The Daily Blog Watch Friday 24 May

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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

QoT  is Mapping the religious right on Ideologically Impure – or rather, linking to a blogpost that looks at inter-linking conservative groups in the US and UK. She wonders how such an analysis might look here in New Zealand?

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Phillip on Whoar shares some intriguing news with his readers,  “..Kim Dotcom Claims Ownership of Two-Factor Authentication..”. That’ll put a whole bunch of cats amongst the pigeons!

The Green Party’s Frogblog has three good posts todays,

“The convention centre deal includes an extension to the casino’s licence for 35 years, allows for an additional 230 pokie machines and extra gambling tables and,  worryingly, allows a law change to enable cashless gambling with a Ticket In Ticket Out system which is a favourite of international money launderers.

The agreement also contains a compensation clause that binds future governments to compensating SkyCity if they change the law to reduce gambling harm and it affects the casino’s profits.”

The West Coast people who are welcoming the decision are understandably desperate given the collapse of Solid Energy. They hope the jobs will save their economy, but as every coal mining based community in the world should know, the jobs cannot be relied upon. Meanwhile the Denniston Plateau is at huge risk.

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The huge elephant in this room is the fact that climate change is not being considered in the decisions around Denniston.

Increasingly, we will see environmental concerns (ie, climate change) butting up hard against job losses. This is a critical problem facing the Left and the Green movement.

  • March Against Monsanto by Steffan Browning, who sez,”I will be hosting the Christchurch March Against Monsanto this Saturday, joined by genetics scientist Professor Jack Heinemann and author Christine Dann. There are events all over the country, all over the world in fact.”

(See Action of the Week below)

Chris Trotter on Bowalley Road has a message to the NZ Government, regarding why our meat exports were left stranded on Chinese ports. Chris makes a  Borderline Call (With Apologies To “Yes, Minister”) on why he thinks the Chinese have blocked our exports – and it ties in nicely  with a post Frank Macskasy made on The Daily Blog, when he asks  What’s the beef, guv?

The upshot is that Beijing is mightily pissed off at us for some reason – and bro’, it ain’t the paperwork!

On Fightback!, the determination of  the Independent Taskforce on Workplace Health and Safety is that the Health and Safety system is “not fit for purpose”.  Byron Clarke  points out that “New Zealand has an accident rate about 20-25% higher than Australia or the UK ” and makes the amazingly common sense suggestion that,

The best protections for workers of course will not be top-down from government but bottom up from organised workers on the ‘shop floor’. Health and safety remains one of the few areas workers can legally strike over outside a contract negotiation.”

Hot Topic has an op-ed piece by Bryan Walker who writes about  Morality, government and fossil fools. Byron suggests that it is high time that this government’s track record and policies was attacked from a moral point of view, and that it is an opportunity for organised religion to make it’s voice heard.

That’s an interesting proposition… We know that organised religion is hot on marriage equality, but what about real social, economic, and environmental problems confronting us? Where are the raised voices on these issues?

Meanwhile, Tim Watkin on The Pundit has a few things to say about  National’s final asset sale justification is proved false.  Tim puts the boot into National’s  “mum & dad” investor meme thusly,

But the Greens today seem to have done for that second justification as well. A press release this morning in Russel Norman’s name gives us more details about those 113,000 investors and the shares they bought.

As National had reported, those 113,000 investors bought 26.9 percent of the company.

But those shares weren’t spread evenly amongst those buyers – half of them were bought by just 13,000 of those investors. They bought, on average, $35,000 worth of shares each. Straight away, that tells you these are people with considerable wealth.

As if that should really be a surprise to any of us. But it’s now there, in black and white (despite what that half-wit, Slater, had to say on the issue).

For another slice of reality, check out Danyl on The Dim Post, with the  Chart of the day, ‘Rock star status’ edition. Danyl tears a new one for ANZ bank chief economist, Cameron Bagrie, who think we’re some kind of economic “rock star”. Quite the opposite, as Danyl demonstrates with crystal clarity.

Tumeke’s Tim Selwyn reviews an interview on Radio NZ with Detective Inspector Tusha Penny and calls it for what it is;  Police/State. Listen to Radio NZ’s Kathryn Ryan do the interview with Ms Penny – Feature Guest – Detective Inspector Tusha Penny  – and then check out Tim’s critique.

Just a reminder; Mickey Savage on Waitakere News asks, So what happened to the Budget announcement of food in schools?

The Auckland Transport Blog’s Matt L reports that  PT Fare changes are on the way. Matt asks why HOP fares are rising while cash fares are remaining static, and wonders if it would make more sense the other way around?

As usual, No Right Turn has a good selection of top blogposts,

  • Still questions about the Devoy appointment – Idiot/Savant shares his answers to several OIA requests he lodged with the Ministry of Justice. He received some very intriguing responses.

  • Revelations that  Britain collaborated in secret renditions perhaps gives us an insight into why two men murdered a  man in the busy streets of London. The British government has blood on it’s collective hands, as much as the two thugs who butchered their victim.
  • So much for “mum and dad investors” – the government grossly over-estimated  the potential uptake of share in Mighty Rive Power by ordinary New Zealanders. Hardly surprising. As Idiot/Savant writes, “Far from being a way of spreading wealth to all, National’s privatisation was just a way of rewarding their rich cronies. And we’ll all be paying for it – not just through higher power prices, but through the harmful social effects of the higher inequality it has caused”.

