And so it continues. Inside the Palino-Wewege-Cook-Slater camp, every one is pointing the finger at everyone else and putting the blame elsewhere for the clumsily executed smear campaign against Len Brown. Over at Stuff, Chuang is claiming that Luigi Wewege used private naked photos of…
Joe90 in open mike this week posted a reference to an interesting article in New Scientist. The article was written by a mathematician called Peter Turchin. The essence of his article is that he considers that mathematics can predict events such as the recent constitutional…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike…
John Banks' lawyer David Jones QC has consistently argued that Banks could not have signed a false declaration of election donations because he did not read it before he signed it. He simply signed it relying on the assertion of his campaign manager that it…
John Armstrong, Tracy Watkins, and Fran O'Sullivan all write today about National's plunging polls and the growing likelihood that this will be the first two-term National government. They take different approaches - Armstrong: there's nothing for Key to worry about, Watkins: there was a problem…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike…
In what could be a further challenge to John Key's parliamentary majority the Maori Party and the Mana Party have agreed to have discussions on areas where they can work together. Two weeks ago Mana Party president Annette Sykes raised the possibility of reunification of…
Steven Joyce seemed somewhat complacent in his RNZ interview this morning on Radio NZ. His argument seemed to mirror some of the points I and others made with my post yesterday on NZ's struggling screen industry. However, Joyce's version seemed to be rather a shallow…
Granny supported little Johnny's plan to go off to market and sell the family's cash cow. But even she's furious that what he's come back with amounts to nothing more than a hill of beans. If Key and co couldn't get a good price for…
There are many troubling things about the Meridian share float. Blowing $1.1 billion of our equity as well as the cost of selling the shares is just the start. But you have to wonder if the price is too cheap. For instance why wasn't the…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike…
So three years on from the Hobbit dispute, and the NZ screen industry is in a precarious state. The outcome of that dispute, engineered by John Key, was to pander to the demands of the US film corporates at the expense of New Zealand workers…
What a disaster. Meridian has attracted only a quarter of a the so-called 'mum and dad' investors expected (and these 'ordinary Kiwis' put in $18,000 each on average). The sale raised a $1.2 billion less than National thought it would. And the cost, which was…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike...
The results of the Meridian share float have been announced and they pose a whole lot of problems for the Government. Meridian is a company which was valued at $6 billion in 2011. The sale of 49% of its shares at $1.50, at the low…
It raised a few eyebrows when the Catholic Church appeared to back the SkyCity deal. Seamus Donegan appeared before the select committee for the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, saying they couldn't find a link between pokies and problem gambling. Turns out that Donegan's submission…
Green MP Kennedy Graham published an excellent post on NZ's appalling record on climate change: 'Atlas shrugs off climate change – a New Zealand policy failure of monumental proportions', which includes this great quote: John Key gave a puny version of Atlas shrugging. A little…
Greenpeace has released scientific modelling of what would happen if a major oil well blowout (like Deepwater Horizon) were to occur at either of the sites were Anadarko is preparing to start deepwater drilling. It shows the dramatic size that a spill could reach, affecting…
Another day and another piece of information of the Brown - Palino debacle. This latest piece is that Len was tipped off indirectly by a National MP on October 7 that news of the affair would break. It is then that he chose to tell his…
In the same week the government announces a five million dollar gift to a yachting syndicate, Child Poverty Action Group has revealed that 13,000 of our poorest families have had their income slashed. That's 13,000 families suffering the anguish of not being able to feed…
Is the Prime Minister John Key who claims to know what Labour has supposedly said in secret talks with SkyCity (talks that Cunliffe denies have happened) because it's 'all over town' the same Prime Minister John Key who couldn't be bothered to read a police…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike...
Bob Jones has produced another disgusting "opinion piece", and the New Zealand Herald has once again been disgusting enough to publish it. I completely understand that a lot of people don't have the spoons for taking on yet another awful triggery misogynist piece of shit…
I was very pleased when David Cunliffe in his speech earlier this month at the CTU conference, talked about moving from a “from a cost-based to a values-based” strategy. This is something that needs to be developed as part of a wider narrative, that shifts public…
Lord Nicolas Stern, who wrote a ground-breaking report on the economic costs of climate change against the costs of stopping it (conclusion: stopping it is cheap compared to the cost of not), has changed his mind. Climate change is getting worse, faster, and heading to…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step right up to the mike...
I've been trying to think of a way of expressing my complete and utter distaste for the arsehole of the local blogs and politics. But someone beat me to it. Hamish Price has been attacked in the usual way by Cameron Slater. I'd guess it…
It's interesting that Russel Norman has been quick to give conditional support to Winston Peter's proposed KiwiFund, considering that many see the Greens and NZ First as being too far apart to be part of the same governing alliance of parties. Peters' version appears to…
Barak Obama's success in the last US election was in part due to the quality of his opposition. The Tea Party dominated Republican Party was just too scary and extreme. This turned off swinging voters and energised progressive activists for who a Mitt Romney White…