Bypassing the media
Not long after The White House Correspondents’ Association met with Obama’s Press Secretary to complain about limitations on their access, The White House […]
Supermarket capitalism
Supermarkets are squeezing producers while marking up the prices of fruit and vegetables by up to 500%. The worst side of capitalism in action. Support your local farmers’ market, and the Green’s call for a supermarket code of conduct.
Xenophobia
John Key is claiming that we need to defend our shores against a coming wave of boat people by buying into a detention center in Timor.
I don’t know whether he’s trying to flank Winnie or whether he’s just shooting off at the mouth after being influenced by the Aussies but whatever the reason the idea is plainly racist.
Standby for INCIS II… pfzzzt
For some time now National has been quietly making plans to subsume Archives New Zealand and the National Library within the Department of […]
What’s Key in Korea for again?
Key’s worried about us being even more bought out by foreigners. Key’s in South Korea about to sign a Free Trade Agreement. New […]
Open mike 07/07/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
World Cup according to genius bankers
Economists, bankers, Treasury officials, financial wizards of various kinds, they like to pretend that they know what they’re talking about. All too often they don’t. Predicting the behaviour of complex systems is hard. Consider for example, the big banks’ predictions on the winner of the Football World Cup…
Labour’s lineup emerges
Labour’s lineup for the next election is emerging, the usual balance between continuity and new talent. There will be some interesting electorate selections coming up. Such personality politics is always very popular of course, but more important than the people is the policy…
Key concedes Left has it right on foreign ownership
PM warns against Kiwis becoming ‘tenants’ – The Herald. John Key says that we’ve got to make sure we don’t sell too many of our assets and end up sending the profits overseas. Good stuff, it’s exactly what the Left has been saying and the opposite of National’s policy until now. I guess we’ll have to see if Key backs up his words with action.
Blowhard and the starry eyed suckers at the MED
There are a lot of risks New Zealand will face when more deeper water off-shore oil exploration goes ahead. The more you look, the greater the risks appear. Brownlee and the crazies at the MED don’t look like they know what a risk assessment is. Consequently they’re getting screwed. Perhaps they should read Gordon Campbell…
The Failure of Neo-Liberalism
Neo-Liberalism is a failure; not just in human terms, but by its own measures. Since the concepts of neo-liberalism were taken up by Roger & Ruth 26 years ago neo-liberalism has driven down wages as a share of GDP, massively increased inequality and stripped workers rights.
Open mike 06/07/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Pro-choice responses to Chadwick’s Abortion Bill
Been a bit disappointed that there hasn’t been a post up here yet on the news out on Saturday that Steve Chadwick is […]
God, she writes like she talks
Paula Bennett in a letter to Tariana Turia: “Because of that sort of addiction it can be really tough on them and you see, certainly, financial hardship being increased and I think also with that sort of stress you can look at domestic violence,”. I don’t think that sentence would pass the national standard.
We need staff to teach new students
There has been extensive coverage recently of universities’ tough new criteria to limit the number of students they will take next semester and […]
Sceptics face yawning credibility gap
We know that the vast majority of climate scientists support the explanation of anthropogenic climate change set out by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change. That majority is now quantified in the first study of its kind published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Expert credibility in climate change.
Bulk Funding by any other name…
Roger Douglas has a private members bill to introduce bulk funding. It (hopefully) shouldn’t get through – National are unlikely to support it as they’ve already introduced by the back door.
Open mike 05/07/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Appreciating parenthood
A thought provoking piece from Bryan Caplan ponders “”Having kids—what’s in it for me?” An economic perspective on happiness, nature and nurture provides an answer: Parents’ sacrifice is much smaller than it looks, and much larger than it has to be.”
Slow news day
“Len Brown’s Smackdown” screams the headline in Carolyne Meng-Yee’s story about Len Brown today – and the first para makes it sound even […]
Bagehot is dead, long live Bagehot
The current incumbent of the Bagehot column at The Economist is stepping down with a few relevant comments about current relationships ebtween the politicians, journos, and the public.
The opinions could have been written about the poor state of journalism here.
