A guest post from Shane Henderson, Labour elected representative to the Henderson Massey Local Board about synthetic cannabis, one of those issues that is becoming more and more important. What do we do?
There are protests occurring today for folk who are interested.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
This one is a doozie …
Your, not entirely consistent or reliable weekend thread for non-political chat/info sharing ;-).
A guest post concerning apparent confusion on the part of the National Party about when this year’s election is. Stand by for breathless denunciation of the party by Farrar, Slater and the Young Nats for its inability to organise a piss up in a brewery.
Mana Party candidate Annette Sykes has been developing an effective organisation in her electorate. Her speech at the TPPA rally laid out its threats to livelihoods in the Bay of Plenty. Her views on the Internet Party will be listened to when discussed by the Mana Party.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
According to some in the MSM National has already won the election.
But given they’ve come to that conclusion they seem oddly unconcerned about what it would actually mean…
David Farrar often bullshits on numbers. Does he have what appears to be a maths block that makes him so wrong so often (like Bill English)? Or is it just that he obeys orders like the good National puppet tools that he and Cameron Slater appear to be? Anyway, Rob Salmond pulls him up on a few obvious and significiant flaws in his ‘analysis’. DPF didn’t allow for people lying – just like he does
Last month, we learned that Judith Collins had taken time off a taxpayer-funded trip to China to endorse her husband’s company – a company which had also donated significant sums of money to the National Party. The endorsement appeared to violate the Cabinet Manual, but John Key stepped up and claimed that the Cabinet Office said it was all OK. Then, just a few days later, he admitted that he’d lied about that. In the process, he implicitly raised serious questions about the quality of the Cabinet Office’s advice.
David Parker has been performing some fact checking on John Key’s recent budget speech and the results are somewhat startling …
All of us, in our diversity, can make a big impact this election year. Time to end the “neoliberal” tyranny! Crime stats are celebrated masking the continuing impact of income & social inequalities. Rogernomics fractured gender politics & rape crisis intiatives.
Two days after the IPCC has warned us of the threat posed by climate change and Simon Bridges has announced a huge block offer of parts of New Zealand and much of its territorial water. This will include the pristine waters off Auckland’s west coast, home of Maui’s dolphin. In a world that has to address its consumption of petroleum you have to question if it is worth the risk.
A government is carrying out a crash-program of privatization without a mandate. It is desperate to sell, so it sets the price of the shares artificially low, and loses $1.5 billion in a single day. No, this isn’t New Zealand (yet) – its the UK:
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
When so-called iwi leaders condemn teachers for daring to highlight the massive failings of the New Zealand education system for Maori children in case the minister of Education might be embarrassed, then they show themselves up as a sad and pathetic group for whom the warm embrace of government has become more important than the needs of their own children and grandchildren. Just who the hell do they think they are, trying to hide the truth of New Zealand’s failed policies just because the international community is in town?
No Right Turn notes the typical response from politicians to the Fifth IPCC Assessment report. Perhaps that promoting legislation with a penalty of long prison terms for political negligence would help? It sounds like a good way for lazy politicians to retire. After all the law recognises negligence as being a criminal action in other spheres – why not for our political servants?
There was an Audrey Young piece in the Herald yesterday, in which John Key talks about Labour’s plan to increase eligibility for free Early Childhood Education. So Key thinks this policy will cost at least ten times as much as Labour does. That’s a very big claim. But Andrey did not appear to ask for his sums, she just printed Key’s figures without comment. That was a pity because John Key’s figures are a bare-faced lie and are quite impossible.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
bsprout has found out that quite a number of children didn’t have bikes. It shook his middle class perception that all New Zealand kids must have access to a bike. People using them for transport to get to work as they no longer have a car or can’t afford to repair one. While cycling is obviously a healthy and practical choice of transport many are obviously doing it because they have no choice. A fraction of the roading money would provide people with transport to go on them…
I arrived at the TPPA protest march in Wellington the intent of making my voice heard. The protest started well – enlightening speakers, a funny MC and raucous chanting. However, when we got to parliament, the march was confronted by a waist-high green fence blocking our way up seven stairs to the main courtyard in front of the parliament. How we dealt with this seemingly insignificant obstacle does not bode well for the political left in New Zealand.
The International Court of Justice has ruled that the Japanese yearly slaughter of whales is not for the purposes of scientific research and is illegal.
The latest IPCC report has been released and not only are scientific views on the existence of climate change hardening, but the effects are becoming more pronounced. Meanwhile ACT has described action to try and save the planet as “moral exhibitionism” and has said that not improving the ETS is a bottom line for any future coalition with National. If you need any reason to work to get rid of this Government this has to be it.
The Kapiti Expressway is one of the National government’s RONS projects: it makes no sense economically. It is destructive to the environment and the local communities. The NZTA is attempting to run roughshod over ancestral lands, including that of writer, Patricia Grace. She is taking a stand.
We can now put a dollar figure – a conservative, probably-underestimated figure – on the cost of domestic violence to New Zealand business. […]
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The TV1 and TV3 polls yesterday show roughly the same situation, which also mirrors Polity’s poll of polls. National retains a smallish polling lead over the left bloc of around four points. But Winston Peters and New Zealand First are starting their surge toward the 5% threshold. If they cross that threshold it would complicate the post-election picture enormously.
“The vast scale of online surveillance revealed by Edward Snowden is changing how businesses store commercially sensitive data…” “A survey of 1,000 business leaders from around the world has found that many are questioning their reliance on “cloud computing” in favour of more secure forms of data storage as the whistleblower’s revelations continue to reverberate.”
A high proportion of Kiwis know that there is too big an income inequality gap. Economic power & media discourse too often work to maintain such inequalities. How can knowledge and understandings be changed via the media, social media and creative political action?
Just spent a couple of hours in “The Goose” in Walthamstow watching Liverpool outclass Spurs 4-0 to go top of the Premier League table. Nobody gave them a chance at season’s start, but what a difference good strategy and management can make – belief, commitment, determination and the willingness to work for each other.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Two new polls are out suggesting National’s support is in the range of 46%. Given that its support is historically over reported this is potentially cause for concern …
Three interrelated articles dealing with how far from Scientific Reality Republican Politicians are, how peak oil may just be around the corner and how deconstructing motorways can improve inner city areas.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Maybe this is one of those open political secrets – if you’re in the know, you already know, and it seems obvious. If […]
National has refused to continue funding research into Kauri Dieback disease. But the discovery of the disease in the Coromandel has sparked a new sense of urgency. And Nick Smith is busily trying to rewrite history.
