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
Andrew Geddis on The Pundit would never, ever, nevah, take the piss out of Colin Craig (and risk the Wrath of His Holy Law Firm descending upon his head), but, well, Neknominate: the Colin Craig version,
Here’s an idea for a fun game. Try and write a blogpost that says what Russel Norman did about Colin Craig, but in a way that avoids getting a letter from Chapman Tripp threatening you with a defamation action….
Warning: Funny-As-Fuck Alert: Do Not Be Drinking Anything When You Read This!!! Because it seems that Scott Yorke on Imperator Fish has taken up Andrew’s challenge by saying I’m sorry, Colin. Really sorry…
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Public Address has a brilliant piece by Mark Harris, TPP: Error Correction,
Mark’s demolition of the TPP and Smellie’s cheerleading for bit, is a must-read piece of analytical journalism. It’s a shame ‘Stuff’ didn’t publish it to give counter-weight to the pro-TPP article…
Some more Random recommended reading on Ideologically Impure….
Busy times on Frankly Speaking with Frank MacSkacy writing three letters to the editor; Simon Bridges is a very naughty little boy, John Key dazzles them with bullsh*t, and an interesting juxtaposition Shane Taurima and Maggie Barry.
Phillip on Whoar reports on New Zealand Parliament – List of questions for oral answer – Tuesday – 18 February 2014 – all in his own off-beat style. Plus more stories and blogposts on the days’ events.
Tumeke’s Tim Selwyn asks Guess who’s coming to dinner? Clue; a German millionaire plus guests. But, how did the Prime Minister know? Who was watching? And who told Whaleboy? Tim writes,
So for example the PM can leak something to Whaleoil and can then claim he got it independently and vice versa. That cover has now been blown.
On Hot Topic, Gareth takes a bloody big Warmed Up Stick to climate-change denier and right wing lackey to the 1%, Rodney “Perk Lover” Hide. As Risible Rodney rides again,
Rodney Hide’s regular opinion slot in the Herald on Sunday has often provided the former ACT Party leader with a platform to spout his trademark climate denialist nonsense, but yesterday’s has to take some kind of biscuit for purveying unsubstantiated, completely made up nonsense. He starts by riffing on new research that suggests that an increase in Pacific winds has acted to slow down global temperature increases, and then goes completely off his trolley. Scientists predict that when the Pacific trade winds slow global warming will take off with a bang. Armageddon remains on.
(Has anyone ever thought how freaky it is that Rodney Hide looks the spitting image of Evil Mastermind, The Hood??)
On another, equally serious note, Idiot Savant on No Right Turn looks at today’s events, where the International Commission of Inquiry for justice in North Korea
“…has found that the North Korean regime is committing crimes against humanity on a scale not seen since Nazi Germany….”
What will the “international community do? Sweet. Fuck. All. Going by history.
Sprout blogs on Local Bodies about the Greens’ Solar Sense and National’s Nonsense,
National have already been burnt by the reception of the Greens’ well received education policy when their own expensive education initiative received lukewarm support. Simon Bridges desperately suggested that the modest loans were somehow “magic money” and an unnecessary subsidy. Bridges incredibly didn’t believe that solar energy was necessary in New Zealand. John Key bizarrely claimed that the scheme would destabilise the current system and would cause companies to increase charges. National would rather see people dependent on the current flawed system that has seen a 22% increase in power bills over their time in office.
We are now seeing a stark contrast between a government desperate to support the status quo of increasing charges and large company profits, while the future focussed Greens are truly progressive in their thinking.
On the Frogblog, Gareth Hughes writes on Taking the power back– Green Party Solar Homes policy,
Launched yesterday to much acclaim, Solar Homes offers low-cost Government loans to households so they can install solar PV on their roofs, tap into abundant green power and generate their own electricity. I repeat – low cost Government loans, which households pay back (the National Party has called the scheme a subsidy. It’s not). This is deeply ironic given National is bending over backwards for the oil industry with $45m in tax breaks this financial year and $25m in seismic survey subsidies paid by the taxpayer.
And Catherine Delahunty tells the oil company Dinosaurs they got their facts wrong,
Kids love dinosaurs.
