Lynn (or someone else on the Bridge) can you please open the “gate”; you know i’m “human” and i’ll stop worrying the flock and be a good dog (lifts paw and tilts head)
Hi Lynn and folks’ my misbehavin around the full moon has led to the activation of the s.bot captcha entry requirement. Could you please alleviate this thorn in my paw and I will endeavour to be more restrained (on leash) Thankyou, i would be grateful.
Grumpy Old Men
Brian Edwards: Paul Holmes “is not and never was a racist”
While most decent people in New Zealand were taken aback, even flabbergasted, to see that a career of race-baiting and assiduous fawning and flattery had earned Paul Holmes a knighthood, there were of course commentators who defended the travesty. Some of those who tried to justify the knighthood were Holmes’s former and current colleagues, who no doubt felt obliged to defend a colleague, no matter how unpleasant he might be, no matter what he might have said and done in the past. We saw the same unedifying line-up of celebrity support after another NewstalkZB host, Tony Veitch, was revealed to have attacked and grievously injured his fiancée.
Most of those who felt compelled to defend the award made a point of reminding us of Holmes’s “tireless work for charity” and his “generosity”. Hardly any of them was foolish enough to mention the Banquo’s ghost in the room: Holmes’s shameful record of crude race-baiting and hate-mongering, most notoriously against black Africans, but most consistently against Māori and the poor.
One “liberal” commentator, however, went one step further; Brian Edwards used his blog to write a giddy paean to Holmes. Many readers joined in the expression of adoration for the great man; former New Zealand First staffer Rex Widerstrom rhapsodized on “Paul’s intellect and his humanity”, one Rosina Hauiti raved about his “illustrious career”, and, most contemptibly of all, Labour Party MP Annette King called Holmes “funny warm and compassionate”, and asserted that she “can’t understand the vitriol being written.”
It was not all fulsome praise, however. Many readers, including the venerable Standardista “Millsy”, expressed scorn and disbelief at the knighthood. For their sins, they suffered the indignity of having their comments deleted and replaced by a scolding by Edwards himself, were compared to witch-hunters, and were sent to Siberia along with the unspeakable Bomber Bradbury, who is damned by Holmes-booster John Phillips as a “swinish, loathsome, small-minded worm”.
There was one thing that bothered me above all else: Edwards assured a skeptical reader that Holmes “is not and never was a racist”. This was a step too far, and I just had to remonstrate. I posted up the following comment….
Brian, when you asserted that Paul Holmes “is not and never was a racist”, I guess you were in the same extremely indulgent frame of mind as when you stated, on radio, that P.J. O’Rourke was “deep down, a very serious person” and when you lauded the “brilliance” of the unfunny New Zealand Herald cartoonist Rod Emmerson.
BE: I don’t believe I have ever said anything about P.J. O’Rourke since I have never read his books and know nothing about him. Perhaps you can let me know when and where I am supposed to have said this. As for Emmerson you seem to be confusing the fact that you personally find him unfunny with whether or not he his cartooning skill can be described as brilliant. Anyway, to test the worth of what you write, perhaps you could supply chapter and verse for my supposed comments on Mr O’Rourke. I’ll apologise if I’m wrong and I’ll expect you to do the same. And god only knows what any of this has to do with my post on Paul Holmes.
Like Millsy, I had a comment deleted as well, but Edwards’s admonition remains….
BE: Your comment, which I’ve deleted, was unworthy even of you. It was vile. I don’t want you on this website. And don’t worry about the O’Rourke quote. I know I couldn’t have said it.
This is the comment Edwards deleted….
Have a Happy New Year, you unrecognised oiks—and remember, if you see a deranged old man shouting insults at Māori family groups over the summer, don’t say “Fuck off to Queensland you racist scum”, say “Fuck off to Queensland, Sir Paul.”
A REQUEST TO ALL RADIO LISTENERS
If you heard Brian Edwards interview P.J. O’Rourke in the late 1990s, could you please write to Brian Edwards and remind him of it. He seems to have very poor recall.
Look carefully, my friend: the one having a cry is the good Dr. Edwards. First the blubbering is in the form of tears of joy, to express his admiration for a notorious racist, then it transmogrifies into tears of anger as he deals to us naysayers and spoilsports.
I can’t provide the day of Edwards’s interview of O’Rourke, but it certainly happened. I might sometimes not get a quote verbatim, and my memory is not always perfect, but I don’t make things up.
Or if I do, as when that I made that Sacha Baron Cohen interview on Letterman segue into a Nazi rally in the last line, I make it quite clear that it’s being done for effect.
Morrissey, if you claim something is a quote, when it is actually just your dodgy recollection and not the actual words, then you are going to get called on it, just as you did with your bigoted rants about Baron Cohen. Don’t use quote marks when it’s not a quotation and you’ll save yourself a lot of bother.
However, it appears BE did interview PJ O’Rourke …
My quote is correct. Edwards made a habit after each interview (or, more accurately, each uncritical audience) of making a comment on the departed guest.
He made a particularly cowardly, sneering dismissal of Bill Clinton’s brother Roger, after interviewing him for half an hour one day. Edwards sniggeringly expressed his contempt for Roger Clinton’s southern manners, particularly the way he kept calling Edwards “sir”. Despite having such a distinguished brother, Roger Clinton spoke with a southern accent, so Edwards did not deem him worthy of respect.
With the patrician O’Rourke, on the other hand, Edwards was the picture of servility. And he DID make the ridiculous comment that O’Rourke, who is more flippant and glib than even our own Mike Hosking, was “deep down, a very serious person.” Not that Edwards would remember of course.
Your quote may well be correct, but you haven’t proven it to be so, Moz. I imagine it’s possible that Edwards did say it, or something similar, because the tears of the clown is such a cliche. I can well imagine any interviewer of a comedian finishing up with a banal comment like that.
I guess the reason your claim got the reaction it did from BE is because it was so irrelevant to the discussion about Holmes. It looks like straw clutching desperation and it was an attack on his credibility on his own site. Banning in those circ’s seems perfectly reasonable and an obvious outcome of your approach.
As I mentioned earlier, if you are going to claim things as being fact, you should be prepared to back up your statements. It’s even better if you do the research before making the claim!
By the way, Bill Clinton, like his brother, speaks with a southern accent. I imagine that is due to them both being brought up in the south. D’oh!
Here’s a question. Why is it a *~*~*~*brigade*~*~*~* when it’s felix and TRP taking the same side on an issue, but not when it’s muzza and Mozza tag-teaming?
Oh, right, because muzza wants to pretend this is all some vast [insert today’s favourite adjective] conspiracy to Suppress The Truth And Expect People To Stand By Their Copypasta, or something.
M&M are a “Legion”. About the same size as a brigade, but with an inclination to read entrails rather than work within the limitations of the fog of war.
McFliper writes…. M&M are a “Legion”. About the same size as a brigade, but with an inclination to read entrails rather than work within the limitations of the fog of war.
Because sometimes entrails make funny sounds which would be in keeping with my not particularly serious comment. And you can use the hollow carcass as a finger puppet. Whereas you took three words and ran with them into territory neither relevant nor humourous, as is your habit.
I mean, come the fuck on – My Lai from an (admittedly not very good) semantic joke about “brigade” vs “legion”? Fuck sake.
edit: and I’m busy today, so it’s likely I won’t be further engaging in this particular encounter with the Legion of Doolally.
It seems mate that you are intent on negligently diminishing the meaning and power of certain significant English language words to the status of irrelevance. It also seems that you have made a habit of trolling blogs belittling the opinions, values and beliefs of the writers and commentators (below are a couple of example of your trolling for your fellow Standard readers to see, there are a shit load more for those who might care to look online):
“There’s a lot of funny ironies on blogs, and this is one – a commenter on The Standard has accused me of stalking him:
Te Reo Putake…
27 September 2012 at 3:52 pm
ps, prism, you’re not alone in trying to work out the meaning. Check out my stalker!
There’s actually multiple ironies there. ‘Te Reo Putake’, previously ‘The Voice of Reason’, is one of the most unreasonable voices I’ve seen at The Standard, a union/Labour hack who tries to shut out any voices he doesn’t like”
For the purpose of this exercise we’re going to focus on a comment you made in “open mike” on the 2/1/2013 (# 3.2.3.4) and your grossly irresponsible misuse of the word “RACIST”:
“Help me, Jebus! I love the way the writer can’t help launching into a racist tirade against Kiwis, before chiding TS posters for being too sensitive”
So to start. Who exactly is “Jebus!” and how exactly do you expect his or her help? Now lets take a close look at the words RACIST and race and the meanings that are attributed to both words by the Oxford Dictionary;
Definition of racism
The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races:
theories of racism
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior
Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics:
people of all races, colours, and creeds
[mass noun] the fact or condition of belonging to a racial division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this.
a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.
We sincerely hope that the above definitions will assist you in using the word RACIST in a more appropriate context. It is of course impossible for us to have launched into a “racist tirade against Kiwi’s” with our commentary on the behavioral patterns of New Zealander’s when confronted with injustice and or that county’s obvious fiscal dependence on Australia
Kiwi’s do not constitute a race, nor do New Zealander’s for that matter, both terms are a reference to nationality only.
When one misuses a word such as ‘Racist” in the way that you clearly have, the power of the word and its significant meaning are greatly diminished.
In future mate, when you feel like a spot of trolling why not pop over to Lauda Finem and attempt to take a crap in our yard, instead of shitting all over the Standards front lawn
IrishBill: what a pointless, self-obsessive, and banal mess of text. I’ve seen automated spam that did a better job of commenting than this. You’re banned for life for what I can only describe as one of the most tragic comments in the history of this blog.
I thought it would always be my secret shame, felix! But, gosh, if they’re quoting Pete George, the gig is clearly up. Not to mention the deadly blow of featuring some tool on Whaleoil wrongly identifying another commenter as me. The evidence is overwhelming, its a fair cop, guvnor, but society is to blame.
And, it’s really important that nobody should wonder whether the deliberate misspelling of my handle by the not at all homophobic Lauda Finem is in any way racist, because it’s just not, OK?
Oh – another whiner like PG.. I left this comment on his post.
The purpose of The Standard is stated in our about and what moderators do is outlined in the policy. You’re referring to this comment (are you incapable of linking accurately?)
You quoted Pete George of YourNZ as an authority – FFS even Cameron Slater tends to be more accurate than PG who has an uncanny ability to be as slippery as a personal lubricant . But basically PG got harassed by Te Reo Putake because the PG made and continued to make statements that he could not or would not defend. For some reason the gonzo got upset about being called to justify his silly assertions.
Like you, PG also got through a wee tantrum because he got a permanent ban. He got his for trying to tell us how to run our site.
You got your permanent ban because you triggered the well-honed anti-trolling instincts of IrishBill when you indulged in masturbating your juvenile ego in a single comment on the site. Basically you said nothing of much interest, indulged in some kind of silly and largely meaningless debating room semantics, displayed yourself as being a shallow pretentious fool, and added nothing to the debate you commented on.
In short, you remind me of Pete George and received an appropriate moderation – which if you follow in PG’s footsteps, you will proceed to whine pitifully about for the next year.
Mind you, it does make the rather tedious debate about “rent boy” that I’ve had to read look almost meaningful by comparison. I’m rather expecting the comment to never appear on Lauda Finem?
Your e-mail? Yep. You are in the hands of cloudflare, who once a moderator manually flags your comment as spam (as you had) will require you to pass a captcha. The result gets placed in auto-moderation.
When it is released by a moderator, you get your commenting freedom back again – at least for the next 30 days which is what I set it to. The system now looks at you as being provisionally human. Basically it does not pay to have a moderator get irritated enough to flag you as spam (and I’m thankful that they seldom do – banning is much less consequential).
Be warned that akismet also looks at manually flagged spam. Unlike cloudflare which only collects stats inside its own network, akismet covers the whole wordpress universe. It is (fortunately) just a little less judgemental.
You should be ok now that a message has made it through.
You might get one at 30 days. You may not. Eventually if you pass it (I’m HUMAN!) enough and you don’t get flagged again you won’t see it again.
