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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
Scott on Imperator Fish gives a few suggestions for alternative on How The Piano should have ended. Some damned good suggestions. I think I’d go “Continental” on Ada’s ass and opt for the visiting plumber scenario. (I need to stop watching US cop shows before doing this blog round-up. Yo, momma!)
Some incredibly penetrating satirical memes on Porcupine Farm, Saint Ngaire the Underappreciated; the RMA in Slo-Mo Democracy Demolition; and National – The Party of Fiscal Responsibility >snort!!<
Open Parachute looks at Fluoridation – topical confusion, and clears up some mis-conceptions,
Some people claim both supporters and opponents of fluoridation agree on one thing. That the benfits of fluroide come from topical application and not via systemic intake or ingestion of fluoridated water.
Well, that’s not quite correct. There is a semantic confusion. Researchers aret talking about mechanisms – that once teeth have erupted they are protected by the presence of fluoride in saliva and the biofilm on the teeth. A topical mechanism of protection. This can come from procedures not involving ingestion – fuoridated toothpaste, fluoride varnishes and other dental applications, but also from fluoridated water passing the teeth during drinking. Some ingested fluoride can also contribute to salivary fluoride after metabolism.
On The Pundit, Andrew Geddis writes Even a stopped clock …
The Speaker has found that Peter Dunne could not have commited a contempt of Parliament. Told you so.
Peter Dunne has a press release up on scoop.co.nz claiming that the Speaker has exonerated him from lying about any role he may have had in leaking the Kitteridge report on the GCSB…
But is Dunne really cleared? Read Andrew’s full blogpost.
The Civilian reports,
John Banks disappointed that no one thought to send him white powder
Associate Education Minister and leader of the ACT Party John Banks is feeling left out this afternoon, after MPs Gerry Brownlee and Peter Dunne both received a pair of suspicious packages containing white powder.
Following reports of the incident, Banks quickly got in contact with his staff and asked them to check all his mail immediately, as he thought it was “highly likely” that he, too, had received a potentially dangerous substance.
But after two hours of rooting through mail, Banks was disappointed to find that there was not a single letter containing white powder, and was left wondering why no one thought to send him one.
(Too soon?)
Bob Parker may be dispatched to bring comfort to Haiti, Syria
Candidate and prospective frontrunner for the Christchurch mayoralty Lianne Dalziel has said today that she believes there will still be a role for Mayor Bob Parker when he steps down later this year, following his shock announcement last week that he would not campaign for re-election…
But where do we send Brownlee? Syria?
Brian Edward’s Media features a contest for the Patrick Gower Fan Club: Answer 10 simple questions and win an interview with Paddy! Just one more day to go!
Betcha there’ll be plenty of takers, eh? >snigger<
The comments following Brian’s humour-piece are intriguing in their own right. (Even the right wing commentators are generally more intelligent than the clowns who infest Kiwiblog, Whaleboil, or Trademe.)
On The Hand Mirror, Speaking to the National council of Women of NZ.
National is desperate for money, writes The Jackal, and asks,
I wonder what ever happened to National’s ‘wave goodbye to higher taxes‘ promise?
Funny that, eh? National is supposedly the “low tax” party. Yet, they’ve raised GST , fuel taxes, and a range of other taxes. Lying pricks.
Jackal, of course, is referring to suggestions that goods bought from overseas incur GST. Yeah, good luck with that one.
On Waitakere News, Mickey Savage sez I’m off to the Standard – having been invited to participate in that well-regarded blogsite. Mickey writes,
The Standard’s authors are all well informed and brave and principled. The right has attempted ever since the Standard’s inception to find out who their authors are and shame them or attack them to silence them. The preference of most authors to protect their anonymity was not only logical and rational but necessary so that they could speak their mind without fear of personal attack. The quality of articles is high and the feedback impressive.
More power to his elbow. The Standard will benefit from his insights.
Whaleoil, on the other hand, has changed it’s brand of toilet paper. More absorbancy, to soak up the crap on that online toilet.
Socialist Action’s Omar tries to Make sense of The Pakeha Party,
… the Pakeha Party is not just a social media-supercharged racism meme, it is an incoherent and inarticulate but deliberate response of thousands of white, working class New Zealanders to the decline of class politics, the ineffectiveness of the Labour Party and the success of the MANA Movement.
There’s some good analysis here. It’s either a corruption of Class Politics – or several thousand New Zealanders are just plain thick.
