Besides how insulting this is to the hardworking election crew, or how wrong the international comparison is, it ignores a very simple fix: NZ does not have a live progress count after election night. This is why Australian counts feel faster even though they often aren't; we can see results firm up

NEW The Prime Minister’s extraordinary and significant statement on MI5 misleading the High Court A practical example of the judiciary and executive holding the security service to account By me Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/the-prime-... Personal blog: davidallengreen.com/2025/09/the-...

So today I learned that there were tie-in novels for THE DOLLARS TRILOGY that went beyond the movies and boy do they have some amazing titles.

In what sense did New Zealand punch above its weight being anti-apartheid? 29 countries boycotted the 1976 Olympics because New Zealand was going to be there and we were too supportive of apartheid.

The number of progressive/liberal types who think the New York Times Company or ABC or the ACLU shouldn't have first amendment protections because they are corporations continues to astound me.

Good compromise. It doesn't stop anyone from collecting signatures and petitioning the House in a highly offensive way, but they'll have to use the old way, or even another website.

My biggest criticism of parks and rec is that it actually didn’t go far enough in showing how unhinged the average public commenter can be

At a time when everything seems terrible, I was checking in w one of my kids abt what he’s watching on-line, and apparently it’s inspirational edits like this one, which was … actually pretty uplifting at a time when uplift sometimes seems in short supply.

The decades of committed work by Liverpool supporters is still improving UK law. #LFC

The asymmetry is that one side describes it as the Paradox of Tolerance, and twists itself inside out trying to define a precise formula for what an open society cannot be open to, while the other side is just "we're sending the free speech police to drag you off to the gulags loser"

In which I beg archaeologists to sign up for the fall semester of Skype a Scientist, because we're getting buried in requests for your area of expertise. Sign up here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I'm not saying there is nothing structurally dangerous and concerning about Groyper, 4Chan, et al., culture. But looking at those who shoot and saying "this is what predicts shooting" is a recipe for having a MASSIVE false-positive problem. Sadly, this is relevant YET again:

If you are (or know) a candidate for either the Wellington Mayoralty, or candidate for Pukehīnau / Lambton councillor do you have an opinion on land value rating that you would like to share with me?

Damn. This dude writes for the Dispatch!

The aging, latent police reporter in me can't help put pause to remark on the unforced error of the SAC in Salt Lake's FBI field office making the unforced error of announcing they have recovered a “footwear impression.” A shout-out to toss or destroy those shoes, ASAP. That's a detail you keep.

"The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in politics without fear of violence. To lose that is to risk losing everything. Charlie Kirk — and his family — just lost everything. As a country, we came a step closer to losing everything, too... We are all safe, or none of us are."

Ezra's article on Charlie Kirk is precisely the type of response everyone should be paying more attention to So many responses (from the right) I've seen in the aftermath of the assassination were mostly just blanket accusations of the left

There’s literally an entire documentary about the tradition of lynching postcards. Engaging in and celebrating political violence has a long, grim history in this country. That’s not to say it’s a good thing (it isn’t!), but “this isn’t who we used to be” is wild self-delusion.

Voting papers arrived. Turns out that I follow local government matters so closely that I didn't even realise the Wellington Regional Council had adopted a Māori constituency in a way that would require a public vote under the new law, so there's two referendums for me to vote in.

So was the language of the 14th!

@lewsos.bsky.social you don't need more people in the thread, but I also thought it fair to say this publicly rather that via DM, so: your position throughout has been entirely reasonable :-)

There is a problem with the New Zealand civil justice system (which I expect is present in other countries too) that a case like this costs $300k+. It's not exactly a surprising figure, but it should be a confronting one. Access to justice should not cost remotely this much.

