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making shit up

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ManBan!

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, July 6th, 2013 - 221 comments

Would it kill our journalists to add just the tiniest bit of fact into their Labour-scandal-obsessed feeding frenzy?

Show us the money

Written By: - Date published: 11:22 am, June 29th, 2013 - 56 comments

National’s spend-up promises in Auckland look like panicky policy on the hoof. Where is all this money going to come from? Key says they’ll just write a cheque!

OP: Fluoridation – it does reduce tooth decay

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, June 21st, 2013 - 306 comments

Ken Perrott at Open Parachute has been debunking some of the nonsense around fluoridated water by investigating claims (his background is in scientific research). It is refreshing after reading some of the recent misinterpreted drivel around about the science.

Caption contest

Written By: - Date published: 10:28 am, June 2nd, 2013 - 62 comments

“I have formed a lose alliance of committed fiscal conservatives”

I have decided to call it the Front Bone Club

Someone is lying about MRP float

Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, May 5th, 2013 - 78 comments

The “market specialists” say that the loony left have scared of all the Mum and Dad investors. The “investment sources” say the Mums and Dads are signing up in droves. I’m so confused! Why oh why would those nice “market specialists” be lying to us about the effects of the Labour / Green electricity policy? I just can’t work it out…

Economic apocalypse – not

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, April 29th, 2013 - 15 comments

National and their proxies have claimed that Labour / Green NZ Power announcement has crashed the stock market and wiped out savings. Lies lies lies. Here’s the data.

An honest man?

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, April 22nd, 2013 - 65 comments

John Key has promised live on television to never lie and to always do his best. Now, four-and-a-half years later we know that was his first lie, and it certainly wasn’t going to be his last. And these are only the ones we know about. In fact, as the litany of lies still spills from John Key, it must be asked: is the litany orchestrated? – BLiP’s extraordinary list of Key’s lies.

Classic Nat press releases

Written By: - Date published: 4:28 pm, April 18th, 2013 - 23 comments

The best that the Nats can come up with in response to the Labour / Green electricity reforms is juvenile posturing about Stalinist extremism and “comrades Norman and Shearer”. This from the National Party that brought you cancelled democratic elections, harsh punishments for protestors, and increased powers to spy on the people. Oh, the irony.

Pull the other one, it’s full of sarin

Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, April 16th, 2013 - 90 comments

New Zealand is, famously, a nuclear-free country. We’re also signatories to the Chemical Weapons and Biological Weapons Conventions, which outlaw them. So, if you’re looking to learn about weapons of mass destruction, New Zealand’s the wrong place to go. It’s laughable that Key’s inventing WMD-seeking terrorists to justify legalising spying on Kiwis.

Key’s Nixon moment

Written By: - Date published: 6:15 am, April 11th, 2013 - 55 comments

Nixon famously said: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal”. John Key would have you believe the same thing, that when his agency, the GCSB, has been breaking the law, the problem lies with the law. No – the problem lies with the GCSB and its oversight. Watergate here we come…

Another day, another bullshit Family First/Curia poll

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, March 23rd, 2013 - 187 comments

Oh look, once again Family First’s rhetoric fails to match its reality.

Stand back! The English language is evolving! GAY evolving!

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, March 2nd, 2013 - 42 comments

Family First’s arguments against basic human rights continue to be absurd – now apparently we’re all going to forget what “husband” and “wife” mean.

Greens announce non-racist policy; 3News decides to make it racist

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, March 1st, 2013 - 49 comments

Yet again, Patrick Gower digs deep to find a story where there really isn’t one.

RBNZ lying on manufacturing

Written By: - Date published: 9:10 am, February 15th, 2013 - 23 comments

Why are Treasury and Reserve Bank presenting clearly trumped up numbers to pretend the economy is doing better than it is? They’ve been caught out lying that the banks weren’t excessively profitable by international standards, that private electricity suppliers aren’t more expensive, and that we’re not unequal by OECD standards. Now, the Reserve Bank is telling blatant lies about the manufacturing sector.

Tell the truth

Written By: - Date published: 10:26 pm, January 25th, 2013 - 254 comments

Zetetic’s telling porkies. His talk of a rift in the Labour Party is crap. He hasn’t got a clue about  what went on the Party conference – the idea that there should be a membership-wide vote on the leadership was voted down in November by a large majority of the 600-700 delegates present.

So, that’s what Nats mean by creating jobs

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 am, January 15th, 2013 - 111 comments

We all know, because that Nice Man Mr Key told us, the government can’t create jobs. That is, unless it has given away $67m to international bully boys and wants to show a return on investment. Then, it can create 3,000 jobs out of thin air. It turns out, that’s where the claim that the Hobbit films created 3,000 Kiwi jobs came from. But it gets worse.