So what better way to inspire their interest in the oil and gas industry than telling them that dinosaurs that once roamed the earth live on in the fuel in mummy and daddy’s car.
Except, that’s wrong. Almost all oil and gas is comprised from plant matter which decomposed millions of years before dinosaurs existed.
Rebuilding Christchurch has a short piece on The Celtic Tiger’s New Zealand OE. We should be very, very worried…
Cut Your Hair looks at the ‘phenonenon’ of right wingers attempting to smear Labour’s economic track record from 2000 to 2008. I am so sick of this obvious lie as to how the Tighty Righties are trying to re-write history by painting the Clark/Cullen administration as profligate spenders – ignoring the fact that nearly all debt was paid off and Cullen posted nine surpluses in a row, plus a tax cut on top, as icing on the economic cake.
Bat, Bean, Beam looks at The mathematics of welfare and a wander down the road of nostalgia and the railways. Was there more optimism in 1934, at the end of the Great Depression, than the tail-end of the 2008 Great Recession?
Lizard people? Quality journalism is totally dead, writes the Topical blog, as it pans the media for passing superficial garbage as “news”.
Polity looks at the Greens’ solar energy plan – specifically David Farrar’s negative spin on the issue, and finds that our favourite little National Gnome is being a tad “elastic” with interpretation of said policy,
DPF reckons the only impacts of buying a solar panel on HP (the policy in a nutshell) are the repayments for the HP and the power you generate. He forgets that purchasers are also building an asset that increases the value of their home, likely by around $15,000. How convenient.
Once you include the asset growth, that $2 per week saving becomes somewhere around $32 per week. A bit over $1,500 a year. And that is a figure that really can change behaviour.
And on the issue of The Media, the Bloody Ginormous Issue of the Day, is the sacking of Shane Taurima from TVNZ. Maui Street’s Morgan Godfery opens with Shane Taurima: political neophyte?
Shane didn’t make the rod for his own back in front of the camera or in the control room – he made it in the Ikaroa-Rawhiti selection. When he revealed his political ambitions – and social democratic inclinations – he drew a target on his head. In hindsight he should have resigned permanently the moment he announced his candidacy. On a practical level he could have and did remain – I don’t think anyone can question his professionalism – but on a political level the decision to remain was stupid. Does this cast doubt on his suitability as a political candidate?
Bryce Edwards on Liberation presents Top tweets about Shane Taurima, TVNZ and Labour….
On Shane Taurima, Idiot Savant on No Right Turn says, there is “an absolute obligation not to bring our political interests into our work”.
Tim Selwyn on Tumeke writes that the TVNZ executive mismanagement of Taurima excuse for purge,
Can’t recall the Broadcasting Minister intervening with the Chairman of the TVNZ board and the CEO when it was Mike Hosking and his Sky City backhanders? Funny that. How the Nats and the conservative Pakeha consider one thing scandalous and another thing – that just involves a Pakeha show pony for example – isn’t. What was TVNZ management’s first day reaction to the Tony Veitch wife-bashing revelations? They kept him on air like nothing had fucking happened!
And on The Standard,
With the hope that this comment will not result in a solicitor’s letter from Chapman Tripp it seems that Colin Craig is overly sensitive to criticism. He has had Chapman Tripp write to Green’s leader Russel Norman seeking an apology and retraction for Norman saying the following:
Now the thing about Colin Craig is he thinks that a woman’s place is in the kitchen and a gay man’s place is in the closet.”
Coal Action Network Aotearoa has this characteristic story of the problems with the cost structure of opportunistic mining in NZ. The current world price of the coal found on the Denniston Plateau has sunk considerably below Bathurst Resources’ stated break-even price and shows no signs of rising. What is the bet that NZ is going to wind up with another unwanted hole in the ground as a shell company gets folded up?
As Lynn points out in his post today ‘National’s Herald shows its true colours’, the very visible flaunting of connections between National MPS, the ACT Party, an NZ Herald gossip columnist and Cameron Slater is puzzling. This all resulted from the press statements by John Key. Here Key was mainly stressing that he did not get information about Winston Peters’ visits to the Dotcom mansion form the GCSB, SIS or any public agency.
