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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…

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NZ Left Blogosphere

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The political heat has been ramped up since 18 April, and the Nats are on the ropes…

On Frankly Speaking, Frank makes one of the shortest posts in his blogging career on  Breakfasts, Brain-fades, and Bullshit. “Brain fades” and “bullshit”? Gee,  wonder who he’s writing about? *snigger*

Chris Trotter’s Bowalley Road has a nice little piece  about the The Living And The Dead (ANZAC Day 2013), and reminds us poignantly,

“And on the morning of Waitangi Day, filled as it always is with rancour and resentment, pride and protest, give thanks that New Zealand’s future is still ours to make.”

Worth reflecting on…

Interesting visual-post on Brian Edward’s Media blog;  “Why I hate school but love education”.

Green MP, Denise Roche,  writes on Frogblog that the National government has yet again awarded a contract to a foreign company, rather than a local business. In Waste fund flowing offshore, she makes the valid point that “the Waste Minimisation Fund should be used to assist smaller New Zealand businesses rather than be allocated to large foreign-owned companies“.

Indeed. We’re not going to create jobs here in New Zealand  if contracts are continually awarded to off-shore companies. Another epic fail from this Dead Government Walking.

Colin Craig’s very thilly threat to sue blogger, The Civilian, is the Gift That Keeps On Giving and Imperator Fish has come up with a satire-upon-satire that nearly made me spray my coffee over the cat, keyboard, and monitor screen. Warning: do not be drinking anything when you read  Defamation hoax leaves blogger red-faced.

And Imperator Fish’s  Judicial reforms to add value to stakeholders   might almost read as a real National policy initiative. Kinda frightening when it get hard to tell the difference… *shudders*

Marty on mars 2 earth critiques Susan Devoy’s speech on  same shit, same shit. And it ain’t good, folks. I read the media report that marty linked to – and found my jaw had dropped in utter amazement. Ya gotta read this, peeps. Why? Because the Shit-Is-Gonna-Hit-The-Fan-Real-Soon with this woman.

The Jackal also comments on Devoy’s tragic performance in what has rapidly being known as the Devoy train crash. Jackal has arrived at the only possible conclusion to this fiasco,

“At first I thought Judith Collins making the unqualified Devoy head of the HRC was judged too harshly, and she should be given time to rise to the challenge. She has now proven herself beyond all doubt to be entirely incompetent… She should resign. ”

My take? Nah. Anything that continually embarresses this shameful excuse for a “government” needs to be nurtured. Like keeping Hekia Parata as  Almost-Minister of Education.

And check out  I’m with stupid – this is NOT photoshopped!

Grant Robertson makes an excellent point on Red Alert in his piece,  Power to the People,

“If you wanted a reason to know why we need to do something about power prices, look no further than the lead story in today’s Dominion Post. 44% of people in the survey are living pay day to pay day. ”

I hope the Labour-Green strategy team use that Fairfax article to devastating effect. It’s time that the financial “market” companies that are the Nat’s stormtroopers, are beaten over their greasy-haired heads with that media story.

Meanwhile, over on The Civilian, we get to see the new  George W. Bush presidential library to boast extensive range of more than 10 books.

No Right Turn features,

• Another subsidy to business – where Key is offering to fund another Convention Centre, this time in Queenstown. The only thing is – evidently they don’t actually need a Convention Centre in that town! So why waste taxpayer’s money there? God knows. Key’s probably forgotten anyway…
• Idiot Savant reports on National’s latest attack on employee’s right; Smashing the unions. Expect wages to drop even further, as well as other worker’s rights being curtailed. This is Employment Contracts Act v.2, folks. Another piece of bullshit lawmaking that an incoming Labout-Green government will have to deal with.
• I/S gives The Stick to Hone Harawira about his absence from Parliament and labels it  Not acceptable.
• And in  Abusing Ministerial office for self advancement, I/S writes,“Last week we learned that the Minister of Trade negotiations, Tim Groser, had spent almost $250,000 of taxpayer’s money promoting himself for his bid to head the WTO. That bid has now failed, but the entire thing is a perfect example of why the public are distrustful of politicians and their spending: while there are legitimate expenses involved with being a Minister, trying to set yourself up for a post-political career isn’t one of them. ”

Then we come to The Standard,

• Karol reminds us that tomorrow is a  Day of Action Sat 27 April to oppose the asset sales. We still need to be out there, on the streets, making Key’s miserable life even more frickin’ miserable.
• Helen Kelly reports that National’s  Massive changes to employment legislation announced today is a repeat of the 1991 employments contracts and will finally give employers the power they’ve always wanted; to totally sideline Unions.  As Helen says, “There is no problem being address by this Bill. It is an all-out ideological statement about who the Government acts for“.
• Karol observes that Meanwhile: US, intellectual property, GCSB is all about intellectual property rights for the United States. Karol refers to that breakfast meeting that Fletcher and Key had, and puts it all into a neatly bundled-up context. Well worth a read.
• And another piece by Karol, who reports on the msm turning on Dear Leader;  ‘That politician got amnesia again’. When even the right wing media start beating on Key, you know it’s the end for the manipulative millionaire muppet.

Isn’t it interesting that the electorate had “sized up” Key in November 2011 – and still voted for the lying hound? Check this out,

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Blog Post of the Day

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Via Coley Tangerina on Twitter, QoT on Ideologically Impure shares a story about transphobia in our media;  The Christchurch Press and Stuff.co.nz: transphobic asshats of the day. Bigotry flourishes in The Christchurch Press, and shows that despite marriage equality, we still have a lonnnnng way to go.

Am I expecting too much from our journos to be a little bit more thoughtful in the way they write their stories?

Nice to see positive comments being left after the Press story. (The bigots must still be licking their rancid wounds after the marriage equality bill was passed).

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Rightwing Blog  of the Day

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In  Less here, more there,  Ele Ludemann writes on her Homepaddock, about the Labour-Green proposals for NZ Power,

“There are doubts about whether the LabourGreen power plan will save as much as promised, if any at all.”

*facepalm* No, Ele. Of course not.  The Labour-Greens have made this proposal simply to waste everyone’s time and give right wing bloggers something to moan about and sound oh-so f****n clever. *rolls eyes*

Tell us about  your dairy farm, Ele, where do you send your milk?

Fonterra???!!!

Gosh, that can’t be right! Fonterra is a single desk seller/buyer of milk. That’d be… socialist, wouldn’t it?

And when you buy your meds for yourself and your family – are any of them PHARMAC subsidised?

*cough*hypocrisy*cough*

Ok, here’s the deal, Ele.

Us lefties – and probably 99% of New Zealanders –  will buy our electricity from NZ Power, at the cheap rate.

You and your fellow Nat/ACT supporters can keep paying the higher tariff for your electricity.

We all get what we want, eh?

Sorted.

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~oo~