The Daily Blog Watch Thursday 20 June

0
1

.

blogging

.

Today’s Daily Blog Watch Round-Up of matters that have attracted the attention, assessments, and articulations of this country’s leading bloggers…

NZ Left Blogosphere

On No Right Turn,

Geddis on the Electoral Commission

Idiot Savant gives his (her?) perspective on Andrew Geddis’ blogpost on The Pundit (see further below)…

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Read more and find out.

An admission from the GCSB,

The government’s spy bill is currently before the Intelligence and Security Committee. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Papers around it have finally gone online. And the second of them [PDF] contains a very interesting admission. During its whining about why the GCSB Act is “not fit for purpose”…..”

Read more and find out.

The problem of SOEs…

Fifteen years ago, Nicky Hager exposed how state-owned enterprise Timberlands West Coast was spending millions of dollars of taxpayer’s money to fund political operations against its owners, the people of New Zealand. The core problem? An SOE that behaved as if it was a private company, with no democratic responsibilities. Fifteen years on, it looks like Solid Energy had a serious case of the same disease…”

Read more and find out.

And find out why Joined-up government isn’t quite so joined up…

From Porcupinefarm, the latest Not Your Namby-Pamby PC Nonsense

Danyl on The Dim Post makes an interesting observation about Labour’s possibility of running Clayton Cosgrove in an up-coming by-election in Christchurch East;  May I, Monsieur, offer my services without running the risk of intruding?

It’s Harder than it looks writes Danyl, to try to save a newspaper by employing a somewhat infamous blogger,

Maybe Slater is right and he inherited a dying paper, but I can’t imagine the Venn diagram of paying readers who are interested in sex tips, horse-racing and Gareth Hughes overlaps a whole lot, or that many of the paper’s stories made the slightest sense to anyone who wasn’t already plugged into the world of right-wing political blogs.”

On Maui Street, Morgan Godfery predicts that  Meka will win Ikaroa-Rawhiti by-election. Morgan writes,

“As bad as Labour’s messaging has been (“we will organise, mobilise and terrorise”), the party knows who and where its habitual voters are. Even putting terror and immigration comments aside, Labour and Meka are still at a messaging advantage. Meka can credibly frame herself as the successor to Parekura’s legacy and she can position herself to inherit the affection that Parekura earnt. ”

There’s an interesting story on Brian Edward’s Media, about An elderly man makes a less than happy visit to Tournament Parking in Shortland Street. It’s one of those curious ‘slice of life’ stories that add a human dimension to blogs…

Catherine Delahunty on Frogblog is  Going Geothermal – and relates her visit to the geothermal power complex at Wairakei. There’s also reference to a “lively” discussion with Contact Energy representatives re the Labour-Green proposal for NZ Power. Interrrrrresting...

Family First and Dr Miriam Grossman are still lying about sex ed  sez QoT on Ideologically Impure, and the msm seem reluctant to take other views onboard when it comes to gibbering garbage from neo-con nutcases. QoT points out,

If only I’d published my post as a “critical review” under the banner of some vocal, extremist Christians, then the mainstream media might have taken me seriously published my opinions as though they were fact.”

On Frankly Speaking Frank has much ado about  Babes and boofheads. Pity the poor fool who messes with Frank’s daughters. He’s blogging about the current fad of schools and Universities to set up pages on Facebook along the line of “Babe(s) of the Day”.  The concept is simple; a bunch of guys with low IQs think it’s a Clever & Funny idea to grab pics of other Facebooks users (almost always females) and re-post them on a sexist FB page with lots of guffaws and “witty” comments about their appearance.

Except, it’s not funny. It’s sexist. It’s demeaning. And it’s creepy. It’s disrespectful and it’s dis-empowering of woman.

You have to wonder how many of these guys actually have girlfriends. Real ones. Not the cyber-variety where you have to touch yourself to imitate contact by another human being.

The Hand Mirror has a similar post by Julie;  Guestie: Babe of the Day, though her’s is somewhat more considered and less dripping with venom than Frank’s piece.  Ironically, the idiots who set these pages up are, themselves, demanding that the media respect their privacy!!

Open Parachute has this little beauty the Universe and sexuality – so  Stop feeling guilty. Warning Alert: don’t be drinking anything when you scroll down! Also on Open Parachute, the issue of  Fluoridation – it does reduce tooth decay. Plenty of evidence and citations. A good read if you have an open mind.

