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Watch this clip from yesterday's Republican YouTube debate and spare a thought for our progressive mates in the USA. I like the idea of users submitting their own questions but I'm troubled by the fact that CNN gets to choose the ones that air. The…
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This looks interesting. Fox Attacks: Iran is a new short film from Robert Greenwald, director of the excellent Outfoxed. The film focuses on the parallels between Fox's drumbeat for war with Iraq and what's being said now about Iran. It's also a plea to other…
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John Key's new DVD doesn't tell us much about what National would do in Government, but as we've noted before, his choice of Coldplay's "Clocks" as the theme tune is more revealing than he may have intended. Here are some of the lyrics: Lights go…
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Should be on around 2pm our time. Time has a good background piece. The YouTube debate site has currently received around 5000 user-submitted video questions for the Republican candidates. The "winning" questions will be chosen shortly. Here's one of the latest to Rudy Giuliani:
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From the NYT: Google, the Internet company with a seemingly limitless source of revenue, plans to get into the business of finding limitless sources of energy... Google said it would spend hundreds of millions of dollars, part of that to hire engineers and energy experts…
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The Herald reports that: National has hit its highest rating - 51.3 per cent - in a Herald-DigiPoll survey. Translated to votes, that would mean the party could govern alone. Labour has slipped to 13.2 points behind National, increasing last month's 12.4-point gap... Helen Clark…
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Linda Clark: "This is a gimmick, that's all it is. if people don't know John Key, well he needs to come to Parliament more, he needs to be more upfront on some of the policies, he needs to take on Helen Clark a bit more,…
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Just received this from a "concerned reader": Just wanted to know whether or not you have also been blocked by NZNats? This morning they have deleted all comments with a hint of an opposing view, with the exception of the 'TaneStandard' comment. It offends me…
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Hold the popcorn. Citizen Kane this isn't. It's Citizen Key in a 13-minute epic saturated with more artificial sweetener than The Sound of Music and ET combined and which manages to make National's leader look about as deep as one of The Stepford Wives. Read…
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Never one to let the facts get in the way of a little party propaganda Farrar really has become the partyline-parrot. It's a shame he just couldn't resist the opportunity to dogwhistle his party's line on public servants with his meaningless and distortive post on…
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Just in case you don't know, today is John Key's first anniversary as National Party leader and his backers have given him the gift that keeps on giving & well over $50,000 worth of boring propaganda. Others including our good mates at blogblog have done…
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John Key's just admitted the election campaign has already begun, adding further weight to the argument that electoral law needs updating to reflect the increased length of modern campaigns. Here he is on Newstalk ZB today talking about his 'heartland tour' around New Zealand, where…
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Wow, so that's John Key's announcement: he's ambitious. I know I said he'd be short on substance, but maybe that was giving him too much credit. I also couldn't help noticing Key's production crew used some footage from his ill-fated expedition to the Porirua Markets.…
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John Key has now been leader of the National Party for a year. But while his salesman's smile and general novelty factor have pulled him through to date, talk around the gallery is that he's gone off the boil a bit lately. His profile has…
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Just came across this video on YouTube from last week's rally in Wellington against the Electoral Finance Bill. This clip has one of the counter-protesters giving an impressive off-the-cuff speech on why the Bill is needed. Given the anti-EFB crowd's only line of attack was…
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After 11 years of conservative rule, it looks like Kevin Rudd has led the Australian Labour Party to victory in Australia's elections. All the networks have called it for Rudd and Labor. Howard has just conceded (watch the video). Howard may well lose his own…
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It's a bit late, but a reader who was at yesterday's anti-EFB march has mailed us through some pics from the rally. As David Farrar has noted, the protest march was joined by a small group of activists in John Key and Mr Burns masks…
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The husband of retiring Liberal MP Jackie Kelly and a state Liberal official have been caught distributing fake pamphlets in Western Sydney. The bogus pamphlets purport to come from a militant Islamic group - praising the ALP's supposed support for the Bali bombers. The pamphlets have…
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We at The Standard would like to wish our US counterparts a very happy Thanksgiving tomorrow. Of course we'd hate to think that just because it's not a traditional holiday here in NZ we should be in any way deterred from eating till we can't…
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The Dom reports that "A father who spanked his eight-year-old son... for misbehaving... is one of the first to be convicted of assault under the law against smacking". As expected, all the usual suspects are up in arms, including Family First national director Bob McCroskrie,…
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From Kiwiblog: Okay just got back from the march. Didn't quite go as I envisioned. You see while I have promoted the march here, I'm not one of the organisers and my involvement was purely to stroll along at the back, and see how it…
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The Hysteria- with a capital H- over at Kiwiblog around the Electoral Finance Bill has been mystifying for many of us in blogland. Sure David Farrar is a key National Party figure, and is no doubt worried that the Bill will mean his party will…
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There's a new new Roy Morgan poll out and it's not good news for Labour. Gary Morgan says: "The recent plunge in support for the Labour Party follows the mishandling of the domestic terrorism case with the October 15 arrests of Maori activists in Ruatoki.…
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From Boing Boing: Furries get no respect. Usually, when you hear about people who dress up like life-sized stuffed animals, it's in the context of an unfriendly internet joke, a sex gag on Entourage, or an insult that ends with "yiff in hell." But Brooklyn-based…
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Miro - a free, opensource video platform has recently been released. It's a piece of software that allows you to download, manage, and watch video content and it runs on Microsoft Window, Mac OS X and Linux. Their pitch is "Miro: turn your computer into…
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Someone just sent me this blog readability test. It cl/aims to tell you what level of education is required to read your blog/website/myspace page. Here at The Standard we scored "College (undergrad)", as did Kiwiblog. The real interest was the Party sites though. Depending on…
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The reason for National Party Kiwiblogger David Farrar's obsession with megaphones is now clear. It's about electioneering speech, and the logic goes like this. The Electoral Finance Bill prohibits election advertising "in any form of words" unless published with a name and address. So if…
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Fortunately we have a government that's prepared to act on climate change rather than gamble with the future. Nevertheless here's an interesting take on the importance of a meaningful response to climate change based on everybody's favourite PHIL101 poser: Pascal's Wager. He's also done a…
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Stuff reports that "Key non-political critics have welcomed changes to the Government's electoral finance reforms." Both the Human Rights Commission and Coalition for Open Government are pleased with the revisions to the Electoral Finance Bill. Coalition spokesman Steven Price said the changes were a great…
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Now we know why Kiwiblog wants the Electoral Finance Bill killed - it could cost Farrar money! Kiwiblog "has some significant advertising lined up" which may be "at serious risk". Certainly, Kiwiblog is a dyed-in-blue-wool National Party supporter. Kiwiblog also goes on a rave about…