I suspect you won’t see the 30 day one because of previously passed comments. However I have no control over the workings – and it is currently protecting me from ~20k spam comments per week.
Sir! Thank You Sir, That will be all Sir! I’ll be out here on the flank (I don’t really want another “resurrection”, but hay, I’m a rolling stone) ( I was reading a physics related article the other day about stones talking, yep, if these stones could talk, sounded like Wild Horses to me).(Which reminds me, I now have a real life stalker / Wind talker I believe, yet, they’re hiding in the bushes; a “real” resurrection it may turn out to be written)
lprent your ‘his post’ link goes to their ‘best wishes’ 2013 round up, no sign of your comment. The Standard gets a mention in their list of ‘courageous websites’ but:
“The standard.org (Caveat: Lauda Finem have serious reservations about the authenticity of this blog and its agenda; one of their moderators “IrishBill” [as we suspected he would] altered one of our comments earlier today, that story coming soon)”
omg I just can’t wait to see what happens next. Although, it’s hard to take this ‘team’ too seriously when, on the same page, their first item under ‘predictions for 2013’ is : The fall of the New Zealand National Party government in the November elections.
Wow I just realized something mind-blowing about this whole thing:
Ahahahahahaha their snide little comment about “serious reservations about the authenticity of [The Standard] and its agenda” is seriously the most priceless I-didn’t-want-to-play-with-your-ball-ANYWAY foot-stomping I’ve seen since I quit Livejournal.
I saw Edwards blog a couple of days ago. As well as sweeping the racism under the carpet, i couldn’t believe anyone of left wing views would applaud the shift in the MSM, that Holmes was a major part of. instead, Edwards praises it thusly:
Paul would become a seminal influence in New Zealand broadcasting. He would change the landscape. Though many fine broadcasters preceded him, he was our first real ‘star’. And, in that sense of the word that suggests Hollywood and glittering lights and show dancers and theme music and Emmys and Oscars and your name on the pavement of Hollywood Boulevard, he may well be the only real star that our small nation has as yet produced.
The Hollywoodisation of our news, current events and political reportage is not something to celebrate.
He had some cred back in the day, but that shift you mention toward presentation over substance and celebrity over merit has been Edwards’ bread and butter these past few decades.
Despite interviewing him, or more precisely, listening to him deliver an unbroken stream of right wing bromides for half an hour on Christmas Eve 1994, Edwards claims to knew “know nothing about him”. He will have completely forgotten it, of course, but I have not.
It is not my credibility that has been found wanting here, it is Brian Edwards’s. Not only can you not comprehend that, but you appear to have no idea what “spam” means either.
I did, however. That’s why I posted it up—because he said it, and I believed it was another indication (from as long ago as the mid-1990s) that his judgement can be suspect, to put it politely.
Frankly I’m finding Morrissey a helluva lot more palatable than you and a couple of others who increasingly sound like school prefects determined to bully into submission the mouthy junior schooler of their focus……Morrissey. Some dissmissive Beltway tones in there too methinks.
Holmes’ knighthood is a nonesense of course which putting aside vanities serves only to contribute to the bullshit that the vainglorious wahanui of the media, including Edwards for that matter, are not merely “across” the stories which comprise current events, but integrally part of those stories and broadly part of our “one nation” fibre.
Grudging acknowledgment that something might have been said but since you FV don’t personally know about it, ergo it’s bullshit, is so so John Key FV.
All of that said and knighthood or not I remain just a little concerned about “Cheeky darkie…..”. Racist ? I don’t know. Probably qualifies for the ballpark however.
“Grudging acknowledgment that something might have been said but since you FV don’t personally know about it, ergo it’s bullshit, is so so John Key FV.”
Why do you think Morrissey shouldn’t have to verify his quotes? Everyone else has to.
I verify my quotes, fool. I don’t make things up; the worst you can say is that my transcripts occasionally are not perfectly verbatim. That is of course the basis of dear old Lanthanide’s stated objections to my transcripts—they’re not one hundred per cent accurate. For instance, when transcribing the Hon. Hekia Parata absolutely accurately, more than half of the transcript would consist of “ummmm, ahhhhh, errrrrr”. That might be fine in Lanthanideland, but for the mass of Standard readers, it would be intolerable. (Almost as intolerable as the fact that Parata has not resigned yet.) But that is what happens when you write things down as fast as you can, but don’t use a tape recorder.
Edwards made the mistake of claiming that he had no knowledge of O’Rourke, and could remember nothing. I was correct, Edwards was wrong, as proven by our friend Te Reo Putake. Edwards apologized, but I don’t expect you to show any similar integrity or humility and do the same.
And yet when asked to do so, you refuse or are unable to. I can verify this statement by linking to examples of you doing this if you like. See the difference?
I haven’t passed comment on Edwards’ memory. It doesn’t interest me that you know there was an interview in 1994 and Edwards forgot about it.
What I’ve commented on is that you have a terrible habit of stating things as if they’re verifiable facts when you can’t verify them, and also that you seem to be too dense to grasp this simple criticism.
Edwards actually did make the comment that P.J. O’Rourke, who was and is one of the most callous and flippant commentators in the United States, was “deep down, a very serious person.” Or maybe he said, “basically, a very serious person.” The precise wording escapes me now, but the meaning was quite clear, and it was yet another example of Edwards’ dodgy (to put it kindly) powers of judgement. I did not make it up. Someone some time no doubt will produce a recording of the interview, and will verify what I have already said.
…you have a terrible habit of stating things as if they’re verifiable facts when you can’t verify them…
Nonsense. When have I ever done that? The worst thing you can say about me is that my transcripts (done as they are, usually, hastily on a piece of paper while I’m doing other things as well) are not absolutely verbatim.
I don’t make things up, but in your increasingly fraught state of mind, you probably are incapable of acknowledging that fact right now.
Well, no, no you don’t. In the Edwards case, it was me who did your work for you (and thank you for acknowleging that). We still have no evidence that Edwards said what you claim, but he has confirmed that he interviewed O’Rourke. The only way you can verify your quote would be to access the interview, which can be done via the RNZ site. But I’m betting you won’t do that!
You’ve outlined your transcript process and it’s hopeless, Moz. Your transcripts were useless because you made a lot of them up, relying on memory and impression. Clearly, you still do not understand that for a report to be a transcript, it has to be accurate. It is OK to edit out ums and arghs, but not to atrribute things that were not actually said, but were just your recollection.
The “mass of Standard readers” you claim to speak for are intelligent, learned folk who know the difference between opinion and fact. You don’t do them any favours by being so wrong, so often.
Well, no, no you don’t. In the Edwards case, it was me who did your work for you (and thank you for acknowleging that). We still have no evidence that Edwards said what you claim, but he has confirmed that he interviewed O’Rourke. The only way you can verify your quote would be to access the interview, which can be done via the RNZ site. But I’m betting you won’t do that!
Somebody will, no doubt. I did not make it up, and you know I didn’t.
You’ve outlined your transcript process and it’s hopeless, Moz. Your transcripts were useless because you made a lot of them up, relying on memory and impression.
Rubbish. Often, following my posting up of a transcript of a radio show, others have posted to congratulate me on capturing the zeitgeist of shows like Jim Mora’s increasingly dire “The Panel”. That’s because I capture the crucial words that are spoken. And a lot of my stuff is actually verbatim, and can be checked against the original—for example, the transcript of that obscene Letterman/Baron Cohen defamation of a Christian peace activist in occupied Hebron. (Except for the seguing into a Nazi rally in the last sentence, but intelligent readers appreciated the political point being made.)
Clearly, you still do not understand that for a report to be a transcript, it has to be accurate. It is OK to edit out ums and arghs, but not to atrribute things that were not actually said, but were just your recollection.
And in many cases, as in transcribing Leighton “Ummmm, ahhhh, errrr” Smith, Larry “Lackwit” Williams or the Honorable Hekia “Ummm, errrr, ahhh” Parata, it’s not “OK to edit out ums and arghs”; they are crucial indicators of those great minds in their full pomp and majesty.
The “mass of Standard readers” you claim to speak for are intelligent, learned folk who know the difference between opinion and fact. You don’t do them any favours by being so wrong, so often.
I’m not wrong, and you know it. All you have done is nit-pick about my methodology and tried to show that I’m a falsifier. That’s arrant nonsense, of course, and regular readers of the Standard know it. And so, of course, do you.
The zeitgeist is not a transcript. You do not post transcripts, you post impressions. You have not provided any evidence that backs up your claim about Edwards, so nobody knows whether it is accurate or not, but the verifiable fact that you don’t even know yourself whether you’ve quoted him accurately kinda suggests you haven’t got it right.
Sorry, Moz, but if you are going to continue to make shit up, you will be called on it. That’s life, cobber.
The zeitgeist is not a transcript. You do not post transcripts, you post impressions.
No, I post transcripts, which are, as many people have attested, pretty accurate. You are correct in that sometimes they are not verbatim, and therefore they are indeed impressions; that is my aim, as you no doubt are aware: to evoke and thereby criticize the glibness, the muddleheadedness, the cynicism of what we are bombarded with daily in the media.
You have not provided any evidence that backs up your claim about Edwards, so nobody knows whether it is accurate or not, but the verifiable fact that you don’t even know yourself whether you’ve quoted him accurately kinda suggests you haven’t got it right.
I’ve got it right. As I have acknowledged, the precise wording needs to be confirmed, but the comment, in all of its vacuity, was made by the good doctor.
Sorry, Moz, but if you are going to continue to make shit up, you will be called on it. That’s life, cobber.
If I “make shit up”, then it’s for the purposes of satire or comedy. I did not make this up.
By the way, here, for your delectation, is an example of when I DID “make shit up”, building on the true story of Bernadine Oliver-Kerby taking a pair of scissors to the crotches of every pair of trousers in Justin Marshall’s wardrobe. It comes from the glory days of Google Groups, when everyone seemed to be on Usenet.
When have you ever made shit up? I can think of plenty of times. For instance, just the other day in the bus stop you said you had gills and could breathe underwater.
I expect this will be completely lost on you Morrissey, but go ahead and ask me to prove it and I’ll do exactly what you do.
“Do you think that the farcical Knighthood of Hyde, is equal to the farcical Knighthood of Holmes. or maybe the farcical QC’s that the Nats are pulling because in my eyes they are all equally hideous. And so far out of date.
At one fell swoop the knighting of someone who is famous for getting a job on the telly and the radio and voicing his opinions has:
A) Shown what a farce and irrelevance the honours system is
B) Shown what an out of touch chardonnay socialist BE has become.
From now on, those who accept this dubious honour will now be twice smitten by my contempt; once for being a sycophantic royalist and once for wanting to be in the same club as PH is a member of.
Next year, look for something possibly even less palatable than the knighting of Paul Holmes.
Yes, you guessed it: next year Sir Jerry Mateparae, if he has not been indicted for war crimes, will be waving a sword over the bald head of a nationally loathed sports opinion merchant and mouthing the horrific words: “Arise, Sir Murray.”
Im with you Morrisey, Holmes is a racist! The only people who may not understand this probably fit into his demographic.
I don’t think most of his defenders would actually be so vile as to launch into an extended tirade about “darkies” or rage against Māori—even in private, let alone on radio or television or in print, as Holmes did as recently as eleven months ago.
What they are doing is pretending that the racist drivel is outweighed by the very public shows of charity he has performed. It’s pretty much the same rationale as employed by the defenders of Sir Jimmy Savile.
I dont know why I comment on BE’s blog at all really, the guy keeps deleting me.
Though given that he thinks it is perfectly OK for a teacher to tell a 14 year old girl that she looks like a slut, I should have known that he would think the sun shines out of PH’s ass.
(Yes, I am back. The things that I thought were going to happen didnt happen the way I expected to happen, and I am not too sure what directions things will take, and it turns out that I have a bit of time to post on “The Standard” — though for how long remains to be seen)
As a grumpy old man myself, I have no problem recognising that Holmes acts and speaks like a racist. Unless this is all an act to increase his audience share (highly doubtful), I am forced to conclude that he is a deeply disturbed old racist who longs for the time when “darkies” knew their place and never got knighted. People I know who have physically made his acquaintance tell me he is even worse than his television and radio personas.