The Jackal comments on several aspects of  Dunne’s bureaucratic nonsense and links his track record on suicide rates in New Zealand to his failure to re-register United Future. Note Jackal’s reference to evidence pointing to a correlation between poverty and increased suicide rates…

The Pundit’s Andrew Geddis also looks at Peter Dunne’s failure to get United Future re-registered as a legal Party. In  “The ref’s a moron!”   Andrew discovers that it’s all pretty straight forward. Dunne’s protestations don’t seem to hold water. (Why am I not surprised.)

Justice Minister Judith “Kill-Crush-Destroy-Democracy” Collins is taken to task by Claire Browning when she writes about  The Environment Court, and the one percent,

The court with “the potential to affect New Zealanders’ day-to-day quality of life more than any other court in the judicial system” is on the ropes. The RMLA speaks out

Yesterday, thanks to footwork from the Resource Management Law Association, the rumour of recent weeks was confirmed.

Cabinet papers did exist, it appeared, confirming that Ministerial consideration was being given to doing away with the Environment Court.”

The “one percent” that Claire refers to is the National-ACT agreement specifically  item 4 in the  agreement on confidence and supply.

Read Claire’s article and share it with others. It is a further sobering account  of National eroding of the democratic process.

The Political Scientist looks at Varieties of poverty in New Zealand (not the Tamaki/McCroskie/Rankin varities). And in SuPPPer School for Aranui – ‘devil beast’ for all of us, it appears that four schools in East Christchurch that are to be closed – may be re-opening as Charter Schools!

So that’s the agenda, huh?

Meanwhile, on The Civilian, it seems that  Christchurch, Dunedin residents are unsure what to do with all this bread they purchased during their panic buy-up,

It’s everywhere,” reported University of Otago student Gavin Chalmers, who could no longer get into his flat because the door was jammed up with countless packets of Tip Top White Toast. “Why did I buy all this bread!?

Ummm… wait for the Zombie Apocalyse? World War 4? Alien invasion and subsequent colonisation? The rise of the planet of the talking/singing/dancing apes?

Phillip on Whoar blogs on  “..The Blame Game..” – something which us Kiwis seem to do extraordinarily well. “..Mana Party announces big housing plan..” – The Mana Party wants to build 10,000 state houses a year. “..Snowden’s real crime: Humiliating the state..” – “..Here’s the reason the NSA leaker will never be forgiven or forgotten –  he stood up to power – and embarrassed it..

It’s Mana in the House! writes Marty on mars2earth, with Mana announcing it’s election promise to build 10,000 new state houses.

Strewth!

About bloody time! This’ll put the shits up the Right Wing in this country!

On The Standard,

Slogan politics writes,

We have an unfortunate tendency in New Zealand to reduce politics to dumb slogans. The “fart tax” was a classic example. The current case in point is “printing money”.

Last October the Greens put out a discussion document (contrary to some lazy headlines it was not a “policy”) on quantitative easing. The discussion that followed was sadly lacking, and pretty much amounted to the Nats screaming “printing money!” and “snake oil!” and trying to drum up hysteria. Good old-fashioned hippie punching as Gordon Campbell put it.”

The Blame Game writes,

Blame beneficiaries, blame the young, blame the old, blame the boomers, blame Maori, blame Pakeha,  blame granny, hell, why don’t we just blame the Jews!”

Houston and the cost of sprawl –  writes,

The Right’s favourite sprawl example at the moment. Sections for $50,000. Wow! But they haven’t asked why new sections in Houston are so cheap. They’ve just assumed its because Houston doesn’t have tight zoning rules. In fact, they do – but their rules encourage sprawl. And, while the land may be cheap, it means much higher living costs – particularly transport.”

.

 

Blogpost of the Day

The Hand Mirror’s   Julie posts  Guestie: Babe of the Day and why it is creepy for young men to be taking women’s pics of Facebook and creating sleazy, icky sexualised-pages. Are these young fellows the pervy  panty-pinchers of the future?

It’s sexist, degrading, and really it’s just not cool.  You guys need to get out more.

.

Action of the Week

Tax Havens and the Rule of Law

.

Fabian Society presents Nicky Hager on “Tax Havens and the Rule of Law” at Connolly Hall, Guildford Terrace, Wellington, at 5:30pm on Friday 21 June 2013.

.

Thought for the Day

There has been a war on Unions in general

.

~ Joe Blogger

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

.

~oo~