the praiseworthy and the pitiful

Only in Queensland

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 7:22 pm, January 25th, 2015 - 13 comments

Queensland Liberal Country Party Premier Campbell Newman has claimed that the Queensland Labor Party is funded by gangs because some people have told him so.  Yet he refuses to acknowledge the urgency of climate change even though pretty well every climate change scientist in the world is telling him it is real and we need to act now.  Can you detect the scent of hypocrisy?

Rupert Murdoch on Charlie Hebdo

Written By: redfed - Date published: 8:30 am, January 11th, 2015 - 123 comments

Rupert Murdoch has tweeted questioning if most Moslems are peaceful and saying they are responsible for extremists within their ranks.

SkyCity’s expected subvention explained for John Roughan

Written By: lprent - Date published: 9:28 am, December 27th, 2014 - 42 comments

At last, some of our conservative short-term thinkers have woken up to the elephant in the room with the SkyCity convention centre subvention. Years late and their previous support has cost taxpayers dearly already. Perhaps they could learn to read reports? And think before committing us to be suckers?

Mihingarangi Forbes v Jamie Whyte

Written By: mickysavage - Date published: 12:00 pm, August 5th, 2014 - 81 comments

In a must see interview Native Affairs reporter Mihingarangi Forbes Forbes last night interviewed ACT leader Jamie Whyte with rather startling results.

Union communicators and RSS – please join the 21st century

Written By: lprent - Date published: 2:23 pm, March 11th, 2014 - 27 comments

Just at present I’m particularly interested in adding union sites with RSS feeds to our feeds. But it is somewhat irritating. Many of the sites don’t have a RSS feed. They should have one. Unions are an inherent part of the labour movement that we like to think that we’re helping and a part of.  It’d be nice if they did their bit to help us help them.

New website – “I am someone”

Written By: lprent - Date published: 3:49 pm, November 14th, 2013 - 48 comments

Stories of Harassment and Sexual Violence Go Live On Web

Looks like some of my friends are getting serious about making sure that dickheads around like the duo of JT and Willie,  prevaricators like John Key  and the incredibly slack police response get a better idea about what is at stake…

Whistleblowers and services to journalism

Written By: karol - Date published: 10:00 am, June 10th, 2013 - 57 comments

Two leakers (one a true whistleblower), are in the news right now, both focused on the US-led surveillance society, operating in the interests of corporate power.  And today, in relation to this, 2 journalists show the importance of the fourth estate to democracy. Kim Hill & Glenn Greenwald take a bow.

Keystone coups

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 11:49 pm, November 19th, 2012 - 92 comments

I’m reading “The Life and Times of Lyndon Johnson.”  It’s fascinating, beautifully written, a must-read for anyone with an interest in politics. I recommended it recently to David Cunliffe, and he told me soon after he had got it. But he obviously hasn’t read it yet. His supporters’ clumsy attempt to make the Party leadership the focus of last weekend’s Conference backfired badly on him.

Shane Jones: now pimping for Sealords

Written By: lprent - Date published: 11:34 am, October 3rd, 2012 - 26 comments

As Shane Jones makes a complete dick of himself in public yet again in a traditional display of Labour party backbench egotism. I’m left shaking my head at the apparent complete inability of the Labour caucus to settle down to the task of being an effective opposition.

Greenpeace – working for others.

Written By: lprent - Date published: 3:02 pm, September 4th, 2012 - 13 comments

Greenpeace has a case in front of the Court of Appeal today.  It is going to be important for any number of small charities who do some advocacy work that may be considered to be ‘political’.

But Greenpeace deserves a resounding cheer for taking this case when it is far more important to other advocates from poverty groups to  churches to climate deniers than it is to themselves.

Filleted Murdock

Written By: Mike Smith - Date published: 4:46 pm, April 27th, 2012 - 37 comments

Stayed up last night to watch Robert Jay QC question Rupert Murdoch at the Leveson enquiry. It was riveting – you can see why top lawyers like Jay are called silks. Murdoch denied, deferred, demeaned, derided and defended but couldn’t help himself – ended up with more damage than control. This affair has more legs than a millipede.

NIWA vs the nutters

Written By: lprent - Date published: 7:32 am, December 19th, 2010 - 19 comments

NIWA has had some of their data, methodology, and results checked by the aussies. As expected by anyone who knows something about the subject, they came back with substantially the same result. For the others like the nutters at the CSC and their political allies – well I can just see another conspiracy theory arising…

The sea-change on the left

Written By: lprent - Date published: 1:59 pm, October 25th, 2010 - 41 comments

One of the strange things about helping to run a left blog like this is looking at the varied opinions of those on the left of the political spectrum, and then looking at the monolithic opinions that the right seem to have of the left. I was musing on this while reading Matt McCarten’s excellent Saturday article. Now you have to understand that Matt and myself are almost at the ends of the spectrum when it comes to politics on the left….

One of these things is not like the other XII

Written By: the sprout - Date published: 7:10 am, October 3rd, 2010 - 28 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?