comments

Sean Makes Crafts. A new blog by Morning Report host Sean Plunket, who writes about his passion for crafts. As some of you may know, recently my ’employers’ at Radio NZ decided that I would not be permitted to write a column in well-known Auckland based magazine. However, I’m not one to let the bastards […]

Fry on blogs

Written By: r0b - Date published: 9:30 am, November 29th, 2009 - 14 comments

The delectable Mr Stephen Fry doesn’t like the people who comment on blogs, and says so in his usual forthright, erudite and whimsical way: “I don’t know about you but whenever I read a blog I do not let my eye drop below half the screen in case I accidentally hit the bit where the […]

What I did on my holidays – by [insert name here]

Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:04 pm, November 20th, 2009 - 38 comments

Ohmigod, after Red Alert informed me that the National MPs had started a blog, I nearly died!!!!!!! And after I’d finished that and resurrected, I went and had a look at it. Yep, I was right. These buggers know nothing about what blogging is about. Some moronic PR flack somewhere (is that a parliamentary crest […]

Farrar vs the facts

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:30 pm, November 9th, 2009 - 36 comments

I’ve never quite understood why David Farrar, who is after all paid to do statistical work, insists on performing transparent statistical tricks on his blog. Yesterday, he did a post with figures on the number of 15-19 year olds with jobs. He argued that it showed removing the youth rate and giving everyone the same […]

David Farrar’s echo chamber fail

Written By: Zetetic - Date published: 5:40 pm, November 2nd, 2009 - 45 comments

There’s some massive FAIL going on over at Kiwiblog. Farrar’s got this new green-bashing post up where he breathlessly mocks Al Gore for saying sea levels could rise by 67 metres because of climate change. “67 metres in ten years!” wails Farrar. “I think politicians like Al Gore actually damage the very cause they purport […]

On Cameron Slater and mental illness

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 2:00 pm, October 29th, 2009 - 53 comments

A few months ago, a couple of us worked out that Cameron Slater, following his little spin in the media where he gloated about receiving income insurance for depression, had been kicked off his payments by the insurance company. The angry post asking for a lawyer who hates insurance companies, and the switch to gotcha.co.nz […]

Examples of rest break exploitation

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 28th, 2009 - 19 comments

Over at Kiwiblog, David Farrar is doing his usual apologetics for National by trying to spin its removal of guaranteed rest and meal breaks. It’s the usual mix of falsehoods and recycled spin, but one comment stuck out in particular: And you know, despite no statutory requirement, I don’t know of any great plethora of […]

Farrar says: carpe diem National

Written By: Marty G - Date published: 1:00 pm, October 20th, 2009 - 13 comments

An interesting post from David Farrar calling for National to implement radical rightwing policies while it still has the support to get away with it: The long-term goal is lifting our economic growth. No. As we know, lifting GDP growth is not an end itself, even the creators of GDP said as much. The long-term […]

Half the population

Written By: r0b - Date published: 8:51 am, October 6th, 2009 - 48 comments

Poor DPF must feel like he’s through the looking glass these days. He’s got to defend a government that flip flopped on tax cut promises. He’s got to defend a leader that refuses to be open with the public (on why a Minister was sacked). He’s got to defend the blatant greed and hypocrisy of […]

Show some decorum, David

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:49 pm, October 4th, 2009 - 19 comments

It was inevitable that Farrar would do this, although I really hoped he wouldn’t. His post criticising Chris Carter for being in Samoa is a shameless attempt to make political capital off tragedy. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, Winne Laban headed to Samoa to assist her family there. Carter went as her support person, […]

Flexible Farrar

Written By: r0b - Date published: 9:01 am, September 29th, 2009 - 30 comments

If DPF doesn’t practice Yoga already I think he should take it up. He’d be a natural. He’s so damn flexible! I’ve had occasion to comment on this once before. But for the EFA we see DPF lowering the bar of consistency to unbelievable depths, and limboing right on down. The Electoral Finance Act (EFA). […]

Why blog?