This may or may not have anything to do with your message above Morrissey bit I was intrigued enough to try to find said interview, without any luck so far, However I did find this little gem to read
Indeed National would welcome David Shearer into the Labour Caucus. It will largely nullify the privatisation issue for National. If Shearer is confirmed as the candidate (which is highly likely as Head Office control 3/7 votes) I will not be surprised if some National Party members vote for him tactically – knowing the huge boost it will be to have in the Labour Caucus one of the world’s leading proponents (his articles have been cited in scores of other research in this area) of legitimising private sector involvement in military operations.
When I first saw Paul Holmes on the box, I was reminded of a rather over weight Australian interviewer (I think on Channel Seven) who was suppose to interview politicians and their ilk
but never dared asked a hard question. Like many of his generation history will ignore them
since they had the misfortune of coming of age in a very easy boring uninteresting time.
What does Labour need to do differently in 2013 to win a Labour Victory on Labour Policies?
It may be a Government supported by the Greens, but it must be a Labour Government that can implement key Labour Policies.
We must have the mandate and power to achieve strong export based, innovation led high wage economic prosperity.
We have to re-engage with the 800,000 who don’t believe political parties are even relevant.
Our new Constitution has given us an opportunity to invigorate our members and supporters. The forthcoming leadership debate roadshow can be a lightening rod to release the mojo of the Real Labour Party.
We need a leadership style that can harness this opportunity for the organisation with passion.
We need a leadership style that can capture the imagination of the population.
We need a leadership style that will convince the majority of Kiwi’s that a fundamental shift away from the conventional wisdom of the past three decades will work.
A leader who can think and respond intelligently/factually on the spot with conviction and vision is the formula which will win an election. Cunliffe ticks all these boxes.
Over the holiday season have had a few interesting chats with mates that cover a wide plethora of our society. One topic was the lack of movement over the years on pay. One mate from air nz over the last 8 years was awarded CPI adjustments at good years, and nothing in other years. Another 2 both worth $10m’s even commented on that the employment contracts and the demise of the unions in retrospect has been a bad thing for nz.
The other point was on our poor senior level managers that with their huge salaries should be better than to improve a coys performance they should be looking at the reduction of wages as a last resort not the only option. http://thestandard.org.nz/time-to-take-back-whats-ours/
Also when talking about the lack of movement of wages there was also a disconcerting comment passed by more than a few in that we were lucky to have a job. This fear of being unemployed is so great to warrant the acceptance of this continuation of nil to low increases, and in a few cases of deterioration of pay rates being asked to do more for the same pay ( which IMO is a pay cut)
Yes the well rounded wealthy folk know that gutting the working classes standard of living risks collapsing the system that benefits everyone. You can’t make money when no one skilled works in your business, pays your rents etc.
However the country isn’t run by the well rounded, it’s run by the greedy and vindictive ruling 1%’ers determined to plunder everything they can get their hands on with little care for future generations.
Oz is benefitting from this approach taking on skilled and hard working kiwis, it’s Muldoon all over again with a better sales pitch and a compliant MSM.
imo, Jack White is the new Clapton; post-modern god with a small “g”
-when i first heard the news of this dreadful quad and alcohol tragedy i could not believe my ears until hearing the story a few times more from other sources (if we worried about other people thought we’d never do things differently).
Closer Still, some body handy has me pegged, deedle leedle leedle lee, sunlight wish-washing liquid (with a drop of natural Lemon Song), Unknown Pleasures to come, free puncture repairs for life;
Strange Brew 8:10-This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord,
9-(it will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers)
I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.
11-No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying “Know the Lord, because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest.
Soooo, movin’ along,
cursum perficio.
verbum sapienti:
quo plus habent,
Post nubilia, Phoebus
Iternum- Na Leatha Geal M’oige, evening falls
Shudder. Just Imagine that Airhead in charge of the US Military. Wouldn’t she ‘just lurve’ all that power. Kinda makes you glad that she was repulsive to the voters too, with the notable exception of the Airhead T Party.
NZ Police Force a law unto themselves? In Pundit David Beatson talks about Drones:-
“New Zealand Police aren’t waiting for major aviation safety and personal privacy issues about domestic spy drones to be solved. TV3 reports they’ve already purchased their first unmanned aerial vehicle. So, watch this space …”
Why would the police wait, heck the power companies have not bothered to see if the installation of smart meters, complete with communications aerial for sending detailed useage information every 30 minutes. on private property is breaking surveillance/wiretapping laws!
Over the last 24 hours on Twitter, Dotcom has been highlighting reports of the US agencies planting evidence in order to get a warrant to search his property. He refers to reports here,
Details released from US courts in November showed the FBI relied on the existence of 36 illegally copied movies as evidence of willful law-breaking. The FBI told the US courts Megaupload had been told of the illegal files in 2010 and the continued existence was evidence to flagrant criminality.
However, Dotcom’s lawyers said the files were kept at the request of the US government which asked it do nothing to impact on its criminal investigation. They claimed FBI testimony to secure arrest warrants managed to “exclude critical facts” which would have shown the company’s efforts to assist. Instead, they gave a “selective distorted account” and “deliberately misled the court”.
The filing says Megaupload was painted by the FBI as a “brazen scofflaw” and the files were the only linking thread which tied together those described by the FBI as the “Mega Conspiracy”.
Very interesting and very unhealthy.
It suggests that there may be a demarcation issue between Homeland Security and the FBI as both target copyright infringement, presumably for the lucrative asset seizures.
Here’s no transparency because the definition of copyright infringement as a threat to US national security means that these agencies can operate in secret.
It really makes me wonder whether there were any other agencies involved, eg the US NSA which is closeted in with the GCSB in Wellington.
sadly, hearing whispers from both ends of the SE spectrum, one a “councilor” and the other a retired, former longstanding businessman and entrepreneur, that our bay is becoming “buggered” economically, yet, i think it is a great place to live, invest and raise a family; That’s the Gods-Honest Truth, what more could one ask for, sheltered meditative climate and a view to the future? I imagine a “Golden Bay” of the NE.
sweetas, it’s only a personal odyssey (and i apologise for any offence implied to anybody, i have to live alongside the moon phases and i get a bit carried away by the Dark side sometimes, yet really i grow in the light, and i do have an ethic of care when and where i can)
The famous and esteemed broadcaster and commentator Brian Edwards is man enough to apologize when caught out. An object lesson to some people around here, methinks….
An object lesson to you, I would have thought, Moz, given you’ve got plenty to apologise for. But, yes, nice touch from Edwards. Lord knows I’d show a lot less grace if I was dealing with idiots quoting quips I made twenty years ago.
Felix, you’re unwisely displaying bitterness in public. That only makes you look bad.
Perhaps you should read over what you’ve written two or three times, and then say to yourself: Do I really want everyone to see THIS? Does it make me look witty, or does it make me look FOOLISH?
Stay cool, my friend, stay cool. It will make your contributions far more readable, and make you seem more intelligent.
You’re so superior when questioned Morrissey and manage to be particularly annoying with your’ my friend’ terms. Can you ever take note of what is said without a large reply – your disagreements swamp the thread?
Take my advice, my man, and think before you send your thoughts out into the stratosphere.
Losing one’s head so abjectly is never an edifying spectacle.
What you need is the Good Writer’s Five-Step Procedure….
1.) Type.
2.) Read.
3.) Re-read.
4.) Think for a minute: is this any good or is it simply bitter spleen-venting which will make me look like a pillock?
5.) Then, if your masterpiece is up to standard, press “Submit Comment”.
Follow the Five Steps, my friend. It will save you a lot of mortification.
Morrissey
Big quaffs of superiority juice as I said before. Try cool water with some lime juice, hydrating cools the body and mind and gives you something to do that’s useful for you and for us.
Lolz Morrissey, I don’t think I’ll be taking advice on how to appear smarter from someone who doesn’t know what a transcript is, doesn’t know what a quote is, and doesn’t know what verified means.
Don’t really think I need advice on staying cool from someone with your propensity for ALLCAPS either, thanks all the same.
The things passing through his mind should not be printed so clearly on his face. “I love you, and want to have your babies”. Yay more insanity from the land of the Paranoid and Insane.
well the preacher rides a mount, But nothing really matters, it’s doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn…
HBT
“We’re just the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”-David Montgomery, Whanganui paediatrician
says ‘poverty and lack of support are two factors that must be dealt with if NZ is to successfully arrest the problem of Child Abuse’.
Pope Benedict XVI has condemned “unregulated capitalism” for contributing to world tension and hotbeds of conflict caused by growing inequality between rich and poor.
Alcohol related illness and injury contribute to a record number of ED attendances during holiday period-Family Violence-traffic accidents-assaults (three fingers of jack on ice)
Boehner reported as saying to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “go f$#K yourself” while Billions of $ Aid for Sandy Shelved by Congress (charming)
Prof Jane Kelsey examines what the ACT party and the NZ Initiative are up to as they seek to impose on the country their hardline, right wing, neoliberal ideology. A progressive government elected in 2026 would have a huge job putting Humpty Dumpty together again and rebuilding a state that ...
See I try to make a differenceBut the heads of the high keep turning awayThere ain't no useWhen the world that you love has goneOoh, gotta make a changeSongwriters: Arapekanga Adams-Tamatea / Brad Kora / Hiriini Kora / Joel Shadbolt.Aotearoa for Sale.This week saw the much-heralded and somewhat alarming sight ...
Here’s my selection1 of scoops, breaking news, news, analyses, deep-dives, features, interviews, Op-Eds, editorials and cartoons from around Aotearoa’s political economy on housing, climate and poverty from RNZ, 1News, The Post-$2, The Press−$, Newsroom3, NZ Herald, Stuff, BusinessDesk-$, NBR-$, Reuters, FT-$, WSJ-$, Bloomberg-$, New York Times-$, The Atlantic-$, The Economist-$ ...
By international standards the New Zealand healthcare system appears satisfactory – certainly no worse generally than average. Yet it is undergoing another redisorganisation.While doing some unrelated work, I came across some international data on the healthcare sector which seemed to contradict my – and the conventional wisdom’s – view of ...
When Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, he knew that he was upending Europe’s security order. But this was more of a tactical gambit than a calculated strategy ...
Mountain Tui is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Over the last year, I’ve been warning about Luxon’s pitch to privatise our public assets.He had told reporters in October that nothing was off the cards:Schools, hospitals, prisons, and ...
When ASPI’s Cyclone Tracy: 50 Years On was published last year, it wasn’t just a historical reflection; it was a warning. Just months later, we are already watching history repeat itself. We need to bake ...
1. Why was school lunch provider The Libelle Group in the news this week?a. Grand Winner in Pie of The Yearb. Scored a record 108% on YELP c. Bought by Oravida d. Went into liquidation2. What did our Prime Minister offer prospective investors at his infrastructure investment jamboree?a. The Libelle ...
South Korea has suspended new downloads of DeepSeek, and it was were right to do so. Chinese tech firms operate under the shadow of state influence, misusing data for surveillance and geopolitical advantage. Any country ...
Previous big infrastructure PPPs such as Transmission Gully were fiendishly complicated to negotiate, generated massive litigation and were eventually rewritten anyway. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesLong stories shortest: The Government’s international investment conference ignores the facts that PPPs cost twice as much as vanilla debt-funded public infrastructure, often take ...
Woolworths has proposed a major restructure of its New Zealand store operating model, leaving workers worried their hours and pay could be cut. Public servants are being asked how productive their office is, how much they use AI, and whether they’re overloaded with meetings as part of a “census”. An ...
Robert Kaplan’s book Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis paints a portrait of civilisation in flux. Drawing insights from history, literature and art, he examines the effect of modern technology, globalisation and urbanisation on ...
Sexuality - Strong and warm and wild and freeSexuality - Your laws do not apply to meSexuality - Don't threaten me with miserySexuality - I demand equalitySong: Billy Bragg.First, thank you to everyone who took part in yesterday’s survey. Some questions worked better than others, but I found them interesting, ...
Hi,I just got back from a week in Japan thanks to the power of cheap flights and years of accumulated credit card points.The last time I was in Japan the government held a press conference saying they might take legal action against me and Netflix, so there was a little ...
