Blog Bits

Homepaddock has the full range of “If leaders were cars“.

Karl du Fresne blogs on a forum on media reporting of challenging stories such as the N&S Asian Angst, the Clydesdale research on Pacific immigration and the Danish cartoons. Karl makes many excellent points including:

I also expressed my firm belief that in a liberal democracy, the right to freedom of expression is far more precious than the right of a minority – in this case the Muslim community – not to be offended.

I’m not even sure there is a right not to be offended. I can maybe accept a right not to be vilified, but that is a very different thing. And Karl nails it again:

The greatest threat to the healthy process of disclosure and debate that followed the Clydesdale story is the belief that the state must protect us from harmful ideas because we’re not mature and intelligent enough to deal with them. Underlying this is a fundamental distrust of democracy.

Trevor at New Zeal profiles the Trotskyist background of Andrew Geddis, the Labour/Green appointed Chair of the electoral reform expert panel. Andrew is an expert in the area of political financing, and very respected. But when appointments are made without bipartisan consultation, then the background of appointees come under great scrutiny. All Labour had to do was ask National and other parties if they agreed with the proposed appointees, or have any names of their own they wished to propose.

Stephen Franks blogs on how spin should not save crap managers, applying it to the party that has managed NZ’s military, SOEs, and hspitals for the last nine years. A good read.