The Daily Blog Watch Monday 8 April

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Today’s Daily Blog Watch Round-Up of matters that have attracted the attention, assessments, and articulations of this country’s leading bloggers…

NZ Left Blogosphere

Chris Trotter laments on Bowalley Road that we are Not Debating The Constitution as we should, and that the Constitutional Review by the NZ Centre for Public Law was a lost  “opportunity to squeeze all the poisons inflaming the open wound that is New Zealand race relations into public view“.

He suggests that whilst those charged with the Review were  “capable of contributing  to a polite “discussion” of our constitutional arrangements” – Chris was seemingly seeking something more robust…

… and while we’re about it, I’ve decided to add “robust” to the list of words that I find highly annoying, and pledge never to use again.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

I wonder though; are we, as a society, really mature enough to engage in a rational debate on a constitutional? Listen to Rantback Radio for five minutes to answer that question…

On Tumeke, Tim Selwyn writes And then they confiscated the ocean – pointing out that National plans to use the military to arrest ‘troublesome’ environmental protesters. Won’t that be a sight to behold? The Te Mana shelling protesters in  a couple of  inflatables.

Middle New Zealand might well shrug and mutter, “So f****n what“? They might think differently when a major oil spill ruins their favourite beach; fishing spot; or damages our international tourism industry.

On The Standard today,

  • Looters’ bonus to cost $40 million, writes James Henderson, and his short blogpost on what Bill English has spent $40 million on will make your blood boil. (Unless you’re an ACT drone, in which case nothing will happen, as ACToids have no human circulatory system. I suspect it’s Dalek coolant fluid.) James puts together a neat little update on the theft of Might River Power. Worth a look. And if you’re into writing letters to the editor, James’ blogpost is useful as a source of info.
  • Anthony R0bins  points out that there are  good and bad employers  when it comes to Youth rates – and fast food restaurants are proving to be good corporate citizens. But it may be time to review where you buy your groceries from?
  • Kiwis at centre of money maze: Hager – a review by karol, on Nickey Hager and other journalists investigation into an  expose into a global money maze that allow the wealthy to hide their wealth in trusts and tax havens. And lo and behold – guess which far-right female blogger (who also runs Dalek coolant fluid through her veins) has been implicated (though not illegally, yet) in  a complicated maze, involving a “TrustNet”!!
  • War talk by Anthony R0bins, on the “international diplomacy” by John Key. Key’s initial comments that New Zealand goes where the United States goes was enough to put the sh*ts up 90% of the country (the remaining 10% think war is a jolly nice idea as it is good for the Share Market) . A little later – probably at the behest of his minders and Chinese hosts – Key retracted. God, please someone keep that grinning, brain-faded, idiot away from the Korean DMZ.
  • Temper, temper – a very good piece by Eddie on Key’s increasingly erratic relationship with the media.  Not only did the “honeymoon” end a couple of years ago; but the marriage itself is on the rocks, and a dissolution seems imminent. Seriously, but, this is a good read. (And in a roundabout way, ties in with Karl du Fresne’s nasty little attack on Radio NZ.)

As always, The Standard provides insightful analysis and commentary that is rare in the msm these days.

Brian Edwards writes in his Media blog, The Last Post – on the little known connection between Ritalin and ‘terrific’ TV interviewing, and reviews two interviews that Susan Woods had with David  Shearer and Nikki Kaye on ‘The Nation‘, this last weekend. I tend to agree with Brian – Woods’ performance was abysmal, and I noted that Nikki Kaye couldn’t wait to vacate her chair (with a decidedly bemused look).

On a side-note; Brian states that this will be his Last Blogpost.

What? Gutted!

Whether or not one agrees with Brian – he writes with clarity and with sound reasoning. The blogosphere will be the poorer for his absence.

On mars 2 earth, Marty writes about right-wing Danish politician,  Marie Krarup, and her rather tedious racist rant about Maori culture and protocols. See; instead of a handshake. Personally, I don’t see what the problem is. Send Ms Krarup a “Don’t Come Again” postcard (with bare buttocks as the pic).  Problem sorted.

While over  on Frankly Speaking, Frank cites another case of National Party hypocrisy on When is ‘Nanny State’ not a ‘Nanny State’? whilst also serving up a lesson for the Labour Party on How Not To Do Things; The Fletcher Affair – a warning for Labour.

And on the Dim Post, Danyl has been beavering away with a charge of blogposts;

Mclauchlan’s law of anti marriage equality arguments – showing the absurdity of arguments against marriage equality,

Do not meddle in the affairs of knuckleheads, for they are quick to anger and not remotely subtle – Key on knuckleheads, the media, and declaring war on Nth Korea,

Rules of the children’s game ‘Zombie’ as screamed out by my neighbour’s children while I was trying to write – important to know this,

– a rather cool and informative blogpost on the  Conspiracy theory of the day, GCSB timeline edition. Bookmark as a resource. (I have.) Danyl makes an interesting observation at the end of this blogpost – one shared by 4 million others New Zealanders. (The remainder – 400,000 – are true-blue National supporters who think that a Police State would be a rather fun place to live in. As long as it was run by National, and not those dastardly comy-nists, who would turn a fun Police State into something, y’know, drearrrrry.

On The Daily Blog

  • What is really driving China in trade negotiations and why Key is failing – Prof Jane Kelsey looks into the TPPA and what it really means for the US and other nations. Prof Kelsey is up with the play on this issue and her writings are always informative. Her analysis of the Bo’ao Conference is illumination – and also instructive is the way the MSM have skirted the issues involved.
  • In The Conspirators,  Chris Trotter explains how the neoliberal revolution has become a part of every day society; business; and the political institutions that govern us. Read and learn. This isn’t so much a “conspiracy theory” as recent history put into context.  A Must Read; know what we’re up against.
  • And much, much more!!

Blogpost of the Day

On the Daily Blog, The Law Commission can take this blog from my cold dead hands writes Martyn Bradbury – and he puts a convincing case for bloggers to avoid joining the  “Orwellian named ‘Communications Commission’”.

When Cameron “Show-Me-The-Sleaze” Slater sez with a straight face on Media3 that the Communications Commission is designed for “respectable media outlets and blogs like mine” – then I’m setting my phaser on ‘Kick Arse’ and barricading the doors.

Read Martyn’s blogpost. Now. You’ll thank me for it later and name your first born after me.

1 COMMENT

  1. Bloody irritating. The data server for The Standard had what looks like infrastructure outage last night, and I couldn’t get a response until eight hours later!

    They have now responded and said that they should have the infrastructure back online “shortly”. Meanwhile Thatcher has died and authors are anxiously waiting to write their opinions.

    My last offline backup was 5 hours old at 10pm and had missed more than 200 messages, so I didn’t start up the alternate. I need to increase the frequency and find a more responsive provider.

    How to waste some valuable sleep time – waiting for others to read my tickets left by email, phone, and fax.

Comments are closed.