The podcast above of the weekly ‘Hoon’ webinar for paying subscribers on Thursday night features co-hosts & talking about the week’s news with regular and special guests, including: on the week in geopolitics, including Donald Trump’s wrecking of the post-WW II political landscape; andHealth Coalition Aotearoa co-chair Lisa ...
Hi,I just got back from a short trip to Japan, mostly spending time in Tokyo.I haven’t been there since we shot Dark Tourist back in 2017 — and that landed us in a bit of hot water with the Japanese government.I am glad to report I was not thrown into ...
I’ve been on Substack for almost 8 months now.It’s been good in terms of the many great individuals that populate its space. So much variety and intelligence and humour and depth.I joined because someone suggested I should ‘start a Substack,’ whatever that meant.So I did.Turning on payments seemed like the ...
Open access notables Would Adding the Anthropocene to the Geologic Time Scale Matter?, McCarthy et al., AGU Advances:The extraordinary fossil fuel-driven outburst of consumption and production since the mid-twentieth century has fundamentally altered the way the Earth System works. Although humans have impacted their environment for millennia, justification for ...
Australia should buy equipment to cheaply and temporarily convert military transport aircraft into waterbombers. On current planning, the Australian Defence Force will have a total of 34 Chinook helicopters and Hercules airlifters. They should be ...
Indonesia’s government has slashed its counterterrorism (CT) budgets, despite the persistent and evolving threat of violent extremism. Australia can support regional CT efforts by filling this funding void. Reducing funding to the National Counterterrorism Agency ...
A ballot for a single Member's Bill was held today, and the following bill was drawn: Resource Management (Prohibition on Extraction of Freshwater for On-selling) Amendment Bill (Debbie Ngarewa-Packer) The bill does exactly what it says on the label, and would effectively end the rapacious water-bottling industry ...
Twilight Time Lighthouse Cuba, Wigan Street, Wellington, Sunday 6 April, 5:30pm for 6pm start. Twilight Time looks at the life and work of Desmond Ball, (1947-2016), a barefooted academic from ‘down under’ who was hailed by Jimmy Carter as “the man who saved the world”, as he proved the fallacy ...
Foreign aid is being slashed across the Global North, nowhere more so than in the United States. Within his first month back in the White House, President Donald Trump dismantled the US Agency for International ...
Nicola Willis has proposed new procurement rules that unions say will lead to pay cuts for already low-paid workers in cleaning, catering and security services that are contracted by government. The Crimes (Theft by Employer) Amendment Bill passed its third reading with support from all the opposition parties and NZ ...
Most KP readers will not know that I was a jazz DJ in Chicago and Washington DC while in grad school in the early and mid 1980s. In DC I joined WPFW as a grave shift host, then a morning drive show host (a show called Sui Generis, both for ...
Long stories shortest: The IMF says a capital gains tax or land tax would improve real economic growth and fix the budget. GDP is set to be smaller by 2026 than it was in 2023. Compass is flying in school lunches from Australia. 53% of National voters say the new ...
Last year in October I wrote “Where’s The Opposition?”. I was exasperated at the relative quiet of the Green Party, Labour and Te Pati Māori (TPM), as the National led Coalition ticked off a full bingo card of the Atlas Network playbook.1To be fair, TPM helped to energise one of ...
This is a re-post from The Climate BrinkGood data visualizations can help make climate change more visceral and understandable. Back in 2016 Ed Hawkins published a “climate spiral” graph that ended up being pretty iconic – it was shown at the opening ceremony of the Olympics that year – and ...
An agreement to end the war in Ukraine could transform Russia’s relations with North Korea. Moscow is unlikely to reduce its cooperation with Pyongyang to pre-2022 levels, but it may become more selective about areas ...
This week, the Government is hosting a grand event aimed at trying to interest big foreign capital players in financing capital works in New Zealand, particularly its big rural motorway programme. Financing vs funding: a quick explainer The key word in the sentence above is financing. It is important ...
In a month’s time, the Right Honourable Winston Peters will be celebrating his 80th birthday. Good for him. On the evidence though, his current war on “wokeness” looks like an old man’s cranky complaint that the ancient virtues of grit and know-how are sadly lacking in the youth of today. ...
As noted, early March has been about moving house, and I have had little chance to partake in all things internet. But now that everything is more or less sorted, I can finally give a belated report on my visit to the annual Regent Booksale (28th February and 1st March). ...
Information operations Australia has banned cybersecurity software Kaspersky from government use because of risks of espionage, foreign interference and sabotage. The Department of Home Affairs said use of Kaspersky products posed an unacceptable security ...
The StrategistBy Linus Cohen, Astrid Young and Alice Wai
One of the best understood tropes of screen drama is the scene where the beloved family dog is barking incessantly and cannot be calmed. Finally, somebody asks: What is it, girl? Has someone fallen down a well? Is there trouble at the old John Key place?One is reminded of this ...
The ’ndrangheta, the Calabrian mafia, plays a significant role in the global cocaine trade and is deeply entrenched in Australia, influencing the cocaine trade and engaging in a variety of illicit activities. A range of ...
In the US, the Trump regime is busy imposing tariffs on its neighbours and allies, then revoking them, then reimposing them, permanently poisoning relations with Canada and Mexico. Trump has also threatened to impose tariffs on agricultural goods, which will affect Aotearoa's exports. National's response? To grovel for an exemption, ...
Troy Bowker’s Caniwi Capital’s Desmond Gittings, former TradeMe and Warehouse executive Simon West, former anonymous right wing blogger / Labour attacker & now NZ On Air Board member / Waitangi Tribunal member Philip Crump, Canadian billionaire Jim Grenon who used to run vaccine critical, Treaty of Waitangi critical, and trans-rights ...
The free school lunch program was one of Labour's few actual achievements in government. Decent food, made locally, providing local employment. So naturally, National had to get rid of it. Their replacement - run by Compass, a multinational which had already been thrown out of our hospitals for producing inedible ...
New draft government procurement guidelines will remove living wage protections for thousands of low-paid workers in Aotearoa New Zealand, said NZCTU Te Kauae Kaimahi President Richard Wagstaff. “The Minister of Finance Nicola Willis has proposed a new rule saying that the Living Wage no longer needs to be paid in ...
The Trump administration’s effort to divide Russia from China is doomed to fail. This means that the United States is destroying security relationships based on a delusion. To succeed, Russia would need to overcome more ...
Māori workers now hold more high-skilled jobs than low-skilled jobs with 46 percent in high-skilled jobs, 14 percent in skilled jobs, and 40 percent in low-skilled jobs. Resource teachers of literacy and Te Reo Māori are “devastated” by a proposal from the Education Minister to stop funding 174 roles from ...
Knowing what is going on in orbit is getting harder—yet hardly less necessary. But new technologies are emerging to cope with the challenge, including some that have come from Australian civilian research. One example is ...
This is a guest post by Malcolm McCracken. It previously appeared on his blog Better Things Are Possible and is shared by kind permission. New Zealand’s largest infrastructure project, the City Rail Link (CRL), is expected to open in 2026. This will be an exciting step forward for Auckland, delivering better ...
“The reality is I'm just saying to you I'm proud of the work we're doing. We're doing a great job”, said Luxon, pushing back at Auckland Council’s reports of rising homelessness and pleas for help. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāLong stories shortest:Christopher Luxon denies his Government caused a ...
Should I stay, or should I go now?Should I stay, or should I go now?If I go, there will be troubleAnd if I stay, it will be doubleSo come on and let me knowSongwriters: Topper Headon, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Joe Strummer.Christopher,Tomorrow marks seventeen months since the last election. We’re ...
Homelessness in Auckland has risen by 53% in 4 months - that’s 653 peopleliving in cars, on streets and in parks.The city’s emergency housing numbers have fallen by about 650 under National too - now at record lows.Housing First Auckland is on the frontlines: There is “more and more ...
A growing consensus holds that the future of airpower, and of defense technology in general, involves the interplay of crewed and uncrewed vehicles. Such teaming means that more-numerous, less-costly, even expendable uncrewed vehicles can bring ...
Only two more sleeps to the Government’s Jamboree Investor Extravaganza! As a proud New Zealander I’m very much hoping for the best: Off-shore wind farms! Solar power! Sustainable industry powered by the abundant energy we could be producing!I wonder, will they have a deal already lined up, something to announce ...
After decades of gradual decline, Australia’s manufacturing capability is no longer mission-fit to meet national security needs. Any whole-of-nation effort to arrest this trend needs to start by making the industrial operating environment more conducive ...
Back in October 2022, Restore Passenger Rail hung banners across roads in Wellington to protest against the then-Labour government's weak climate change policy. The police responded by charging them not with the usual public order offences, but with "endangering transport", a crime with a maximum sentence of 14 years in ...
Luxon’s popularity continues to fall, and a new survey shows voters rank fixing the health system as the top priority. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / Getty ImagesLong stories shortest in Aotearoa’s political economy this morning: National’s pollster finds Christopher Luxon has fallen behind Chris Hipkins as preferred PM for the first ...
The CTU is calling for an apology from Nicola Willis after her office made a false characterisation of CTU statements, which ultimately saw him blocked from future Treasury briefings. New data shows that Māori make up 83% of those charged under new gang laws. Financial incentives are being offered to ...
Australia’s cyber capabilities have evolved rapidly, but they are still largely reactive, not preventative. Rather than responding to cyber incidents, Australian law enforcement agencies should focus on dismantling underlying criminal networks. On 11 December, Europol ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters Finally, there’s some good news to report from NOAA, the parent organization of the National Hurricane Center, or NHC: During the highly active 2o24 Atlantic hurricane season, the NHC made record-accurate track forecasts at every time interval (12-, ...
The Australian government has prioritised enhancing Australia’s national resilience for many years now, whether against natural disasters, economic coercion or hostile armed forces. However, the public and media response to the presence of Chinese naval ...
It appears that Auckland Transport is finally set to improve Auckland’s busiest non-frequent bus route, the 120. As highlighted in my post a month ago on Auckland’s busiest bus routes, the 120 is the busiest route that doesn’t already run frequently all day/week and carries more passengers than many other ...
Economists have earned their reputation for jargon and tunnel vision, but sometimes, it takes an someone as perceptive as Simplicity economist Shamubeel Eaqub to identify something simple and devastating. As he pointed out recently, the coalition government is trying to attract foreign investment here to generate economic growth, while – ...
Opinion & AnalysisSimeon Brown, left, and Deloitte partner David LovattIn September 2024, Deloitte Partner David Lovatt, was contracted by the National Government to help National ostensibly understand “the drivers behind HNZ’s worsening financial performance”.1 i.e. deficit.The report shows the last version was dated December 2024.It was formally released this week ...
This cobbled-together government was altogether more the beneficiary of Labour getting turfed out than anything it managed to do itself. Even the worthless cheques they were writing didn't buy all that much favour.How’s it all looking now?Shall we take a look at a Horizon poll?The Government’s performance is making only ...
There's horrible news from the US today, with the Trump regime disappearing Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University student, for protesting against genocide in Gaza. Its another significant decline in US human rights, and puts them in the same class as the authoritarian dictatorships they used to sponsor in South ...
Yesterday National announced plans to amend the Public Works Act to "speed up" land acquisition for public works. Which sounds boring and bureaucratic - except its not. Because what "land acquisition" means is people's homes being compulsorily acquired by the state - which is inherently controversial, and fairly high up ...
Contenders: The next question after “Will Luxon really go?” is, of course, “Will that work?” The answer to that question lies not so much in the efficacy of Luxon’s successor as it does in the perceived strength of the Centre-Left alternative.AT LEAST TWO prominent political commentators are alluding publicly to the ...
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In my post last Thursday I offered some thoughts on changes that should be initiated by the government in the wake of the Governor’s surprise resignation. (Days on we still have no real explanation as to why he just resigned with no notice, disappearing out the door and (eg) leaving ...
In late February a Chinese navy flotilla including a cruiser, a frigate and a replenishment ship began to circle Australia, conducting a live fire exercise in the Tasman Sea along the way. The Strategist featured ...
