UBI
New Zealand was once considered one of the best places on earth to live. It could be again …
The Japanese are slaughtering whales again
Three years ago John Key promised sort of that he could by diplomatic means stop the Japanese hunting of whales in the Southern Ocean. Given recent events it appears that his confidence was misplaced. Because the Japanese are slaughtering whales again in our back yard.
Open mike 07/01/2014
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 …
Local govt is on the move
The Local Government Commission is currently proposing to crush a number of local bodies together into the same kind of mess that the Auckland super city has been suffering. Undemocratic and divorced from anything local because only a wealthy few can consider standing and those few can ignore any local wishes from the token local boards. The only defense that citizens have against the LGC is to force binding poll. Be ready to do so for Northland and Hastings/Napier.
Garth George’s best column … ever
Garth George’s latest newspaper column has a progressive prescription for the abolishing of poverty, some marxist analysis, a heavy criticism of Australian Banks and a conclusion that laissez-faire capitalism has to go. I never thought he was a radical …
Consumerism’s ‘desert of the real’
In The Matrix Neo discovers that his “reality”, is a virtual world that had kept him from seeing “the desert of the real”. George Monbiot cites research that shows how capitalism is eating itself and its consumers. The marketing con of “the good life” – desert of the real.
Open mike 06/01/2014
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Enter the Zombie Apocalypse
Ah, heard this on weekend radio on radio NZ this afternoon. Perfect satire for the last US election. Beware the zombie apocalypse.
Hopefully our comedians and cartoonists will be equally inventive
New Zealand is doing nothing about climate change
The latest report on New Zealand’s performance under the Kyoto Protocol is out and the news is disturbing. Net emissions compared to our 1990 CO2 equivalent emissions are predicted to treble by 2030 at a time where they should be trending to below the 1990 level. And Government policies are shown to be making little difference. Meanwhile a report by Prof Euan Mason advocates that Agriculture should be in the scheme and that with a proper price for ETS credits significant reforestation with attendant benefits could occur. And meanwhile RWNJs continue to show their belligerent lack of understanding of the science of climate change …
Open mike 05/01/2014
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Snowden performed a public service
The New York Times has an editorial stating that Edward Snowden should be regarded as a whistleblower who has done the public there and elsewhere a service by revealing the illegal extent of the NSA’s surveillance. What is most interesting in the extremely well linked editorial is that there is this curious hole in the US whistle blower laws that many including Barack Obama have said he could have used. They don’t cover contractors….
Open mike 04/01/2014
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GCSB: They do listen
It has been a surprise at just how far the revelations about the GCSB governance have made into the collective conciousness of NZ. Bearing in mind the continuing outpouring from Snowden and other whistleblowers about the US and their allies surveillance efforts on citizens and friendly states, it isn’t going to be a surprise if this winds up being an issue in the election.
Josie Pagani replies
Josie Pagani objected to mickysavage’s post objecting to her post at Pundit, and wanted to publish this as a right of reply. That is something that doesn’t exist on this or any blog. After all there is always another site to put content up on. However the ongoing debate going on here about how the left and the labour movement should operate and communicate (from many different angles) makes it of interest.
Caption contest
Celebrity golf! Which one will get voted off the island first!? Meanwhile the world burns, the poor struggle, and the wealth gap continues to be a blight on our country.
Open mike 03/01/2014
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The Left Ulterior and other tendencies
Readers of this site are probably aware that I like reading science fiction. They’d also be aware that we run this site targeted at the general left labour movement of New Zealand. Of course many other people confuse this with the Labour party. In truth it can be distinguished as being more like the late great Iain M Bank’s view of his fictional Culture which he divided up into various Mind/ship behavioural segments. It kind of fits…
😈
Open mike 02/01/2014
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It’s 2014 and we have a job to do
In 2014 the New Zealand Left must have more on its agenda than “win power”. We should want to create a better New Zealand, and doing that is about so much more than economic policy (which is also, obviously, important). It has to touch everything. And it’s going to take people working in different areas on different parts of the plan to make it all happen.
Open mike 01/01/2014
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Towards online citizens’ radio
What would it take to set up and run one or two regular online progressive radio shows? Ones to counter the corporate dominance of politics, news and current events in the MSM, and on TV & radio, including on RNZ.
Espiner becomes RNZ Morning Report host and Pagani criticises the Standard
So Guyon Espiner is the new Morning Report host and Josie Pagani thinks that commentators on the Standard are being mean to her. Guyon’s appointment will provide some interest but Josie should reflect on the cause of criticism of her. Could it be that her beliefs and views are not reflective of the thoughts and views of most progressives and that her use as a representative for these views is failing the need for those views to be represented?
The ten most commented on posts for 2013
These are the most commented on posts for 2013. They presented an interesting mix, some showed a strong consensus forming while others involved intense and unresolved debate.
Open mike 31/12/2013
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Right Thinking: just another lawbreaking socialist villain
Normally we’d put “ImperatorFish: ” because, well, the post come from that site and from the fertile satirical mind of Scott Yorke. But in this case it is clear that someone else must have written the post. They couldn’t get the sequence of events right and they admitted to an act that a lawyer (such a fine upstanding and moral part of community) would never admit to. Has Scott has been hacked? And why does it sound like actual Cameron Slater writing on one of his better days.
Polity: Regional income stats
The Herald says the regions have rising incomes, but caution against reading anything into it. DPF reads everything into it anyway. But when people with jobs stay in the regions and those without jobs go to where some jobs are – average incomes rise in the provinces. It is what you expect to see when there is a jobless ‘recovery’ like National is paying for with debt.
Where is this Democracy they Speak of?
There’s a rumour going around that we live in a democracy.
Poverty denial
Here & in the UK: food poverty, increases in queues to foodbanks, in diseases of poverty, a crisis in affordable housing, & struggles & insecurites of the working poor. But poverty denialists blame the poor, smear beneficiaries, & talk of (always-around-the-corner) “brighter futures”.
Open mike 30/12/2013
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Polity: Who believes in climate change?
Cool-yet-depressing finding on why some people change their mind on climate change from one day to the next.
It can be summarised by saying Republicans in the US are scientific morons, and many Americans decide based on the previous days weathers.
America is becoming a third world nation
It appears that America is becoming rich in name only as more and more of its people in jobs rely on state assistance to make ends meet. And many of these jobs are in highly profitable industries such as the Banks and Wal Mart where people at the top of those organisations make huge amounts. And the payments are a drain on the State’s finances and prevent it from funding important things such as asset renewal and education.
Open mike 29/12/2013
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Wet Dick and the Perverts (reprise)
If we look at the google impressions and click throughs onto our site, someone could probably write a sociological paper on exactly how many hidden perverts there are that the right wingers in the council are reflecting. I have to say that that I am quite pleased that we had poor click through for the “bevan chaung naked/nude” queries.
Please! Kill bing
Matthew Yglesias at Slate is speculating that Microsoft may kill the bing search engine. His logic is compelling. As the person responsible for running the operations of this site, all I can say is to kill it. It isn’t like anyone uses bing anyway – in fact they appear to actively shut it down even on Internet Explorer. Most importantly for a system operator, you can only describe bing’s search spiders as net vermin (that appear to be modelled on spambots).
John Key’s patchwork ‘job machine’: user pays
John Key’s great idea for job creation – his cycleway project – has produced some benefits, but is a patchwork production. Some sections will be user pays to fund maintenance. Meanwhile the job creation benefits have been limited.
Open mike 28/12/2013
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 …