frogblog

The Herald describes a brutal cycle accident, ‘apparently caused when competitors in the Coromandel Peninsula K2 race were squeezed between an “impatient” ute and a milk tanker.’
Here’s one competitor’s account:
Kenny Chia, a competitor, saw the accident and described the ute driver as impatient. “We could hear an angry horn coming from behind us as we […]

The most compelling part of Phil Kitchin’s Dominion Post story about Winston Peters and the Velas is the three paragraphs at the very end:
A box of documents sent to the newspaper this week shows that Vela interests made donations to NZ First as early as 1999. Mr Meurant suggested to Mr Vela that this […]

Slate has a complicated mathematical piece trying to explain to Americans why their vote really does count even though it seems pointless in among the tens of millions of votes that will have no effect at all on the race to the White House.  The end result seems to be you should vote in the […]

Wellingtonista quickly summarises the protest this morning about the City Council’s plans to go on a massively expensive road building spree from Ngauranga to Wellington airport. The plans include a Basin Reserve flyover and further car tunnels under Mount Victoria and The Terrace (just as we enter a financial crisis, peak oil and the need […]

Christchurch’s Ken Graham gets a good write up in this morning’s Herald as a potential new Green MP.  The article discusses his involvement in developing the intellectual framework behind New Zealand’s nuclear free policy in the 1980s:
“I wrote an article that Carl Sagan picked up, basically saying it was a misperception that our nuclear policy […]

Did everyone enjoy the brief interlude in the election campaign where we got to talk about issues other than Winston Peters and his unusual accountancy systems?  (Maybe Jim Bolger was on to something when he made him treasurer, given his ability to run a party on no declared donations.)
Interestingly Winston’s $80,000 donation from the Spencer […]

Brian Rudman sets National straight today on its misconception that being the biggest party automatically gives it a moral mandate to govern, even if more people voted for it not to be in government:
The sniping about MMP is a smokescreen for the critics’ inability to adjust to the new rules. They’re talking horse racing when […]

Mr Key confirmed that National will allow competitive tendering for the management of prisons on a case-by-case basis.
As Metiria notes:
How is the free market the answer to the problems of running a prison system? The key to a successful business is repeat customers. That creates a perverse incentive.
Yup, can you see Lock ‘Em Up Corp […]

It’s unsurprising that ONE News Colmar Brunton poll should find that, when asked ’should the party with the most votes should get to lead the government’, nearly 80 percent of people agree.  It seems a reasonable sort of thing to suggest. I imagine you would get the same sort of support for the proposition that […]

It’s time for another quick update on the electoral donation declarations.  It’s now just 11 days to the election and Labour, United Future, the Maori Party, New Zealand First and the Progressive Party are still yet to declare any donations of $20,000 or greater. National has declared only $60,000 so far while Act and the […]