China’s deployment of a potent surface action group around Australia over the past two weeks is unprecedented but not unique. Over the past few years, China’s navy has deployed a range of vessels in Australia’s ...
Long stories shortest in Aotearoa’s political economy this morning: Within months and before Parliamentary approval is obtained, the Government plans to strip non-Maori landowners of the right to use the Environment Court to stop compulsory acquisition for fast-track projects and big new motorways.The Government also wants to buy off landowners ...
Hi,When I was 16 (pimples, braces, painfully awkward) — I applied for a job at Video Ezy.It’s difficult to describe how much I wanted this job. Video Ezy was my local video shop in Tauranga, and I’d spend hours of my teenage life stalking through those aisles, looking at the ...
Labour does not support the private ownership of core infrastructure like schools, hospitals and prisons, which will only see worse outcomes for Kiwis. ...
The Green Party is disappointed the Government voted down Hūhana Lyndon’s member’s Bill, which would have prevented further alienation of Māori land through the Public Works Act. ...
The Labour Party will support Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill which would allow sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories. ...
The Government’s new procurement rules are a blatant attack on workers and the environment, showing once again that National’s priorities are completely out of touch with everyday Kiwis. ...
With Labour and Te Pāti Māori’s official support, Opposition parties are officially aligned to progress Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick’s Member’s Bill to sanction Israel for its unlawful presence in Palestine. ...
Te Pāti Māori extends our deepest aroha to the 500 plus Whānau Ora workers who have been advised today that the govt will be dismantling their contracts. For twenty years , Whānau Ora has been helping families, delivering life-changing support through a kaupapa Māori approach. It has built trust where ...
Labour welcomes Simeon Brown’s move to reinstate a board at Health New Zealand, bringing the destructive and secretive tenure of commissioner Lester Levy to an end. ...
This morning’s announcement by the Health Minister regarding a major overhaul of the public health sector levels yet another blow to the country’s essential services. ...
New Zealand First has introduced a Member’s Bill that will ensure employment decisions in the public service are based on merit and not on forced woke ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ targets. “This Bill would put an end to the woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets in the public sector. ...
Police have referred 20 offenders to Destiny Church-affiliated programmes Man Up and Legacy as ‘wellness providers’ in the last year, raising concerns that those seeking help are being recruited into a harmful organisation. ...
Te Pāti Māori welcomes the resignation of Richard Prebble from the Waitangi Tribunal. His appointment in October 2024 was a disgrace- another example of this government undermining Te Tiriti o Waitangi by appointing a former ACT leader who has spent his career attacking Māori rights. “Regardless of the reason for ...
Police Minister Mark Mitchell is avoiding accountability by refusing to answer key questions in the House as his Government faces criticism over their dangerous citizen’s arrest policy, firearm reform, and broken promises to recruit more police. ...
The number of building consents issued under this Government continues to spiral, taking a toll on the infrastructure sector, tradies, and future generations of Kiwi homeowners. ...
The Green Party is calling on the Prime Minister to rule out joining the AUKUS military pact in any capacity following the scenes in the White House over the weekend. ...
The Green Party is appalled by the Government’s plan to disestablish Resource Teachers of Māori (RTM) roles, a move that takes another swing at kaupapa Māori education. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
The Government’s levies announcement is a step in the right direction, but they must be upfront about who will pay its new infrastructure levies and ensure that first-home buyers are protected from hidden costs. ...
After months of mana whenua protecting their wāhi tapu, the Green Party welcomes the pause of works at Lake Rotokākahi and calls for the Rotorua Lakes Council to work constructively with Tūhourangi and Ngāti Tumatawera on the pathway forward. ...
New Zealand First continues to bring balance, experience, and commonsense to Government. This week we've made progress on many of our promises to New Zealand.Winston representing New ZealandWinston Peters is overseas this week, with stops across the Middle East and North Asia. Winston's stops include Saudi Arabia, the ...
Green Party Co-Leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics. ...
At this year's State of the Planet address, Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick announced the party’s plans to deliver a Green Budget this year to offer an alternative vision to the Government’s trickle-down economics and austerity politics. ...
The Government has spent $3.6 million dollars on a retail crime advisory group, including paying its chair $920 a day, to come up with ideas already dismissed as dangerous by police. ...
The Green Party supports the peaceful occupation at Lake Rotokākahi and are calling for the controversial sewerage project on the lake to be stopped until the Environment Court has made a decision. ...
ActionStation’s Oral Healthcare report, released today, paints a dire picture of unmet need and inequality across the country, highlighting the urgency of free dental care for all New Zealanders. ...
As the world marks three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced additional sanctions on Russian entities and support for Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction. “Russia’s illegal invasion has brought three years of devastation to Ukraine’s people, environment, and infrastructure,” Mr Peters says. “These additional sanctions target 52 ...
By Emma Andrews, RNZ Henare te Ua Māori journalism intern Māori contributions to the Aotearoa New Zealand economy have far surpassed the projected goal of “$100 billion by 2030”, a new report has revealed. The report conducted by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s (MBIE) and Te Puni Kōkiri, ...
A global renewable energy developer backing one of New Zealand’s last standing offshore wind farm proposals says it would be “difficult” to cohabit with seabed mining.Danish developer Michael Hannibal, a partner in Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, is visiting New Zealand for the Government’s infrastructure investment summit. His firm and the NZ ...
A wide-ranging conversation with the opposition spokesperson on foreign affairs. Even before the second Trump term began, the world was a volatile place. But since January 20, across eight whiplash weeks, the pace of change has been astonishing. Donald Trump’s America First geopolitics, melding expansionist and isolationist instincts, has created ...
Surviving terror can be isolating, trauma expert Jo Dover says.Dover – a Brit who is in New Zealand to hold resilience workshops with the Muslim community, speak publicly, and meet government officials – has supported people affected by terrorism, conflict and war for almost three decades. She arrived in Christchurch ...
Two trade experts based in Delhi expressed some mild optimism about Luxon's chances, but with a major caveat: NZ would have to abandon hope of including dairy in any deal.. ...
MONDAYAt precisely 0300 hours I gave last-minute instructions to a team of crack troops who had sworn their allegiance in the war against woke left-wing social engineering and diversity targets in the public sector. They assembled in the basement bunker at the Beehive. It was built to withstand nuclear radiation. ...
It’s been six years since a lone gunman opened fire at two mosques in Christchurch, killing 51 people, shattering the country’s innocence and changing lives forever.Now a young Afghan-Kiwi couple, who were praying in another mosque in the Garden City that fateful day, is releasing a film in remembrance of ...
Gabi Lardies for now, Mad Chapman next week. Despite allegations they’re filled with shit books, I cannot pass by a little library without having a peek inside. Two weeks ago, stretching my legs from a hard morning sitting on my non-ergonomic wheely chair, I spied two curious spines in the ...
Poet Kate Camp learned to swim late in life. Now it’s a defining component of her identity. But why won’t she write about it? I learned to swim in a 15 metre pool in the backyard of Mandi’s place in Paraparaumu. That’s not true. I learned to swim in a ...
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Weehaa!
It looks like we may have enough signatures to require a referendum on asset sales although I would urge people to keep collecting just in case …
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8141848/Asset-sales-petition-gets-its-numbers
And when I checked the poll on the page ~67% said that they would vote against asset sales.
It’s now 72%
Lynn (or someone else on the Bridge) can you please open the “gate”; you know i’m “human” and i’ll stop worrying the flock and be a good dog (lifts paw and tilts head)
-bobbie
Hi Lynn and folks’ my misbehavin around the full moon has led to the activation of the s.bot captcha entry requirement. Could you please alleviate this thorn in my paw and I will endeavour to be more restrained (on leash) Thankyou, i would be grateful.
Grumpy Old Men
Brian Edwards: Paul Holmes “is not and never was a racist”
While most decent people in New Zealand were taken aback, even flabbergasted, to see that a career of race-baiting and assiduous fawning and flattery had earned Paul Holmes a knighthood, there were of course commentators who defended the travesty. Some of those who tried to justify the knighthood were Holmes’s former and current colleagues, who no doubt felt obliged to defend a colleague, no matter how unpleasant he might be, no matter what he might have said and done in the past. We saw the same unedifying line-up of celebrity support after another NewstalkZB host, Tony Veitch, was revealed to have attacked and grievously injured his fiancée.
Most of those who felt compelled to defend the award made a point of reminding us of Holmes’s “tireless work for charity” and his “generosity”. Hardly any of them was foolish enough to mention the Banquo’s ghost in the room: Holmes’s shameful record of crude race-baiting and hate-mongering, most notoriously against black Africans, but most consistently against Māori and the poor.
One “liberal” commentator, however, went one step further; Brian Edwards used his blog to write a giddy paean to Holmes. Many readers joined in the expression of adoration for the great man; former New Zealand First staffer Rex Widerstrom rhapsodized on “Paul’s intellect and his humanity”, one Rosina Hauiti raved about his “illustrious career”, and, most contemptibly of all, Labour Party MP Annette King called Holmes “funny warm and compassionate”, and asserted that she “can’t understand the vitriol being written.”
It was not all fulsome praise, however. Many readers, including the venerable Standardista “Millsy”, expressed scorn and disbelief at the knighthood. For their sins, they suffered the indignity of having their comments deleted and replaced by a scolding by Edwards himself, were compared to witch-hunters, and were sent to Siberia along with the unspeakable Bomber Bradbury, who is damned by Holmes-booster John Phillips as a “swinish, loathsome, small-minded worm”.
There was one thing that bothered me above all else: Edwards assured a skeptical reader that Holmes “is not and never was a racist”. This was a step too far, and I just had to remonstrate. I posted up the following comment….
Brian, when you asserted that Paul Holmes “is not and never was a racist”, I guess you were in the same extremely indulgent frame of mind as when you stated, on radio, that P.J. O’Rourke was “deep down, a very serious person” and when you lauded the “brilliance” of the unfunny New Zealand Herald cartoonist Rod Emmerson.
BE: I don’t believe I have ever said anything about P.J. O’Rourke since I have never read his books and know nothing about him. Perhaps you can let me know when and where I am supposed to have said this. As for Emmerson you seem to be confusing the fact that you personally find him unfunny with whether or not he his cartooning skill can be described as brilliant. Anyway, to test the worth of what you write, perhaps you could supply chapter and verse for my supposed comments on Mr O’Rourke. I’ll apologise if I’m wrong and I’ll expect you to do the same. And god only knows what any of this has to do with my post on Paul Holmes.
Like Millsy, I had a comment deleted as well, but Edwards’s admonition remains….
BE: Your comment, which I’ve deleted, was unworthy even of you. It was vile. I don’t want you on this website. And don’t worry about the O’Rourke quote. I know I couldn’t have said it.
This is the comment Edwards deleted….
Have a Happy New Year, you unrecognised oiks—and remember, if you see a deranged old man shouting insults at Māori family groups over the summer, don’t say “Fuck off to Queensland you racist scum”, say “Fuck off to Queensland, Sir Paul.”
http://brianedwardsmedia.co.nz/2012/12/paul-holmes-starry-starry-knight/#comments
A REQUEST TO ALL RADIO LISTENERS
If you heard Brian Edwards interview P.J. O’Rourke in the late 1990s, could you please write to Brian Edwards and remind him of it. He seems to have very poor recall.
Wow, Mozza makes a statement he can’t back up and then has a cry about how unfair it is to be called on it. Funny old world, eh?
Look carefully, my friend: the one having a cry is the good Dr. Edwards. First the blubbering is in the form of tears of joy, to express his admiration for a notorious racist, then it transmogrifies into tears of anger as he deals to us naysayers and spoilsports.
I can’t provide the day of Edwards’s interview of O’Rourke, but it certainly happened. I might sometimes not get a quote verbatim, and my memory is not always perfect, but I don’t make things up.
Or if I do, as when that I made that Sacha Baron Cohen interview on Letterman segue into a Nazi rally in the last line, I make it quite clear that it’s being done for effect.
Morrissey, if you claim something is a quote, when it is actually just your dodgy recollection and not the actual words, then you are going to get called on it, just as you did with your bigoted rants about Baron Cohen. Don’t use quote marks when it’s not a quotation and you’ll save yourself a lot of bother.
