Written By: - Date published: 8:01 pm, April 5th, 2010 - 3 comments
This is eleven minutes of pure Patti Smith singing about Vietnam in her usual ambiguous poetical style. Came up on the playlist while coding, and I had to stop to listen to the sheer menace in her voice. I had a look for a video. A powerful song, and a powerful rendition by its creator.
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, March 31st, 2010 - 2 comments
NatRad’s Insight has the best overview of the Brownlees mining proposal that I’ve seen (or rather heard) from the media to date.
Environmental issues reporter, Ian Telfer investigates the Government’s proposal in “Mining in National Parksâ€.
Written By: - Date published: 8:01 pm, March 27th, 2010 - 3 comments
This image has been sitting around since October 2007 in a unposted post from all_your_base awaiting someone who deserves it.
I read Marty G’s post today about the infighting in Act.
I’m awarding it to Rodney Hide. He seems to deserve it….
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, March 26th, 2010 - 25 comments
We’ve now done 5000 posts. Number 4000 was at the end of October, so it took a bit less than 5 months (even with the dropoff during the summer break). The comments are sitting just less than 155k which is less than our long-term average. It is probably more a reflection of the kiwi’s disappearing […]
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, March 26th, 2010 - 33 comments
There has been considerable discussion about the message and targeting of Labours policy on mining around the conservation estate in OpenMike and some of the other blogs. This is obviously going to be a reasonable large policy platform in the upcoming election in about 18 months (how time flies). So Labour having a clear policy on it over the last decade pleases me greatly. It agrees broadly with my views of balancing the economics between exploitation of extraction and sustainable tourism.
I’m pretty much in agreement with Lew at Kiwipolitico who said “Labour’s campaign against mining Schedule 4 land looks strong, especially at the iconographic level.”
Written By: - Date published: 2:05 pm, March 22nd, 2010 - 15 comments
I regret to inform the world that John Keys domain has run out of money and is in the process of expiring (much like this government will eventually do). This is a pity as http://johnkey.co.nz has probably has the highest hit rate of any of the National party websites.This is because there has been a […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:23 pm, March 21st, 2010 - 6 comments
An amusing tale of how Rush Limbaugh screws up, and a pile of wingnuts immediately jump to the wrong conclusions.
American wingnuts at their most ridiculous. But we have the angry and irrational breed here as well.
Written By: - Date published: 3:30 pm, March 20th, 2010 - 7 comments
Last year a new TV show HungryBeast ran a check on how gullible the news media were. They generated a bogus institute, website, and a rather dodgy press release about a survey on how gullible different cities in aussie are. At least our media wouldn’t be taken in like the aussies.. right… please tell me that they aren’t that gullible?
Written By: - Date published: 2:31 pm, March 20th, 2010 - 1 comment
There are a second set of seminars in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch over the next week on Choices and Consequences of the 2010 budget. Based on the Bold Choices seminar that I attended last weekend in Auckland (there are later ones in Wellington and Christchurch), they will be well worth attending. There are some materials on-line from that seminar.
Oh and David Farrar was shocked to find that Kiwiblog had been advertising the seminars 
Written By: - Date published: 11:29 am, March 20th, 2010 - 3 comments
The Herald has a editorial lambasting John Key about claiming this week that they were ‘hysterical’ writing about the plans to mine the conservation lands, and that there were no such plans. Later in the week, the government launched a probe to find out who leaked cabinet documents about mining the conservation lands. The irony of the two actions appears to have escaped John Key who appears more clueless than ever.
Written By: - Date published: 12:47 am, March 15th, 2010 - 4 comments
My absence this weekend from moderation and posts has partially been because of going to the excellent Fabian seminar today. However it has largely been due to trying to get a workable search system running. One that didn’t bring the whole server crashing around my ears every few months and cut the issue of everyone having to stop receiving data for up to a minute when someone used search. One that allowed comments to be accessed as easily as posts.
It looks like it is finally working correctly, but I’d like feedback on any errors that show up.
Updated: Several different server and site updates.
Written By: - Date published: 10:31 am, March 12th, 2010 - 28 comments
Looking at the leaders for the Fabians seminar on Sunday, it looks to me like it is going to be quite interesting because it is likely to focus more on incremental rather than radical methods. One of the major issues to me with the existing ‘debate’ on economic matters has been the level at which it is ideologically driven rather than based on the actual economy. The main problem with the ‘debate’ are impatient radicals from all sides.
Written By: - Date published: 5:41 pm, March 4th, 2010 - 27 comments
Now this is pretty damn funny and just adds to todays absurdities over the waste of money on rugby world cup TV in 2011. Veteran Springbok Tour protester John Minto has found himself at the centre of a new Eden Park storm, with a controversial plan to name a nearby $3 million road after him.
Will the supercity transition authority now want to stop community boards from naming streets?
Written By: - Date published: 4:09 pm, March 4th, 2010 - 6 comments
This is the shortened and lyrical version of the policy.
Written By: - Date published: 2:41 pm, March 3rd, 2010 - 4 comments
Well the discussion keeps going on, and as you know I like marking these occasions as the database steadily grows (and my backup nightmares keep increasing). The 150,000’th accepted* comment was by Lanthanide here at just after midday. He was explaining the real world politics to someone who preferred their own myths. When the 100,000th […]
Written By: - Date published: 12:14 pm, March 2nd, 2010 - 9 comments
The select committee considering the 3rd super-shitty bill is sitting in Parnell now. There is a protest against the sham ‘consultation’ that National and Act have used to lock Aucklanders out of having any significant say in their city before, during and after this change.
