Kiwiblog

1. Paul Buchanan blogs on the acquittal of the Waihopai Three.
2. No Right Turn supports my suggestion of having all Cabinet papers automatically placed on the Internet, and further suggests model publication schemes and disclosure registers for government agencies. Sounds good to me.
3. Keeping Stock reveals that the Whanganui Chronicle did know “parent” Stephanie Mills was the NZEI Communications Director but did not think it was important to tell readers this!
4. ACT analyser Geoffrey Miller blogs at Liberation on the tensions within ACT.
5. Claire Browning blogs at Pundit on the Greens and Environment Canterbury, and their conspiracy theories.
6. Iain Dale blogs on how the UK UNITE union actually pays the salary of a 10 Downing Street staff member. Will the EPMU demand the same when Labour get back into office in NZ?
7. Not PC welcomes the jury nullification in the Waihopai trial as a just check on Government.

1. Whale Oil reports on how Young NZ First (I think this means members aged under 80) has set up an Auckland Uni breach, called Symonds Street. On Facebook they advertise this as the SS-NZF!!
2. Scrubone highlights that Hugo Chavez blamed the Haiti Earthquake on the US saying it was caused by US weapons testing, and wonders why the media didn’t highlight more such obnoxious (and frankly mad) comments.
3. Eric Crampton has a post highlight a brilliant satire on university tenure, and what happened when this was also granted to food service workers!
4. No Minister compares Brown and Banks and the difference between symbolism and substance.

1. Graeme Edgeler examines the Three Strikes bill.
2. Hot Topic responds to Poneke’s post on the Climategate e-mails.
3. Andrew Geddis looks at how Judges are sacked.
4. Whale Oil publishes his Politicianary of political nicknames for MPs and some of the press gallery.

1. Gooner at No Minister has the appalling tale of the man arrested for a “hate crime” because of an objection to planning permission for a mobile gypsy home..
2. Whale Oil reports on the 143 complaints against Dr Who from gingas after he was reincarnated into the 11th Doctor (two more to go) and said “Still not ginger” with relief.
3. Conservative Home blogs how the UK boundaries (unlike NZ there is no maximum tolerance from the population average) means that the Conservatives beating Labour by 10% will result in a likely Commons majority of eight MPs, while if Labour beats the Conservatives by 10%, their likely majority is 138 seats.
4. Labour MP Kelvin Davis calls on Maori to put an equal effort into “sorting our own crap out”, as into fighting to correct past injustices.
5. Cactus Kate blogs on the failing of feminism as rich professional women are failing to boot out their sponging men.

1. Lindsay Mitchell accuses Roger Douglas of creative accounting
2. Throng finds that One News and 3 News description of a flood of calls over Chinese lanterns was in fact 3 – 5 calls a day out of a total of 7,400.
3. Clare Curran gives her views on Internet filtering as “a voluntary, opt in system for ISPs to a contained filtering programme focussed solely on child sexual abuse is about as far as you’d want to go”
4. College Humour has Facebook updates for Star Wars characters.

1. Paul Walker analyses the economics of Boxing Day sales. His conclusion is they are a way to get customers to reveal their price sensitivity.
2. Brian Edwards blogs that he does not believe in free will and that everyone is a product of their genetics and environment. I disagree entirely and there there are countless examples of people with appalling genetics and environments doing well, and also of people with superb genetics and environments doing very bad things.
3. Gooner at No Minister has been reading letters to the editor and highlights the Labour party activist who blames John Key for a possible reduction in screening hours for Coronation Street. Wow you almost have to feel sorry for them, when that is what they are reduced to.
4. Whale Oil has created a Wiki page for his defence, where lawerly people can contribute ideas for his defence against the breach of name suppression charges.
5. Lindsay Mitchell highlights hows a Southland foodbank co-ordinator is blaming the increased demand for assistance on the new National Government, despite National maintaining benefits and cost of living adjustments. Maybe he thinks the recession was caused by National?
6. No Right Turn wants to Mondayize Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day. I tend to agree.
7. Chris Hipkins notes this is the end of the first decade of the millennium (pedants go away), and that we have gone from Clinton to Obama, terrorism at the start of the decade was associated more with Northern Ireland, and you needed a dozen currencies to travel through Europe.

