Today’s Daily Blog Watch Round-Up of matters that have attracted the attention, assessments, and articulations of this country’s leading bloggers and on-line satirists…
NZ Left Blogosphere
Phillip Ure on Whoar! asks if “we might be getting near the bottom of the great big awful barrel of food television”; “..Colin Hogg: From the ridiculous to the sublime..”
No Right Turn pans Labour’s tax spokesperson, David Clark, for even hinting at banning Facebook for not paying it’s taxes. it’s simply Not a credible solution, writes Idiot Savant. It’s not. And Clark needs to kicjk himself in his manly bits for airing such views within 100 metres of a conscious journalist.
A few screw-ups like that, and Labour can look forward to three more years in Opposition.
Twit #1.
And in The winds of change, Savant looks at Key’s two-faced hypocrisy in which he slates Labour’spaid parental leave legislation – and then announcing that National will be offering some measure of extension anyway. Perhaps someone should mention to Dear Leader John Il Key that “Me Too!” is not a way to do Party policy.
Twit #2.
Tim Watkin on The Pundit looks at Key’s coalition list a sign of weakness for National, re-birth for Peters & Dunne,
“But as we all know, we’re talking about a third term here with the centre-left Labour-Greens coalition neck-and-neck with National in the polls. This is like no election year Key has faced before and he no longer has the luxury to espouse the sort of principles that saw him rule out a coalition with Peters in the past two elections. So onto the list come the Conservative Party and New Zealand First.”
Another Orewa? asksdanyl on The Dim Post,
“A couple of weeks ago I ran into Matthew Hooton and we sat down and had coffee together and talked about politics. One of the subjects we speculated about was David Cunliffe’s upcoming speech.
I suggested that, ‘Every opposition leader dreams of replicating Orewa?’ Matthew agreed. ‘You find an issue that isn’t part of the current conversation but is hugely relevant. That ignites debate and catches the government off guard. But . . . what is that issue?’ We both tried to think of one but couldn’t, and went on to talk about other things.”
On Bowalley Road, Chris Trotter sez there are No Speeches On The State Of The Capitalist System, and posits the question,
“How long can it be before 42 individuals are worth as much as the poorest three-quarters of humanity? Or, just one person controls the wealth of the entire planet?”
There’s more to it – but you’ll have to read his blogpost. It is short; to the point; and reflects on recent political speeches on the supposed State of our Nation. As always, an interesting perspective on politics.
On Maui Street, Morgan Godfery explains why Winston Peters is up to his old tricks when he accuses the Maori Party of instigating “apartheid” policies,
“Winston likes to rewrite his own history. It wasn’t that long ago that Winston held the office of the Minister of Maori Affairs. And it wasn’t that long ago that New Zealand First held the five Maori seats. Winston grumbles about separatism, except when it suits Winston.”
Winston Peters is a past-master at manipulating two sorts of people; rednecks and the naive. It is reassuring to note that except for 1996, his support has always wavered around the 5-6% mark. Which means that 5-6% of the population are of the naive/redneck variety.
Morgan may have missed the mark, though, when he suggests,
“He may have won one battle – over the nature of Te Puni Kokiri – but he lost the war. He’s fighting the battles of the 80s and 90s with Victoria racial rhetoric.”
For many of his constituency, “the 80s and 90s with Victoria racial rhetoric” battles are as relevent now as they were twenty or thirty years ago. Unfortunately, racism has a very long Expiry/UseBy date.
In the Transport Blog (formerly Auckland Transport Blog), Matt L loos at the new Devonport Wharf and Marine Square upgrade to begin. It is a promise of good things to come through increasing public transport.
Gordon Campbell on David Cunliffe’s State of the Nation speech;
“In the world of thankless jobs, being the Leader of the Opposition is right up there. It involves being the eternal suitor… And alas, the more that you earnestly profess the nobility of your intentions, the less enticing you tend to become. Before you know it, the voters start thinking about pinning the poster of another dream date on their bedroom walls.”
Gordon Campbell then analyses Cunliffe’s speech and Labour’s plan for increasing support for early childhood education. His argument is persuasive and should ber used by Labour during the coming election campaign. Powerful stuff.
Frankly Speaking has one of his innumerable Letters to the Ed, where he warns against rising enthusiasm for Bankers’s referring to New Zealand’s “Rock Star” Economy?!
In Bat, Bean, Beam, Giovanni Tiso looks at how a single human being’s sum total experiences can be reduced and “saved” on to Seven thousand trillion floppy disks. Evidently, it was a real a real industrial project back in the 1990s. (Though I suspect the likes of Cam Slater and his numbnuts followers can be recorded onto a couple of discs, max. With room left over for Slater’s favourite porn vids.) It’s an interesting story – if more than a little frightening.
The Standard’s offerings today include,
Following David Cunliffe’s announcement of Best Start New Zealand’s right wing took it upon themselves to show how useless and venal they are.
It started with Jordon “the new Cameron Slater” Williams and the
National front groupTaxpayers’ Union’s eviscerating attack on “Middleclass Welfare” (honestly guys that line’s so 2007) only to blame it on” “Labour Party Leader, David Shearer” M-O-R-O-N-S.Farrar didn’t do his bosses any favours with his “welfare queen” arguments. There’s so much mysogony and bile in that comments thread it’d see National polling at Colin Craig levels if the Natas took their PR advice from their base.
The PM made his statement in the House today – it was a bit of a diversionary fizzer: just looked like a government out of ideas, and going for more of the same, plus tacking on a few responses to opposition policies; a lot of waffle. The opposition is gearing up for the elections, and there were some interesting responses: some inspiring, some thought provoking, some a repeat of things that need to be repeated again and again this year.
- On Best Start – Geoff
So Labour has launched the Best start policy and the criticism from National and its followers has been swift and well coordinated. And, like the bulk of National’s attacks on it opponents, it also has no basis in reality.
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Blogpost of the Day
In Frogblog, read about Holly Walker, Mum in the House. Holly sez,
“I have also been reflecting that I am incredibly lucky to have the flexibility that I do in my job as an MP. That might sound strange, since it is in many ways a very inflexible and demanding job, but in other ways I have a lot of opportunities that very few other working mums enjoy.”
Read what else she has to say on the subject – and put it into context with National’s ongoing resistance to extending paid parental leave. It falls into place, I tell you.
Oh, and congratulations, Holly! And to Baby Esther – welcome to the Human Race!
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Rightwing Blog of the Day
Whaleoil.
For being offline for over a day after being cyber-attacked.
Evidently Slater has finally crossed a line by referring to a person killed in a road crash as “feral” – despite knowing nothing about the person whatsoever. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Slater described him as “feral” simply because he could. So it seems that people have decided to fight back. Oh dear – I bet no one saw that coming.
Slater of course, being Mr Tough Guy who believes in sorting out his own shit – went scampering to the Police for a wah-wah session and laid a complaint. A constable reportedly felt so sorry for the snivelling little boy in front of him that he gave Slater a very nice hanky (with cute zebras and elephants and piggies on it!); patted his plump, balding head; and offered him a warm cocoa and a gingernut. (Slater’s request for a Penthouse magazine and a quick visit to the toilet was politely declined.)
Of course, being the (diagnosed?) psychopath that Slater is, he will not learn from this experience. To him, it’s someone elses’ fault. It’s always someone elses’ fault.
There is justice in this vast, cold, boundless, Universe yet.
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Thought for the Day
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~ Joe Blogger,
“The Daily Blog Watch” Editor, Imbiber of Fine Sugary Drinks, & Moa-whisperer
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~oo~
