Explore the archive
Find articles and conversations by date, subject or search expression.
Searching: posts Sorted by: newest Results: 1–20 of 20
Post
Last week I put up some Sunday reading - longer, thoughtful pieces I'd found. I liked that other people also put up their links, with some very interesting topics. So I thought I might make it a regular feature. I'd put up a couple of…
Post
With everything else that the Nats are messing up at the moment, this little gem attracted surprisingly little attention: Government mulling ways to stop 'unfit' parents reproducing The Government is considering a range of hard-line measures to try and stop 'unfit' parents from having more…
Post
Great cartoon from Emmerson in The NZ Herald:
Post
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
Post
In the middle of last century, conflicts turned on their head. Before, the object was to kill as many of the enemy as possible and parade the fact to break both their will and ability to fight. The US body-counts in Vietnam reflected this. But…
Post
The police have a number of different strategies for dealing with protest marches. Each has its own known likely result and the police choose their strategy depending on the desired outcome. Yesterday's mass arrests were not the police responding to something they did not expect…
Post
Hekia Parata this week became the fourth minister in three months to see her career reduced to tatters. Looks like she's planning a change - sixth member of My Chemical Romance. h/t JC In her latest fuck-up, Parata's spin doctors told reporters that she got…
Post
Post
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
Post
Tony Abbott fled from the Australian Parliament on Wednesday. He was trying to avoid his vote against a closure motion being recorded if newly independent Craig Thompson supported the Coalition. Watch it here - not a good look for a PM…
australian politics john key leadership Parliament vote smart
Post
Last week Bill English suggested that student protesters needed lessons from the Greeks in how to riot. I expected them to take the bait and up their game but it seems the police are taking lessons from the Greek Riot Police instead. In the last…
Post
Scott at Imperator Fish has kindly given us permission to syndicate posts from his blog – the original of this post is here. Why does John Key appear so confident that we are not facing a future superannuation crisis? Young people are fleeing the country in such numbers…
Post
Weekend social is for non political chat. What's on for the weekend, gigs, film or book reviews, sports, or whatever. No politics, no aggro, why can't we all just get along?
Post
A tattered few on the Right are attempting to stir up an issue over the Greens using a bit of their leaders' office budget on the citizens'-initiated referendum petition. The use of the $78,000 is completely within the rules and approved by the Speaker. The…
Post
You know how, whenever someone points out that spending $12 billion on highways that make no economic sense makes even less sense when you consider that people are driving less because of the price of petrol and will only reduce their driving more in the…
Post
Things Key can't remember: His position on Springbok tour: subject of mass protests under his idol, Muldoon. His position on the anti-nuclear issue: cornerstone policy of 4th Labour government, triggered the schnapps election that brought down his hero. Things Key can remember: Never claiming the…
Post
Labour are pushing for an enquiry into how Treasury oversight of the Retail Deposit Guarantee Scheme was so poor that it has cost us hundreds of millions of dollars. And fair enough. The Auditor-General and her Deputy have had separate reports, agreeing that it's cost…
Post
National has no choice but to call off the education cuts. The sooner they do it the sooner it will stop killing them in the court of public opinion. The education sector is united: Sector revolts against teacher cuts The Education Minister knew she had…
Post
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the link to Policy in the banner). Step right up to the mike...
Post
Hekia Parata is demonstrating to the utmost the limitations of rote learning, and the way political lines endlessly repeated can go horribly wrong if you have nothing else to say. Her Polly Parrot repetitions are wrongly-based, and the longer she and Key go on about…