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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:00:39 +0000

Rob Salmond at Pundit warns of reading too much into short-term polling trends
Whale enjoys the irony of the Greens not making the Botany ballot as they were stuck in traffic
Whowuddathort tells the story of two Phil Goff’s with numerous examples
No Right Turn exposes the join Australia Movement soliciting foreign donations

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 04:54:31 +0000

Danyl blogs the average poll ratings for National and Labour since 2004
Madeleine blogs her negative experience with ACC
Jordan Carter blogs a very thoughtful piece on the centre-right, and how things have changed from previous decades
Guido Fawkes blogs a calendar of Czech MPs.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Tue, 25 May 2010 05:54:59 +0000

Eric Crampton reports on what he discovered under the OIA in relation to Marsden Jacob and how the Law Commission refused to get their work (concluding alcohol excise tax should increase 50%) independently reviewed.
A group of bloggers disgruntled with the Qantas Media Award selections for Best Blog have set up their own blog award cheekily called the Air New Zealand Best Blog Award, complete with five judges from the left, right and centre. Entries close 1 June 2010.
Whale Oil declares war on Fidelity Life.
No Right Turn condemns the name suppression granted to the top Wellington “public servant” who was acquitted of assaulting his son. Stephen Franks also calls it an inexcusable intrusion on free speech and the principle of open justice.
Tributes to the late Paul Reynolds from Bill Ralston & Janet Wilson, Brian Edwards, Russell Brown, InternetNZ, Graham Beattie, Peter Griffin, the National Library and many more at Pass the Source.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Wed, 05 May 2010 04:30:42 +0000

David Garrett on the 2nd reading of the three strikes law and how Parekura claimed poor brown people will be locked up for stealing food for their families.
Whale has audio of the two of us talking to Larry Williams on TV3′s lack of apology over their fake Paula Bennett story.
Madeleine Flannagan blogs about the conviction of her former partner (and father of two eldest children) for rape, and her own protection orders against Travis Burrell. My sympathies go out to her, and her kids, for having to cope with this. There are lessons to other women in realising early that you should not tolerate domestic violence – or worse. Madeleine has been in court as a support person to his latest victim.
Eric Crampton highlights the lack of analysis over the tobacco tax rise.
Andrew Bolt excoriates Kevin Rudd
Michael Moore has some advice for girls on how to get into a nightclub underage. Might be needed here, if they raise the age.
Iain Dale blogs on how the Lib Dems were responsible for 73 of the 75 donations not reported on time to the Electoral Commission. Reminds me of how the Greens here also didn’t disclose donations in the time required by the very law they championed.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 06:30:38 +0000

The oldest blogger on Earth, 99 year old Elvira S Oliver, has blogged on visiting Christchurch and the wonderful time she has in Christchurch in 1964. She can’t remember the names of everywhere she went, but readers may be able to work out where they were and comment on her blog.
Joshua Drummond got sick of firms not even reading his CV, so he has turned it into a comic book. Check it out – it is seriously creatively cool. Joshua is Waikato based and look for media opportunities. His comic book CV would make a good news story about how to stand out!
Check out the Yike Bike. it is a battery powered bike that folds up into well a circle and fits in a shoulder bag. This is seriously cool. Like the Ford Model T it comes in black only! This will become huge I reckon.
Its past April 1st, but had to highlight the Education Directions blog post on how Steven Joyce has appointed himself Chairperson of all 20 polytechnic councils. Incidentally the ED Blog is truly essential reading for anyone interested in tertiary education policies and politics.
Whale blogs his own graphical media rating system.
The Onion is at its wicked best with its news story on how the Catholic Church has vowed to reduce paedophilia to acceptable levels by 60% over five years to the target five children per thousand clergy.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:20:09 +0000

John Ansell highlights unfortunate words from Tiger Woods who announced that after extensive treatment he is “getting back to my old roots”
No Right Turn exposes Greenpeace fundraising tactics where they write to you, and if you do not respond, they take that as permission to increase your monthly donation. Moral is use automatic payment not direct debits
Not PC has quotes from the late night comics in the US
Whale Oil claims Ewen Gilmour will stand for Auckland Mayor.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:00:23 +0000

Paul Buchanan blogs on the acquittal of the Waihopai Three.
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.
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!
ACT analyser Geoffrey Miller blogs at Liberation on the tensions within ACT.
Claire Browning blogs at Pundit on the Greens and Environment Canterbury, and their conspiracy theories.
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?
Not PC welcomes the jury nullification in the Waihopai trial as a just check on Government.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 01:24:05 +0000