The only poll that matters is on election day

Written By: - Date published: 7:00 pm, December 5th, 2012 - 103 comments

So, recent polls have shown a minor upward blip for Labour.  A minor downward blip for National.  Ergo, David Shearer must immediately appear on TV to extrapolate why and make big sexy claims about how The Gap Is Narrowing and We Will Clearly Return To The Treasury Benches In 2015 2014. Any time in the next month […]

The political media and the blogs

Written By: - Date published: 10:34 pm, November 29th, 2012 - 110 comments

Chris Trotter, like myself, was at the Labour party conference a week and a half ago. Like myself and damn near every left wing blogger who was there, he saw a massive discordance between what was being reported and what was actually happening in the conference. The hysteria at having a carefully constructed fiction of media and the beltway PR being torn to pieces by ordinary citizens writing has been extraordinary. The implications for the poorly constructed Law Commission report on cyber-bullying is sobering.

An apology to David Cunliffe

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 pm, November 19th, 2012 - 121 comments

I’m sorry, David Cunliffe, for the part I have played in your downfall.  Wait a minute, what?

Cunliffe Has Overplayed His Hand

Written By: - Date published: 1:52 pm, November 19th, 2012 - 100 comments

At the end of this weekend’s Labour Annual Conference, delegates were happy. Speaking as a delegate, we had made the first and most important changes to the party in its history. But every night, after we got home and turned on the TV or visited a news website (or even some of the blogs), we didn’t see those stories we felt proud about. We saw Patrick Gower and Brook Sabin and Jessica Mutch sticking the camera in David Cunliffe’s face

Some facts for today

Written By: - Date published: 11:42 pm, November 18th, 2012 - 27 comments

The Labour Conference was not ‘acrimonious’. The Party was not ‘split’. A good time was had. Shearer’s speech was fantastic. The Party was rejuvenated. The February vote can’t be brought forward. Labour showed great progressive values. The media showed great beat-up skills.

Queen of Thorns makes a move for Labour leadership

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, November 18th, 2012 - 15 comments

The truth is out.  Under Patrick Gower’s incredibly cunning questioning, I have confessed that I will challenge Shearer in February.

Two faced John Key on Pike River

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, November 7th, 2012 - 54 comments

On Monday John Key admitted in an interview that Pike River Coal compromised safety for profits. On Tuesday Jon Key insisted in Parliament that such a suggestion was ridiculous. Which John Key should we believe? Can he even remember what he is saying from one day to the next? Does he care?

Charter schools shoot themselves in both feet

Written By: - Date published: 2:03 pm, October 23rd, 2012 - 16 comments

Evidence of the supposed success of charter schools in New York is doing the rounds. Unfortunately for the right-wing ideologues, charter schools shoot themselves in both feet when they use “relaxed” assessment standards and other methods of artificially “boosting” their results.

Key’s snub to unions and workers

Written By: - Date published: 6:37 am, October 9th, 2012 - 99 comments

National promised us an “unrelenting focus on jobs” and delivered record highs in unemployment and emigration.  Now Key is refusing to even attend a Union jobs summit,  because on Planet Key everything is just fine. The unwillingness to admit that anything is wrong is just blind arrogance.

Shane Jones: now pimping for Sealords

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, October 3rd, 2012 - 26 comments

As Shane Jones makes a complete dick of himself in public yet again in a traditional display of Labour party backbench egotism. I’m left shaking my head at the apparent complete inability of the Labour caucus to settle down to the task of being an effective opposition.

The Right tilts at class-size windmills

Written By: - Date published: 8:48 am, September 24th, 2012 - 10 comments

The Righties are wetting themselves because the national standards supposedly show higher results in larger classes. But the data is unmoderated – you can’t compare schools to get national data. And the apparent link is down to special schools and deciles. So, what have we learned? Nothing. Certainly nothing about the impact of class sizes, anyway. But maybe a little more about the Rights’ willful blindness.

Return to Planet Key

Written By: - Date published: 11:00 am, September 20th, 2012 - 17 comments

Does anyone have the number for John Key’s supplier? Because when he answered a question in the House yesterday about poverty and low pay by saying that in his paradise, Planet Key, there would be no toilets and no jobs, my first thought was ‘man, that guy is on some good drugs’. My second thought was he’s gone and made that Planet Key tease into a meme that’ll haunt him.

CV replies to Whaleoil

Written By: - Date published: 9:33 am, August 18th, 2012 - 143 comments

Guest poster Colonial Viper replies to some typically loopy accusations from Whaleoil.

NRT: Confirmed: Bennett made it up

Written By: - Date published: 10:48 am, July 13th, 2012 - 10 comments

Social Development Minister Paula Bennett caused outrage when she suggested somehow banning child abusers from having children. The suspicion at the time was that this was a desperate and cynical attempt to distract the public from the  deeply unpopular plans to increase class sizes.Now, thanks to FYI, the public OIA site, that interpretation looks to be the case.

DomPost “a joke”

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, July 12th, 2012 - 33 comments

Today’s DomPost says David Parker’s recent speech  “criticised National  for failing to boost imports and control housing prices.” That didn’t sound like David Parker. Sure enough he had put his finger on the real problem, the government’s failure to boost exports.  Key’s  reported “putdown” was Labour is “a joke.” One thing is certain, New Zealand’s ever-receding “brighter future”  is no joke. I’d like to see the DomPost put it right. Tell us all what Parker actually said, then let us decide which party is the joke.