The Herald

Following yesterdays post on Lord Christopher Monckton I thought it unfair to lay all the blame entirely with the scientists, taxpayer funded climate change alarmists. Also to blame was the Herald,  showing another example of how “decent  journalists, trained and skilled” conduct investigative journalism (or lack thereof) and publish skewed misinformation in an effort to push a biased agenda. Last Tuesday The Horrid ran this story  on Lord Christopher Monckton, only they forgot to interview him for his response about it. Instead, they approached three New Zealand scientists…who are all troughers that suck on the taxpayer teat one way or another to be alarmed about global warming…and published their cheap one lined personal attacks without a right of reply where they would have been better served addressing his agenda and trying to prove why in their eyes he is wrong. The story the Horrid published was titled Kiwi scientists rally against climate change sceptic.

As any intelligent man would, Lord Monckton took exception to this atrocious excuse for journalism. Here is his response he submitted to the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition followed by his letter to the Herald Editor. Read more »

Following yesterdays story Washed up rapper kicks Ryder while he’s down on Scribbler’s twitter comments, the Herald and Stuff both jumped on the bandwagon today by running their own stories on the rapper desperately trying to claw his way back to relevance. But one thing he needs to learn is that people saying dumb shit on social media never goes unnoticed,  and they will be crucified for it.

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The Herald has Little Flick rushing to a fire in Hunua…down the Northern Motorway toward the North Shore…boy that engine can travel vast distances.

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Poor Flick the fire engine from Whangarei has been so busy this summer that he’s lost his job as the Horrid mascot. Flick was ousted yesterday by up and coming talent Travis the Tractor in yesterday’s cabinet reshuffle at the Newspaper.

Sadly a man in his seventies was killed when he was caught in machinery while helping repair mowing equipment, and journalistic integrity also died not long after. Unfortunately the above tractor isn’t the kind you would use at a school for mowing, around 100-110hp, tractor grip tires instead of turf mowing tires, oh….and don’t forget the rotary hay rake instead of a mower on the back.

Saturday started with a Face of the Day photo that was a bit hard to look at before breakfast.  Cam finds a Frenchman worthy of respect, and is pleased to find they aren’t all cheese eating surrender monkeys. Count Jacques le Bel de Penguilly does have a poofy name though.  Five Lesbians Eating a Quiche is a play that Whale suggests David Farrar should review for his Womans Weekly blog.  Australia charges its second Catholic Priest for child sex crimes, and this blog continues to ask:  Why is New Zealand immune?  We’re either better than the rest of the world or we’re still covering it up.  Which is it, and why?   Sadly, another Cry Baby post where we highlight those who aren’t taking personal responsibility.  This time, people who booked on Jetstar had their flights cancelled are in the paper bleating they’ll never fly Jetstar again.  If only they knew this could happen, eh?  Sharing a public space is tough when the others are eating, playing music and talking on their phones.  Cam Slater throws in a joke about an ERO school inspector and Hekia Parata, and follows it up with a post where he reveals that politicians lie.  Yeah.  Why do women wear high heels?  It can get to the point of ridiculousness for sure. An interesting post showing that a Connecticut newspaper is still advertising guns right next to Sandy Hook School news.  That was followed by a post of dash cam footage from 1927 as well as dash cam footage of a plane crash last week.  Next a top drawer post about glow in the dark toilet paper and poop hand soap.  Only on WOBH.   An interesting BBC2 short about Gordon Buchanan turning himself potential into Polar Bear lunch leads a post about Iron Maiden showing Steve Harris wearing a Whale Oil Beef Hooked T-Shirt.  Perhaps we should avoid NZ Herald Stock tips:  Australian shares are hot apparently?  Especially those APN stocks.  Oh, and Fairfax stocks are doing just great as well.  And as we wind down towards the end of the Saturday, we have a post about a CK Stead letter in which he slams the Binnie report as having clear bias.   Read more »