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!!
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.
Eric Crampton has a post highlight a brilliant satire on university tenure, and what happened when this was also granted to food service workers!
No Minister compares Brown and Banks and the difference between symbolism and substance.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:33:44 +0000

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

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:10:15 +0000

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..
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.
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.
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.
Cactus Kate blogs on the failing of feminism as rich professional women are failing to boot out their sponging men.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:25:53 +0000

Lindsay Mitchell accuses Roger Douglas of creative accounting
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.
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”
College Humour has Facebook updates for Star Wars characters.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 00:31:19 +0000

Paul Walker analyses the economics of Boxing Day sales. His conclusion is they are a way to get customers to reveal their price sensitivity.
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.
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.
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.
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?
No Right Turn wants to Mondayize Waitangi Day and ANZAC Day. I tend to agree.
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.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 02:00:50 +0000

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.
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.
Lucia Maria blogs a lovely photo of her cat alseep on top of a book case.
Ian Wishart has a little Xmas miracle.
Karl du Fresne grumps about Snoopy’s Xmas.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:30:23 +0000

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.
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.
And in the cute photo competition, we have Lindsay Mitchell’s photo of her two week old kittens.
Six Revisions has the 15 biggest Internet scandals of the last decade.
Frog Blog celebrates 100,000 comments. Congrats.
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.
Cactus Kate gives Red Alert and Trevor Mallard her Blog of the Year Award. One can only enjoy her reasons for doing so.
Roar Prawn blogs what she wants her mates to get for Xmas – always thinking of others
Eric Crampton lists some iPredict stocks where you can get a 1% to 2% return over two weeks.
Bernard Hickey hands out the Interesties Awards.
Steven Price talks name suppression and says that merely telling someone the name one on one is unlikely to be considered publication.
The Dim-Post celebrates Rage against the Machine topping the UK charts.

Tags: Blog Bits

Blog Bits

David Farrar — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:54:49 +0000

Lots today:

Stephen Franks asks questions about the Raetihi Cosmopolitan Club
Democracy Mum blogs a speech from Geert Wilders
No Right Turn is campaigning for killers and rapists to be given the vote.
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.
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”.
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.
Stephen Franks blogs on securities law reform.
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”.
Liberty Scott labels the Transmission Gully plan “Think Big” and a destroyer of wealth.
Chris Keall has names and links of the most watched You Tube videos in 2009.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 23:09:42 +0000

Enjoy the Sean Plunket blog. Sadly it is not actually Sean’s blog, but a parody. Still it should be enjoyable.
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.
Judy Callingham blogs that the TVNZ charter was a toothless tiger and is best put out of its misery.
Chris Keall solves the mystery of Air NZ cracker-gate, as raised by Roar Prawn.
12,230 people have joined the Facebook group “I’ve slept with Tiger Woods”
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
Whale Oil blogs on the sad case of Labour’s leper.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 02:00:42 +0000

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.
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!
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.
Chris Keall gives a good round-up of what is happening on copyright issues.
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.
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.

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Blog Bits

David Farrar — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:00:20 +0000

Blaise Drinkwater looks at the battles on the left between those who see class warfare and identity politics as most important.
As examples of what Blaise is looking at, read Chris Trotter on “The Kommissariat” and No Right Turn in response with “Dolchstossegende”.
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.
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.”
A Fiji blog has an interesting summary of what Phil Goff said on Fiji.
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.

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Blog Bits from the right

David Farrar — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:00:23 +0000

Alf Grumble MP wonders why the Greens are attacking John Carter for doing his job
Whale Oil looks at the Christchurch Mayoralty
Jenna Raeburn blogs a recent debate on the liquor laws
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
Iain Dale blogs a hilarious future obituary for Peter Mandelson
Tim Blair finds that Google appears to have deliberately deleted Climategate as a suggested search term

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Blog Bits from the Left

David Farrar — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 00:38:47 +0000

Judy Callaghan on the art of saying no
Andrew Geddis on Justice Wilson
No Right Turn on how Nathan Rees got rolled as NSW Labor leader as he stood up against corruption
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
Brian Edwards and Judy Callaghan debate Tiger Woods
Chris Trotter labels Grant Robertson the MP for the Commissariat

Tags: Blog Bits