However, it appears BE did interview PJ O’Rourke …
http://collections.soundarchives.co.nz/search.do?id=352200&db=object&page=1&view=detail
Thanks, Te Reo. Not only are you a gentleman, you’re a freaking scholar as well.
You accused Edwards of saying something, he denied it and asked you to verify your claim, and you admit that you can’t.
Then you owe Edwards an apology.
You really are a fool. While you were labouring over those two poorly written sentences, our friend Te Reo Putake had already verified my statement.
Fuck you talk a lot of shite Morrissey. TRP showed that an interview exists.
We’re still waiting for you to establish that your “quote” exists.
My quote is correct. Edwards made a habit after each interview (or, more accurately, each uncritical audience) of making a comment on the departed guest.
He made a particularly cowardly, sneering dismissal of Bill Clinton’s brother Roger, after interviewing him for half an hour one day. Edwards sniggeringly expressed his contempt for Roger Clinton’s southern manners, particularly the way he kept calling Edwards “sir”. Despite having such a distinguished brother, Roger Clinton spoke with a southern accent, so Edwards did not deem him worthy of respect.
With the patrician O’Rourke, on the other hand, Edwards was the picture of servility. And he DID make the ridiculous comment that O’Rourke, who is more flippant and glib than even our own Mike Hosking, was “deep down, a very serious person.” Not that Edwards would remember of course.
Your quote may well be correct, but you haven’t proven it to be so, Moz. I imagine it’s possible that Edwards did say it, or something similar, because the tears of the clown is such a cliche. I can well imagine any interviewer of a comedian finishing up with a banal comment like that.
I guess the reason your claim got the reaction it did from BE is because it was so irrelevant to the discussion about Holmes. It looks like straw clutching desperation and it was an attack on his credibility on his own site. Banning in those circ’s seems perfectly reasonable and an obvious outcome of your approach.
As I mentioned earlier, if you are going to claim things as being fact, you should be prepared to back up your statements. It’s even better if you do the research before making the claim!
By the way, Bill Clinton, like his brother, speaks with a southern accent. I imagine that is due to them both being brought up in the south. D’oh!
All very good points, as always, Te Reo.
And yes, he DID make that comment praising O’Rourke as “deep down, a very serious person.”
Now, if only I can dig up that BASF C-60….
Morrissey, looks like you have attracted the attentions of the *brigade* today, must be your turn again!
I’m sure Felix is preparing some prize winning retort using the same inept tactics as can be seen here yet again today.
It’s always my turn, muzza…
http://www.backtoclassics.com/images/pics/antoniodelpollaiuolo/antoniodelpollaiuolo_martyrdomofstsebastian.jpg
Oh god it’s dumb and dumber.
If you two (or is it just the one, I can never tell…) don’t like getting called out for what you write, then stick to writing things you can verify.
It’s that simple really.
Here’s a question. Why is it a *~*~*~*brigade*~*~*~* when it’s felix and TRP taking the same side on an issue, but not when it’s muzza and Mozza tag-teaming?
Oh, right, because muzza wants to pretend this is all some vast [insert today’s favourite adjective] conspiracy to Suppress The Truth And Expect People To Stand By Their Copypasta, or something.
M&M are a “Legion”. About the same size as a brigade, but with an inclination to read entrails rather than work within the limitations of the fog of war.
McFliper writes….
M&M are a “Legion”. About the same size as a brigade, but with an inclination to read entrails rather than work within the limitations of the fog of war.
The “fog of war”? Oh yes, that’s the excuse they use for this sort of thing, isn’t it…
http://www.anglonautes.com/hist_us_20_war_viet_my_lai_1968/hist_us_20_war_wiet_pic_mylai_bodies.jpg
And this…
lol
Reading entrails would have more relevance than what you just wrote.
Reading entrails would have more relevance than what you just wrote.
Oh really? How so?
Because sometimes entrails make funny sounds which would be in keeping with my not particularly serious comment. And you can use the hollow carcass as a finger puppet. Whereas you took three words and ran with them into territory neither relevant nor humourous, as is your habit.
I mean, come the fuck on – My Lai from an (admittedly not very good) semantic joke about “brigade” vs “legion”? Fuck sake.
edit: and I’m busy today, so it’s likely I won’t be further engaging in this particular encounter with the Legion of Doolally.
Gidday Te Reo Bukkake,
It seems mate that you are intent on negligently diminishing the meaning and power of certain significant English language words to the status of irrelevance. It also seems that you have made a habit of trolling blogs belittling the opinions, values and beliefs of the writers and commentators (below are a couple of example of your trolling for your fellow Standard readers to see, there are a shit load more for those who might care to look online):
“There’s a lot of funny ironies on blogs, and this is one – a commenter on The Standard has accused me of stalking him:
Te Reo Putake…
27 September 2012 at 3:52 pm
ps, prism, you’re not alone in trying to work out the meaning. Check out my stalker!
There’s actually multiple ironies there. ‘Te Reo Putake’, previously ‘The Voice of Reason’, is one of the most unreasonable voices I’ve seen at The Standard, a union/Labour hack who tries to shut out any voices he doesn’t like”
Source: http://yournz.org/tag/te-reo-putake/
(captured 7:10am, AESDT, 4/1/2013)
“Notrotsky Le Sphincter • 8 months ago −
Hello it’s VoR aka Te Reo Putake ! Labour and union lickspittle and regular felcher at the Stranded.
Over for a troll are you old boy ?”
Source: http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2012/05/a-crisis-of-leadeship/
(captured 7:12am, AESDT, 4/1/2013)
For the purpose of this exercise we’re going to focus on a comment you made in “open mike” on the 2/1/2013 (# 3.2.3.4) and your grossly irresponsible misuse of the word “RACIST”:
“Help me, Jebus! I love the way the writer can’t help launching into a racist tirade against Kiwis, before chiding TS posters for being too sensitive”
Source: http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-02012013/
(captured 7:15am, AESDT, 4/1/2013)
So to start. Who exactly is “Jebus!” and how exactly do you expect his or her help? Now lets take a close look at the words RACIST and race and the meanings that are attributed to both words by the Oxford Dictionary;
Definition of racism
The belief that all members of each race possess characteristics, abilities, or qualities specific to that race, especially so as to distinguish it as inferior or superior to another race or races:
theories of racism
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior
Source: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/racism
(captured 7:16am, AESDT, 4/1/2013)
Definition of race
Each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics:
people of all races, colours, and creeds
[mass noun] the fact or condition of belonging to a racial division or group; the qualities or characteristics associated with this.
a group of people sharing the same culture, history, language, etc.
Source: http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/race–2
(captured 7:16am, AESDT, 4/1/2013)
We sincerely hope that the above definitions will assist you in using the word RACIST in a more appropriate context. It is of course impossible for us to have launched into a “racist tirade against Kiwi’s” with our commentary on the behavioral patterns of New Zealander’s when confronted with injustice and or that county’s obvious fiscal dependence on Australia
Kiwi’s do not constitute a race, nor do New Zealander’s for that matter, both terms are a reference to nationality only.
When one misuses a word such as ‘Racist” in the way that you clearly have, the power of the word and its significant meaning are greatly diminished.
In future mate, when you feel like a spot of trolling why not pop over to Lauda Finem and attempt to take a crap in our yard, instead of shitting all over the Standards front lawn
IrishBill: what a pointless, self-obsessive, and banal mess of text. I’ve seen automated spam that did a better job of commenting than this. You’re banned for life for what I can only describe as one of the most tragic comments in the history of this blog.
Goodness.
Te Reo, is this true? Are you really a commenter on teh internets?
Oh the scandal.
I thought it would always be my secret shame, felix! But, gosh, if they’re quoting Pete George, the gig is clearly up. Not to mention the deadly blow of featuring some tool on Whaleoil wrongly identifying another commenter as me. The evidence is overwhelming, its a fair cop, guvnor, but society is to blame.
And, it’s really important that nobody should wonder whether the deliberate misspelling of my handle by the not at all homophobic Lauda Finem is in any way racist, because it’s just not, OK?
lol good call Irish. I’m glad this site sets a decent standard when it comes to “hey I wanna fight wit u” low-brains like this.
On the other hand ‘Notrotsky Le Sphincter’ is an awesome name, so maybe it’s all true… Now I’m all confused…
Oh – another whiner like PG.. I left this comment on his post.
Mind you, it does make the rather tedious debate about “rent boy” that I’ve had to read look almost meaningful by comparison. I’m rather expecting the comment to never appear on Lauda Finem?
Lynn, did you receive my call?
Your e-mail? Yep. You are in the hands of cloudflare, who once a moderator manually flags your comment as spam (as you had) will require you to pass a captcha. The result gets placed in auto-moderation.
When it is released by a moderator, you get your commenting freedom back again – at least for the next 30 days which is what I set it to. The system now looks at you as being provisionally human. Basically it does not pay to have a moderator get irritated enough to flag you as spam (and I’m thankful that they seldom do – banning is much less consequential).
Be warned that akismet also looks at manually flagged spam. Unlike cloudflare which only collects stats inside its own network, akismet covers the whole wordpress universe. It is (fortunately) just a little less judgemental.
You should be ok now that a message has made it through.
will there be another “challenge” similar to the captcha (in ad finitum?) or…
You might get one at 30 days. You may not. Eventually if you pass it (I’m HUMAN!) enough and you don’t get flagged again you won’t see it again.
I suspect you won’t see the 30 day one because of previously passed comments. However I have no control over the workings – and it is currently protecting me from ~20k spam comments per week.
Sir! Thank You Sir, That will be all Sir! I’ll be out here on the flank (I don’t really want another “resurrection”, but hay, I’m a rolling stone)
( I was reading a physics related article the other day about stones talking, yep, if these stones could talk, sounded like Wild Horses to me).(Which reminds me, I now have a real life stalker / Wind talker I believe, yet, they’re hiding in the bushes; a “real” resurrection it may turn out to be written)

Looks like attention-getting behaviour, trying to stir up readership of their blog by antagonising and slamming TS.
Yep.. How many times have I seen it before. *sigh* Boring..
I usually leave a subtle message that I think that they may be a tad juvenile… I hope I wasn’t too subtle this time
lprent your ‘his post’ link goes to their ‘best wishes’ 2013 round up, no sign of your comment. The Standard gets a mention in their list of ‘courageous websites’ but:
“The standard.org (Caveat: Lauda Finem have serious reservations about the authenticity of this blog and its agenda; one of their moderators “IrishBill” [as we suspected he would] altered one of our comments earlier today, that story coming soon)”
omg I just can’t wait to see what happens next. Although, it’s hard to take this ‘team’ too seriously when, on the same page, their first item under ‘predictions for 2013’ is : The fall of the New Zealand National Party government in the November elections.
Wow I just realized something mind-blowing about this whole thing:
Ahahahahahaha their snide little comment about “serious reservations about the authenticity of [The Standard] and its agenda” is seriously the most priceless I-didn’t-want-to-play-with-your-ball-ANYWAY foot-stomping I’ve seen since I quit Livejournal.
the use of “f*#Ktards” sounds familiar discourse; from the same pod?
Congratulation to Paul Holmes for his well deserved recognition in the New Year’s honours.
“higherstandard”?
Now THAT is an inappropriate moniker, if ever there was one.
I saw Edwards blog a couple of days ago. As well as sweeping the racism under the carpet, i couldn’t believe anyone of left wing views would applaud the shift in the MSM, that Holmes was a major part of. instead, Edwards praises it thusly:
The Hollywoodisation of our news, current events and political reportage is not something to celebrate.
He had some cred back in the day, but that shift you mention toward presentation over substance and celebrity over merit has been Edwards’ bread and butter these past few decades.
Perhaps you could make amends for your ill-timed outburst of a few minutes ago, by copying and pasting this message on Edwards’s blog.
http://brianedwardsmedia.co.nz/2012/12/paul-holmes-starry-starry-knight/
Thanks for your interest…
Brian Edwards interviewed P.J. O’Rourke on Saturday 24 December 1994.
http://collections.soundarchives.co.nz/search.do?id=352200&db=object&page=1&view=detail
Fuck off Morrissey. Take your spam campaign elsewhere.