Rather funny that the person on Reddit who leaked of the Electric Avenue lineup with a one-off reunion of Split Enz headlining the first day had no idea they'd just posted one of the biggest stories in NZ music of the whole decade

Timeline cleanse

Weird thing just happened in Transport Committee - Cr Fletcher mentioned Sir Dove Myer-Robinson in a speech about CRL completion, said his statue wasn't paid for by council but by a group of "us" who thought he should be recognised. But this says council did pay? www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/robbie-ba...

Prof. Kaye took one for the team, being the only non-ridiculous witness at the House Judiciary hearing today. In return, he got asked about... how many classes he's teaching this semester.

This random-ish video - which I assume must be AI-assisted - ended up getting autoplayed for me on YouTube and I wish I knew how much the AI assistance was, because it was surprisingly affective audio story-telling. youtu.be/gykVp3JJNdI?...

I was today years old when I realised that V-J Day is commemorated on a different day in the UK and the US. 15 August as the formal announcement of the surrender, and 2 September as the day of the signing of the surrender documents on the USS Missouri.

I obviously knew of Graham Greene from his bigger roles, but have spent a few minutes trying to remember a particular thing I had seen him in recent-ishly. I had rewatched the sentencing scene from Molly's Game! youtu.be/ldgvxEMWkzY?...

This is so damn frustrating. No it absolutely shouldn’t be up to a new council. This decision, amongst others like the Golden Mile and Begonia House, were made months ago. Respect the democratic process. They must proceed otherwise we end up with unfinished projects and escalated costs. #nzpol

Results so stunningly clear they inspired this classic xkcd (xkcd.com/2400/):

NZ homeowners: "When I voted for low rates I expected my children and grandchildren would pick up the tab. Not that I'd be paying the consequences in my 60s 😢"

after Australia this spring I was so sad when I ran out of new episodes where the ads like GDAY! sale on kanga bangas this arvo!

They'll be diplomats, who will ultimately need the approval of the Foreign Affairs to be granted diplomatic status.

Anyone else having trouble with the NZ Herald website? I'm clearly logged in, and it doesn't ask me to log in again, but it is only showing the first few lines of any premium article.

making my way through the ken burns JAZZ documentary and this portion of his interview with dave brubeck — who passed in 2012 — is a reminder of how *recent* american history really is. start at :55 or so. youtu.be/stadqAHRroA?...

As Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo put it: "A city where you can get let go of your child's hand"

On the recognition of Palestine A close look at an unconvincing letter from "distinguished" UK lawyers By me Substack: emptycity.substack.com/p/on-the-rec... Personal blog: davidallengreen.com/2025/08/on-t...

Where the number of assholes and the number of troll-farm employees in the world grow at a geometric rate, but the number of troll bots which can be operated by each employee grows at an exponential rate, the likelihood that any given asshole you encounter online will be a bot approaches 1.

NEW BLOGPOST: Why did the jury acquit Ricky Jones? thesecretbarrister.com/2025/08/16/w...

www.thepost.co.nz/business/360... Paywalled again, and a classic example of why it's bad to give someone running a money handling business a platform to pontificate on how to do democracy. Varadkar's government didn't last five years; since 1937, only three have. See also: Metrolink Dublin.

The Representation Commission followed the statutorily required process, checking in with the whole country, by publishing the ~2 pages of objections it received about the Rongotai electorate. No-one counter-objected. Which doesn't bind the Commission, but if the local MP can't be bothered...

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

I finished the new KOTH season and went back to read this interview I had bookmarked. I have high hopes for another season; the new showrunner seems to really get what's great about King of the Hill

In which the UK government discovers the existence of Compliance Departments.

27 years ago, two years after the introduction of effective HIV treatment, the Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco’s lesbian and gay community newspaper, ran ‘No Obits’ as its headline. It was the first edition not to report an AIDS death in almost 15 years.

An older example of this, client confidentiality requirements of working lawyers in the lords versus "we should know when legislators are being paid by foreign governments" bsky.app/profile/alex...

we need to teach the 1930s properly so that people know the Reichstag Fire was exactly this stupid

imagining "Big Balls Beatdown" in a middle-school social studies textbook