1. Not PC blogs on the Buy Kiwi campaign, and how it didn’t work. He concludes “the  best way for New Zealand to “make” cars and electronic goods is to grow cows and sheep and fish, and trade them”. Hear hear.
2. No Right Turn criticises the media for smearing all MPs travel as a rort, and defends Lockwood’s trip to attend the Conference of Speakers of the Commonwealth.
3. Lucia Maria blogs a lovely photo of her cat alseep on top of a book case.
4. Ian Wishart has a little Xmas miracle.
5. Karl du Fresne grumps about Snoopy’s Xmas.

1. Heather Roy recommends people see “A day in Pompeii” at Te Papa. I certainly plan to go, even though I have been to the actual Pompeii also.
2. Moana Mackey on Red Alert has photos of the wedding of James Coyle (my co-covenor of The American Politics Appreciation Society) and Deborah Mahuta. Congrats to them.
3. And in the cute photo competition, we have Lindsay Mitchell’s photo of her two week old kittens.
4. Six Revisions has the 15 biggest Internet scandals of the last decade.
5. Frog Blog celebrates 100,000 comments. Congrats.
6. Bernard Hickey reports that NZ has just had its first current account surplus since 1988, so that breaks a run of 82 quarters of deficits. But looks to be a one off due to the Aussie owned banks paying their back taxes.
7. Cactus Kate gives Red Alert and Trevor Mallard her Blog of the Year Award. One can only enjoy her reasons for doing so.
8. Roar Prawn blogs what she wants her mates to get for Xmas – always thinking of others
9. Eric Crampton lists some iPredict stocks where you can get a 1% to 2% return over two weeks.
10. Bernard Hickey hands out the Interesties Awards.
11. Steven Price talks name suppression and says that merely telling someone the name one on one is unlikely to be considered publication.
12. The Dim-Post celebrates Rage against the Machine topping the UK charts.

Lots today:

1. Stephen Franks asks questions about the Raetihi Cosmopolitan Club
2. Democracy Mum blogs a speech from Geert Wilders
3. No Right Turn is campaigning for killers and rapists to be given the vote.
4. David Lewis blogs an excellent analogy about flying the English Flag next to the Union Jack is the same as a Maori flag next to NZ ensign.
5. Audrey Young blogs on the Labour leadership and quotes Jane Clifton “The tacit caucus promise to Helen Clark that Goff would be given a long run while various leadership candidates incubated is now toast”.
6. Adam Smith lambasts Al Gore for his porkie over Arctic ice, but Ian Wishart (of all people!) defends Al Gore, noting that the climate scientist Gore cited has indeed been pubished saying what Gore quoted.
7. Stephen Franks blogs on securities law reform.
8. Cactus Kate blogs about a teenager she caught taking ketamine. She finds out the teen got into it after “the drug education people came to school to talk about ketamine to tell us not to do it”.
9. Liberty Scott labels the Transmission Gully plan “Think Big” and a destroyer of wealth.
10. Chris Keall has names and links of the most watched You Tube videos in 2009.

1. Enjoy the Sean Plunket blog. Sadly it is not actually Sean’s blog, but a parody. Still it should be enjoyable.
2. Jeanette Fitzsimons blogs “The Government’s moves to make the power retail market more competitive are good” which makes me start to doubt them!SHe goes on to say that energy conservation is more important. I do not regard them as being mutually exclusive.
3. Judy Callingham blogs that the TVNZ charter was a toothless tiger and is best put out of its misery.
4. Chris Keall solves the mystery of Air NZ cracker-gate, as raised by Roar Prawn.
5. 12,230 people have joined the Facebook group “I’ve slept with Tiger Woods”
6. Roar Prawn wonders why Trevor Mallard has taken to yelling out Cactus Kate’s name in Parliament, leading Cactus to declare “I have not had sexual relations with Trevor Mallard“. My view is that is only because Trevor is not married
7. Whale Oil blogs on the sad case of Labour’s leper.