Pablo, who has a background in security research and analysis, posted on Kiwipolitico that he is very skeptical about Slater being the source of information about the Peters’ visits. Pablo argues that it would be perfectly logical, possible and legal for the police, with or without the legal help of the SIS or GCSB, to be monitoring Kim Dotcom and those he associates with. They could be doing this because they consider Dotcom to be a flight risk, or (that old police dodge) associating with drug users.
What is happening at the Herald?
Suddenly Rachel Glucina is the breaker of very important political news such as the visits to Dotcom mansion by various politicians.
Susan Nact reporting.
In a dramatic turn of events, cadet reporter Tracy Whatshite (drinking in a Ponsonby cafe), found an envelope labelled “Top Secret, Property of TVNZ”.
We can reveal that inside was a script for a new television series that will be screening on Channel Two later this year. The new drama, has a working title of “’Allo, ‘allo, ‘allo, ‘allo” and is set in a greasy spoon cafe in a back street off Ponsonby Road. The series is based on the British tv series “Allo allo” from the 1980’s. The series has been cast and we can confirm Cameron Slater has the lead role of Rene, the sweaty cafe owner, whose body mass index is over 35.
Good to see Labour has stood up against National’s “harder-to-vote” revisions to the Electoral Amendment Bill, especially making voters now have to state their name to get a voting paper. The reason for this is to allow scrutineers to more easily challenge a voter’s credentials, and is similar to voter intimidation practices in conservative States in the US. Expect National Party scrutineers questioning more voter credentials in the 2014 election.
The last item on The Standard is real cause for concern. Restricting people’s right to vote is a step to far – and will invite a response.
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Blogpost of the Day
Idiot Savant on No Right Turn, suggests that the flooding in the UK was An entirely avoidable disaster,
If you’ve been watching the news recently, you’ll know that great chunks of the UK are under water or under threat of flooding at the moment, thanks to the worst rain since records began. Why? Because the current government cut funding for flood defences….
The UK situation holds lessons for every government on this planet. Cut essential services and there will be consequences. In the British case, those consequences arrived early and with the full force of Nature.
The same holds true for other public services that governments make – especially if they’re going to bribe the electorate with tax cuts.
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Did A Right-Winger Just Say That?
From David Farrar’s Kiwiblog,
Has been fascinating to look at the nexus between certain MPs and Kim Dotcom. We now know some MPs have had multiple meetings with him at his mansion (lesser mortals visit MPs in their offices, but for Dotcom they flock to his mansion), and the same MPs have asked multiple questions about his case in Parliament. And again at least one of those MPs is vowing to fight his extradition – even if the NZ Courts find he should be extradited. And finally, we have learnt that Dotcom will wind up his political party during the election campaign and endorse one or more other parties – no doubt those who have been helping him so much.
So who have been Kim’s little helpers. I’ve searched the parliamentary database and these MPs have asked multiple questions on his behalf or about his case.
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Trevor Mallard – 132 questions (128 written, 4 oral)
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Winston Peters – 82 questions (71 written, 11 oral)
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David Shearer – 36 questions (22 written, 14 oral)
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Grant Robertson – 17 questions (15 oral, 2 written)
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Russel Norman – 13 questions (7 written, 6 oral)
Say, whut??
Did Farrar just attack the solemn responsibility of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition to… ask freakin’ questions???
Note that Farrar didn’t criticise what the Questions pertain to. We don’t know. He hasn’t told us.
His criticism is that the Opposition were so cheeky as to dare question the authority of The Great Helmsman; Dear Leader Juhn Eel Key! (Successor to Rob Eel Pigge.)
It’s a sad state of affairs when Right Wing bloggers so openly espouse a new authoritarian Order, one that we have always resisted. Just remind us, David, WTF did we fight WW2 and the Cold War for?
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Quick Quotes
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969)
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Thought for the Day
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~ Joe Blogger,
“The Daily Blog Watch” Editor, Imbiber of Fine Sugary Drinks (and subsequent Type I, II, and III diabetic), & Moa-whisperer
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