Search Results

  1. National Party Conference Protest

    Crash National’s party update

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 11:51 am, July 18th, 2010 -  98 comments
    Categories: workers' rights
    Tags:

    Word is numbers at the protest are up to 500. Not bad for a protest organised in a couple of days. According to the Herald an EPMU flag-waving Sue Bradford and forty protesters broke through security. The changes have been officially announced. As well as the 90 day fire at will extension and cutting workers’ […]

  2. What’s a university to do?

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 11:11 am, July 16th, 2010 -  38 comments
    Categories: education
    Tags: , ,

    Some people still think of universities as fusty old ivory towers disconnected from the real world. That hasn’t been true for decades. Our current universities and tertiary institutions are business, they are structured and run to maximise their income in whatever funding framing the government of the day has in place. Predictably, the Nats latest proposed sausage machine funding model is a disaster.

  3. I was just following the market’s orders

    Written By:  Zetetic -  Date published: 11:48 am, July 14th, 2010 -  31 comments
    Categories: capitalism, class war, health
    Tags:

    Should be no surprise to anyone that the Nats and Maori Party are cutting help for tobacco addicts while upping the cost of their ciggies. They don’t care about better health. Don’t care about helping poor people get off an expensive habit. It’s all about sopping the poor and give aways for the rich. But you know who did grind my gears? Those tabacco execs the other week.

  4. Crowdsourcing the deficit

    Written By:  all_your_base -  Date published: 2:43 pm, July 13th, 2010 -  11 comments
    Categories: democratic participation, International, Politics, uk politics
    Tags: , ,

    Why let politicians have all the fun? Now the British public can get in on the service slashing action too – via Facebook. The government there has launched a Facebook group to support the Treasury’s “Spending Challenge” – where the public is invited to share their ideas for cutting spending. With the possible exception of […]

  5. Fat little lapdog

    Written By:  the sprout -  Date published: 8:58 am, July 13th, 2010 -  123 comments
    Categories: accountability, activism, Conservation, john key, national, spin
    Tags: ,

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

  6. RSA Animate – Crises of Capitalism

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 2:24 pm, July 11th, 2010 -  22 comments
    Categories: Economy, education, youtube
    Tags:

    This is based on a lecture at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).

    It is a hell of an effective way to present an economic argument.

  7. Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball

    Written By:  notices and features -  Date published: 10:32 am, July 10th, 2010 -  52 comments
    Categories: capitalism, class war, Environment
    Tags: , ,

    This guy writes what I would aspire to write if I had the time and the cojones. For a lazy Saturday morning rant, read on.

  8. National's Policies

    Bulk Funding by any other name…

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 8:34 am, July 5th, 2010 -  56 comments
    Categories: education, same old national
    Tags:

    Roger Douglas has a private members bill to introduce bulk funding. It (hopefully) shouldn’t get through – National are unlikely to support it as they’ve already introduced by the back door.

  9. Enigma: Gravity of Love

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 8:00 pm, July 2nd, 2010 -  4 comments
    Categories: admin, music, youtube
    Tags:

    Enigma have for a long time one of my favorite sounds to listen to while programming from the early 90’s onwards. There have been bug-hunting exercises where Enigma has literally been on my playlist all day. You can just queue all of their albums, knuckle down, and kill those tiresome and frustrating bugs. Since it is going to be a programming weekend, including some site tweaking….

  10. English’s faith-based economics

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 8:40 am, July 2nd, 2010 -  90 comments
    Categories: bill english, capitalism, class war, Economy, public services
    Tags:

    Bill English claims that our low national savings rate is due to the ‘government paying for everything’. According to English, people don’t need to save because the government pays for early childhood education, superannuation, Working for Families, and interest-free student loans. Does he have any evidence that is the case? Of course not. The evidence points the other way.

  11. Sara Goff and Drugs

    Written By:  Guest post -  Date published: 12:04 pm, June 28th, 2010 -  54 comments
    Categories: drugs
    Tags:

    A British government scientist was recently fired after showing that Ecstasy is safer than horse riding, and definitely safer than alcohol. There is an aversion to all recreational drugs in Western society, with the exception of the old favourite alcohol. Should the fact that Sara Goff wants to have a good night out and had something safer than alcohol be cause for a mini-scandal?