Written By: r0b - Date published: 4:00 pm, September 4th, 2009 - 23 comments

So, against my better judgement I’m now a card carrying Standardista. Finally managed to get through the initiation ceremony without fainting. I’ve been issued with a pass card and retina scanned for the Secret Standard Bunker buried deep beneath Parliament. I have access to the restricted mainframe codes and my own Swiss bank account. Q […]

Note to DPF: stop playing victim and take some responsibility for your blog

Written By: IrishBill - Date published: 12:15 pm, August 31st, 2009 - 61 comments

It seems I’ve hit a sore spot with David Farrar over the business of death threats to Sue Bradford. He’s now claiming I’ve dived for the gutter. At the risk of starting a flame war I’d like to point out that if I was aiming for the gutter I’d turn up in the comments section […]

Our Political Blogosphere

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 3:45 pm, August 25th, 2009 - 11 comments

Denis Welch educating the broader public about the New Zealand political blogosphere on RNZ’s 9 to Noon today with Lynn Freeman. A pretty fair synopsis and well worth a quick listen. (9:19 mins total)

Keep it up, Chippie and co

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 8:40 am, August 20th, 2009 - 27 comments

Good on Chris Hipkins. The other day, he wrote: “National won the last election quite comfortably. Kiwis are fair minded people and will be willing to give them a fair go at the job before they pass judgment. I expect that will be reflected in the opinion polls for most of the current parliamentary term. […]

Editorials blogs and anonymity

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 9:17 am, August 14th, 2009 - 26 comments

What is the difference between a newspaper editorial and a post on a popular political blog? I was pondering this question because I was struck recently by the difference in quality in a couple of recent Herald editorials. This one was an utter disgrace, cheering on Paula Bennett for (as seems almost certain) breaking the […]

New union blog

Written By: notices and features - Date published: 1:15 pm, August 12th, 2009 - 8 comments

Service & Food Workers Union national secretary John Ryall has a new blog. His first post takes aim at the claim by Ngai Tahu Runanga Chair Mark Solomon that the National Government should be considering Iwi for public-private partnerships because they have a greater commitment to New Zealand. Ryall argues that the recent behaviour of […]

Still too far

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 10:00 am, August 12th, 2009 - 45 comments

Farrar has come back with a defence of his icky and outragous ‘satire’ post that proports to be a Green press statement announcing a policy of complusory mass abortions to fight climate change. If people are seriously going to propose policies such as reducing the national dairy herd by 20%, then they should expect a […]

Too far

Written By: Eddie - Date published: 12:27 pm, August 10th, 2009 - 81 comments

Farrar’s attacks on climate change campaigners and the Greens recently have been pretty hysterical (‘they’re going to shoot the cows!’) but now he’s gone too far. In what purports to be satire, Farrar posts a ‘Green press release’ that says they want to have two out of three pregnancies aborted to tackle climate change. I’m not […]

Field’s guilt and Farrar’s shame

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 8:57 pm, August 4th, 2009 - 128 comments

Over at Kiwiblog DPF has wet himself with excitement at the Field verdict. Sadly however, he doesn’t get two bullet points into his post before he starts lying. DPF damply reports: 13 Sep 05 PM Helen Clark says ‘the only thing of which Taito Philip Field is guilty is being helpful’. Yes the PM immediately […]

Women on the web

Written By: Dancr - Date published: 8:00 pm, August 2nd, 2009 - 3 comments

Is the blogging world becoming more gender balanced? This story in the Times indicates there’s a group who are wanting to get some space. But what interested me was that some big business names are getting involved: Not only have attendee numbers increased from just a few hundred at the first conference in 2005, but […]

One small step for a man . . .

Written By: Guest post - Date published: 1:45 pm, July 28th, 2009 - 13 comments

It took just a few seconds, it was reasonable and considered, yet, amazingly, a suggestion from David Slack of Island Life has achieved what The Standard and many others have been pleading for years: the cleaning up of the filth at Kiwiblog. David Slack accurately described Kiwiblog as “a little crucible for rabid bigoted unthinking […]