Archive for May, 2013
Friday, May 31st, 2013
Interesting how quickly the debate on Al Nisbet’s cartoons has shifted from the actual content – and the implications if, as claimed, Nisbet has said aloud what many other New Zealanders privately think – to the far more comfortable grounds of free speech. Yet once we have stoutly defended ...
Posted in Articles | 21 Comments »
Thursday, May 30th, 2013
The school closures in Christchurch really are a perfect storm – the most stressed community in New Zealand is being led by the most accident prone Minister in the Key government, into a social experiment on its youngest and most vulnerable, in the least available time. Nothing could possibly go ...
Posted in Articles | 4 Comments »
Monday, May 27th, 2013
On the weekend at one of those gatherings of the National party faithful that seem to occur every other week – as a party the Nats sure do know how to party – Prime Minister John Key unmasked the arch fiend who threatens the New Zealand that we know and ...
Posted in Articles | 15 Comments »
Friday, May 24th, 2013
Hard to imagine a more disturbing insight into the treatment of the vulnerable than the Health Ministry report on Te Roopu Taurima o Manukau. The Ministry has found that the country's only kaupapa Maori intellectual disability residential care provider has been “seriously dysfunctional.” Reportedly, the organization has about 300 people ...
Posted in Articles | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 21st, 2013
Don’t want to be unduly alarmist about this, but we seem to have an outlaw government on our hands – if by that we mean a government willing to suspend the ability of citizens to seek the courts’ protection if and when the government violates freedoms set out in our ...
Posted in Articles | 12 Comments »
Friday, May 17th, 2013
The Budget lockup retains a symbolic value these days, but little more than that. This is the government’s best annual opportunity to bury its usual screw-ups and regale the public with power-pointed examples of its vision, shrewd thrift and judicious generosity. This is the day when the official pageant of ...
Posted in Articles | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, May 15th, 2013
This week has seen two examples of turkeys refusing to vote for an early Christmas – while busily denying the evident self interest involved. First, the GCSB is refusing to identify the 88 people it has illegally spied upon – as revealed in the Kitteridge report - and is donning ...
Posted in Articles | 4 Comments »
Monday, May 13th, 2013
Unfortunately, the buying and selling of ghost-written university essays has been part of academic culture for decades. In the mid 1980s for instance, to cite just one of many examples… the late, revered novelist David Foster Wallace used to earn a living by writing term papers for hire. “It was ...
Posted in Articles | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 10th, 2013
Comes the time, comes the man. Aaron Gilmore has become the poster child for everything that is loathsome about politicians and the political process. However, it might be time for a sense of proportion to creep into the Gilmore saga. It would be nice to think Gilmore had established a ...
Posted in Articles | 10 Comments »
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
Abuse directed at anyone opposed to what you’re wanting to do. Repeated mis-representations of what you said, and did. Not to mention the flat denials that there is a problem, when the evidence happens to contradict your version of events. No, I’m not talking about Aaron Gilmore….but about Bill English, ...
Posted in Articles | 10 Comments »
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