Despite interviewing him, or more precisely, listening to him deliver an unbroken stream of right wing bromides for half an hour on Christmas Eve 1994, Edwards claims to knew “know nothing about him”. He will have completely forgotten it, of course, but I have not.
It is not my credibility that has been found wanting here, it is Brian Edwards’s. Not only can you not comprehend that, but you appear to have no idea what “spam” means either.
So what? You said you had a quote so let’s see it.
Otherwise you don’t.
You’ve seen the quote, several times now. Edwards said: “That was P.J. O’Rourke. Deep down, I think he’s really a very serious person”.
I’ve seen you say it.
I haven’t seen Edwards say it.
Do you really not know the difference?
I haven’t seen Edwards say it.
I did, however. That’s why I posted it up—because he said it, and I believed it was another indication (from as long ago as the mid-1990s) that his judgement can be suspect, to put it politely.
And the reason anyone should believe you without proof is…
Top marks FV for “Fuck off Morrissey”.
Frankly I’m finding Morrissey a helluva lot more palatable than you and a couple of others who increasingly sound like school prefects determined to bully into submission the mouthy junior schooler of their focus……Morrissey. Some dissmissive Beltway tones in there too methinks.
Holmes’ knighthood is a nonesense of course which putting aside vanities serves only to contribute to the bullshit that the vainglorious wahanui of the media, including Edwards for that matter, are not merely “across” the stories which comprise current events, but integrally part of those stories and broadly part of our “one nation” fibre.
Grudging acknowledgment that something might have been said but since you FV don’t personally know about it, ergo it’s bullshit, is so so John Key FV.
All of that said and knighthood or not I remain just a little concerned about “Cheeky darkie…..”. Racist ? I don’t know. Probably qualifies for the ballpark however.
now, if we could just get all that info Lynn has compiled on CC front and centre on peoples laptop breakfast, dinner, train time tables
I didn’t compile it, I mostly quoted it.
“Grudging acknowledgment that something might have been said but since you FV don’t personally know about it, ergo it’s bullshit, is so so John Key FV.”
Why do you think Morrissey shouldn’t have to verify his quotes? Everyone else has to.
I verify my quotes, fool. I don’t make things up; the worst you can say is that my transcripts occasionally are not perfectly verbatim. That is of course the basis of dear old Lanthanide’s stated objections to my transcripts—they’re not one hundred per cent accurate. For instance, when transcribing the Hon. Hekia Parata absolutely accurately, more than half of the transcript would consist of “ummmm, ahhhhh, errrrrr”. That might be fine in Lanthanideland, but for the mass of Standard readers, it would be intolerable. (Almost as intolerable as the fact that Parata has not resigned yet.) But that is what happens when you write things down as fast as you can, but don’t use a tape recorder.
Edwards made the mistake of claiming that he had no knowledge of O’Rourke, and could remember nothing. I was correct, Edwards was wrong, as proven by our friend Te Reo Putake. Edwards apologized, but I don’t expect you to show any similar integrity or humility and do the same.
“I verify my quotes”
And yet when asked to do so, you refuse or are unable to. I can verify this statement by linking to examples of you doing this if you like. See the difference?
I haven’t passed comment on Edwards’ memory. It doesn’t interest me that you know there was an interview in 1994 and Edwards forgot about it.
What I’ve commented on is that you have a terrible habit of stating things as if they’re verifiable facts when you can’t verify them, and also that you seem to be too dense to grasp this simple criticism.
Edwards actually did make the comment that P.J. O’Rourke, who was and is one of the most callous and flippant commentators in the United States, was “deep down, a very serious person.” Or maybe he said, “basically, a very serious person.” The precise wording escapes me now, but the meaning was quite clear, and it was yet another example of Edwards’ dodgy (to put it kindly) powers of judgement. I did not make it up. Someone some time no doubt will produce a recording of the interview, and will verify what I have already said.
…you have a terrible habit of stating things as if they’re verifiable facts when you can’t verify them…
Nonsense. When have I ever done that? The worst thing you can say about me is that my transcripts (done as they are, usually, hastily on a piece of paper while I’m doing other things as well) are not absolutely verbatim.
I don’t make things up, but in your increasingly fraught state of mind, you probably are incapable of acknowledging that fact right now.
Compare and contrast:
“…you have a terrible habit of stating things as if they’re verifiable facts when you can’t verify them…
Nonsense. When have I ever done that? ”
“The precise wording escapes me now …”
“I verify my quotes”
Well, no, no you don’t. In the Edwards case, it was me who did your work for you (and thank you for acknowleging that). We still have no evidence that Edwards said what you claim, but he has confirmed that he interviewed O’Rourke. The only way you can verify your quote would be to access the interview, which can be done via the RNZ site. But I’m betting you won’t do that!
You’ve outlined your transcript process and it’s hopeless, Moz. Your transcripts were useless because you made a lot of them up, relying on memory and impression. Clearly, you still do not understand that for a report to be a transcript, it has to be accurate. It is OK to edit out ums and arghs, but not to atrribute things that were not actually said, but were just your recollection.
The “mass of Standard readers” you claim to speak for are intelligent, learned folk who know the difference between opinion and fact. You don’t do them any favours by being so wrong, so often.
Well, no, no you don’t. In the Edwards case, it was me who did your work for you (and thank you for acknowleging that). We still have no evidence that Edwards said what you claim, but he has confirmed that he interviewed O’Rourke. The only way you can verify your quote would be to access the interview, which can be done via the RNZ site. But I’m betting you won’t do that!
Somebody will, no doubt. I did not make it up, and you know I didn’t.
You’ve outlined your transcript process and it’s hopeless, Moz. Your transcripts were useless because you made a lot of them up, relying on memory and impression.
Rubbish. Often, following my posting up of a transcript of a radio show, others have posted to congratulate me on capturing the zeitgeist of shows like Jim Mora’s increasingly dire “The Panel”. That’s because I capture the crucial words that are spoken. And a lot of my stuff is actually verbatim, and can be checked against the original—for example, the transcript of that obscene Letterman/Baron Cohen defamation of a Christian peace activist in occupied Hebron. (Except for the seguing into a Nazi rally in the last sentence, but intelligent readers appreciated the political point being made.)
Clearly, you still do not understand that for a report to be a transcript, it has to be accurate. It is OK to edit out ums and arghs, but not to atrribute things that were not actually said, but were just your recollection.
And in many cases, as in transcribing Leighton “Ummmm, ahhhh, errrr” Smith, Larry “Lackwit” Williams or the Honorable Hekia “Ummm, errrr, ahhh” Parata, it’s not “OK to edit out ums and arghs”; they are crucial indicators of those great minds in their full pomp and majesty.
The “mass of Standard readers” you claim to speak for are intelligent, learned folk who know the difference between opinion and fact. You don’t do them any favours by being so wrong, so often.
I’m not wrong, and you know it. All you have done is nit-pick about my methodology and tried to show that I’m a falsifier. That’s arrant nonsense, of course, and regular readers of the Standard know it. And so, of course, do you.
The zeitgeist is not a transcript. You do not post transcripts, you post impressions. You have not provided any evidence that backs up your claim about Edwards, so nobody knows whether it is accurate or not, but the verifiable fact that you don’t even know yourself whether you’ve quoted him accurately kinda suggests you haven’t got it right.
Sorry, Moz, but if you are going to continue to make shit up, you will be called on it. That’s life, cobber.
The zeitgeist is not a transcript. You do not post transcripts, you post impressions.
No, I post transcripts, which are, as many people have attested, pretty accurate. You are correct in that sometimes they are not verbatim, and therefore they are indeed impressions; that is my aim, as you no doubt are aware: to evoke and thereby criticize the glibness, the muddleheadedness, the cynicism of what we are bombarded with daily in the media.
You have not provided any evidence that backs up your claim about Edwards, so nobody knows whether it is accurate or not, but the verifiable fact that you don’t even know yourself whether you’ve quoted him accurately kinda suggests you haven’t got it right.
I’ve got it right. As I have acknowledged, the precise wording needs to be confirmed, but the comment, in all of its vacuity, was made by the good doctor.
Sorry, Moz, but if you are going to continue to make shit up, you will be called on it. That’s life, cobber.
If I “make shit up”, then it’s for the purposes of satire or comedy. I did not make this up.
By the way, here, for your delectation, is an example of when I DID “make shit up”, building on the true story of Bernadine Oliver-Kerby taking a pair of scissors to the crotches of every pair of trousers in Justin Marshall’s wardrobe. It comes from the glory days of Google Groups, when everyone seemed to be on Usenet.
It’s called BERNADINE, or “Hell Hath No Fury”.
Enjoy….
http://groups.google.com/group/nz.general/browse_thread/thread/12b9f5fd0ac5230f/69b8343e4c26ad03%3Fq%3D%2522Adam%2BAnother%2522%2369b8343e4c26ad03&ei=iGwTS6eaOpW8Qpmqic0O&sa=t&ct=res&cd=71&source=groups&usg=AFQjCNEEF8TNL9ainY6clBjmJrbJOxiYsw
When have you ever made shit up? I can think of plenty of times. For instance, just the other day in the bus stop you said you had gills and could breathe underwater.
I expect this will be completely lost on you Morrissey, but go ahead and ask me to prove it and I’ll do exactly what you do.
Karol, would you please go to Edward’s blog now,
http://brianedwardsmedia.co.nz/2012/12/paul-holmes-starry-starry-knight/
and copy and post up this message for me. I tried to but I have been blocked…
Brian Edwards interviewed P.J. O’Rourke on Saturday 24 December 1994.
http://collections.soundarchives.co.nz/search.do?id=352200&db=object&page=1&view=detail
My turn to piss off Edwards.
My post I wonder how long it will last.
“Do you think that the farcical Knighthood of Hyde, is equal to the farcical Knighthood of Holmes. or maybe the farcical QC’s that the Nats are pulling because in my eyes they are all equally hideous. And so far out of date.
Oh and BE FYI You Interviewed PJ O’Rourke on Saturday 24 December 1994.
http://collections.soundarchives.co.nz/search.do?id=352200&db=object&page=1&view=detail
Wouldn’t want you to get John Key Disease and forget and all that!”
Do you guys post a comment on every blog about every comment you post on any blog?
It’s like you think you’re a story. Bit weird. Quite hubristic. Little embarrassing to read.
Thanks for your support, David.
At one fell swoop the knighting of someone who is famous for getting a job on the telly and the radio and voicing his opinions has:
A) Shown what a farce and irrelevance the honours system is
B) Shown what an out of touch chardonnay socialist BE has become.
From now on, those who accept this dubious honour will now be twice smitten by my contempt; once for being a sycophantic royalist and once for wanting to be in the same club as PH is a member of.
Next year, look for something possibly even less palatable than the knighting of Paul Holmes.
Yes, you guessed it: next year Sir Jerry Mateparae, if he has not been indicted for war crimes, will be waving a sword over the bald head of a nationally loathed sports opinion merchant and mouthing the horrific words: “Arise, Sir Murray.”
Remember, you read it here first.
A former failed national party candidate who under mined fair and balanced journalism just an attention seeking narcissist
BVP – Socialite don’t you mean?
Im with you Morrisey, Holmes is a racist! The only people who may not understand this probably fit into his demographic.
Im with you Morrisey, Holmes is a racist! The only people who may not understand this probably fit into his demographic.
I don’t think most of his defenders would actually be so vile as to launch into an extended tirade about “darkies” or rage against Māori—even in private, let alone on radio or television or in print, as Holmes did as recently as eleven months ago.
What they are doing is pretending that the racist drivel is outweighed by the very public shows of charity he has performed. It’s pretty much the same rationale as employed by the defenders of Sir Jimmy Savile.
Morrissey 2 5 1
+1
I dont know why I comment on BE’s blog at all really, the guy keeps deleting me.
Though given that he thinks it is perfectly OK for a teacher to tell a 14 year old girl that she looks like a slut, I should have known that he would think the sun shines out of PH’s ass.