Omar adds,
The Pakeha Party has attracted a Facebook community that equals about 2% of the total amount of New Zealanders who voted in 2011. According to Facebook stats the most numerous demographic liking are young people from Christchurch. The Pakeha Party and their leader seem too incompetent, too moronic and too naive to have any effect in the near future. However the causes of the Pakeha Party’s success; the rise of identity politics, the decline of class consciousness, the transformation of Labour and the perceived abandonment of the white working-class; are here to stay. In 2005 Don Brash was able to manipulate these forces to bring his racist, neo-liberal politics to within a whisker of government, today David Ruck seems genuinely confused as to what he has actually managed to unleash upon the social media body politic.
Real leaders don’t beg writes Idiot Savant on No Right Turn,
This is just the latest in a long list of ways Shearer has made himself contemptible. Refusing to take a firm stand on asset sales. Or homophobia. Or racism (in fact, about the only thing Shearer will take a firm stance against is women). He won’t promise to repeal John Key’s spy bill, or even his corrupt Skycity pokie deal. And the result is that he looks weak and untrustworthy, while alienating even his own supporters.
Like his mentor Phil Goff (who shoulder-tapped him for the job), David Shearer has no virtù. And the quicker Labour is rid of him, the better.
Savant blogs that Spying is a breach of privilege,
Last week I argued that Parliamentary Services’ spying on Andrea Vance and Peter Dunne was a breach of Parliamentary Privilege. It seems the Speaker agrees. This afternoon, he referred the issue to the Privileges Committee.
As as obscene as mass surveillance of the people, is this bit, UK MPs look out for themselves,
The UK is deep in recession. There has been a record drop in wages, and household living standards have dropped by almost 2% in the last quarter. So naturally, British MPs are giving themselves a £10,000 a year pay rise.
If you wanted to paint a picture of a greedy elite out for themselves and utterly unconcerned with the people they purport to represent, you couldn’t do any better. What next?
Right about now, a truckload of dynamite should be heading politicians’ way in the House of Commons…
Climate change: Utterly broken, sez Savant,
Once upon a time I supported the Emissions Trading Scheme because the theory was good. If you cap overall emissions, and allow emitters to trade their allocations among themselves, it creates an incentive for emissions reductions. The cap could then be gradually lowered, giving us a stable pathway to a low-carbon future.
Of course, it didn’t work out like that…
On Frogblog, Kevin Hague writes a great piece on the Psychoactive Substances Bill that could have been great,
The Psychoactive Substances Bill is a really major step forward in drug law. It essentially provides for the manufacture, import, distribution, and retail of mind-altering substances provided that they create no more than low risk of harm. The Bill uses a licensing system and provides for various regulatory tools to control retail locations, advertising, sponsorship, packaging and so on. It is clearly possible to subject other substances to the same test and regulate them in the same ways.
Unfortunately, though, some in the Government have clearly not understood their own Bill, or alternatively National has needed to provide comfort to factions with incompatible views, and the result has been several major flaws that leave the Bill not the great piece of legislation it should have been.
Read his whole piece – it is truly great writing.
Frankly Speaking sends a Message to the GCSB, a Message to ACT, and a Message to National Party supporters. He also asks if we’re there with the Labour leader coup yet?
On Whoar, Phillip touches on “..David Bain..”, “..The Biggest Secret Trade Deal You’ve Never Heard Of – Explained..”, and New Zealand Parliament – List of questions for oral answer – Thursday – 11 July 2013.. He also refers to “..The Biggest Secret Trade Deal You’ve Never Heard Of – Explained..”
Meanwhile, The Standard offers some further excellent blogging,
Come in Houston – writes,
Today, a passenger on the bus I was travelling on, had a fit or seizure of some description. Luckily for them, they slumped sideways into the recovery position and the bus was stationery, having just pulled into a bus stop.
The driver and another passenger ‘oversaw’ the person for the duration of their seizure. So far so good. The person then responded to the driver that they had never had such an episode before. And so, the driver, quite reasonably and presumably acting on the precautionary principle, phoned emergency services.
This did not end well…
Don’t vote for more pokie victims – writes,
One of the Nat/SkyCity (same thing?) lines in the pokies debate was that the new machines would be in a monitored and controlled environment. That appears to be bullshit:
#SkyCity#dirtydeal allows pokies to be installed in Auckland InterCity Bus Terminal. http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2013/0140/latest/DLM5362254.html …Pokies in bus terminals. Bus terminals! Recall the social harm that is going to result…
Like most of National’s legislation, someone, somewhere ends up paying…
If we do not sell our laws Sky City will gather all its toys and go home –
This is incredibly stupid PR of a quality we have not seen for a while. Sky City has threatened to pack up all its toys and go home if the pokie machines and human misery bill, also known by its subtitle of “a bill to sell New Zealand law in exchange for a large amount of cash”, is not passed.
