The Daily Blog Watch – 6/7 Pēpuere 2014

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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 and on-line satirists…

NZ Left Blogosphere

The Little Pakeha has a piece on Waitangi Day and Te Wai Pounamu

 

On six separate days through May and June 1840 Treaty signings were held in the South Island, largely down the east coast. However, Hobson had already declared British sovereignty over Te Wai Pounamu on May 21 on the basis that it was terra nullius, the same justification for the annexing of Australia. Apparently it wasn’t logically inconsistent to claim that and also to seek a Treaty with the inhabitants, or at least, everyone was willing to pretend it wasn’t. (It was much easier to pretend in the south – the land wasn’t as good, which meant a lower population and more movement around territories that the Crown could later claim were wastelands as they didn’t have a permanent settlement.)

Julie writes How Savemart changed my life on The Hand Mirror, with a few observations tossed in about self-image; advertising pressures; and societal expectations. In a way, Op Shops have subverted the notion of the Consumer Society in that we can shop-till-we-drop – but at bargain-basement prices. Noice.

There’s a bit of a competition over at The Pundit and a chance to WIN… Free tickets to afternoon of wine & grooves. Don’t we all love aflutter!

Just what we needed. A half-wit maltreating animals in Chile and dragging our nation’s reputation through the sewers. Porcupine Farm deals with the idiot accordingly, in  Bobby Calf Bludgeoner Bags Bash Bonus.

I suppose it’s too much to hope for Zach Ward to be prosecuted and spend a bit of jail time to ponder his crime?

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

As our National Day comes and goes, Chris Trotter on Bowalley Road ponders  A Precise Moment In History – The Legacy Of Waitangi,

“Under pressure from the aristocratic backers of the New Zealand Company, and wary of the pretensions of competing powers – particularly the French – the Colonial Office in London is determined to regularise the confused situation then prevailing in Australasia. If the land titles being sold to settlers by the New Zealand Company are to be legally enforceable, the question of sovereignty must be settled – and quickly. By fair means or by foul, New Zealand is to be annexed to the British Crown.”

An amazing piece of writing and one that the reader should read to it’s conclusion. This is something every New Zealander should take on board and ponder.

Fightback also features a piece on Waitangi Day and Grant Brooke asks,  Waitangi Day, Te Rā o Waitangi – What does it mean today, 174 years on?

“As each chief signed Te Tiriti, Busby proclaimed: “he iwi kotahi tātou” – we are one people.

So the proclamation of the “nation” that our politicians speak of began at Waitangi. And maybe, just maybe, it could have been true that “we are one people” – if the treaty signed there had been honoured.

But today, anyone who knows anything about Te Tiriti, knows that the Crown never honoured it. Prime minister John Key admits that the Crown breached the agreement signed at Waitangi . Helen Clark said that the Crown failed spectacularly to fulfill its treaty obligations. The current Crown representative, Governor General Sir Jerry Mateparae, says the Crown breached the Treaty.”

Meanwhile, with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour, Scott Yorke at Imperator Fish announced, Explosive alternative version of Treaty uncovered,

“I couldn’t believe it. I’ve been saying for years that the Treaty grievance industry is a monstrous con, and that it is time for white New Zealanders to stand up and say enough-is-enough.

“And then quite by chance an alternative version of the Treaty shows up in my hands, proving beyond doubt that everything the academics and Maoris have been telling us for years is completely false. What are the chances of that?

“I rushed to the internet to tell all my friends on Kiwiblog the news. To say they were excited would be an understatement.”

What’s the bet that the rednecks over at Kiwibog won’t get the joke and think it’s all real??

As the Transport Blog continues it’s campaigning to improve Auckland as a livable city, Matt L reports on  Ciclovia on Quay St

“Five months ago I wrote a post calling for the council to implement a regular Ciclovia event – or Sunday Streets as it’s known in the US. At the time local board member Pippa Coom said the the local board had already been working with the council on the idea and that there was a good chance one would happen. Well the great news is one is happening this Saturday…”

Over at The Standard,

 

Charles Waldegrave has slammed Brian Scott’s critique of the method used to calculate the Living Wage in New Zealand.

