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New uses for iPads
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9XNfWNooz4&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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Archives · 2010-01-01 to 2010-12-31 · Page 3
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Searching: posts Sorted by: newest Results: 61–90 of 2,431
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Armstrong on soap opera politics
John Armstrong: "Nonentities," groaned one long-time political hand when this year's unusually long casualty list - Chris Carter (going), Pansy Wong (gone), David Garrett (gone), Shane Jones (recovering) and Phil Heatley (recovered) - was mentioned during the press gallery's annual party on Wednesday night. It…
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Ideology causes power price spike
Gerry Brownlee was warned his electricity reforms would increase power prices, not lower them as intended. He ignored the advice. Wholesale power prices have spiked from $50 to $300 per MWH. Exporters have cut production as a result. Residential prices are next. Brownlee's Electricity Authority's…
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Open mike 18/12/2010
Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Stupid news makes you stupid shocker
It's a real worry to me how much we're dumbing down the news. I haven't been able to watch TV news in NZ for the last 10 years or more because it makes me want to strangle my own brain in self defence. In America…
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Human Nature and Propaganda
In 1989 the Berlin Wall collapsed. Instead of this ushering in a period of vigorous growth for the left, the energies of the visible left in Western Europe and elsewhere dissipated. Not for the left to celebrate with people who had newly freed themselves from…
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The new economy: Govt as an economic actor
Three government investment decisions in the last couple of weeks have shown the deficiencies in the neoliberal way of doing things. SOE Solid Energy is preparing to wreck our environmental image and increase our carbon costs with lignite-to-liquids. Kiwirail saves itself some money by buying…
assets business Economy housing jobs public services sustainability tax workers' rights
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Merry Christmas from NZ
A headline on Newsroom at time of writing: Christmas Aid Shock - A week before Christmas, thousands of the world's poor receiving community development aid from Kiwi aid agencies are being told they will get no more money from the New Zealand Government. A small…
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Open mike 17/12/2010
Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Exploiting disaster
It's a tough Christmas for far too many Kiwis. Poverty is up, wages are down. 350,000 Kiwis are jobless or underemployed. The job losses are still coming - 130 from sawmills hammered by the high dollar, 160 from the Te Aroha meatworks fire, 400 as…
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Sloppy but nothing more
Jason Ede, Whaleoil's main source for smut in the National Research Unit, has done a clever little play on Phil Goff. Like 40-odd other MPs, Goff owns an investment property. That it's in Wellington doesn't matter. This isn't a Double Dipton rort. But Goff pledged…
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John Key: Celebrity
Isn't it great we've got that nice man John Key running the country? He can't sing, but he does entertain his fans so. Last year he sang Snoopy's Christmas for his fans, this year Santa Claus is Coming to Town. He sure does know what…
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Bloggers/Blog readers’ survey
You are invited to complete the New Zealand Political Blog Readers’ Survey for 2010. This survey is being conducted as a follow up to the 2008 survey which was conducted by Andrew Cushen as part of his Master of Arts in Political Studies from the…
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The “Choice” Mantra
Nick C, in my Government Spending Ideology post, had an interesting comment about the right's perspective on such things. In it, he said: "[T]he reason that those on ‘the right’ generally call for lower government spending and lower taxes is that we believe we get…
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Goff’s end of year speech
A very good close of year speech from Phil Goff in the House yesterday. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oodSV9QG6do I think this is the kind of thing we want to see more of next year. Phil's job is to crystalise the vague sense of dissatisfaction that most people feel…
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Early thoughts on the Botany by-election
The front-runner for National is Jamie-Lee Ross, who is just 25 years old. He's currently a Supercity councillor and co-leader of CitRats. One of the main players in the (ongoing) smear campaign against Len Brown and a good mate of Whaleoil, there's no doubting Ross…
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Government Spending Ideology
David Farrar sees that the government is borrowing too much - $300 million each week. But National's tax cuts for the rich are obviously not to blame, no it's the bloated public service. He would like any party that wants to be government to declare…
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Tax cuts busted
Tax cuts don't cause growth. I hate to say I told you so, but they don't. And slowly, some of the right wing commentators are starting to wake up. Here's Fran O'Sullivan: Prime Minister John Key yesterday displayed all the characteristics of a man deeply…
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Open mike 16/12/2010
Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Another Minister going…
Wayne Mapp to retire "for personal and family reasons" at the 2011 election. Who's going to be flown in to replace him?
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What NZ could look like with more Cancun failures
How does large hunks of most of our coastal cities and thousands of acres of farmland being swallowed the sea sound? This neat graphic shows effects of sea level rises from climate change: 1m - roughly in line with official predictions; through 6m - collapse…
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Sykes on neoliberalism & the iwi elite
Originally published here and sent to us by the author using contribute post. Annette Sykes recently delivered the annual Bruce Jesson Lecture concerning ‘The Politics of the Brown Table’. It was an illuminating speech and well worth a read as she sheds light on the…
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Rortbuster not finished with Wong
Rortbuster Pete Hodgson unveiled yet more information about Pansy and Sammy Wong's business activities in China on the taxpayer dime in Parliament yesterday. It's damning material. The Auditor-General had decided not to investigate but there's every chance she will now or that the Police will.…
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Nats’ ideology: outsourcing NZ
3 under the radar stories yesterday. All linked by ideology. Kiwirail to buy 300 wagons from China because its cheaper than building them here. It's not allowed to consider the wider economic gains. Collins outsources her newest prison to a multi-national, Serco, with a history…
assets business capitalism prisons privatisation public transport
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The dead and the living
It is much easier to honour the dead than it is to care for the living. As a government and as a country we honoured the Pike River dead, as was right and proper. But now the hard part starts. What are we going to…
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Children in poverty
Under the last Labour government, child poverty was finally, too slowly, but encouragingly, starting to fall. April 2008: Child poverty rate falling in NZ Child poverty is finally on the way down in two of the three rich countries where it increased the most in…
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Open mike 15/12/2010
Open mike is your post. It's open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes your fancy. The usual good behaviour rules apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
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Starve the beast
Let's face it. A government doesn't accidentally spend $15 billion more than its revenue while cutting billions in taxes. The unsustainably high deficit is intentional policy, not happenstance. In good times and bad, National's answer is always to cut taxes: Economic good times and record…
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Good Day to Bury News
So Pansy's gone. That should mean we can breeze over the fact that thanks to National's economic policies (or lack thereof) the economy's gone to custard. And thanks to National's tax cuts for the rich, the government's books are in the poo. We certainly won't…
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Wong resigns from Parliament
Corrupt former National minister Pansy Wong has finally done the right thing and resigned from Parliament. Key didn't want her to go. This doesn't change the need for the Auditor-General to investigate the abuse of her travel perks. [Update: Key announces March 5 by-election (a…