Search Results

  1. Douglas adds to Key’s ACT headache

    Written By:  Dancr -  Date published: 4:07 pm, August 19th, 2010 -  34 comments
    Categories: national/act government, Politics
    Tags: ,

    ACT’s meltdown continues, with comments from ACT founder and current MP Sir Roger Douglas illustrating that all is not well in the caucus. According to Stuff,  Sir Roger Douglas is saying he is not sure he will stand at the next election. He also said the party had to show it was stable. “I don’t […]

  2. Incarceration Insanity

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 1:07 pm, August 15th, 2010 -  42 comments
    Categories: prisons
    Tags:

    Prison doesn’t work. It keeps people off the streets, but, as psychiatrist James Gilligan says:

    The most effective way to turn a non-violent person into a violent one is to send him to prison.1

  3. The dire probabilities of unusual weather

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 1:45 pm, August 13th, 2010 -  32 comments
    Categories: climate change, ETS, history, national, science
    Tags:

    In Morning Report yesterday there was a clear question and statement on the difference between weather events and climate. This is a question that always seems to confuse our CCD’s (climate change deniers and skeptics). So it is worth examining it a bit in the view of some of the unusual weather that has been happening recently. A increased frequency of such events is going to be the main effect of climate change over time, leading eventually to famines.

  4. Victory within reach, if they’ll grab for it

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:07 am, August 2nd, 2010 -  48 comments
    Categories: election 2011, polls
    Tags:

    Labour has, to date, failed to give the people who voted for it 3 of the last 4 elections a reason to come back. But that doesn’t mean all is lost. The Left is not just Labour. A 5% shift in the polls, the same scale as the shift that has already happened this past year, would be all it takes to get those numbers even and make the Maori Party – or maybe Winston – kingmaker.

  5. Rough Justice

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 10:28 am, July 31st, 2010 -  16 comments
    Categories: crime, law and "order", police, prisons, us politics
    Tags: , , ,

    The Economist has a great article looking at the American propensity to deprive their citizens of their liberty for trivial offenses. We have the same stupid political ratcheting here that causes it. A large part of that is fueled by groups like the Sensible Sentencing Trust. There needs to be a broad agreement across the political spectrum about such hysterical groups before they cause more damage.

  6. Brown for democracy

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 7:30 am, July 30th, 2010 -  25 comments
    Categories: auckland supercity, local body elections
    Tags: ,

    I’d vote Brown for Mayor of the Supercity. He got me with his first big policy announcement, to strengthen the role of local boards in Auckland.

    That puts the ball in John Banks’ court. Will there a bidding war to restore local democracy?

  7. Nats try ‘thinking green’ on for size

    Written By:  Dancr -  Date published: 3:26 pm, July 29th, 2010 -  4 comments
    Categories: Environment
    Tags:

    It’s taken me a few days to post on this opinon piece from Pattrick Smellie but it’s still worth reading! There are signs that Nick Smith is trying hard to improve the Nats environmental credentials, Gerry Brownlee notwithstanding. But Pattrick Smellie suggests it is not that simple:

  8. Key gambles with Aucklanders’ future

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:51 am, July 27th, 2010 -  53 comments
    Categories: auckland supercity, democracy under attack, john key, local body elections, local government
    Tags:

    John Key glibly admitted yesterday that the Supercity is “risky”. We’ve been saying it all along and the evidence is all that the Supercity will be expensive, unrepresentative, and unresponsive to local needs.

    So, if it’s so risky, why the hell is Key doing it?

  9. The real economy vs the casino

    Written By:  Mike Smith -  Date published: 10:57 am, July 26th, 2010 -  14 comments
    Categories: uncategorized
    Tags:

    For the business pages, it’s Reserve Bank week and once again the banks want the Governor to push up the price of money, while those in the real economy where the jobs are want interest rates kept steady. As they say, there are no signs of rampant inflation and growth forecasts are uncertain. But the […]

  10. Why Socialism? – Albert Einstein

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 6:53 am, July 24th, 2010 -  42 comments
    Categories: Deep stuff, socialism
    Tags:

    Albert Einstein’s essay “Why Socialism?”, originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949).

