Cartoon Alley: Mark O’Brien
Mark O’Brien has been drawing cartoons full time since just after he graduated with an economics degree in 1984, Throughout the 80s he sold his […]
Blog
Recent News
Cartoon Alley: Ned Wenlock
Ned Wenlock lives in Wellington and work as an animator, designer and illustrator. He has been drawing comics since about the age of nine. He […]
Taxpayer support for Bill English’s home and happiness
In recent days, there has been an odd symmetry between Graham Henry’s response to the All Blacks defeat in Durban and John Key’s rationale for […]
Gordon Campbell on the travel expenses of MPs
The issue of MPs’ travel expenses – and its disreputable cousin, government spending – have thrown up a pretty interesting moral distinction. Government spending, which provides services to the general public, is seen to be an intrinsically bad thing that must be rationed. MPs’ travel spending on the other hand, is seen as an intrinsically good thing that does not even need to be justified. It just is – here’s the amount we spent, don’t ask to know the purpose. The worth is assumed, and is beyond challenge.
Putting the SAS back into Afghanistan
Who has stolen John Key’s brain? The Prime Minister who only a couple of months ago was demanding to see a viable exit strategy before […]
Foreign ownership rules, and California’s support for Chief Justice Sian Elias
To its critics, the government’s response to the recession has looked like an Eighties Revival. Psychologically speaking, that’s not so surprising, When in trouble, politicians […]
Treasury and the Don Brash revival
People are just so suspicious. When you have Treasury touting the virtues of contracting out public services and Don Brash – clearly, our best and […]
Gordon Campbell: The Sian Elias speech about crime
The recent speech by Chief Justice Sian Elias may have been greeted with some – sensational headlines – “Top Judge Suggests Prison Amnesty” – and […]
The Winston Peters Comeback
Only Winston Peters could say the hardest word in the political lexicon – “Sorry” – by implying that his mistakes were really due to his […]
The bogus benefits of PPPs
Occasionally, someone in business lets the cat out of the bag in a way that is impossible to satirise. Thus in the NZ Herald this […]
The Greens’ new peace initiative
Click to enlarge Non aggression pacts tend to get a bad press, both in real life and in fiction. Hitler and Stalin, two of the […]
Phil Goff Interview
An interview with Labour leader Phil Goff
Eyeball Economics
Making a living on the Net
Worth Fighting For
The battle to bridge the gender pay gap in New Zealand.
Get That Camera Out of Here, We’re Making a Film
The ‘Fourth World’ cinema of Barry Barclay
Left Coasting : In California, Education Just Doesn’t Pay
How California has screwed up the funding of education
Classics: The Rabbits Wedding by Garth Williams
Children’s book illustrator Garth Williams and The Rabbits’ Wedding
The Complicatist : Bradford Cox
Bradford Cox of Deerhunter doowop.
Sporting Life : Big Big Fighters
Talking Sport. Are heavyweight boxers these days are getting way TOO big
From the Hood : The Irony of Satire
“Only if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.” [Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic]
The Erosion Of Justice
As the civil rights we enjoy get whittled away, the pattern is becoming very familiar. Initially, fresh powers of search, detention, use of secret evidence […]
Paula Bennett’s welfare abuse
To date, the government’s response to the recession has been faulted on the demand side – for not giving sufficient stimulus to the economy, as […]
National Education Tests, And Michael Jackson
The current struggle between school principals and Education Minister Anne Tolley over national standards has the hallmarks of a rushed and insuffiently funded process. No […]
The Government’s failure to cope with unemployment
There was a quite telling difference of emphasis on Radio Waatea this morning. While Greens MP Sue Bradford was calling on the government to make […]
Iraq, And Its Foreign Oil Deals
Remember how, when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, critics said it was all about oil? Next week, political events in Iraq – and the […]
David Garrett’s lewdness, and the incredible Christine Rankin
Rodney Hide’s excuses for the lewd comment by his Act party colleague David Garrett – that he is new to Parliament, that he may be […]
Gordon Campbell on Peter Jackson’s review of the Film Commission
The selection of Peter Jackson to lead the ministerial review of the New Zealand Film Commission guarantees the review a prominence that no-one else in […]
John Key’s Zen press conference, and Iran’s stolen election
Faced with the dying embers of the Richard Worth scandal at his press conference yesterday (audio & report, video), John Key reached for gasoline, not […]
Classics : Grasshopper on the Road by Arnold Lobel
Gordon Campbell on Arnold Lobel’s Grasshopper on the Road