Aspiration and absurdity
John Key’s government has had many “aspirational goals”. One of them was a secret plan to end whaling. With the recent collapse of the international whaling negotiations in Morocco that plan, if it ever really existed, has failed. In response, Foreign Minister Murray McCully takes the politics of aspiration to a whole new, some would say absurd, level.
The reverse midas touch
David Farrar leapt to a “they did it too” defence of the taxpayer-funded ‘survey’ that National MPs are sending to selected voters around the country. I reckon he wrote the questions. It was Farrar’s dodgy polling that convinced National to run Melissa Lee as the candidate in Mt Albert. I guess Lee getting caught out with a dodgy ‘survey’ is just Farrar’s reverse midas touch striking again.
The Right unravels in Auckland
Things really are getting desperate for the Right in the super-mayor race. National and its allies keep up the attack but the public aren’t buying. Now, John Banks’ campaign is facing more right-wing candidates and is crapping itself that Stephen Tindell might enter the race.
Open mike 04/07/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Questions the government will not answer
Over at No Right Turn, I/S I filed an OIA request for specific information on the handling of Cabinet conflicts of interest. The request has been declined. In the following post (reprinted) I/S sets out the “Questions the government will not answer”.
Mummy! The bad man cut my pre-school’s funding!
John Key had a busy day playing rodeo-clown yesterday. Before having the Air Force fly him to Ohakune for the opening of 16 whole kilometres of cycleway Key had photo-op with children. It’s is a John Key favourite. The perfect distraction from lying in the House, the weak economy, and Anne Tolley. But the clown show doesn’t always go off without a hitch 🙂
A Minister and some National Standards
The Minister of Education Anne Tolley, and the Government, is facing a fair amount of (growing) opposition to the implementation of her National Standards. Her message was essentially that schools need to get on with the job of putting the Standards in place and not to publicly criticize the policy. Unfortunately, the Minister herself is responsible for a fair degree of the criticism.
The continuing education of Anne Tolley
Tolley told principals they should stop talking to the media about national standards. Their criticisms are valid. She would rather silence the critics than fix the problems. A wise authority figure power talks softly and carries a big stick. An idiot with an ego problem yells loudly while carrying no stick. Threatening 500 pillars of local communities when you’ve got no power over them. That’s just dumb.
Open mike 03/07/2010
Open mike is your post. It’s open for discussing topics of interest, making announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. Comment on whatever takes […]
Enigma: Gravity of Love
Enigma have for a long time one of my favorite sounds to listen to while programming from the early 90’s onwards. There have been bug-hunting exercises where Enigma has literally been on my playlist all day. You can just queue all of their albums, knuckle down, and kill those tiresome and frustrating bugs. Since it is going to be a programming weekend, including some site tweaking….
KiwiBank boss wants leadership from National party
KiwiBank boss, Sam Knowles wants the Government to step up to the plate and improve NZs saving rate, through making KiwiSaver compulsory.
A question for John Key on drilling
With respect to his intention to allow Brazillian oil giant Petrobras to drill offshore in the Raukumara Basin, John Key says that “strong environmental standards” will be in place. I have a question.
The education of Anne Tolley
Tolley’s snookered herself. Either: Parliamentary Library republishes the paper with the few phrases that annoy her gone = Looks like Library has caved to her attacks. Tolley’s a bully. Has attacked the Library’s neutrality. Or they decide the phrases are substantively OK. Republish = Tolley looks like an idiot. Her National Standards further undermined.
Magical Budget causes imaginary closure of wage gap – Wong
Pansy Wong on the gender wage gap: “It was the case that the gap was between men and women was at 12% since 2001. After 18 months of the National Government the pay gap is now 11%.” Um. No, it’s 12.3%. When are these Nats going to learn that in the age of the internet and publicly accessible statistics you can’t just lie and expect to get away with it?
English’s faith-based economics
Bill English claims that our low national savings rate is due to the ‘government paying for everything’. According to English, people don’t need to save because the government pays for early childhood education, superannuation, Working for Families, and interest-free student loans. Does he have any evidence that is the case? Of course not. The evidence points the other way.