  11. I Owe My Soul….to the Company Store

    Written By:  RedLogix -  Date published: 7:35 am, July 23rd, 2010 -  66 comments
    Categories: uncategorized
    Tags:

    The words of this old song date back to the 1800’s when dominant and rapacious employers in small company towns would require their employees to purchase essentials from a ‘company store’. And because the employee was so badly paid, inevitably they would run up steep tab simply to keep their family fed and clothed. In […]

  12. The irony of the confluence

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 1:03 pm, July 20th, 2010 -  7 comments
    Categories: uncategorized
    Tags:

    There is a great review of “There Once Was An Island: Te Henua E Noho” at Reading the Maps. It is well worth reading and so are the comments. However ‘maps’ also opined on the weekend about where the film was shown. It expressed my feeling of being caught in some dreary surreal cyberpunk novel with the protests, police, fat cat capitalists, the desperate on their slot machines, and a documentary about losing your culture to the climate and change.

  13. Loophole in new ETS regulations will increase emissions

    Written By:  James Henderson -  Date published: 10:31 pm, July 19th, 2010 -  13 comments
    Categories: Environment, ETS
    Tags:

    The ETS-waste regulations currently being consulted on by the Government include a loophole that will actually increase greenhouse gas production in order to save polluters money. Who wrote the regs for the Government? A company that will be able to help landfills exploit this loophole by paying less whilst polluting more.

  14. The long goodbye

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:45 pm, July 8th, 2010 -  63 comments
    Categories: newspapers
    Tags: , ,

    Newspaper and magazine readerships continue to plummet despite the end of the recession. The biggest falls are the major newspapers. The Herald has shed 92,000 readers since 2005. The Sunday-Star Times lost 90,000 readers (15%!) last year alone. It’s got to the point where they literally can’t give the SST away.

  15. God, she writes like she talks

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 2:44 pm, July 5th, 2010 -  55 comments
    Categories: health, humour
    Tags: ,

    Paula Bennett in a letter to Tariana Turia: “Because of that sort of addiction it can be really tough on them and you see, certainly, financial hardship being increased and I think also with that sort of stress you can look at domestic violence,”. I don’t think that sentence would pass the national standard.

  16. Sceptics face yawning credibility gap

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 11:00 am, July 5th, 2010 -  34 comments
    Categories: climate change
    Tags:

    We know that the vast majority of climate scientists support the explanation of anthropogenic climate change set out by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. That majority is now quantified in the first study of its kind published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Expert credibility in climate change.

  17. Appreciating parenthood

    Written By:  Dancr -  Date published: 3:26 pm, July 4th, 2010 -  10 comments
    Categories: families, Social issues
    Tags:

    A thought provoking piece from Bryan Caplan ponders “”Having kids—what’s in it for me?” An economic perspective on happiness, nature and nurture provides an answer: Parents’ sacrifice is much smaller than it looks, and much larger than it has to be.”

  18. A Minister and some National Standards

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 11:00 am, July 3rd, 2010 -  61 comments
    Categories: education
    Tags: ,

    The Minister of Education Anne Tolley, and the Government, is facing a fair amount of (growing) opposition to the implementation of her National Standards. Her message was essentially that schools need to get on with the job of putting the Standards in place and not to publicly criticize the policy. Unfortunately, the Minister herself is responsible for a fair degree of the criticism.

  19. Solid Energy on the block?

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 12:48 am, June 18th, 2010 -  34 comments
    Categories: privatisation
    Tags: , ,

    Solid Energy chairman John Palmer has suggested that a partial sale of the SOE could be on the cards. John Key has backed down on every time when he has been challenged on whether he would ever sell a specific asset. We now have permanent promises that Kiwibank and NZPost will never be sold, in full or in part. Someone should ask him if he’s ever going to sell Solid Energy.

  20. Maori Party sell-out opens opportunity for Greens

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:50 am, June 16th, 2010 -  78 comments
    Categories: election 2011, foreshore and seabed, greens, maori party
    Tags:

    Of the political parties in Parliament, only the Greens are likely to oppose the ‘new’ foreshore and seabed law. So, the Greens will be the only place for disaffected Maori Party voters to turn to. And why not? Their values are very similar. I expect that the Greens will make a strong play for the party votes in the Maori seats, winning over a lot of people who feel betrayed by the Maori Party.

  21. The tiresome title of Professor Emeritus

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 8:30 am, June 9th, 2010 -  28 comments
    Categories: climate change, science
    Tags: , ,

    There has been a series of posts at Hot-topic and other sites looking at the actions and background of climate change skeptical scientists. But what is fascinating generally is that many are retired professors far from the cut and thrust of the peer reviewing of their work that is a major and critical part of the scientific process. Many people seem to imbue a larger mantle of authority over a title than its meaningless value deserves.