In a detailed and interesting analysis, he addresses the databases used to develop the Living Wage and compares the New Zealand approach with that of other countries. He shows Scott’s critique, and that of the Treasury, lack an informed understanding of the definition of a living wage and confuse market wage rates and welfare transfers.

“Geoff Bertram will analyse prospects for the proposed single-buyer model for electricity on Tuesday 11 February in Wellington. Bertram has previously set out his views on excessive power prices rise for consumers to the Fabian Society and elsewhere.  They are also covered in his chapter in the book Electricity Market Reform: an international perspective presented to an international forum in Germany last year.

This prompted the Government’s Electricity Authority to produce a report last week attacking Bertram’s analysis. Yesterday at a press conference the Authority’s Chief Executive Carl Hansen went further and resorted to a very personal attack on Geoff Bertram.”

“In 1973 in a stroke of brillance Crosby Textor could never dream of Labour Prime Minister Norm Kirk on Waitangi day grabbed the hand of a young male Maori, and walked onto Waitangi Marae.  The juxtaposition was exquisite, old and young, powerful and powerless, Pakeha and Maori.  The feeling of partnership was overwhelming.  The image cemented Big Norm’s status as one of the saints of the Labour Party.

John Key tried his own version of this.  He went even further and transported young Aroha Nathan from McGehan Close in Auckland to Waitangi with him.  The imagery is jarring though, it was a carefully scripted photo shoot and the use of a Ministerial Limo to do the transporting shows how far away from a solution for poverty this was.  Aroha’s subsequent life experiences suggest that Key’s expressed desire to do something about the “under class” was for political purposes only and not heart felt.”

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Random Right-wing Nuttery of  the Day

From No Minister comes this bit of racist claptrap,

I havn’t taken the time to read through them all, there is an international cricket test on you understand, but from memory the ToW is one of very few still being reinterpreted today.
That is because successive do gooders have seen political advantage in keeping it all going in one of our biggest industries today, the ToW grievance industry
Many things that were as yet undiscovered in 1840 have been added to what was “INTENDED”.
Radio spectrum, Minerals, Television, Welfare, Seats in the Parliament and local authorities awarded simply because some feel they are different and privileged, among them.

The author, “Gravedodger” (because no one would have the balls to own up to such freaking garbage) refers to Maori,

When the TOW was negotiated and signed in 1840, what are now referred to as Maori as if they are a discernible bloc, were just many tribes with common ancestry but each a  fiefdom willing when able to slaughter another tribes warriors, enslave any surviving women and children and add the resources captured to their unrecorded domain until a stronger, more cunning or just plain lucky SOB came by and repeated the destructive behaviour...

Hah! Amateur Time, Gravedodger! If you want real slaughter on a planetary scale, look no further than World Wars One and Two; Korean War; the Vietnam War; etc, etc, et-bloody-cetera.

If you want a few hundred millions wiped of the Human roll-call,  us Europeans are past masters.

We even toyed with the idea of atomic warfare last century – a mass collective suicide  for the entire human race. (But chose not to go through with nuking each other. That would’ve been Very Bad for the share market.)

Right wing nutters – living in a fantasy world 24/7.

 

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Blogpost of the Day

On The Daily Blog, John Minto has raised a storm with his post, The science is not “settled” on the benefits of fluoridation of water supplies. Personally, I think John is 100% wrong on this.

But it’s a worthy debate and at least he hasn’t any axe to grind on the subject.

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Thought for the Day

capitalism taking from those who work

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~ Joe Blogger,

“The Daily Blog Watch” Editor, Imbiber of Fine Sugary Drinks,  & Moa-whisperer

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