Posts Tagged ‘red alert’

Shut it down

Written By: - Date published: 3:15 pm, January 31st, 2012 - 38 comments

The same day as we learn that Labour won’t be allowing press gallery journos free access to their wing of Parliament as previously (apparently a desperate attempt at message control by keeping off message MPs and journos apart: someone better tell Fran Mold what a cellphone is), Labour’s bizarre cult of David Farrar has performed its first human sacrifice.

Job system & RA in need of reform, not benefits

Written By: - Date published: 12:10 pm, January 10th, 2012 - 41 comments

Other day, Curran asked what they should do with Red Alert. Now, Mallard’s again using it, in conjunction with Pagani on his blog, to try to do an end run around his own party to promote benefit ‘reform’. Leaving aside the fact it’s the employment system, not the backstop, that’s broken, this is more strategic idiocy.

Comment Privacy and fools

Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, December 19th, 2011 - 94 comments

Cameron Slater is a technological idiot. Well he has just proven it again. A comment on our site referred to IP/e-mail matching at another site. In his own guilt about privacy abuses Slater immediately jumped to the wrong conclusion.

I’d advise people to never put comments on sites that lack a privacy policy that is explicit about what information may be used for. But we ensure your privacy here.

The new political battleground

Written By: - Date published: 9:12 am, August 30th, 2011 - 23 comments

Rijab looks at how social media can be a useful tool for political parties but how it also needs to be used carefully, lest it come back to hurt you. Red Alert and Frogblog are very free, with MPs writing what they want and relatively loose moderation, whereas NationalMPs is insipid and tightly controlled – who has taken the smarter course?

Buzzy Key

Written By: - Date published: 9:00 am, April 26th, 2011 - 28 comments

Over at Red Alert, Chris Hipkins asks what other photo-ops John Key has been flying to using Air Force helicopters. As well as the V8/Golf club dinner photo ops, Key has used the choppers three times in the past three weeks. Maybe he buzzed into his important photo-op at a Timaru skateboard park or the ‘cameo’ at the NZ Shearing Champs.

Simon Canute and the blogs

Written By: - Date published: 12:17 am, October 17th, 2010 - 30 comments

Simon Power is ‘consulting’ on regulating the on-line communities to prevent violations of normal societal and legal standards. Clare Curran asks ‘hopefully’ that this isn’t simply a reaction to the idiocy of ex-National party member Whaleoil in how he chases readership. But I suspect that is why this foolishness has come back on the agenda again. Plus National would prefer that there wasn’t so much criticism of their wimpy leader.

Cosgrove slams McVicar’s role in Garrett affair

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, September 23rd, 2010 - 10 comments

Great video of Clayton Cosgrove getting right stuck into the Sensible Sentencing Trust’s Garth McVicar over his hypocrisy on  David Garrett. Cosgrove’s certainly no bleeding heart liberal so I’d say McVicar’s credibility on law in order is now pretty much shot.

Labour grassroots revolt against Quake Act betrayal

Written By: - Date published: 7:51 am, September 16th, 2010 - 154 comments

A couple of days ago Labour MP Brendon Burns posted a self-congratulatory piece over at Red Alert celebrating the ‘rare unity’ among parliamentary parties in voting to make Gerry Brownlee dictator of New Zealand for the next 18 months.
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The response from Labour’s grassroots in the comment section was swift and brutal. The Parliamentary Labour Party may have abdicated its role as opposition but that doesn’t mean everyone is happy.

Meanwhile, at nationalmps.co.nz…

Written By: - Date published: 11:16 am, March 9th, 2010 - 19 comments

Remember how a couple of months back National set up NationalMPs? It was meant to be their answer to Red Alert, Labour’s frequently raucous, unstagemanaged blog where Labour’s MPs write what they want. But the Nats’ attempt is deadly dull. Either the leadership is gagging them or the Nat MPs are dreadful bores.

Kate’s pretext falls over

Written By: - Date published: 10:30 am, September 4th, 2009 - 8 comments

Yesterday, National’s Kate Wilkinson tried to use a dispute over how to apply the new rest breaks law for air traffic controllers as a pretext for taking away our right to rest and meal breaks. She tried to paint the dispute over breaks as being about union intransigence, with the “Airline Pilots Association (ALPA) unwilling […]

Keep it up, Chippie and co

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

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

Roger Douglas on Key and English

Written By: - Date published: 11:54 am, June 21st, 2009 - 19 comments

Commenting on Key’s policy to force the Guardians of the Super Fund to invest 40% of funds in New Zealand, ACT’s Roger Douglas notices a pattern we’ve posted on here at The Standard before: “This only enforces the emerging trend we have seen between Mr Key and Mr English. Mr Key announces a stupid idea […]

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