We started our Saturday by paying our respects to Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., the hard-charging US Army general whose forces smashed the Iraqi army in the 1991 Gulf War.  He died aged 78.  At The Standard 2012 Worst Political Blog Mike Smith is told some home truths about long term grass-roots Labour families heading for the Greens.  A quick vid on how to put out a boat fire the Kiwi way is next, followed by a vote for Best Minister.  The winner, at 52%, is Judith Collins.  The Whale Week That Was summarised all the stories this blog covered in the previous seven days.  A quite active Saturday Debate (for the time of year especially) led a post calling for nominations for Best Political Blog.  Those who see WOBH as any sort of threat to them (and those that don’t too), should take heed of this Malcolm Tucker quote: “marshal all the media forces of Darkness to hound them to an assisted suicide”.  A CNN piece showing Teachers in Utah taking a class on gun use shows some common sense around the gun debate.  A reader has taken yesterday’s US Fiscal Cliff graphic and created one for New Zealand – great work.  As Cameron Slater predicted from the outset, the Aussie Hoax DJs will not face charges.  The NZ Herald continues to amuse – this time a car crashed into a poll.  The blog then introduces us to two sexy taxidermists showing you don’t have to look like a front row forward to deal with dead animals.  And you’d think we’re picking on an incompetent NZ Herald, and you would be right.  This time they have Jesse Ryder beating himself at Eden Park in Wellington.  Then a hilarious story about a Queensland woman who fell into the longdrop and was there for two hours before being discovered by her husband.   Turns out that during the Falklands War the French tried to send missiles to Argentinia behind Margaret Thatcher‘s back.  Commerce first eh?  The last post of the day highlights a report of a man holding up a Countdown Supermarket with a hammer.  Our readers get fired up about the idea of hammer banning.

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A thicko in Christchurch  launched a failed attempt on Christmas day at entering a business off Ferry Rd. This numb skulled cocksmoker had obviously done his reconnaissance but failed to research a suitable entry method, and boy did it fail.  Read more »

The anonymous cowards at The St(r)andard are doing anything they can to up their traffic and get a bit of fame off the back of others this week.

They appear to now be sub-editing the Herald.

The debate on euthanasia in humans continues, meanwhile no one has a second thought putting a whale down.

At least one of the brethren got some nice Maori singing to see him/her off and a lot of fuss from the local Iwi.

A karakia (prayer) was said before the whale died and it was later buried near the beach.

And the taxpayer picked up the entire bill. Awesome!

At this rate I may have to change the series to QST – Quickly Sinking Tabloid.

Fairfax is now leaking like the Titanic.

Kemeys has been hauled into a meeting with Fairfax Boss Paul Thompson after it was found he plagiarised the design of the Independent front page. Someone has done a graphic comparing the two.

True to form the staff are about a week behind the Herald but it is good to know that they come to the right place first when they have news to share.

scha·den·freu·de

[shahd-n-froi-duh]

–noun
satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.
Origin: 1890–95;  < German,  equivalent to Schaden  harm + Freude  joy

Bernard Hickey, the NZ Herald and Stuff are all crowing about Mark Hotchin again. It is almost gleeful. A touch of H-Utu. This time about his name suppression and falling for a dirty Ponzi scheme back in 2o04. They are mocking a victim. They don’t mock the victims of all the other frauds out there so why mock the victim in this case?

The point of name suppression in many cases is the protection of victims, in this case Hotchin was the victim and yet the NZ Herald saw fit to seek to overturn a permanent name suppression order designed to protect victims. They did what Judge David Harvey said could not be done, that the only people who could overturn a court ordered permanent name suppression was either the victim or the court who ordered it in the first place.

It appears now that any name suppression can be validly challenged by any news organization or indeed any interested party seeking to crucify a victim.

My campaign against name suppression was for the removal of the practice for the criminals. The Herald’s actions and the gleeful vitriol and running of sensationalist headlines by financial commentators who are themselves a bunch of broken-arses by comparison. There is a old line that if you can’t do, you teach and if you can’t teach, you write about people who do. This fits the financial correspondents perfectly, who collectively probably don’t muster enough in assets to cover the amount lost by Hotchin and Finnigan in the Ponzi scheme.

Using the logic of Bernard Hickey:

Hotchin was given permanent name suppression, which has only now been lifted after a challenge from the NZHerald. Strategic Finance boss Kerry Finnigan was also duped and also got name suppression.