Goto Quality Hotel Barrycourt, 20 Gladstone Road Parnell Auckland. The protest finishes at 2pm
Written By: - Date published: 12:52 pm, March 1st, 2010 - 7 comments
The select committee on Rodney Hides vision of the Auckland Super-City sits in Parnell tommorrow. The National MPs complicit in foisting this idiotic vision of Auckland on us will be there along with the architect – the head of the lunatic Act party.
Spend your lunchtime demonstrating what a crock this version of the super-city is. Do it in Rodney Hide’s Epsom electorate.
Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, February 28th, 2010 - 23 comments
One of the best pieces I’ve seen about the idiotic minister of broadcasting Jonathon Coleman wanting to starve or bend National Radio into the level of stupidity that the NACT’s prefer. Rosemary McLeod writing “Quality radio easy target for the barbarians” in the Sunday Star Times this morning.
Written By: - Date published: 9:08 pm, February 25th, 2010 - 14 comments
I’m about to start sweeping the blogroll for dead or moribund sites over the next week. The general rule is that I mark sites private if the recent posts are inactive for more than 3 months (or I can’t read the site). If anyone wants to get their site added (or re-added) then use the […]
Written By: - Date published: 4:04 pm, February 24th, 2010 - 130 comments
David Farrar obviously lost it today. In a post called “Anonymous Smears” he is upset about Eddie pointing out Murray McCully and his mining shares. There wasn’t an value known when the post was written, so Eddie reasonably asked if there was a conflict of interest.
David can get upset with an opinion from a author. However he has attacked this site as an entity. So as sysop of the site, he is getting my opinion about his opinion, and my opinion on his antics. It is an honest opinion, the same as Eddies. However in this case just for benefit of David, it isn’t anonymous.
Written By: - Date published: 12:09 pm, February 23rd, 2010 - 17 comments
This morning the DomPost ran an article by Tracy Watkins about several ministers misusing their ministerial credit cards for personal entertainment. They obtained the information by doing OIAs (Official Information Act requests). Now I’ve come to expect that NACT ministers will do (in John Keys words) “stupid” things in office. But what I found significant was that John Key appears to have discovered the use of a new word “disappointment”. This is a major advance for the NACT political vocabulary.
Written By: - Date published: 2:30 pm, February 21st, 2010 - 1 comment
Briar March and Lyn Collie have gained another award yesterday for their documentary There Once Was an Island:Te Henua e Noho at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Montana USA.
I’m personally rapt at the recognition it has been getting and I can’t wait to see it on the big-screen in New Zealand myself. Should be better than showing on our TV.
Written By: - Date published: 6:03 pm, February 20th, 2010 - 1 comment
There will be some maintenance going on this evening starting about 7pm and hopefully not lasting long.
The new site seems to be stable, so I’ll be removing the old site at www2. That will allow the new site to start using widgets and to move from the temporary ads to the final advertisement systems.
Written By: - Date published: 6:26 pm, February 19th, 2010 - 6 comments
It is not often that I compliment the authors that write for No Minister. However I have to compliment SageNZ for his prescient post about Huljich Wealth Management – “Huljich funds and stock pumping”.. I noticed the post while I was scanning their site with my usual level of mild distaste (it usually feels like […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, February 19th, 2010 - 21 comments
While measures to fix problems in investments are good, the best approach is increase financial literacy. However Anne Tolly has already shown she does not understand education. Her idiotic decisions to destroy adult community education has removed the best channel for promoting knowledge amongst current investors. This suggests that the government isn’t serious and we are seeing more PR than substantive measures.
Written By: - Date published: 1:42 pm, February 14th, 2010 - 1 comment
The Economist has been looking at the failures in the financial markets at assessing risk. They have quite a lot of material available. But here are some audio visuals that are of interest.
Note: These clips are all in iFrames which may not display/play where there are strong web controls.
Written By: - Date published: 3:29 pm, February 13th, 2010 - 11 comments
There will be up to 15 minutes of maintenance around 5pm. I have to shove some directories around to better structure the server filesystem. The site will have to be off while that is happening. Unless I’m mistaken, everything is back to normal after my system work for the new site. There should be captcha […]
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, February 12th, 2010 - 21 comments
This is a fast way to get my blood boiling. Rodney Hide as minister of local government has removed protection from the Waitakere ranges. It is time to make the Act party extinct rather than merely being on the endangered species list. The Waitakere ranges are the only readily accessible tramping around Auckland. Virtually every […]
Written By: - Date published: 6:30 pm, February 11th, 2010 - 63 comments
Enough of all of this politics. Lets look at something that is more mysterious than the hole that John Key is digging for his political future. Why in the hell is “milk bottle” one of the most frequent search terms for this site? Looking at the search queries that have resulted in a click through […]
Written By: - Date published: 7:00 am, February 7th, 2010 - 79 comments
Poneke’s weblog recently wrote a critical post about ‘climategate’ where he has had a look through the subset of selectively leaked pages of private correspondence thieved from the CRU at the University of East Anglia. His analysis didn’t bother to look at the science of climate change virtually at all, and what science was looked at was full of myths. Furthermore it wasn’t particularly original. Most appeared to have been cribbed from a number of climate change denialist sites and throughly debunked in part or as a whole by many other sites. It was hardly the type of original thinking that David Farrar at kiwiblog should have labeled as being
Poneke’s full post is a must read. It is also the sort of journalism that should be in the mainstream media.
Written By: - Date published: 9:05 pm, February 3rd, 2010 - 1 comment
I’m totally rapt with Lyn Collie & Briar March getting the recognition for their documentary “There once was an island”. Lyn talked about it on Nightline last night.
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