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
Porcupine Farm wishes Canterbury Happy Anniversary from the CERA Boys…
TechLiberty NZ has made a Submission on the Harmful Digital Communications Bill to Parliament on the Harmful Digital Communications Bill, and pulls no punches in it’s opposition to the proposed legislation,
We believe that this Bill is based on false premises about the nature of freedom of expression and the differences between digital and non-digital speech. We see the Bill as being a well-meaning but misguided threat to the civil liberties of New Zealanders. We fear that the Bill will be ineffective in too many cases where it might be needed most, while being too effective in the cases which are most problematic to civil liberties.
Local Bodies analysis Discrimination, Opinion Polls and Altered Perceptions with regards to the recent spate of polls…
On Public Address, Russell Brown takes a good, hard look at The Mayor’s marginal enemies, and identifies just who these people are.
Let’s be honest here: although most Aucklanders think less of the mayor after the revelations of the last few months, the anti-Brown campaign isn’t a popular movement. It’s run by a small group of people who are perennially marginalised and in some cases outright delusional. And the Herald isn’t exactly doing itself any favours by getting behind them.
Or, to be be more blunt, Len Brown’s stalkers are a bunch of loose-unit fruitcakes.
On Maui Street, Morgan Godfery looks at The meaning of Winston Peter’s race talk,
We have the Chinese community, the Pacific Islands community, the Sri Lankans, the Indians – the list is endless. All hyphenated New Zealanders…
It’s as simple as this. Our last census had boxes for virtually every race on earth. Except one. There was no box for you to tick that you are a New Zealander…
Typical, nasty Winston Peters race-baiting. Unfortunately, there will always be an audience who will lap up this kind of racist claptrap. But Morgan susses it perfectly with this brilliant insight,
When you peel away the forced politeness, the urge to please everyone and suppressed anger in some parts of provincial New Zealand you’ll find a country that’s deeply scarred. If it looks to in the mirror, it’s ashamed. If it looks to the future, it’s afraid. If it looks to the (imaginary) past, it’s at home.
Is Pablo Barking from the closet on Kiwipolitico? You be the judge,
If one thing has proven true over the years when it comes to religion and politics, it is that those who most ardently decry homosexuality as abnormal and represent themselves as paragons of “christian” family values often are themselves seriously repressed when it comes to their own sexual preferences…
Oooh! He is soooo gunna get his ass sued by You-Know-Who for that one!!
Meanwhile, Polity refers to the Herald on Sunday on the blogsters,
And Phillip Ure on Whoar reports on his usual wide eclectic look at issues,
First issue – “..What the hell is Barack Obama’s presidency for? | Gary Younge..”
Jonathan Milne in the Herald on Sunday had an interesting profile on some of the country’s leading political bloggers, concentrating most of all on Cameron Slater and Martyn Bradbury…
Barack Obama has now been in power for longer than Johnson was – and the question remains:
“What the hell’s his presidency for?”
“..Scandal of Europe’s 11 million empty homes..”
“..Both the Government Communications Security Bureau –
– and the Security Intelligence Service –
– also declined to reveal if they have hired controversial US big data company Palantir..”
Scott Yorke on Imperator Fish sez What my gut tells me,
I’m certain that if an election were held tomorrow, we’d all be saying “what the fuck? On a weekday? What kind of dirty Tory trick is this?”
And then I’d be saying “well, it’s going to be a Labour/Greens victory, because nobody likes John Key, and all those polls are wrong.”
I mean they have to be wrong, don’t they? My gut tells me so.
It’s the same gut that whispered to me last week: “you really ought to eat those jam doughnuts, because you’ll feel much better, and you won’t put on an ounce of weight, even if you stuff yourself full with a box of those delicious treats.”
Oh gowan, Scott. If it’ll make you feel better – have a fucking doughnut!
Savant has been busy on No Right Turn,
In its annual reports and reports under OPCAT – the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture – the Ombudsman’s Office has repeatedly raised concerns about segregation regimes (solitary confinement) in our prisons. Poor living conditions, long periods of solitary confinement, and limited recreation time means that imprisonment in this manner “could be considered cruel and inhuman for the purposes of the Convention Against Torture” (why? Because prolonged solitary confinement drives people mad,…
Last year John Key passed a spy bill granting vast new domestic spying powers to the GCSB. But he said that we wouldn’t have to worry, because they would be coupled with greater Parliamentary oversight through the Intelligence and Security Committee. As usual, he was lying”;
The Government’s spy agencies have refused to tell Parliament’s intelligence and security committee if they receive funding from the United States.