Stuff is reporting:
SkyCity has delivered a last minute warning to MPs voting this afternoon on the new National Convention Centre proposal that defeat will see the company send hundreds of millions of investment dollars offshore instead.
So now another corporate is blackmailing us?? Give us what we want, or we’ll do economnic damage to this country?
When the fuck did this become acceptable???
Campbell Live connects the GCSB dots – writes,
Excellent reporting on Campbell Live last night, with a detailed look at the timeline of events surrounding the GCSB Bill, the Kim Dotcom raid, the appointment of Key’s school chum to head the GCSB, and certain visits between Washington and NZ. See the video here – well worth watching. Cambell ends the piece by asking:
Why are we giving our spys so much more power, so hastily, with so little meaningful scrutiny. And who, exactly, are we doing it for…
And from ImperatorFish – That letter!
Dayum! Whoda thunk it?
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From the Daily Blog
The “man ban”; animal testing; GCSB Bill; and compulsory miltary training – Frank Macskasy writes,
Giving military training and putting guns into the hands of angry young men who feel resentful against society, is not a panacea for our social problems. Nor is testing “fun pills” on hapless animals. As for the “man ban” – like Nike sez, Just Do It!
Climate policy madness (again) – Gareth Renowden writes,
Meanwhile, how is our government planning to deal with this issue? By cutting $10 million from climate change research funding.
Peter Dunne: Let The Children Go Hungry – Queen Of Thorns writes,
“The real problem is that I can’t support anything with Hone Harawira’s name on it because I’m too heavily invested in camouflage-racist Common Sense… But of course, a scheme which involves government subsidisation of religious organisations like Sanitarium who pay no tax on their profits (which they then invest overseas) who then get to market themselves as caring about New Zealand children, that’s totally cool!”
Child poverty is this nation’s shame – Stuart Nash writes,
Considering the economic cost of child poverty is estimated to be between $6,000,000,000 to $8,000,000,000 per year, the National government’s claims to be helping vulnerable children seems a little of the mark.
The real reason for the GCSB Bill – Frank Macskasy writes,
New Zealand is a small country. Secrets are notoriously difficult to keep. And even if the whole story behind the Fletcher-Dotcom-GCSB-TPPA thing has not been fully revealed – I think we’ve had a glimpse into the murky shadows of political perfidity to smell something rotten.
Collins rewrites history – The Jackal writes,
It seems highly inappropriate for an employee of a Minister of the Crown to edit material on Wikipedia concerning that Minister and then for that employee to try and hide the fact. There’s a huge conflict of interest here, which is strictly prohibited against under Wikipedia’s terms and conditions…
Govt hiding SkyCity deal’s negative economic aspects – the Green Party sez,
“MPs today voting on the SkyCity deal need to realise that the Government has not given them the full picture regarding the negative economic aspects of this deal,” Mrs Turei said.
The Government has completely failed to alert the public to the negative economic impacts of their dirty deal with SkyCity, Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said today.
Economic Minister Steven Joyce today admitted in the House after questioning from the Green Party that he had sought no specific advice around the economic harm likely to result from the increase in gambling resulting from the SkyCity deal.
“MPs today voting on the SkyCity deal need to realise that the Government has not given them the full picture regarding the negative economic aspects of this deal,” Mrs Turei said.
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Blogpost of the Day
On The Dim Post, Danyl points out Two things.
Read #1.
And smile.
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Action of the Week#1
Tree planting day at Poets Park alongside the Hutt River / Hutt River Trail, 10am, Saturday 13 July until trees all planted. All welcome. Bring your gumboots and a spade if possible (but not essential as a few will be available). Trees and equipment provided. Planting for a couple of hours or so, followed by sausage sizzle, hot drink and mingle. For further information contact George Butters, 027 632 1220. Organised by Greater Wellington and Friends of the Hutt River. Poets Park is first left after crossing the Moonshine bridge, see Google Map: Poets Park
Pat van Berkel
Friends of the Hutt River
Action of the Week#2
From Frogblog,
MPs’ chance to do the right thing over SkyCity legislation
The Speaker has agreed that the SkyCity pokies deal will be a conscience vote in Parliament. This came about after Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei wrote to the Speaker pointing out that in the past legislation dealing with gambling issues had been dealt with as a conscience issue. That means Government MPs can vote against this dirty deal that will lead to more problem gambling and more harm to thousands of families.
This is also an opportunity for Aucklanders and anyone who cares about the damage inflicted on children and families from problem gambling, to contact their MPs and make their feelings known.
If you wish to contact any of these MPs click on this link:
If you care – do it.
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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 tail-docker
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~oo~