  22. Aussie national standards hurting education

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 2:26 pm, June 8th, 2010 -  28 comments
    Categories: education
    Tags:

    We all know what a disaster America’s ‘No Child Left Behind’, the inspiration for the Nats’ National Standards has been. It seems Australia has gone down a very similar track and the results have been the same – teaching to the test, grade inflation, and institutional cheating as teachers and schools find themselves being judged solely on their students’ grades.

  23. Nanny state on the roads

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 7:20 am, June 8th, 2010 -  70 comments
    Categories: dpf, law, transport
    Tags: , ,

    Last Queen’s Birthday Weekend 10 people died on the roads and 32 were seriously injured. Last Easter another 12 dead, the highest toll in 18 years. This Queen’s Birthday police announced a massive crackdown on speeding. Idiots such as DPF denounced it as a “revenue gathering exercise”. But events have proved them very wrong, with the lowest toll in 54 years.

  24. An early election in 2011?

    Written By:  Mike Smith -  Date published: 2:30 pm, June 2nd, 2010 -  20 comments
    Categories: uncategorized
    Tags:

    Recent posts and comments on the Standard have suggested that National may call an early election in 2011 because the Rugby World Cup’s halo effect will be more valuable to them before the tournament than after it’s over. David Farrar on Kiwiblog has downplayed the idea, and suggested November 26 as the likely date, but […]

  25. Who pays for climate change, polluters or taxpayers?

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 9:53 am, May 26th, 2010 -  65 comments
    Categories: climate change, ETS
    Tags:

    We pay for the need to reduce greenhouse emissions one way or the other. There’s no point complaining about the cost of the ETS on power and fuel. What we should be more pissed off about is that we are being expected to bear half the cost as taxpayers. We have to pay, the question is whether we put the cost on pollution to discourage pollution or we just lump it on taxpayers.

  26. A Budget for the rich, by the rich

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 2:24 pm, May 20th, 2010 -  141 comments
    Categories: budget 2010
    Tags: , ,

    Telecom Paul Reynolds’ $290,000 ‘rich guy bonus’ alone is enough to hire six nurses or teachers. It’s enough to pay for 40,000 hours of early childhood education. It’s the added GST bill for some 400 typical Kiwi workers.

    As expected this man, earning $7 million a year, has been given a tax break more than 200 times bigger than that of the average Kiwi worker.

    Update: Key has spent up large in his irresponsible tax cuts for the rich. We’ll be paying for this for decades to come. What happened to the fiscal conservatives in the National Party?

  27. Excusing the ‘Don’t Be Jealous’ Budget

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 9:00 am, May 19th, 2010 -  15 comments
    Categories: budget 2010, class war, spin, tax
    Tags:

    Tomorrow, National will give huge tax cuts to the wealthiest New Zealanders. $12,000 a year for a typical CEO or a Prime Minister on $350,000 a year. $290,000 a year for Paul Reynolds, the CEO of Telecom. The Right are trying a bunch of excuses for this unneeded gift to the richest people in the country, paid for by working Kiwis. Let’s debunk ’em.

  28. International Year of Biodiversity but not in NZ

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 2:26 pm, May 15th, 2010 -  9 comments
    Categories: Conservation, Mining, national
    Tags: ,

    The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. They have stated ‘It is a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives.’ National has taken up the cause wholeheartedly in a variety of weird ways. They seem hell bent on enacting policies that will do nothing but destroy biodiversity in the name of the economic growth.

  29. Question over Banks’ polling

    Written By:  Sam Cash -  Date published: 12:32 pm, May 13th, 2010 -  18 comments
    Categories: john banks, len brown
    Tags: , , ,

    Sam Cash has spotted a possible issue with Dodgy John “if I wear my policy on my sleeve, I won’t get elected” Banks’ most recent mayoral poll. Could it be Banks is just polling ratepayers to boost his numbers?

  30. Goff speech on Labour’s vision

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 1:47 pm, May 12th, 2010 -  72 comments
    Categories: Economy, jobs, labour, monetary policy, overseas investment, phil goff, wages
    Tags:

    Phil Goff has delivered his speech on Labour’s economic vision ahead of the Budget. It’s a good one, filled with core Labour values and ideas that will get New Zealand moving ahead. Goff talks about fairer tax rather than tax cuts for the rich, better monetary policy, and investing in New Zealand’s future.

  31. Schedule 4 back-down won’t solve the problem

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 12:30 pm, May 10th, 2010 -  11 comments
    Categories: climate change, Conservation, Mining
    Tags: , , , , ,

    If, as seems increasingly likely, the Government drops its plans to desecrate the best of schedule 4 land, will it be cause for celebration? In a word, no. Kathy at Greenpeace weblog examines Brownlee and his wet dreams

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