Turns out that I was right about the Left-wing blogs and the media continuing to rabbit on about John Key’s “cannibalism” joke. And, yes, it does make them look like complete prats. The editor of the Herald on Sunday even goes as far as to suggest that the coalition between Maori and National is falling [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. Once more the Tabloid on Sunday manages to make the gutter look positively clean. The notorious Ms. Carolyne Meng-Yee manages to come up with another scurrilous bit of rubbish on Rodney Hide, adding smear and slime to their campaign against him. [...]

This is the section on health from the 2025 Task Force summary: 10. Health: a. A funder-provider model should be reintroduced in the hospital sector, allowing much greater private sector involvement in the provision of taxpayer-funded services. b. Universal (unrelated to income or health status) subsidies for doctors’ visits should be abolished. c. Subsidies for [...]

Apparently that nice Mr. Key is less than enthusiastic about the economic recommendations for his former rival Don Brash. Gasp! Shock. Horror. Not. Without even looking at Brash’s recommendations I could have told you that they will be rejected out of hand by Key. The entire taskforce was never designed to produce any viable suggestion. [...]

I know I am showing my age a bit here, but I can remember the days when newspapers used to report actual news. This is in direct contrast to this morning’s Herald (it certainly is “the weak-end” Herald). We have the mercurial Hone Harawira admitting to skipping official meetings (the ones we paid for him [...]

Sometimes I wonder if we are all missing Helen Clark. Rodney Hide has now joined the legions of people who seem to think that John Key is doing nothing. This list seems to include everyone from the left and the right, except for the right-wing centrists. Which should tell us something – namely that, whatever [...]

The TV One News poll last night was entirely predicable. The Herald calls this a “Grim Poll Result” but I’m fairly certain National was not expecting anything better. David Shearer, Labour, 59 per cent. Melissa Lee, National, 21 per cent. Russel Norman, Greens, 15 per cent. John Boscawen Act, 3.3 per cent. Did anyone seriously [...]

The media and the blogosphere have been alight with the by-election in Mt Albert and the selection of candidates. To this frenzy, I must add a small voice of dissent. The by-election fills me with deep torpor – and I don’t mean the town in the middle of North Island (no matter what the TVNZ [...]

It is rare for the Greens and Act to see eye to eye on anything, but it seems they agree on the stupidity of borrowing to pay into the Cullen fund. No normal person would borrow money in order to place it in a savings fund that is losing money. Even borrowing money to place [...]

It is human nature to prefer retribution over redemption. We much prefer the bad guy in the movies to meet a sticky end. If it is a “guy” movie then preferably an end involving large explosions. What we don’t like is when the bad guy redeems himself either in part or fully (although we tolerate [...]