  12. Not a good look

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 11:09 am, June 28th, 2010 -  63 comments
    Categories: accountability, Media
    Tags: , , ,

    I’m not going to take sides in the dispute between Brian Edwards and Duncan Garner over Garner’s targeting of Chris Carter. Edwards attacks Garner’s professionalism. Garner responds by attacking Edwards’ politics. The level of behaviour all round is unimpressive. The only one who comes out looking good is Margaret Bazley.

  13. Crock of the Week – “The Medieval Warming Crock”

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 5:55 pm, June 26th, 2010 -  25 comments
    Categories: climate change
    Tags:

    I’m tired of hearing about the ‘medieval warming period’ and ‘hockey-stick’, which are respectively almost two decades and a decade old. It came up in comments today again, and I get the impression that CCDs are firstly euro-centric and secondly never seem to look at the current evidence. There have been many studies that substantially support the ‘hockey-stick’ and none that support the MWP. The Crock of the Week did this video explaining it…

  14. Crock of the Week – ‘Climategate’

    Written By:  lprent -  Date published: 3:29 pm, June 26th, 2010 -  24 comments
    Categories: climate change
    Tags:

    Peter Sinclair in Crock of the week uses some old classic movie and TV footage to point out the debunking the ‘climategate’ myth. Quite simply this hack of the e-mails hasn’t changed any of the science of climate change and is as ineffectual as most of the anti-science inquisition has been over the last century. It really just shows how pathetic and ineffectual that the CCDs are becoming.

  15. Congratulations Julia Gillard

    Written By:  Mike Smith -  Date published: 9:05 pm, June 24th, 2010 -  14 comments
    Categories: australian politics
    Tags:

    It’s been a big day for Julia Gillard. Up late last night with Kevin Rudd and John Faulkner, the ALP’s elder spokesman, doing one of the hardest things in politics which is to front up and tell someone that you have worked with closely that it is time for them to go. Rudd’s subsequent late-night […]

  16. All Whites game 3

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 4:52 pm, June 24th, 2010 -  31 comments
    Categories: sport
    Tags:

    Predictions anyone?

    Go the All Whites!

  17. Public holiday on All Whites win?

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 12:28 am, June 24th, 2010 -  27 comments
    Categories: sport
    Tags: , ,

    Asked if a win against Paraguay should warrant a public holiday, John Key replied “Damn fine idea. I want the country to enjoy this. They’ll be dancing all over the place”. Trevor Mallard has taken up the cause and will ask Parliament’s permission for it to debate a Bill that will create a one-off public holiday on Friday if the All Whites win. There’s strong public support.

  18. Credit card scandals & false economies

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 11:02 am, June 23rd, 2010 -  92 comments
    Categories: accountability, parliamentary spending
    Tags:

    It is good to cast light on ministers putting personal spending on the taxpayer but the media is attacking legitimate spending too. As a result, MPs are being prevented from doing their jobs properly for fear of appearing profligate. Is this the desired effect of the chill wind blowing from the media on our representatives’ expenses, that even John Key warned about?

  19. Speculators – Our Evil Overlords

    Written By:  Bunji -  Date published: 9:49 am, June 21st, 2010 -  44 comments
    Categories: capitalism, class war
    Tags: ,

    Many think that Capitalism has been corrupted, socialised. It hasn’t – it’s been purified. We used to have capitalists that produced things; they weren’t the worker’s friend, but they did actually serve a purpose, setting up factories, providing the machinery for workers to use. But now we have a new class of capitalist that doesn’t […]

  20. Heroes

    Written By:  r0b -  Date published: 11:03 am, June 20th, 2010 -  9 comments
    Categories: activism
    Tags:

    Good interview on RNZ this morning with the author of a book on the early life of Nelson Mandela. Reminded me that I have been meaning for a while now to try a Sunday occasional post series on heroes. Heroes, past and present, of democracy, the labour movement, or the environment.

  21. Let’s not rush things

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 11:01 am, June 18th, 2010 -  7 comments
    Categories: climate change, energy, science
    Tags: ,

    President Obama has just come out and said the US and the world needs to get off its oil addiction. But, just as we’ve been talking about climate change for nearly two centuries, before it was even a problem, and done nothing about it, Presidents have been declaring its time to end the oil age for 40 years and nothing has changed. Why can’t we get serious about saving ourselves?

