Final sting?

Does this mean  The Hive  was only resting or has Queen Been just popped back for a final sting?

Four down . . .

First Chris Trotter and Matthew Hooton  hung up their keyboards, then Busted Blonde announced she and the prawns are taking an extended holiday from Roarprawn.

And today Queen Bee posted a final dispatch over at  The Hive .

All have made an intelligent (well, apart from Chris when he wrote under the influence of psychosclerosis) contribution to debate on the blogosphere.

I’ll miss them, though other things on my to-do-list might benefit from their absence which will give me fewer excuses for work avoidance. 🙂

Passing on the brillante baton

How exciting and heart warming it was to check in to Homepaddock yesterday morning and discover I’d been blessed with a Brillante Blog award.

It was bestowed by Deborah who’s In A Strange Land  where she writes intelligently and thoughtfully on feminism, motherhood, parenting, work,  politics, life . . . and occasionally posts on food with photos that cause weight gain if you look at them too long.

Once you get a Brillante you’re invited to spread the happiness by passing it on to blogs you enjoy.

The rules are simple:

1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominator on her/his blog.

So after a day of contemplation my nominees in alphabetical order are:

Annie Fox the nom de blog of Anna Wolf whose posts are warm, witty, passionate, frank, down to earth and full of life which is all the more remarkable because she’s writing about dying.

Phillipa Stephenson at Dig-N -Stir . There is on-going discussion about the difference between journalism and blogging. Pip does both supberbly, writing concise, well researched posts which reflect her knowldege and interest in the subject matter, her ability as a wordsmith and, where appropriate, her wit.

Dim Post for showing you can take a dig without getting dirty; and because every day is improved by humour.

Ex-expat who makes me think with posts that are educational, enlightening and/or entertaining.

Will de Cleene at goNZofreakpower whose posts aren’t frequent but point me to places I wouldn’t find by myself.

Adam Smith at Inquiring Mind  earns the award for the quotes and cartoons of the day by themselves. But there’s more: well reasoned posts on a variety of topics with special mention for not confining himself to New Zealand.

Inventory 2 at Keeping Stock for the quanity, quality, consistency and variety of his posts with extra points for his enthusiasm and sense of humour.

David Farrar at Kiwiblog because I can’t go past the godfather of the NZ blogosphere. It helps that I share many of his views, but even when I don’t, I admire his well written, researched and reasoned posts. He’s open about his bias but never bigoted.

Dave Gee at Life from Right Field because we southerners must stick together and with special mention for originality and pictures.

Macdoctor if he employs the same wit, intelligence, reason and compassion in medicine which he displays in blogging I’d be very happy to be his patient.

Monkeywithtypewriter , not just a token primate, he’s also got perception and a sense of humour.

The team at No Minister because they often amuse, sometimes shock and enable me to feel moderate. They get a special mention for visuals too.

Not PC for the art and architecture.

NZBC goes for quality rather than quantity and gets bonus points for humour and orginality.

Poneke for the quality of posts in which he uses the skills that made him an award winning journalist. Besides, you’ve got to admire a bloke who’s besotted with buses.

Busted Blonde at Roarprawn because she’s upfront, sassy, witty, in the know and shares it with style.

Bernard Hickey at Show Me The Money because he takes numbers and adds words that make sense of them.

Queen Bee at The Hive : she’s got contacts, she gets the facts and she’s the miistress of succinct posts with sting.

The team at Tumeke! for variety and originality. Tim Selwyn deserves an honourable mention by himself for doing the monthly blogosphere rankings.

Well the rules did say at least seven.

P.S. I have an aversion to chain letters or anything resembling them and I can do the maths: if seven people send something to at least seven people who send it …. it won’t be long to run out of blogs which haven’t got it. So should any of you on whom I’ve bestowed a Brillante want to change the rules or ignore them altogether, I won’t be offended, you won’t be courting calamity, your family and pets will be safe and the sky won’t fall in.

Anonymity rules ok

If you’re making your views public on a blog should you also make your name public?

Adam Smith  over at Inquiring Mind brought this issue to my notice when he noted that Policy Blog has an issue with psuedonymous bloggers.

My name and political affiliations are there for all to see on the “about”  page of this blog. But I don’t have a job or business which might be compromised by anything I write.

Other people are not so fortunate.

Adam, Inventory 2 at Keeping Stock, Queen Bee at The Hive and Busted Blonde at Roarprawn all choose to keep their identities to themselves. But it’s not only those on the right of the blogosphere who prefer to blog anonymously, Poneke who has declared his blog a politics-free zone and Jafapete on the left also use pseudonyms.

If they were launching personal attacks against other people I would be less relaxed about their anonymity. But all of them write well reasoned and intelligently argued posts and comments – even those with which I disagree 🙂 – and I have never known any of them to indulge in personal invective.

I happen to know who Poneke is but respect his reasons for not telling the world his name. No doubt some people know, or guess,  who is behind his or the other pseudonyms.

They they choose not to blog under their real names is their perogative, and the people over at Policy Blog have the right not to accept their comments.

Do go (to) the roarprawn

When Busted Blonde left a comment on an earlier post I clicked on the website and got a warning that the blog may have content suitable only for adults.

I’ve had a lot of spam comments from porn websites in the last few days so didn’t go any further.

However, The Hive recommended a new website and when I clcked the address I got the same warning but, reassured by Queen Bee’s recommendation I continued and discovered roarprawn.

She’s right of centre and interested in farming, fishing, forestry, food and politics.

She’s also got a sense of humour and I didn’t find anything on the blog that explained the adults only warning – unless there’s a double entendre in the recipe for fish heads which I don’t understand 🙂

NZ First still owes $158,000

One criticism of MMP is that the wee parties have a disproportionate influence. Allied to that is that National and Labour sometimes hold back legitimate criticism of their actions just in case they need their support.

We’re seeing that now – has anyone seen or heard any of the other parties react to Winston Peters’ statement that NZ First has donated $158,000 to charities and has given a list of the recipients to Speaker Margaret Wilson?

That just happens to be the amount the Auditor General found NZ First spent illegally before the last election. The party can do whatever its members allow it to do with their money, but donating to charity does not discharge its debt to Parliamentary Services.

While other parties are shying from tackling Peters’ on this, several blogs are not:

Kiwiblog posts on it here   noting NZ First is the party of transparancy which receives secret donations that turns out not to be a donation and then makes its own secret donations. Kiwiblog also comments on Peters’ on Agenda here. He notes that the Speaker wants Parliament to be more open so in good faith should make the list available.

The Hive says shame on the charities and asks if they’d accept the proceeds of crime or theft? Queen Bee, prompted by Poneke, points out the speaker’s office is exempt from the OIA but urges National and Act to ask Wilson for the list.

Inquiring Mind ‘s  Adam Smith says:

No one seems to be prepared to hold Winston Peters to account.

Why is he being allowed to get away with not repaying the $158,000 of public funds that his party mis-used at the 2005 election? 

Why is he keeping secret what he has done with the money?

Where did the party get the $158,000 from?

NO, NO, NO and forever NO is what voters should be saying to this bullying popinjay.

Keeping Stock notes the irony in the noise NZ First made about transparency in political party funding, asks does it practise what it preaches,  and points out the hyprocricy because it doesn’t.

The Auditor General found NZ First illegally spent $158,000. That they then helped Labour change the law to make that illegal spending legal and has said they’ve donated that amount to charity does not excuse them from the need to repay the money.

Until they do that every cent the party spends on campaigning is a cent they have yet to repay to the public purse.