When the GCSB refused to reveal whether it was being bribed by the NSA, it hid behind a clause in the Intelligence and Security Committee Act that the ISC could not inquire into “any matter that is operationally sensitive, including any matter that relates to intelligence collection and production methods or sources of information”. So what’s “operationally sensitive” according to the GCSB?
When the NSA was caught bugging German Chancellor Anglea Merkel’s cellphone, they were ordered to stop by no less than the President of the United States. They did – but have simply started spying on other politicians instead:
The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) has stepped up its surveillance of senior German government officials since being ordered by Barack Obama to halt its spying on Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bild am Sonntag paper reported on Sunday…
Now that Nauru and Papua New Guinea are turning toxic, Australia is looking for another dumping ground for its refugees: Cambodia:
The Abbott government wants to send some asylum seekers to Cambodia, at a time when the country’s strongman prime minister, Hun Sen, is overseeing a brutal crackdown on dissent in one of south-east Asia’s poorest nations…
On The Hand Mirror, Julie warns us that Words are like weapons, they wound sometimes, and this proved fatal for Charlotte Dawson,
But please be assured that the little mean cutting things we sometimes say to each other can contribute to serious blood loss, in the mental health sense, for some.
Gareth on Hot Topic reports that climate liars on the loose,
Stuff Nation was introduced a couple of years ago as the reader-led section of Fairfax Digital’s NZ news site Stuff.co.nz1, home to quiz groups and news submitted by readers. Sadly for them, one or two of their readers have been taking them for a ride, to judge by one of this weekend’s lead stories — a “reader report” by one Tom Harris titled We must adapt to climate change. Harris is highly unlikely to be a regular reader of Stuff Nation, being based in Ottawa, but he is executive director of the International Climate Science Coalition, a spin-off from the NZ Climate Science Coalition established with money from US extreme right-wing lobby group the Heartland Institute.
So an offshore climate-denying nut is now a contributor to one of our local rags? Why? Don’t we have enough local screwballs to tell us that the world is flat?
Holly Walker on Frogblog tells the Tertiary Education minister, Living costs not enough to live on,
Earlier this week, I asked the Tertiary Education Minister about the significant impact his cut to postgraduate student allowances could have on the future psychology workforce in New Zealand.
It was prompted by research from the New Zealand Psychological Society and the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists that raised serious concerns about the effect that his decision to remove access to allowances for postgraduate students was having on those studying towards a psychology qualification. Psychologists require postgraduate level study to complete their professional registration.
Isn’t it ironic, that the Prime Minister and most of his colleagues all received a free tax-payer funded tertiary education?
Fightback reports Auckland & Wellington: Actions against Israeli whitewashing & pinkwashing,
In solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, Fightback (Aotearoa/NZ) endorses the Palestinian-led call for Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) on Israel. Cultural boycotts are a part of BDS. These boycotts target cultural products & activities designed to promote Israel, and supported by Israeli institutions…
The anti-apartheid movement started small as well. And then it gathered pace and support from the public as people understand that racism is not a pretty thing. Israel should learn from history….
On Cafe Pacific, David Robie looks at ‘Scapegoat Season’ at USP fails to hide achievements,
“SO it’s Scapegoat Season again at the University of the South Pacific journalism programme. Barely more than a year has elapsed since the last incumbent, was dumped as head…”
From The Standard’s stable of stirling story-tellers…
In our celebrity culture, music and songs can be PR vehicles for consumer society and celebrity culture. But down among the folk where life’s struggles often go unnoticed, songs and music can bring people together, they can heal, they can express the frustrations, heartaches, anger, fuck-ups, and desire for redemption: they can send messages to friends, whanau, politicians and the wider society; and they can motivated groups of people to demand change.
- And if you haven’t read it yet, check out Guy Fox’s damning piece on sleazemeister, Cameron Hater. Evidently, ole Cammy-boy said It’s not stolen – I just borrowed it without asking…
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Blogpost of the Day
Caleb Morgan on Cut Your Hair raises some interesting questions regarding a Landlord, local MP, regional czar, next-door-neighbour-to-my-doctor, guy-who-took-a-photo-of-me-once.
Find out who he’s writing about.
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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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I was really disappointed at Pablo playing the “All homophobes are closeted” card. I was even more disappointed when, when called out on his homophobia, he doubled down and insisted serious queer activists would disregard his homophobia and agree with him.
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