(Yes, I am back. The things that I thought were going to happen didnt happen the way I expected to happen, and I am not too sure what directions things will take, and it turns out that I have a bit of time to post on “The Standard” — though for how long remains to be seen)
Excellent millsy (I missed the back-story due to passing penury) yet I enjoy your informed commentary.
Welcome back compadre, always good seeing you hitting it hard
As a grumpy old man myself, I have no problem recognising that Holmes acts and speaks like a racist. Unless this is all an act to increase his audience share (highly doubtful), I am forced to conclude that he is a deeply disturbed old racist who longs for the time when “darkies” knew their place and never got knighted. People I know who have physically made his acquaintance tell me he is even worse than his television and radio personas.
If he has the gall to write the kind of thing he did in the Herald last Waitangi weekend, one can have a reasonable guess what he says in private.
This may or may not have anything to do with your message above Morrissey bit I was intrigued enough to try to find said interview, without any luck so far, However I did find this little gem to read
Indeed National would welcome David Shearer into the Labour Caucus. It will largely nullify the privatisation issue for National. If Shearer is confirmed as the candidate (which is highly likely as Head Office control 3/7 votes) I will not be surprised if some National Party members vote for him tactically – knowing the huge boost it will be to have in the Labour Caucus one of the world’s leading proponents (his articles have been cited in scores of other research in this area) of legitimising private sector involvement in military operations.
http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2009/05/p_j_orourke_and_give_war_a_chance.html
Brian Edwards must be getting John Key disease, its the memory that goes first.
When I first saw Paul Holmes on the box, I was reminded of a rather over weight Australian interviewer (I think on Channel Seven) who was suppose to interview politicians and their ilk
but never dared asked a hard question. Like many of his generation history will ignore them
since they had the misfortune of coming of age in a very easy boring uninteresting time.
How will Labour win in 2014?
What does Labour need to do differently in 2013 to win a Labour Victory on Labour Policies?
It may be a Government supported by the Greens, but it must be a Labour Government that can implement key Labour Policies.
We must have the mandate and power to achieve strong export based, innovation led high wage economic prosperity.
We have to re-engage with the 800,000 who don’t believe political parties are even relevant.
Our new Constitution has given us an opportunity to invigorate our members and supporters. The forthcoming leadership debate roadshow can be a lightening rod to release the mojo of the Real Labour Party.
We need a leadership style that can harness this opportunity for the organisation with passion.
We need a leadership style that can capture the imagination of the population.
We need a leadership style that will convince the majority of Kiwi’s that a fundamental shift away from the conventional wisdom of the past three decades will work.
We can have prosperity – we just have to get rid of capitalism. Keep that and no matter what we do we will have poverty and ever increasing debt.
panettacake
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/us/politics/debt-deal-fails-to-allay-fears-on-us-global-power.html?ref=americas&_r=0
Hole In The Sky?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/australia-stocks-snap-win-steak-as-miners-fall-2013-01-03?siteid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20marketwatch%2Fmarketpulse%20%28MarketWatch.com%20-%20MarketPulse%29
Austere, or not?
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/01/03/1395321/international-monetary-fund-admits-it-severely-underestimated-cost-of-austerity/?mobile=nc
A leader who can think and respond intelligently/factually on the spot with conviction and vision is the formula which will win an election. Cunliffe ticks all these boxes.
Over the holiday season have had a few interesting chats with mates that cover a wide plethora of our society. One topic was the lack of movement over the years on pay. One mate from air nz over the last 8 years was awarded CPI adjustments at good years, and nothing in other years. Another 2 both worth $10m’s even commented on that the employment contracts and the demise of the unions in retrospect has been a bad thing for nz.
The other point was on our poor senior level managers that with their huge salaries should be better than to improve a coys performance they should be looking at the reduction of wages as a last resort not the only option.
http://thestandard.org.nz/time-to-take-back-whats-ours/
Also when talking about the lack of movement of wages there was also a disconcerting comment passed by more than a few in that we were lucky to have a job. This fear of being unemployed is so great to warrant the acceptance of this continuation of nil to low increases, and in a few cases of deterioration of pay rates being asked to do more for the same pay ( which IMO is a pay cut)
Yes the well rounded wealthy folk know that gutting the working classes standard of living risks collapsing the system that benefits everyone. You can’t make money when no one skilled works in your business, pays your rents etc.
However the country isn’t run by the well rounded, it’s run by the greedy and vindictive ruling 1%’ers determined to plunder everything they can get their hands on with little care for future generations.
Oz is benefitting from this approach taking on skilled and hard working kiwis, it’s Muldoon all over again with a better sales pitch and a compliant MSM.
And in the US there are celebrations at the record number of women elected to the US congress, 100 out of 535 or 18.9%.
You can’t help but wonder how much more intelligent and civilised that body would be if the percentage was higher …
http://reut.rs/WnXzCy
Sarah Palin agrees
A notable exception Alien. apart from her gender Palin has nothing in common with ordinary women …
Bit like Countess Thatchula then
imo, Jack White is the new Clapton; post-modern god with a small “g”
-when i first heard the news of this dreadful quad and alcohol tragedy i could not believe my ears until hearing the story a few times more from other sources (if we worried about other people thought we’d never do things differently).
Closer Still, some body handy has me pegged, deedle leedle leedle lee, sunlight wish-washing liquid (with a drop of natural Lemon Song), Unknown Pleasures to come, free puncture repairs for life;
Strange Brew 8:10-This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord,
9-(it will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers)
I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.
11-No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying “Know the Lord, because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest.
Soooo, movin’ along,
cursum perficio.
verbum sapienti:
quo plus habent,
Post nubilia, Phoebus
Iternum- Na Leatha Geal M’oige, evening falls
-Watermark (On Your Shore)
Covenant ? I thought that was the local brew ..
Please T.Allan do not mention that ghastly woman’s name in my presence.!!
Shudder. Just Imagine that Airhead in charge of the US Military. Wouldn’t she ‘just lurve’ all that power. Kinda makes you glad that she was repulsive to the voters too, with the notable exception of the Airhead T Party.
NZ Police Force a law unto themselves? In Pundit David Beatson talks about Drones:-
“New Zealand Police aren’t waiting for major aviation safety and personal privacy issues about domestic spy drones to be solved. TV3 reports they’ve already purchased their first unmanned aerial vehicle. So, watch this space …”
http://www.pundit.co.nz/content/look-out-the-drones-are-here-%E2%80%93-and-we%E2%80%99re-not-ready-%E2%80%A6
Yes, I saw that. He’s an old conservative, but Beatson also does solid journalistic investigations and asks some important questions.
Beatson was the only journo to blow apart the tax cut/GST rise move by exposing English as having done no analysis whatsoever on the impact.
English had no answers, beatson showed what a bunch of leemings the MSM are with zero ability or willingness to challenge these clowns.
He probably thought to himself that back in his prime at least they tried to do their jobs.
Why would the police wait, heck the power companies have not bothered to see if the installation of smart meters, complete with communications aerial for sending detailed useage information every 30 minutes. on private property is breaking surveillance/wiretapping laws!
Over the last 24 hours on Twitter, Dotcom has been highlighting reports of the US agencies planting evidence in order to get a warrant to search his property. He refers to reports here,
here, here, and here.
Will the judiciary in the US act swiftly or procrastinate?
Very interesting and very unhealthy.
It suggests that there may be a demarcation issue between Homeland Security and the FBI as both target copyright infringement, presumably for the lucrative asset seizures.
Here’s no transparency because the definition of copyright infringement as a threat to US national security means that these agencies can operate in secret.
It really makes me wonder whether there were any other agencies involved, eg the US NSA which is closeted in with the GCSB in Wellington.
This is how its done ..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-04/labor-ahead-in-latest-poll/4452446?section=vic
Still two years till the next election in Vic, and compared with Labour in NZ, the ALP tends to be pretty right wing.
sadly, hearing whispers from both ends of the SE spectrum, one a “councilor” and the other a retired, former longstanding businessman and entrepreneur, that our bay is becoming “buggered” economically, yet, i think it is a great place to live, invest and raise a family; That’s the Gods-Honest Truth, what more could one ask for, sheltered meditative climate and a view to the future? I imagine a “Golden Bay” of the NE.
RT, whatever you are on, don’t bring any to me ok
!
sweetas, it’s only a personal odyssey (and i apologise for any offence implied to anybody, i have to live alongside the moon phases and i get a bit carried away by the Dark side sometimes, yet really i grow in the light, and i do have an ethic of care when and where i can)
-Bob
VINDICATION!
The famous and esteemed broadcaster and commentator Brian Edwards is man enough to apologize when caught out. An object lesson to some people around here, methinks….
http://brianedwardsmedia.co.nz/2012/12/paul-holmes-starry-starry-knight/#comment-23897
An object lesson to you, I would have thought, Moz, given you’ve got plenty to apologise for. But, yes, nice touch from Edwards. Lord knows I’d show a lot less grace if I was dealing with idiots quoting quips I made twenty years ago.
Lord knows I’d show a lot less grace if I was dealing with idiots quoting quips I made twenty years ago.
It was actually just over EIGHTEEN years ago.
Accuracy, my friend, accuracy.
And… DID YOU JUST CALL ME AN “IDIOT“?!!?!?!?!?!?
A call for accuracy from the guy who thinks ‘but I heard it’ is verification for a quote.
Idiot is far too kind.
Felix, you’re unwisely displaying bitterness in public. That only makes you look bad.
Perhaps you should read over what you’ve written two or three times, and then say to yourself: Do I really want everyone to see THIS? Does it make me look witty, or does it make me look FOOLISH?
Stay cool, my friend, stay cool. It will make your contributions far more readable, and make you seem more intelligent.
You’re so superior when questioned Morrissey and manage to be particularly annoying with your’ my friend’ terms. Can you ever take note of what is said without a large reply – your disagreements swamp the thread?
So I engage with my adversaries, and try to keep it civil.
Is that…wrong?
Ha. You think you have “adversaries”, you think you “engage”, and you think the bile you type is “civil”.
Apart from that, nah, you’re not wrong.
Take my advice, my man, and think before you send your thoughts out into the stratosphere.
Losing one’s head so abjectly is never an edifying spectacle.
What you need is the Good Writer’s Five-Step Procedure….
1.) Type.
2.) Read.
3.) Re-read.
4.) Think for a minute: is this any good or is it simply bitter spleen-venting which will make me look like a pillock?
5.) Then, if your masterpiece is up to standard, press “Submit Comment”.
Follow the Five Steps, my friend. It will save you a lot of mortification.
Morrissey
Big quaffs of superiority juice as I said before. Try cool water with some lime juice, hydrating cools the body and mind and gives you something to do that’s useful for you and for us.
Good lord.
Lolz Morrissey, I don’t think I’ll be taking advice on how to appear smarter from someone who doesn’t know what a transcript is, doesn’t know what a quote is, and doesn’t know what verified means.
Don’t really think I need advice on staying cool from someone with your propensity for ALLCAPS either, thanks all the same.
How to be an Establishment Hero in the United States
BE A SNIVELING RAT
Look at the moronic adoration on the face of the grunt accompanying the snitch….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/03/bradley-manning-wikileaks-suspect-adrian-lamo
The things passing through his mind should not be printed so clearly on his face. “I love you, and want to have your babies”. Yay more insanity from the land of the Paranoid and Insane.
Adrian Lamo
Lame Brain
See Morrissey link to guardiancouk
Russia all at sea (well, on the incoming tide)
http://www.trust.org/alertnet/news/russia-poised-for-largest-naval-exercise-for-decades
well the preacher rides a mount, But nothing really matters, it’s doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn…
HBT
“We’re just the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”-David Montgomery, Whanganui paediatrician
says ‘poverty and lack of support are two factors that must be dealt with if NZ is to successfully arrest the problem of Child Abuse’.
Pope Benedict XVI has condemned “unregulated capitalism” for contributing to world tension and hotbeds of conflict caused by growing inequality between rich and poor.
Alcohol related illness and injury contribute to a record number of ED attendances during holiday period-Family Violence-traffic accidents-assaults (three fingers of jack on ice)
Boehner reported as saying to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid “go f$#K yourself” while Billions of $ Aid for Sandy Shelved by Congress (charming)
-Mighty Mouse ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10420795-metamaus )