Posts by simon g
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I would march in the street to stop our public assets being sold. I wouldn't cross the street to save TVNZ. They can flog it for all I care.
It's not just the quantifiable dollars and cents (if the dividend is the strongest argument, we might as well have a state-owned brothel). It's the harder to measure intangibles - call it civic/national pride. For all its flaws, Radio NZ is worth saving. So are many other media creatures - Maori TV, the provincial local paper, even (gasp) some blogs. You want to know that they're still there.
Putting aside the imported shows that could easily be on another channel (Coro et al), what would you miss if TVNZ closed down tomorrow? Shouting at Wendy and Simon, Toni and Mike? I'm happy to stop doing that.
TVNZ's official motto is "We never forget you're stupid." It is a national embarrassment. Get rid, and start again.
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So, Cunliffe appears ready to quit: press conference at 2 pm.
Does he endorse, or is that the kiss of death?
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If I go to Syria to fight for the Assad regime, and kill ISIS fighters, am I a terrorist?
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Thanks for the post, Graeme. Very informative. Shame the comments thread is a bit ... strange.
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I'll see you, and raise you: Roughan's first column after the election.
Warning: should not be read with your morning coffee. Spluttering guaranteed. Or a fit of giggles.
It's standard practice to have column click-bait - we all know the game, strike a provocative pose, rile up the readers. But in Roughan's case, he seems genuinely to believe this nonsense. It's so unhinged, I end up shaking my head rather than fist.
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Obituary: the civil libertarians of the right.
Died, along with their principles, in 2014.
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A minor party signing a confidence and supply agreement is not a "poodle".
A minor party - in fact, a solitary man - that depends entirely on another party for its place in Parliament, its continued existence and now for that MP's personal funding, is exactly a poodle.
The distinction is not hard to grasp.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Are you Graeme Edgeler? :)
For the purposes of debating the problem (and thus, solutions), we need to accept that (almost) half the country voted National.
After all, 99% of the country didn't vote for John Key. But that kind of straw-clutching gives us high levels of irrelevant accuracy, and low levels of useful understanding.
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I assume there's a good dose of sarcasm in Anna G's post. Nobody could write
I embraced the coolness of Key
with any serious intent. Sure, I realize half the country voted National, but although there are many plausible reasons why, "coolness" would not be on the list.
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Speaker: An Open Letter To David Cunliffe, in reply to bmk,
It's only a "new" method in our insular little world.
Parties in democracies have various methods of picking a leader. Leaving it to the caucus alone is the exception these days.