If only the Rotorua District Court judge James Weir hadn’t granted permanent suppression, thousands of Mum and Dad investors might not have lost over NZ$500 million in Hanover and over NZ$300 million in Strategic Finance…and counting. Thanks for that.

then none of these people should be anywhere near running a company or even investing or indeed offering advice:

Victims from big business include hedge fund manager Arki Busson and US property magnate Larry Silverstein, who is currently working to rebuild the World Trade Centre in New York.

A number of large banks, including UBS, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and Bank of America, were also named in the filing.

From the world of politics, trusts belonging to the family of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger appear, as does the name of current New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg.

The full list of Bernie Madoff’s wealthy and famous victims is available on the internet in an easily accessible format. Is Bernard Hickey suggesting that none of those people should ever run a company or give investment advice and all should also be a target of derision for having the temerity to fall for a complex and elaborate long-term fraud?

In a Ponzi scheme, the Bank cops a flogging too, and are essentially part of the fraud. I hope that Bernard’s bank isn’t the same one as the bank used by Papple and West, Westpac. I note that Bernard Hickey has all the Westpac investment products listed on interest.co.nz….given his new position shouldn’t he really be recommending to his readers that, since they participated and fell for the Ponzi scheme themselves then investors in Westpac would be best to take their money elsewhere.

Then again, some already did that when they walked out of the country with $10 million of Westpac’s cash. Funny thing is, I didn’t see Bernard Hickey telling Westpac customers to stop investing in the bank when they couldn’t keep track of $10 million. So long as Westpac keeps the cheques coming to interest.co.nz then Bernard will stay mum.

The logical conclusion of Hickey’s farcical suggestions and “analysis” is that anyone, and I mean anyone, who has had an accountant nick cash from their firm, handed over funds to a Nigerian 419 fraud, or “invested” in a Ponzi scheme, or indeed thought Amway was a path to success, should be barred from running a company.

What is worse though is the history of the Herald’s involvement in this case. They clearly, back in 2004, used Hotchin and Finnigan as a confidential source for their story:

One prominent company director told the court he did not want the public to know he was “conned” for more than half-a-million dollars.

The man, who has been granted name suppression by Judge James Weir, said he was advised to apply for suppression because it would be better if the Papples and West were not publicly associated with his companies.

It was revealed in court that the man had been a director of 71 companies, including a prominent finance company, although he said he had recently moved to Australia and had resigned from a number of directorships.

It was important for him not to be connected with the Papples and West, as he had been “duped into doing an investment with people who conned me for a lot of money”, he said. “I don’t want to make that public.”

The man had told the court he invested $561,066 with the trio.

He received a payment of $120,000, followed by a further three sums totalling $336,000.

The Herald has known about this for 6 years and they shamelessly used the confidential information for their story then used that information 6 years later to over-turn a name suppression case. People should be very wary of providing confidential information to a Herald journalist from now on, they will turn on you and cut your heart out just to sell papers. They will betray a confidence to justify a taudry headline.

Not only that during this whole time they ran Hanover ads in their paper, and on their website,. They have performed the business equivalent of raping the victim all over again except they did it to sell papers.

Bernard Hickey isn’t much better, he too took advertising revenue from Hanover. Did he know about this all along? Remember Bernard Hickey still writes for the Herald.

In the interests of fairness, surely the Herald and Bernard Hickey should pay back all the “dirty Hanover cash” they took while sitting on this information for 6 years. If the investors should have been told back then, then their cash for advertising is just as tainted as anyone elses.

To get back to the name suppression issue, the wonder is that the Herald isn’t in court seeking the overturning of every person’s name suppression but then a great many of those people won’t sell tell many papers, but Mark Hotchin’s name does.

Bernard Hickey and other financial media might like to think and enjoy the schadenfreude but they should really hang their heads in shame at their utter hypocrisy and breach of their own ethics and standards that they hold so dear as the reason why they are superior to bloggers. If they had even a modicum of decency they would apologise and pay back all the filthy loot they took in advertising revenue and related puff pieces at the time.

If I was Mark Hotchin, or even one of his advisors, I would be laying a complaint with the Press Council for breaches of ethics.