  22. The golden curse

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:05 am, June 17th, 2010 -  15 comments
    Categories: afghanistan, Economy, Mining
    Tags: , ,

    You know, if we don’t give those mining companies some more free seismic data, rent-free access to our most precious natural environments, and only demand low royalties when they dig up our minerals, we’ll lose them to the lucky country. That’s right, Afghanistan. It’s sitting, quite literally, on a gold mine and it makes ours look like small change.

  23. Senator Alvin Greene?

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 9:12 am, June 16th, 2010 -  29 comments
    Categories: humour, us politics
    Tags:

    Alvin Greene is an unemployed military veteran who received an involuntary discharge and is currently on felony pornography charges. He has a degree but seems a bit, um, challenged. He received 60% of the vote in the Democratic Primary for South Carolina senator, despite having no experience, no backing, and no campaign. No-one can explain it. See the Daily Show’s take:

  24. Questions mount on PEDA

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 12:10 am, June 16th, 2010 -  45 comments
    Categories: accountability, budget 2010, parliamentary spending, pasifika
    Tags: , , ,

    Details on PEDA are still very thin but it is increasingly looking like public money has been hijacked to help the political prospects of National’s Pacific Islanders. The service delivery aspect of the Pacific Island Affairs Ministry seems set to be turned over to this private organisation. The lack of honest answers from the minister only deepens the suspicion that something very dodgy is afoot.

  25. Creepy like Rodney, but intelligent

    Written By:  the sprout -  Date published: 6:56 pm, June 12th, 2010 -  14 comments
    Categories: science
    Tags: ,

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

  26. Maori Party won’t take Key’s F&S deal

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 1:34 am, June 12th, 2010 -  42 comments
    Categories: foreshore and seabed, Maori Issues, maori party
    Tags: , ,

    ‘We don’t know if we can support this’.
    It’s a very delicate title for the Maori Party’s press release on National’s foreshore and seabed offer but it reveals much. On the one hand, they know they can’t accept a deal that doesn’t give title to iwi. On the other hand, the co-leaders really don’t want to leave government.

  27. Boston Globe leads on tailored content

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 12:18 pm, June 11th, 2010 -  2 comments
    Categories: newspapers, Satire
    Tags: ,

    Did you know Editing the Herald is back? It is and James is as incisive and witty as ever.

    This isn’t about one of his posts though, sampling them doesn’t do them justice. Instead, it’s a hilarious clip from The Onion that his blog put me on to.

  28. High noon on the foreshore

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 8:40 am, June 10th, 2010 -  36 comments
    Categories: foreshore and seabed, Maori Issues, maori party, national
    Tags:

    Take it or leave it, says John Key to the Maori Party over the foreshore and seabed. So much for consultation and collective decision making with their government partner. Like the trader he is, Key’s made his offer – symbolic change and nothing more. If the Maori Party don’t want to buy, he doesn’t care. Key doesn’t need to make the deal. The Maori Party does.

  29. Protesters angry at Key’s attack on democracy

    Written By:  Michael Foxglove -  Date published: 7:47 pm, June 9th, 2010 -  79 comments
    Categories: democracy under attack
    Tags:

    The Press reports John Key was greeted by angry protesters at the South Island forum in Christchurch tonight. About 100 people waved placards protesting the undemocratic dismissal of the regional council by the Key government.

  30. Tell us what you really think

    Written By:  Marty G -  Date published: 10:42 am, June 9th, 2010 -  12 comments
    Categories: accountability, assets, privatisation
    Tags:

    National was forced into a back down by the extremely negative public reaction to Bill English’s kite-flying over selling Kiwibank. Now, after initially supporting the idea of a sale, John Key has emphatically ruled it out… unless he changes his mind later. When it comes to other public assets, Key is giving us the semantic run around. National’s true intentions are clear.

  31. Restoring ‘one person, one vote’ to local government

    Written By:  Eddie -  Date published: 8:53 am, June 9th, 2010 -  107 comments
    Categories: community democracy, democratic participation, local government
    Tags:

    Each person gets the same right to vote, regardless of wealth. That’s a fundamental principle of our democracy. But it’s not true. Those who own land across local government districts can vote in all areas under a ratepayer franchise. It’s time to restore “one person, one vote”.

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