Such an interesting range of reactions in the blogosphere to Paula Bennett’s revealing of the amount of benefit the two ladies who features the the Herald over the weekend are receiving. Natasha Fuller and Jennifer Johnston appear in the article entitled Govt axe destroys dreams, claiming that Bennet’s removal of the allowance for sole parent [...]

Frogblog has a long post by Kevin Hague entitled Outsourcing Health No Solution arguing that public hospitals should be used to maximum capacity before outsourcing operations to the private sector. Superficially, this sounds like a reasonable argument but, as we look in more depth at Hague’s discussion, it is easy to see that his arguments [...]

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 [...]

Russell Norman accuses National of “pandering to their mates and donors” in the matters of RMA reform and the Auckland Supercity. Isn’t it strange that the left always accuse the right of “pandering to their mates”, and similar claims of nepotism and cronyism, while the left always follows their ideology with integrity or responds to [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. (MacDoctor definition) Sue Kedgley is the prime motivator behind this short piece of HoS drivel. This also illustrates how OIA requests tend to resurrect stories several month down the line. Even when there is clearly no extra information in [...]

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 [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. (MacDoctor definition) This particular piece of spam has been exciting the left wing blogs all day. Truck group gave $95,000 to MPs Trucking lobby group Road Transport Forum gave nearly $100,000 in donations to political parties and candidates for [...]

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 [...]

Jeanette Fitzsimons has announced she will stand down from the leadership of the Greens in June. With her goes the last vestiges of the environmental wing of the Greens, leaving the watermelon exposed to the pips. And talking of being given the pip, I see Sue Bradford has firmly throw her hat into the ring and Metiria [...]

As predicted by me, the two people directly responsible for the addition of melamine to baby milk in China have been sentence to death. The Chairperson of SanLu, Tian Wenhua, has been given a life sentence. Many are baying for her blood as well, but the deal she has with the Communist Party (not to [...]