1. Andrew Campbell (unionist who gives left viewpoint on Nine to Noon Politics) has done a guest post n The Standard decrying Labour for backing Goff’s speech.
2. Whale Oil is not happy with the Dr of Laws degree from Otago University to Michael Cullen. I just hope this doesn’t mean Chris Finlayson will now make Cullen a QC!
3. Eddie at The Standard joins the criticism of the Family Commission Chair for saying she can’t give a definition of Whanau Ora as she is a middle class white woman. He correctly labels this utter crap. Really isn’t it just time we get rid of the Families Commission as a nice idea but one that doesn’t deliver enough for the amount it costs.
4. Chris Keall gives a good round-up of what is happening on copyright issues.
5. Amy Adams is pleased with the unanimous vote to send to select committee her  Fair Trading (Soliciting on behalf of Charities) Amendment Bill which requires those soliciting on behalf of charities to be transparent about where the money goes.
6. Stephen Franks is happy that the Wanganui District Council (Port and Harbour) Bill doesn’t appear to have the numbers and has been deferred. The bill, promoted by Wanganui District Council, basically confiscates the local port from the company that has a perpetually renewable lease for it.

1. Blaise Drinkwater looks at the battles on the left between those who see class warfare and identity politics as most important.
2. As examples of what Blaise is looking at, read Chris Trotter on “The Kommissariat” and No Right Turn in response with “Dolchstossegende”.
3. Bryce Edwards reviews a decade in Parliament for the Greens. They will be glad in hindsight they bailed out of the Alliance before Jim Anderton destroyed it.
4. Colin Espiner critiques the Trans-Tasman ratings. I tend to agree with most of his comments and his conclusion “Overall Trans-Tasman has it about right, as usual, although I think it slightly favours the Government, particularly the ministers.”
5. A Fiji blog has an interesting summary of what Phil Goff said on Fiji.
6. Chris Keall blogs that NBR now has 7,500 paid subscribers to their online content. That is pretty impressive numbers. My view has always been that people will not pay for generic news, but will pay for excellent analysis or specialist content.

1. Alf Grumble MP wonders why the Greens are attacking John Carter for doing his job
2. Whale Oil looks at the Christchurch Mayoralty
3. Jenna Raeburn blogs a recent debate on the liquor laws
4. Ian Wishart blogs a Rasmussen poll that finds only 25% of Americans think the science on global warming is settled and 59% say some scientists have falsified data to support their own theories and beliefs. However 46% still say global warming is a major problem, with only 36% disagreeing
5. Iain Dale blogs a hilarious future obituary for Peter Mandelson
6. Tim Blair finds that Google appears to have deliberately deleted Climategate as a suggested search term

1. Judy Callaghan on the art of saying no
2. Andrew Geddis on Justice Wilson
3. No Right Turn on how Nathan Rees got rolled as NSW Labor leader as he stood up against corruption
4. Jake Quinn covers the reported discontent over Goff’s u-turn on the foreshore and seabed, and notes that Andrew Little declared at the Labour conference that Maori should have their day in court
5. Brian Edwards and Judy Callaghan debate Tiger Woods
6. Chris Trotter labels Grant Robertson the MP for the Commissariat

1. Bernard Hickey summarises the pros and cons of a land tax.
2. Bryce Edwards covers the Listener’s 2009 power list in a very long post.
3. Fiscally Conservative Kiwi adds his comments to the pros and cons of a land tax.
4. Rob at The Standard loses faith with Obama, labelling him another war president. It is ironic that he announces a surge in Afghanistan just after getting the Nobel Peace Prize
5. Clare Curran blogs on the European Parliament giving phone and Internet users more rights. Back home we wait to see if the Government will proceed with a law that allows termination of Internet access for copyright infringement.
6. No Right Turn wonders if Phil Goff’s next move will be to encourage women to get back into the kitchen, and gays back into the closet.

Just three quick ones:

1. Grant Robertson blogs that State Services Commissioner Iain Rennie has told the Dept of Labour they were wrong to advise staff not to take part in a rally on pay equity. This is why Rennie is so well respected – he is not scared to get offside with Ministers. A pity he wasn’t Commissioner when Labour were getting Madeline Setchell sacked over her boyfriend’s job, and smearing Erin Leigh for resisting a political appointment.  I’m still waiting for Grant to show the same energy in deploring those events.
2. The Standard blogs on a petition to Parliament to “make public displays of nudity and profanity illegal in our nation”. Fuck that I say. The only place profanity and nudity should be banned is in the Debating Chamber
3. Eric Crampton fisks Alcohol Action NZ.