Imperator Fish – one of our favouritist satirical blogs (you know the other) – tells us that Police reaction to Woolwich murder offends white supremacist group. I’m not going to give a word-for-word on Scott’s satirical piece – go and have a squizz at it yourself. Treat yourself to a laugh…

And onto The Civilian

Gordon Campbell on failures of care for those with mental disabilities, and Murray McCully‘s latest gaffes – a solid piece of critical analysis from Gordon. If you haven’t bookmarked his website, you’re making a big mistake. His writings are Required Reading for those with inquiring minds. (No, Cam, not you.)

And finishing with the Gurus of the Left, at the Standard;

  •  We’re morphing into a  Banana republic states  – and he presents  a fairly lengthy, damning list of National’s failings. If this is what National supporters want for our country then we are a sorry bunch. Because even if only 30% of the voters are this morally bankrupt, it raises serious questions about the values we instill in our children – who then grow up into selfish pricks.

When even “Nat fan John Armstrong” is “uneasy” about this rotten government, then, my fellow Kiwis, we are in deep doo-doos.

  •  Check out Karol’s excellent report on  The shameless Nick Smith and his political history. Read and ‘arm’ yourself with knowledge.  Karol writes,

“On RNZ’s Checkpoint yesterday (Thursday) evening, Smith’s slippery twists and turns catch up with him, exposing his and the government’s true intent as regards mining on conservation land.  First he acknowledges that the approval was given to avoid the public consultation process that becomes necessary on Friday (today).  However, he justifies this by saying that the last Crown Minerals Act amendment would make it harder to protect conservation land, and would give more weight to “economic benefits”.  By giving approval yesterday, Smith argues he was able to get a bigger monetary package in compensation for damage to conservation land: money that would go towards preservation of other areas.”

This is brilliant stuff, people.

  •  And one of the best little blogposts in a while is this bit from How to spot fascism. Having read the odious op-ed that Zetetic condemns in some  straight-shooting language, I can understand how (at the time I read it) every single comment left was derisory of the feeb;le-minded author, Me Aaaron Lim.

As for Mr Lim – he’s busily trying to justify his foolishness on that NZ Herald comments page. Education was wasted on him.

 

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Blogpost of the Day

The Jackal dismisses Cameron Slater as the Horrible slug! that he is, with Slater’s wildly inaccurate blogpost bullshit about the IPCA report. The Jackal dismantles Slater’s crappy little blogpost piece-by-inaccurate-piece.

Only a bunch of poorly educated right-wing numbnuts (aka redneck hillbillies) could possibly consider Slater to be authoritative on this or any other any issue. Mickey mouse comics, maybe, but nothing more sophisticated. Too taxing for  Slater’s poorly educated brain.

Ok, ’nuff said on that chubby little squirrel.

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Rightwing Sillyness of the Day

Quoting at 28 year old position  David Farrar spouting some of his usual froth, “I don’t know why print media are so loath to run corrections. I think it helps your credibility when you do”.

Yeah. Right.

In which case right wing blogs should be pretty busy all day publishing nothing but retractions.

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Action of the Week

Green MP,  Steffan Browning, announces street action against Monsanto;

I will be hosting the Christchurch March Against Monsanto this Saturday, joined by genetics scientist Professor Jack Heinemann and author Christine Dann. There are events all over the country, all over the world in fact.

Find your closest below and join us in this exciting global event to claim back control of our food system.

Details of New Zealand Marches Against Monsanto:

Auckland – 3:00pm, Aotea Square http://www.facebook.com/events/168932459932934/

Christchurch – 3:00pm, Hagley Park https://www.facebook.com/events/257378607742003/

Wellington – 3:00pm, Waitangi Park https://www.facebook.com/events/589013124456893/

New Plymouth – 3:00pm, Corner of Elliot and Devon St West https://www.facebook.com/events/364155907021803/?ref=3

Nelson – 1:00pm, Corner of Halifax and Trafalgar Streets https://www.facebook.com/events/128929110628000/?ref=22

Rotorua – 12:00pm, Rotorua Lake Front https://www.facebook.com/events/264719693671906/

Tauranga – 12:00pm, Red Square, Devonport Rd https://www.facebook.com/events/514056908629667/

Whangarei – 2:00pm, Cameron St Mall and Bank St https://www.facebook.com/pages/March-Against-Monsanto-Whangarei/619245478103161?ref=ts&fref=ts

Hastings – 11:00am, Clock Tower, City Centre, 021 054 3492

Info on the global events:

http://www.march-against-monsanto.com/

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Thought for the Day

We Came In Peace for All Mankind

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Note: Am I missing any blog that readers would like me to cover? Or anything else you want me to cover? Leave a message and I’ll try to accomodate.

~ Joe Blogger

“The Daily Blog Watch” Editor, Imbiber of Fine Sugary Drinks,  & Cat Herder

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~oo~

1 COMMENT

  1. If Slater has graduated to halfwit status, it must have been recent. I’d put him at about one eighth.

Comments are closed.