1. Cactus Kate blogs on how APN  is now advising staff to self censor articles, rather than get legal advice on what they can say, as the legal advice costs too much. Incredible.
2. Clare Curran blogs on how a town in Ohio got its entire municipal Wi-Fi network closed down by the MPAA, because one person in town downloaded a movie. This is why termination should not be a remedy under s92A. And don’t even start me on ACTA – a treaty that may remove our right to even decide what our laws should be on copyright infringement and the Internet.
3. Whale Oil celebrates the cessation of funding to Te Reo Marama, whose dubious activities he has highlighted thanks to the OIA.
4. Aaron Bhatnagar is celebrating that Dick Hubbard wants to stand for the new Auckland Council to support Len Brown. Len, Sue Bradford, Dick Hubbard – what a combination.
5. The Dim-Post highlights Trevor Mallard’s political strategy. Some very perceptive comments in the thread.

[UPDATE: NZ Herald says post on APN is not correct (which is good). See story on Herald site plus comment in thread from Herald]

1. Fiscally Conservative Kiwi at Gotcha fisks The Standard for their response to my linking the rise in youth unemployment to the abolishment of youth rates.
2. Chris Hipkins discovers www.data.govt.nz. I agree it is an excellent resource – Nathan Guy launched it around a week ago. I am already a frequent user.
3. Rob Salmond and Lord Monckton exchange climate change barbs.
4. Carmel Sepuloni blogs at Red Alert over the cutting of funding to the Manukau Family Literacy Programme. I think this is a much more worthwhile cause to champion that ACE type silk scarf dying courses.
5. Paul at the Fundy Post lambasts Auckland University Arts Faculty for taking no action over the plagiarism of Professor Witi Ihimaera. Paul says their actions make him ashamed to be a member of the University – he is a PhD candidate.
6. Rochelle Rees at The Standard has a very good post on the Foreshroe and Seabed Act.
7. Crusader Rabbit points out that there were around eight times as many anti-Jewish incidents recorded by the FBI in 2007, as there were anti-Islamic incidents – 969 to 115.

1. John Small blogs his ACC submission. He has many questions about the motorcyclist proposed levies.
2. Steven Price quotes Richard Posner on free speech – “The value of competition in ideas, coupled with the costs (including error costs) of effective regulation, provides some grounding for a legal approach that deems the benefits of free speech to be great, and thus requires proof of great cost… to justify restricting speech.” I also agree with Judge Posner, and note that many proposed restrictions on electoral speech fail to prove there is a problem or cost that requires restrictions to fix it.
3. Tim Selwyn blogs on how New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent $161 a vote or $90 million on an election he won by just 50,000 votes. He concludes that it really isn’t possible to “buy” an election based on the evidence here and in the US.
4. Jolisa Gracewood blogs on how she discovered Witi Ihimaera is a plagiarist. Paul Holmes wonders why Auckland University is defending the plagiarism as an “accident”, ie not deliberate.
5. David Cohen labels Sgt Kimberly Munley a “very cool lady”. I can only agree as I read how she stopped the Fort Hood gunman as she “bolted from her car, yanked her pistol out and shot at Major Hasan. He turned on her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and Major Hasan went down with several bullet wounds”. He was stopped as he was chasing a wounded solider.
6. MacDoctor blogs on the US House passing Obama’s healtcare bill by 220 to 215.

1. Jenna Raeburn blogs her submission to the Law Commission’s alcohol law review. I like her opening point “We would add to this that “getting drunk” is not harmful in and of itself, and is almost always a positive experience for young people.”
2. Eric Crampton also blogs his submission with Matt Burgess, focusing on the economic issues.
3. The Dim-Post has a hilarious interveiw with John Key.
4. Clare Curran talks about how the Internet is changing the world.
5. Whale Oil has audit reports and spending details for Te Reo Marama – a Maori anti-smoking group. The audit details are to come, but the travel details alone are staggering. Journalists should be asking questions.
6. Cactus Kate is campaigning for Lisa Lewis to be on The Apprentice.
7. Infometrics blog on the benefits of bilateral FTAs
8. Russel Brown praises John Key saying “the sometimes inarticulate and politically unworldly Leader of the Opposition has offered real management talent now that he’s actually in charge.”

1. MacDoctor highlights how the stories of complaints about ACC are ceasing funding a “world-leading” programme is only half as effective and six times as expensive as the replacement course. So the headline should really be about how the new ACC programme is 12 times as effective for the cost.
2. Colin Espiner thinks the Prime Minister should have his own plane.
3. Cactus Kate admonishes Rodney Hide for his air travel, but also points out the media have not reported the costs correctly.
4. Whale Oil shows up a recent smear by Eddie at The Standard, purporting to be concern.
5. Iain Dale blogs on how parents in Watford can no longer enter a playground with their children, but have to “wait outside the railings whilst council-employed “play facilitators” assist the children”. Political Correctness gone mad,
6. Andrew Bolt responds to a left columnist who stated “It takes a certain person to rejoice in the suffering of others. In the real world they’re called sociopaths – in politics, they’re called conservatives.”

1. Scrubone blogs that the Obama Administration have now actively tried to ban Fox News reporters from a press poll interview. Who would have thought Muldoon’s tactics against Tom Scott would be emulated by the US Democratic Party.
2. Whale Oil blogs a 2008 invitation to a fund-raising dinner with a Labour Cabinet Minister, and highlights their hypocrisy in attacking ACT for doing the same thing.
3. Stephen Franks blogs on his experiences with ACC reform.
4. Aaron Bhatnagar blogs in favour of Rodney Hide’s plan to force local Councils to do the equivalent of the Government’s PREFU, or pre-election fiscal update. I agree.
5. Homepaddock covers the Wanaka “perfect woman” contest. They have to open a bottle of Speights without a bottle opener, change a tyre, back a truck, clear 10 balls from a pool table, sky dive, swing a gate, shear a sheep, shoot clay birds, and hit a target with water from a fire hose. The winner was Melissa Brewster, a helicopter engineer!

1. Nandor Tancos says Keith Locke’s Head of State bill should go to a select committee to generate debate, but does not want it passed without an exploration of wider constitutional issues.
2. Bryce Edwards has a comprehensive piece on the splintering of the Greens, and how the Greens have become more centrist with their mission being to “save capitalism” as Russel Norman put it.
3. Tim Watkin blogs on the significance of what US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on Q&A. The media all missed that he effectively said Obama will announce his position on trade at APEC.
4. Cactus Kate has fun at my expense.
5. Liberty Scott blogs on how Geert Wilders was greeted in the UK with chants of “burn in hell”, “Sharia for UK” and a banner saying “Sharia is the solution, freedom go to hell”.
6. Busted Blonde is abused by Bob Jones.
7. Whale Oil finds look a like logos for Telecom.

1. Cactus Kate thinks appointing Michael Stiassny as the receiver for Crafer Farms is having the punishment fit the crime
2. Phil Twyford blogs on war, peace and pacifism.
3. Richard Long writes on how the history of NZ and Samoa has not always been so cosy.
4. Colin James covers the recent Blue-Greens conference noting in 2002 Three National MPs were members, and now there are 18.
5. Bryce Edwards blogs on the growing professionalism of party campaigning
6. No Right Turn has the good news that all select committees can now accept submissions electronically. Excellent.
7. Trevor Mallard blogs his denial of an alleged rumour, as a way to ensure the rumour gets plenty of notice. Propaganda 101.
8. Tim Selwyn at Tumeke covers the sentence of Taito Phillip Field, noting “With Mike Williams as President of the party, with Helen as PM, with Cullen as the deputy, and with Margaret Wilson as the Speaker the government had become so sleazed up that an MP as corrupt as Field was tolerated for as long as they possibly could. It’s not a pleasant passage in the annals of the NZ Labour Party.”
9. Cactus Kate (again) has a thoughtful piece on har far is too far when attacking someone.
10. Whale Oil solves two problems at once by suggesting the Palmerston North be turned into a quarantine station for Gingas
11. Liberty Scott muses on whether the TPK funding of the Maori TV bid breaches our WTO obligations.
12. MacDoctor has the worrying news that the US Federal Trade Commission is now trying to regulate bloggers.
13. Roarprawn defends the Maori TV bid for the RWC coverage and says people should get over it.

1. Lindsay Mitchell has some kittens looking for a good home.
2. Cactus Kate blogs on the Lisa Lewis vs Steve Crow match on TV3 last night.
3. Alastair Campbell blogs on why Angela Merkel will be re-elected.
4. Phil Twyford blogs on Republicanism